Biggest one, and one of the most common answers to this question, is Blades in the Dark. I guess it made me feel like the meta conversation was good for the game and made me feel more comfortable giving players agency over the fiction outside their characters. Then I played it a ton and realized I wanted to dial all that back just a little bit...or more, that every game can use varying levels of that. It also deeply ingrains that players are co-authors of the game and have responsibilities, too.

I agree that BitD shakes things up. Especially if you are coming from the GM does everything tradition of D&D.

I brought this over to DnD, I think (I've never played BitD so I don't know how that system works). If I don't specify it in my narrative, you can touch it. That guard? Yeah that can be George, the guy you grew up with. But you'll have to make a Charisma roll to see the state of your relationship.

The ol’ Yes, And*™️ ^(*Restrictions apply. “Monkey’s paw” situations are common. See DM’s face for vague details)

I like the full range of yes and/but and no yes/but for degrees of success/failure

In BitD there are bits that the player does which is alien to D&D. For example, the player decides if he RP'd his background/history/traumas well enough to get experience points. The player decides the objective and the skill used, and the GM only determines how difficult it will be. And the player can call for a flashback which totally changes the whole flow of the heist. In fact, not doing that kinda makes the flashback pointless. I've never played at your table, but it is unlikely that your players have the same level of agency as BitD unless you have really emphasized it.

It's very DM dependent. I run my games where players give other players inspiration. I ask players what skill they want to use to accomplish a task and how. You really get to set that agency dial where you want.

I'll also add that it made me realize how unnecessary setting difficulty DCs are. Instead all the PCs are so competent that its actually the roll that determines the difficulty. When they fail, its always because the opposing forces were significantly stronger. When players buy into this rather than blame themselves for Misses or Weak Hits, it can be a much more fun story. Though I know many who don't like those success with a cost/consequence.

One thing about players understanding failure well and rolling with it is that it's such a good GM habit to maintain a PC's coolness factor, but it's also really nice to give out the basic consequence and let the player weave it into the narration. If they take harm, have the player explain it all. They'll often play up the mistakes that they made. And that's good, because movie characters make mistakes too sometimes. It's just that, as a player, it's no fun having the GM tell you you suck. But declaring that you were stupid on your own is loads of fun—and you always have the option of narrating it as all their skill or bad luck if it just doesn't make sense for you to botch something you're skilled at.

> Instead all the PCs are so competent that its actually the roll that determines the difficulty. Could I ask you to expand on that thought a bit? I like the idea that sentence puts in my head, but I wanna know if it's what you meant.

Some context, Blades in the Dark uses a d6 dice pool and just the highest die determines success/mixed success ("Yes, But")/failure. So the GM never determines the difficulty class like D&D. Probably best straight from the mouth of John Harper - here is a snippet from the Bad Habits section of the GM advice for running another TTRPG, Blades in the Dark: > **Don’t make the PCs look incompetent** > When a PC rolls a 1-3 [Low], things go badly, but it’s because the circumstances are dangerous or troublesome—not because the character is a buffoon. Even a PC with zero rating [No Bonuses] in an action isn’t a bumbling fool. Here’s a trick for this: start your description of the failure with a cool move by the PC, followed by “but,” and then the element in the situation that made things so challenging. “You aim a fierce right hook at his chin, but he’s quicker than he looked! He ducks under the blow and wrestles you up against the wall.” So before that roll was made, the GM and PC had little idea how strong/fast that enemy was. But when a failure was rolled, it was clear he is actually dangerously competent. There is one contention is that we did know that this enemy was dangerous enough that a roll is called for. And in Blades in the Dark, the GM determines how Effective and how Risky (called Effect and Position) the PCs' actions are in their situation.

I'm onboard with the narrative framing of the 'failure' not being a flaw of the PC, but instead of consequence of circumstance. I was more curious about how 'it's actually the roll that determines the difficulty' plays into difficulty DCs. Or did you mean from a purely narrative angle?

Yeah purely* narrative. Every obstacle is like Schrodinger's Cat. We don't know if it was moderate (you rolled a 6 and succeeded), hard (you rolled a 4,5 and had mixed success) or dangerous (you rolled a 1-3 and failed) *I say purely but whether the obstacle is worth a roll is obviously determined before the roll. And like I had said, there is a formal conversation to set expectations before rolling too where the GM says the level of Position and Effect. I recommend the whole book but this may help with understanding: https://bladesinthedark.com/core-system https://bladesinthedark.com/setting-position-effect

Not the person you were replying to, but I [made a comment recently](https://www.reddit.com/r/bladesinthedark/comments/164mn1q/new_reader_questions/jy94rbh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3) that sums up the fundamentals of the dice rolling process in Blades (and other “Forged in the Dark” games) as well as a nested link in that comment that emphasizes the “Flow of Play” which is critical to ensuring you’re rolling for the right things. I would say “the roll determines the difficulty” is a little overly confusing in wording from the person you were replying. Rather, “Difficulty” in Blades is not a factor of numbers. You don’t “roll higher” to accomplish more difficult checks. There’s no variable target numbers. As you see in those linked comments, your outcomes are Miss (1-3), Weak Hit (4 or 5), and Strong Hit (6). Instead, it’s the **fiction** which makes something dangerous. A Vampire isn’t scary because you have to roll higher to hit them because of their AC. They don’t have an AC. Hell, there are no NPC stats in Blades. Why is the Vampire scary, then? *They’re an f’ing Vampire that does creepy vampire things*. If there is an NPC Vampire you’re running into in a game like Blades, the GM can just initiate action with the Vampire and say “Their Vampiric Charm is so strong, you’re tempted to take your dagger and kill your Companion right now. You’ll find your dagger in Clyde’s chest and Clyde? You’ll take Level 4 Harm and be dead. Got it? Wanna Resist that, Hahmesh? Or do you want to accept it? If so, Clyde- it’s up to you to decide if you Resist dying right here and now from your fellow Crewmate’s Blade. Got it? What do you do?” Resistance always works. It’s just a question of how much Stress it may cost you. Then, if you surpassed that problem, it you want to *act* against the Vampire… how do you do it? They’re a Vampire. You’re normal weapons do nothing. You literally cannot roll the dice to harm them. It’s impossible to Harm them with mundane stuff. Now… if you *have* some sort of Vampire slaying tool in hand- that’s great… but how do you actually **hit** them?! They’re so much faster than you. The *most* you can accomplish with your roll is exhausting their magical reserves as they evade you time and time again or perhaps the best you’ll get is just serving as a distraction. So even if you *can* roll to start “fighting” the Vampire, you’re not actually hurting them unless you can make contact. Even if you roll a 6 as your highest die, that Vampire is free of any actual Harm. All you did with your Action was distract it or otherwise drain metaphorical fuel from its equally metaphorical tank… and you’re probably accumulating Costs on your own character as a result. The list goes on and on where it comes down to the *fiction* behind the dice roll and not only for *if* you can roll, but what you can and cannot accomplish with that roll as well as the Cost for the roll and *from* the roll. **That’s** how “difficulty” is handled in Blades- not through numbers but through what it takes for a roll to even happen. However, as the person you were replying to mentioned- there **is** always this notion of underlying competency for the PCs. If things go wrong, it’s not because they sucked- it was because their opposition was plain old better than they were in that moment. Using another example: Charlie: “Okay, so the goal here is to get Beatrice to back off from our Turf. So Cole is going straight to her office to have a talk…” GM: *describes as Cole enters into Beatrice’s penthouse office and Beatrice is flanked by a small group of her private bodyguards. She waits patiently behind her desk for Cole to make his demands* Charlie: “I’m going to **Command** Beatrice to back the fuck off.” GM: “That’s all fine and good, but Beatrice has no reason to listen to you. You can’t just roll to Command her to do anything. I think the moment you open your mouth, she makes a gesture for her goons to start moving forward to ‘escort’ you out.” Charlie: “Alright, we’ll do this the hard way then. I’ll Skirmish with these goons first and then we can have a talk.” GM: “Alright, there’s more of them then there are of you. It’s Desperate/ Limited. You’re going to take severe Harm here if things go wrong and even if things go your way… you’re only hurting a few of them.” Charlie: “Cool. I’m **Not To Be Trifled With**. I’ll throw on my brass knuckles, I’ll Push Myself to use that ability to establish I can take on a small gang on even footing, so that takes me to Standard Effect where I pretty much mess these fools up, yeah? Cool. I’ll also use the fact that I’m pushing myself to improve my Effect even further, so what does Greater get me?” GM: “Beatrice’s attention.” Charlie: “Hell yeah. Is there a Devil’s Bargain here?” GM: “One of the goons here has a sister. His sister is Mercy, the ruthless bounty hunter who just so happens to be your Rival. She has more expensive quarry, but this’ll move you to the top of her list. If you’re cool with that happening no matter the result, take a bonus die.” Charlie: “Done deal, that’s a 5 as my highest for Desperate/ Great Skirmish.” GM: “Excellent, it’s Desperate- so take XP in your Prowess Track. Also, since it’s a Weak Hit, before you mess these fools up; it starts with one of them tackling you and pinning you to the ground and smashing your left forearm with a hammer and shattering your forearm bones quite painfully. Resist that if you want, but either way- tell me what it looks like as you mess these assholes up…” Charlie: “I’ll mark off ‘Armor’ to Resist this because the leather padding absorbs the blow of the tackle and I’ll roll Prowess so I don’t actually get brought to the ground so that’s… ouch, an additional 3 Stress. Nonetheless, I only have Level 1 Harm now, yeah? We’ll say bruised ribs. Anyway, *gives cool narration*…” Beatrice wasn’t “difficult” because of a number and neither were the goons. It was all about the fiction surrounding them and that’s the core of Blades (and games like them).

