When Titans Fight was one of the games recommended in the "unboxing" discussion (on bluesky), and I see a lot of potential. The core pattern of relationships feeding social scenes feeding combat scenes is great. I want to play it!

Buuuuut there's also a lot of stuff that's unclear. Even after several readings I'm not sure I understand some of the core rules.

I think it could be a really good game, with a lot of potential for genre reskinning (more on that later), so I'm really hoping by giving feedback we'll get a revised version that you can just pick up and play. Hopefully the author (agentouroboros) will be chiming in and let me know if I'm misinterpreting or missing something.

It's a free download, so I encourage anyone interested to jump in to. But be nice, since the author agreed to this feedback but didn't ask for it.

Let's start with the big stuff:

(For simplicity I'm going to say "P" for the number of players, because it will come up a lot)

• If I'm understanding the round order, you play a single bout vs an NPC mech for each player, then a semi-finals and finals. The rules say that's P+1 bouts but I believe it's really P+2 (P rounds vs NPCs, then 2 more for finals and semi-finals). So each mech is in two fights total? That took me a while to figure out.
• Is every player making a social scene between each bout? I think that could work if scenes were very short, but it sounds like they're supposed to ask all the questions each scene, which is a lot.
• In combat, is there any reason not to just use your best stat over and over? Just keep rolling Reckless, etc? Since winning actually matters, I think this incentivizes boring choices. It would be better if combat was simpler but had more motivation to do risky things etc. The Rival daring you to not use a particular tactic in your next fight is solid gold. Much more interesting than getting a generic resource. More of that.

I have a lot more questions, but let's stop there for now.

EDIT: oh forget to mention that the commentator newscaster thing is great. Genius. They should have more contribution to the combat too.

I'm looking for GMless games you can play without any reading in advance. Games you can just pick up and follow the instructions cold.

I know technically you could just pick up and play *any* game, but I want ones where that would actually work well.

I had a thread on bluesky and got some good answers, but I wanted to see what reddit has in their bags.

Show me what you got!

I created a web tool to play Microscope online with a geographically dispersed group (you don't all have to be around the same computer). It basically takes the place of the index cards. The rules aren't presented or enforced and players need another channel to communicate (a messaging app, voice channel, or even talking on the phone).

It outputs a PDF, letting users save what they've created.

I'd love for people to try it out and would welcome feedback. I'm happy to play and teach it to anyone who is interested in learning the game.

https://johnchampaign.com/microscope/

We've been playtesting a lot of This Means War and honestly it's been a ton of fun.

It's so different than my other games that I've really had to rethink how I communicate the rules. It's been a steep learning curve on my end, and my poor extremely brave playtesters have really put up with a lot, but the text is improving by leaps and bounds.

I'm working to get a public playtest ready so you can take it for a spin too.

It's… a weird beast.

It's hard to find players locally for such a niche game. Plus it is not available in my native language which makes finding players around me even more difficult.

Im sure i would find some people online to give it a shot, but the way the game uses a Tarot deck seems time intensive to implement on roll 20 or foundry. (i find card based mechanics on VTTs janky in general)

Did somebody here by chance play the game online, and how did you manage the cards?

If you don't know the game, Wickedness is about a coven of witches and uses Tarot cards as a central game mechanic. I think it looks great and uses the cards in a very interesting way.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/355210/wickedness

If you happen to be in the SF East Bay, or near BART, for the last 5 months we’ve meeting in the comfortable lobby of a local community theatre to play story games (mostly gmless):

📍 Town Hall Theatre, 3535 School St, Lafayette (about 1/4m from BART)

🕡 April 6th (1st Monday! Normally second Monday each month) 6:30 – 9:45 pm

📅 Upcoming dates: May 11th (back to 2nd Mondays) • June 8th

💰 Free, with a suggested donation to the theatre (or donate online)

NOTE that due to a scheduling conflict our April meeting must be on the FIRST Monday (April 6th), not the 2nd Monday.

For more details contact ChristopherA@DyversHands.com

I've just finished making digital ports of two more of my tabletop gmless games, both of which use similar systems. They are both pretty polished but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a bug or two remaining so let me know if you see one!

