I backed Mike Shea’s last “campaign” type book, and it was a great setting and collection of adventures. It was designed for levels 1 through 5 (similar to Lost Mines of Phandelver), but then at the back he included an appendix with ideas for, IIRC, a level 5-20 campaign. It wasn’t super detailed, but it was enough to give DMs an idea what to do if their players really liked the setting and wanted to stay down there.

You know how you can read a campaign book and be like, “Why is this so confusing and hard to understand? Don’t they care how hard the campaign is to run?!”

Well, Mike does care – that’s his whole shtick, so I’m definitely going to back this.

It’s called Walker (1987). Directed by Alex Cox (Repo Man) and starring Ed Harris. Not currently streaming anywhere I know of, but if you can find it on DVD or something I highly recommend it. The less you know going in the better. :)

a worldbuilding game such as the quiet year, for the queen or microscope, hacked to set up a concise and thematic noir mystery inspired by fiction like Disco Elysium, The City and the City or The Nice Guys

That sounds amazing. I love the thought of a Nice Guys-inspired campaign setting.

Is the game you’d like to run also Lancer? That would be a wild coincidence.

Edit: Oops, nevermind, I just saw your other comment!

Electric Bastionland has been the RPG I most want to run ever since I bought it years ago.

After watching a surreal Acid Western (which started out deceptively straightforward and veered endearingly off the rails by the final act), I’m itching to run In The Light of the Setting Sun: Bonanza Edition. But I’m at the end of my current FIST: Ultra Edition campaign and don’t want to rush anything. :D

Tricube Tales. It’s the easiest game I’ve run, and strikes a perfect balance between rules lite narrative shenanigans and a traditional roleplaying game. Uses an easy to manage 1-3 pool of d6s, and all the GM has to do is pick a Trait (Agile/Brawny/Crafty) and assign a difficulty to the challenge (most of the time it’s 5). Character creation is pretty freeform, with PCs getting Fate aspect-style Perks and Quirks. You can run just about anything in Tricube Tales. It’s a real joy.

I’m also big into FIST ULTRA Edition, a game about paranormal mercenaries set during the cold war. Inspired by Metal Gear Solid and Doom Patrol, FIST is based on World of Dungeons, so it’s a 2d6 system, sort of like PbtA with only a “defy danger” move. The heart and soul of the game are the 200+ Traits, which are a sort of combination half-class, feat, starting gear, and attribute score adjustment. When you make your mercenary, you get to pick two Traits, and the ensuing combination is always fun.

I am! It’ll be an original game inspired by a few of my favorite movies. I have most of the text done and can’t wait to test it out with some friends.

I’ve made a game called X’s in their Eyes and it’s a GMless competitive game about going onto a big TV talent show with the the aim of killing off one of the judges in a manufactured performance accident.

This sounds hilarious. :D

So, I’ve never actually run M&M 3E, but I was a player in a game for well over a year. So I can tell you (from a player’s perspective) what my GM did to make combat less of a pushover.

1. The GM can give players a Hero Point in exchange for a supervillain getting another chance at success. My GM would do this all the time. If a villain failed a defensive roll, we’d get a Hero Point in exchange for them taking another crack at it. This helps supervillains last more than a round or two. (In D&D terms, it’s a bit like giving Inspiration in exchange for a use of Legendary Resistance. And I highly, highly recommend this.)

2. Mooks will rarely be much of a threat. We never felt threatened by minions. (Think Superman going up against bank robbers, he’s not going to break a sweat.) The minion type enemies are basically there for a bit of fun padding, rather than a challenge. Takedown gives someone the opportunity to wipe out minion after minion, which is the whole point of those abilities. Edit: Just wanted to add, we’d often go up against a supervillain team with added minions, rather than just a solo villain and some henchmen. That definitely made the fights feel more challenging.

3. Combat should never be the only thing going on during an action scene. Whenever possible, you always want innocent people in danger. Describe minions blowing up a building, and chunks are falling into the crowd. A fire breaks out, threatening people trapped on the top floor. Bank guards get hit with a freeze ray, and unless they get medical care soon, they’ll be in trouble, etc. Even a scene with no innocent people around should have optional goals: perhaps there’s a death ray slowly powering up. Unless the heroes can take it out, Cincinnati is doomed! This gives all those minions a turn or two of getting free pot shots on the superheroes who, yeah, could take them out easily, but doing so would mean failing the basic goal of being a superhero, which is being a hero. And speaking of hero, the GM should hand out Hero Points to people who pause Clobbering Time long enough to save the taxi driver before his taxi falls off the bridge, etc.

