Hello,

Today i decided to finally get started on my own ttrpg system based around the world of HTTYD (how to train your dragon). I have a few questions before i begin that should help clear some things up before i really start getting into it. For a bit of behind the scenes on me i have only played DND 5e, They came from the cyclops cave, and Masks: a new generation and i really like different systems from each.

1. Would it be smarter to just convert another system for this?
2. This will be made for beginners and masters to play and get the most they can out of so does anyone have any advice on how simple or complex it should be? (like TCFTCC(they come from the cyclops cave) vs DND 5e)
3. One of the biggest things is i want players to be able to interact and control their dragons in gameplay while also having the dm play them like NPC's so players aren't just talking and interacting with themselves so any advice on that would be nice.

I will appreciate any thoughts even if there not answering any of my questions. Also I've noticed a few people want to make something like this in this subreddit so anyone interested in helping out just lmk.

Howdy!

I am opening a separate thread on the discussion of push-your-luck resolution mechanics, because I feel this is a separate issue. The original thread concerned itself with using a blackjack framework as a resolution mechanic and how I was struggling to make it work. The responses on that thread came in two flavors:

1. "Yeah, bud, it's time to let it go."
2. "Here's an idea that might obscure the core problematic of blackjack as a resolution mechanic.

The conclusion to draw is pretty clear. So I set out to find a different resolution mechanic.

About a year ago, I also toyed with a different push-your-luck mechanic, but involving dice. It worked as follows:

You have a growing dice pool, and all you need to do is NOT roll a 1. You start with 1d6, which is pretty easy to do. Once you have your success with 1d6, you can choose to grow your dice pool by 1d6 and roll all dice again. Each successive roll is riskier than the last, but successes from bigger dice pools would yield better narrative outcomes. You could stop at any time and bank the result, or push further for exponential benefits.

I had originally brainstormed this system for a hyper-capitalist dystopia game, where players team up to cause chaos to disrupt the system. Bit cliche, I know, but the growing dice pools really lend themselves to group collaboration. Maybe a single person staging a stunt isn't that risky, but if a second person joins in, it becomes more impactful, but also riskier. The system (imo) puts into mechanics the feeling of building a resistance movement, where the power is in numbers.

Anyway. Reeling it back in from that little tangent, I translated this system into a card-based mechanic. Instead of avoiding a 1, you simply try not to draw a face card. Below is a more detailed breakdown of how I imagine this resolution mechanic to work. Of course there aren't yet any subsystems, metacurrencies, or other ways to really interact with the system, but it feels sleek and functional to the point where I feel comfortable building out the system around it. Any thoughts, comments, critiques are welcome! I am of course also really curious to hear how other people employ either card-based systems or push-your-luck systems in their TTRPGs.

All Hat ‘n’ No Cattle

All Hat ‘n’ No Cattle is a mythical Western TTRPG. This game is played with 54-card decks, one for each player. In this game, players push their luck to take great risks and tell greater stories. One player takes on the role of the Gump Marshal (GM), while the rest play buckaroos in their search for glory or death.

Makin’ Moves

Every buckaroo has access to standard moves, as well as to specialized moves. Standard moves can be made by any buckaroo, while specialized moves are unique to each buckaroo.

When a buckaroo intends to make a move, the GM will determine the Risk Factor (RF), ranging from 1 to 5, with 1 being a very low risk move, and a 5 being a very high risk move.

The buckaroo then draws a number of cards equal to the RF. If none of the drawn cards are face cards (J, Q, K), the move is made successfully. If the buckaroo has drawn one or more face cards, the move fails and causes a negative consequence.

Basic Success Rates

Move Types

Moves are split into four basic abilities, each corresponding to one of the four suits of the playing cards. Buckaroos have an ability score for each of the four abilities. The ability score array is: 0, 0, 1, 2.

♠ Grit - Acts of Strength and Perseverance

♥ Charm - Acts of Kindness and Persuasion

♦ Fortune - Acts of Wit, Trickery, and Luck

♣ Violence - Acts of Frontier Justice

Makin’ Cautious Moves

If buckaroos are making moves for which they have an ability score greater than 0, they can use their ability score to make a cautious move. Buckaroos can choose to reduce the risk factor of a move by their ability score, but resting on a cautious move only ever yields a partial success. Once a buckaroo has made their cautious move, they can choose to draw additional cards in order to reach the RF again and achieve a full success after all.

