Hello everyone!

Currently working through a little project and need people's opinnion. Specifically when using an AP system with a dedicated dodge action to mitigate/avoid damage, that is available to all combatants, do you think it would be better to do the standard "roll to hit against armor class" or would it be more engaging to design it in such a way, where attacks automatically hit unless the combatant spends the AP to avoid that attack. In this variant, the players would roll to hit with their stats against enemy's AC if the NPC used Evade. On the other side, NPCs would attack with a DC and the players would have to dodge by succeeding a roll against it.

My thinking is that this could keep the game flowing smoother and having players more engaged, but I possibly worry that the disparity between being a player and being a GM would confuse things?

Hey! Thought I’d share a few pieces my team and I made for Melan, Spirit of Phuji and other indie game projects.

I work on pixel art and art direction, including environments, characters, animations and UI. Everything here was drawn by hand in Aseprite.

These are video game projects rather than tabletop RPGs. I especially enjoy drawing the little details that suggest who lives in a place and what their everyday life looks like. Hope you enjoy the art!

Hi guys! I am hosting a halloween party with some fun games, and one of the games is "witch trails " I have been trying to come up with some scenarios or accusations to throw at people, but I feel like my ideas aren't really hitting. I was going for some Salem accusations mixed with some ace attorney shenanigans, but idk just not feeling it. If anyone has any cool ideas for petty things to accuse people of, I would love to hear them! Thank you!

I've seen RPG weapons lists run the gamut in terms of detail. Some, like FATE, might not even provide stats for weapons, assuming it's just part of a character's combat roll, while others, like Shadowrun, have stats for different iterations of the same model of pistol over decades. In my head, I tend to bin systems into three categories (assuming they provide stats for weapons and combat at all):

• 1: Broad functional categories, usually based on rough damage instead of weapon design. Examples - Remnants, which simply has light (one-handed dual-use items like hammers or knives), medium (one-handed weapons like swords and maces), and heavy (two-handed swords, spears, axes) weapons, and mech weapons are distinguished solely by their damage number. Spirit of the Century doesn't track weapons, but it does divide guns into rifles (with a range of 3) and everything else (with a range of 2). Weapons will have very few stats, typically some kind of damage number and possibly range, but no special traits or abilities (or such traits will be left to negotiation between player and GM).
• 2: Design/form specific categories, without distinguishing between examples within that category. Example - Cyberpunk RED, which has medium, heavy, and very heavy pistols, but uses generic assault rifles, shotguns, and submachine guns. Melee weapons are sorted into light, medium, and heavy. Weapons will usually have different damage and range (if non-melee) stats. This is the level where traits such as being two-handed or capable of autofire are usually distinguished, and you may see more specific differentiation such as rate of fire. This is also the level at which I usually see guns or other ranged weapons start tracking ammunition.
• 3: Statlines represent specific, in-universe models or designs of weapons. As highlighted above, Shadowrun has multiple iterations of the Ares Predator pistol, and other weapons are referred to by in-universe brand name and often have lore attached to them. Weapons will have a number of detailed stats, including damage, armor penetration, reach or range, rate of fire/attack speed, ammunition count/reload speed, and probably specific traits or an in-depth modification system.

Now, obviously, not every system fits into these categories and some are in between them. I'd consider Dungeons and Dragons a 2.5 - it breaks Martial swords down into shortsword, longsword, greatsword, rapier, scimitar, and sometimes falchion, but doesn't differentiate between different types of longsword. I would call the FFG 40k RPGs a 2.5 as well, with both generic 'bolt pistols' and specific models of bolt pistol present. I'm not personally familiar with a system I would consider a 1.5, but I think it would probably be something that categorizes systems by a limited number of traits without referencing specific designs - something like Medium Precise Melee for a rapier or Heavy Slow Ranged for a big crossbow.

As always, it seems, the tradeoff when you move the detail slider seems to be differentiation vs preservation of player/creator effort. More specific weapons allow for characters with otherwise superficially similar weapons to play out differently (my hunting rifle and your shotgun are very different weapons), but it requires tracking more stats for players. Category 3 results in big, meaty gear lists - which some players like and which cause other players to zone out - and it offers a new way to deliver setting-specific lore and flavor, but it also makes balance more difficult. The more guns you make the more likely some of them are just objectively better than others, or you're spending design effort and space on vendor trash, and players are either forced to trawl through reams of gear for the best items or just accept whatever seems best at first glance.

Conversely, simpler weapons make gameplay smoother - Remannt's weapons all have damage measured in MoS + X, so if you're using a medium weapon, you know your damage is your margin of success +2 every time. However, two characters with medium weapons - whether those are battleaxes, maces, or rapiers - are going to fight functionally identically, except if one of them has a ranged weapon. If your game features tactical combat, I also think it limits the challenges you can pose to your players. If your game doesn't have different ranges for shotguns and sniper rifles it gets harder to make a close quarters tunnel fight feel different from open field.

What level of detail do you use - and what level do you think is best for different types of games or genres? Does your fantasy game need to track swords by Oakeshott typology? Should your cyberpunk game track revolvers and automatics separately, or is 'pistol' fine?

As a footnote, I think a very similar category system could be applied to armor, but I rarely see armor go past 2.5. Maybe people just find it less interesting to get into detail on armor or other defensive gear?

