Open Lite RPG

This game is free for non-commercial use.

RULE ZERO
The rules provide structure for the game, but the fiction we create is based on realism; therefore, the logic of a scene beats the rules.

RULES LITE
A rules lite game allows the Game Master (GM) to interpret the rules to serve their style. DIY and design are expected. GMs can change, add, or subtract rules, but new rules should not add unnecessary complexity that doesn't improve the game.  For example, you don't need a rule for playing a musical instrument when we can believe that a character can do so because the player included it in their character concept or history. This game can be adapted for any setting and any genre.

PLAYER CHARACTERS (PCs)
Discuss character concepts with the Game Master (GM). PCs must suit the tone and setting, and must be able to work with a team. PCs need a goal to pursue in play. Create an ordinary person who becomes an adventurer.

ABILITIES
Roll three six-sided dice (3d6) for each ability to generate an ordinary person. Abilities describe your character, but do not limit player agency (example, a low intelligence character does not mean you have to play your character unwisely).

Strength: hand-to-hand, Load
Agility: Defense, saves
Vitality: Max HP, saves 
Knowledge: tools, crafts, lore
Perception: Missiles, surprise
Willpower: Magic, saves
Luck (optional): critical range, random table rolls

Score Modifier Description
3 to 6 -1 modifier below average
7 to 14 no modifier average
15 to 18 +1 modifier above average

HIT POINTS (HP)
Your maximum HP is 10 + your vitality modifier. HP represents your physical condition, and so HP loss abstractly represents wounds or injuries. Recover 1 lost HP per day representing natural healing. At 0 HP, make one Save; Success means unconscious for one hour, failure means death.

DEFENSE (DEF)
Your Defense is 10 + your agility modifier + bonuses from armor and shields. Defense represents your ability to defend yourself when you are willing and able. Your touch defense is 10 + agility modifier and is applicable for attacks that do not need to penetrate or bypass armor such as wrestling. Defense cannot exceed 19.

CLASS
Class is a game term for the sake of game terminology. It suggests rather than describes your characters' background, skills, and knowledge. PCs are limited to one class. These class options are left vaguely defined for you to flavor as you like. Assume all classes are fit for adventure, can use improvised weapons and peasant weapons, and can do basic things like light fires and climb ropes.

Fighter
Fighter describes an athletic person who can use all weapons, armor, and shields. Fighters get a +2 to saves vs fatigue.
Lv Hit Save
1 +1 14
2 +2 13
3 +2 12
4 +3 11
5 +3 10
6 +3 9
7 +4 8
8 +4 7
9 +4 6
10 +5 5

Mage
Mage describes someone who can cast spells (or use supernatural powers in other genres). Mages add a +2 to saves vs Magic.
Lv Hit Save MP
1 +0 15 2
2 +1 14 4
3 +1 13 6
4 +1 12 7
5 +2 11 8
6 +2 10 9
7 +2 9 10
8 +3 8 11
9 +3 7 12
10 +3 6 13

Rogue
Rogue describes someone who is trained or self-taught in specialized and unconventional skills (suited to the setting, genre, etc. of the game). Rogues can use light armor, one-handed swords, and crossbows or longbows. Rogues add a +2 to saves vs traps.
Lv Hit Save Skill
1 +1 15 1-2 in 1d6
2 +1 14 1-2 in 1d6
3 +1 13 1-2 in 1d6
4 +2 12 1-3 in 1d6
5 +2 11 1-3 in 1d6
6 +2 10 1-3 in 1d6
7 +3 9 1-4 in 1d6
8 +3 8 1-4 in 1d6
9 +3 7 1-4 in 1d6
10 +4 6 1-5 in 1d6

LEVEL
Level describes how experienced you are in your class. Lower levels mean amateur, higher levels means seasoned.

EXPERIENCE POINTS (EXP)

Characters need 20 * their level in exp to increase their level (example a level 3 character needs 60 exp to reach level 4). Encounters are worth 1 to 4 exp, where a 2 exp encounter is an ordinary difficulty encounter. No exp for absenteeism. Players may not level up mid-game session.

TO-HIT BONUS (HIT)
Your hit is how well you can hit with barehanded attacks and weapons you can use or to grapple an opponent. Add to your d20 roll when you attack along with any other appropriate modifiers. An attack hits when the roll is greater than or equal to the opponent's Defense.

SAVING THROWS (SAVE)
A save is rolled in response to something that acts on you and does not ordinarily require a turn. Roll a d20, add any modifiers, try to roll equal to or greater than your own Save. Escaping a grapple or hold must be attempted on your turn and requires a successful save.

MAGIC POINTS (MP)
MP is another game term for terminology's sake. It represents magical stamina (or stamina with supernatural powers). All spells cost 1 to 3 MP to cast and require one turn to cast.

SKILL
Skill describes your ability to succeed at very specific actions described below. Roll a 1d6, and roll less than or equal to your skill. A GM may assume that only a Rogue can attempt these, or that other classes may attempt them with only a 1 in 1d6 chance of success.
Move silently without being heard
Hide in shadows without being seen
Pick pocket (or plant) without being observed, although the pick is noticed
Pick locks with lock picks
Disarm traps successfully and safely
Listen for and discern noises at doors

Climb 50 ft increments without fatigue
Additionally, a Rogue can backstab an opponent who is unaware of their presence. The attack roll is made with a +4 situational modifier, and on a hit the maximum damage is done (example, 6 damage if rolling a d6 without modifiers).

(optional) Track foes, wild game, etc. and identify such signs in the wilderness. Additionally, navigate unfamiliar regions, forage, nature lore and natural remedies, Foe expertise (specify Foe).

LOAD
Load is your carrying capacity. You can carry a maximum of 10 + Strength modifier items. When you are at your maximum load, you are encumbered and move at slow speed (15 ft per turn). Some items are heavy or bulky and count as two items, like metal armor or two-handed weapons. Some items are petty and count as 0 items. Some items stack up to a fixed quantity, like a container of ammunition. Record fatigue and similar conditions using item slots representing the effects that these conditions have on your character. There is no catalog of equipment. DIY.

EQUIPMENT
There is no catalog. DIY. Barehanded strikes do 1d3 damage. Assume weapons do 1d6 damage. Small and improvised weapons do 1d6-1 (minimum 1 point of damage). Large weapons do 1d6+1 damage. Metal armor is always considered heavy and may be restrictive and noisy.

LEVEL UP BONUSES
The class options available can be distinguished with bonuses. Players may choose one when they level up, though the availability of these options is subject to the GM.

• +1 Max HP (cap 20 + vitality modifier)
• +1 to an ability score (cap 18)
• +1 to Load (cap 20 + strength modifier)
• +1 to base Defense (limit once)
• -1 to Save (limit once)
• Light Armor use
• Heavy Armor use (requires light armor use)
• Shield use
• Weapon use (choose)
• Weapon specialization (choose one weapon, cap +1)
• Critical hit range +1 (cap 18 to 20; restriction cannot take at consecutive levels)
• Other, including special actions or movement, specialized skill or talent, extraordinary trait, etc. DIY (discuss with GM).

HOW TO PLAY
The game is played through conversation and can be freeform or structured into turns like a board game. In all contexts, players can do one dedicated thing on their turn. First, the Game Master (GM) describes the scene, setting, or situation (almost like a narrator). Second, the players describe what their characters do and/or say. Third, the GM describes the results. Repeat until a scene is resolved, then establish a new scene.

