The friends I am playing with are resistant to test my game.

They dont want to hurt my feelings in case it sucks.

One even said that he is uncomfortable being put in the situation, even if it happens to be good.

Should i really have to lie and say I found it on the internet to get them to try it? (I want to be upfront with "I made this" and that I can take the critique but if thats a dealbreaker I find no option other than deceit if I want feedback)

The group has played fan-made stuff before, so its not a issue of "published stuff only"

Hello all
I'm currently working on a "Rules-light" approach to custom spellcasting inspired by Mage 20th, and was wondering if I have overlooked any obvious pitfalls in my spellcasting roll.

I've currently got this system for spellcasting rolls:

1. Roll a number of d6s equal to the level of the spell you're casting (from 1 to 5) plus 1d4
2. If any of the d6s rolled are less than your d4 roll, you take paradox
3. Calculate the total of the d6s
4. If you took paradox, halve the total
5. Use the total as your spellcasting roll (can be applied as damage, or as a roll increase /decrease.

I'm wondering about the percent chance of taking paradox at each spell level.
Currently I've worked out the chances as:
Spell Level 1: Paradox chance = 25.066
Spell Level 2: Paradox chance = 40.217
Spell Level 2: Paradox chance = 49.84
Spell Level 4: Paradox chance = 56.346
Spell Level 5: Paradox chance = 60.872
I have no idea if those are correct, however.

Would love any feedback

I want to revive an old system, but it's from a copyrighted manual of a famous IP (Marvel). Could I get into legal trouble if I use the game system? (obviously without any superhero trademarks)

In games that have dedicated item slot tracking, how many is just right for you?

Obviously, this depends on the system, but I have found 12 works for everything I need, with some caveats. Mainly, that slots are broken up into different categories, your number of slots does not change as you level up, and you can bundle multiple mondain items of the same type into a single slot (rations and torches and things).

I have them broken up into the following categories:

Hand slots (2): For the things you are actively holding in your hands. I like what you are holding to be a hard rule in the mechanics, no ambiguity in it at all. I have experimented with other options, but this is what I like most.

Body slots (4): Body slots are used for armor. All armor you are wearing must be in a body slot to benefit from. Body slots also are used for items that you have easily at the ready and can use in combat. This gives a great balance with how much defense you want with how much utility and options you want in combat. If you fill up these slots with armor, you are not going to be able to use anything but what is in your hands in combat. If you have less armor you will be able to hold potions or ammo or other items you want at the ready.

Pack slots (6): These are for everything else you have, rations, torches, loot, magic items, etc. To use an item in a pack slot in combat you must spend 1 round to get it out of your pack. Six pack slots has ended up being the sweet spot for my system and allows enough variability for players to take what they want and have room for loot while still having tension with not being able to carry every random thing they find.

Of course, these points all depend on the system and feel you are going for. I am going for a dungeon crawl exploration focused game, which these rules exemplify. You can see how it all comes together in my system EMBARK.

So I recently nearly lost all my work because I've been working in InDesign and the last save I had refuses to open. I had to extract the text and tables I've made with InCopy (Which loads the damned file just fine, oddly enough) in a last ditch effort. I have no idea what happened to the file, otherwise. Is it because I'm not supposed to be writing straight out of InDesign? Is it only for pamphlets and flyers, not 150 page books? What do people use to write and format/arrange all their work?

I want snappy, precise page layouts with text, art and whatnot fitting on the page without having to write it in Word or something and then try and cram everything into a layout tool. What do people use?

I'm currently ~50% through writing my third self-published hobby RPG. I'm writing it in English, which isn't my native language, so I'd need some kind of proofreading for grammar and idioms. That's ~200 pages before illustrations and, since I'm doing this as a hobby, I have a budget of essentially 0.

Has anyone used attempted to use AI for such things? How well did it work?

Hi there!

I’m developing a TTRPG heavily inspired by the Percy Jackson series, and I’m currently refining how combat works, especially when it comes to fighting monsters. My current approach is fairly straightforward and influenced by various PbtA games I’ve run with my group in the past.

At the moment, monsters have an armor rating that reduces incoming harm, a set of specific attacks with assigned damage values (like 1d6, 2d4, etc.), and a standard HP pool. While this system is functional, it’s feeling super flat.

I’d love to make each monster encounter more of a puzzle, requiring players to think creatively and adapt their tactics, rather than just trading hits. Do you have any advice on how to add depth and make combat more strategic and engaging? Any ideas or feedback would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

how can you make situational modifiers interesting, and also smooth? I don't want people to look up the right modifier for 7 minutes/round, and I think, "ok you damage +2 is boring". how can one fix this?

