ttRPGs and collaborative storytelling games

[NumberOneSpinelApologist]

I'd post this in the arcade but this is not about video games.
Do we have any fellow pen and paper (or dicebot and spreadsheet LOL) RPG fans here?
What systems are you fond of?

Like many, I started off with DND and warhammer, but have since graduated. I personally am a huge fan of PbtA and FitD games in various flavours.
I never played anything in the PbF format, so I am curious to try it....

We have an RP section over here:

Roleplaying Signups and Discussion

Want to collaborate on a story with your friends? Or maybe you want to make some new friends through roleplaying? Here's your place to get started!

bulbagarden.net

 

[WholesomeCryptid]

I love TTRPGs a lot! I'm currently in a DND 5e campaign right now (playing a noble human fighter who is accidentally becoming a disney princess its great), but i've played other systems such as MOTW and Pathfinder in the past and would love to return to them eventually one day. For me personally my favorite part of TTRPGs is the roleplaying and collaborative storytelling side of things.

 

[NumberOneSpinelApologist]

Monster of the week is fun! I ran one campaign of it and was quite satisfied with the system.
Yeah I like creating something together, and really like the structure aspect of it. A good system gives great tools appropriate for the kind of story we want to tell at the moment.
I have not played pathfinder myself, but did give GMing DND 5ed a short try, but I really tend to prefer more rules lite systems.
My first campaign I gmed was DND 3.5 because that is what I had the book for at that time, and that was quite an interesting disaster XD

 

[Archaic]

I used to play D&D back in the AD&D 2nd Ed era. Still have all my books, together with a smattering of stuff from D&D and AD&D 1st ed (like an almost complete set of the Oriental Adventures stuff from 1st Ed). Sadly, it's the only real system I've had any time to play. I got as far as character creation once in a V:tM campaign where the group disbanded before we even got a single proper session off, and there were a lot of times where people had talked about running some games of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or Paranoia that never happened.

I've never actually played a play-by-forums game, but back in the late 90s I was in a play-by-email campaign for a good two years or so. If I did play again I'd probably prefer it to be a live game over voicechat, but I have no idea how a lot of the modern systems and setups for that really work.

 

[NumberOneSpinelApologist]

a V:tM campaign where the group disbanded before we even got a single proper

My condolences. The one vampire chronicle I ran also fizzled out in unfortunate circumstances

Paranoia

That is the one game I always wanted to run but never had any players who wanted to. I probably won't ever run it in the end since it is...designed to be intense.

have no idea how a lot of the modern systems and setups for that really work.

There is a dicebot for everything these days. My group uses those.plus spreadsheets to track character stuff. There is of course dedicated programs for most systems but I never used those... It is probably good for crunchy games so the gm does not have to track stuff manually

 

[CrinkTheBunny]

I've played DnD a few times and enjoyed it!!!! Unfortunately it was in a loud, chaotic group setting so I couldn't actually do much role-playing/storytelling, but I'm hoping I can play with just my friends soon (which would also be chaotic ofc but it's my chaos yk?) I've always loved role-playing in general honestly :3

 

[Tera-Mustard]

I use a dicebot or Google's dice roller if the site does not use a built in roller like ddb.

 

[Mialentia]

I would play a TTRPG, but I really don't have anyone to play any with. I played some in high school with a group of friends I've since lost, and I enjoyed it a lot, especially the character-building aspects.

 

[NumberOneSpinelApologist]

really don't have anyone to play any with

As much of a...uh...place... that reddit is, the various LFG subreddits there always were a pretty decent place to look for a group.
My advice in this situation would be to find people who want to play the same things you want to play, rather than convincing existing friends /acquaintances to play. They will all have different tastes etc.
Edit: if they dont want to run a session zero or fill out consent sheets, run away though lol

Or you could join a pbf game..over here..on our forums...nudge nudge

 

[Mialentia]

As much of a...uh...place... that reddit is, the various LFG subreddits there always were a pretty decent place to look for a group.
My advice in this situation would be to find people who want to play the same things you want to play, rather than convincing existing friends /acquaintances to play. They will all have different tastes etc.
Edit: if they dont want to run a session zero or fill out consent sheets, run away though lol

Or you could join a pbf game..over here..on our forums...nudge nudge

I don't think I'd be comfortable playing with strangers... I'd just get really stressed out haha

What's a pbf?

 

[NumberOneSpinelApologist]

I don't think I'd be comfortable playing with strangers... I'd just get really stressed out haha

What's a pbf?

That is fair.

Pbf means play by forum. So RPG but asynchronous.

 

[Bantigon]

I've been craving DnD for some time now but I would be a liar if I were to say I've actually participated in one before

 

[NumberOneSpinelApologist]

I've been craving DnD for some time now but I would be a liar if I were to say I've actually participated in one before

Well, let's promote your game here then.
Everyone: Play. With. Us.
!!!!!

Thread 'Bantigon's Micro D&D - Turn 13'

Jun 26, 2026

TL;DR, A short, unserious, D&D.

This type of RPG is similar to D&D, however it is a far shorter project, taking around a week, and no longer than 2 weeks.

Spoiler: Gameplay

The gameplay is that each player (going in no particular order, but only once per turn) will attempt an action. Actions can be anything from Persuasion to Lockpicking to Battling. The key part is that your success will be decided by a wheel on a scale of 1-20.

This project will include myself, and 3-5 other players.