In general, if an action or speech can reasonably succeed, it does. Pass or fail die rolls are necessary only to simulate things we cannot do at the game table, like fighting. Saving throws can be called for by the GM to determine if characters can avoid harm for their actions. If something is sincerely impossible, no statistic or die roll will allow it to succeed.

COMBAT
Combat is structured into a GM turn and a Player turn, though all actions are assumed to happen simultaneously. A combat turn represents seconds. The player turn is structured into two phases. Phase 1, all players declare their intended action. Once declared, you can't change it. Phase 2, all players roll dice, and the GM narrates the results. Turn order may be apparent based on the logic of the scene, otherwise, the GM determines who goes first with a single d6 roll where the player turn is first on a roll of a 4-6. Note that there is no move action or double move; Players can simply move up to their movement (30 ft) as part of their action.

EXPLORATION
Exploration is structured into turns. Each player can do one dedicated thing per turn. There are no die rolls to find hidden things (example perception). Information is revealed by the GM as the characters interact with the room or scene (information for action). An exploration turn represents 10 minutes in a small scale location like a dungeon and assumes characters are taking their time, or 1 day in a large scale location like the wilderness. If actions can be resolved in less than a full turn, count the turn for tracking purposes, but treat the time as negligible and fold it into the next turn.

SOCIAL INTERACTION
There are no die rolls to resolve conversations or to interpret meaning in non-player characters (NPCs) face, voice, or body language. Players should treat NPCs like real people and rely on their curiosity and creativity. They will remember you. NPCs can be a resource. Try to make NPCs happy by finding out what they want and offering it to them.

FAST TURNS
Long turns are boring and slow the game down. Excessively long turns can be skipped or cut short by the GM. To keep your turn concise, turn off your gamer brain and stay in character as much as possible. Rather than ask the GM for a explanation about a room, describe how your character explores and ask what your character sees. Never discuss rules during the game. Do not have out-of-character discussions about what you can do or should do. Pay attention when it's not your turn so you never need a recap. Consider the length of time that your turn represents in-game (example a combat turn is seconds). Avoid using game terminology. Describe what your character does or says fluidly like writing a line in a book and tell us what we see. No do-overs or retcons.

SITUATIONAL MODIFIERS
There are times when situations offer a character an advantage or disadvantage to an action. The GM should use their judgment and apply a conservative modifier not to exceed +/- 4. Some examples of situations that may permit a situational modifier are: obscured line of sight or reduced visibility, partial concealment or cover, a magical effect, a physical condition or restriction.

MONSTERS AND OTHER OPPONENTS
Human opponents should be designed with similar logic to PCs, but monsters should not. Stats like Strength and Agility are excessive for NPCs. Below are recommendations. Please change them to suit your game.

Hit Avg To- Average
Die HP Hit Save Def Damage Size Example
1 3 +1 14 10 1d3 half goblin, hobbit
2 7 +2 13 11 1d6 base human, elf, orc
3 10 +3 12 12 1d6+... double lion, bear, ogre
4 13 +4 11 13 2d6 triple        giant, *dragon
5 17 +5 10 14 *dragon breath can do 3d6
6 20 +6 9 15
7 23 +7 8 16
8 27 +8 7 17
9 30 +9 6 18
10 33 +10 5 19

Restructuring Act I of The Last of Us Part 2

I had an epiphany today, and I decided to restructure Act I of the game The Last of Us Part 2. The structure of this story is a mess. Let's go.

First, Act I is not the introduction. Act I is the set up. What's the difference? An introduction is "Hello, my name is Joshua." A set up is "Joshua has this goal, this motive, these stakes, these obstacles, these resources, etc." The set up is your promise to your audience that this is the story you are going to tell. You are not introducing the story to them; you're setting it up for them. Act II is the execution where you deliver on promises you make in Act I. Act III is the resolution where you resolve the major conflict, answer any questions, and reestablish the new norm for the surviving characters, in other words, the consequences of the story.

So, the opening of the game features Joel and Tommy on horses and they're walking through beautiful AAA game studio scenery. Cool. No complaint from a game design perspective. This is a beautiful way to show off your art to the players. Cool. But from a story perspective, this is a weird way to start the narrative. Why? Because Joel isn't the point of view character in the game. He dies in the beginning. Ellie is the point of view character. Let's tell the players what they can expect right away so they don't feel like there was a bait and switch. So far, I think only George R. R. Martin did a good job at that. It's tricky to do. Whatever you drag the audience through, they have to have a good time. That's it. If they're not happy with the execution of an idea, then they will reject or resent the rest of the ride, and the author.

I'm going to turn Act I into 6 scenes. There are gaps in each scene and in between each scene to be filled with dialogue and gameplay, but I'm not worried about that now. I'm just structuring right now. 

SCENE 1

I would start Act I with that scene were Ellie is studying, and she receives a late-night visit from Joel, and he teaches her a song on the guitar. Why? To set up the point of view character, and to establish what knowledge she possesses about the deed that Joel is going to get punished for at the end of Act I. It's also a sweet scene, and here's what else I like about it. This scene is the epilogue for the first game. After the first game, the audience might want an epilogue to show what it was all for, for the sake of certainty, id est, is Ellie happy? The first game ended on a note of uncertainty, which was great. Don't change it. But, for the second game, give the audience the satisfaction of that delayed epilogue. Then, you want to use the epilogue to segway into the introduction of your point of view character in her new normal life. She's a teenager, she's in a new house, it's a nice house. She's in a new town. It's a nice town. They have a nice life. Her surrogate dad has the luxury to bring her a guitar and sing her a song and teach her the guitar, and this guitar becomes a skill that Joel passes down to Ellie that isn't violent or utilitarian. It's human and it's art. This helps emphasize the tragedy later. Good call. This is setting up that Ellie has her happily ever after, or as close as it could be.

Now we add the deep seeded doubt that spoils this happily ever after and calls everything into question again, and shows the audience that the point of view character is not satisfied. While Joel is playing the guitar, Ellie has flashbacks to the moment when Joel told her his false version of events at the Fireflies HQ, and we see doubt and uncertainty in Ellie's face. Ellie will then mask this doubt and lie to Joel. This hints at an inner conflict caused by betrayal of Joel's lie which can be developed later in Act II.

That's your introduction scene. Do not show Joel revealing the story to Tommy like the game did. Why? First, the audience does not need to see this. If you're coming to Part 2 from Part 1, it's redundant. If you're coming to Part 2 and you never saw Part 1, let the new audience be pleasantly surprised, or horribly surprised, later. Second, there's no point in the audience having confirmation that Joel told Tommy what happened. It doesn't have any significance to the story of Part II.

SCENE 2

I'm going to be honest, I forgot how the game went. I think they show a whole bunch of scenes out of order. But we need a time skip. Ellie 14 years has been introduced. Now, Ellie 18 years, or however old she is now, needs to be introduced. We need to establish some general story conflict or a general goal for Ellie. She has obligations to serve the town as some sort of defender or soldier or ranger thing. We are establishing for the audience that the zombie plague is still very much a problem, and we're showing how it affects the characters today. Ellie has a day-to-day routine. There's people she talks to, and things she does. I recall her being visited by a handsome friend and I recall a conversation about her wearing tennis shoes instead of boots for the snow, which is dumb. Also, there was a snow ball fight that might have been endearing to someone on staff, but I have no investment in the NPC children so cut this scene cause it's slow and boring.