Hi all.

I've been building an fantasy d20 system and I just wanted to share it and get some feedback. I'm planning on making it and open source system and hoping to find other people that like it and might be interested in building it as a team.

Please take a look and let me know if you have any ideas or would be interested in working on it.

Also if you like any of the mechanics or ideas in feel free to take them and use them in your own system

Thanks

Main document https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bGYfmuL2VUPsc3HsFRo1jLW2o3m5G_1iooFkdqjPUkU/edit?usp=drivesdk

Rough notes and tables https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1L_dv_yN_NwyIzy1j662_i6V_t0dXIhbFFnF6974WQMI/edit?usp=drivesdk

Humans are really annoying to hunt so you've got one night to sabotage their camp as a human before you come back as a t-rex to eat them all. You just have to play it cool long enough to not get chased away with weapons for being a fake human.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F8Rim-Hf8ROLeKz-aEYQLZE2ljbeGqzS/view?usp=drivesdk

Inspired by Never Stop Blowing Up, a system for the Dimension 20 show Never Stop Blowing Up. The dice never stop blowing up.

I've noticed that since CR and similar mechanics were produced it's had some some noticeable effects.

First being that everyone generally agrees it's trash and at best is a loose tool to gauge things.

But also that it can be somewhat helpful for newbies to avoid doing things like throwing a clearly OP encounter at PCs.

I feel like CR is something that prompts not necessarily baby GMs, but more not fully realized/matured GMs into thinking that by strictly following these guides they SHOULD be able to have things just work out, which seem like a backwards logic to me.

Part of me just accepts that I'm old and grew up in a different era and it was just part of the game and learning experience as a GM that if you do something dumb like drop an insurmountable challenge on the party and wipe them, that's a lesson learned and you learn to develop tactics and strategies and problem solving solutions as a GM to ensure you don't wipe your party.

Sometimes it's even OK if someone dies due to dramatic effect or the PCs paint themselves into a corner that just isn't going to end well or the dice are just statistically against the party in ways that is crazy, but those kinds of situations aren't really for you to avoid as a GM because they are more or less inevitabilities that can occur at the table for various different reasons.

To me it seems like the existence of CR is a false security blanket that avoids this kind of learning by posing/being understood as a solution to not having to learn and think as a GM and that to me seems like a net loss of potential learning.

I say this because if you do it right you can make your big bad a normal human against an OP super hero PC cadre and make it work without giving them a nuke or magic wand of world destruction, and that your invincible OP monster is still managed to be taken down by the party with some crafty solutions, and I feel like CR is like a set of training wheels that stays on longer than it's meant to, ie, it possibly prevents the kind of learning needed to move past it.

I'm just curious what other people's thoughts are about this.

Part of me and my granular brain is considering "well these kinds of tools can be helpful to brand new GMs" but the other part is like "this is an imprecise nonsense is actually standing in the way of the learning to be good as a GM" and I don't know, but for me, I needed to wipe a party a total of once as a preteen to realize "this sucks, lets not do that again" but also not everyone thinks like me, learns the same lessons I do, etc.

On the whole I'm just not feeling like giving any kind of precise measurement here for GMs even though I have extensive advice on how to be a good GM in my base primer and separate GM guide. I kinda feel like with that meta knowledge, sure someone is going to flub their first encounter design, and occassionally encounters are going to get flubbed and unexpectedly kill PCs just because of the kinds of situations I mentioned above (dice, drama buy in, series of terrible PC choices), but I don't think that's really a bad thing?

Like if the threat of loss/fail state is never there, never actually real, what are the stakes that make it interesting? Again, maybe I'm just old, but I feel like there's only so long you can dangle a fake threat before people catch on and lose investment.

It just doesn't feel to me like even if CR was functional, or some other system like it, that it's necessarily desirable or worth what it can take away from the game by virtue of existing. Instead I've focussed my goals on things I consider more practical for combat challenges like understanding action economy, average damage and similar.

I guess I'm mostly looking for responses that either A) challenge my thoughts and make me think in new ways, or B) help me better present/justify my thoughts decisions. I'd kind of like a mix of both so I can assess the point more honestly/objectively rather than just being in my head about it. So please share your thoughts, responses, feelings, opinions, etc. for me to consider.

Hi! I posted this on r/ttrpg but it should be here. I'm creating a ttrpg as inspiration as I need a to learn some new programming languages. I'd love some advice on a mechanics.

