I'm introducing a monster into my campaign that is from a Fantasy Novel my players and I are fond of, (it's the Mortiwraith from The Door Within) and one of its abilities is that it can see the true intent of anything in its vicinity. They are often very wise, and relatively good natured, so it's normal for them to test the moral integrity of potential allies. I'm intending to run a small vignette between modules where they help a living skeleton fulfil a dying promise, and the Mortiwraith sees this, so it decides to test the party with a small moral dilemma to reveal their integrity. If they succeed, they will gain a strong ally (though not a party member since Mortiwraiths die in the sunlight) I'm just a bit strapped for ideas. I thought of having it lead them to a starving family of kittens but that's kind of an easy one. But I don't want to give them the trolley problem that most superheroes face either. Can anyone help?

We just had our session 0 where we decided on the game we wanted, and it sounds like a D&D Western is where we are headed. I guess the Dark Tower series was the inspiration for one of the players. I am curious if anyone has any advice on running a western or if they have done so and what the take aways were.

Both Shadowdark and Black Hack add darkness rules. No player races have dark vision or infravision but many monsters do. Light is an important, valuable, and precious commodity. Both systems encourage the GM to put the light at risk - with environmental effects and enemy actions. In the dark player characters are at disadvantage for virtually all rolls while the monsters are not. Maybe my age is showing but I don't see this as adding a lot to the game. Am I missing an opportunity to add something really cool? Or is it just another setting fad?

Just looking at the layout for the book I can see a great deal of thoughtful design went into the game. Simple things like all relevant rules bring on a single spread make reading and referencing rules easy. I'm definitely looking forward to playing the game and mining it for house rules.

I have a TTRPG combat design rolling around in my head that echoes a magic the gathering EDH or Commander game. I love the feeling of having combat tricks that can be used on different player's turns. I think it would be really fun to have a TTRPG where players have a turn where they can do abilities and actions that take a little longer but for things that can be done quickly can added to the turn stack which resolves like mtg. This means players can thwart or enhance what they want to have happen and have more control over what's happening when it's not their turn. I hate when players check out of the game when it's not their turn. Increasing engagement and cooperation like this I think would crush the scene tbh. If I wanted to publish this should I make my own TTRPG or adapt it to ones that already exist?