About to start a new gm-less co-op campaign with the spouse. It takes place in a setting we’ve been building for years. Basically a gothic horror/steampunk world where the goddess of the sun and healing has died, so there’s no sun and healing/resurrections don’t work as expected. As a result of all the failed resurrections, there’s all sorts of phantoms and abominations roaming the darkness in between the remaining cities. So lots of tension and horror, our favorite thematic elements.

Let’s see…

• Black Star. This is a new game, so not too many people are aware of it. I’d consider this a rules light Star Wars game.
• White Star. Despite the similar names, it’s made by different people than Black Star and the mechanics are wildly different. However, I’d also say this is Star Wars-esque sci-fi.

There are also a couple Savage Worlds sci-fi settings that look neat, like Titan Effect and Interface Zero. I feel like I’m missing a big sci-fi game I really want to play, but I can’t think of it off the top of my head.

Kobold Press is making their own 5e compatible game, if you’ve invested heavily in 5e adventures/3rd party products. It’s called Tales of the Valiant and looks to be pretty interesting. I’m a Pathfinder 2e player/gm myself, but I backed Tales of the Valiant on Kickstarter just because it looks neat.

Oh geez. Where do I start?

• Legend of the Five Rings. It’s hard to find people to play it, let alone people willing to invest time reading the lore.
• The One Ring 2E. This one I can play in Strider mode, but I’d love to play with a Fellowship.
• Esoteric Enterprises. Nobody seems interested in playing this one.
• Ironsworn and Starforged in co-op mode. These two are amazing for co-op, but again, little interest from others.

I’ve got hundreds of others, but these are the ones I think about most.

Huh. I think you’ve got an excellent point there. Maybe barbarian would work better for this concept than druid. I haven’t played a barbarian yet so I completely forgot animal instinct was a thing!

There are alternatives to Mythic, but what I like is that it can give you plot twists in the form of scene interruptions (where your next scene is a different scene than what you expect. You thought you were sneaking into the castle dungeon, but instead you find yourself in the guard room!) or scene alterations (where the scene is what you thought, but there’s something a little different than what you thought. Maybe you get into that castle dungeon, but there’s a prisoner you didn’t expect or there’s a guard dog on alert instead of just a sleepy guard, etc.). It helps keep things a little random, even if you have an idea of where you want the story to go.

I actually use Mythic when I’m running games with a full party, too. When my players stump me, I can quickly ask Mythic a question or use its descriptions to figure out what comes next.

I was thinking about something similar yesterday. On Reddit, I was part of a number of religious trauma/ex-Christian groups. I was always uncomfortable posting in a place like Reddit, but reading others’ posts was greatly comforting to me.

I’m not sure how similar CPTSD and religious trauma are, but I’d be interested in a community like you mentioned to learn more about it.

Thank you for the link! I’ll read through that during my lunch break.

Co-op gaming has been a blast! We use Mythic GME 2nd Edition to flesh out situations, decisions, NPCs, locations, plotlines, etc. We also use tarot cards to quickly flesh out NPCs that might be more important to the plot (basically draw three cards and those are the NPCs background and motivations). We use things like PF2 Easy Tool and one of the encounter generator tools for combat.

It’s a rules heavy game for this kind of play, but we both know the rules well enough that it isn’t so bad. And it helps us practice the more obscure rules. We aren’t afraid to take a minute to read up on rules like you might be in a group setting. There’s a lot of conversation between us that I don’t see in my group games.

We’re also both in it for the story and creativity, so it doesn’t bother us when we do secret checks out in the open. We’ll still play our characters as if they have no idea they failed, often times the failure is more fun anyways!

Yeah, that was my big struggle. I love the idea of a character who shapeshifts into animals for combat, but Wild Shape doesn’t really keep up. And I get it, Druid is also a full caster. I guess I wish we had a Shifter class for PF2e.

Druid/Wizard is an interesting combination I hadn’t thought about. I’ll have to fiddle with that in Pathbuilder, for sure.

I’m embarrassed to admit how long it took me to find the search function in Jerboa. I almost never click the communities list tab so I never noticed it had the search.

As a trans masc enby, I relate to this so deeply.

I’ve been through a lot of social media sites over the years. MySpace, Facebook, Twitter. I think you’ve got the right idea avoiding them all at this point! LOL

And I 100% agree regarding third party apps and open protocols. I tried several Reddit apps before Sync really grabbed me. I thought it was so neat having so many options, something I hadn’t seen since the early days of the internet. And then Reddit had to ruin a good thing and take all those away.

I do think the fediverse has the right idea. We shouldn’t all be crammed into a single “one size fits all” site. Now we just need some good apps to go with it!

I’m all for a good debate. I frequented the technology subreddits since they’re related to my work and I love a good OS or language debate. I’ve learned a lot from hearing other people’s arguments. So that all sounds like friendly banter to me!

I do think the smaller the subreddit, the safer you are. Most of my best experiences are in those subreddits. I just found myself wishing I could explore Reddit a bit more without walking away bummed out by all the hate. It’s hard finding a good subreddit.

That’s a relief to hear. There’s been a Twitter shaped hole in my heart since I quit. I think I’d been a Twitter user since my freshman year of college and I’m in my 30s now. LOL

You’ve convinced me to give Mastodon a chance! Thank you for your reassurance. It really does sound like what Twitter should have been.

I joined my state’s subreddit to keep an eye on local happenings. Our news outlets aren’t the best, so it was a good way to hear what was going on. For the most part, it was a good community. But there was always a handful of people who had to argue equal rights every time it came up and it was disheartening to see the same hate every single time.

Apparently I should get into photography, because your experience on Reddit sounds so chill! LOL

Oh geez. Twitter is such a nightmare. I had to quit last year when things started getting bad. I haven’t dipped my toes in Mastodon. Has your experience been much more positive? I’m scared I’ll end up stuck in a bad server!

The worst of it, by far, is of course the front page. But some of the subs I can think of off the top of my head where I encountered trans or homophobia are r/Science and even r/Pathfinder2e (if you know anything about the Pathfinder universe, this might seem mind boggling). There was pro LGBTQ+ support in many of these subreddits, but there was always a comment or a debate or whatever in every queer related thread.

The subreddit for the state I live in, while generally supportive, has numerous comments debating my right to exist as a queer person in most threads even vaguely LGBT related. It’s frustrating knowing I could basically only find refuge in LGBT subreddits. Everywhere else, there was always someone making a jab or starting an argument. It’s exhausting.

That’s a real relief to me. I see enough of that living in a very red town in a red state. Online communities are one of my only ways to talk to people who don’t want me gone.

I’ve only been here for a day, but the lack of homophobia and transphobia here compared to Reddit has been a breath of fresh air. I’m not afraid of posting here like I was on Reddit, where I’d actually have to debate with myself for a minute or two before posting. It’s like finally leaving a bad relationship; now I’m starting to see how bad that all was for my mental health.

Ugh, what I wouldn’t give to be back in my parents’ house just for a day to hear them lose their shit on this. LOL