I've played some online games (with friends during covid), and although we tried we eventually gave up. Partly, there's no replacement for socialising in person with close friends, but also we found the disconnect between medieval fantasy and videochatting through discord to be a mood killer.

I live abroad and would love to get into online gaming, and I've been thinking that it might help to play a game that benefits from the medium. I imagine a cyberpunk or Sci fi game would be easier to get in the mood as the characters themselves might be communicating through video feeds and holo-nets.

It's not a style of rpg I've played before, so I'm open to suggestions. And it doesn't need to be cyber / sci-fi, if there's some other reason why everyone being seperate and disembodied makes sense (like would Wraith feel even more depressing over videochat?)

Writing scenario keys can take time, especially if you do it following the footsteps of Justin Alexander.

In particular, writing everything that characters see at a glance when they walk into a new area in a box can make everything a bit harder to prep. You've got to build boxes again and again, a box for every area. And not only that, but you've got to create boxes for normal text and also for headers or lists… It's so many boxes.

To supposedly make your life easier, you can create styles called "boxed text" and "boxed heading", and 'just' apply that to text, but even that is clunky: finding styles and applying them is not the fastest process, and sometimes you make mistakes that aren't that easy to fix. For example, what happens if you change your mind and you want the "boxed heading" to be a first-level heading instead of a second-level heading? Or if you want to reduce the size of every font in the document by 2pts? There may be LibreOffice experts who have learned the tricks to do this, but when I tried doing it it was a pain in the butt.

Markup languages are a better solution

So is there a better solution? Yes. Markup languages. With those languages, you write things once and then you export it as a PDF. Quick. Nice. Right.

How does it look? Here's an example. If I want boxed text, I only write boxed_text[]. That's it.

Here's how it would look in the editing document:

boxed_text[
= Area 1: Entrance to the Dungeon
- Burlap sacks everywhere (GM Note: From previous adventurers preparing to enter)
- A wall filled with scrapes made with swords. The scrapes spell out names and dates
- A metal door, scraped with the word "Don't"
]

Markup languages are faster

Wait. Isn't that more complicated than using LibreOffice? Surprisingly, no. Plenty of coders will tell you that using the keyboard efficiently is way faster than using the mouse efficiently. A mouse has one or two buttons you can press. However, a keyboard has five or ten times more buttons, because you can use all ten fingers. Additionally, a mouse takes time to move around and aim at your click target. This may seem like counting pennies, but in my experience going from a mouse to learning to use a keyboard is like going from walking to learning to use a bike: learning to use a bike takes time, but once you learn how to do it, you'll go way faster than when you were just walking!

Markup languages help you keep a history of your campaign

Another way in which markup languages are less complicated is how easily they help you keep a history of your campaign. You can do this easily with version control, such as Git or Jujutsu. With these tools, you can fearlessly make changes to your documents, and trust that your history is saved and easily accessible. You can keep at hand the information relevant for future sessions, and still be able to check on things from the past if you need so. For all of this to work, you need Git to be able to look at the files and understand them. However, this is cumbersome when you're dealing with .docx or .odt files because of how those files are structured and compressed. However, markup languages are transparent and easy to read, and that makes them great for version control.

So, where do you start? You can choose! There are a couple of markup languages systems that you could try, but here are the ones I'd recommend:

• Quarto
• Typst (the one I'm currently using)
• LaTex

So, once again, if you're preparing scenario keys, learning to use a markup language will make it easier and faster to write. It will also make it easier to keep a history of your campaign. It's an investment worth your time. So go check out a markup language!

It's been a long time since I last used #FoundryVTT How's it holding lately? @rpg

🔥 It's official: the crowdfunding campaign for Sol Tyrannus is started! 🔥

Sol Tyrannus is both a tabletop role-playing game of dark fantasy setting, with its own proprietary narrative system—the Crisis System—and also compatible with Dungeons & Dragons 5e. It draws inspiration from the classic cycles of Conan the Barbarian and Stormbringer but alsothe genre of "peplum" movies about the Classical Age, offering a blend of sword & sorcery and cosmic horror.

The digital core book is divided into three separate documents (Lore, Ruleset: Crisis System, and Ruleset: D&D5e-compatible) and you can purchase only the narrative system bundle (Lore + Ruleset: Crisis System), only the D&D5e bundle (Lore + Ruleset: D&D5e-compatible) or the bundle with both systems (Lore + Ruleset: Crisis System + Ruleset: D&D5e-compatible). The printed book will contain all three texts, not separated.

Players assume the roles of legendary heroes—called Actors—summoned by mystical fateweavers known as Singers, to hold back the slow descent of a world corrupted by the sinister influence of the Purple Sun, a cosmic horror whose very light twists both body and mind. In the world of Akhtun, nowhere is safe: city-states are ruled by mad sorcerer-gods, villages are plagued by monstrous Spawn and ruthless raiders, and wilderness harbors terrors yet to be named, ready to share their Corruption with unsuspecting prey. Cults fester in the shadows, whispering promises of power to the desperate, hastening the world's doom.

