Quote from: yosemitemike on December 20, 2023, 02:21:17 AM

Quote from: daft on December 18, 2023, 01:52:55 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 17, 2023, 11:46:51 PM
The only game I am running right now is 5e.  I have three ongoing 5e campaigns.  I used to run quite a bit of Call of Cthulhu but it was becoming increasingly difficult to get reliable players for it.  I may go back to it in the future.  I have a ton of games I would like to run but I don't have the time or players to do it.  I might run a short Dragonbane campaign after the holidays are over.

I have been in and out of RPGs for years now, and haven't been able to play reliably since I was a teenager (46 now), and I really like CoC and Warhammer Fantasy 4e and Dragonbane (only have the quick start rules but grew up on the Swedish original). When I look around it seems almost impossible to find online games for them at reasonable times. D&D and derivatives are the absolute majority.

Whenever I try to run anything else these days, I get a couple of people who are very enthusiastic and that's it.  I'm not at all confident that I can even get enough people for Dragonbane and that one is relatively well-known now.  Call of Cthulhu used to reliably draw people but not so much any more.  I just gave up on getting enough people for Ryuutama.

It's really frustrating. I don't particularly like D&D and it's derivatives, and would love to play Dragonbane or WFRP 4E, but it's close to impossible finding games online. D&D is so incredibly dominant. I did run CoC for some friends years ago, but that was the last time I played.

Currently playing Fabula Ultima.  My to-play stack is about two feet tall.  :-(

Quote from: zircher on December 28, 2023, 01:51:23 AM
Currently playing Fabula Ultima.  My to-play stack is about two feet tall.  :-(

How is Fabula Ultima? I've seen it around a few times and I'm curious to know. I've been looking at that and Anima as an anime TTRPG system.

I'm having a lot of fun with it.  It's pretty good at capturing that JRPG feel without being a slavish simulation of it.  It's open enough in its world building and themes to capture of lot styles which allows itself to be easily tailored to the group.

Quote from: daft on December 28, 2023, 01:34:36 AM
It's really frustrating. I don't particularly like D&D and it's derivatives, and would love to play Dragonbane or WFRP 4E, but it's close to impossible finding games online. D&D is so incredibly dominant. I did run CoC for some friends years ago, but that was the last time I played.

Boy you said it, brother. I went looking for new games to join recently, and if you don't want to play 5e or Pathfinder2, the pickings are slim indeed. It wasn't like this a year or two ago, but the COVID RPG bubble has well and truly burst.

The bad news is that if you want to play anything unusual online, you're probably going to have to run it yourself. The good news is that if you do, you can usually still find players. There's always someone browsing the "other games" category in Roll20. I've had decent luck getting players for my campaigns, so long as I make it clear that they don't need to own the rulebooks or have any prior knowledge of the game.

Incidentally, there was some talk of adding an LFG thread to this forum a while back. I don't think it'd see a huge amount of traffic. This is a pretty small forum and most of the posters seem to be in-person gamers only, but I still think it'd be worthwhile.

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 28, 2023, 01:00:06 PM

Quote from: daft on December 28, 2023, 01:34:36 AM
It's really frustrating. I don't particularly like D&D and it's derivatives, and would love to play Dragonbane or WFRP 4E, but it's close to impossible finding games online. D&D is so incredibly dominant. I did run CoC for some friends years ago, but that was the last time I played.

Boy you said it, brother. I went looking for new games to join recently, and if you don't want to play 5e or Pathfinder2, the pickings are slim indeed. It wasn't like this a year or two ago, but the COVID RPG bubble has well and truly burst.

Heh, that's why I moved on to solo gaming several years back.  Finding reliable players for the games that I wanted was nigh impossible.  If you have the mind set and patience for it, it can be a god send.  The tools and technologies has evolved way past the old T&T solo adventure days.

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 28, 2023, 01:00:06 PM

Quote from: daft on December 28, 2023, 01:34:36 AM
It's really frustrating. I don't particularly like D&D and it's derivatives, and would love to play Dragonbane or WFRP 4E, but it's close to impossible finding games online. D&D is so incredibly dominant. I did run CoC for some friends years ago, but that was the last time I played.

Boy you said it, brother. I went looking for new games to join recently, and if you don't want to play 5e or Pathfinder2, the pickings are slim indeed. It wasn't like this a year or two ago, but the COVID RPG bubble has well and truly burst.

The bad news is that if you want to play anything unusual online, you're probably going to have to run it yourself. The good news is that if you do, you can usually still find players. There's always someone browsing the "other games" category in Roll20. I've had decent luck getting players for my campaigns, so long as I make it clear that they don't need to own the rulebooks or have any prior knowledge of the game.

Incidentally, there was some talk of adding an LFG thread to this forum a while back. I don't think it'd see a huge amount of traffic. This is a pretty small forum and most of the posters seem to be in-person gamers only, but I still think it'd be worthwhile.

It seems to me to have been like this for about four years now. I first experienced the "5E or nothing else" crowd in 2019 locally. When I moved a a large city (Houston) last year, I thought that might finally change. Nope. Just MORE people playing ONLY 5E.

