I do like TRPG, I find them fun and kind of very neat but I often hear a lot of players often say that trpg has no limits and is perfect in every way, and honestly it gets a bit grating and I was wondering if anyone notices the limitations of them.

A big one is needing other people to play, which can be very, very.. Extremely difficult, and going to public events are limited to DnD, maaaaybe Pathfinder.

Some times a lot of systems seem to require a computer or a Calculus level calculator to get the results, with different rules for multiple situations. I.E. Roll D% against the target, target is based on the current health and Intelligence vs enemy Strength and Charisma divided in thirds to grapple. Roll XD12 equal to a character's Dex vs target's Speed to shoot the handgun. Whatever is happening in Shadowrun's system…

A personal thing, but I feel like due to the rise of “rpg horror” stories I notice if you are into: Anime, furries, video games, Critical Role, comic books, and/or movies, that a lot of groups online will automatically assume the worst, and in a few cases go out of the way to make somebody's life a living hell, and pat themselves on the back when said “offender” is bullied out of the hobby.

Whatever happened to GURPS. Things were simple and supplements were available for everything. No limits, just simple game play. Runequest/Call of Cthulhu system was similar. Simple clean system and it's all about imagination and game play.


I want a super realistic battle system join the military. There you even get paid for playing (everybody gets paid, no having to be ubergamer) but as a hobby? No thanks.

And there's a whole industry making miniatures. I made a bunch of money off it building and painting commission work and fortunately got in with a few people where I pursued OOAK odd projects like Austro-Hungarian WW1 cavalry.

Now you can keep it.

I just posted this subject else where, and instantly I was dog piled with “TRPGs are perfect! There is no flaws!”

Along with the constant of “you can always change the rules!”

Well.. I can also just write a rule set from scratch, and honestly I had when I was very disappointed with the hundreds of trpgs on the market becoming more and more complex, geared towards “realism” (read grimdark) and more and more hyper focused on the setting of medieval England, stripping out elements of fantasy.

Honestly after trying to make a trpg about humans who wake up transformed into toons that have to deal with the eldritch abomination audience, recently made toon tools and trying to hang onto what few strings of normality they had I found it might be the right medium.

And I had failed badly trying to make one that focused on sex to resolve fights rather then spilling blood and guts, only to find it is just utterly impossible.

Also I think combat will never be equal to other media because, well, everyone gets a turn and the GM has to act, react, counter and work out everything.

And to be honest, I like visual media and stimuli. Let's take the Lies of P trailer as an example, just telling me about how Pinocchio is walking down the street all badass while his blade is sliding against the metal creating sparks while facing down some mechanical monstrosity might be interesting but actually seeing it, that gets my attention.

It is a problem I have with written media is there is too much details that bogs down the mood, or so thin that it if I throw up into the air it would get stuck up there.

And now you know why so many TRPG campaigns have been turned into comics over the years. I want to do those visuals!


Poof a comic is born.

Also people liking visuals and liking to touch stuff can get into the miniatures. Recreate a whole world in 25mm with dungeons, streets and whatever.

The thing with RPGs is the freedom. But freedom includes freedom to be dogmatic to rules or tradition or to be an asshat. I've made my own systems a number of times and tailer them to the need of the game. Complex/rigid/flexible/streamlined, whatever suits the game and group. There is fun to be had in all forms. That said I don't get involved in online groups or overly embrace random people's opinions. That way lies bad JuJu. Find a like minded group of folks if you can and enjoy and don't let others ruin it for you.

The thing is you don't need to reinvent the wheel and make your own system. That was the wonder of GURPS. Generic Universal Role Playing System. Pieces could be incorporated into other systems and it had the basic pieces to do ANYTHING. No design necessary. I adapted the magic system into another system with no problem. Another game master adapted various source books into Call of Cthulhu campaign. We went to the Island in the Prisoner and interstellar warfare.

The Chaosium systems were like that. You could blend Elric into Runequest and Call of Cthulhu. So you could have highly charged magical weapons to fight the Mythos monsters on equal footing. Also easily convert GURPS into the Chaosium systems. I was first generation coming into it when D&D was three little booklets in a box in 1977.

But then I did totally customize my D&D system adding all kinds of bits to get a more flexible combat system. Percentage dice and you can do anything. Dragon magazine was great for that. Even made custom classes for my game world.

But then realized, why write all the preparations and play when I could just write the whole story. And so was born my first webcomic.

Indeed I always heard good things about gurps but never used it at all. back when I was role playing a lot I couldn't find any book anywhere.

bravo1102 wrote:
I was first generation coming into it when D&D was three little booklets in a box in 1977.

I got into TTRPGs in 1978, playing the Arduin Grimoire system written by David Hargrave. I did a few illustrations for those books when I was a teen-ager.
I never owned any of the D&D books. It was all just me and my friends making up our own rules. 40 years later, I'm still doing a few illustrations for TTRPG publishers here and there, but I'm not playing the games any more. I'd rather just write the stories out as comics.