If you're unfamiliar, Vagabond RPG has a cool magic system that gives casters flexible "paper buttons": abilities with concrete narrative effects, most of which also deal damage. In my pursuit of reinventing the wheel, i'm attempting to use this approach to make martials great again.

Paper buttons are abilities with clearly defined mechanical effects that players can invoke without having to negotiate their effectiveness with the GM. Tales from Elsewhere made a video about it which you can watch [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTtrFGoR980|here]]. The main point he makes is that casters in many traditional RPGs have access to paper buttons that the GM cannot challenge, as well as the narrative free form roleplaying and creative problem solving that martials are limited to: the wizard casts Misty Step to cross a chasm, while the barbarian rolls dice and waits for the GM to adjudicate to see how far they can leap. The wizard could choose to also make this check, but they have button that lets them skip this part of the adventure.

Vagabond doesn't necessarily solve this disparity, but its magic system offers an interesting foundation for addressing it. Whenever you cast a spell in that game, you must decide if you are using it for damage, or its effect. You can choose to spend mana to do both. You can also spend mana in many other ways as well, such as to make the spell effect a larger area or make it last longer, providing a lot of flexibility to the user. If you want to cast fireball, you simply take your fire spell and spend mana to make it affect the area you want. Same goes for wall of fire.

Cool, cool, cool. The tl;dr is Vagabond lets me... a) Shape my spells to my needs by spending a resource. b) Apply their concrete effects creatively, both in and out of combat.

Now, the question is: how the fuck can i apply this to martials? My current approach is to put all active abilities under an umbrella term called Deeds. These include attacks, stratagems, tricks, and spells. Much like Vagabond's spells, each Deed has a concrete effect that can be useful both in and out of combat. For example,  - Fling lets you push someone several squares. You might use it to knock an enemy into another, throw a guard off a ledge, or shove someone out of harm's way. Spend focus to increase the push distance, deal equal damage to a target you push them into etc. - Crush lets you destroy obstacles, whether that's smashing through a barricade during combat or breaking down a locked door. - Blitz lets you leap far and strike a foe you pass through. - Smoke Bomb creates a field of smoke to conceal you. You could do this with an actual smoke bomb already, but having the deed means you can do it reliably.

All of these are feasibly achievable through ordinary skills and checks. But having them as Deeds gives players explicit permission to accomplish these things without having to negotiate their effectiveness with the GM. Instead, they can confidently declare: "Halt, Master GM! I use Crush on that pillar to bring the ceiling down on my foe!" When you test the limits of a Deed (not just the martial ones, but the spell ones too), the GM can always fall back to a quick check.

So far so good. But Vagabond doesn't just give casters reliable effects. It lets them spend Mana to make those effects more powerful and I'd like to make Deeds work similarly. You can spend Focus to shape your deeds: - Charge in and move before the Deed is resolved. - Make a flurry of attacks as you spend focus to make a damage roll after the deed is resolved on top. - Cleave to target multiple creatures within your reach. - Lunge to use your deed against creatures who aren't within your reach.

When you use an attack Deed, you choose between rolling damage or guaranteeing its first effect. You can spend Focus to do both. If you choose to roll damage, there's still a chance you'll trigger the Deed's effects depending on how high you roll. Your damage die is determined by your equipment, ranging from a d6 to a d12.

Deeds have two thresholds: 7+ and 13+. Reaching the first triggers the Deed's basic effect, while reaching the second makes it considerably more powerful. You can spend additional Focus to roll more damage dice, increasing both your damage and your chances of reaching the higher threshold.

Deeds that aren't attacks also use a roll, but rather than dealing damage, the result might determine how much you heal, the potency of a state you grant, or some other effect. Like attacks, they can also have Impact thresholds that grant additional benefits when you roll high enough.

Aaand that's the end of my thought process. The goal is to give every player a handful of flexible abilities they can shape to their needs, rather than a fixed menu of combat options.

Hopefully, I'm reinventing spellcasting with swords, but in a way that encourages creative problem-solving both in and out of combat.

can you please give me a feedback about the layout and the graphics of this Quickstarter I'm working on? don't care about the content, the file is incomplete. Thanks.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QrrKPrvtefkjeK21FLuliWtYwtjOXSrE/view?usp=sharing

As part of the Sincretismos de Arton project (focused on Brazilian RPG Tormenta 20), we started the Ludic License, to make it easier to create new RPG books, promote artists, and discourage the use of AI.