HECK, it wasn't until I found a full-time job back in the town I ran from that I even noticed PF2 gaining steam on D&D, back in October. And even then, it's only through people I know and have gamed with online.

5E is pretty much dominating. What's worse is that if you mention anything else that might be different, suddenly you're pariah. Especially if it is remotely attached to OSR games. I even got a bunch of flack for promoting a potential OSE game, lol.

Being an older dude, I started with B/X and 1e in 1980/81 and have played 2e, 3e, Rolemaster, Traveller, Runequest (1e I think?.) Also played Top Secret SI a lot - had some friends back in the mid-80's who were big spy thriller fans.

These days I run a 5e campaign for my 2 adult sons and four of their friends. The current one is in Eberron and has been going since July of 2021. They're level 14 (should level up next session on NYE) and will go till about March/April.

We've been playing weekly since March of 2020. We were supposed to play in person, but our first session was literally the week of lockdown, so we switched to Skype, and now play on Zoom and use Owlbear Rodeo. Two of our players moved out of state in the interim, so online is a necessity - although over the holiday they came down and stayed with us for 2 days so we could play about 14-16 hours.

We defaulted to 5e since several of them already knew it. It gets a lot of hate, but it's a fun system I think, and fairly smooth  to run.

That said, I got them to try Dungeon Crawl Classics recently, and we finished a funnel while they were all here and now have level 1 characters for the next time we play it. They really leaned into the gonzo nature of it. One of my sons had his 4 characters names Jib, Jab, Jub, and Job, and when they went into combat, they latched back to back and spun like a beyblade into the encounter. He made sure to pull out his phone and play the music from the "spinning rat" video during their turn.

Over the last year I've picked up Blades in the Dark, Monster of the Week, Candela Obscura, OSE, and Dark Places & Demogorgons. And what do you know, my Shadowdark Kickstarter package showed up yesterday. Not to mention I got the new core books for Pathfinder 2e remastered and subscribed to the rulebooks.

So I'm hoping to test the waters on several of those systems over the next year or so.

I've also applied with our group to playtest Daggerheart and am awaiting Tales of the Valiant (jeez what a stupid name, but I love Kobold's other materials.)

Finally, our next 5e campaign (or other system if we decide to switch) will be set in Kobold Press's Midgard. A lot going on.

Quote from: Dropbear on December 28, 2023, 05:46:42 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 28, 2023, 01:00:06 PM

Quote from: daft on December 28, 2023, 01:34:36 AM
It's really frustrating. I don't particularly like D&D and it's derivatives, and would love to play Dragonbane or WFRP 4E, but it's close to impossible finding games online. D&D is so incredibly dominant. I did run CoC for some friends years ago, but that was the last time I played.

Boy you said it, brother. I went looking for new games to join recently, and if you don't want to play 5e or Pathfinder2, the pickings are slim indeed. It wasn't like this a year or two ago, but the COVID RPG bubble has well and truly burst.

It seems to me to have been like this for about four years now. I first experienced the "5E or nothing else" crowd in 2019 locally. When I moved a a large city (Houston) last year, I thought that might finally change. Nope. Just MORE people playing ONLY 5E.

HECK, it wasn't until I found a full-time job back in the town I ran from that I even noticed PF2 gaining steam on D&D, back in October. And even then, it's only through people I know and have gamed with online.

5E is pretty much dominating. What's worse is that if you mention anything else that might be different, suddenly you're pariah. Especially if it is remotely attached to OSR games. I even got a bunch of flack for promoting a potential OSE game, lol.

Speaking only from my own experience, of course, but when I started looking for online games to join in April of 2021, it was considerably easier to find non-5e games than it is now. I remember being essentially spoiled for choice. That's not to say 5e wasn't still the dominant game; it was. But the mere fact that there were more games total meant more people were playing other games. Based on what I see in the Roll20 and Foundry LFG listings, there's been a significant uptick of Pathfinder 2 games, especially since the OGL situation, and noticeably in comparison to Pathfinder 1. When I was looking three years ago, Pathfinder 1 and 2 games seemed to be almost evenly split, but Pathfinder 2 is thoroughly more dominant now.

At the same time, there's been a drying up of games outside of the D&D-derived paradigm. Ironically, after 5e and Pathfinder 2, I'd say OSR games are the easiest to find. If you're looking, you can pretty much always find an OSE or Castles & Crusades game looking for players on Roll20. What seems to have changed is the diversity of OSR games. All I see posted are those two and DCC.* Lamentations, OSRIC, Hyperborea, and the other "2nd tier" OSR games all have noticeably diminished VTT footprints from what they did in 2020.

*(not counting people who are playing actual old editions of TSR D&D. You still see a fair bit of that.)

I should specify that this is only based on what I see online. The home group/game store scenes are probably totally different.

EDIT: fixed an incorrect date and changed some formatting.