Crafting is always one of the most difficult concepts to approach from pretty much all sides in a tabletop RPG. For the GMs, you have to hope and pray that the subsystem within the game you're playing has some semblance of balance, and it's also a lot of effort on the GM depending on the implementation. For example, if someone comes out with a alchemy crafting system that depends on gathered ingredients, then the GM has to come up with world building elements of where those ingredients come from, how often they are harvestable, how plentiful they are, whether to put the powerful ones early in the story, etc. Then the freeform ones where it's simply a matter of time and money, those come across as inconsequential and heavily unsatisfying (a common criticism for Pathfinder 2e's crafting system). On the player side as well, the amount of bookkeeping can go up immensely with crafting in some games, and if the system is too detailed, it takes away time from the other players who may not be interested in that system. Finally for designers, crafting is such an intractable problem to solve for those very reasons. How can you make a system that is not too "heavy" that it drags the story down, but substantial enough that it is interesting? It's a very fine line, and like many ambitious designers, I am taking my own attempt at it. Here is some information about one of two crafting systems in my game: Enchantments!

While adventurers often make do with what they find in their travels and with purchasing the rest of what they need, some want to take matters into their own hands, literally. A craftsperson may start out working with basic metals, tanning, woodworking, or something else entirely, but the pinnacle of creation in Alpithia (the setting of the game) usually involves the Vis Essences: small motes of power and personality that, when used correctly, can be imbued in any kind of crafted work.

There are 8 "core" essences: fire, ice, electric, decay, preservation, light, dark, and metal. Each essence has two complements and an interfering essence. The relationships are shown below (I can't get images to attach, maybe it's not allowed, so you'll have to bear with a table instead of the cleaner diagram). Their relationships are a little more important for Vis Essence Combos, but I am thinking on if I want to implement something in terms of crafting, like if you pair two complements together in enchanting, there's a chance that both essences can be imbued into 1 slot, etc.

There are rarer essences as well, but those require special treatment and are typically found and researched individually for their use cases (Think a Scale essence that one might acquire from a Dragon). Essences will be a consistent part of the drop table of creatures as well, as all creatures will have a list of tags, and if they have one of the essence tags, they have a chance to drop a mote of that essence. There also also 3 tiers of essences: Lesser, Greater, and Pure. These determine the kinds of enchantments that are possible to imbued in a piece of equipment. But let's get into Enchanting specifically!

Enchantment crafting is the more powerful and permanent form of Vis imbuement (the other more temporary one is Alchemy, which I will get to in another post!). Each time Enchantment crafting is attempted, the player first rolls a Creation roll against the Target Number (TN) for the essence tier (table below, TNs subject to change).

On a successful roll, the player then rolls on the Essence's corresponding Enchantment table to determine which enchantment is added to the piece of equipment. A piece of equipment can typically only withstand having up to 3 enchantments on it at a time, and in order to overwrite old enchantments, another essence must be used and consumed.

I am currently working on the list of enchantments for all equipment right now; the goal will be to allow players to produce enough combinations that they feel invested in making their own weapon if the more unique pieces of equipment they find on their journey are not to their liking. To sort of reiterate, there will also be "unique" pieces of equipment that will be unable to use the enchantment system but will have very special effects (think legendaries from Diablo or Path of Exile Uniques). Here are some examples of possible Lesser enchantments for fire essences on weapons:

• Deal an additional 1 fire Shock damage
• Inflict Burn 1 on a rolled 6
• Gain Reaction (2 AP): Parry incoming fire-tagged attack. Gain fire resistance to the attack equal to half you level.
• Gain Action (2 AP): Point your weapon forward and launch a very small bolt of fire at your target. Range: 5 hexes. Damage: 1 fire Health/1d4 fire Shock per 4 levels. No rolled 6 effect other than ones from other Vis Enchantments on the weapon.
• Gain Action (3 AP): You plant your weapon in the ground and fill your hex with smoke. The smoke lasts until the end of your next turn, and creatures can only be at most aware of your presence while you are in the smoke.

It's hard to fit these posts in context with the greater ruleset at large, like the mentioning of Action Points here, but I hope the message gets across regardless of aiming for a interesting but intuitive crafting system. Let me know what you think!

I love the resolution mechanics I have set up. Its very crunchy but it works to establish each Kindred as being different while also allowing different characters to explore and specialize in different aspects and doesnt lock them out of a skill completely.

Here is how it works.

1. Determine which two skills you want to use. One is your method and the other is your result. If a character wants to smuggle an illegal item past a couple of guards at the gate they can try and insinuate that they have a meeting with someone important on the other side and the guards heads will roll if they are delayed any further. That is deception (method)+Intimidation (result) because they are lying about meeting someone on the other side in order to scare the guards.

2. A. Each skill is made up of two elements (earth, metal, fire, air, water, and wood). So the skills above are Deception (wood+water) and Intimidation (earth+fire). So the hypothetical skill check would be Wood+Water+Earth+Fire.

1.B. The size of each elemental dice is determined by the characters Ancestry. For example if our hypothetical character was a dwarf they would have:

Earth: D6

Metal: D10

Fire: D6

Air: D10

Water: D12

Wood: D4

1. C. The number of dice rolled for each element is determined during character creation with typical characters having 18 total elements with a maximum of 6 in an element. For every odd level in an element a character has they get 1 dice. This can then be modified down by taking damage. So if our dwarf has 5/5 Earth, 5/6 fire, 1/3 Wood, and 0/2 water they would roll 3d6 (Earth)+3d6(fire)+1d4 (wood)+0d12(water). If they were completely fresh they would roll 3d6 (Earth)+3d6(fire)+2d4 (wood)+1d12(water). You also gain additional dice (+1d8) per advantage you have.