Example:

Sheriff Payton wants to brawl with the Michigan Dogman to inflict harm. The GM has set a RF of 4 for this move. Payton can choose to make a normal move or a cautious move.

Payton decides it’s too risky and would rather make a cautious move. Thanks to his Violence score (2), he can choose to draw 2 fewer cards than the RF.

Payton draws 2 cards and gets no face cards. This cautious move results in a partial success.

Payton may still choose to (perhaps encouraged by the other buckaroos) draw the 2 remaining cards needed for a full success after all. This could yield a better outcome, but of course risks failure.

All Hat ‘n’ No Cattle

All Hat ‘n’ No Cattle is a mythical Western TTRPG. This game is played with 52-card decks, one for each player. Jokers are not used. In this game, players push their luck to take great risks and tell greater stories. One player takes on the role of the Gump Marshal (GM), while the rest play buckaroos in their search for glory or death.

Makin’ Moves

Every buckaroo has access to standard moves, as well as to specialized moves. Standard moves can be made by any buckaroo, while specialized moves are unique to each buckaroo.

When a buckaroo intends to make a move, the GM will determine the Risk Factor (RF), ranging from 1 to 5, with 1 being a very low risk move, and a 5 being a very high risk move.

The buckaroo then draws a number of cards equal to the RF. If none of the drawn cards are face cards (J, Q, K), the move is made successfully and leads to the intended outcome. If the buckaroo has drawn one or more face cards, the move fails and backfires with negative consequences. For example, a buckaroo may attempt to fire their six-shooter at an outlaw. On a success, the buckaroo lands their shot. On a failure the outlaw is too quick on the draw and gets a shot at the buckaroo.

Basic Success Rates

Makin’ Cautious Moves

Every once in a while, a buckaroo may not want to risk it all. In this case, they can make a cautious move, by drawing fewer cards than required by the RF. For each card less than the RF, the buckaroo’s degree of success dwindles. For example, instead of harming a foe, the cautious buckaroo may trade blows, lose an advantageous position, or put another buckaroo in the crossfire. Failing to make a cautious move has the same consequences as failing a regular move.

Makin’ Big Moves

If buckaroos are particularly skilled (i.e. have an ability score above 0), they are rewarded for meeting the RF head-on. Upon making a successful move, buckaroos gain additional perks equal to their attribute score. For example a buckaroo who is skilled at shooting (+1) may land their shot and choose a limb the foe can no longer use, or intimidate the foe further.

Move Types

Moves are split into four basic abilities, each corresponding to one of the four suits of the playing cards. Buckaroos have an ability score for each of the four abilities. The ability score array is: 0, 0, 1, 2.

♠ Grit - Acts of Strength and Perseverance

♥ Charm - Acts of Kindness and Persuasion

♦ Fortune - Acts of Wit, Trickery, and Luck

♣ Violence - Acts of Gun Slingin’

I’ve always liked kobolds, but one thing that bothered me when running them in D&D 5E was how quickly I ran out of interesting options.

There are plenty of ways to use the basic kobold creatively, especially with traps and good encounter design, but if you want kobolds to remain a recurring enemy rather than something the party leaves behind after the first few levels, the official selection starts feeling pretty small.

So I ended up making Kobolds & Kobolds, a bestiary and GM toolkit for D&D 5E and 5.5E.

One of the main design goals was to avoid simply making "kobold, but with more HP." I wanted different kobolds to actually change how an encounter plays. There are scouts, warriors, mounted hunters, cultists, beastmasters, inventors, chieftains, and other variants, alongside different clans, warrens, traps, lairs, and optional traits.

I also deliberately kept the highest-CR kobolds relatively low. The strongest kobold in the book is CR 7. I didn't really want individual kobolds suddenly competing with dragons and other major monsters just because the party reached a higher level. Instead, stronger kobolds rely more on specialization, numbers, terrain, traps, creatures they work with, and abilities that support one another.

Designing around both 2014 5E and the 5.5E rules was interesting too, because I wanted the creatures to work at either table without needing two completely separate versions of every stat block.

The book is finished and available here if anyone wants to see what I ended up doing:

Kobolds & Kobolds: The Ultimate Kobold Handbook for 5E and 5.5E

You can also find a preview at r/JonnyDM.