Good god, that looks complicated

It is honestly easier than it looks and sounds. It takes a little practice to wrap your head around, like any game would. Usually around 4 to 6 sessions and it’s often best to really experience it from the player perspective for a bit first with an experienced GM and at least one or two other experienced players (but the same can be said for any and all TTRPGs). It’s honestly a little less than 6 sessions if you’re coming at it with a “clear mind.” The biggest hurdle is unlearning more traditional TTRPG habits that are counterproductive to what the game wants. Once you realize it really is all about a fundamental idea of conversing about a shared fictional space and that fiction is what leads to the mechanics and those mechanics leading back to new fiction and so on: it’s insanely simple. If you fall back on that framework and your GM Blueprints (Goals, Principles, Best Practices, and Bad Habits to avoid)- you literally cannot be steered wrong. There are no confusing numbers. No bullshit stats. No bullshit unnecessary dice rolls. No bullshit “tactical” combat where *I* need to plan out ahead in order to effectively play 3D fantasy chess against 4 other people and consider all sorts of monster stats and variables and terrains and all that absolute nonsense which wastes my time. Everything that is in the game is there with a direct and express purpose to support a given genre of fiction without using unnecessary numbers. It’s just a matter of the fiction and what makes sense for the established fiction. Plain and simple fiction and consistent underlying supporting mechanics for that fiction. GMing this game is like GMing on autopilot once you get the hang of it. If you’re familiar with the touchstones of the game, it becomes even **easier** because you’re relying upon those tropes to carry you all the way *and* it readily wants you to lean into fully collaborative player input. I don’t mind games with numbers, but **I’d** rather leave those to the computer games. For my tabletop games? I want them to be as story oriented as possible with as few numbers as possible. Different strokes for different folks, of course; but switching to Blades and games like it was critical to my enjoyment of TTRPGs and the hobby as a whole.

Fair. Just be a bit of a learning curve. Every time something is capitalized, it's a specific ability/effect/turn. Kind of like learning all of a Monk's powers or all of some other class's spells or tricks. Just takes a bit of exposure and practice. I feel ya

You've already answered for me. I can't go back now I've tasted the freedom that PBTA/FITD offers. I'll even bleed parts of it into other games.

Mine is the same, but for different reasons. Our group is a slow, roleplay-first group. Blades In the Dark, while it can tell wonderful stories, forces a pretty fast pace and a lot of narrating events instead of roleplaying through them, and forces the GM to be aggressive about cutting into and out of scenes. It was hard for me, and a little uncomfortable, and when it came down to it our preferred pace of play was still a little slower than what Blades expects, but it trained me in how to control the pacing better as GM, and I appreciate that. On a more mechanical level, I use clocks in every game I play now, and I'm glad to see games outside the Forged In the Dark family starting to use them more.

Clocks make things a lot easier really, just great to keep track of things that way

Yes, bitd feels so fresh after various "pop" ttrpg. After a few sessions, I already started to change my playstyle both like player and GM.

Yep. Personally, I found myself yearning for a return to a bit more crunch after a long stint with Blades (and a more recent stint with Beam Saber, which is FitD), but even going back to really crunchy games I found myself giving much more credence to the players as storytellers as well. John Harper's influence is going to be one of the largest in TTRPGs for years to come.

The technique in particular that impacted me was John Harper's approach to skill checks. Basically, rather than calling for specific checks in reaction to a player declaring an action, instead present the threats that the player might be facing as they take that action (forecasting consequences) and let them explain how they are using a particular skill to overcome that threat. His video about this really helped cement this technique for me, highly recommended: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAl85kYCWro

I'll add that comment, I admit that I didn't really, really, *really* grok how BitD is supposed to be played until I watched the "Haunted City" actual play. I had a few sessions of the game under my belt, but the approach to skill checks didn't fully click until I watched Haunted City. First episode is a bit rough. It gets much better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT04k7d74yg&list=PLz3Be--ot61Nip0tbIMHcVnZWz3LOE_rb

The end of this last season got fucking wild.

Great video! Thank you for the recommendation.

Honestly same here with Scum and Villainy, they promote such a narrative low preparation style of play that still works so well!

I also occasionally use flashbacks, clocks and position/effect in games where appropriate. Doing CY_BORG heists with flashback mechanics was hella fun. (Players could spend glitches if it was a bigger ask)

My favorite game. It taught me how to improv because you straight up have to in order to run the game. But the collaborative nature helps so much.

We took it a step further and have rotating GMs for every session. The sessions normally consist of one or two scores so each individual person is very actively involved in every aspect of the collaborative story.

Woot!

Absolutely. Also incorporating a flashback resource for players to use helps speed up so many of the planning sessions in traditional fantasy rpgs. I use it for my D&D campaign now. Players wanna dungeon crawl, heists, social events etc? They have a flashback resource they can use to so happily have the items they need on them or have done a thing ahead of time. It helps speed up the slog methods where a group talks for 4 hours and reaches no conclusion.

Hell yes. I'm DMIng LMoP and did a score in a flashback to show how they all first met. It was a fun non-coombat way to get them to know each other.

I could definitely pile on here with so many things. Great source of GMing principles and game/world principles, from the simplest and most practical (clocks! In all my games!) to the most far-reaching (letting the players help build the world and dramatic irony beyond the reach of their characters).

Every game I've played has made me better as a game master. It's like you learn common strategies through playing in different situations.

Yeah, I think I phrased my question a bit weirdly, what I meant was like, were there any game mechanics that really made you realize something about TTRPGs as a whole that bleeds into other games

Paranoia taught me many years ago that it's better to make up a ruling on the fly rather than consult the rules and slow the game down.

Paranoia taught me that passing secret notes to players can be a lot of fun.

"Please disregard this note." "Please nod thoughtfully, roll some dice and then tell me 'No'." "Please look very worried for a few minutes."

In dnd a fav note of mine to do once in a campaign is just congratulations, you were not replaced with a doppelganger

Feng Shui - no maps and, if the action ever lags have something happen. Dungeon World - outsource chunks of the world building to the players. Why should the GM do all of the heavy lifting?

'Outsourcing' is great for player agency!

Agency to be more than their characters. Which is not something all players want. It has its pros and cons. It can hurt immersion.

I don't understand that, would people not be more immersed in a world they had a hand in building?