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 28, 2023, 01:00:06 PM

Quote from: daft on December 28, 2023, 01:34:36 AM
It's really frustrating. I don't particularly like D&D and it's derivatives, and would love to play Dragonbane or WFRP 4E, but it's close to impossible finding games online. D&D is so incredibly dominant. I did run CoC for some friends years ago, but that was the last time I played.

Boy you said it, brother. I went looking for new games to join recently, and if you don't want to play 5e or Pathfinder2, the pickings are slim indeed. It wasn't like this a year or two ago, but the COVID RPG bubble has well and truly burst.

The bad news is that if you want to play anything unusual online, you're probably going to have to run it yourself. The good news is that if you do, you can usually still find players. There's always someone browsing the "other games" category in Roll20. I've had decent luck getting players for my campaigns, so long as I make it clear that they don't need to own the rulebooks or have any prior knowledge of the game.

Incidentally, there was some talk of adding an LFG thread to this forum a while back. I don't think it'd see a huge amount of traffic. This is a pretty small forum and most of the posters seem to be in-person gamers only, but I still think it'd be worthwhile.

Trying to find a group to play the Dragon Age RPG is near impossible, and I mean that's just in person. I might have to throw a hook out on Roll20 and see what I can get. It's hard to believe it's that dead of a game.

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 29, 2023, 12:43:34 AM

Speaking only from my own experience, of course, but when I started looking for online games to join in April of 2021, it was considerably easier to find non-5e games than it is now.

I can tell you that I used to have a pretty easy time finding players for CoC but that's not the case any more. 

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 28, 2023, 01:00:06 PM

Quote from: daft on December 28, 2023, 01:34:36 AM
It's really frustrating. I don't particularly like D&D and it's derivatives, and would love to play Dragonbane or WFRP 4E, but it's close to impossible finding games online. D&D is so incredibly dominant. I did run CoC for some friends years ago, but that was the last time I played.

Boy you said it, brother. I went looking for new games to join recently, and if you don't want to play 5e or Pathfinder2, the pickings are slim indeed. It wasn't like this a year or two ago, but the COVID RPG bubble has well and truly burst.

The bad news is that if you want to play anything unusual online, you're probably going to have to run it yourself. The good news is that if you do, you can usually still find players. There's always someone browsing the "other games" category in Roll20. I've had decent luck getting players for my campaigns, so long as I make it clear that they don't need to own the rulebooks or have any prior knowledge of the game.

Incidentally, there was some talk of adding an LFG thread to this forum a while back. I don't think it'd see a huge amount of traffic. This is a pretty small forum and most of the posters seem to be in-person gamers only, but I still think it'd be worthwhile.

Yeah, an annoyance for sure, and I don't really feel compelled to try OSR or other D&D-likes either as I am not too keen on the system. We'll see if I manage to try Dragonbane in person. Recently got in touch with my best friend from childhood, and we used to play the Swedish original Drakar och Demoner as kids. We haven't talked in years, but apparently he bought Dragonbane in an unsuccessful attempt to play with his kids, but we might give it a try instead.

That said, it seems we are a few on here looking for alternatives. Maybe we can get something going online?

Publishing-wise, I'm really into Savage Worlds at the moment, and I'm trying to learn more Pathfinder 2e as I make a careful tactical retreat from D&D 5e. I've submitted some GURPS stuff but haven't heard back lately. I still participate pretty regular on the DC Heroes list, for the old Mayfair system. Oh, and I just published probably the first commercial True20 compatible release in over a decade.

Just in terms of what's on my bookshelf, I'd like to give Dragonbane a whirl, but haven't yet, really. I keep picking up Champions and Fantasy Hero to read and admire, but it's bee a while since I've been in a game of it. I'd still play D&D 5e if I were invited to someone's table. I think Champions Now would be a lot of fame. Warhammer 2e is there, too; I'd want the right kind of group.

Pondering my own 3e-inspired game project. Also a supers system, uniting some of the concepts I like from DC Heroes and from Champions.

I've been thinking a lot about miniatures lately, and the tactile appeal of games. I used to do a lot of mapless gaming when I was a kid, not the least because I couldn't afford a lot of miniatures. Yet I always envied those wondrous looking piles of minis people had. Cool dice are one thing, but I think minis and book art are something I keep going back to at this point.

Well, I caved and ordered the Dragonbane box and the Enemy in Shadows Companion (for WFRP 4E) last night. Only have to get them to the table now.

Quote from: pawsplay on December 29, 2023, 06:46:54 PM

I've been thinking a lot about miniatures lately, and the tactile appeal of games. I used to do a lot of mapless gaming when I was a kid, not the least because I couldn't afford a lot of miniatures. Yet I always envied those wondrous looking piles of minis people had. Cool dice are one thing, but I think minis and book art are something I keep going back to at this point.

I got myself some Necrons and Ultramarines last Christmas together with the Warhammer 40k Core Rules. I really enjoy the lore and painting the models. Haven't even played once yet though, as I really don't have anyone to play with. I really enjoyed the painting part though and will get back to it soon, no doubt. The interesting thing is that it can be a very satisfying hobby just immersing yourself in lore and painting minis.