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Cortex Prime: Take a die for each applicable trait (traits are expressed as dice sizes), roll the whole pool and sum two highest results.

I don't have a single preferred system, so I'll pitch a few games I like, de3pending on what your issue with D&D is. Are you fine with D&D focusing on combat, but find D&D fights boring? Try Lancer. It's a SF game about mecha pilots. Lancer combat is very tactical and full of interesting...

I like how Fate handles this kind of things: as a player opt-in. There are consequences of various severity that take various amount of time to recover, from a couple of scenes to a whole story arc. There's also an optional rule for "critical consequences" that are permanent changes to a...

I definitely wouldn't put gods or other important figures of existing religions in an RPG adventure unless it was specifically set within this religion's stories. And, in this case, it would require a significant amount of research to stay faithful to the source texts and tradition if it was not...

Dungeon crawl, but with mechs.

I have set myself a monthly budget of about $15. Because I only buy PDFs and most of the games I'm interested in are significantly cheaper than D&D that's definitely enough. Averages to a game bought or rpg kickstarter supported every month - that's already more than I have a chance to play.

I think there are three factors to take into account here. The first is what the players seek in the game, what they find interesting. Forcing them to spend time and focus on things they have no interest in is a bad idea. If they want exploration and adventure, or if they want monster slaying...

I don't currently play D&D and haven't for quite a long time. The last time I did was during 5e playtest. Currently I'm running a Nobilis campaign. I have also recently ran two Pathfinder adventures and would have ran an Exalted adventure if not for the lockdown. Last but not least, I have ran...

The way we play, the game focuses strongly on the PCs, no matter how powerful and influential they are within the setting. That means that we don't "incorporate their backgrounds into the campaign", because the whole campaign is about them. It does not and cannot exist in separation from the...

I see some issues with this classification system. 1. It's unclear what it tries to classify. Game systems? Specific instances of play? Players' or game masters' preferences for a specific instance of play? Groups' social contracts? GNS would be much better received if it clearly specified what...

I don't think you can do it. Either such an organization is obviously wrong in their beliefs and serves only as a comic relief, or they can possibly be right (it doesn't matter if they fully are, just that it's something worth considering). Because if it is possible that monsters are not...

I rarely "hate" games, because if I strongly dislike one, I just don't play it, so I don't let the feeling bloom into hatred. But there are things that make me say a hard "NO" to a game: Games that lie to me. This typically takes a form of the game being advertised or presenting itself in the...

There's a number of games that I have and want to play, but didn't yet have an opportunity, usually because people I play with are not interested in them or people are more interested in playing different games. The most important ones on my list are: Bliss Stage Bluebeard's Bride Chuubo's...

In Fate, there is stress (abstract, plot armor, resets after a scene) and consequences (specific physical and mental problems, like "broken rib" or "furious at my brother"; they need effort and time to remove). In Masks, there are five emotional conditions (angry, afraid, guilty, hopeless...

My GMing style changed several times since I started 24 years ago. For the first few years I mostly ran CoC and WoD games. It was mostly about creating mood and taking the players through stories I created, with a lot of illusionism and other railroading techniques. Most of the time, I ignored...

How wide range do you have in mind when writing "for all genres"? Both in the sense of kinds of settings and in the sense of kinds of stories. Depending on that, the attributes need to be more or less abstract, fit different thematic areas and different kinds of activities. Does the game you...

I think there is a big difference between playing an explicitly evil character (where "being evil" is a central part of the concept) and exploring the limits of how far one is willing to go in various situations. My characters are, in most cases, idealists of some kind, but they are also...

It depends on the game in question. In most cases, the games I play don't have levels and have little if any interdependencies between various aspects of advancement. I have a general direction in mind ("that ability looks interesting and I'd like to get it"), but I mostly follow what happens...

I don't think I have said something like the phrase in the topic in the last 10 years or so. The character belongs to their player; it's the player who decides what the character would do. Our games are about the story, but not the GM's story - they are about the story all players create...

While I agree that roleplaying romance requires some maturity from everybody involved and needs to be done responsibly, I have also seen a lot o examples of this being done successfully. This covers both PC-PC and PC-NPC pairings. I've been the GM of some such games, a player in others. Most of...