Sign Ups: You may choose:

• Up to 2 stats to increase & decrease
• Game Theme Suggestion (or vote)...

• Bantigon
• Replies: 95
• Forum: Roleplaying Signups and Discussion

 

[kintsugi]

I technically played my first game of D&D 12 years ago, but my first real one started in like 2021. It was pretty magical and the campaign is still kicking!

I finished DM'ing a ~70 session campaign in d&d 5th edition that went for about three years and was a ton of fun; admittedly, it took a lot of time and creative energy so I've been way more chill about it now. Currently I DM a home game that's kind of bastard 5th edition with Pokemon mechanics/partnership (tldr, everyone is a warlock/paladin and you get your powers by swearing pacts to different Pokemon. this is an elaborate ruse for me to show off my ominous tarot cards). It's a ton of fun but god yeah at some point I should just bite the bullet and try a different system than D&D lol.

I do empathize deeply with the horror of playing with strangers--I think unfortunately "no TTRPG table" has been better for me than "bad TTRPG table", but I was also very fortunate to have a lot of friends who were willing to join me in this endeavor haha.

 

[NumberOneSpinelApologist]

should just bite the bullet and try a different system than D&D lol.

You should LOL. As a GM it was what gave me freedom. There is a multum of so many great systems that are actually easier to run and prep for and give perfect tools for different kinds of stories...

Lukewarm take:
Everyone into ttrpgs should play more systems than just dnd. I will die on this hill.

home game that's kind of bastard 5th edition with Pokemon mechanics/partnership

I admit I am curious how you made that work.

AFAIK there are several fanmade systems made specifically for emulating the Pokémon feel, never played any though

 

[Archaic]

AFAIK there are several fanmade systems made specifically for emulating the Pokémon feel, never played any though

Now that you mention it...

I guess I wasn't thinking of it earlier because my brain didn't really lump it together with the commercial games like D&D, etc, but back in the day Anime Style Battling was incredibly popular across a number of Pokémon forums. On Bulbagarden, that took the form of the Bulbagarden Pokémon Anime Style Battling League (BG PASBL), which basically took over the anime forum (dedicated RP forums not being a thing back then), before getting its own dedicated section. The other main form was TPM ASB (The Pokémasters Anime Style Battling), which was much more number crunchy than PASBL, which tried to avoid giving raw numbers and percentages of how people's Pokémon were doing in favour of just giving text descriptions of things.

I actually took part in the very first ASB battle ever held (on the original UPN forums), and the v2 rules I wrote when we brought the game to Bulbagarden following the death of the original UPN were the foundation of pretty much every form of PASBL since then. I don't think there's been a proper active PASBL forum in years though. Maybe that's something people might be interested in trying again...

 

[kintsugi]

You should LOL. As a GM it was what gave me freedom. There is a multum of so many great systems that are actually easier to run and prep for and give perfect tools for different kinds of stories...

Lukewarm take:
Everyone into ttrpgs should play more systems than just dnd. I will die on this hill.

nah you're totally right! unfortunately my friends and I all know 5e mostly. as soon as one of us crumbles, I think it's over lol. Open to suggestions--I do like running pretty gritty combat with weird raid boss/puzzle mechanics, and I also like running extended roleplay, which in my experience is kind of never wrapped up in one system (entirely understandably).

I admit I am curious how you made that work.

AFAIK there are several fanmade systems made specifically for emulating the Pokémon feel, never played any though

Yeah, I've tried the PMD one and also Pokemon 5e. I found both kind of messy; P5e I thought was specifically really weird about its switch mechanics (trainers have teams of Pokemon in this one) making combat kind of insane (imagine if each player was actually 4 different clerics and picked between 38 spells each combat), and the exploration/skills was kind of weirdly done. I think it also really cemented for me how boring it must be for Misty to watch all of Ash's battles from the sides. It's entirely possible we did the rules wrong ofc and this is commentary from around 2020.

Mine is mostly just 5e--players are basically gjinkas, so your supernatural feats come from your pacted pokemon. Enemy combatants are typically reskinned monsters (either Pokemon or enemy pacted humans). I loosely put a type chart in there that mostly just lets you roll a ton of dice, since 2x/4x would be fucking busted in ttrpg.

 

[WholesomeCryptid]

i really wanna play a pokemon ttrpg one day but unfortunately for me i my ttrpg friends arent huge pokemon fans and my pokemon friends have never played a ttrpg before! i'd happily join a game if i saw someone hosting one at a time i was free though!

 

[NumberOneSpinelApologist]

Open to suggestions

Depends on what kind of mood and setting you want to emulate.
There is a couple of nice all purpose ones, like FATE (accelerated version should be most accessible). It is a little abstract but also you can do whatever you want with it.
There is also the Cypher system, based on numenera
And Genesys.

Admittedly, I always preferred social combat to dungeon combat LOL so none of my recs are geared towards very very crunchy combat.
One system that pays attention to rules for both social combat, hacking and normal combat is eclipse phase. Too crunchy for me but maybe for you it could be ok? It is posthumanist SciFi though haha

v2 rules

Are the rules still available around here?

 

[Archaic]

Are the rules still available around here?

The BG PASBL predates me taking over as Bulbagarden webmaster, so all the old threads are lost to time. I have full backups of all the rules and the old rules website that I could share though. Mind you, if people were interested in it, I'd probably want to re-write a few things to strip out some early 2000s cringe and simplify things. ^^;