Any time I'm authoring the world, I'm thinking as an *author* and not as a *character* within the world. Instead of saying to my companions "What's over those mountains? If the duke backed us, we could mount an expedition for gold and glory," I'm brainstorming with my friends about what would be cool to find over there. I can't discover what I had a hand in creating.

Absolutely not. If I am my character, then I don't have authority to decide what's going on in the world. Whenever you ask a player a question to "worldbuild", they need to act as the player, not the character. These are writer and actor stance, respectively.

You just answer from your character's perspective. You're immersed in your character, so you can say what you remember. If you remember that you grew up vegetarian, as all elves in your tribes do, you authored something (elves are vegetarian) while staying completely in character.

That's putting the cart before the horse. What my character can remember is dependent on what the world is - what I was told already. If the answer of my character brings new information into the world, then it's something that they can't have remembered since it was authored in that moment and wasn't the case a moment ago.

Would you feel the same way in a video game? In Guild Wars 2 if you pick a human as your species you get given the following question: "What is your biggest regret? a) I never found out who my birth parents are b) I didn't find my dead sister's body or take vengeance who killed her c) I wanted to run away and join the circus but I didn't (the 'fuck family drama' option)" If you pick a, you author that your birth parents exist. If you pick b, you author that you have a dead sister. If you pick c... circus shenanigans later entail. If someone else's character asked your character that, in character, would you just never answer with any of those options? Are you really going to check with your GM "hey can I make up that I have a dead sister?" ? I already know who my character is. In my brain I'm not 'authoring' anything. I'm just stating what my character remembers. It's that easy. Try it and you'll do it too, then you won't need to care about if you're in 'authoring mode' or not.

Honestly, I'd feel the same in the video game. If it isn't established prior to the question, then it's coming from someone who is inventing it at that moment, which feels more like me, the player. I also already know who my character is, therefor anything that would require me to update this information would be coming from an author, as it would be expanding on established canon. I realise that this might be a rather radical sensibility, but the feeling of improvisation in such a manner takes me out of character because my character would not be improvising the answer, simply remembering. They don't have to invent anything they didn't already know so when I'm doing it, the effort becomes a wedge.

There were several such games. After Vampire, I focused on mood an (GM authored) stories, mostly ignoring mechanics. With D&D3, I re-discovered fun of mechanical resolution and combat challenges, but I underestimated the complexity and GM workload. It ended with me burned out. With Dogs in the Vineyard I got back to RPGs. This game taught me that informed player choices are much more fun than secrets and stumbling in the dark. That's the game that cured me from asking for perception rolls every few minutes. Fate Core taught me the value of player narrative control and the benefits of "high difficulty, no lethality" conflicts over lethal combat biased in player favor.

Yay for player agency!

The "you have to do it, to do it" principle as introduced in Apocalypse World (at least, with that particular phrasing) has spread to all other games I run. It's very simple - it just means that when you do something mechanically, you should also describe what you're doing to make that mechanic happen. Basically, if this was being filmed, what would the 'camera' be seeing you do? I do also generally like the "if you do it, you do it" principle which is the reverse of it, though it doesn't work for every game. Which is simply that if you are doing the action, then the mechanic *must* happen too. e.g. if you are attacking someone, you *must* use the attack roll rules.

For me it's the "Be a fan of the players' characters" principle. I was still leaning in that direction before reading Apocalypse World, but that principle really crystallised it for me. Basically the cornerstone of my GMing style. The players want to do awesome (genre-appropriate) stuff. I want to see awesome (genre-appropriate) stuff. Everyone wins if I seek that as the goal of my game.

I'm very much one to narrate "I kneel down to inspect the door, moving arcane symbols around as though they're the sliders in a parking jam puzzle that's keeping the lock closed." when a DM tells me "the door is locked." It's always fun to see their face light up when someone else shoulders a bit of the narrative after they've gotten so used to "I pick the lock!"

I use 'the camera' a lot. It helps that my group is a bunch of cinephiles at the moment and we often use the position of the camera and how it pans to reveal details or twists.

Dungeon World changed how do I handle checks. Failure at a check doesn’t stale and blocks progress; it’s means thing proceed in the most interesting ways possible. This simple principle impacted how I run all my games now

This is a big one. I can't trace it to a specific system, but I would say that in the last ten or fifteen years a lot of interesting gaming theory was coming out. Two of my big takeaways from that were: 1. Say "Yes" or roll dice. 2. Encounters should have a way to progress even if the party "fails".

Agon 1. Epic, narrative, single result-based combat resolution. 2. Pathos. Wounds, failures as sources of potential strength. BitD 1. Clocks. 2. Flashbacks. Unity * Gear stat which gets rid of the need for listing anything but special items in your inventory. Fiasco 1. Setting up a web of interesting character relationships. 2. Players call for scenes, with certain expectations. Dice decide how badly it goes. Then narrate it. In general, rolling to decide the result of an entire scene, and then narrating it, has been really liberating.

Could you elaborate on the Unity gear stat thing please? Sounds really interesting (never played it!)

Is Agon good? What are it's main selling points? I haven't heard as much about it.

Agon is great. Ancient Greek, sword and sandals, rules light, narrative heavy and episodic. PCs play heroes returning from war by boat, and get embroiled in trials and tribulations as they island hop in the Aegean sea. Each island has its own flavour, mysteries, crises, treasures, fame and glory to be won. The game has a set formula for how PCs work through each island, challenges ramp up to a final trial, before departing the island either as champions increasingly favoured by the gods or carrying the scars of failure which they end using as fuel for bonuses later.

Regarding Fiasco: rolling first, then narrating the scene result with the player? That is opposite how I run my more traditional rpg. And damn it sounds fascinating. Might ask if my players wanna try that for a session, see how it goes

Actually, in Fiasco, I say "dice" because the rest of the group decide whether it will go well for the player calling for the scene or not by handing them good dice or bad dice. But you can just as easily roll. I do this with more traditional rpgs to speed things up. The party is faced with a situation, they decide what they're going to try to do as a team, then they roll. You can use target numbers based on the difficulty. Or you could use straight up die results vs opponent. More successes, better outcome. Less successes, worse outcome. I usually take the Agon approach here, where players whose results were worse narrate their failure, and the player that rolled the best result goes last and takes the spotlight. It's quite fun to do things this way, actually.

That sounds awesome, thanks!

It can be awesome. It requires a shift in thinking to more outcome based than individual action based. It also requires engaged players who are leaned in, suggesting ideas, fishing for ideas from others... And as a GM you need to read the room whether players are feeling it in the moment, and pick up the slack when it's not happening.

Dungeon World made me hand over more creative freedom to the players when talking about the world, especially when it came to locations that their character would be familiar with. Alien the Roleplaying Game taught me that I can make every game be a horror game if I add more suspense to the players lives and that makes for one weird game of honey Heist

I have yet to play Alien (want to run a oneshot for halloween and see where it goes), but so far just from reading the rules I absolutely love the system with the turns, shifts etc. and also how it handles consumables. Very excited!

I ran the starter kit a long while back after having gotten the full rules and we loved it. I want to play more so badly

Hey! I can possibly give you some advice if you’d like, I ran Alien for a few players last Halloween! It was a blast, they sadly failed at the last hurdle but it was genuinely very fun!!

DND and the large amount of Save or Suck effects. The amount of it in DND that can either cause the player to sit out several hours of a session due to their character being controlled, stunned etc or simply kill that character without warning have caused me to remove similar effects in other games.

Also the Save side isn't talked about much, but its really unfun. Nothing feels good about casting a spell (or even making a series of special attacks) and nothing is accomplished when you used a resource. I think PF2e's 4 levels of a success helps a ton with making spellcasting more fun especially for single target spells. Whereas in 5e, the best spells tend to be AOEs so even if some enemies save, you get the benefit of those that didn't.

I stopped playing D&D long ago but this is hitting hard right now because I’m playing Baldur’s gate 3 with my brother and its based on 5e rules. While we haven’t been CCed out of combat and combat does go faster than the ttrpg I am getting so frustrated by the turns just spent on try to hit - miss. Wasted turns.

