Crispy's Academy: RPG Tips

The “LFG” struggle is real. How do you find a group to play with in 2026 “LFG D&D 5E”, “LFP D&D 2014/2024 5E”, “LFG Dungeons & Dragons” - it is very likely that you have seen (or even posted) such messages in various places. LFG, or Looking for Group, is the common acronym to indicate that you are looking for a table to join. The opposing acronym is LFM - Looking for Members. Posting these messages will wear you down eventually. Are there really no groups that have room for you? Is there something obvious that you are perhaps missing? Is the hobby not meant for you? It is natural to feel worn down by either rejection or just silence. You see a group that is looking for players, you reply and you get nothing back. Playing Dungeons & Dragons should feel like fun. Because it is fun. Find the right group that fits your style and you will absolutely fall in love with the game and look forward to every session. But. You have to get there first. You need to find a group of players to take you in and only then, can you take the next steps. Reddit, Discord, Facebook or a dedicated platform? When you are looking for a dnd group, you are faced with various different paths to take. They all have their cons and pros. Lets take a look at some of the more popular approaches: The subreddit spam Reddit has been a reliable all-inclusive platform for a long time now. With a massive amount of users all over the world covering various different topics, themes, questions, experiences and interests - it is safe to say, that reddit has everything. But including that everything, you might run into a lot of “noise”. Pros: A lot of users making many posts every day. Global platform connecting you to various people all across the globe. Cons: The noise. An active subreddit will see multiple posts every hour. Your post might get immediately covered by other redditors’ posts. Filtering the posts to find something relevant to you will be difficult, as it is all text-based and with no detailed search functions. Finding a group that is focused on a specific theme or topic will be a chore. The Discord discourse As a platform for messaging and being involved with various communities - there isn’t a good alternative to Discord. Different communities have various versions of #looking-for-group channels. And as clustered as Discord is, with everyone starting their own server, gathering users and growing a community, you are either locked to a few LFG channels - or you have to find a ton of various community servers to join, to share your post with as many pairs of eyes as you can. Pros: It is an instant messaging platform. You post - it gets sent. You get a reply, it happens instantly. And once you find a group to join, you don’t have to look further, as most likely further communication will continue on Discord. Cons: You need to know where to go. There isn’t a one-stop-shop server that gets your message out to everyone in the hobby-space. It also lacks a search functionality beyond basic text search. Unless the server you have found separates games by theme, type, timezone or some other parameter - you are usually stuck with a single channel to post and search. The Facebook fatigue You most likely already are on Facebook. Either you have an account that is collecting dust, or you use it for messaging. And similar to Discord, there are tons of various D&D LFG groups to find, join and post in. You just have to find the right one, get your join request approved and get posting. Pros: Once you find a group that fits your search criteria, you can post your message. And have people either leave a comment or message you directly. Keep in mind, that messages from users who you are not connected with will be filtered to a separate mailbox. Be sure to check there, if you are waiting for a reply. Cons: Just like the other methods listed above, Facebook also falls short when it comes to searchability. And compared to Reddit or Discord, the search functionality is even more limited. It was never designed for that. You also need to find an appropriate Facebook group to join. One that still has active users and has not been abandoned yet. The Groupfinder gateway And then there is Groupfinder. A dedicated platform for your LFG needs. Free to use, with users all across the world and a simple user interface to get you going. While other platforms are, at the end of the day, messaging boards - Groupfinder has been built from the ground-up to serve a specific purpose (You won’t be selling a lawnmower here any time soon). You are here to find a dungeons and dragons group. Pros: Filtering. Finding a group (or other players) is easy with various filtering options. Looking for an online dnd group? Limit your search results to a specific timezone. Whether you are on the east coast, central Europe, or even in Australia - you can manage who’s posts you are shown. /images/general-media/1774999635_UxGFgbcv.pngThe filtering system will help you narrow down your search Or if you are trying to find a local, in-person game - you can use the map filter to pick a specific location on the map, adjust the search radius and only be shown the groups that match your specified area. In addition to timezones, you can use the tags. You can only view groups who have added various predefined tags to their post. Looking for a game that is suitable for a newcomer - “Beginner friendly”. Want to play over messages - “Play by post”. Interested in games that have a spooky theme - “Horror”. Take a look at the various tags that you can use to filter the posts. Are you looking for a game that follows the 2014 ruleset? Pick “Dungeons & Dragons 5E”. Or are you ready to switch over to the newer rules? - “Dungeons & Dragons 5.5E (2024)”. Even if you are looking for games for another game system, like Daggerheart, Pathfinder, Shadowrun, Mothership or Savage Worlds - use the game system filter. (Read more about the popularity of alternative TTRPG systems in this article) Not currently looking to join a paid game? Understandable - you can use the “Paid game” switch to filter out all the games run by professional GMs. Cons: The platform is still growing and more people are still discovering it. How to increase the odds of your post succeeding? While there isn’t a specific and guaranteed approach that is bound to get you into a group within 5 minutes of posting. You can still follow a few suggestions to increase the odds. Who are you and what do you want?  This might sound like a line from a cheesy detective movie - but it holds some truth. Writing a compelling and descriptive profile bio will give you a massive advantage Tag appropriately. Some groups search for players via tags. If you don’t have any added to your profile, you are immediately cutting yourself out of their search results. Don’t go overboard and add all the tags. Pick only the ones that represent your preferences the best. Share your profile. All the platforms listed above are messaging boards after all. If you spot a group or players thinking about forming a party - post your profile link. Instead of sending them a wall of text, you now have a page that describes who you are, what games you are looking for, what your timezone is and displays you as someone willing to go the extra mile. Bump yourself. Bumping (Bring up my post) is how we have eliminated the constant message spam. Instead of returning every day or two to write up a new post to introduce yourself, you can take your current profile and just click the button on the right side of your cover image. That will bump your post to the top of the listings, completely refreshing it’s position. Stop wearing yourself thin Instead of spending all that time posting on various different platforms. And then doing a second lap of checking for responses - post your profile and find your dnd group.