2. The GM determines the success track. (For the sake of brevity I wont go into detail on how to build one but I will be happy to expand on it in the comments. I also have plans for some standard effects and number of dice in the back of the book for GMs to reference.) This is what you are rolling on to try and succeed and takes the form of X/Y>Z/A. Where X is the number of dice to succeed on the first effect, Y is the first effect, Z is the number of dice to succeed on the second effect, and A is the second effect. In our case this will be 1/the guard has disadvantage(1) on future insight checks>2/+1 success towards getting through the gate without inspection. (Assuming that the rest of the party will also need to get through without inspection).

3. The GM determines difficulty. (Which determines success range on the dice. Easy=1,2,3; Moderate/Average=1,2; Hard/Challenging=1.)

4. Roll and allocate successes. These must be filled in left to right on the success track (no skipping if you dont have enough leftover dice) and starts over if you reach the end.

My problem and concern is that this is too many dice for a dice pool. The example character with this example check is rolling 7-9 dice without advantage (the average expected for straight skills) and the expectation is that players will be looking to get a minimum of advantage(2) before rolling. So thats around 10 dice per check. Is this too much? You arent adding the dice results so counting and allocating should be quick.

If it is too much where can I cut the number of dice?

Hi! I am currently trying to give my game, Regular Volk, some finishing touches. As I went through and created some pre-generated characters, I noticed a pretty serious mismatch between how skills/abilities are intended to be used and how they are actually resolved from a mechanics standpoint.

Skills: are actionable abilities, which you can execute with great reliability

When the outcome of an action is uncertain, roll 2d6 and add any relevant attributes and modifiers to the result. If the result meets or exceeds the Difficulty Score (DS) the GM has set for this action, you succeed.

Executing a skill always grants you +2

According to the above descriptions of skills and their mechanics, skills are actions that a character is particularly good at, reflected by the +2 modifier, which is added on top of other modifiers the character may already have (thanks to their stats, an item, or the situation).

However, not all of the skills really fit this resolution mechanic and I don't know whether I should rewrite those skills or rewrite the mechanics or both. Here's two examples of skills that already work well with the +2 modifier:

Gentle Giant: Soothe a small creature.

Mimicry: Perfectly mimic someone's voice you've heard before

Generally, the simple +2 modifier works great for skills that anyone could theoretically attempt, but which this character is just better at. Any character could attempt to soothe a small creature, but only the gentle giant will have the advantage here. Any creature could attempt to mimic a voice, but only the mimicry skill gives a character the ability to do it more reliably or more accurately.

Here's a few examples of skills that don't work well with the +2 modifier:

Life Bond: Take damage in place of an ally. Declare this before the attack is rolled.

Flash Mist: Create a small fog cloud.

Illuminate Weapon: Your weapon glows in the dark and illuminates the area.

Inspiring Command: Encourage an ally to grant them Might (3d6) for their next action.

I think there are two types of skills that don't fit the +2 mechanic; those that should just auto succeed, and those that are spells. Inspiring command is one of those auto-succeed skills. Perhaps one could argue that you have to find the right words and then roll to see if your words are inspiring. Flash Mist is one of those spells that only make sense to be attempted by magic users. All characters have access to some magic skills, but it doesn't make narrative sense for the human fighter archetype to suddenly create a fog cloud. So do you really need a +2 bonus to set yourself apart from all those who cannot even attempt to create a fog cloud? Should Fog Cloud then also auto-succeed or should it still be rolled for? It almost seems like the, like there are three tiers of skills:

1. Skills that could theoretically be attempted by anyone. These skills require a +2 bonus to set the character apart from others attempting, but being unskilled.
2. Skills that only this character could attempt. These skills are gatekept by the character's innate ability to use them, such as a spellcaster having access to certain spells. They don't require a +2 bonus to set the character apart from others who cannot attempt them in the first place.
3. Skills that should just automatically succeed. These skills could sometimes be attempted by anyone. Inspiring Command could be attempted by anyone. Life Bond seems more magical and tied to a character's innate abilities and archetype. Either way, these skills shouldn't really fail. Especially Life Bond is a choice to make a sacrifice for an ally, so why roll at all?

It's just a little bit of a mess right now. If you have Game Master, who feels comfortable running more rules-light games, this might not bother them at all. In an earlier version of the game, there actually was no bonus at all for using a skill. It was just "here's a thing you can do that other characters can't do," except it didn't make sense that other characters couldn't even attempt to soothe a smaller creature or mimic a voice; hence the later introduction of the +2 bonus.

How would you untangle this mess? It's important to me that the game doesn't accidentally become crunchy. Each skills is purposely phrased in a more open-ended way, so players can interpret them in the moment. There are no clear indicators of size, duration, intensity, damage, etc. And I don't want to add those. I also don't want walls of text for each skill that describe modifiers and dice rolls.