Then, we have something called the inciting incident. The inciting incident is the event that causes the chain of events that set up the upcoming call to adventure and begins the story. What's the inciting incident? It's not the gay kiss and it's not the bigot sandwich. It's Joel going missing. Joel's life is at stake. This matters to Ellie. Joel's death is the catalyst for the story in TLoU Part II, and so the inciting incident should lead to this catalyst. It also works here because of the themes of this story, which we're not ready to touch yet. No one cares that Ellie is gay or that the town has a bigot sandwich purveyor. 

So, because Joel is missing, either he hasn't checking in yet, or he's late for returning from his job, or whatever, and a blizzard or storm is due to hit, this causes Ellie to change her routine and go to work with urgency. In fiction, heroes act. If the hero doesn't act, why is the story about them? When the need for action comes, the hero responds. Anyone who wants to subvert this does not need to justify it, they need to make it satisfying to the audience. Period. Moving on.

Now that Ellie's surrogate father is in danger, we get her to express her inner conflict. It's an expression, not a revelation. She hints at the inner conflict; she does not explain it. What's bothering Ellie? Here's one way she can suggest to the audience that there's a conflict. She can say "that liar is missing." Maybe she says it under her breath. Maybe she says it out loud. This reveals to the audience that she strongly doubts what Joel told her, and that it's bothering her a lot, and she's been coping with it.

SCENE 3

The Call to Adventure is when the hero actually has to answer the call. Ellie is given the opportunity to leave town in spite of the signs of danger. The takes it. Why? Because she's tough and kick ass, and she cares about Joel. Also, again, if Ellie's not going to do it, why would we tell the story from Ellie's point of view? Why wouldn't we pick another character?

We'll also introduce Dina in scene 3 as she's Ellie's sidekick / romantic interest for a significant portion of the story.  We'll also show that a trap is being set for Ellie. What is the trap? In fiction, it means the hero is going to walk into a shit situation in the course of pursuing their goals, and this situation is going to be a significant event that she gets trapped in. We're setting it up and we're hinting at it. Drop a line that some strangers or foreigners have been spotted. This refers to Abbey and her crew. This is ominous and foreboding, and Ellie's going to disregard it because she's brave and she has to get her surrogate guitar dad home safe.

Notice that I'm not writing dialogue or breaking down the scenes down into moments or actions? I'm just structuring broadly. When writing, it's easy and find to deviate from the structure at bit, but a good structure helps to write.

SCENE 4

Develop the relationship Ellie has with her friends including Dina. Especially Dina. Don't interrupt the pacing with flashbacks and conversations about the gay kiss or the pregnancy or the bigot sandwiches. Sprinkle it in if you can fit it without ruining the pacing of your action or sense of urgency. Remember, we're writing people, not caricatures like Captain Ahab. Captain Ahab was a maniac and he didn't act like a real person. Ellie and Dina and that other handoms fellow are real people. They don't stop for drugs and sex in the middle of a search and rescue unless they intend to call it off temporarily and wait out the storm; otherwise, this creates unbelievable or unlikable characters. Seriously, no drugs when you're on a search and rescue. It's negligent.

Seriously, no. Change my mind. Get rid of the drugs and sex. Maintain the urgency for the sake of building tension. Keep the pacing of your action consistent or increase it. We can establish that Dina and Ellie have romantic or sexual tension in other ways. Maybe they're already girlfriends? Seriously, we're cutting the drugs and sex scene. Completely breaks the pacing. Completely boring. Moving on.

Ellie takes a risk and pushes on. "One more check point. One more check point. We can make one more checkpoint." "But the blizzard's coming!" "One more checkpoint, dammit!" And of course, Dina being the good side-kick, is loyal to the hero and follows her. Note that the difference between the hero and the sidekick here is that the hero in this story, Ellie, has personal stake in the success of the search and rescue, but the sidekick does not. Instead, the sidekick is simply loyal to the hero. Further, the hero is the one who acts when others don't. This establishes the dynamic of friendship, loyalty, and dedication if not romantic love between Ellie and Dina. Dina may not ordinarily risk this much, but she's doing it for Ellie.

SCENE 5

Reveal the hero's desire. Ellie loves Joel like a dad. We need to communicate this to the audience. Dina says once "I get it, he's like your dad." This is not clumsy dialogue. It's subtle. It says all you need to say. People who have good dads who live their dads will get it. Trust me.

Now, we do more foreshadowing of danger and bad stuff. Abbey and her friends have left some zombies and some footprints behind. There are signs of several people, and Ellie and Dina have the tracking ability to be able to discern this by the signs in the environment. You also want to use some environmental storytelling to show that there's more stuff going on than anything that just Joel and Tommy can do.

Ellie approaches the room where Joel is being beaten to death.

SCENE 6

Ellie has entered the room where Joel is being beaten by Abbey, and she promptly gets restrained. Dina too, why not? We are about to end Act I with a twist. Joel is murdered, but not by zombies or a storm. This is personal for Ellie who declares she'll kill the mystery killers, and this is the trap. The mysterious people all get nervous and finally say "the town will know we're here soon, it's time to go." Note that these characters have spared Ellie and Dina. That in and of itself suggests they are more complex than they seem, but we know that these people are in reality just trying to give the town less reason to come after them by doing less harm. That said, why wouldn't they kill Ellie and Dina to preserve their secrecy? Did they just assume Ellie wasn't a threat? Make a note of this for later, you're going to need to answer it for the audience with a clue or throw away line.

I've heard that the oldest law in the world is the law of retaliation. That is the law of "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth." Note that this law is not a mandate to retaliate, but a limitation on retaliation. If someone pokes out one eye, you cannot poke out two. The punishment must fit the crime. Joel has committed many questionable actions or crimes, but the crime he committed against Abbey was shooting and killing Abbey's dad. Abbey is the villain of the story because she has broken the law of retaliation by both torturing and then killing Joel. Abbey has taken justice for the crime against her father, but she's also committed a new injustice. Torture is a punishment that is disproportionate to Joel's crime against Abbey. And of course, two wrongs don't make a right. In addition, she and/or her friends also injured Tommy with a gunshot. I think I would show Abbey looking down at herself, bloodied, and show her face with a look of disgust and regret as if she realizes "what have I done?" This is of course because torturing and killing someone is surely a traumatic experience for a normal person, and for which Abbey may not have been prepared for. And like I said, we're writing relatable people, not Captain Ahab.

Now to establish the through line of story. Ellie is going to hunt down this mystery killer and she's going to get justice for Joel's murder. Ta-da. That's Scene 6.

WHAT ELSE?

If we established Abbey as this young woman who was moments ago running through the snow and getting rescued from zombies by Joel, we would take away the mysteriousness of her from the audience, and we would spoil the impression of her as a villain. Audiences like a good villain. Also, this has the effect of disconnecting Ellie from the Audience the audience knows things Ellie doesn't know. Ellie doesn't know Abbey is actually a dog lover who saves good people from bad people. Ellie hates Abbey, but we don't. Actually, that's not true, it's complicated. The audience hates Abbey but for reasons unrelated to the narrative.