Background: my game is a skill based game using a 3d12 count your success. There are times when you succeed that you need to calculate its effectiveness. Prime example being an attack related skill and the effectiveness is how much damage you do. Due to the source material the PCs will have high attributes as the campaign progresses. I'd like to keep some semblance of balance. Here is my idea for how to calculate effectiveness of skills based on their attribute.

Example. Pc has 8 str and no other modifiers are affecting the roll.

1 str = 1d4, 2 str = 1d6, 3 str = 1d8, 4 str = 1d10, 5 str = 1d12, 6 str = 1d12 + 1d4 7 str = 1d12 + 1d6 8 str = 1d12 + 1d8

The pc would do 1d12 + 1d8 damage.

A pc with a strength of 32 would do 6d12 + 1d6.

This keep the baseline linear and allows each step to be small but not nothing. Letting characters feel their growth without big jumps between long periods of nothing.

What do you think?

I'm currently writing a narrative RPG in which the Players are a Resistance Cell in a fantasy setting loosely inspired from Franco's Spain (and, to some extent, Pan's Labyrinth). It's not WWII Resistance – no help is coming from allied countries, there will be no Allied Invasion, and the future looks quite bleak. The objective of the players is not to take down the regime – that's way beyond their ability – but to bring hurt to the supernatural Menace that puppets parts of the dictatorship behind the scene, quite possibly at the cost of their lives.

So far, we've playtested several types of Cells involved in covert investigations and actions. One of them was the very cliché of a Resistance Cell, another one was more ambiguous and composed of criminals who occasionally played both sides, yet another was composed of occult investigators. These campaigns all worked pretty nicely.

Now, I wonder whether the concept could be stretched to non-field Resistance work, too. Would it be possible to make it fun to play Senators or aristocrats attempting to bring the hurt through entirely political means? Probably, yes. What about the redactors of an underground Resistance journal? University teachers teaching discontent and forbidden history? Decadent artists?

Note that this is a rather narrative game, in which Players are expected to more or less come up with the shape of the Menace and create their own path to hurting it, so in theory, anything is possible. However, I suspect that it would be harder to GM a group of non-violent/non-field PCs and I'd like to give at least some pointers to future GMs with groups who might be interested in such exotic groups.

Any suggestion?

"Puttying" is a term used by stunt performers to refer to a technique in fight choreography. The term comes from the original Power Rangers TV series, where enemies called "putties" served as cannon fodder for the heroes to dispatch en mass.

If all the putties attacked at once it would overwhelm the Power Rangers and the audience. So instead putties attack in small groups in order to create story beats during a fight, even if unrealistic.

As a result you end up with most of the putties on screen at any given moment waiting for their turn to attack. In order to not call attention to this the performers make sure to keep moving while waiting--they gesture, spin, and shuffle in place to make it seem like they are doing more than just waiting for their turn to get their asses kicked. Thus that technique is called "puttying"!

A similar concept extends beyond TV and movies and into video games. In games with mobs of enemies there is often a need to prevent all of the enemies from attacking at once to give the player a fighting chance. For example in the Arkham games thugs coordinate so only a couple attack at a time, giving batman a chance to counter the attacks. This technique is even applied in first person shooters, such as Doom Eternal, where enemies that are on screen get priority for entering their attack patterns while enemies off screen wait (puttying), giving the player a better opportunity to respond to attacks.

A similar dynamic can be useful in many TTRPGs, where turn based combat can create a large emphasis on the "action economy". In many systems the side with more actions per round ends up with an increasingly large advantage. The addition of just a handful more mooks in something like DnD can turn an encounter from simple to very deadly, while solo monsters need features like legendary resistance just to have a fighting chance against the players.

Puttying can help, but it's a little trickier to achieve in a turn based environment. It becomes very obvious when an enemy had a chance to attack but the GM decided not to, ruining the illusion.

However we can use other mechanics to create a puttying effect, suitable for a heroic feeling system.

For example in my D20 system, Faemarch, groups of enemies act together in initiative order. Attacks against players are made a group. Actions are player resolved in the system, so the player rolls to dodge rather than the GM rolling attack versus AC. The GM decides whether the enemies attack cautiously or viciously. If cautious, the enemies prod for an opening, giving a die penalty (essentially stacking disadvantage) to the players dodge roll for each additional member. If vicious, the enemies swarm the player, granting a die bonus to their damage if they hit.