Here are some initial ideas I have:

• I could add "roll with +2 to..." to the beginning of skills that don't auto-succeed. But this leans on the crunchy side of things, as it adds individual mechanics to some of the skills. I'd prefer to have generalized mechanics, so players don't have to memorize more rules and special cases.
• I could clarify in the core rules somehow, like "if an skill is certain to succeed, no roll is needed." That's kind of already covered by the general rule that "When the outcome of an action is uncertain, roll 2d6," but "Executing a skill always grants you +2" sounds like skills always require a roll.

I think the first option would provide a lot of mechanical clarity at the cost of crunch. The second option would provide a lot of brevity and flexibility at the cost of clarity. Not sure where to go with this or if there's another solution to this conundrum that I haven't considered yet.

Thanks as always for your input and ideas!

(If it would help to check out the full list of skills, you can download a PDF from my itch page.)

I've been noodling around with a combat idea where there's only one roll. You swing your sword and if it makes the bad guy's armor score it hits. However many points above the hit you rolled are that many additional points of damage. It works in a system with relatively few hit points and I think makes combat more visceral.

In this way there's no real difference between how accurately you hit and how hard you hit, they're both effectively the same measurement, likewise the same factors that enable you to block or dodge damage will also mitigate damage. I think that makes a lot of sense to me, the way if your chainmail stopped a cannonball it'd still probably leave a bruise.

I've thought of some interesting other rules that make this work if anyone's interested. Different weapons would have different properties other than damage for instance. It's all terribly half baked but I figure half the fun is tinkering with something even if it falls apart. Have other systems done something like this before?

I’m a Brazilian 2D Artist and Graphic Designer with over seven years of professional experience in graphic design and more than a year working in game art at Room 8 Studio.

My background combines visual identity, packaging, and graphic design with recent experience creating art for games within a production-driven environment. I’m particularly interested in working with creative teams where I can contribute both my design experience and my skills as an artist.

I’m based in Brazil and am particularly interested in remote opportunities, including freelance or contract work.

Portfolio:
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Hello, I'm working on a system with no classes based on the setting of the avatar legends world. Yes I know that there is one already but I personally don't like PbtA that much (don't kill me ok)

In general it is kind of something I made up, taking a little inspiration from Tri-Stat (Body, Mind, Soul) and dice progression.

How to play:

During character creation, you must decide your origin:

Lineage: Bender or Non-bender.

Culture: Where you grew up.

History: What you did before the adventure began.

Each one of these choices will give you a +2 +1 to your stats and a set of feats and proficiencies.

The game revolves around three main stats:

Body: Strength, agility, and endurance.

Mind: Learning, logic, and instincts.

Spirit: Willpower, determination, and presence.

These stats are used to calculate resources, skills, and moves.

Health: Body + Spirit

Defense: Body + Mind

Chi: Mind + Spirit

Skill checks take the character's proficiency level into account.

d4 = Beginner -> d6 = Apprentice -> d8 = Advanced -> d10 = Expert -> d12 = Master

You can improve your skills ranks a number of times equal to Mind + Level.

Moves depend on the proficiency level of their respective disciplines.

Martial: Anyone can train in these disciplines.

Water, Earth, Fire, Air: Each discipline corresponds to its respective lineage.

Energy: A special discipline focused on mastering chi and connecting with the spirit world.

Disciplines are also divided into sub-categories.

Martial: Unarmed, sword, bow, spear, Chi-blocking...

Water: Ice, Plant, Healing, Blood...

Earth: Crystal, Metal, Lava, Seismic sense...

Fire: Combustion, Lightning...

Air: As it has no sub-categories of its own, it often focuses on the Energy discipline.

Energy: Spirit projection, Chakras...

You can unlock and improve these sub-categories using Feats.

Skill Feats: Improve skill proficiency and offer new ways to use them.

Discipline Feats: Can improve discipline proficiency and unlock new disciplines.

Origin Feats: Given by your origin.

Maybe more types of feats.

I'm thinking of making feats work like a skill tree. Making so that some feats require other feats and those feats require other feats and so on...

Chi/Energy:

This would be the "mana" resource of the game. Both martial and elemental moves need chi to be stronger.

You can get some chi back by scoring critical hits and by meditating out of combat.

Leveling up:

Gives you a +1 to either Body, Mind or Spirit and a new feat.

Level 1 character example:

Name: Katara Origin: Water-bender, South Water-Tribe, Care-Taker.

Stats: Body=2 Mind=4 Spirit=3 Health=5 Defence=6 Chi=7

Feats: Moon-blessed, Ice discipline, Healer.

Skills: Medicine d8+4, Cooking d8+4, Sewing d6+4

Disciplines: Water d6+3, Ice d4+3

Moves: Shape water, Freeze water, Water whip.

Example 2:

Name: Sokka Origin: Non-bender, South Water Tribe, Guard.

Stats: Body=4 Mind=3 Spirit=2 Health=6 Defence=7 Chi=5

Feats: Leader, Navigator, Weapon-training.

Skills: Instincts d8+3, Navigation d6+3

Discipline: War-club d6+4, Boomerang d6+4, Martial d4+4.

Moves: Improvise, Distract, "He always comes back!"

I'm also including a jing system in which you assume a stance (aggressive, reactive, defensive) others can see your stance and act upon it.

And I'm thinking about a resistance system on which you can take less bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, cold, electricity or fire damage depending on your clothes or moves like rock-armor.