We can always make Abbey a sympathetic villain later, but the idea of writing a story with deuteragonists who end up fighting in the finale and stopping short of death, that is avant-garde. I like avant-garde, but The Last of Us Part II is a poor example of avant-garde because it doesn't work. It doesn't create consistent tension or suspense. It doesn't have good pacing. There are a lot of good moments and also a lot of moments I'd like to skip even on a first play-through. It doesn't have good structure. One moment, Ellie and Abbey are pointing guns at each other, the next minute we're flashing back to Abbey in an aquarium with her boyfriend for six hours. That's what it felt like anyway. You had all this tension, then you broke it. Then you had to build tension back up again with characters I am not interested in, or not as interested in, or don't care about at all if you wrote them out of the story. The fact that the story tries to make Abbey a sympathetic second main character even though she killed the beloved protagonist from the first game is also a very big ask. The story might have been able to pull that off by bonding the audience to Abbey first, then Abbey kills Joel. And I mean really bonding the audience to Abbey. In that case, I would have told the story from Abbey's point of view from the very start, and ended Act I with Joel appearing, then Abby killing Joel, then Ellie shows up, and I would have done my best to make it a surprise.

The audience doesn't hate Abbey because Abbey killed Joel. The audience hates Abbey because this was not done in an emotionally satisfying way or narratively interesting way. Rather, it was done because the writer wanted it to happen, and he put in a bunch of other stuff for context because he was trying to be fair to all the characters. Too much context for too many perspectives all at once killed the chances for an emotional set up and pay off. Stick to one character's limited perspective! Also, we all feel that this decision to have Abbey kill Joel was done for shock value or for some message or theme, and that's not a satisfying reason to kill off a beloved character. People like art for the feels, not the themes. Prioritize the feels, not the themes. Also, I don't think the leaks mattered that much, but it definitely spoiled the game for first timers.

What have we lost? I cut the scene where Joel rescues Abbey. I think it's delightfully ironic for Joel to rescue his own murderer and thus give his murderer an opportunity to murder him, and I also think it's excellent for character development to show Joel doing good deeds. This suggests change, possible redemption, that the man is more complex than you might guess. I love the idea of this scene, but I do not want to change perspectives from Ellie to Joel or Abbey in the middle of Act I. Here's why. Ellie is the point of view character in LToU Part II. That's it. Anything that causes the point of view to change in the middle of these scenes has the potential effect of taking away from the audience's opportunity to bond with the point of view character. I can also cut this scene because it has no significance to the plot. because Abbey never expresses conflict or remorse for murdering the father-slayer who saved her life. I also love the thought that Joel made choices effecting the life or death of two members of one family and they were both complete strangers to him on both occasions. There's something oddly poetic that's being lost by cutting this, but a good writer needs to cut their darlings. This scene does not help the building of tension or the pacing.

Draconia '95

PREMISE

Draconia '95 is all at once a low-fantasy/urban fantasy, sci-fi, horror setting in a generic city of Draconia around the year 1995 on our real-world Earth where ordinary people band together to fight against the supernatural. In Draconia, the supernatural is a very real yet invisible presence.

Player characters begin as ordinary humans who are oblivious of the supernatural things right under their own streets. Then they have an encounter with the supernatural which intrudes on their ordinary lives and inserts them into a life-or-death situation. They must survive and escape, but their perspectives are changed forever. They are left disturbed by their experience and can never go back to living a normal life. Upon their escape from the supernatural, they dedicate themselves to fighting back.

BACKGROUND

The 1990s was a time when technology was advancing, but not ubiquitous. You could still have a low-information populous who could still plausibly believe in urban superstitions. Communication was still limited and unreliable. Sci-fi and fantasy was still a novelty, and people could still be taken by surprise by a futuristic or fantastic idea. People were still proudly old-fashioned and were not as open to new ideas.

THE CITY

The setting of Draconia is intended to be fluid. The key word is generic; Whatever you think belongs in a generic city can fit into Draconia. Whatever sort of low fantasy, sci-fi, and/or horror you think belongs in the 1990s Earth can fit into Draconia. What theme or themes distinguish your version of Draconia? Is it like New York or Paris or Tokyo? Let the imaginations of the players fill the void. Improvise the features and the locations of Draconia as needed. Is there a secret bio-weapons lab that makes monsters? A massive old library that guards a secret portal to another world? Are there grimdark vigilantes fighting mafia thugs? Maybe the city is governed by officials who are secretly monsters and their corrupt subordinates, and maybe the crime lords are also hunters of the paranormal? Draconia is moldable and adaptable, and every time your group finishes a campaign and start anew, Draconia reverts to a blank slate. That's one of the strange things about Draconia.

THE UNDERCITY

There is one thing that Draconia always has, and that is a forgotten about, sealed off, and decommissioned underground network of tunnels that officially does not exist. These tunnels used to connect hundreds of buildings in the city, and portions of them are still used by criminals, government spooks, homeless madmen, and things that go bump in the night. This undercity serves as the wilderness between "dungeons" within Draconia, and can serve as its own mega dungeon. Who built these tunnels is a mystery. Maybe they're a relic from the war or prohibition. Maybe their origins predate the founding of the country. Maybe they were created by a cult, or maybe they were created by aliens. The tunnels are a mystery your characters may never solve.

GAME SYSTEM

To do horror justice, the player characters need to by sufficiently low-powered enough to feel like survivors or victims rather than heroes. To do low-fantasy and sci-fi justice, a limited catalog of races, classes, equipment, and magic is necessary. For these reasons, I do not suggest using a game based on heroic or superheroic play. Use something simpler and more generic. I suggest using this setting with any retroclone based on D&D Basic such as Basic Fantasy RPG, Lamentations of the Flame Princes, or Olde Swords Reign. D&D Basic is a quintessential RPG, and so these retroclones are simple, fast, easy, free, and they don't have decades worth of bloat. Other free game suggestions are Cogent Roleply, Open-Legend RPG, Cairn, OSRIC, and The Black Hack.

Forget everything you know about D&D or Call of Cthulhu. Think more about gritty or pulpy comic books like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Think about the X-Files or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Think about Resident Evil or Parasite Eve or Silent Hill. The typical fantasy class options must be recontextualized for a modern setting. A fighter is just someone very athletic. A thief is somone skilled at something unscrupulous. A cleric is someone faithful who receives miraculous powers from their faith in a higher authority (God). A magic-user is someone who can use powers from another source that we merely describe as magic for lack of a better word.

Consider that player characters are probably wearing improvised or modern body armor, if any, and are using tools from the hardware store or sporting goods store as improvised weapons. Firearms are as available or unavailable as it suits your interpretation of the setting. Sci-fi or magic weapons and armor are rare, but can exist simultaneously, as in the olde powers with an e versus found alien tech. You'll need a lot of DIY.