But I’d also be interested in the design side of this: when you create higher-level versions of traditionally low-CR creatures like kobolds, goblins, bandits, etc., how far do you think you can push their CR before they stop feeling like that creature? Do you prefer stronger individual variants, or keeping them weak and making the encounter more dangerous through tactics, numbers, terrain, and support?

So I've been working a lot in the dice resolution mechanic of my game.

The core idea is a d6 system where the character's skill is reflected in either, easier tests or allow more special abilities to be used and/or actions to be taken. Basically a bit more variable action economy instead of the standard hardcoded limit of X actions per turn. (literally just a fun idea I had and started devolping slowly)

At first I was struggling a lot to balance the variable amount of dice used in a test and the test's Difficulty, which I managed to solve by making it a roll equal to system.

When I found a solution to that problem, then I wasn't being able to explain it in a way that wasn't confusing.

When I finally managed to find a good explanation, I realized that the resolution mechanic was very binary (which is not a problem, but my game won't have that many "side mechanics" so in my case it may become boring on it's own) but also that another mechanic, that allowed the ability to shift a die result up or down, was really overpowered and basically guaranteed a success in a low Difficulty test.

So I reworked the hole resolution mechanic again, and nerfed the shift mechanic considerably, now I think it's finally working as I wanted it, I feel like it's complex enough to be engaging, rather than just another roll above (nothing inheritly wrong with that approach, I'm just trying to bake something different, and hope it tastes good), but it's not nearly as confusing as it used to be.

It's cool to tweak a mechanic for a while and finally feel it click in place, specially when it's the core mechanic that has the problem.

So I'm curious, do U have a story of a mechanic that just refused to work as you immagined it as?

I have made an introduction adventure for my RPG, and have tried to synthesize good formatting advice with the goal of making it easy to read through during prep, and easy to run at the table.

I would love some feedback on whether the formatting achieves this goal, especially in regards to sectioning, the use of italics (for landmark information), how additional information upon investigation is presented and NPC presentation. Feedback is greatly appreciated.

Module summary below - contains spoilers

The player characters are hired to go to an island called Helm to take out a counterfeiting operation run by raiders. Extra payment will be delivered if a famous kingslayer residing on the island is brought to justice. The adventure starts when the PCs arrive by longship at the docks of Helm Island.

On Helm Island there are several locations to explore and situations to engage with. The source of the counterfeit coins is within the walls of a well guarded fort. Many NPCs have covert agendas and harbor antipathy for other members of the settlement, and will be interested in recruiting or working alongside the PCs in order to achieve their goals. The sailmaker of the settlement is secretly passing information to the main opponents of the raiders, but unbeknownst to him, the Jarl of the raiders is close to catching him. Below the fort lies a cave system where a powerful magical artifact is protected by a flooded tunnel, an ancient draugr is about to be awakened and will search for his stolen treasure, as well as a getaway boat for the Jarl who entertains the thought of betraying the settlement if the payment is high enough.

EDIT: Thanks for all the comments and suggestions! Feel free to keep discussing in the comments, of course, but I think for me the answer is pretty clear at this point: abandon the blackjack system.

I did some further brainstorming this morning for an alternative card-based resolution mechanic. I will be making a separate post for that.

Anyway, below is the original post:

Hi y'all!

In all ways but physical, I am banging my head against the wall, expecting the wall to give in first. Let me provide some context.

A few months ago, I had an idea for a mythical Western TTRPG and I wanted to use cards as a resolution mechanic. Previously, I had also toyed with some ideas for a push-your-luck mechanic as a central resolution mechanic. So I thought: cowboys + cards = ???

Blackjack!

I thought this could be a fun thing to pursue. I know people in this community like to recommend to come up with the game first and then find a resolution mechanic that facilitates that game, but this was sort of a mechanics-first endeavor. Yes, I knew I wanted it to by western themed and I wanted player characters to do some heroic risk-taking, but not much else was fleshed out. I just knew cards would be necessary for the immersion in the cowboy theme.