I.e. if 3 enemies are in a group and attack cautiously, the player rolls 3 d20s to dodge and picks the lowest. If they instead attack viciously the player dodges as normal but on hit the GM rolls 3 damage dice and picks the highest.

This system has a number of benefits:

1. Speeds up play by reducing the number of attacks that need to be resolved.
2. Creates diminishing returns to attacking in groups, allowing for cinematic hordes without overwhelming players
3. Caps incoming DPR from groups of enemies, reducing the chance of dying ignominiously to a pack of skeletons due to simple bad luck.

Similar mechanics can easily be included in dice pool games, such as Forbidden Lands, where enemies can assist attacks to add dice to the pool for resolution.

Can you think of other mechanics that achieve similar dynamics? How would you incorporate a version of puttying in your own system?

I‘m running a homebrew osr session and am looking for some inspiration. What would you consider a quintessential element of an osr-style adventure that should be part of the adventure? Thanks!

I've seen a few newer games use tiered ACs, where the attack roll lands within one of the tiers to determine how much damage you take or what health bar it is subtrated from.

I know Daggerheart does this along with a few other newer games.

I'm curious how this type of thing feels to actually play. I can speculate, but what was your experience as a player? DM?

What do you see as the pros and cons from a play, feel, balance, and flexibility point of view.

I may break down and run a Daggerheart game soon to get a feel, but I'm curious to get a broader set of opinions on it.

Hi All,

I just released three weirder new playbooks for Chasing Adventure, my PbtA fantasy game, that are a bit harder to play, GM, and design compared to the game's normal playbooks.

These playbooks are in beta and being playtested, so I'd love to know what everyone's thoughts are.

These are also a paid bundle, but there are detailed preview screenshots linked below.

The Artificer is an eccentric tinkerer who can create Inventions and lend them (and their associated Moves) to other characters. This post also shows two sample Inventions.

Dealing with the 'mobile moves' of the inventions will be a bit of a challenge, and the community has already heavily discussed the Tinkerer background (which will probably be changed in the next update).

The Monk is a disciplined martial artist who can choose one of several Playbooks from Chasing Adventure and fully adopt it as a second Playbook. Because so many of the monk's niches could already be filled by other characters (Agile Fighter, Unarmed Barbarian, Cleric or Paladin, etc.) it's been an interesting design challenge to carve out its own niche while adopting the strengths of its siblings.

The Monster is a terror who unleashes their true nature and connects more with other horrors than the civilization they once called home. The have several moves that are double-edged swords or outright negatives, and feel more like a Monsterhearts character than an adventurer, so I expect my main design challenges to be keeping them from hogging too much of the spotlight, excessively altering the subgenre of narrative, and keeping them feeling strong despite their weaknesses.

Here is another Monster preview screenshot showing its Natures, since those go onto the second page but are extremely important to the playbook.

Any feedback is appreciated!

Im trying to design a pokemon rpg system, but im not very confident it will work.

in this system the stats/atributes are Agility for tests where one needs to be agile, Strength for tests where you need to be strong, Constitution for tests involving physical resilience, Inteligence for tests where you need to be smart and Discipline for tests involving pokemon stuff

The are 3 classes: Trainer: which would be like the Fighter and specializes in training pokemon and pokemon connection Researcher: which would be like rogue or bard and specializes in knowing pokemon and out of battle stuff Esper (or Psychic): would be this system's spellcaster, wont have much abilites involving training of pokemon but will learn moves like pokemon. Based on the character in pokemon like Sabrina (1st generation psychic gym leader) and stuff.

Im more focused on getting done with how pokemon will work in this system, so i havent done much of the trainer stuff but i have this ideas.

In this system im not making pokemon level up, the Trainers level up, but the pokemon dont, they just evolve. Thats mostly where the problem comes from, since they dont level up i have to find some way they can be made stronger, so I created EXP points, with EXP points the Trainers can train their pokémon. There are two types of training the physical and the special Physical: gives HP, attack damage, etc. Special: gives PP, move slot, etc. Moves in this game are like spells in DnD, and move slots are spell slots, the pokemon can have up to 8 and if they want to teach their pokemon some other move but all their move slots are full they have to delete one.

What do you guys think should be more fleshed out?

Also should I start focusing more on the trainers rather than the pokemon so I will have a more concrete base?

I started working on this system like 3 days ago because my friends from school asked me too and they havent played much ttrpg. Also english is not my first language.