Also a status effect mechanic with stuff like wet, frozen, shocked, paralyzed, etc...

What do you think? I know maybe it's a mess of a post but I'm interested in hearing some feedback and maybe some advice? Since this is the first time doing something like this, so yeah... I will be reading the responses!

I have about three or four different projects that I've been working on for the past few years. For the most part, I have the actual content fleshed out, as in this does that and such. I don't know how to go from Documents on my phone to a polished maybe tangible product. Like I know I need to play test before I can create the final product but I also need some workable version before I can do that. Then there's art and formatting, making sure everything's worded correctly and in a way that makes sense. I got a shoe string budget on my best days, so I'm probably gonna be looking at crowdfunding and such, but then how do you figure out how much everything costs in order to do that. It's all overwhelming, i don't know where to start or how to figure that out.

Hi all! I talked about combat a little bit in a post a long time ago, but I wanted to have a deep-dive now into combat for Soul Light and see what people think. As I have mentioned before, Soul Light is intended to fall in the crunchier and tactical set of games, where your build, your decisions, and your other party members all have a sizeable contribution to how combat encounters resolve. I had a few principles going into design combat:

1) Characters attacking with things they are competent at should, against most enemies, have a high chance to hit (70-80%).

2) A character should have a few options to approach combat, whether it be debuffing and debilitating your adversaries, enhancing your party members' capabilities, or just the good ol' fashioned deal damage.

3) I wanted layers to combat that made room for more debilitating effects but also didn't totally break the game, like the classic dnd 5e scenario where you final boss of an arc would just get effectively eliminated in the first round.

There are a few other sub-goals, like having movement feel a bit better, I wanted a classless system, and I wanted to use a hex-grid, but the above was what I started with. Now to get into the various chunks of the combat system of Soul Light!

Action Points

Having played games like Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2, I really enjoyed Action Point-based systems where you have upwards of 6-8 action points. It allows for more expression of smaller actions, it helps deal with breaking up movement without feeling strange and cheap in certain scenarios (like peaking out, casting a spell, then going back into cover for "1" movement). I also like the level of interactivity in games like Magic the Gathering, where any moment of play is allowed to have multiple players interacting at once, given you have the resources. Thus, I landed on the skeleton of the action economy: characters will get 6 Action Points (AP) each, where most simpler attacks and abilities will take 2 AP, and movement can be done in 1 AP increments, where the base speed for characters will be 1 AP = 2 hexes, where a hex is 6 feet from edge to opposite edge. Areas for magic and other special effects will be broken down into hex radii, lines, and hex cones, and the hex radii in my opinion capture the more spherical effects much more easily than the square grid does, which is nice! Flanking will also be much simpler: if two creatures that are both within striking range have at least 1 hex space between them, they are considered flanking (basically, those two creatures cannot be adjacent).

Health and Shock

Heavily inspired by its implementation in the "new gen" Final Fantasy games, I wanted to play around with the idea of having a second health bar of sorts and see what options that could enable. The main complaint with a stagger bar for most people from what I've seen is that they just see it as a way to make enemies "spongier" and make combat take longer. I intend to not fall into those design pitfalls. As for how the system works, basically a character will have both a Health value and a Shock value. Weapons/Abilities will deal damage to both values most of the time, but they will deal more Shock damage in a grand majority of cases. Once a character's Shock value is depleted, however, they become Staggered, at which point any Shock damage dealt to them is added on as additional Health damage, and the character becomes vulnerable to "Debilitating"-tagged effects and Abilities (think game-ending spells like Hold Monster from 5e or instant-kill spells), and they suffer double the effects from "rolled 6" effects. Staggered lasts until the start of the character's next turn that inflicted Staggered, making it effectively the knock-out blow if you're isolated. I landed on this for a few reasons. First, it allows characters to effectively end combat encounters without killing all adversaries. Secondly, it allows me as a designer to add really cool Abilities that would normally be crazy-unbalanced if you could just shoot it from the hip, but now that you have to get through the Shock of an adversary, it reels those effects in a little bit.

Initiative

Now for initiative. I was going to have it be a zipper initiative at first, but then I came to the conclusion that stats should matter a little bit in initiative, so it will be a simple order based on the characters' Speed plus Perception. Characters can delay their turns to change the turn order, and Reactions will be quite common, so I expect it to be fairly dynamic. How will reactions work exactly, well I'm glad you asked!

Reactions

Reactions in most trad games are a static 1-off resource that are pretty much exclusively used for 1 of two things, a single reactive attack ("Attack of Opportunity") based on some trigger that is usually moving, or countering some magical effect ("Counterspell"). This has always been one of the more frustrating things from a GM perspective because the lack of reactivity really lends itself to a "your turn, my turn" storytelling style in combat that stifles a lot of potential cool narrative moments. Pathfinder 2e did a little better in this regard, but mainly only for a select few character classes (Champion with its myriad of shield blocking feats as well as their token protection reaction). A goal for the game was to make the game feel more dynamic, and that means many many more reactions. How reactions work in the game generically is that you can reserve as many AP as you want at the end of your turn, and you can use those AP to perform actions outside of your turn if they have the Reaction tag. Typically, just like in MTG, reactions will be less AP-efficient than standard actions, so it's a balance of having information of what your adversaries are doing versus initiative and efficiency. For example, all characters will get the Reactive Attack Reaction, which will be 3 AP (A standard attack will be 2 AP), but the benefit is that on a successful roll for the attack, you interrupt whatever the triggering action was (it starts out only being able to trigger on movement).