Dragonbane is a classic fantasy tabletop roleplaying game published by Free League Publishing in 2023. It is a modern English translation and reimagining of Drakar och Demoner, Scandinavia's first and longest-running TTRPG, originally released in 1982. The game carries over four decades of Swedish gaming heritage into a sleek, accessible package designed around the philosophy of "mirth and mayhem": fast-paced adventures with minimal prep, where danger is real, luck matters, and even a humble merchant can become a legend. Unlike many modern fantasy RPGs, Dragonbane deliberately avoids the power-escalation treadmill of level-based systems. Characters are capable but mortal from session one, and the game works equally well for a single one-shot evening or a sprawling long-term campaign. It was a strong contender for TTRPG of the year on release, praised widely as one of the most accessible entry points into tabletop fantasy roleplaying. Description In Dragonbane, players take on the role of adventurers in the Misty Vale, a hidden mountain valley, ancient and full of ruins from fallen kingdoms, only recently cleared of orc and goblin occupation. The world is shaped by the eternal cosmic struggle between two great powers: the Dragons and the Demons, rival godlike forces whose conflict bleeds into mortal life. Players choose from six playable Kins: Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, the duck-like Mallards, and the feral Wolfkin and one of ten Professions (Fighter, Mage, Hunter, Thief, Artisan, Merchant, Mariner, Scholar, and others), each providing a distinct set of skills and heroic abilities. One player takes the role of the Game Master (GM), who builds the world, voices NPCs, and runs the dangers the adventurers face. The tone balances genuine peril and dark fantasy with moments of levity and absurdity. System Overview & Key Features Roll-Under D20 Skill System Dragonbane uses a clean roll-under mechanic. Every skill has a rating from 1 to 18, and to succeed, the player must roll equal to or below that number on a D20. There is no adding up bonuses or consulting modifiers, a skill of 14 means you need a 14 or lower. This keeps the math fast and intuitive while still creating meaningful differences between a trained and an untrained character. Rolling a Dragon & Rolling a Demon Natural 1s and 20s are not just successes and failures, they're narrative events. Rolling a 1 is "Rolling a Dragon": a critical success that triggers powerful, flavourful special effects. Rolling a 20 is "Rolling a Demon": a critical failure with immediate consequences. This naming convention ties the dice directly into the world's mythology and gives every roll dramatic weight. Push Your Luck If a skill roll fails, the player can choose to Push it, picking up the dice and rolling again. But every die that fails a second time inflicts a Condition. Characters can become Exhausted, Sickly, Dazed, Angry, Scared, or Disheartened, each imposing a specific mechanical penalty. Pushing is rarely free, and the decision of whether to push adds meaningful tension to every uncertain roll.. Willpower Points & Heroic Abilities Each character has a pool of Willpower Points (WP), a resource spent to activate their Profession's Heroic Abilities. A Fighter might spend WP to make a devastating counterattack; a Mage burns it to cast spells. Willpower represents the spark of exceptionalism that separates adventurers from ordinary folk, and managing it carefully is central to play. Card-Based Initiative Combat initiative is determined by drawing from a shuffled deck of initiative tokens. One per character and one per monster group. This creates a genuinely unpredictable turn order every round, keeping both players and GM on their toes and preventing the predictability of fixed initiative lists. Kin & Profession, Not Class & Level Character creation is fast: pick a Kin, pick a Profession, assign starting skills. After play begins, advancement is open: characters grow by spending experience on skills of their choice, unconstrained by class restrictions. This avoids the feeling of "wrong builds" and keeps development tied to what the characters actually do in play. Links freeleaguepublishing.com - Official website freeleaguepublishing.com - Free character sheets and campaign materials forum.frialigan.se - Free League forum

Untitled Game is a Dungeons & Dragons actual play podcast and the premise is pretty simple: A group of strangers crash lands on a remote tropical island and survival instinct quickly kicks in. The deeper they go into the jungle, the stranger things get—old cave paintings, impossible storms, things whisper threats in the dark. It’s played pretty loose and natural—no actors, no heavy editing polish—just a group of nerds leaning into the creepy weirdness and seeing where the story goes. Sometimes tense, sometimes funny, occasionally very bad decisions, always a bunch of cursing. If you’re into: slow-burn mystery horror with a weird edge tabletop actual play that feels more like a late-night campfire story …you might just enjoy it. Join our survivors as they peel back the layers of a mystery where every choice matters - and one wrong step might just be their last. Links rss.com - Podcast feed youtube.com - Youtube channel spotify.com - Spotify feed podcasts.apple.com - Apple Podcasts feed untitledgame-alpha.vercel.app - Modified 5E rules patreon.com - Patreon page