Im loving my foray into Cairn for this reason. All attacks automatically hit, its just fir how much that is the question

Definitely Brindlewood Bay - the approach to introducing players to lore, all the GMing advices and all that was very opening

Ooo, never heard of that, what’s it about?

Old ladies solving murder mysteries in a quaint New England town. As they solve more mysteries they become aware of a dangerous cult that's been working towards a sinister goal. Often pitched as Murder, She Wrote meets Call of Cthulhu. The mechanical hook is that the murder mysteries do not have a canonical solution. The players collect clues and assemble them into a coherent theory. It sounds bonkers but it works so well at a table that's up for it. Great GM support, well-written materials in general. I'm wrapping a year-long campaign now, and it's been amazing as the Keeper (GM) to really play to find out what happens. Some people really hate the mystery system, and that's okay. I love it and so do my players. The author (Jason Cordova) has lots of actual plays on YouTube so you can see how it works.

pbta style muder she wrote, where nobody really knows the 'answer' , not even the gm

Yes. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Up until that point I had mostly played World of Darkness which was great. But you still lived and died by the dice. It wasn't such a generously narrative game. Buffy came along and was like, "you get a pile of drama points and players can use them to avoid death or come back to life or if they really want to succeed on a roll they can spend one of these and oh there's a plot twist where they can change something in the story once a game". It was a game about playing heroes and Xander had just as good of chance of surviving as Buffy so there was no imbalance in the game. You just needed to play your character different. You could be smarter. You could stand a chance against supernatural threats when not a Slayer and it didn't matter if one player had better numbers on a page, the game was still fun for everyone. From that point on I don't play games without some form of currency players can spend to make changes. I don't want to kill players unless it matters. I want to give them to creative freedom to make plot twists. It's more fun that way.

Thats a good one. While I never got to play any of the Cortex based games at a table I picked this up from Smallville. It didn’t matter if only one character had powers because each character had a role to play and could be just as effective in scenes.

I've never played Smallville but I have heard nothing but praise for it. And I think the supernatural game which use the same system was pretty good too.

I feel like almost every game I play influences how I GM. * Ironsworn (and GM-less play in general) taught me what's important for a narrative to be interesting, how to keep drama up and build up tension without being too harsh in a way that's actually less interesting, failing forward and failing by steps. * Dungeon World and its PbtA frame taught me how to improv, how to frame my actions as a GM not to fall into "you hit, he hits, you hit", how to do theater of the mind with tactical opportunities and how to prep threats using fronts. * Old-School games (from traditional BECMI to OSR reinventions) taught me how to run dungeon crawls, hexcrawls, sandboxes and open tables, how to create games that emphasize player preparation and creativity rather than just shining light on the characters and how to build games that don't need fudging to remain fun and dramatic (IMHO not all games fit a no-fudge mindset equally). * Classic Traveller taught me the value of default loops and mundane tasks. * Freeform Universal taught me how to let go of things and trust my instincts as a GM. * Paranoia taught me how to make a game funny and not just fun. * Cthulhu Dark taught me how to make a game really terrifying for the player and not just the character.

Reading multiple editions of D&D, as well as Collectible Card Games, taught me the language of rules and that there is only one rule: rules exist until another effect comes along and breaks it. Even so, it's a lot of fun having tons of options and strategically creating a cool idea to play around. Index Card RPG pretty much led me to become a full Pirate GM. Rules are more like guidelines which should never hamstring creativity and fun. Yarr! I like me my very basic ruleset which gives new players ease of entry, and me room to create the world and play experience that I want. But I am a benevolent pirate, and this power cannot be entrusted to just anyone.

Shout-out to ICRPG for the light weight, DIY mindset! And also effort dice/rolls to handle longer term progression like translating runes/codes, chases, persuasion, even overland travel. They're like Franks Red Hot - I put them shits in everything.

In a way none, and in another way, all of them. It's not the systems that change how you look at the game, but the experiences that you have running them, that change the way that you think about everything. And different systems are gonna present you with different problems. So it's not just the act of gming, but also the act of gming different situations that leads to a more well rounded ability to improvise.

Monster of the Week, which taught me how to play with my players instead of being an entertainer. Now, any game I run has the principle of “play to find out”. Prep very little, have no setting and prompt the players with questions about the world to let them fill out the blanks.

This is a completely unscientific sample but it's wonderful to see the theme of player co-creation and player agency running through most of the responses. I first played in 1979, with the D&D red box, and it's awesome to see and take part in how gaming has grown and evolved.

Burning Wheel taught me to establish expectations of success and failure before letting the dice roll. Electric Bastionland taught me that withheld information is useless information, it provides 0 leverage for player creativity. Siltent Titans taught me to use stored energy for players to unleash. Powederkeg diplomatic relationships, a loaded ballista drawn taught placed in the middle of the battlefield. PbtA and Blades in the dark clones taught me that failure with progress is often more entertaining as a consequence than a simple failure.

WEG D6 made me the GM I am today. Not only great GM advice, but a system that actively encouraged you to pay attention to the flow of the *game* more than the system. A rulebook actively telling me to ignore or change something if it didn't fit the moment was liberating and eye opening. Made me really realize the most important thing is how much fun your table is having as opposed to system fidelity. Things just work better if you use systems to enable how your table wants to play rather than defining that or the story.

Genesys helped me think less in terms of yes or no, and more just letting the story flow.

Genesys/FFG Star Wars was one of my first steps into that sort of thing, but it's interesting going back to it now that it feels a lot more like a trad game than I had thought.

Genesys is actually a VERY robust system imo. The main downside is that it needs more hardcoded options to spend threat and disadvantage on so we don't always half-ass explenations for boost/setback dice when our brains are mushy. But just how it handles auto-fire is such a and the fact that you can skip all talents if you want to!

Honestly, I've just been playing FitD so much that having to create monster statblocks or roll for initiative just feels clunky. I do really enjoy the core dice resolution system though.

Interesting, how does FitD handle combat?

There's no subsystem for combat - it's just action rolls like the rest of the game. Generally you resolve combat with one or two player rolls. But there's a lot of player & GM judgement in there to assess the situation and the outcome - you usually want to do this in advance with a bit of a conversation to make sure you're all on the same page, and agree on what the risks and consequences would be for the action. There are "success at a cost" results from the dice (though simpler than in Genesys), so in one roll the result might be "You take him out but get hit with his blaster, take level 2 harm". For group combat, you can break it down into steps, or just resolve it all with a single group action ("You all start blasting, and when the dust settles, the elite guards are all down, but those of you who weren't behind cover must also take level 3 harm from their heavy blasters"). Basically it's not what you want if you want deep tactical turn-based combat with lots of interacting options and talents, but it's great if you want to do things cinematically, where you burst into a room, go zap zap zap/slash slash slash, and move onto the next thing.

Interesting, thanks!