Abilities

Probably the most important part of combat in terms of adding variety of gameplay, Abilities are analogous to both spells and feat from trad games as they accomplish both roles. Pretty much every Ability will grant an active Action or Reaction that you can take, and those Actions and Reactions will make use of the game's magic system, Vis, in both of its forms, Flow and Flare (explained later below). Many of the Abilities will emphasize working with one or two of combats main points: either Shock and Staggering, one of the many base status effects/afflicting a Debilitating status effect, or causing an Essence Combo. I am not going to put examples of them in this post, but I will definitely in a future post!

Status Effects

One of the coolest/most well executed archetypes of any game ever is the Silent from Slay the Spire. You have this rogue-ish hunter who subtly but assuredly takes out her foes with poison, and the mechanics lend itself to that narratively beautifully. Many other games do Damage over Time effects as well, and I personally love those archetypes. Then there's the not so straightfoward debuffing, like making enemies take more damage from certain effects, making them deal less damage, making them move more slowly, etc. Thus I wanted many status effects to enact these archetype fantasies. So far, I have Bleed, Burn, Chill, Electrify, Frailty, Slow, Affliction, and Stunned as the "catch-all" statuses. Bleed is the typical slowly-but-assuredly stacking damage over time that does Shock damage, Burn is harder to stack but goes straight to Health damage, Chill interacts with the AP economy, etc. I may add a couple more to make sure that all of the Essence Elements are able to dip into statuses in ways that I think make sense, but we will see. Affliction is a special one that basically is how poisons will work; basically poisons will have effects that trigger off of a creature reaching a certain Affliction value.

The "Rolled 6"

Something that I think is fairly unique to the core dice mechanic of Soul Light is that it sort is a hybrid of dice pools systems like BitD and the roll-keep system of L5R. Basically you roll a pool of dice equal to the Attribute for the roll, then you keep a number of dice equal to the skill for the roll. However, if you roll a 6, all weapons and many Abilities have rider effects that happen for each 6 you roll. For weapons, sometimes you will inflict one of the above Statuses (or increase the stacks), maybe you deal a little more damage, maybe it lets you maneuver a hex for free, things like that. For Abilities, it can extend duration of effects, also inflict statuses, etc. It gives a cool way for non-traditional builds to scale, because as you roll more dice, your chance to roll 6s increases.

Vis Flare and Flow

Lastly, lets talk a little about the magic system for Soul Light. Every character will have a Vis Capacity that is set by their Base Vis Power (think Proficiency from 5e, just a number that scales with your level that's not 1-to-1). Now, you may think this is just a very simple mana system, but not quite. Essentially, Vis Flow is the practice of using Vis from around you to supplement your power and actions; it is inherently less time-efficient, but is incredibly efficient in terms of Vis Capacity. A character starts a encounter at tier 0 Vis Flow, and they can spend 2 AP once per turn (subject to change) to ascend a Vis Flow tier by spending one point of their Vis Capacity. After the encounter is done, or after 10 minutes, the character goes back to their natural state and all Vis Capacity used for Vis Flow is refunded. Vis Flaring is the act of entirely relying on your own power to fuel an ability; it is much more time efficient and can reach higher peak power output, but you are (semi) permanently burning through your power reserves. Any Vis Capacity spent on Vis Flaring is gone until the character experiences a full rest. A lot of Abilities can be cast in either mode, for example, you want to sling a large lightning bolt at an enemy that would require you to be in Vis Flow tier 2 to cast it, but you are in tier 1. The Ability allows you to cast it by Vis Flaring from tier 1, however, allowing you to save those valuable AP to maybe take down an enemy about to strike an ally. There's a ton more variety that can be built from this, but this post is long enough, so I'll cover it when I get to Abilities.

And that's it for this post, sorry it's a long one. I hope people find at least some of this stuff interesting, or if there is something that seems obviously terrible, let me know.

My system is based around point-buy, but I'm wondering if that's putting too much of a requirement for initial time investment. They were reasonably popular back in the day but are they still?

Does point-buy seem like too much work for the average TTRPG player these days? Or do enough folk still find thrills in finding ways to manipulate the points just right?

I'm also wondering about doing a 'quicker-start' with a handful of arrays and lists of how many abilities you can take, and then a quickest-start with just full pre-gens.

I wrote a new post on Castles & Crusades class design. It offers a breakdown of how classic mechanics and character balance are handled in the C&C system.

https://thegrognardsalmanac.substack.com/p/castles-and-crusades-class-design

Hello everyone, long term lurker. For my current campaign I've put together a system largely inspired by the Trespasser, using BitD action rolls. A quick summary:

Roll a pool of d6s and keep the highest result: 1–3 is a failure, 4–5 is a success with a complication, and 6 is a full success. Any pairs you roll generate shadows on a failure ("No, and...") or sparks on a success ("Yes, and...").

Sparks and shadows are an awesome way to add texture to rolls and the stories they tell. However, I also think they make the 4–5 result (success with a complication) somewhat redundant, or at least needlessly complex. I wouldn't mind getting rid of that extra layer.