WHEN STARTING AT THE BEGINNING

Level 0 characters are ordinary humans. They roll 3d6 for each ability: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, and they begin with max HP equal to their Constitution score. After completing their introductory adventure, they advance to first level in one class of their choice. As they level up, they add 1 max HP per each level.

d20 TABLE OF CONFLICTS

1  Serial Killer at large, but actually...

2  New Disease spreading

3  UFO / Alien Sighting

4  Missing Journalist (s)

5  Mysterious disappearing / reappearing location

6  Monster sighting

7  Missing person found, and an amnesiac, and in danger

8  Time traveling criminal

9  People attacked, blood loss through punctures in neck

10 Rogue vigilante, brutal, causing collateral damage

11 Ghost or Haunting

12 Psychic phenomenon,

13 Time space distortion; people and places warped

14 Criminals having a turf war, but actually...

15 Paranormal Investigators

16 Impossible Theft

17 "Miracle" incident

18 Men-in-Black cover-up

19 Undead rising

20 Cursed artifacts or relics being sold from a novelty shop

21 rumored Portal to another world

22 Lights in the sky

23 Disturbing call for help over radio signals; dismissed as a prank

d20 Villains List

1  Vampire, werewolf, other

2  Criminal time traveler

3  Alien human hunter

4  ESPer, PKer, or Mage out of control

5  Government Agent sabotaging independent investigators

6  Mad Scientist creating a monster

7  Clan of Shadows (ninjas) resurrecting ancient mummy warlord

8  Cult of the Dragon King

9  Madman Escapee on run from a black budget government facility

10 Patient Zero spreading a disease

11 Crime Lord or Gang Leader

12 Government spy posing as a city official sabotaging the city

13 Undead or Ghost

14 Mutant on the run

15 Cryptid

16 Rebel Priest with a dark secret about the church

17 Evil vigilante

18 AI, Robot, or Cyborg

19 Warrior from Dimension X

20 Govn't scientist cover up of a leak or incident

d20 ORGANIZATIONS

1  Men in Black (MIB)

2  ESPER Society (a secret society)

3  NWO (New World Order)

4  Cult of the Dragon. Apocalypse cult; bring back the dragon king.

5  Serpentarius (Gang)

6  Time Police - hunt criminal time travelers

7  The Org (The Organization) - 

8  Head Hunters - (Gang)

9  Secret Keepers: Secret sect of the church who know demons are real

10 

11 Clan of Shadows; apocalypse cult of ninjas

12 Lizard People

13 The Mer AKA The Wet Men; Murderous supremacists from Atlantis

14 Paraworld Investigations Inc. Private amateur investigators

15 Parasol Pharmaceuticals. secretly creates biological weapons.

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

d66 Draconia Districts

Seaside (Commercial District)

1-1 Ports and Harbor

1-2 Draconia Fairgrounds

1-3 Light House

1-4 Bars and Hotels

1-5 Shopping Center

1-6 Sports Arena

Old Draconia (Historical District)

2-1 Musuem

2-2 Fort Lone Caster (Monument)

2-3 Bell Tower

2-4 Cemetary

2-5 Library

2-6 Capital Forum Press (Newspaper)

The Roots (Industrial District)

3-1 Little Asia, Psychic Emporium, Novelty Shops

3-2 Factories, Producti

on Plants

3-3 Water Treatment Plant, Landfill

3-4 Research Lab

3-5 State Prison

3-6 Train Yard

Outskits & Recreational District

4-1 Radio Station

4-2 Clubhouse, Mansion

4-3 Zoo, Park

4-4 Observatory

4-5 Hospital

4-6 Airport

The Grid (Downtown)

5-1 City Hall, Governor's Mansion, Courthouse

5-2 St. Catherine's Cathedral

5-3 Orion Tower (skyscraper)

5-4 Concert Hall

5-5 Fire Station, Post Office

5-6 Tenements, Parking Garage

Clark Hills (Uptown)

6-1 Upper Class Residential

6-2 Draconia University, Book Store

6-3 Green Gardens (Plant Nursery)

6-4 Mall, Cinema, Arcade, Gymnaasium, Antiques

6-5 Convention Center

6-6 Police Station

CHARACTERS

such as 

Simultaneous Combat in TTRPGS

    Combat in TTRPGs is too slow. I would like for combat to be as fast and as fluid as any other scene in the game. First, reduce the number of actions and movements a character can make per turn to one action wherein they can move up to their normal movement for the action, and remove any options for characters to interrupt the flow of the game. Second, scale down hit points and damage proportionally. Third, use simultaneous combat. With simultaneous combat, we remove the familiar structure of sitting around and waiting for each player to take their turn (that's boring). We play the game almost as fluidly as we would any unstructured scene in the game.

PRE-COMBAT PROCEDURE

• 1. Choose or roll for an encounter
• 2. Determine starting distance and position(s) of NPCs to PCs. 
• Example: 3d6 * 10 ft away.
• 3. Choose or roll for the attitude or reaction of the NPCs encountering the PCs (favorable, neutral, unfavorable, hostile, etc.).
• This is classically done by rolling 2d6 and trying to roll high. A 2 means the NPCs are hostile.
• 4. Determine or roll for surprise.
• This is classically done by rolling a 1d6 for the NPCs, and by rolling a 1d6 for each PC. No need to roll for surprise unless one side is trying to be sneaky. On a roll of a 1-2, that side / character is surprised. Blindness and deafness can increase the chances of surprise (1-3 or 1-4). A particularly well-prepared ambush may mean that the other side is surprised on a 1-4.

COMBAT PROCEDURE

• 1. Each round of combat is broken into two phases: A declaration phase and a resolution phase. 
• 1a. Declaration Phase: Players can do one thing (their action) on their turn, and they can move up to their normal movement as part of their action. Players declare their action clockwise around the table. Once an action is declared, it cannot be changed.
• Players need only declare a type of action, and a target. Example, missile, magic, move, melee, or other.
• Movement means either repositioning to add distance or close the distance, charging, defensive movement such as disengaging, or moving into cover.
• Melee is assumed to include movement if needed, as in running up to an opponent and attacking. No need to specify move then attack.
• Missile means using a ranged weapon or throwing a weapon or object, and is assumed to be faster than other actions. Magic can be assumed to be a missile, and be treated as a missile by the GM for the purposes of determining the priority of actions.
• 1b. Resolution Phase: All dice are rolled, and the GM adjudicates and narrates the results.
• The GM must prioritize how the actions occur. It is possible for two swordsmen to kill each other in the same round. Prioritization usually makes sense within the logic of the scene, setting, or situation.
• Missiles go off first. Magic can be treated as a missile unless the GM rules that casting a spell is slow. Missiles and magic cannot be used while when engaged in melee.
• Melee that includes movement is slow. Melee without movement is nearly instantaneous.
• Movement can be slowest of all.
• 2. At the end of each round, update character sheets, monster stats, etc.
• 3. Roll for morale up to twice per encounter. If the enemies lose morale, they will either surrender, retreat, or parley. Roll for morale IF:
• 3a. the NPCs receive their first casualty for the encounter.
• 3b. the NPCs are reduced to have their HP or half their number
• 4. Start a new round. Return to step 1 and repeat these steps until combat is resolved.

*Optionally, the GM determines or rolls Side Initiative to reduce complexity of all PCs and all NPCs acting simultaneously. Each round, resolve one sides actions, then the other, then start a new round. Initiative can be rerolled each round to make combat unpredictable.

**Fleeing. Fleeing is not possible unless you have an escape route and a safe place to retreat to. One side may flee without the other side giving chase, in which case the side that flees is automatically successful. If the PCs flee, the GM roleplays the NPCs and makes the decision to pursue the PCs in character. If one side attempts to flee and the other side continues the attack or attempts to capture them, you may run combat as a running fight. NPCs who pursue PCs may be distracted by tossed items, money, or food, and stop to investigate or collect the discarded treasure. NPCs may also give up the chase if they lose line of sight of the PCs.

