Dang, somebody gave $2,500 (and ten cents) towards that bundle.

I would just say have fun and embrace learning as you go. I have not played this game but hopefully the rules light aspect allows you to not worry about the mechanics of the game and focus on story and fun. I like the cozy animal games like this, and I expect it will be similar in vibe to Humblewood and Mausritter.

The problems you encounter will likely have to do with being a new DM and will happen no matter what system you run. There is a near endless supply of new DM advice on the internet which you could search through. I particularly like Sly Flourish and recommend reading his Top Tips for RPG Game Masters. If you take that advice to heart, it will help you avoid the common DM pitfalls.

This looks great, thank you for sharing!

I linked to an article on EN World that has links to other sites. There is no store or checking out to be done on EN World itself.

I recommend contacting the customer service people for whatever website you’re referring to.

Yup, that’s the book. There’s a lot more in there than just the Eight Steps but it’s worth it just for that in my opinion. Have fun!

For session prep, I use The Eight Steps of the Lazy DM by Mike Shea at Sly Flourish. Admittedly, the Eight Steps have turned me into a bit of a Mike Shea fanboy, but that’s because the system has had a big impact with making my game better. It is a system that focuses on prepping the most important things that will help you run the game at the table.

I wanted to suggest the Eight Steps because I think it circles very closely to your mad libs idea and also follows the prep situations not plots concept. Where mad libs is a system where the players fill in the sentence blanks with their own noun or verb, if we follow the metaphor, I would equate the Eight Steps with prepping a list of nouns, verbs, subjects, and adjectives, which you then use to help the players make their own sentence.

For example, in the Eight Steps you would prep likely locations the players would visit, secrets and clues they might learn, and potential monsters they could encounter. That’s all pretty standard fare, but a key concept is that all those things are decoupled from each other. There is nothing saying that this monster will be encountered in this location, or this secret will be learned from this object in this location. Instead, you plug the components you prepped into the adventure as the players unfold it.

I could gush further on how much it’s helped me, but I won’t do that. Instead I’ll encourage you to check it out because it sounds like it might work with your brain.

The D&D pornographic supplement tangent was a fun time.

The Ukrainian hospital bundle looks really good. Lots of stuff in there with a bunch of solo RPGs. The bundle is probably worth it for the Cairn and Mausritter stuff alone.

Our group had a shared GM game we ran for a while. Not exactly rotating GMs like in this post, but swapping out regularly. The lack of continuity and overarching storyline was one of the major reasons interest died out. It was a hodgepodge of stories and became kind of a mess.

I am all for whatever stirs up more content and discussion that isn’t memes.

I am looking forward to delving into the Dark Sun book.

That’s a pretty good testimonial. Thank you for taking the time to share it with me.

They do make communication more efficient, as long as everyone understands the definition. If they don’t, then acronyms and initials quickly make the communication inefficient, or worse, make the person that isn’t in the know feel excluded. In my professional life, I spend a lot of my time translating acronyms and trying to help people navigate the confusion of not knowing what things mean and wondering if they’re in over their head, all due to the constant use of jargon.

My suggestion is to definite your acronyms the first time you use them or, if it’s a short message, spell the whole thing out and don’t mention the abbreviation at all.

I don’t know what the implied demographic is, but I assume I am not in it. I suppose that vibe is part of why I don’t feel the desire to venture further into the fediverse.

I would have assumed the audience for this post is TTRPG nerds.

What is a pigeon totem? It sounds made up.

For anybody else that hates needless acronyms, FOSS apparently stands for Free and Open Source Software.

Yes, original Battletech was simulating large scale mech warfare with collectible minis (let’s face it though, most people just liked to paint and have them). The Battletech RPG (to my understanding) is that flavor adapted to a TTRPG.

If you like mechs and video gaming, I encourage you to check out the MechWarrior series. It is the video game adaptation of Battletech.

The site appears to be back up now.

And yes, at the very basic level, all these settings involve mechs. Lancer would probably be closer in theme to Evangelion, if you wanted to run it that way. Battletech would be a crunchy cousin, due to its roots as a war game.