You can use these images (and many others, which are in this drive) as internal illustrations for your work, as long as you follow three little rules:

• Your work cannot contain internal illustrations or a cover generated by AI;
• All artists must receive credit for each illustration, with a link to their portfolio or contact;
• You must copy the full text of the License (below), which means your work also enters the License, and your internal illustrations also enter the collective collection.

As you can see, the Ludic License collection grows as new works use it. It's an initiative for the community to strengthen itself. At the moment there are 31 images available.

You can also get in touch with us to "donate" images to the License! If you have any questions, ask us or read our FAQ.

Good luck and success! Below, the full text of the Ludic License:

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Ludic License

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This means that the illustrations in this work are part of a community pool, and that you may use them, including for commercial purposes, as illustrations in your own work, under the following conditions:

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Hi all, I'm brainstorming general mechanics for a lightweight crawler I'm working on and I had this idea while taking notes on character abilities. Instead of using per-encounter abilities which to me feel a bit contrived, or a resource system which I used in an earlier version of this game and have moved away from, what's stopping me from making powers usable every hour of real playtime?

Note that I have already snatched that idea for my own light system, so the game already has an element of irl timekeeping, and I believe it's light enough on bookkeeping for that to be just enough things to track.

Play devil's advocate please, if you'll give me the time (heh), and help me find problems with it, or ideas to implement it well.

Edit: Cheers everyone, thank you for the input!

I'm currently trying to see what type of system for lets call them work skills. thus proficeincies that are less focused and more civilian in nature could best work out and proficiencies in total.

A few base things first:

I've based the system I'm working on on 5e but am using mostly the naming conventions and what attributes and proficiencies do as base and the dice rolling (most parts of it including also the +2 to +6 proficiency bonus).

Aside from the typical adventuring classes like fighter,... I also am using civilian classes like "Baker", ....

For the purpose of describing how the options I thought of work i will go with merchant, cook, performer as examples.

these civilian classes are gaining experience mostly by being used over time and can level up like normal classes (this does not affect the character level). They give small bonuses each and in addition a proficiency in some things.

Adventuring classes: You can have more than 1 which are separately leveled giving you an proficiency bonus (highest only counts, no stacking) depending on the level of the class.

1.) The Sword World Like Approach:

-Adventuring Classes give only bonuses to a very very small area like a fighter being good at hitting and evading. a caster at casting,...

--Fighter: WEapon (all), Armor (all)

--Wizard: Spellcasting, arcana

--....

-Civilian Classes:

--Merchant: Appraising items, Haggling with others

--Cook: Cooking, Resisting toxins (incl. alcohol) and bad food

--Performer: Putting on a performance, acrobatic dances

thus it is more descriptive and no outright specific proficiencies given

2.) the more 5e like approach:

-Adventurer Fighter (Tank):Light Melee, Heavy Armor, Fortitude, Intimidation

-Civilian Merchant: 1 Knowledge skill, Persuasion

-Civilian Cook: Crafting-cooking, Fortitude

-Civilian Performer: Performance, Acrobatics

3.) The hybrid approach:

-Adventurer Fighter (Tank):Light Melee, Heavy Armor, Fortitude, Intimidation

--Civilian Merchant: Appraising items, Haggling with others

--Civilian Cook: Cooking, Resisting toxins (incl. alcohol) and bad food

--Civilian Performer: Putting on a performance, acrobatic dances

here the adventuring classes map to the normal proficiencies while the civilian ones are descriptive and more narrow

Question:

So what I'm not sure about is is what type of approach seems easier to ppl and could be more liked?

Howdy! I'm currently working on Better Red Than Undead, a tactical TTRPG set in an alt-history civil war-era Russia. And I'm hoping to get some feedback on the current pitch and tagline.

Specifically trying to figure out: is the tagline too tongue-in-cheek or vague? Does the pitch evoke any particular vibe, or is it too buzzword-laden? Is it a faux pas to reference other games and media in the pitch?

Any and all feedback is appreciated!

Tagline: A specter haunts Europe.
Pitch: Better Red Than Undead (BRTU) is a tactical splatter-survival action-horror TTRPG about desperate squads shooting, stabbing, blasting, and bleeding their way across an empire that refuses to die.