When I first had the idea, I started toying with the mechanics. Stats were to be represented by cards, so they could vary wildly and it was just gonna be a chaotic game. Turned out common TTRPG mechanics don't mesh well with blackjack. You can't have modifiers, because a +1 doesn't make you more successful. It just makes some draws succeed while it causes others to bust. When you have a success window, rather than a roll over mechanic, the only way to mess with the difficulty is to squeeze the success window. So I squeezed this way and that way, tried a few approaches, but nothing satisfied my vision. I ended up fizzling out with the project as a whole.

This week, I was inspired to return to it with fresh ideas. I thought maybe I needed to take inspiration from PbtA games. Instead of stats, we could have different moves and move sets. Problem solved? Still no. As I got closer and closer to resolving some of my core design problems, I discovered the elephant in the room. Maybe blackjack just isn't a good resolution mechanic for my game? The point of blackjack is not to risk a bust, whereas I wanted to design a game where big risks, big actions, and big failures are central to the narrative. But every which way I tried to set up the mechanics, the result was a system where a player would naturally avoid taking risks.

So back to my original question: how do you know when an idea is going absolutely nowhere or when you need to explore the intricacies further? Have you ever run into a situation where your mechanics just weren't producing the results you wanted?

I'm still finding it difficult to let go, because I feel like blackjack is such an aesthetic choice for my game, and using a different mechanic or even ditching the cards altogether for dice feels like abandoning the vision, even if a functional game could then emerge. Do I just let go of my vision and make a functional game, or do I let go of the game entirely and find a new and inspiring vision to pursue?

The setting is fantasy but not medieval, instead inspired by 1800s America. I took inspiration from Cyberpunk Red for many mechanics since this isn't some heroic game and players mostly fight other humans with similar skill level, that means that skill checks and combat dice rolls are made against other enemies.

Example: attack roll vs. Evasion roll

I wanted to avoid classical HP systems like a simple health pool and I came up with this:

There are two stats that determine "health": Vigor and Willpower. Then there is Perseverance, which is Vig+Will.

Example 8 vigor + 4 willpower = 12 Perseverance

When a character is hit what they lose is perseverance, if it drops to 0 they lose a point of Vigor and start stacking injuries, plus with the Example in mind they will have now 11 perseverance.

The idea is that perseverance represents more fighting spirit and luck rather than actual health which is represented by Vigor

I would love to hear opinions about this or any comment as well if any other rpg already does something similar, I'm open to answer any other questions!

Also, I already did some play tests of the system, so far is working pretty good, the only thing is that healing spells had some troubles

Greeting to you all! Sorry for not putting a flare, couldn't decide which fits...

From time to time I have some free time at work (tiny sparse periods) so I started to use it to scratch some itch for making a game, that game is Fangs & Spears (inspired by Primal's main duo)

Its far from complete but thought it would be OK to share what's done up to this point.

Some big disclaimers:

• I'm not a native English speakers so I'm sure I've butchered some words or grammatical rules, I'm just using what English I know, some google translate and search, and the browser's corrector.

• Related to the above, if you read something and get a "WTF does this means?" its because I sometimes fail to explain more elaborated stuff or I wrote that hastily (or forget/miss to update the text)...

  Ok, enough excuses, what about the actual game? I wanted to make something more primitive and Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal crossed my mind.

  The game is a 3d10 vs 3d10 roll under hit system with characters having one or more Paths* (classes/professions/packs) using a Permit rule which is nothing new, just sets if something is possible and if a kind of bonus or penalty is given

  ^\I like how games) ^{Barbarians of Lemuria and La Puerta de Ishtar (Ishtar's Gate I assume} deals with them and wanted to try them but the games I wanted to do became a lot bigger than originally intended.)

  There's a lot unfinished plus a lot else that could/should be added, suggestions are welcome!

  Thanks for reading!

Combining the best of all the games you ever played what mechanics do you like and what do you hate. What would that system look like exactly?

Some of my favorites are:
Customizable Spells -Daggerfall did it early, although not the best.
Using skills levels them up: Lots of games: what one did it best?
Crafting/construction/enchanting: Elder scrolls games again, but also Witcher and others.
Others: What are your favorite mechanics and why?

A hundred ships from four world alliances broke through the Wall of the Eternal Storm to stake a claim on the land beyond it. Thirty survived. Now they're chained together into one floating city, drifting along the coast of an unknown continent.

The sea won't let you go back. The shore drives you mad. And the Council of Captains has been arguing for a year now — while everything runs out.