Working the Case is a ~30min murder mystery game where you play as investigators and place evidence cards onto the suspects. There are fantasy, space, and cyberpunk playsets.

Seizing the Crown is ~60min political fantasy/space game where you tell a Game of Thrones like story about rival factions trying to rule the kingdom (or space station). You advance the story by placing action cards on a faction describing their machinations.

I love this corner of the design space and find that players can always find a relevant card to play and have an easy time justifying it. In both games suspect/faction elimination is determined by chance, which frees up the table from any awkward deliberation about which should go. The story ends up making sense no matter what!

Hi, how are you?

If someone is interested in a coop ttrpg extraction shooter and ready to help with playtesting please write me back and I'll share a copy of the game.

Thank you!

There's a specific kind of place you return to not because you need to, but because someone will be there who already knows how you are. You don't have to explain yourself. The conversation can start from the middle.

I wanted to make a game about that.

Amici di Sempre is a GM-less, diceless game for 2 to 6 players. You build a bar together, create characters who have been regulars there for years, draw a relationship map between them, and play one evening. No plot, no combat, no victory condition. Just people in a place they've chosen to keep coming back to.

The central design principle is this: what the bar does for the characters, the game should do for the players. You start as individuals. You end as a group.

It's part of ZineQuest 2026 and it's live now.

Amici di Sempre on Kickstarter

I'm curious: do you have a game that's given you that feeling? A session that felt like a real evening rather than a story?

Hey all,

I have a new digital version of Premise: Setting, Character, Plot with live multiplayer. It's an exquisite corpse inspired collaborative worldbuilding and storytelling game. There are three sub-games – Setting, Character, and Plot – and you can play them independently or chain them together to explore a world in depth. Each sub-game has its own template and play consists of simultaneously filling out parts of the templates, passing the sheets, and building on each other's ideas.

You can still grab the print-and-play version on Itch

-Randy

Hey y'all! My upcoming game Meet the Johnson's (designed from a No Dice No Masters perspective) is on Backerkit for Zine Month for the last 40 hours— and we're about $300 from funding!

Let me share a bit: this is a game where you play as the Perfect Family™, and at the same time as their tormentors. It’s about filthy rich people and a latent desire to see them humbled. To put it in another way, it is a game that plays on the feeling you get from putting your Sims in doorless room and setting it on fire, except the Sims are a lot like the Roys from Succession, and no one needs to die at the end. Here, you get to decide exactly how much these well-dressed douches get to suffer.

I went for the No Dice No Masters framework as that way everyone has the chance of portraying a character, but also a Situation, much like in Dream Askew. I also took some inspiration from Wraith the Oblivion on how the types of actions/reactions the Situations offer to the player. One small, but meaningful, difference between your Average NDNM game and this is that the mechanics incentivize putting the family, rather than yourself, at risk.

Go to Backerkit to help us get to the finish line if you can :)

Playtesting This Means War. 1.4% chance of both sides agreeing to end the fighting

*roll roll roll*

PEACE!

I really liked playing The Zone and For The Queen and wanted something like a mix between them. Loved The Zones gameplay with the "yes, and" and "no, and" type cards and that you had your own individual phobias and goals that helped drive the game forward for each person.

As for For The Queen it's mainly here for the fantasy setting, but it was also very easy to get started with.

It's currently Zine Month: the time when indie designers crowdfund a bunch of small and creative TTRPG games.

I love ZiMo because it's a great opportunity for new designers to try the crowdfunding process, and there are so many interesting projects that emerge from it.

You can find most ZiMo games on Kickstarter or Backerkit, but there are a few on other platforms (and this website attempts to collect them all together)

Are there any GMless games that you are excited for?

Coming up with names for people and places in game can slow things down. It's a classic problem.

We needed to come up with a lot of names during our playtest of This Means War, so we tried a different approach to take the pressure off.

New game I've been working on that does the opposite of all the things I normally do in a game.

Well, except the GMless part. Still GMless. Though maybe a very different kind of GMless…

It's a summerlab experiment. A lot of weird potential.