Hello everyone! As a veteran DM Im now "Dming" a campaign for my players where I mixed a lot of things. I made this post for the next reasons:

1.- Feedback and some ideas/discussion to make it better.

2.- Share a parte of my world building just in case it give some inspiration to other DMs.

3.- Ask for some feedback/idea for the concept of the """""god"""" of Justice in my world.

So... First of all, I'll give you some context. Im a huge fan of the dark fantasy, Dark Souls, Persona and I that kind of player/dm that likes to mess things up with magic and gods from a pragmatic point.

Well, my world is named Kegosh. The world received that name to honour the godess of rebirth, and the first known godess.

Just to not make it a looong history. In Kegosh we have 3 types of level for the gods.

1.- Gods. The most powerfull beings on this universe. There are 16:

1.1.- The mother and the father. Kegosh, godess of rebirth and Mek'Raj, god of the will.

1.2.- The 7 holy graces. Sons and daughters of Kegosh and Mek'Raj.

1.3.- The 7 deadly sins. Sons and daughters of Kegosh and Mek'Raj.

2.- Aspects/Demi-Gods. It is the title given to those humanoids powerful enough to embody different abstract or physical concepts in which the humanoids of the world of Kegosh create. It can be something as simple as Love or Oceans. To make these "gods" I have based myself on the work of American Gods where they are stronger in function of the believes of the normal people. Where it doesn't matter if you believe in them consciously or unconsciously.

2.1.- To give some additional context. The aspects "ascended" when the Father and Mother were killed by their children. Unknown to anyone, they fragmented their souls and hid these fragments inside each and every humanoid in the world of Kegosh. Feeding this power as well as the beliefs of the humonaoids is how it is possible to obtain the title of Aspect, although only some achieve it. For context, I was inspired by the workings of humanity and the Dark Soul from the Dark Souls franchise.

3.- Arcana. The most powerfull humanoids, basically level 20 characters (im DMing Pathfinder 2, but it fits for DnD too). There only can be 22 humanoids at max level at the same time in my world.

3.1.- How the level and power system works for NPCs and Players. To give a sense within the world that simple humanoids can develop absurd powers, I introduced the Kegosh fragment within them. Those who show great potential or will awaken a mark, as if it were a curse on their bodies. This mark is what allows them to cultivate their power and become stronger, in exchange for needing to consume fragments of pure elemental magic that are generated in nature. Something that I have also taken advantage of to play into the socio-political plot of this campaign. Well, many are affected by the curse, around 60% of the population.

3.2.- Any humanoid without the curse can rise to a maximum of level 9 without much trouble, but will never be able to reach level 10.
Those who carry the curse will be able to awaken their power to break those limits and continue leveling up to acquire more power. The limit once the curse is awakened is level 19.

3.3.- For an NPC or player to achieve level 20 and receive 1 of the 22 arcana, it is necessary not only to have awakened the curse thanks to which they have reached level 19, but also to awaken their own soul. I have called this Arcane Soul. Arcane Soul is also the name of this campaign that will last 2 or 3 years. Once the Arcane Soul is awakened, your consciousness is transported to a place between the real world and the world of dreams called the Arcane Room. Yes, I was inspired by the Persona saga for this place.

3.4.- Once the Arcane Soul is awakened, those who have achieved it will receive their Arcanum. Which will give them access to level 20 and a special power, similar to what a Stand or Persona would be. In terms of token, the Arcane Soul grants its users abilities that belong to another class and some other bonuses such as some extra hit points or bonuses on rolls. And yes, i love to homebrew things and mess all up with the power scaling. I LOVE to give my players the feel of power at the end of my campaigns. Clarify that the Arcane Soul is something that they will only be able to enjoy in the last arc of the game when they are ready to face other Arcana users and the BBEG.

That's it for the explanation of the power system of my world. Now I proceed to introduce you to a character, for which I need some opinions.

Aspect of Justice.

A man like any other, and bearer of Arcanum No. 13, Death... Former follower of the Aspect of Justice. As time went by, he lost his faith, which led him to fall into a deep depression and go from being a man of righteousness to being a mercenary capable of killing his own mother for a handful of coins. Over time his moral compass once again pointed in the right direction, although his methods remained broken. If he has to wipe out a third of the world's population to save the rest, he will do it without blinking. If he has to massacre half a country to put an end to a tyrant and thus be able to grant freedom and a good life to the survivors, he will do it without question. Fallen from grace and deprived of his faith, he decided to end the life of the Aspect of Justice with the help of his Arcanum. What he didn't know is that by killing an Aspect, you will most likely be the one to inherit their power and position. So currently, the new Aspect of Justice, the one who believes that the world is devoid of it, walks among mortals as one more, doing what he considers to be right and just, even if it is not equitable for everyone. under the thought that Justice is dead but the reality is that he himself embodies it. Not a blind, correct or absolute justice, but a harsh and implacable justice that only seeks to put an end to those powerful who oppress the weak while boasting about it. He considers that this is not justice, it is revenge and punishment. He is currently leading a revolution to overthrow a tyrant king of a city where 70% of its inhabitants are slaves.

