Ziggurat

It was huge in the 90's with the everything you need in one book, while AD&D collections of book were too expensive for the broke kids we were.

I believe they're know at the 4th edition, and unfortunately switched to multiple books like many others publishers

This actually a pretty interesting take.

I see how it can work with experienced players ready for some experimental game, but indeed it's not something I'll do on another context for the following reason.

I don't know whey some people seems to strongly decorrelate the system from the rest of the game. The mechanic is a component of the game theme and mood and a good pairing Setting/System is important. To be cliché you're not going to use D&D to play Chtulhu unless you want to do a dungeon crawling agaisnt Mi-go

Many players don't have a feeling about which game mechanic they can come with

This kind of discussion works if you have a lot of time. If you're young and plan to play until dawn no matter what, sure it's fine. for a busy and married adult needing to have dinner with their SO and who plans to take the last train home to come back, you don't want to loose time with these less important questions

Wouldn't it be more !rpg@ttrpg.network rather than the rpg meme community ?

But always glad to hear about new games, now I need to tell my mind Do not buy do not buy do (not) buy

Yelling: “THE OTHER STATS ARE THERE TOO LIKE INTELLIGENCE AND STRENGTH! CHARISMA ISN’T A “POWER” AND MANY PEOPLE ACTUALLY DUMP IT BUT…”

It's not like we had any of these either

Just kidding, I know where the door is

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I started a while ago when I was young with some hand-copied extract from AD&D2 copied from the notes of my friends who copied-it on photocopies from his friend with tons of house rule/homebrew at each copy.

Then, played a lot Warhammer FRPG, and finally got some money to buy Nightprowler a french game about thieves in a large city.

I feel like the system word is too restrictive, as games comes with system + setting and it changes a lot the experience, so my favourite games would be.

Space sci-fi Fading suns with it's setting were noble house, poweful church, and guilds having the monopoly on technology struggle for politicla power over the known world

Cyberpunk sci-fi I am a bit split on that one, as much as I love the Eclipse phase setting using a variant of the D100 BRP to build a crunchy system doesn't work. and I haven't tried the transhumaniy fate's version. Therefore, I would say Cyberpunk 2020 which is one of the game I played the most

Modern investigation I would go for Chronicle of Darkness (aka nWOD 2006) it works fine, with and without supernatural elements

Horror Kult the recent divinity lost editions is pretty great, and IMO as one of the best GM section in the PBTA world which really explains how to plan a campaign using a mind-map an using PBTA consequences to make your plot move in the background.

Heroic fantasy Bloodlust which while not translated in English is pretty great. God weapons with their own lust and weak humans fighting to carry them until they find-out that they're the weapon's will toy rather than the other way around. the 2010 Metal edition has also a nice modernized system (with FATE style aspects) and all fitting in one big book

Special award 10 candles as a pretty great zero prep horror game

Special award for the whole forged in the dark family I had great experiences with these systems. While I am less fan of the gang management downtime it's a good modern intermediate between rule light and traditional systems

Indeed, that's a huge one.

Remember before streaming and VTT? You would do sketch on a white board and be happy. Some committed GM may have had a white board with a grid and copy the map from the scenario on it.

Nice textures are nice on video games, but not on rpg

I was about to comment “When one of my players asks whether they can do something completely unreasonable I look at them, roll a D20 openly on the table and without checking the result, say ‘no’”

Actually, saying no is one of weakness, so the PC wanting to do something completly unreasonable led to some pretty great player driven session or even campaign arc.

I just ask them how do you plan to do-it and suddenly the non reasonable plan becomes a suite of small reasonable tasks so I want the peace in the world, it's easy just give the love drug to world leader and they will all start to love each others, so first step is to put my hand in enough drug, the second is to get access to the water factory that will provide water at the next diplomatic summit, do you think the militaro industrial complex will be happy with this terrorist action ? OK that one is a bit extreme but you get the point, suddently the PC are the one writing the campaign and it's pretty cool.

I start,

My most "classic tip" is never lock a clue behind a roll if they need to find the love letter hidden under the bed to find-out about the affair explaining the murder, just make sure they find-it (the failed roll can still mean they are caught searching the room)

Another of my classic one is to ask players about their character friend and foes, it helps populating a setting, you have a black smith the warrior met while serving in the army or the young ambitious political advisor the bard went in a tavern fight with and gives pretty great plot hooks So your little sister is in the school witchcraft club, and looks like they summoned something too big

For one shot, I recently experimented a lot with LARP-style black boxes in order to play a scene which occurred before the game start, as it helps giving a clear view about everyone character and their ties while keeping these scenes shorts. It's IMO a good compromise between loosing time in playing mundane life to get a feel on the character, and jumping to the action with unclear character ties/roles or expectation about normality

When doing that, I follow what I saw done in LARP.

Pre-gen character, making sure that everyone has a secret, a couple of goals, and relationship with character. Then I find an "in-game" reason to keep everyone in the same-place (snow storm, hiding from the police, magical myst, on a boat), Finally, I had a couple of clues which may reveal some secrets over the game-location, and sometimes a couple of "events", but usually letting "brew" is enough to have the plot revealing and the betrayal occuring. As any game with some PvP component, keep some time for debrief/cool-down, it can be emotionally intense

As opposite to LARP, I would still have a bunch of NPC, who would also have their goal/secrets. However, I would try to keep the "big secrets" and "culprit" within the PC.

IMO it's harder to incorporate this kind of things in an exiting campaign, or you go to a more classic investigation (which are nice too),

Plot twist, they play a system the lower, the better

Looks fun, but I don't see a EU friendly shiping, so I think I am gonna pass