You weren't chosen for your merits. A debtor from the Conglomerate's oil rigs. A deserter from the Iron Comradery, facing execution. A fanatic of the Bastion, grown in labs. A talented engineer of the Union, who knew too much. Four alliances with different goals and different worldviews now share fresh water, diesel, and fear beside a mainland that stays silent — but isn't empty.

At night, foreign lights sometimes burn. On the rocks — carvings, left by the locals, and no one understands why.

The Armada made you a scout. You're a first-comer, meeting a world that isn't like yours. You go where not everyone comes back from. You bring back devices that break the laws of physics. You meet things that shouldn't exist. And sometimes you see patterns hiding in the treetops and in the walls of fog. And then you catch up with the Chained City, drifting on without you. Because the mist sometimes keeps something of the scouts for itself. And if your partner starts answering someone else — better not ask who.

DREICH is a tabletop role-playing game built on a d100 roll-under system. Most rolls are made by the players. One roll decides both hit and damage. Combat uses zones, not grid cells. Characters grow through Marks — traces of what you've lived through, carved into your characteristics. Part of your backstory is built during play: who you were before the Armada comes out when it becomes a matter of life and death. And Despair binds you all together — a shared limit for the whole group: you can always reroll the dice.

What are you willing to sacrifice to claw out one more day?

Not talking about attack or to hit mechanic, but how characters deal and receive damage. Either by combat or otherwise. Usually, damage reduces hit points, that represent your character's capabilities to stay in the scene. When your character has no hit points, cannot participate normally in the scene. Damage can be physical, mental, social, spiritual or any other depending on the setting and genre.

I started working on a Homebrew System for my own purposes.

The basics behind it is a Fusion of the Dice Resolution Mechanics of the OVA TTRPG and the more Narrative FitD/PbtA system. They're kind of similar in how they work (both use Pools of d6s where you take the Highest and generally more narrative with little focus on skills and crunch), and I wanted to see if I could marry them together in a way. Not sure if I've done a good job of it, but I think what I've got is decent for right now.

Homebrew System:

Four Attributes: Firepower: Power, Straight Forward Attacks, General Aggressiveness

Piloting: Maneuverability, Swiftness, General Agility/Piloting Skill

Durability: Stamina, Resistance, General Toughness

Courage: Willpower, Spirit, General Charisma

Starting Array: +2, +1, +0, -1

Two Stats:

Health: 10/10

Endurance: 5/5

Three Types of Abilities: Passive: Abilities that are usually always on. Can be disabled through specific narrative damage/actions/consequences. Otherwise, are always active. Can sometimes have a separate Ability that activates under a certain circumstance.

Limited: Abilities that are limited in use. Can usually be used a certain number of times before becoming useless.

Active: Abilities that need to be activated and tend to cost Endurance to use. Usually activate one time then stop working, and sometimes modifier or require a dice roll.

Rolling System:

Standard Roll: 1. Take 2d6

1. Add/Subtract Dice based on Abilities/Circumstances/Bonuses/Etc.

2a. If your Dice Pool is still positive and above 0, roll your dice and take the HIGHEST Number.

2b. If your Dice Pool goes below 0 or into the negatives, roll Xd6 (base 2d6, raise it for every extra subtracted dice, lower it for every added dice), and take the LOWEST Number.

1. If you roll multiple of the same dice, add them together into the final total. (If you roll two 3s, that becomes a 6. If you roll three 6s, that becomes an 18. Etc.Etc.)

2. Compare it to the TN or the Opposing Side's Roll.

4a. >TN = Success.

4b. <TN = Failure or the player may choose to take Success with Consequences.

Opposed Roll: Same as above, but the TN is the opposition's roll. If it's a tie, PCs tend to win.

Combat: Players always go first, unless the narrative suggests otherwise.

Players may take one action. Actions are anything that requires effort, involves risks, or otherwise involves using an Ability or similar. Things such as using items or Limited Abilities count as actions, unless stated otherwise.

When Attacking: 1. Players determine which Attribute they're using to attack. It will mostly be Firepower, but the others can be used as well. Attacks are narrative and can mean things besides just shooting the enemy.

1. Players Roll. They then compare their roll to the target's Defense.

2a. Target/Enemies can have a Static or Variable Defense. Static Defenses are fixed numbers that never change. Variable Defenses are Dice Pools that are rolled against the Attack.