AFTER COMBAT

• Actions: PCs may do various actions such as looting, searching for anything lost or spent in the fight, dressing their wounds, resting and catching their breathes, interrogating any survivors or take prisoners, etc.
• Under ordinary circumstances, adventurers would be neglectful to skip these actions.
• Adventurers should do these things with care so as not to draw attention from the unseen dangers that may still lurk in the dungeon or wilderness, or linger too long.
• Time Keeping: Assume that the length of time spent in combat and doing any of these actions can be added together and rounded up to a single 10-minute chunk of in-world time.
• Note that classically, ten in-world minutes represents an ordinary turn of slow, methodical exploration.

TTRPGs: Movement and AOEs on Hex Grids

This is written by someone who knows nothing of hex grids.

If you're using a square grid, then your range of movement resembles a square. This has the disadvantage of giving diagonal movement more value than horizontal movement alone or vertical movement alone.

The reality is that your range of movement should rather resemble a circle. This would give you an even distance in all directions.  If you can image, lay down a pencil and place one end against the base of your mini, then move your mini to the end of the pencil.

One compromise with a square grid is to treat diagonal movement with a different rule, but that's less intuitive, and who can really visualize what that might look like?

?

I think the hexagon is the best compromise. Note that a hex or square are just ways of dividing up a map into shapes with equal length sides so they can interlock. With a hex grid, you technically have fewer divisions (spaces) than a square map.

I think the hex has the unfortunate problem of making some concessions with how to intuitively draw the area of an area of effect or a line.  I don't know how you can you now portray a 10 x 10 area, which is what you're used to on a square grid, which was nice and easy. If every hex resembles a 5 square foot area, then perhaps you would want to describe the area of effect as a 15 square foot area, or a 20ft square area? Alternatively, you could still describe things in a radius just fine. But here's another concession you would have to make with radius or diameter areas. There are fewer hexes in a radius than hexes in a square, so a game indented for a square grid game makes the areas less potent because potentially fewer spaces can be targeted.

If you wanted to think about the areas as steps, then you would have:

5 sq ft: One square 

10 sq ft: Two squares

15 sq ft: Three squares (triangle)

20 sq ft: Four squares (diamond)

30 sq ft: six squares (triangle)

35 sq ft: Seven squares (hex or circle shape)

60 sq ft: Twelve squares (triangle, no points)

etc.

I would suggest that you would simplify AOW by suggesting that such effects can affect an area of X adjacent hexes. The word adjacent means that the hexes must be touching other hexes, and that the area must resemble an approximate shape.

Cognitive Load for GMs

Cognitive load describes how much information the working memory can hold at any given time. A higher cognitive load overwhelms working memory and can make running a game stressful when it doesn't need to be. You can start to forget things, like whose turn it is or features in a room you just deacribed. Simplifying any complexity in your games can reduce cognitive load and even speed up your game. For example, do you ever need to know a goblin's charisma score? Don't put it your notes! I want an intuitive game; Intuitive means something is so simple you can do it without thinking about it. There are many designs to simplify games. 

Target Number, Easy, and Hard

Take as a modern example, in Index Card RPG (ICRPG), there are no Armor Classes or Defense ratings for monsters. Instead, a single Target number is assigned to all actions in the scene. That's it! If ever a circumstance is present that would make a creature more difficult to hit, let's say one monster in a group is particularly better armored, then you would rule that attacking that monster is Hard, and the Target number to hit that monster goes up by 3. If a monster was blinded, then he would be worse at dodging, so he would be Easy to hit, and the Target goes down by 3. There are no prescriptions in the rules, just apply logic. Enemy in partial cover? Hard. The target also represents saving throws for the players. I love this idea so much. 

Hit Die (HD) of Monsters

In classic D&D, the number of hit die of a monster was a measure of its overall difficulty. It was the equivalent of the monster's level. The monsters to-hit bonus was equal to its number of hit die. 2 hit die means +2 to hit. It also had the save saving throws as a fighter of equivalent level. A 3HD monster saved just like a 3rd level fighter. As another design rule, the floors of the dungeon were called levels. As an assumption, the number of hit die a monster had was equal to the floor it would appear on. You could write the fighter's saving throws right on your dungeon map. All monsters had a d8 for hit die. I love these design ideas.

One Saving Throw

White Box is based on the classic D&D games. It creates a single Save for all monsters. That number changes based on character level or monster HD. Some creatures get a bonus or penalties to specific saves, but all saves use one number. For example, a fighter gets a +2 to saves against poison because they're tough. I love this rule.

Experience Points

Dungeon Crawl Classics says every encounter is worth between 1 to 4 EXP where the difficult of the encounter relative to the players represents the EXP value of the encounter. A 2 EXP encounter is an average encounter. Characters need 10 exp to level from 0 to 1st level. To get from 1st to 2nd level, they need 40 EXP. The game then uses a simple formula where the amount of EXP needed increases by 20 every level. So, it goes 40, 60, 80, 100, 120, etc. You'll never have to calculate monster EXP and then divide it, which isn't even hard. The hard part is pacing how quickly your players level up. I am looking forward to using this idea some day.

Initiative

Turns order is clockwise around the table is a rule that comes from ICRPG. It means no tracking initiative, and no rolling for initiative and recording everyone's rolls. I would change the rule about rolling dice to a coin flip to determine which side goes first. For example, on a d20; lower numbers (1 to 10) mean the NPCs go first, and higher numbers (11 to 20) mean the PCs go first. I would also waive the initiative roll when it makes sense that one side is obviously ready to act before the other. You will never lost track of turn order either.

One Action Per Turn

Older games keep it simple. On your turn, you can do one dedicated thing (an action). You can move up to your movement as part of your action. Basic Fantasy RPG and other games based on D&D B/X describes this. There is no double move (thank goodness!). This also makes your game go faster. You will never have to ask "is that it for your turn?" or "is your turn over?" You will know when someone's turn is over.

Close, Near, Far, Distant

Do not use precise, literal measurements for distances or ranges. Just use categories for distances and ranges. Close means you're so close you don't need to move; you can reach out and touch it. Near means something can be reached within one turn, so up to 6 squares or the length of a pencil. Far means something is further away than that, and you could impose a penalty for ranged attacks at this distance. Distant means something is out of sight or too far to clearly see, and so is effectively out of range. 

Minions

D&D 4e had a minions class of enemy who only had 1 hit point. Use minions, or track number of hits instead of damage for disposable NPCs.

Inventory Slots

Inventory management is unimportant unless survival mechanics are important to you, in which case having a limited capacity for carrying equipment forces players to prepare and to plan, and to set priorities. It keeps them from looting and hoarding even thing. Using slots rather than tracking weight and volume of equipment is a great idea for getting the experience of management without the more laborious bookkeeping. Different games do it differently. In ICRPG, 10 items are worn or carried, or stored in pockets, 10 items are in your backpack. If PCs recruit an NPC follower to carry their junk, this makes it easier.

Point Crawl

Hex Crawling is perfectly fine, but Point Crawling simplifies the process. Traveling somewhere is simplified into a number of turns where each turn represents a day or a portion of a day. For example, Location A and Location B have two routes in between them. Route 1 is 4 turns and dangerous, but Route 2 is 7 turns but safer. If the the party gets lost, add additional turns. That's it. Players can make choices. They have thr option to use turns to explore, search for resources, rest, they can skip a rest and force themselves to march, etc. Random encounters can threaten them.

Flow Charts, Not Maps

Maps in TTRPGs often represent a location and provide its scale using precise or literal measurement. This conditions you to think you need to track and present locations with literal, precise space. GMs simply do not need to literal space. Abstract space is easier. Instead, use flow charts where blocks represent rooms in a dungeon and the lines connecting them represent the hallways or corridors. Annotate your flow charts with the notes you need such as "entrace, 3 goblins, 1 guard dog". Entire towns can be represented as a grid where the different cells represent different districts or other subdivisions, and you would list the major locations such as shops or NPC homes, in each grid along with names of each.