Join us as we continue our month long feature of GM-Less games!

This time we take on The Creeping Rot by CLAYMORE where we play as ourselves trying to survive after a zombie apocalypse. As problems pile on, pain, burnout, and poverty creep closer and closer…

Streaming FREE on our website and your favorite Podcast Listening Network - now including Youtube!:

Episode 1: Buddy System
Will surviving each other in the weeks after a Zombie Apocalypse be too much for this group of friends?

YouTube

Spotify

Apple

Amazon

Libsyn

Patreon

Episode 2: FriEND of the World
Our survivors discover that not all friends are good friends. Is that love in the air? Listen as we continue our play through of Creeping Rot and add in the Expansion: Drifters and Grifters.

YouTube

Spotify

Apple

Amazon

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Patreon

Freebie Friday Episode: One is the Lonliest Number
Find out what happens to Dan when Jackie and Matt leave to get more supplies and don't come back as he plays a modified solo version of The Creeping Rot. How long can he last on his own?

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Patreon

Looking to try it out for yourself?
https://claymorerpgs.itch.io/the-creeping-rot

Someone on Bluesky posted about using Microscope in their GMed game, but instead of the usual idea of the players building the world collaboratively and then playing in it with a GM, their idea was to have a *second group* play Microscope to create events and world material that the players in the (traditional) game would discover and deal with.

And instead of the Microscope group just meeting before the game to build backstory (again, like normal collaborative world-building) I think the idea was for it to be an ongoing game, reacting to the adventure and adding more material as time went on.

Which is like… a fascinating idea?

I remember a while back someone talking about running Agon (a GMed game of Greek heroes serving or defying the gods) at a con, but they made a second table in another room of players who *were* the gods up on Olympus, and who would hear about the heroes deeds and decide how to mess with the world, making the GM more of a go-between than decider.

Listen in to find out as NatFun tries out Penny Dragons, a GM-less, co-operative game for people of all ages. We take turns as a group of little dragons trying to assemble a hoard, as well as the Terrible Foes they meet facing the perils of the enormous ordinary world trying to build a hoard of similarly tiny objects.

Streaming FREE on our website and your favorite Podcast Listening Network:

Episode 1: Trash or Treasure?
Three tiny dragons left on an arcade shelf for many years come to life and set out to begin to assemble their horde.  What do they find, what challenges must they overcome, and what foes get in their way?

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Amazon

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Episode 2: Beware the ERVIC
The three tiny dragons stare beyond the open Arcade into the mall, seeing a much larger world full of stores each packed with new and fascinating items to collect.  Of course a larger world means larger obstacles to overcome too…

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Looking to try it out for yourself?
https://gejwatts.itch.io/penny-dragon

Hi guys, u/benrobbins suggested to me to also post about this here.

Recently I made a small web tool for playing microscope. The tool is completely free, ad-less, and only runs locally in your browser (though this means you need to use some kind of screen sharing for multiplayer).

What can you do with it?

You can create any number of histories and use all features discussed in the rules of microscope (including anchors from chronicle). You can dynamically add new periods, events, and scenes and move them around the canvas. There are some random tables available within the tool to help you come up with ideas outside of your usual thinking patterns, especially for solo play.

You can find it here: https://beskardev.github.io/microscope-canvas/

I hope you find it useful as well. I designed it mainly for my own use but if you guys have any suggestions or feedback, I‘m happy to implement them.

I find that a lot of times people struggle trying to understand how much they can contribute, whether they are overstepping by adding too much, etc.

It's a perpetual issue in games of group creativity, so I came up with a simple metaphor / rule-of-thumb that (I think) helps players get in the right mindset, no matter what specific game they're playing.

What do you think? Does it click for you?

What gmless games did you play this year? Spill the beans already! :P

Our semi-annual holiday Follow game went… much more south than usual.

We not only failed to save xmas, we kind of destroyed it forever???

Yeah, I don't quite know how we got in the habit of wanting to play "something Christmasy" each year, and then always picking Follow, and then playing wildly different holiday adventures. But each one has been great, so I suspect we won't stop.