Steel City RPG

Join us Sunday for a Tabletop RPG Game Day at Halfling's Hideout in Brookline, Pittsburgh.

Whether you've never touched a d20 or you've been rolling dice for years, you've got a seat at the table. Our GMs run standalone one-shots across a mix of systems — D&D, indie games, narrative RPGs, and whatever they're most excited to bring. No experience required. Pre-generated characters are available for most games.

Before bounded accuracy. Before character builds and subclass trees. Before the dungeon acknowledged your feelings about it — there was D&D BECMI. And it ran like this.

B9: Castle Caldwell & Beyond is a published TSR module running on the 1983 rules that shaped everything that came after. BECMI strips the game to its essentials: exploration, resource pressure, and a dungeon that will absolutely kill your character if you give it the chance. Gold earns experience. Torches burn down. Death is fast and not particularly dramatic.

Character creation happens at the table — no prep, no backstory required, no attachment recommended. The format runs comfortably at larger table sizes, so bring whoever you want.

• Classic TSR module, run as designed
• Character creation at the session — arrive empty-handed
• High lethality by design: don't get attached
• Larger table capacity: bring your crew

No experience needed. The rules are light enough to learn in five minutes. The dungeon, however, does not offer a tutorial.

You have the access codes. You have the floor plans. You have everything you asked for going in.

That should worry you.

Bloom is a Mothership one-shot built for a small, tight crew — horror by way of tension, isolation, and rapidly narrowing options. Your team has taken a black market contract: get into Choi Labs, a Dyson Phytology research station, acquire their samples and data, and get out. There's exactly one way down — an automated lander from the DeLange orbital station, then a single elevator descending for miles beneath the planet's ice cap to a facility buried in the deep ocean below.

• Mothership's stress-and-panic system — the tension is mechanical, not just narrative
• One route in, one route out — chokepoints define the whole job
• Claustrophobic deep-sea setting, miles beneath the ice
• High lethality — this is not a forgiving table

Content warnings: infection and succumbing to infection, body horror, dismemberment, invasion of characters' personal space and grasping, parasites, corpses, claustrophobia, drowning, suffocation, paranoia, gore, deep ocean.

Stay frosty. Get in, get out, get paid.

No experience with Mothership needed — pre-generated characters provided, fully prepped and ready to play.

The Flying Koi Carnival has come to Ba Sing Se — bending acts, artistry, color, and noise filling the Middle Ring for the first time in years. It should be a good night. Then Rose disappears, and her mother Lei starts asking questions no one seems willing to answer.

The Vanishing Act is an Avatar Legends TTRPG one-shot set in the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Avatar Legends is a Powered by the Apocalypse system built around the moral weight of the Avatar universe — action and mystery sit alongside character relationships and the cost of doing the right thing.
The carnival is still running. The investigation is yours to run.

• Mystery-driven structure with room for character moments and banter
• Set in Ba Sing Se — familiar territory for Avatar fans, easy to pick up for newcomers
• Tone blends warmth and genuine stakes — this is Avatar, after all
• Larger table, built for ensemble play