Now, more than half my players have said they miss rolling a d20, and I'd like to give it back to them. Trespasser actually uses a classic d20 roll-over system, where you gain a spark for every 5 points you beat the DC by, or suffer a shadow for every 5 points you fall short.

However, I'm not particularly fond of setting DCs. I find that having a fixed target number on the character sheet speeds up play and reduces the need for GM adjudication, since players can immediately tell whether they've succeeded or failed.

So far, I've found two approaches for these problems using d20's: Blackjack style "roll under" system, or the Vagabond roll over system. I'd love some help weighing their respective strengths and weaknesses, or brainstorming alternatives I might have overlooked.

1. Blackjack-Style Roll Under:

Your attribute determines your target number (TN). Roll equal to or below it to succeed. You gain a spark for every threshold of 5 you reach on a successful roll (5, 10, 15, etc.), and suffer a shadow for every 5 points you exceed your TN.

Notes

• It simple. There something's elegant about your attribute being your own TN.
• Monkey brain want big number! This is my main concern with roll-under systems. Rolling low just doesn't feel as exciting. The blackjack element helps somewhat, since you still want to roll as high as possible without going bust.
• Tone. The game is grounded, low-fantasy medievalism, where characters aren't necessarily heroic or particularly competent. There's something about roll-under that feels appropriate to that atmosphere.
• Something feels a little strange about the way sparks are distributed across the possible results.
• Simple skill advancement. Training in a skill could simply increase your TN.

2. Vagabond-Style Roll Over

Vagabond essentially reverses roll-under: your TN equals 20 minus your attribute, and you must meet or exceed it to succeed. You gain sparks for every 5 points you exceed your TN, and suffer shadows for every 5 points you fall short.

Notes

• More intuitive and exciting. Rolling high feels good. Monkey brain happy.
• Awkward TN calculation. There's an extra step involved in calculating your TN, although this could simply be done during character creation and written on the character sheet.
• Skill progression. Training could lower your TN, but I'd rather avoid subtraction during play. Alternatively, a trained skill could grant an additional die (perhaps ranging from d6 to d12) to add to your d20 roll. However, that sacrifices some of the simplicity and elegance of rolling a single d20.
• Natural Degrees of Success. The further you roll above your TN, the more sparks you earn. There's something immediately satisfying about that relationship.

What I'm Looking For

Ultimately, this is as much a question of feel, tone, and player experience as it is about mathematics or mechanical balance.

I'm interested in how these approaches feel at the table. Does blackjack-style roll-under actually make high rolls satisfying? Is roll-over worth the slightly less elegant character math? Are there other approaches that preserve the excitement of rolling a d20 while keeping fixed, player-facing target numbers and degrees of success?

I'd love to hear which approach appeals to you more, your experience with any of these approaches, what drawbacks I might be overlooking, or whether there's a third solution staring me in the face.

Hey, y’all! I’m making a TTRPG called Into the Woods for me and my friends to play. To keep things brief, the system revolves around a group of people in the 1930’s who find themselves lost in a forest of perpetual nighttime. The classes (called backgrounds) each have their own skill tree. I need help with making the skill tree for The Mobster, a background focused on using money and diplomacy. Skills are usually either combat focused (damage or effects), utility focused (help while exploring or while at camp), or home base focused (like the ability to sell items). Could I get some help with some skill ideas for the Mobster?

Edit: Heeding the advice of a wise person, here is a link that gives a full view of one of the four working skill trees: https://www.skilltree.it/public/tech/MrMaestro/the-hunter

Yesterday, I posted the first rough draft of my game’s pitch. I got a lot of valuable feedback and thoughtful comments, which helped me refine it and better communicate what the game is actually about.

I’ve taken your suggestions on board and reworked the pitch. I’d love to hear what you think of this new version!

Thanks in advance for your time and feedback!

————————————

In the shadow of the Crow is a roleplaying game about ordinary people in Nazi-occupied Warsaw.

Life goes on. Just not as it should.

This is a living city. Shops open, cafés still serve coffee, factories keep producing. People fall in love, dance, go to work and try to take care of their families. But under Nazi occupation, even the most ordinary things become dangerous.

Behind the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto, a third of the city’s population is being gradually exterminated. Elsewhere, food shortages and brutal repression turn everyone into a fixer of sorts.

You play ordinary people trying to provide for their families. You steal from factories, intercept goods on the railway and deal with smugglers, profiteers and corrupt German officials. A sausage can cost you your life. Meanwhile, resistance is taking shape around you.

This is a game about who you are, how you get by, and how life under occupation changes you. You still have a life to live and plans to make. But in a world designed to wear you down, nothing ordinary comes easy.

The system is easy to learn, with complexity built into its architecture. A psychology engine connects five universal Motivations to a single roll, while combat rewards teamwork and situational control over lethal force.

My system uses equipment proficiency, bt in a different way to dnd. Instead of a numerical bonus, higher prof rank (0-3) grants you new traits for that equipment, or for some tools you craft gear with enhanced traits depending on rank.

My problem is with Thievery Tools - i don't know how to make them better/more versatile at higher proficiency ranks. Any ideas?

Thanks

examples of proficiency bonuses for other gear:

Using a longsword for example: Rank 1 proficiency grants you Versatile, so you can use it one-handed. Rank 2 does nothing, and then Rank 3 grants you the enhanced Parry action (use action, boosts damage threshold against next melee attack)

Assault rifles have increased functional range and improved burst-fire.