The group will meet this man shortly. He is leading a company of mercenaries, made up mostly of freed slaves from the city he wants to liberate. Since the majority of these mercenaries are people freed by him... They praise him, even if it is unconsciously. Which gives him greater power and relevance in this world as an Aspect, something that he continues to deny and deeply hates. In fact, he never shows off his Aspect powers or abilities and fights face to face like any other human would. The question here is, what kind of subtle hints would you give your players? Or what kind of subtle hints would you like to receive from your DMs? This human's alignment is True Neutral, in the past Evil Neutral. As for his personality, he is a direct, bad-tempered and world-weary guy. However, he is that type of man who tries his best to appear to be a worse person than he really is and who always orders his men that NO ONE is left behind. But he will be the first to be left behind if, thanks to this, he can grant survival and freedom to his men. He is also quite reckless.

Edit: This man also hates the other Aspects bc he thinks that this position only gives you the feels of supperiority over the rest of the mortals while you still being exactly that, a simple mortal with a lot a power, but a mortal. And actually another reason for him to hate them is bc the world is a dark place where everything could be work better if the powerfull people like Aspects or Arcana users work together but all of them only watch for their own bellys.

And i think thats all, I can expand the information if someone ask for it... Thank you all for the reading and the comments!

PS: Sorry about my english, is not my mother tongue :s

I DM mostly and I have a lot of fun writing stuff for my players and I want to write campaigns for other people to run. However when I write for myself it's usually pretty sparse cause I rely on my own ability to improv and expect my players to subvert all my plans. So I feel like if I tried writing for other GMs I would leave a lot of holes they could fall into. And that's just mechanically cause in terms of world, setting and lore I'm worried I would do too much, the opposite problem.

So what I'm looking for is just a way to know what information to put in, what to leave out etc. So is there a good guide for that anywhere?

/u/bio4320 recently asked about how to prepare social and exploration encounters. They noted that combat seemed easy enough, but that the only other thing they could think of was an investigation (murder mystery).

I replied there, and in so doing, felt like I hit on an insight that I hadn't fully put together until now. I'd be interested in this community's perspective on this concept and whether I've missed something or whether it really does account for how we can strengthen different aspects of play.

The idea is this:

The PCs need goals.

Combat is easy to design for because there is a clear goal: to survive.
They may have sub-goals like, "Save the A" or "Win before B happens".

Investigations are easy to design for because there is a clear goal: to solve the mystery.
Again, they may have other sub-goals along the way.

Games usually lack social and exploration goals.

Social situations often have very different goals that aren't so clear.
Indeed, it would often be more desirable that the players themselves define their own social goals rather than have the game tell them what to care about. They might have goals like "to make friends with so-and-so" or "to overthrow the monarch". Then, the GM puts obstacles in their way that prevent them from immediately succeeding at their goal.

Exploration faces the same lack of clarity. Exploration goals seem to be "to find X" where X might be treasure, information, an NPC. An example could be "to discover the origin of Y" and that could involve exploring locations, but could also involve exploring information in a library or finding an NPC that knows some information.

Does this make sense?

If we design with this sort of goal in mind, asking players to explicitly define social and exploration goals, would that in itself promote more engagement in social and exploratory aspects of games?

Then, we could build mechanics for the kinds of goals that players typically come up with, right?
e.g. if players want "to make friends with so-and-so", we can make some mechanics for friendships so we can track the progress and involve resolution systems.
e.g. if players want "to discover the origin of Y", we can build abstract systems for research that involve keying in to resolution mechanics and resource-management.

Does this make sense, or am I seeing an epiphany where there isn't one?

Hi folks!

I recently completed a draft of the chapter on magic for the historical dark fantasy TTRPG and setting that I've been working on for the last year. My game is called Grimoires of the Unseen. It is set in a supernaturally infused 14th-century Europe, where history melds with folklore. The game is centered on supernatural investigation, political intrigue, and gothic horror. Players may encounter everything from corrupt nobles and bandits to ancient pagan deities and malevolent fae spirits. Gameplay emphasizes deadly combat, sparse but impactful magic, and layered mysteries.