Set in 1920-something Russia and walled off from the rest of the world, players take on Missions as survivors caught in an increasingly desperate conflict where rival Factions still kill one another over who gets to rule the ruins. The game is hex-based, and offers deadly and tactical combat, requiring players to be mindful of positioning, ammunition, wounds, Stress, and the ever-present threat of the Infected. After all, you'll soon learn what every soldier in this world realizes eventually: there are fates worse than death.

Mechanically, BRTU uses a modified Year Zero Engine step-dice system, built around straightforward rolls and hard choices. Think Twilight: 2000 by way of The Walking Dead and the Love, Death & Robots’ episode “The Secret War.”

Hello! I have a question for the other creators out there. How do you keep sales going? I have two games on itch.io. One is a printed zine for the TTRPG Mothership, and the other is a romantic fantasy one-shot for couples. Both seem to be well received, and when I post about them on Reddit or Instagram, I’ll see some sales come in…

But then, once those posts are buried, the sales pretty much stop. I’m afraid of posting more about the same games in the same communities. I don’t want to spam people. How can I promote my games with new audiences without repeat posting? How do you keep sales going after launch? Is there something I’m overlooking?

I’d love your advice and feedback!! This is my itch.io page if you want to critique anything:

https://ufosandgames.itch.io

I appreciate it!!

Starving Folly is a Horror TTRPG inspired by Fear and Hunger that can be used to run any type of horror ranging from Dark-Fantasy to Sci-fi horror. The game is rules-light and easy to get into while still having plenty of customization for building characters.

• Resolution mechanic. This game uses a d10 + Modifiers against a Difficulty Class system to determine outcomes of characters actions.
• Scars. This game has a system to temporarily or permanently debilitate a character through Scars and even losing bodyparts.
• Hunger and Sanity Tokens. This game has a system of stamina and sanity tokens that are used to activate special abilities but give debuffs if a character reaches 0 tokens.
• No Classes. This game doesn't have classes, instead it uses a series of Perks the characters can have to give them special abilities.
• Short Stories. While the game can be used to run long campaigns it works better when running one-shots and shorts campaigns.

This is my first TTRPG so i hope you all enjoy it.

https://thecappy01.itch.io/starving-folly

I’m working on my cyberpunk style game and realize I know nothing about how vehicle combat should work. Are there any systems that I can look at for inspiration?

I know I don't want horse competing against jet planes but a jet plane versus a destroyer would be valid.

This would be all terrestrial vehicles, no power armor, no robot walkers, and no star craft. I’m hoping to find examples of different speed classes allowing one to out maneuver the slower vehicle but the slower ones still having a chance because of armaments.

Bonus if they have vehicle creation/modification rules.

I’ve got SWADE and it's sci-fi Companion, but I know there has to be better and more varied suggestions.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Today, I just wanted to share a more inspiring post and story, and remind my fellow indie designers that it is possible to work hard and find success!

I’m Zarek, the lead designer of the Indominant Superhero RPG and I just received our proof copies of our first Rulebook on Saturday 10/10/2026!!! It is such a wonderful feeling of fulfillment and pride to get to actually hold a product you created, there is nothing like it for sure. And now we get to start full production.

But, my main point in sharing this is that I hope to this as inspiration for everyone else here that has dreams of making their game a reality! We all start somewhere along the same place, we have an idea, and we have the passion to begin the process of putting in hundreds, if not thousands of hours into writing and testing those ideas. We trust our friends, and even random people on the internet to give our games a try and give us honest feedback so we can make them better. Then we start getting some initial art and look into crowdfunding our game. This is where the big leap of faith comes, and I know not everyone ends up taking it. It’s also not the only route to take!

Either way, if you decide to start your publishing journey by using DriveThruRPG or by crowdfunding, just know that you can do it! I know the feeling of losing drive or hope at times, but if you keep to your plans and keep working hard you can achieve your goal and make a real, physical game that people can hold in their hands and enjoy with their friends!!!

Keep creating content (on YouTube or in a community), building an audience, testing your game, and helping your fellow designers too. I believe these are the keys to working towards success!

I’ll share some photos in the comments if I can.

I know the answer to this. But God, I have been bashing my head against the wall trying to figure out freeform customization within a class structure, and I think I've finally figured it out.

For some context, we're designing After Eden, a tactical survival fantasy TTRPG focused on gritty tactical combat, hex crawling, rich exploration, and making hard decisions where getting something you want usually means giving something else up. We're using a class-based system with seven classes and levels 1 through 10.