Adventures, Not Campaigns

Why do GMs offer to run a campaign with a payoff in 6 months or longer? I was in a campaign for over a year that I joined a year after it began. What madness! It's more complicated to do all this, and it's a big ask of your participants. Just prepare your setting and NPCs as the players explore it. Prepare for this session, not six sessions from now. Make this session kick ass. Does no one realize 5e Curse of Strahd is side content for 7 levels, then you get to the good part which is Castle Ravenloft and Stradh. Eff that. Stop thinking so far ahead. That's overthinking. A series of adventures IS a campaign.

You Dont Need D&D to Play D&D

Gary Gygax has a quote that goes something like "the only secret DMs must not know is that they don't need rules." Gary Gygax knew that once you gave the rules away (or sold them), they were not yours anymore, and once GMs figured that out, they didn't need to give you any more of their money. Ever.

Gary Gygax was also famous for answering DM questions by asking "what did you do?" Then answering "that sounds good to me." Because Gary understood that he was not the authority on the rules. There is no authority except the GM at their table.

This is well understood by people in the hobby, but WotC / Hasbro didn't when they tried to deauthorize the OGL and again when they tried to turn D&D into a digital only subscription service. The changes they've been making to the content are nothing short of infantilization. They disclaimed Gary Gygax and others. They made other missteps. May they fail, and may their failure serve as an example to all other publishers in the future. They were poor stewards of the game, and they burned all their good will.

I don't like Shadow Dark because it's still too much like 5e, but I wish Kelsey Deon and her game all the best. I want her success to serve as an example of how to actually be a steward. Kelsey's game is a work of art and passion. May 5e 2024 fall into obscurity, and may games like Shadow Dark carry the mantle and the torch.

Why? Because you don't need D&D to play D&D. We want quality products that respect us and our legacy and our heroes and our intelligence. We don't need to buy anymore. We can make it ourselves. Buying a good product is still great thought! 

Managing Expectations in TTRPGs

Every time I've ever ran a TTRPG or been invited to play TTRPG, I have been disappointed by something, and I've dropped out of a few groups when it was bad enough. Managing expectations was a concern of mine from the very beginning. I think I've found the vocabulary that I need to describe concepts that GMs can and should use when inviting players to their game. These five items below should help you no matter what kind of game you're running. Explain these ideas to your players as early as possible.

1. Fiction Doesn't Mean Anything Goes

Have you ever told someone that their idea didn't make sense, and their response was something like "but it's [fiction / fantasy / sci-fi]" and the implications was that because something (the game) is fiction, anything should be permissible? Here's the counter argument. Just because something is [fiction / fantasy / sci-fi], that doesn't mean anything goes. Fantasy is fiction with fantastic stuff. In fiction, the limitations of the fantastic elements are established, and then the rest of the setting is assumed to be based in realism which we can all relate to. Note that realism here is not the same as trying to create a game or setting that simulates what is realistic. Note that the core rules do not say "disregard realism" or "default to realism", this is a ruling made by the GM; however, defaulting to realism as a rule of thumb is useful because it gives us a common understanding of how the world works where the rules of the game do not cover, and common understanding allows the GM to be fair and consistent in their rulings and helps the players to understand the limitations of what they can do and cannot do. This also has the benefit of simplifying the game.

2. Forget Everything You Know About X

Tell your players to forget everything they know about fantasy, sci-fi, horror, 5e, Faerun, Eberron, World of Warcraft, etc. Do not let them bring their knowledge or expectations about goblins or vampires or were-creatures or magic to your game. Tell them that in your setting, these things might work differently, and that by relying on their knowledge of other settings or pop culture can spoil the experience of your game for themselves. Tell them you expect them to figure things out through exploration, social interaction, and experience in play. Alternatively, this common knowledge can give us a starting point to understand a setting, and so you would want to provide them with a list of other fiction that has inspired your game like D&D's famous Appendix N. I personally do not like Tolkien's interpretation on elves, dwarves, and hobbits (halflings). 

3. Generic Setting vs Curated Setting

Tell your players that the GM is the curator of the setting. As curator, you decide what is appropriate for the setting and what is not. Tell your players whether you are running a generic fantasy setting that is a hodgepodge of fantasy's most popular ideas intended for mass appeal, or if you are running a game in a curated setting with select fantasy ideas intended for a niche audience. Even a kitchen sink setting can have a few restrictions for the sake of keeping the game simple to prep and run for the GM, and to create a more focused or cohesive experience for the players.

4. Don't Ruin the Mood

People go to see movies for the kind of movie it promises to be. An action movie that's just sad and doesn't have very much action would be disappointing. Now imagine going to see a horror move that has 15 minutes of good, uninterrupted comedy that breaks all the tension. Imagine going to comedy that has 15 minutes of uninterrupted violence and gore that leaves you feeling too disgusted to enjoy the rest of the humor. Some people think a TTRPG has room for everything, but for me, these are examples of ruining the mood. Tell your players to be considerate of the mood of a scene or situation, especially when the focus is on another player character. Tell your players the kind of mood or overall tone you want for your game. Do you want a game with a more serious tone like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, or do you want a game with a whacky fun tone like a Marvels movie or even some cartoon. Tell your players to make a character who suits the tone of the game.

5. Compatible Playstyles

This is a response to the famous excuse "I'm just playing my character TM". Every player plays differently. Your playstyle describes more than what your fantastic race / background / class is, but also how you play it. Define how you want your players to play the game from the beginning. I want the players to have cooperative playstyles, but I find too often that there are players who have made characters who not cooperative. They make crazy, loner, mischievous, selfish, greedy, or violent characters. The intent may be innocent, but the effect is that their playstyle is incompatible with others' if not antagonistic. They inevitably complicate or ruin a scene or goal for another player and spoil the fun for them. The offending player provides the famous excuse TM, and they avoid taking responsibility or making changes to their playstyle. Don't give your players the opportunity to even make that character. At character creation, tell your players they need to make a character who can work as part of a team and play collaboratively. Suggest that the players all make characters who are morally compatible or who share the same beliefs, values, or goals.

There you go. These five rules should stop your players from making that chaotic neutral cyborg ninja turtle-kin from the future who multiclassed into batman and power rangers and who worships the god of math and speaks in the third person using a Jersey accent and he loves eating mustard by itself. As a bonus sixth tip, tell your players they need to make a likable character, and that is a concept itself that will have to be defined, but most importantly it means don't make an asshole or a dick.

Adventures, Not Campaigns

Adventures, Not Campaigns TM means planning and playing your TTRPG one small adventure at a time, not anticipating a grand finale and following a long six-month to a year plan to get there.

I don't know where this game will be in 10, 12, 15, or 20 levels. I don't even know if we'll all be playing for that long. I only want to plan enough content for 1 to 2, maybe 3 levels at a time. Maybe just the next session. I'm not saving my good ideas for when everyone is level 18. If I promise a dragon or a lich or a colossus, I'm putting that in now, not later. I'm not making the players fatten themselves up for 7 to 10 levels on the side content first. The main show is what's on tap, with side content available for curious or ambitious characters.

This is the promise of Adventures, Not Campaigns TM.