Resolution Mechanics: By way of background, the game uses a d20 skill system where characters are defined by six core attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma) and 44 skills, each rated: Unskilled, Novice, Journeyman, Master, or Legendary. The character's skill level determines the number of d20s rolled, from 2d20 taking the lowest (Unskilled) to 4d20 taking the highest (Legendary). Players roll their dice pools and add relevant attribute modifiers to meet or exceed a GM-determined Difficulty Class (DC).

Magic Pillars and Mechanics:

1. Divine Magic: Players use their Religion skill and spend Divine Favor points, which are tied to their Charisma attribute. Casting involves a skill check against a high DC (usually 19), and prayers may or may not be answered, depending on the check. Failure still expends Divine Favor and can lead to exhaustion if reserves are depleted to 0.
2. Elemental Magic: Draws power from the forces of nature and the Otherworld. It includes schools like Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and Aether. Spells require Elemental Magic points, based on the caster's Wisdom, and a skill check against the spell's DC (which varies from very low to very high). Failure results in magic point loss and potentially gaining exhaustion, while critical failures can have additional severe consequences.
3. Occult Magic: Involves darker, more dangerous practices such as Blood Magic, Curses & Hexes, Demonology, and Necromancy. Casting uses Occult Magic points derived from Intelligence and involves significant risk. Failed spells can lead to fortitude loss (which in turn leads to insanity), exhaustion, or permanent insanity, reflecting the high stakes of dealing with infernal forces.

With this game, I'm shooting for strategic depth and narrative immersion, with mechanics designed to reflect the dangerous and unpredictable nature of magic in a dark a medieval setting. Because magic is rare, mechanics are more ritualistic and involved. On the surface, they seem a bit crunchy, but this hasn't been a problem in playtesting since magic is rare and becomes a central focus of any scene in gameplay when it is used.

I’d love to hear your hot takes on the following:

• Do these magic systems feel thematic and balanced given the game’s setting and tone?
• Do the mechanics seem intuitive and accessible?
• Do they seem fun, and would you consider playing a game in a setting like this with similar magic?

Full Document for Context: For those interested in a deeper dive, check out my draft document: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1U8MFkjgDXJm7r5wxLFfQ4zWpg8BpnTuG?usp=drive_link

For those of you who take time to look this over, thank you sooo much for sharing your insights. I find your feedback invaluable!

Hey I love worldbuilding and really want to share the world with others, but I'm thinking about trying an unusual format and needed to get a sanity check on this:

I love reading campaign setting manuals even without ever playing the game. They remind me of encyclopedias in a way but are more creative. I'm not personally interested in writing long stories about the world or going into detail about game mechanics and rules, I just love the narrative component of classic and independent RPG manuals.

Does this make sense to anyone else? Would you read or buy something like that? Or is this just a bad idea?

I keep rewriting the design concept for my core resolution - it is always the same mechanic, I just can't come up with the worlds I want to describe it with (it always goes too technical)

so I figured I make a list of things that success counting dice pools seem to do well/are good for/people seem to like

1. dice pools can be split and used for more than one action - this is the first reason why I decided to use dice pools

2. the physicality - they have a feel, they are fun, and if done right they are intuitive - by deciding I want to focus the the feel, "yes, more dice is better" and the dice "always feel the same" made a lot of choices for three easier

3. lots of options to choose (possibly too much of a good thing) - pools have lots of levers, they also add some new (for lack of a better term) "operators" like: roll and keep, advantage, and so on - writing down the first two reasons is is letting me focus on what options fulfill 1) and 2)

4. lots of information (if you want it to) - lots of information can go in, lots of information can go out - narrating how the pool is build can help describe the action is being done- using the information the pool creates can be used to better describe was accomplished

5. dice tricks, special interpretations, and "gimmicks" (also possibly too much of a good thing) - these are the "that special spin" of the design items they can quickly become too much or just not enough - I have seen some that really set the tone and they all had the same thing in common they picked one using improve their first or second priority for their design

I've been working on my TTRPG for a while now with a combat system I'd love to get some feedback on.
The game is a medium crunch medium fantasy yet another dnd clone.

Players have two stats, health and stamina. stamina is quick to recover and is spent on abilities and to absorb damage. health is lost when taking damage and recovers slowly.

