Monster of the Week (2012)

Vampire: The Masquerade (5th Edition) is published by Renegade Games Studios and was released in 2018. It is a TTRPG-scene classic for vampire-themed games. Set in an alternative, but modern, world, called "World of Darkness". The players will step into the shoes of recently turned vampires, now thrust into the dark underworld of the vampire society. It is a storytelling game focusing on personal and political horror. Description The players, now part of "The Masquerade" have to keep their new identity a secret from the human population, while at the same time engaging with various vampire clans and factions. Managing the new reality, both in terms of new societal norms and requirements, and their vampiric hunger, will set the players on a different "adventure" altogether. System Overview & Key Features Storyteller System (d10 Dice Pool) The system utilizes the Storyteller engine, which uses pools of ten-sided dice (d10). To resolve actions, the player adds the character's Attribute and Skill scores together to determine the total number of dice rolled. Any die showing a 6 or higher counts as a success. Rolling multiple 10s yields a critical success. Disciplines Player characters have access to supernatural abilities known as Disciplines. These include categorized powers such as enhanced physical speed, cognitive manipulation, and physical mutation. Activating these abilities frequently requires a "Rouse Check," a dice roll that carries a probability of increasing the character's Hunger level. Touchstones and Humanity Characters possess a Humanity rating that measures their ethical degradation. To maintain this rating, characters link themselves to "Touchstones," which are specific human non-player characters representing the vampire's surviving mortal values. If a Touchstone is damaged or killed, the player character risks a permanent reduction to their Humanity score. Blood Potency A statistic called Blood Potency dictates the strength of a vampire's abilities. Higher Blood Potency provides numerical advantages to Discipline rolls and healing rates. However, it also imposes dietary restrictions; characters with high Blood Potency cannot reduce their Hunger by consuming animal blood or preserved human blood, requiring them to feed directly from live humans. Additional links renegadegamestudios.com - Official Renegade Game Studios website worldofdarkness.com - Official World of Darkness portal

Fear of the Unknown is a zero prep horror mystery game designed for one-shots and inspired by horror movies, from slasher flicks to possession films to conspiracy thrillers Together, one Oracle and one or more other players will collaboratively create the small town setting and populate it with a diverse and contentious cast of characters. Each player creates their protagonist, and then the Oracle creates a horrifying mystery for them to solve. Every game has a real mystery to solve with a real secret to uncover, with zero prep required! Fear of the Unknown introduces the Seeking the Unknown system, which focuses on leading questions that help you create a world, characters, and story with no preparation, and lasting changes to your character with every decision you make and every time you roll the dice. It also has advice for how to make your own Seeking the Unknown game.

Delta Green is a standalone tabletop roleplaying game of modern conspiracy and cosmic horror. Originally a supplement for Call of Cthulhu, the current standalone edition was published by Arc Dream Publishing in 2016. Players take on the roles of federal agents or contractors working for a secret, illegal organization dedicated to containing supernatural threats and covering up the existence of the Cthulhu Mythos to protect the United States. The system it directly evolved from is Call of Cthulhu Description In Delta Green, the horror is not just about monsters; it is about the toll that a life of secrecy and violence takes on the human soul. Agents juggle their high stakes investigations with their crumbling personal lives. They must navigate a world of bureaucratic red tape, government conspiracies, and sanity shattering entities while ensuring that no one, not even their own families, ever finds out the truth. The game is famous for its bleak tone and focus on the cost of the "Great Work." System Overview & Key Features d100 Percentile System The game uses a familiar percentile dice engine. Skills are rated from 01 to 99. To succeed, you must roll equal to or under your skill rating. If the tens and ones digits match (a double) and the roll is a success, it is a critical success; if it is a failure, it is a critical failure. Bonds and Domestic Ruin Agents have Bonds representing their relationships with loved ones or colleagues. When an agent suffers Sanity loss, they can choose to project that trauma onto a Bond to reduce the loss. This mechanically represents the agent coming home and taking their trauma out on their family, slowly destroying their personal life to stay functional in the field. Sanity and Adaptation The game tracks three types of Sanity loss: Violence, Helplessness, and the Unnatural. If an agent experiences enough Violence or Helplessness without breaking, they can become "adapted," making them more resilient to those triggers but less capable of maintaining human empathy and Bonds. Lethality Rating Instead of rolling many dice for heavy weapons like assault rifles or explosives, Delta Green uses a Lethality percentage. If the player rolls under this rating, the target is instantly killed. If they roll over it, the weapon deals a fixed, significant amount of damage instead. The Home Phase Between missions (Operas), players play through a "Home" scene. They must choose how to spend their limited time: fulfilling responsibilities to maintain Bonds, seeking therapy to recover Sanity, or practicing skills. Choosing one often means neglecting the others, leading to a downward spiral of isolation. Special Training and Agencies Character creation is deeply rooted in real world professions. Whether you are a CIA Case Officer, an FBI Special Agent, or a CDC Epidemiologist, your profession dictates your starting skills and the federal resources you can leverage during an investigation. Additional links deltagreen.com - Official Delta Green website arcdream.com - Official Arc Dream Publishing website

