If I was a player in this game I would stop going. It punishes committed players to put them at the mercy of the uncommitted.

I’ll send you an update once it’s done. My group rotates GMs and systems but within a few months I’ll have them doing Gradient Descent.

I’m prepping a one-shot with Fangelsehala and a longer campaign with Mothership.

The worst part of this is the “This is part of the story”

Sounds horrible tbh. A big part of the hobby is meeting new friends. This sounds like a good way to become socially isolated and depressed.

In my personal experience that’s much more difficult

If this happens, the RPG is too complex for that player. Play a simpler system.

B/X is good. When characters have d6 hp and it’s instant death at 0 the combat becomes way more serious and tense.

Project Gutenberg and librivox are decent resources for free older books. The author needs to have been dead for 70 years, so they are old but I’ve enjoyed “The Lost World” and “The hour of the dragon”

If you’re going to die, better to die on the main quest. I avoid side quest distractions.

The best lore is lore made at the table with the players. The rest is just gm inspiration.

If you’re running a sandbox, you just need to review a bit ahead of the party in the various dungeons.