For combat, the player side goes first, moving and taking an action in any order they want to, and then monsters go, doing the same. If an attack misses, it allows the target to counter and deal damage back.

Has anyone else tried this? I assume that there are some games out there that are similar, but I haven't seen them in my research.

My other question is, currently I let players take damage by either losing stamina or health, but I'm considering a change were you can spend stamina to roll dice and reduce the damage by that amount. The upside of this is that it makes stamina a little more balance between offensive and defensive uses, currently damage numbers are so much higher than ability stamina costs that it almost always makes sense to absorb most damage with stamina at the start of the fight. But the downside is it will slow down combat a bit with more dice rolling and decision making. Does this change sound good? Does my logic make sense?

Hi Gang,

I have just published my first game on Itch.IO and awaiting Drivethrurpg.com approval.

The link to my product is here https://ajaxiss.itch.io/rise-of-infamy

It's a short 2 page trifold pamphlet style ttrpg focusing on making a tight hero vrs supervillains game.

I apprecitate the continued support of this community and while I would love to make my 1st dollar on this, the amount I have been supported along the way makes me want to post it here. So here is a watermarked version of the game, free to all who would like to give it a try. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1008iUkXZZLZTG_eIkr0OM95YTilcMuc9/view?usp=drive_link

Feel free to leave feedback. always accepting improvement suggestions.

I'm working on a game that's a little crunchy & I've got like 5 experimental mechanics squished together that all interact with each other.

Idk if it helps but I'm listing them out here for more context:

• zone based tactical combat for theatre of the mind
• players and NPCs have different resolution mechanics
• weapons fill the role of classes
• very simple equipment customisation
• enemies are gigantic and their limbs each get a turn in combat

My first draft is almost done, but I still don't know if each mechanic is fun on their own & contributes to the intended experience.

I do game development sometimes, & over there, it's usually better if your players don't have any context so they can tell you if it feels good to play without any extra baggage distracting from it.
... But that doesn't really work for RPGs where you kinda have to understand how the game works in full before you can jump in.

With my playtesters' sanity being a finite resource,
Would it be better to make the full game with all the moving parts in place, & or should I make a super stripped down version of the game & gradually introduce more mechanics after each playtest?

I am working on a few different games right now that are all looking to be zine length. I wanted to roll them all in to the same book for print to order, and I am making a FitD, a PBTA, a Carved by Brindlewood Bay, and a Penned By Good Society game. Does anyone know if their licenses allow them to be published in a collected work like this? I know that individually I will have to put in their language in, but I wasn't sure if they had what are essentially non-competes.

As army size wargames have each player moving around dozens or even hundreds of units every game, it is only natural the they don't have the same level of HP/Damage/Armor granularity you expect to find in an RPG.

In Warhammer, for those unfamiliar, each battleline model usually has 1 Wound - 2 if they're a more elite unit - meaning 1 Hit is enough to kill them. Each unit then has an Armour Save value that if successfully rolled fully negates the Hit. It's a simple system that works well when we're dealing with a tide of disposable grunts.

In RPGs we are used to HP pools in the dozens, variable damage dice with modifiers and armor damage absorption or partial damage negation. But what do you think about the viability of a warhammer style system? Something along the lines of:

Each character as a Maximum Wound value ranging between 1 and 4. Armor Saves, if characters have Armor, range from 10% to 60% chance to negate a Hit. And Melee is resolved with a contest each turn, with the winner landing a Hit - so even unarmored characters, if skilled in combat, can be pretty durable in virtue of their skill level. Each failed Armor Save would typically translate to a Wound.

Of course, some types of weapons or skills could have a character land multiple hits or each hit dealing more than 1 Wound or such exceptions to the norm. Weapons would maybe have to be differentiated from each other more on the basis of combat abilities/perks than on the the basis of damage output. As would shields and helmets (see Mordheim equipment for examples of how this could be implemented)

Are there games in the RPG scene that have done something similar? Does it translate well from wargames to TTRPGs?

Thanks in advance for the feedback!

My Fallout game is a D20 roll high system. The universal difficulty is 16, so ALL tests succeed at a 16+

The highest modifier that a player can achieve is +10. +5 from their attribute and +5 from their skill. This system follows the attribute + skill combo from Modiphius' own Fallout system.

A player can achieve a +10 modifier to their rolls during character creation if they choose to specialize or lower other attributes to move those points around but it does mean that they're leaving some attributes and skills behind.

With a +10, it means that the player only has a 25% chance of failure. Is that a fair estimate or should the universal difficulty be lower or higher?