Finally, M&M 3E is an exceptionally easy game to break. While it’s technically a game with a lot of rules crunch (complete with Build Your Own Powers), in some ways it’s more like a narrative game where everyone has to be on the same page to ensure things run smoothly. Because with a dash of system mastery, a player character can become truly unstoppable. There’s an old Reddit post about a PL10 character (the recommended beginning level) who is basically more powerful than the most powerful superhero in all of fiction. Seriously, without cheating you can basically make The Beyonder. That’s just the kind of game it is. So if none of these tips help, I suggest picking up a copy of the Basic Hero’s Handbook, and having the player follow those pre-generated archetypes, which are all but guaranteed not to break the game. They have some good ones, the Paragon is like Super Man but won’t break the game, there’s a Batman, a Human Torch, it basically hits all the favorites.

Hope this helps!

(Hi again! I’ll repost my comment from the other thread.)

In my experience, the best way to prepare for running any RPG is to first have someone run the game for you. That can be hard, but the good news is, D&D 5E is the most widespread TTRPG in history, so finding a game shouldn’t be too hard, especially since you’re already talking online games. (Some areas are TTRPG deserts, but finding a one-shot 5E game online is as easy as it gets.)

If that doesn’t work for you for some reason, I would suggest the following:

• Run a prewritten adventure, but don’t worry about sticking too close to the book. You’re already doing this, so good thinking! A published scenario (by that I mean, a short adventure, not a full campaign) does a ton of work for you. The one thing I would caution is trying to stick too close to the way the adventure unfolds. If things veer off in an unexpected direction, just go with it.
• Find a D&D 5E cheat sheet for you and your players. It’s easy to forget a rule in the heat of the moment. Don’t worry about getting “everything right” and stopping to look up a rule. If something isn’t on the cheat sheet, just tell players you’re going to make a ruling in the moment, move on, and look it up online later. Unless a character is literally on the verge of death, it probably doesn’t matter anyway.
• Make a one page of prep notes for the adventure. Distill all the major NPCs, locations, treasures (if applicable) on a single sheet of paper. That way if someone asks, “Wait, who’s the mayor again?” You won’t have to dig through the adventure, you can glance down and say, “You mean Fuzwibble McShiddlebins, the Tabaxi male Cleric?” and watch their jaws drop and have everyone pronounce you Best DM Ever (this won’t really happen, but it sure beats trying to find NPC info in the heat of the moment.)

Finally, I’d like to share a few thoughts about what it means to “DM effectively”. Running a game is an art, not a science. Whole books have been written on the subject, and no two agree on most things.

The best thing to keep in mind is: everyone is there to have a good time. Yourself included! Players want to do cool things. The DM wants to thrill and excite and entertain their players. Mistakes are going to happen, but don’t let them live rent-free in your head. It doesn’t matter if anyone gets rules wrong, especially when you’re all still learning. It’s been years and I still can’t remember certain 5E rules (passive perception and darkvision, yikes). My group still has a fun time playing, because the game runs smoothly enough. Things like safety tools, cheat sheets, one page prep notes, all this stuff is designed so you run into as few roadblocks to fun as possible at the (virtual) table.

Good luck, and feel free to ask any followup questions if need be. :)

Yup, unified resolution mechanics tend to be easier for new players to grasp. (I suppose a good comparison would be if Call of Cthulhu had you bust out a d20 to resolve breaking and entering.)

Shadowdark (like White Box: FMAG) replaced the d100 thief skills table with a simple, “Roll advantage on Thief type ability checks.” It’s a personal preference thing, but I like it.

I have yet to run Shadowdark, but it seems like a perfect way to introduce D&D 5E players an oldschool dungeon craw campaign. There’s familiar mechanics (dis/advantage), the old percentile Thief skill tables are gone, and DCC-style “roll to cast” seems like it’d be more palatable for folks used to attack Cantrips and ample spell slots. Plus, Kelsey Dionne is a fantastic adventure writer, so we’re all but guaranteed years of top-shelf modules.