Hey fellow GMs!

We all know the moment when your players completely ignore your main plot hook, walk up to the town notice board, and ask what's posted for quick coin.

I put together a book of 50 ready-to-run bounty contracts (each with read-aloud notices, NPCs, scaling notes, and a twist). Here are two complete bounties from the book you can use at your table right now:

[PASTE 2 OF YOUR FAVORITE BOUNTIES FROM YOUR BOOK HERE]

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If you want all 50 bounties, I made the complete Kindle book (The Game Master's Bounty Board) 100% FREE on Amazon for the next 48 hours (and it's also in Kindle Unlimited):

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HPFQTY9Z

Hope it saves you a few hours of Thursday night prep!

Hey yall. I made a shadow slave Ttrpg and have been playing it for about a year now. Finally put it all into a doc so all you lovely folks can take a crack at it if u want or give feedback which is appreciated.

Is it well made? No
Is it balanced? Hell no
Is it over complicated and poorly made? Probably
But I’ve been having fun with it so if anyone else has fun with it I think that would be pretty cool

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ysLwJsA8WlpMvrY-jCm115tOo9Ky-pmA91WnHKLkyOQ/edit?usp=drivesdk

We shared our Character sheet and were met with wonderful responses and support.

Now, it's time to saddle up.

100% Human Made. No AI art or text.

What is DRAW!? A $5 lite Western TTRPG that can be downloaded once and played by all. Most of the rules in the game revolve around a lite, medium, and heavy tiered system which makes coming up with stuff on the fly that much easier. Your character survival is based on a 3-wound system. The real historical dangers of the west are enough to make your character's day to day survival a coin-toss. Or, in this case, a d100 roll....

Who is DRAW!? Created by Wisconsin natives with a combined two dozen years of TTRPG and RPG experience. We've played many games such as Mörk Borg, DCC, Mothership, Savage Worlds, and of course D&D, and brought those experiences into a different setting. One made just for this.

Where is DRAW!? It's a setting-forward rules system set in the American 1870s western frontier. Mountains, deserts, valleys, forests, all harbor enough wilderness to pose an exciting and dangerous setting.

How is DRAW!? It's pretty good, thank you for asking. Try it out!

so i'm running a campaign where one player built their character to absolutely shred encounters mechanically, and the other three are playing more narratively focused builds. combat encounters feel either trivial or i have to crank the difficulty so high that everyone else gets steamrolled. has anyone dealt with this without making it weird?

I released The Beast Within: Rules for Lycanthropy for Shadowdark today, just in time for the full moon tonight.

The idea was to make lycanthropy something you could actually build play around: an iconic curse with power, consequences, and choices, rather than just something to cure at the first opportunity.

It includes rules for transformation, losing control, Beast Instincts, full-moon preparations, new were-creatures, magic items, and more.

The core question is pretty simple:

The beast gives you power. How much of yourself are you willing to give it?

Available now from Joker & Thief Publishing on Itch and DrivethruRPG.

https://joker-thief-publishing.itch.io/the-beast-within-rules-for-lycanthropy

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/577980/the-beast-within-rules-for-lycanthropy

I released The Beast Within: Rules for Lycanthropy for Shadowdark today, just in time for the full moon tonight.

The idea was to make lycanthropy something you could actually build play around: an iconic curse with power, consequences, and choices, rather than just something to cure at the first opportunity.

It includes rules for transformation, losing control, Beast Instincts, full-moon preparations, new were-creatures, magic items, and more.

The core question is pretty simple:

The beast gives you power. How much of yourself are you willing to give it?

Available now from Joker & Thief Publishing on Itch and DrivethruRPG.

https://joker-thief-publishing.itch.io/the-beast-within-rules-for-lycanthropy

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/577980/the-beast-within-rules-for-lycanthropy

like, one of my players asked if they could use a spell in a way that's completely outside the rules but would be genuinely sick if it worked. i don't want to just shut them down, but i also don't want to break the game. do other dms just homebrew stuff on the fly or is there a better way to handle this without derailing everything?

Magic comes in all shapes and sizes! From kobold sorcerers wielding draconic magic to goblin and orc shamans drawing upon ancient rituals, this collection brings together all kinds of monstrous spellcasters. You'll also find powerful wraith necromancers and some more unusual magical creatures, including the mysterious Whimz'orr, fiery Pyro Pixies, and imposing Infernal Golems!

Each brings something different to the table, from elemental powers and necromancy to strange supernatural abilities and magical defenses. Whether you need a cunning spellcaster to challenge your party, a mystical ally, or a powerful magical guardian, there's plenty here to add some variety to your adventures!

All these creatures come from various 5E/5.5E manuals I've created over the years, with ready-to-use statblocks, unique abilities, and plenty of options to customize them and bring something new to your encounters!

My Kickstarter for 300+ Mythological Items for 5E and 5.5E is also live now! Alongside the new book in digital and hardcover formats, the campaign offers exclusive, high-quality printed editions of several of my previous manuals featured in this post! It's a great opportunity to add these books to your physical collection, or grab them together in discounted bundles if you prefer digital copies!

You can find more of my creatures, magic items, and manuals on DriveThruRPG, my Linktree, or on r/JonnyDM!

i'm running a campaign where we have a pretty big party and i've noticed a couple people get kinda quiet during other people's character moments. i don't want anyone feeling like they're just waiting around for their turn. does anyone have actual strategies that work, or is this just something that comes with a larger group?

"Through the Door" One way or another, Eosia's time at Val Royeaux's Circle of Magi is over.

like i get that some systems are clunky and need fixes, but i've noticed a lot of folks treat their campaigns like they're speedrunning for world record times. not everyone needs to min-max their character or have a perfectly balanced party. sometimes messy and weird is just better, you know?

I started out wanting to make a module based on Nosferatu but I think it became something very different.

The Gamma Knights' mission beneath Melkath has reached its breaking point.

They're trapped in a flooded reactor complex with a fusion core on the verge of catastrophic failure. The Radboleth has separated the party, the emergency bulkheads refuse to open, and radioactive horrors are closing in from every direction.

And just when the Knights think they've won, the real nightmare begins.

Game 27 brings the Radboleth confrontation to its brutal conclusion—and delivers the fallout. It's a story of desperate improvisation, teamwork under impossible pressure, and the terrible things that can happen when ancient technology fails.

Read the latest Session Saga at GammaTerra.org.

Discussion question: For your own tabletop campaigns, what's your favorite kind of final encounter: the overwhelming boss fight, the ticking-clock disaster, or the apparent victory that turns out to be a trap?

I'd love to hear how other GMs bring a major story arc to its conclusion.

The Hollow Harvest is a ten-room Halloween adventure for Shadowdark

Here’s a little Halloween adventure for your table.

A giant pumpkin has split open in a farmer’s field, revealing stairs into a buried cottage. A missing boy hides in its walls, the servants are preparing supper, and an old nursery rhyme holds clues to what happened here.

The Hollow Harvest is written for 1st-level Shadowdark crawlers, with opportunities to talk, bargain, investigate, and attempt a rescue while the cottage fights back.

I’ve posted the adventure pages here. The layout puts room keys alongside map cutaways and relevant monster stats—the way I like to have things arranged when I run.

If you’d prefer a downloadable PDF, grab it here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/142bjjpyPYqxnWmRS2OenUWympQlUo9T0/view?usp=sharing