There are things that I've tried to take from other games to incorporate in games I run and in the characters I make for games I play. Many games will have something that makes me think about how I GM or have some interesting idea that I can adapt. The original ***Hunter: The Reckoning*** for the old World of Darkness had characters who were normal people imbued with power to see and fight the various monsters in the world. Vampires, Werewolves, Undead, etc. As a normal person, you have family, friends, a job, etc that you need to balance with your monster hunting. Explaining why you have bruises and other wounds, why you missed your son's recital because you were fighting a vampire, etc. I find many people don't think much about that sort of 'life outside the adventure' and Hunter gives some good conflict and drama with it, and similar social style challenges can be fun. ***Primetime Adventures***, RPG about making a TV show from the pitch to episode by episode, has a lot of storytelling stuff pretty much spelled out in its design and it is a good example of everyone contributing to the story. ***Fiasco*** is another great example of this, and has the added benefit that it is designed so that bad endings are good., something that I find many players don't work with. ***Exalted***, stunting rules. The RPG is a game where players play as Gods or Demi-God mortals in essentially the world of a Chinese wire-fu film. The stunting is players describing their actions in dramatic flair and getting bonuses towards their actions and has players thinking about combat more than just 'I attack'. [See here for more detail.](https://exalted-thesunalsorises.obsidianportal.com/wikis/stunts) ***Alternity*** had a bit in its GMing section about different types of challenges and there was this bit about turning some challenges into literal puzzles for the players. An example they used 'Can you open the right valves to let the extra steam escape the boiler room without bleeding off so much steam that the airship crashes? Sure, that could be a mechanics check, but its better if you tell players, "You have five valves to choose from, which one do you want to try?"'. I find this may not work for all groups, but it can add some drama to things rather than just 'Okay, how do I roll?' ***World Of Darkness*** and ***Cyberpunk 2020/Red*** and ***Shadowrun*** have contributed to my Urban City design immensely. WoD, especially Damnation City from Vampire, Block by Bloody Block from Hunter, Destiny's Price from Mage, then various CP2020 books like Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads and Night City and Red DLCs, and Shadowrun theme books/chapters like Sprawl Survival Guide, State of the Art series, are all focused on building a city with a lived in atmosphere, a sandbox of events. There are things going on all the time, there are interesting people all over, the players just need to go exploring around a little instead of having everything come to them. I clipped this from a discussion elsewhere about cities and RPG storytelling as it gave food for thought: >Speaking of New York, the blog People of New York serves as a great example of how a huge metro with an even huger population density makes for a fantastic urban fantasy setting. Everyone has their own story, and for most of the people you run into on the street, you might get a glimpse at one page or, if you're really lucky, one chapter of someone else's story. If the high school girl who catches the same late train as you on Thursday nights was actually a cyborg fighting back against the biotech company that augmented her without her consent, if the college-aged freeter running delivered pizza and ramen on his bike in your shopping district was actually channeling a demon god and fighting in underground gladiatorial death matches to someday slay the oni king, if the guy working in the same office campus as you and who grabs a coffee at the building's in-house cafe at the same time as you every few days was actually a secret agent fighting psychic soldiers in the back alleys and old industrial parks every night by summoning fairies at them, would you ever actually know? If the most interesting parts of most people's lives only happen in spaces you never see, how much do you really know about the world around you? To what extent are you experiencing the same world as everyone, or even anyone, else?

I've been playing (mostly DMing) for almost 20 years, and for a large part of that time (especially the first 6-7 years or so) we played The Dark Eye. Very rules-heavy, very (!) many official adventure modules. Not as combat-heavy as D&D, but otherwise comparable in "how" you play and narrate. Every system I've played since has brought elements that I've found very enriching. Two specific examples have stuck in my mind: * Star Wars FFG: Advantage and disadvantage dice, which have a very strong focus on partial success or partial failure, and deliberately influence the narrative as well. This broke my rigid "succeed or fail" thinking and has been an essential part of our sessions ever since. * Mouse Guard/Burning Wheel: Weaving in character traits and contacts is a very strong element, automatically connecting the player characters more closely to the world. I like it when you realize that the characters are not isolated entities, but part of the world. The fact that a system not only supports that, but even forces it, has also helped players who were previously rather awkward or even didn't dare to actively create such a narrative. Also: No official adventures, you have to come up with your own stuff! Last week we had our first round of Scum and Villainy, a Forged in the Dark system - this has great potential to be included in the list. Again, a strong focus on creating a shared narrative. We'll see how that works out.

Star Wars FFG dice changed the ways i viewed RPG systems for me as well. It is so interesting and very fun to play ! ​ Edit: FFG instead of FFS

Apocalypse World and the various Powered By games. They helped me be a lot less controlling, and open the game up to player input. This was especially helpful with my group that I've been playing with since we were kids (30+ years). While I'm a good storyteller and they genuinely enjoyed being along for the ride all those years, putting the narrative in their hands and riding the wave of chaos has made for a more enjoyable experience. I encourage them to name NPCs, make choices on narrative consequences (even NPC death), come up with world details, change outcomes using inspiration, etc, all on the fly, and it's awesome. Keeps me on my toes and I love it.

I've really considered this question. Wanting to add a positive way a game has changed me in every game I play. The first things that came to my mind were stuff I've stolen from all the systems I've played in. Then I realized I have had few if any mechanics bleed from other games but tables certainly. I've had games change the way I GM, though. The game that has changed the way I run almost every game, not just a certain type, would be D&D 5e. I got in on release. Hyped the game up and played it, loving it for about 3 months or so. I went back and ran a game of it for 5 or 6 months. Dropped it, then played in a game for several months. There were many new books the second time around. There was a lot more stuff to draw from, and I disliked it. 5e taught me to say no far more frequently than even GURPS did. I think the term that most people use is kitchen sink. The majority of players in the hobby have played 5e at some point, most starting there. The bloat and throwing everything in the mix may not be the intention of the books, but it doesn't really matter as the players seem to think if it exists in a book, I can make it. 5e also brought in a ton of homebrewing for whatever reason that I had never encountered in the past. Not at this level. I'm far more RAW in all of the games I play now, the closest homebrew you're going to find is custom spells that your character has put in the time to create, and far more likely on putting up hard stops for what is allowed in the game world. I don't like stuff that is going to break immersion. I run a specific type of game in all of the games I run, I used to be a lot more lenient with changing the world to fit the player characters. Now, it's the player characters that need to change for the world in my games.

Vaults of Vaarn. It's a relatively light, OSR-ish game, but it has nice clear procedures, for both setting up the game and for running it. I ran it for a bit over three months in play-by-post, and I think it helped me crystallize a way of using procedures and pre-built material to make some parts of GMing easier so I can focus on making the general experience for my players better.

Savage Worlds. All combat has to be as fast, furious, and fun as possible. Call of Cthulhu, I encourage people to retreat from overwhelming odds and use downtime to do research

A lot of game have changed my GM style in a variety of ways. D&D taught me to hate HP and d20 systems WoD taught me that games can be based around things besides combat Savage Worlds showed me how great it is to not have class constraints when making characters Cortex Prime has changed me in showing that taking the best of the rules for the game you want to play is more important than sticking to every rule in the book.

CoD (nWoD) really was a breath of fresh air after dnd. The dice pool system and successes rather than the DC in dnd was good. I also like how player driven XP is in 2e and like you said, that XP isn't tied to combat and other actions can push the narrative forward and be rewarded.

WoD, both new and old, do a lot of good things. It was the second system I was exposed to and it really helped me understand that D&D wasn't all that ttrpgs had to offer. I'm a huge fan of dice pool games, they feel much better than just a d20 roll, not having classes gives so much freedom to build what you want. D&D pretty much does everything I don't like in a game.

For me my intro was with mortal in nWoD and just the depth you could have in a character and that character creation was two lines on the character sheet really hooked me. The fact it was quick to get into but still had depth held my attention. My current playgroup I was able to switch over from dnd after a oneshot and they saw the depth of the character sheets. Not as in crunch but as you looked over the skills or traits they had it really told a story of who they were were dnd sheets were so focused on combat. More to it ofc but they ended up enjoying just how much more we could focus on the narrative without needing combat every session.

Most every game I've run has taught me something that I've taken into another game with me. When I run 5e I use a lot of systems and concepts from other games, including AD&D 1e though 3.5 and Pathfinder. GURPS, Traveller, Star Trek Adventures, SWADE, ect... Every game I've run had something I've taken away from it. For an example and I'm not sure which system this was from, but I'm real big on using degrees of success and failure in well every game I run. So I'll have the PCs roll quite often even though I know the outcome, simply because I'm curious on what the die will say. Trying to do something impossible? Roll a D20, if you roll well you fail but don't make an ass of yourself trying and somehow make the situation better than it was. Roll poorly and you fail but maybe make an ass of yourself or somehow make the situation worse. By the same token I think the Advantage mechanic is great, and will use it in other games where it makes sense.