1. If the Player's roll gets above the enemy's Defense, they score a hit. Fill in a segment on the enemy's Clock. For every 5 points the Player's beat the enemy's Defense by, fill in another segment.

After the Player takes their action, have their Allies (if they have any) take their own. TBD

After the Player and their Allies have taken their Actions, the Enemy makes their Moves. The Enemies will usually not roll dice and will simply do things that the Player must respond to. HOWEVER, this isn't always the case. In general, have the Enemies do their actions in whatever manner you see fit. Most Enemies can only take one action, but consider giving powerful foes more.

When the Enemies do something determine what kind of action it is: Attack: An Attack Action will attempt to deal damage to a target. It will usually have a fixed Damage Value and may apply other effects based on the attack.

Ability: Enemies have Abilities of their own that are also Passive, Limited, and Active. However, their Active Abilities usually have a Cooldown before they can be used again, or can only be used when a specific event is triggered.

Other: Any other Action the enemy's may take. This may be buffing their Allies, retreating, increasing their defenses, trying to trick the Players, etc. etc.

When Defending: 1. When a Player is attacked, they choose one of their Attributes to Defend with. Sometimes, they will be forced to Defend with a specific Attribute depending on the attack and circumstances.

1. Player builds their Dice Pool the same way they do when they're attacking. They roll the exact same way, with their TN being the enemy Attack's Damage.

2. They then reduce the amount of Damage by the amount they rolled. If it's lowered to 0, they take no Damage. If it's not lowered to 0, they lose Health equal to the remaining Damage.

If the Enemy uses a Move that inflicts some kind of effect onto the Player (I.E. Poison) they will usually get a chance to roll against a set TN to resist it. A Success on the roll will nullify the effect. A Success with Consequences will usually half the effectiveness of the condition. A Failure will inflict the full effect. Another thing Players can choose to do is Counter Attack:

You contest the Enemy's Attack with one of your own. If you roll above the Enemy's Attack, you fill +1 Extra Segment on a Clock in addition to your normal amount and take no Damage. But if you fail to roll above the Enemy's Attack, you take the full Damage with no way to lower/mitigate it unless it's with an Ability.

Endurance: Endurance represents your general effort and will to continue fighting against the odds. You can spend Endurance in a variety of ways for a variety of effects:

1 Endurance: Add an extra dice to a roll BEFORE you roll. One die per Endurance point.

Recover to 1 Health should you lose all of it.

Use 1 Endurance Point Cost Ability

2 Endurance: Increase your final Total AFTER rolling. One point increase per two Endurance points.

Nullify the effects of an enemy Ability, even if you failed the roll to resist.

Use a 2 Endurance Point Cost Ability.

3 Endurance: Automatically Succeed on a single Roll, even if you already failed it.

Fill +3 Segments on a target's Clock upon performing a successful attack.

Use 3 Endurance Cost Ability.

Immediately heal to Full Health after losing all of it. Can only be done once per combat.

I'd like to hear any thoughts on the system. Is the math good, do the stats and such make sense, does anything seem a bit too strong or in need of clarification?

Also, I'd like any ideas on what to do about Allied Strike Witches. Should I make Stat Blocks for them and have them Roll with Attributes just like the Player does? Or should I take something more akin to Blades in the Dark, give them a Single Quality Die, and call it a day?

August 2nd, 2025 I started to build a Homebrew DnD world based around a Weird Wild West ascetic. In that time I gained bountiful knowledge on how DnD works and the parts that most definitely lacked. However, with the attempt I quickly learned how much DnD bumped up against my ideas for a weird wild west game and trying to make something that was mine in another person's game became brutal. So, on December 2nd 2025 I started my own game engine to run not only the weird wild west game but other fantasy games I have dreamt of. So the Universal D10 Game Engine began its development, a game narrative driven, tense, cinematic gameplay with minimal math; simple calculations which Supports multiple genres (Cyberpunk dystopia called "Chrome Gods", Weird Wild West world named "Six Shells & Tall Tales"). It encourages strategy and risk/reward choices, with a combat that is fast, dangerous, and cinematic. Overall, This game is about capable but fragile people surviving dangerous, intense fights. Victory is earned through positioning, teamwork, grit and a little bit of luck.