Codex is a browser-based character sheet and encounter tracker for d20 games using the 3.5 SRD, published under the Open Game License v1.0a. It runs as a progressive web app: it installs on a phone like a native app, works with no connection, and pushes any pending changes once the network returns. The design goal is that the sheet does the arithmetic a table normally does by hand. Underneath the interface sits a full implementation of the 3.5 ruleset - typed bonus stacking, iterative base attack bonuses, multiclassing, spell slots derived per ability score, two-weapon fighting, armour check penalties, encumbrance, size modifiers and confirmable criticals - rather than a set of fields the player has to total up. Every value on the sheet is derived, and clicking any ability, save, skill or weapon rolls it with the correct modifier already applied. Codex also checks the character against the rules and says so when something does not add up. If a sheet ends up with more skill ranks than the character's level allows, more feats than available slots, spells prepared that the caster can no longer cast, a cleric missing his two domains or a paladin who has stopped being Lawful Good, the sheet reports it and links to the tab where it is fixed. It never edits the character on its own - the correction is always the player's decision. The Encounter tab turns the same engine into a combat tracker: initiative order, a bestiary of 466 SRD creatures, per-combatant conditions, a battle grid with flanking, reach and range increments, and an encounter difficulty estimator. Encounters can be run solo or as a shared room, where a server validates every action rather than trusting the client. Characters can be built by hand or generated. Thirty-two archetype templates - twenty of them multiclass - produce a complete, rules-legal character at any level, with equipment bought from the wealth the SRD grants for that level and restricted to what the character is actually proficient with. Codex is bilingual (English and Spanish), free to use, and requires no installation or account to try.

One D&D session, three connected screens. Lumen VTT gives game masters and players a shared place to run maps, music, combat, dice, character actions, and table-facing moments without turning the session into admin work. What Lumen VTT is for Lumen is designed for D&D 5e groups that want the structure of a modern VTT while keeping play moving. It focuses on combat flow, animated tabletop feedback, live session tools, music, and fast GM setup. A VTT for active tables The app supports a GM view, player views, and a live table display, so a group can play online or around a real table with a TV. Players can use phones while the GM manages the encounter. Automation where it helps Combat features are built around common 5e tasks such as attack rolls, saves, damage, healing, conditions, initiative, movement, and area effects. The goal is to reduce bookkeeping while keeping decisions visible. What to compare in any virtual tabletop When comparing VTT software, look at how quickly a session starts, how much rules work is automated, whether players need heavy setup, how the map feels during combat, and whether the tool supports your actual table format. Links lumenvtt.com - Official website

Mappadux is a free, browser based virtual tabletop built for in person play, often referred to as "VTT@Home". It needs no account, no server, and no install. It runs entirely in the browser, and the maps and assets a GM uploads stay on their own device. The aim is a tool that sets up immersive maps in minutes and stays out of the way during a session, rather than one that becomes an evening prep job. Built originally by the creator for their own table and needs, it offers a streamlined solution for anyone with similar goals. /images/general-media/1785161337_ZnhecuRG.png Mappadux is system agnostic and designed to be used for any in person RPG, fitting a playstyle where the same game system is rarely used twice. It does not enforce any rules, but it does contain general purpose GM tools applicable to most games, such as scaled maps, measuring tools, clocks, timers, initiative trackers, and map markers. This VTT is about adding immersion and setting a mood. For in person games, these elements are far more important than managing movement, actions, or other busywork. Setting the mood and getting players immersed in the game with audio and visual effects without getting in the way is the central design philosophy. Allowing the GM to manage everything during play with a couple of clicks or by pressing a touch screen is key; needing to reach for a keyboard during a session is considered a design failure. On the GM side, Mappadux covers usual table needs without menu hunting mid scene: fog of war, painted shader effects, animated backdrops, markers, motion trackers, atmospheric and positional audio, and immersive visual filters like parchment, hand drawn, or CRT phosphor. Image maps, animated maps, composite or layered maps, and rich text map handouts like letters, posters, and journal pages all sit side by side in one library. Players are not passive participants unless the GM wants them to be. While phones or tablets are not required at the table, connecting them unlocks optional Player Voice functionality. These features give each player a named identity with their own draggable map token, map pings (a quick 'look here!'), two way secret note passing with an optional LLM assisted reply for the GM, and a way to submit initiative easily. Everything a GM builds, including maps, audio, splash screens, and themes, travels in a single .mappadux pack file that can optionally be encrypted. This allows a prepared session to be handed to players, posted to a Patreon, or shared with the wider community as easily as forwarding a file. Mappadux is attribution focused: every map and sound carries its license, source, and creator, and the asset library can copy a ready to paste credits block. /images/general-media/1785161343_us80ZTo0.png Its defining trick is peer to peer screen sharing over the local network. Any phone, tablet, TV, or laptop on the same WiFi becomes a fully functional second screen by scanning a QR code or entering details manually, with no HDMI cable, no dongle, and no app to install. A GM can run a laptop as a control screen, lay a tablet flat on the table at true 1 inch or 25 mm scale as a mini battlemap, and face another tablet at the players for handouts and reveals. This creates a complete three screen setup that fits in a bag. Mappadux includes accessibility features such as screen reader compatibility for handout text blocks on both GM and player views, and feedback for improvement is always welcome. Mappadux is open source (MIT), free to download, modify, and use, and remains under active development with a community on Discord for feedback and bug reports. /images/general-media/1785161349_qbDExtcX.png Links mappadux.com - Mappadux website github.com  - Github page discord.gg - Discord server ko-fi.com - Support the project