Find more in the campaign page! https://gamefound.com/en/projects/a-game-of-nerds/sol-tyrannus

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/9446561

I miss WEG Star Wars...

As the title says, what's your go-to when it comes to things like notes and maps. Personally, I like Obsidian and Tabletop RPG Map editor II from the lead dev of Dead Cells.

I also like https://when2meet.com/ for resolving scheduling conflicts.

I'm starting up another campaign shortly and I used to use OneNote for my session notes because it's so easy to just put stuff anywhere on the page, which is really helpful for the scattered way I think.

But I switched to Linux since my last campaign and I can't find something that I like that's similar in that sort of freeform canvas.

I tried obsidian and hated it. I tried OneNote in browser and it's just so much worse. I tried Notion and I did like it for a bit, but it's really pushy about using its AI and linking to other pages and such.

So, yeah. I mean, my next thought is literally to start using Krita or Paint or something because I can't find a program that's just kinda bare bones and free form but lets me enter text wherever and slap down some character art, maybe draw a few arrows or something.

Help?

1. Folders for everything – the ultimate organization!

• folders for all content types!
• Makes organization even easier 🙂

2. Quick and easy Image Management for your worldbuilding

• doesn’t re-load the page as you use it
• access images WHILE you write articles, etc
• more mobile friendly

3. New Worldbuilding Notebooks keep you organized!

• slides over your current work, for easy note taking as you work mobile friendly
• aesthetic upgrades to help you make notes prettier
• new “metadata” tags make organization even easier

Welcome back to Advent's Amazing Advice! The series where I take popular One-Shots, Adventures, Campaigns, etc., and fully prep them for both New and Busy DMs. This prep includes fully fleshed-out notes, music, ambiance, encounter sheets, handouts, battle maps, tweaks, and more, so you can run the best sessions possible with the least stress possible!

*New: For 2025, I'm updating all my old work to be more accessible for the Visually Impaired! Check out the link below, which contains improved notes with larger font, better contrast, color-blind features, and more!

We're back at it again with one of my favorite creators, Winghorn Press, from the much-loved A Wild Sheep Chase! This Level 3 One-Shot will have your players solving a mystery that might just shake them to their very core!

A fearsome hound has been seen prowling the mist-soaked moors surrounding Cabell Manor, but what is the foul beast searching for? Is there any truth to the rumors tying the family to an ancient devilish evil, or is it just a local superstition?

If they want to solve the mystery, your players will need to keep their wits just as sharp as their swords…

Without further ado:

• Google Docs Notes for The Hound of Cabell Manor: DM Notes (Preview)
• (New) Link to: DM Notes for the Visually Impaired
• Link to: The Hound of Cabell Manor Playlist 
• Link to: The Hound of Cabell Manor PDF
• Link to: The AAA Collection

Included in The AAA Collection is:

• Downloadable copy of DM Notes, including links to music tracks for ambiance and fights
• (New) DM Notes for the Visually Impaired
• Special PDF for all encounters. This includes the enemy stat blocks organized neatly, along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP
• Spell Sheet for Final Boss
• Custom Maps

Over 7 dozen other Fully Prepped One-Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns: Click Here

As always, if you see something you think I can improve, add, change, etc., please let me know. I want this to be an amazing resource for all DMs and plan to keep it constantly updated! If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early, feel free to check out my Patreon!

Cheers,
Advent

Ancient and modern, war-torn but prosperous, Cairo is a place where ancient customs and traditions walk hand-in-hand with the modern realities of the Sixth World. It’s a place of mystical power, opportunities, and vast riches for those bold enough to claim them. Here, fortunes and lives are often won or lost based on a single decision. And in the wake of a devastating shadow war, several corporations are looking toward Cairo to fortify and further expand their newly won power and influence … or to halt their imminent demise.

Risks and Rewards is a campaign book for Shadowrun, Sixth World.

NOTE: This product includes a PDF of the book and a PDF of the Cairo map.

A bit pricy but the region does not pop up often. I'm curious, especially if they added some magical threats fitting the area.
Or something area specific for the corps to scheme over?

Or at least did better job than most of the rest of non-Americas' lore

Does anyone here knows how to develop a module and or system?

My group currently plays a rather old version (4.1) of The Dark Eye (Das Schwarze Auge) which is super popular in Germany. Sadly the only game system available is not well suited for anything, so three of us decided to write our own.

In the concrete scenario where I need help is getting the compendium data into the game. I have written compendium test data and the cli was able to put it into database files. When I boot a world with that game system it also parses the entries but then nothing, they don't show up.

Edit:

Turned out that the _key is super important on the JSONs/YMLs and have to correspond to the actual documentClass.

I figured it out by looking at the database (of type level db) when I created a new Item inside a running game and synchronised my input files for the compendia. Now it works.