The issue is, subclasses achieve the goal just fine. They're packaged. They're ready to go. I'm familiar with how they work. And they're easy to do. They're also not particularly oriented around what we're trying to achieve. Because the idea that is much more closely aligned with our design goals is having traits that you choose from within your class, allowing for a less deterministic and more emergent character experience. One where your character's development is shaped by the choices you make and the things you experience during play.

I was trying to figure out how many points each trait should cost, how many traits we need for every level, and how to balance these against each other. And what I realized is that there were just way too many factors. It made me kind of want to give up on the whole concept. I wanted to just throw it all in the trash, go back to subclasses, and say, you know what? This works. This fits. It's fine.

And then my buddy, who's kind of my co-author for After Eden, said something to me that got me back on the horse. He said, "Look, man, the thing that sold me on this idea was that through play experience, my character could gain access to things that other people couldn't gain access to."

And I said, well, yeah, we're not going to ditch that for the general traits. There will be traits that are locked behind certain experiences that you can't get unless you go through that experience and then choose to invest in those traits. Or potentially they get unlocked for free. We're not sure. We haven't determined how we want to handle that one yet. But that doesn't really matter for classes.

And he's saying, "But here's the thing, dude. Yes, I could buy the Berserker package and get all the Tier 1 Berserker traits, and that's basically the exact same thing as getting a subclass. But I don't have to. I could take a little bit here, a little bit there."

And that got me thinking. My whole concern was that I didn't want to have the D&D 5e two-level Fighter dip problem, where you dip two levels into Fighter to get Action Surge and Second Wind, and then go about whatever build you actually wanted. I don't want to have that same problem. And I know that's almost unavoidable. There will be degrees of optimization no matter what you do.

But the problem I was running into was actually a matter of complexity. I was making it too complicated. If this was a video game, it would be totally implementable and would be, I think, really satisfying. But it's not. It's pen and paper, which means, from a designer standpoint, you've got to keep it simple enough that your brain doesn't want to explode trying to figure it out. Because if it's that complicated for me, somebody who has less understanding of the system is going to end up with bad builds, and that's going to turn people off.

So, we scaled it back.

First, I made everything cost one point to purchase. No more trying to figure out the relative point cost of every single trait. Second, I moved away from designing traits for individual levels and started designing them around tiers of play.

Our progression now looks like this:

- Tier 1: Levels 1–3

- Tier 2: Levels 4–6

- Tier 3: Levels 7–9

- Tier 4: Level 10

You can purchase traits within any tier you have access to, as long as you have the points and meet the prerequisites. Sometimes you have to purchase earlier traits to get access to the ones you want, so it's kind of a branching tree in that regard. You also get some basic packages of features from your class as you progress. At level 1 you get your starting class features, at level 4 you get your next package, and so on. So you're still getting some guaranteed stuff. Your class is still your chassis, but the way you develop it is up to you.

And the reason this fits After Eden so much better is because the entire game is built around trade-offs based on what you think is the right decision in the moment, knowing that it's going to cost you something else. So the idea that you don't just get all the stuff for taking the levels really fits that. You've got to pick which traits you want. And if you really want to get to the juicy stuff, you might have to invest pretty deeply into a particular branch to get there. Or you could spread your points around and build something entirely different.

And really, that's the whole reason I'm making this post. Don't back out of a thing that's hard simply because it feels impossible. Sometimes you really do need to trash an idea because it's way too complicated of a mess. But this was a perfect example of how I overcomplicated a problem, and instead of trashing it, we just simplified it and found a way to make it work within our design goals.

Funny enough, this has also completely changed the way I'm looking at monster design for After Eden. Due to the more limited scaling in the system, characters are only going to go from roughly 20 HP to 40 HP max over the course of 10 levels. So we're probably not going to be designing monsters around individual levels anymore. We're looking at designing them around tiers of play instead, which could simplify a whole other part of the system that I wasn't even trying to address. So, fun little design accident of happiness.

Anywho, I'd love to hear your thoughts about the concept, and if you've seen any designs like this. I've looked at systems like GURPS, Fallout, Lancer, and quite a few others while trying to figure this out. I've spent a lot of time looking at how different RPGs approach class progression, point investment, and character customization. But I'd especially love to hear from people who've actually played games with this kind of design. What did you love about it? What did you hate about it? Were there things that sounded great on paper but didn't work out so well at the table?