Players and the GM need to discuss what sounds fun right now, and the GM needs to prep that content. Once the players finish that, then we can discuss what sounds like fun next. This also gives us the ability to pivot more easily. If someone loses interest in the current conflict, or if more interesting conflict arises somewhere else, someone joins or leaves the group, we can adjust more easily.  Expectations can be met more regularly. Boring intermittent sessions can be avoided. The sessions will be focused on the immediate goals, not some major cataclysm one and a half years from now.

Here's how this works:

• First, the GM creates a local setting consisting of one town, one dungeon, and a wilderness in between, with room for expansion.
• Then, players create characters from the setting, with a goal, either short-term or long-term.
• The GM prepares the setting and the people in it, not the story. The setting will have:
• One major goal, possible minor goals on the side. Ways for the players to learn about them.
• One major obstacle, possible minor obstacles on the way.
• A reward or other motivation for the goal. 
• May also contain a condition such as a time limit or another restriction. 
• This is an adventure.
• When an adventure is completed, a new adventure will be created. A campaign is a just a series of adventures.

When I think about Curse of Strahd for 5e for example, I think "cool, let's fight Strahd", but in reality, we start off at level 1 or 3 and we do all the side content for several months until we're bulky enough for Strahd, then we fight Strahd! That doesn't sound like fun. Strahd should be an adventure, and the other stuff should be optional content. If Curse of Strahd was the Village of Barovia, Castle Ravenloft, and the wilderness in between, and if everything else was optional content, what percentage of people would pursue the optional content? How much optional content would they pursue? If you're playing your character, you want out of Barovia. Play your character and kill Strahd.

Elements of Story for GMs

GENRE
Fantasy and Science-Fiction are genres of fiction which describe the kinds of stories that we tell. Once the boundaries and limitations of the fantastic or sci-fi are established for a piece of fiction, the rest of the fiction can be assumed to resemble our real world. This makes up the internal logic of the particular fiction. In effect, just because something is fiction, doesn't mean anything goes. Breaking the internal logic is what fandoms call violating cannon, and it can cause disappointment. I don't know what expectations other people have when they hear generic fantasy, so leave your expectations behind.

TONE
Tone means the mood or atmosphere of the story. Take horror for example. Most horror tries to be scary and unsettling. If a horror film included something that does not compliment scary and unsettling, that could ruin the mood and spoil the experience for some. Tone can vary in type or intensity from scene to scene, but if the GM sets an overall tone for the game, create a character who suits the overall tone. The wrong action or speech (or overly optimized player character) can break desired tension of a scene or conflict at the expense of someone's enjoyment.

SETTING
The setting of the fiction has its own societies, mythologies, and history, and has its own rules, internal consistency, and internal logic. A setting is a further refinement of the genre and tone. Some settings are seemingly all-inclusive hodgepodges featuring the most popular concepts of a genre and have broader appeal, but they can be overwhelming and force people to play with ideas they don't like. Some settings are more curated and distinct with niche appeal, but they can be too restricting in their effort to focus on ideas that are more cohesive together. Tips for fitting into a setting: avoid pop-culture references and anachronisms; pick a modest name; pick a place of origin within the setting and learn one fact about the climate, society, politics, economics, religion, and military (or CSPERM).

THEME

Theme means an idea that is consistent in all parts of a work of fiction. Using one major theme in a setting, or a major location in the setting, can make the world or that part of the world has a consistent feel. In storytelling, the theme must be a commentary on the human condition, such as a particular human flaw or weakness, or the disadvantages having too much of one good trait.

CHARACTERS

The GM portrays the people who live in the setting. A simple character has a name, a job, a single word describing their general attitude, a simple physical description, and we assume they are otherwise a typical person for the setting. Most NPCs will be simple. A complex character has something they want and a reason why they want it (a goal and a motive). Major NPCs may be simple or complex. 

Provide the players with three archetypical NPCs: A patron who can give them work for rewards, a mentor or ally who can give them knowledge and tools to complete their objectives, and an antagonist who opposes their goals. Typically, your players will not care about your NPCs half as much as they care about their own PCs, and so your NPCs should be in service of the PCs.

CONFLICT

A story is about how the heroes resolve a conflict. In order to have interesting conflict, you need three things. First, you need a sympathetic point-of-view character, usually called a hero, with a goal. We need to know why the goal is important to the hero. Second, you need a more powerful opponent who opposes the hero's goal. The opponent must have the desire and the power to stop the hero in order to be threatening and to create a sensation of uncertainty. Third, there must be consequences for failure which creates tension, which we call the stakes. If the hero fails and nothing happens, that's boring. Why would the hero and the player who is portraying the hero care? To create conflict, follow this process:

1. Ask what the player character's goal is. Figure out why is it important. Bonus: Make it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Make sure the player knows that if they fail, there won't be as good an opportunity for a while.

2. Create a tough NPC who functionally stops the hero from achieving their goal. The nastier the opponent, the better. Bonus: Find a way to make the relationship between the hero and opponent personal.

3. Add consequences for failure. The more severe, the better. Bonus: make the stakes personal for the hero.

CENTRAL TENSION

Absolutely put one of these in your setting! A central tension is a single major conflict that permeates entire setting, like a major change in government or religion, a new major war, a recent or looming disaster, etc. Now give every NPC an opinion on the central tension. Just like in real life, some people are opposed to war, some support it, some have mixed feelings. People holding the same positions can have differing, personal reasons for their positions. It will make the setting feel like it has depth, and it will add complexity to your non-player characters.

Rules for Character Creation

Characters must suit the setting and tone of the game.

• Be mindful that playing a joke character when the everyone is trying to have serious tone, or vice versa, can ruin the mood and spoil others fun.
• Bring a fantasy character to a fantasy, bring an adventurer to an adventurer, etc.
• Your character is from the setting, and so your character would have values and beliefs of a typical person in the setting, not modern-day earth.

Characters must be able to work as a team. 

• The intent is to foster collaborative playstyles rather than adversarial playstyles. Consider creating a character who is either a friend or family of another player character, or an ally with common loyalties, goals, and/or values.
• No anti-heroes, loner characters, or overly greedy or selfish characters.
• The character's morality or alignment must not be incompatible with the party.
• Don't commit to your character's quirks to the party's detriment.

You are an ordinary person from the setting.

• An ordinary person means a regular dude, not a caricature or parody
• You do not start out great or heroic but have the opportunity to earn greatness.

No backstories.

• The first few play sessions will be your backstory where an opportunity or conflict has come along, and now you're an adventurer.
• All participants begin the story with the same information and understanding, which can help manage expectations. They learn about the world together and figure it out together.
• Character's change over time can be better appreciated because each of them will be a point of comparison to the others.
• This is also about simplicity; the GM does not have to weave multiple backstories together.

Characters must be ambitious.

• Each character needs a long-term goal, and they need to pursue their goal through play. Work with your GM to create a goal for your character that you think is fun and that suits the game.
• Simple goals are great. Finding treasure or solving a mystery are excellent goals.
• The intent of PC goals is to make sure that the GM is preparing content that the players find interesting. 
• When a goal is achieved, the player must find a new goal for their character with input from the GM.

If your character dies, create a new one using the same rules.

• At the start of the game, create a backup character who has the similar origins and etc. as the party for cohesion, and keep them on the metaphorical bench until they need to be swapped in.
• An established NPC ally of similar experience to the players can make a great replacement PC.