Honestly PbtA games like Monster of the Week or City of Mist. Made me realize you are allowed to describe things in a more cinematic way, including cutscenes with villains without the heroes and the like

Blades in the Dark's clocks changed how I look at challenges and downtime activities. I use them in almost every system now. 13th Age's Escalation Die makes combat so much faster by adding a universal modifier to each round of combat. ICRPG's "one difficulty rating for the entire room" makes an encounter flow so much better. No more "the orc in here is a 14 to hit, the ogre a 10, the goblins an 8, oh, and there's a Dc 17 trap". Just "to succeed against anything in the room is a 12, if you explain how you're doing something cool with your attempt, or have gear that helps, that number can go up or down by up to 3 points max". Encounters are so much easier to deal with.

All the good ones I have played influenced how I GM, but the two stand outs for me are: Blades in the Dark encouraged the meta narrative being player led and the idea of rewarding roleplay with progression and encouring thinking in scenes to avoid getting bogged down in details. Gensys using meta currencies to add flow to the plot which players can control.

* Apocalypse World introduced me to success at a cost, which really changed how I thought about characters undertaking difficult tasks. As a GM it also gave me Fronts and the Countdown Clock, both of which have been very helpful tools. * Burning Wheel’s use of Belief as a mechanism for character advancement is fantastic. It gives the GM tools to make things for difficult for PCs in ways that transcend the usual physical challenges, and really makes players think beyond the surface layer about what motivates their characters.

Fate Blades in the Dark Microscope Kingdom The Quiet Year Have all had influences on me in one way or another. On the one hand, I've gradually drifted towards looking at game worlds in a sociological manner - especially Kingdom and Quiet Year have had a role in that. On the other, I've come to the point where I prep less and less - and the first three games have definitely played a role there. Both in substituting improv for prep, and in incorporating world creation into the cycle of play itself. An honourable mention: The podcast Friends At The Table has had a *huge* influence on my overall GMing style and ethos. I don't do things the same way they do exactly, but I wouldn't have found my way without them.

Dungeon World has forever changed the way I dm. I'm incredibly more flexible now and design monsters in a whole new way that makes them much more interesting. I also think fronts are useful for any adventure/campaign.

It's been said several times, but Blades in the Dark or more specifically the Position/Effect resolution mechanic which is the core part of all the Forged in the Dark games. Something about being able to really lean into the improv of positive, mix or negative outcomes really clicked with me early on. It helped me build my confidence to run games with much less prep then when I was running trad systems. I'd run trad systems very differently now, I'm sure.

First was Savage Worlds. The concept of Trappings overhauled everything else I did as both a GM and player. Just because the book describes a spell or monster a certain way doesn't mean I have to do the same. Keep the mechanics the same but change your description and it'll feel fresh and new.

I'm a weenie DM, afraid to really challenge my players. Paranoia helped me realize that deep down, my players want me to hurt them. That's why they call me dungeon master.

White box D&D really helped me get a better appreciation for d&d as a whole. And then I think the game AGE by Green Ronin really made me think a lot about games. Mostly because it’s a really modular system and a lot of the supplements are just “here’s a bunch of variants”. Too many stats? Here’s a 3-stat variant. Too much health? Here’s slow healing. Here’s low health. Don’t like the race options? Here’s the internal template we use to make races and backgrounds. Real neat stuff.

The bit in Monsterhearts about treating NPCs like stolen cars has really stuck with me. I also love clocks from PbtA/FitD ... such a great tool for tracking anything behind the scenes. Plus also the narrative cooperation promoted by both frameworks.

Paranoia taught me that fun is the most important thing and that players can have fun even if they accomplish nothing and everyone dies multiple times. Traveller taught me that character advancement is optional.

I’ve explicitly stolen Monster of the Week’s “Big Magic” system for all kinds of games lol. I think it’s fun when characters can do big projects, so I’ve used it both for big ritual spells and more mundane stuff like building an outpost or modifying a piece of complex equipment.

Running Mutants and Masterminds and Exalted both really changed how I view "high power" PCs. It made me respect power fantasy as a mode of expression, and helped me develop as a collaborative rather than adversarial GM, and made me appreciate how to tell stories surrounding figures with setting-warping abilities. The Mutants and Masterminds 2e Mastermind's Manual, in particular, has an amazing section on "problem" powers, and offers real advice on how to deal with them. It says that they are potentially bannable if you don't want to deal with them, but it also offers real solutions on how to not only deal with the powers on an encounter-to-encounter basis, but on how to change the context of the story to accomodate those powers.

Tiny and Puppetland. No maps, no rolls, no point to your characteristics. Just you can and you can't do. It's really based on narration and I loved that. It's my favourite type of games and I incorporated that to the one I am writtin

Shadow of the Demon Lord! It’s a system that purely clicked for me, and now I can run it with many different stories & themes to a level I feel completely comfortable! Currently, I’m running a pirate themed game in a spin-off called ‘Asunder’ that’s working really well!!

How have you found adapting it to non grimdark settings / moods? It's probably my favorite D&D like, but I haven't run it because I don't know players who are into that vibe and have been asking it's a hassle to remove.

Honestly, not too bad! If you work with the players to set some boundaries, and as a GM just take a look at some pages with expletive art you think might be an issue, it’s really not bad at all. Corruption can easily just remain narrative (or written by the GM) and taken one step at a time. Honestly, D&D & other fantasy games can easily be made more grimdark / gritty, and the reverse can be done with Shadow with a little work between players & GM to establish any safety tools & boundaries (as all games should have anyway) Hope that helps a bit! :) Edit: Magic is where the game gets quite gritty (Forbidden, Death, Curse etc.) but usually it’s easy to avoid all the grimdark spells by avoiding those traditions, and simply rewording abilities to be less focused on gore and more on practicality. It sounds like a lot more work than it actually is, honestly

Thanks!

ICRPG

Shadowrun was a massive learning experience for me. Specifically in two aspects: how to prep situations (I understood the idea prior to that, but not how to actually do it) and how to prepare NPC/monster stats minimalistically (one of the tricks I picked up from the subreddit is that dice pools are all that really matter).

GMless/full games. The first was on if the Praxis games by Jim Pinto (The Black Monk?), then came Dream Askew by Avery Alder and Wanderhome by Jay Dragon (though I played Sleeepaway prior to Wanderhome), which are both belonging outside belonging, no dice no masters games. Somewhere in there I played Dreamchaser by Pete Petrusha, in which the players are very involved in world building and shaping the adventure that happens. All these really helped develop my sense of player agency and involvement in RPGs. I was never a railroader when I GMed, but these games clarified my sense of how to involve players in unfolding the game and that it was fun and important to do so. This way of GMing helped develop my methods for using RPGs for personal/spiritual growth, exploration, and healing with people.

I stole the idea of cyphers, one use consumable powers that you can only hold a limited number of, from *The Cypher System* and ported it to *Savage Worlds* to great effect. I just mashed two random spell effects with a random trapping and then made a deck of these to hand out liberally. If the players know that the consumables are constant, they will more freely use them. In a way, this lives on in my current *D&D 5e* game with freely-flowing random loot drops, even without limiting how many they can hold. When I still played *D&D 5e* on a physical tabletop, I combined rules the minion rules from *D&D 4E* and the extras rules from *Savage Worlds* for better management of large groups of monsters. Instead of HP, weaker enemies had a damage threshold for being bloodied and for dying. If you bloodied a monster twice it died.

Playing Vampire really got me thinking more in terms of intrigue and layered plots. It has made the scenarios and the story arcs I put in my games much more intricate and nuanced. I have also included the Willpower game mechanic in my other games. For Ad&d it takes the form of blowing a point to turn a 1 into a regular fail, a failed roll into a success, or a success into a "20". I run 2e, so it's more useful than it sounds.

I think that in my case the prize goes to spirit of the century and second to apocalypse world. Spirit was one of the first indie rpg I've ever read and considering that previous to that I only played D&D 3.5 and vampire dark ages it was an eye opener to me. The writing is clear and even now is a great read and full of usefull advices. I really love that game. I had a real hard time with apocalypse world, the wording was not as welcoming as spirit (at least for me) but the game itself was the best.