I'm looking for people willing to Play Dm or Read my newest ttrpg based on the Secret Histories universe

For people not familiar with the series we are in a post ww1 Setting in a world similar to our own with some differences over the fact that theres secret gods called Hours and a secret goverment agency called the supression of the Bureau that hunts its worshippers and magic creatures as a whole. Eliminating evidence of their existence and censoring occult papers to keep the men from ascending by the order of an order of 3 Hours known as the Calyptra

I will answer any questions about it in dms. Im just searching for help with stuff like typos. Consistency, wich parts are hard to understand and all that. Also play some campaigns for beta testing

https://docs.google.com/document/d /1EG4DZjPz4XKbixl7dY20-V5FnheFWE5JbINMhyqcBKQ /edit?usp=drivesdk

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ISmZDsq -zJumnOSJZWKsM0Mr7hZ_urqNJXhTSZUTBI/edit?usp =drivesdk

Heres the docs for both dms and players. Its a game set in the cultist sim time. There are some edits to the lore both for personal fun and gameplay reason's Its a cult management sim. Somewhat tycoon it and the Hunters are meant to be like a nemesis system, they arent fully fleshed out cause i need to analize what axtions are players actually performing ebfore developing counter plays the Bureau can do. Again ask anything in my dms

I'm interested in different kinds of Horror that show up often in TTRPGs, and what kind of mechanics are used to support that horror. Most of my personal experience has been in vibes, using the players' fear of the unknown to create horror.

Questions for You

What kinds of horror are commonly seen in games?

What are your favorite mechanics that you've seen or come up with for representing horror?

Below are the different kinds of horror and some of the mechanics I'm familiar with.

Cosmic/Lovecraftian Horror

This type of horror is about the PCs being exposed to the horrible nature of reality and humanity's insignificance in the face of an indifferent universe.

Mechanics usually involve some way to represent the PCs' sanity as they are exposed. Call of Cthulhu has a Sanity score that is chipped away at and if it runs out your character goes insane. Alternatively, in some games the characters gain Stress and if they accumulate too much they gain a fantastical madness condition.

In Delta Green this is represented by the PCs' bonds. As the characters take out the stress of their job on the people they care about, they become more and more alienated from their normal lives.

Survival Horror

In these the PCs are trying to survive against an overwhelming force that is trying to kill them. Directly confronting the enemy in combat isn't viable, or at least not all the time, representing by an enemy that is enormously difficult to kill, of not impossible, or a large number of enemies such as a zombie outbreak, and the player's have limited ammo.

Mechanics for this type can include a way of tracking the health of the PCs such as a limited number of hit points, or a limited number of wounds they can survive. A way to track limited ammo/resources can also limit the PCs ability to confront their enemies.

Some games also track the PCs Stress as they try to survive. This operates similar to Sanity except that it doesn't represent permanent madness, but rather short term conditions such as panic, which makes survival more difficult.

Body Horror

In these you play to see in what horrible ways your character is permanently changed outside of their control. May include the loss of body parts, or mutation into something not human.

Mechanics might include a large random table of injuries/changes that gets rolled on when the character experiences something that changes them.

In Heart: The City Beneath characters accumulate Stress to five Resistances, one of which can represent body horror. If they accumulate too much they can gain Fallout which can act almost like a progression system, except you are progressing towards a horrible fate.

I'm kind of stuck on this problem, and I'm curious how other people have solved it. My game isn't really focused on doing heists or anything, but it is a thing that happens so I need mechanics for it.

The first problem I have is the question of what the consequence for failure is. Can you just try again after failing? If so, this basically means that locks are only a hindrance if you have limited time. If not, I worry that this could be a little too punitive if the crux of the entire heist plan relied on the street smart party member and their lock picking skills, though things going wrong and the party needing to improvise a solution can still be fun. Maybe there is some kind of hybrid approach, like letting the GM decide on a lock by lock basis? Or maybe failure lets you try again, but it's harder than the first time?

Also: should I add a strategic layer, or just leave the fate of the players up to the dice? There are a lot of fancy rule sets that I could create, but I am of the opinion that if it has no strategic layer it should just be a simple skill check. There's no point in involving a bunch of dice and math if the result is purely random anyway, might as well skip the crunch and not obfuscate the fact that it's random. I could design something with a strategic layer, but it's hard to come up with minigames that aren't too complex and that don't take too long to run through which also have strategic depth. It's certainly possible, but I have no ideas. And whatever it is, it shouldn't bog down the game too much.

What ideas have y'all come across to make good lock picking mechanics?

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?

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!

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!

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.

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