A “Dungeon Crawl” is a scenario where players navigate a dungeon or labyrinth-like environment for the entirety of the adventure. It emphasizes battling monsters, collecting loot, and avoiding traps to survive to the end!

Dungeon Crawl

“Theater of the Mind” uses little to no visuals for scene settings and combat. Instead, the narrative imagery comes from the Game Master’s descriptions and character action and movement comes from Players’ descriptions. 

Theater of the Mind

“Rule of Cool” emphasizes creative story beats over sticking to a system’s rules as written. Players have the ability to push the limits of the rules or even break core rule mechanics at times if the Game Master thinks it is interesting, fun, or cool enough.

Rule of Cool (RoC)

In "Sandbox" or "Open World" games, players are given a tremendous amount of freedom to pursue their stories without the restrictions of a more linear game style. Players are encouraged to explore and engage with the world, and find their own story as they do so. These games offer the players the opportunity to help drive the narrative, and allow for the story to evolve organically through the choices they make.

Sandbox / Open World

“Realm Building” games focus on the development, expansion, and management of something bigger than a single party, where the characters may find themselves in charge of a kingdom, faction, settlement, or organization. Over the course of gameplay, players might manage resources, make decisions that shape nations, or even guide large-scale conflicts as part of the ongoing story.

Realm Building

Dungeons & Dragons 5e

Call of Cthulhu

Shadowdark RPG

Gritty Fantasy

Scifi

Post-Apocalyptic

Supernatural

Steampunk

Sci-fi

Stuart

First learned AD & D and CoC back in the early 80s, when banana seat bikes were cool and we stayed out all day adventuring with friends without parents tracking us. Never met Vecna in person but just heard good things about him.

I got back into role-playing in mid-life, wishing I had kept it going, but now seem to be really into it.  I may be running games as part of my therapeutic practice soon, but we'll see how that goes.

I'm interested in learning new systems and genres.

Stuart

About me

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