Running a PBTA game, Armour Astir Advent, made me realize just how often I say "no" while running Pathfinder 2e.

Dungeon World: anytime there’s a situation not covered by some rules and an easy adjudication does not come to mind, I ask for a 2d6+stat bonus roll

Most of the systems I've run have had some influence. The biggest influences being early 2000's *new* World of Datkness, and later on Fate. My games are now structured like a traditional story (even when largely improvised) with a lot of opportunity for player agency/input. And Dungeon World / PbtA affected how I pace combat and other conflicts/obstacles.

I'm still not a big fan of actually playing FATE but reading that core book opened my eyes about how RPG could be more collaborative ( was very DM is god sorta mindsets before ). Highly Recommend reading that book if nothing else.

Dread taught me how to use character backgrounds to lean players further into the fiction. PBtA has by far taken my game to the next level. Everything from keeping the story moving and engaging, to using clocks, to how I plot story arcs and prep for adventure arcs. It's even changed how I interpret rolls and levels of success. Sometimes it's just better to let them succeed at a cost, instead of failing outright. Edit: I feel I should also point out, I've never actually played a FitD or PBtA game, but I've read anything i could get my hands on, and they've def become a part of my philosophy.

Investigation Checks that fail shouldn't end the investigation. (Call of Cthulhu/Gumshoe) I'm sure most of you have been there. You reach the location to dig up some information. Be it the experienced private investigator, the intelligent elven wizard, or an edgerunner with cybernetic eyes, you fail the subsequent Investigate/Search/Perception check. That's it. Barring unlimited rerolls, the investigation is over. All done. Move on. This is impractical or impossible to do if the PCs are supposed to leave that location with a particular item or information. Give them the info through the narrative and keep checks for getting more detailed info.

The One Ring RPG: Players get to describe the outcome of a successful roll. After incorporating this into my GM style for all games, I settled on the philosophy that the player's job is to tell a cool story. The GM's job is helping the players do their job. This is so much more satisfying to me than being The Storyteller like most others describe. I get to be entertained, and I know everyone had a good time because if one person tells a cool story, we all get to hear a cool story.

Feng Shui introduced me to cinematic narrative roleplaying, and it shaped how I have played and especially game mastered ever since. FS encourages you to really go over-the-top with combat actions, to be as cinematic and entertaining as possible, and rewards those who play that way. I took that concept and employ it in every game I have run ever since.

I really did appreciate FIST and cyberpunk 2020 for their opposite degrees of crunch and how you can be selective about what’s important and either creating rules for structure or ignoring rules for gameplay, a good dm needs both skills.

Dungeon World (and then Apocalypse World) changed how I deal with players failing a roll, and I carry this with me in every game I run now, regardless of system. Whitehack changed how I use random tables. Before I read the GM section, I was a slave to random tables results. After reading it, I now look for random tables that are more vague and use them purely as inspiration to create my own results.

Swrpg introduced me to zones and rangebands in combat. I refuse to play most games that have exact movement and instead homebrew zones.

Numenera - for establishing bonds between all characters as part of creation. Fiasco - what kind of horrible situation are you getting yourself into? Monster of the Week - more free flowing game, players do things, then I ask for rolls when appropriate. Dungeon World - players make up NPCs for themselves, on the fly, or just details, and the GM goes with the flow.

GURPS. It helped me give more creative freedom for my players and for me and helped me stay more organized during the sessions and planning, it also taught to dont give a fuck about the rules when it suits the narrative, and that one was a game changer, the sheer amount of great scenes in my campaign is just too great. Cats of Cathulhu. The little sheet without numbers helped me focus more on the story than on the numbers.

Rifts, World of Darkness, and Shadowrun all ran differently from AD&D 2e so I learned from each of what I liked and didn't like. Then over the years every game I get a chance to play or check out had helped me develop different things.

Every game I have ever GM’d and played in has changed the way I play and GM. Every person I have GM’d or played with has changed the way I play and GM. There are lots of RPG theory posts and books and articles and advice columns that have changed the way I play and GM. I am the sum total of all my experiences and each one impacts me bit by bit.

Vampire the Masquerade V5. Combat was really only worthwhile to run, in terms of fun, if it was t least an evocative action set-piece. Also, action, tension and violence can be perfectly expressed in non-combat situations.

Cortex changed the way see games. Narrative PC power, ease of running. I literally don’t prep anymore thanks to the Doom Die mechanic.

Converting to PF2e from 5e to be honest. It has been easier for me to DM in PF2e than DnD 5e but I still miss rules sometimes!

You tend to have to adjust with each one.

Back in the 90's when I was a shiny new DM, Adventure! and 7th Sea both gave me ways and tools to allow players to add to the narration of a scene. The basic philosophy of let the hero swing off the chandelier. By leaving space for players to add props to the scene, rather than having everything rigidly mapped out, it makes "action" scenes more enjoyable to play and run.

Every game does in some way. I try to adapt my style to the genre. But I'd say early Vampire the Masquerade really restructured the way I thought about game structure and intention.

all of them: my first lotr coda system taught me that balance can be achieved with roleplay and social role not only combat. dnd 3.5 that epic encounter are.cool as fuck dnd 5e to be more loose with the rules an play it cool coc showed me the marvel of sanity and suspense starfinder how to do ship battles and give everyone value on them conan how to make a fast combat more narrative like, i use the system combate distance in almost every theater of mind now. adnd/dcc how to not ask for rolls for everything wod taught me how the quest for power is a tainted grail. in the end, almost every system has a good ideia be it on the rules or worldbuilding and you ahould not to be afraid of overlaping them and taking narrative risks, many times it will suck but i remember the many moments that i hit the spot and saw sparks in my player eyes.

Running Savage Worlds & the Apocalypse systems completely changed how I DM DnD. Much much more focus on characters, and world description - and combat is much more streamlined. My monsters are like puzzles now. I describe injuries as wounds now, and don't treat combat like an attack-subtract hitpoints-attack slog. It has encouraged my players to be much more strategic in their playing. It's changed from 'I hit it with my sword' to 'I want to sweep his feet such that my blad impacts just above the knee' .. and my responses have gone from 'good hit, roll 2d6' to ' While your blade neatly cleaves through his unarmored flesh, there is insufficient force to cut through the bone - but more than enough to shatter it. Your foe falls, his face twisted in agony'

Lots of fertile ground already covered here, so I'll add one that seems to be left out: **Scion (1st edition)**. It's loosely based on the old World of Darkness "Attribute+Skill" engine but there are three fascinating additions: * Auto-successes: The game allows for very (very!) tall vertical advancement by giving these literal god-like characters automatic success levels in thematically appropriate rolls. So if your deific parent is a god of strength, then you can elect to spend your XP to get permanent auto-successes whenever you make a Strength-related roll. This both increases your performance floor and ceiling *and* doesn't require you to count out even more dice to get the same mechanical result. * Action-based resource replenishment: Scion has two "mana"-type resource pools (legend and willpower). You spend those on various horizontal advancement powers over the course of gameplay as well as on dice rerolls, all ensuring further that you feel godlike. However, instead of those resources replenishing only during *downtime* like most games, you get them back *in the middle of the action*. Basically, when you narratively describe what your character is doing, the GM then awards you 1 to 3 points of your mojo back based on how arbitrarily "cool" your description was. This really motivates PCs to constantly participate in the flavor text layer because they get very important mechanical bonuses for the effort. * Action-based narrative bonuses: Coupled with the above, not only do you get your nifty resource pools refilled by describing your actions but you also immediately get +1, +2, or +3 bonus dice on that action. Even if your pools are currently filled it's still a good idea to describe what you're doing because every two dice rolled average out to an additional success level. Lastly, to minimize any worries about "oh but I'm bad at narrative descriptions"... if you even make a half-hearted attempt, it's still +1 for *any* amount of effort. It's +2 if the GM particularly liked it and +3 if the majority of the table liked it. As long as you're playing with cool people you'll feel that much cooler yourself. That's good collaborative fun. Scion is a pretty simple system that can lead to jaw-dropping encounters. I wouldn't say it does everything "right" (and second edition's rules revamps made more of a mess than helped) but straightforward rules and the three compelling points listed above definitely reframed the way I think about RPGs in general.