Medical kits heal for more, scaling directly with your rank.

Crafting armour, for example, as better stats if you're proficient with the tools used to make it.

Armour itself is a WIP.

Me and the team haven been working on The Hidden Isle for the last couple of years, a TTRPG set in a magical renaissance that uses tarot cards instead of dice. We currently are crowdfunding a new add on, Haven's Heir, and as part of that, we are preparing a livestreamed playsession. You can join it via our discord https://discord.com/invite/mvEGuCF on the 15th, 19.00 CEST and directly talk with the team.
The stream will also be available afterwards on our youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@causacreations6544

More info about The Hidden Isle can be found on our Backerkit page.
Hope to see you there!

I just spent two weeks manually copying and pasting all the content from my 200-page rulebook onto a website. You might not want to give away your content for free, and that's understandable, but if you want your content to be maximally accessible to new players, or even a subset of it as an SRD-like thing, I'm here to tell you that it's not that bad. It's not that tedious. You could probably use an AI tool, but I think those cost money (among other costs), or require some programming knowledge. And there are benefits to doing it the good ol' fashioned brute-force way.

• It forces you to review your content in a new light. I found tons of mistakes and easy improvements, little and a few big. It especially forces you to think hard about your rules structure, since that becomes the site map.
• It forces you to commit. Because now, if you make revisions, you don't just have to update your PDF on itchio, you have to update the site too. It's not that hard to do if you need to do it, but the added friction has helped me make final decisions.
• It's something you can do late at night when you're too tired to be fully productive on your work, instead of doomscrolling.

This is actually the second time I've done this. I released the first version of my game in 2023 on both a website and PDF. Since then, I've been working on a big second-edition update for the PDF, and have been absolutely dreading updating the site to match. But it was fine! I used Google Sites for the website, and used Google Docs for my rulebook, so it mercifully preserved a lot of the formatting (but not all of it). I am sure there are wiki-like markdown sites out there you could use instead if you have not sold your soul to the goog like I have.

I do have some experience with web design, but I don't know how to do anything with javascript (and google sites doesn't even let you use CSS anyway). Here's the site: https://www.whenskyandsea.com/ Ask me anything!

Hi All,

Can you please rate my sales pitch? [edit below]

„In the Shadow of the Crow” is a roleplaying game about people struggling to survive in occupied Warsaw.

This isn’t a game about winning the war. It’s about the price of survival in a world that constantly forces you to choose between one evil and another.

It’s about what you do when there’s no good way out—and how long you can hold on to who you are when the world around you is trying to change you.

The game features:
- A rich gameplay built on a small set of mechanics.
- Fast, intuitive resolution with few exceptions and modifiers.
- A single character state that tracks physical injury, psychological strain, and exhaustion, gradually reducing what you’re capable of.
- Deep character psychology built around five universal Motivations and a single dice roll.
- Tactical, fast paced combat driven by an initiative bag and a system of actions and reactions.

Any comments will be welcome :)

Edit after comments:

„In the Shadow of the Crow” is a roleplaying game about life in occupied Warsaw.

You’ll take to the streets of a city where war most often means a roundup on the street, an ID check, food shortages, a neighbour informing on you, or news that someone you know has just disappeared. Sometimes, victory means finding medicine, hiding someone from Gestapo, or making it home safely. Other times, you’ll have to decide whether helping a stranger is worth putting yourself and your loved ones at risk.

This isn’t about winning the war. It’s about what you do when there’s no good way out - and how long you can hold on to who you are when the world around you is trying to change you.

The system offers:

- Fast, intuitive resolution with minimal exceptions and modifiers.
- Deep character psychology built around five universal Motivations and a single dice roll.
- Tense, team based combat inspired by cover shooters, where controlling the situation matters more than taking out the enemy.

Hey yall! I'm putting together a system that bases its major progression for characters off of Buildable D12's

More so each side of a D12 can be modified and more modifiable D12's can be added to the pool for any skills, abilities, checks and items.

Just thought it would create a simple and easy to keep track resource pool for dice, but allow more of the fun and complicated mechanics to stick within a chain heavy rolling system.

Just didn't know if people would feel like this is an easy rolling system to teach.

Also the theme/setting was going to be insipred by the occultish feel similar to a vibe present in the novel "Lord of Mysteries"
Any takes on that series for a similar setting.

Working on a small fantasy system where you roll a pool of d6s equal to attribute plus skill and count 5s and 6s as hits. At 2 dice players fail a basic task almost half the time, which feels bad in playtests, but at 6 dice almost everything succeeds. I tried letting 4s count on easy tasks but that adds a lookup step. Have you seen a clean way to flatten the low end, like rerolls or a guaranteed minimum, that doesn't slow the table down?

Hi, I’ve been building my system for a while now, and I have almost everything tuned for a first playtest, but I’m struggling to create a good exploration mechanic. I started with a standard dice roll aligned to a chart to see what happens, then evolved to a card grid with an 'exploration deck'. Basically, each area has a grid (10 by 10, for example). You shuffle the deck and lay the cards face down on the grid; each card has 4 entries separated by time of day and a hour cost to proceed in each direction. However, it’s becoming way too production-heavy, and I’m not sure if it will actually be fun during gameplay. Does anyone have useful feedback or some advice on exploration mechanics?