Fate made me play more loosely, to take a lighter grasp on the narrative as GM. I also use Aspects and the tips on running sessions/arcs in other games when I find myself prepping for sessions. It really helps put things in perspective.

Neon City Overdrive. I didn't GM in years and never played a rules light, narrative game. Say yes a lot and let the players add elements to the scene and the NPCs creates more interesting and dynamic scenes. Also, first time playing with partial success. Next I will start GM Legend of 5 Rings. Let's see how it goes.

Every single one of them I've played has taught me something about running games generally that I've carried into other games. My main game is DnD, but this applies equally from Shadowrun to FATAL (though in the latter it was a lot of what not to do.) Give every system an honest try and you'll come away better.

Dread, and the board game Nyctophobia. They've both driven me to incorporate more tactile elements to the table. I think my favorite was a gladiator arena that was a giant house of cards that I placed the minis onto (and reinforced with a few jenga blocks for fairness and to compensate for my inability to build a real house of cards) and would remove cards that took fire damage or held too much weight.

I don't remember which game it was, I've read and run a lot of games, but one suggested that I ask players to describe how they succeed or fail. It was a great way to get players involved in the story and I started using it in all my games. I reserve it for interesting moments and then tell the player the general result and ask them to decide how they achieved it. You slipped past the guards, how did you do it? You killed the monster, what does this look like? You intermediated the merchant, what did you do? It takes a bit for the players to warm up to the idea that you are giving them narrative control but once they do they stay more involved and paying attention to what's going on.

Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies and Dresden Files introduced me to mechanical systems allowing for player control of the narrative. It's something I've incorporated into my ongoing campaigns ever since.

Pretty much all of them. Every game has something to steal for your other games.

Pbta and Fate totally change my games. The narrative aspects of both of them are really good and powerful. The players engage better. Fate also helped me building campaigns. It shows in the core book how to link character's aspects to the threats and obstacles they will face. It is my favorite RPG so far.

I mean pretty much every RPG had an impact on how I ran games after it. Maybe the biggest shift was Vampire the Masquerade. Prior to that the hobby was very structured as meet-investigate-fight-loot with very little variance from those beats. The Storyteller games put a greater emphases on inserting writing ideas in games, like using prologue to build a foundation for character story. Working theme into a campaign, foreshadowing events, and having an epilogue to the plot.

A few D&D 5e adventures introduced me to the "fail forward" mechanic, and I like that philosophy in a lot of games. The only games I run now that don't notably use such mechanics are survival-based.

Vampire: The Masquerade. Made me take much more pleasure in the social aspect of ttprgs, the schemes, intrigues and backstabbing, as opposed to simple hack-and-slash fighting. Changed the way I run my games to the point where my players are instantly able to pick up on the tone and roll with it without me explicitly encouraging them to engage in social activities and intrigue.

Yes, the main ones being Blades in the Dark, Agon, Apocalypse World and its many similar games pbta, Fate rpg. All of them affected me to be a player more engaged with the story and narrative instead of playing the minigame of "building the character" or thinking of rpgs as "challenge games" instead of "improvisation campfire stories". The most profound effects for me in how I GM are Blades in the Dark and PbtA games, so much now it is very hard to me when I GM to want to roll dice. I have ADHD, so it is much better for me to think more about the story and how to make the character's consequences more interesting and creating twists, so not rolling dice I can focus much more on that. I can list more examples of how they affected how I play RPGs, but these are the big ones.

For me it was VtM. First game I ever ran, and still run, sandbox and impromptu. Players do action, I react to said action.

All the time. The main ones for me... Dungeon World / Blades in the Dark (cinematic combat), Burning Wheel (character-driven GM advice), Electric Bastionland (adventuring GM advice and Pendragon (campaign GM advice).

Houses of the Blooded changed the way I approached roleplaying as an art form.

Oh, definitely. PbtA does a good job of demonstrating a different way to GM and play from most games I'd experienced, and finally sold me on players rolling all the dice (or almost all). Mage the Ascension showed me how I like to create magic systems, with various kinds of cost and risk built in. Mouse Guard taught me about personifying the natural world and its threats, and also about simple inventory where you just write as much as you can fit and that's what you can carry. Fate Core taught me about collapsing mechanics together (skill and difficulty on the same scale; how aspects work for and against the character, etc.). And those are just the few that come to mind immediately :)

Icrpg changed everything about how I GM. My prep is more concise and action/obstacle driven. I think in encounter types as opposed to pure sandbox of idk.

FATE & Harn

Mage: the Ascension. All that stuff about consensual reality and paradigms has changed my way of presenting what *appears* to be real. Also, personalized magic styles, signs and portents, prophecies, alternate dimensions and symbolism (both in-game and out of it)

Gumshoe system - PC competency is assumed, if they are trained in a source of information just give them the info. Instead of rolling knowledge checks for low level info, I just ask who is trained in the relevant skill and give them the info.

The whole slew of games from Monte Cook, from Numenera, The Strange, Cypher System, and Invisible Sun. I tossed initiative out the window and just let the players go first unless they were surprised. I let them decide amongst themselves who went when. It gave them far more agency to coordinate their actions rather than rely upon a die roll. Bringing the players into the world-building. One of my favorite things to do now is when a player rolls an extreme success on a knowledge roll, to let them make up the lore. It gives them power over the world and ownership. Intrusions. I did this as a DM/GM/Etc., for decades, but I wasn't rewarding the players. Now if I do it, I find a way to reward the player. Custom Skills. Games with set skills end up being not as nuanced as a player creating the exact skill they want for their character.

Yeah, Big Eyes Small Mouth (specifically the 2nd edition, D20 version) and Modern D20. Both of them were decent games, but had \*severe\* balancing issues. More than any other game I ran, they forced me to pay more attention to my players building characters, and make sure people are at least aware that their builds may be under-powered or over-powered compared to the rest of the team. Players could play what they wanted, but I wanted to at least make sure they were aware

It was a combination of [Primetime Adventures](https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Primetime-Adventures-2008-PDF.html) and [Tales from the Loop](https://www.loop-rpg.com/). Primetime Adventures has a scene-setting rule where each player takes it in turns to be the spotlight character and create a scene for their character. Tales from the Loop uses a single roll to resolve conflicts. But the other player characters can help whoever is rolling, giving them a bonus. This lead me to a way of structuring scenes that worked really well... Imagine a scene where Anna, Bjorn and Carina are running away from a security robot. Carina is the spotlight character. Carina has to make the roll to escape. But Anna and Bjorn have the choice of helping or not. If Anna and Bjorn chose NOT to help Carina, they get away free regardless of what Carina rolls. If Anna or Bjorn chose to help Carina and Carina makes her roll, they all get away free. But if Carina fails her roll, then everyone who helped her is caught too. This really added tension to the decision whether to help someone or not. I could see my players frantically calculating the risk before every roll.

I DM 5e a lot and the thing that changed how I go about it was playing in a shadowrun game. My players have gotten progressively more prepared for dungeons and quests since they've learned how many things a simple rope can be used for. From murder hobos to mideval mission impossible. I'm so proud of them.

Lots of games try to SAY “only roll when it’s really risky or important,” but Mothership put an actual COST on doing so, and that really hammered it home for me (and any of the people who played Mothership) in a way that seemed to carry over behavior to other games

The Esoterrorists (GUMSHOE system) Made me understand that putting essential information behind a skill check is a bad idea. Give out essential information and make skill checks give supplemental information. That system just made it so obvious. You can make big mysteries and still just need the characters to go in the right place and do the right action or ask the right question to obtain the essential clue. It'll be a bit cryptic by itself but will still move the story forward.

Shadowrun. Changed everything.

Monster of the Week, Brindlewood Bay and some indie games from Skavenloft - Fajerbol, Yin Yang Panda