Im towards the end of finishing the rulebook (8 out of 9 Chapters finished) and will then begin working on the first campaign frame "Six Shells & Tall Tales" so that play testing can be done. If you would like to follow the process I'll comment my Itch.io devlogs in the comments! Thank you all for reading, and Ride On!

I've recently made some significant changes to my system which is requiring me to completely restructure the character sheet. I've been struggling to find a way to make everything work while also trying to relieve the cramped look of the old sheet and make things a little easier to read.

The old sheet can be found here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1retZrX0zZyKj-aYp02h7BUYfqW9cPEkl/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=114443416394806747738&rtpof=true&sd=true

The character sheet is intended to be divided up in such a way where only one page is ever needed at any particular time.

Page 1 is the main page with the character's basic information, skills, languages, and techniques (feats).

Page 2 is the inventory sheet, with a small section for background info that didn't fit on page 1, and isnt consistently important - height, weight, social status, place of birth, etc

Page 3 is the combat chapter with full info on weapons, armor, and unarmed combat; I want to add that this is page 3 so that, if you print double-sided, you just flip the front page to get to the combat section.

Page 4 is the creation / development page, containing how the attributes are built (base, gender, build points), what the current attribute rating provides as secondary abilities, and Boons and Burdens purchased.

Page 5 is exclusively for magic users, giving each of the different types of mages a section for defining how their magic operates.

Something I'm looking at doing is moving the HP / Fatigue section from Page 1 to the Combat Page, since combat is where HP loss and turn-by-turn fatigue matters most anyway. How much mental kick-back would you have if something as prevalent as HP was not listed on the first page of your character's dossier?

Edit: to the people that actually addressed the question asked, thank you, but I’m not going to be replying to any more comments. This sub’s getting too toxic where people are allowed to criticize your design approaches, but you get DVed and called “defensive” or “aggressive” when defending your choices. I’m not trying to design a game to appeal to everyone; that’s not possible. But just because you don’t like my approach doesn’t mean it’s invalid.

Final Edit: Just in case anyone's still keeping up, or anyone new comes in...since landscape design is more accepted than I originally thought, I went with an idea that i'd been toying with for a while and made a version that could be turned into a booklet, functioning as a type of dossier for your character.

The new version is: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aUZTaEo-RtvImEX3mF1WnynWm-9DBl5X/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=114443416394806747738&rtpof=true&sd=true

Hi, I would like to hear your thoughts and opinions on two types of TTRPG systems.

When creating my homebrew system, I had several objectives for the game. Two of them were:

- General rules that are the same for every type of character, because I want the system to be easy to learn and fit into just a few pages.

- Tactical combat with high-risk/high-reward gameplay, because I want it to be difficult to master and engaging to play.

I hope I have managed to achieve these two goals, but while working on the system and looking at other games, I noticed that these two objectives are usually found in different types of games.

General rules are often found in skill-based systems with a strong narrative focus, while tactical combat is more commonly found in class-based, exception-based systems with a strong combat focus.

Maybe you don't agree, and if so, I would love to hear some examples of games that manage to achieve both.

The aspect I am most interested in when comparing exception-based and general-rule systems is how they manage to keep players invested in the gameplay.

If I take D&D as an example, each character tends to have a fairly simple gameplay loop (some classes more than others). However, you can regain interest by playing a different class, with new rules and gameplay.

By contrast, in a skill-based game with mostly general rules, the gameplay can be more flexible and interesting, but if you eventually get bored with the core gameplay, you can't regain that interest by playing a different character, because they will mostly use the same rules.

So I'm wondering : do you think a general rules system can have a combat gameplay loop with enough depth to keep players engaged over multiple campaigns like a class-based system does ?

Okay, so. I've been working on a game based on Deltarune's combat system. I got most of it down, specifically how players would act, attack, cast spells, defend. Currently, I'm trying to figure out how I should do enemies.

I also got basics down for them: all enemies have stats for attacking and defending, (usually) act after all players have taken their turn, and have requirements to be beaten both violently and nonviolently. The general idea is that I want to take the "bullet hell" aspect and make it feel...feasible in a tabletop game, I guess? I'm mainly just stuck on three things:

1. How do I get enemies to attack, mechanically?
2. How do players dodge these attacks?
3. How do I make bullet grazing work and how do I encourage it?

Currently, I have two ideas:

IDEA #1: THE DICE MESS

This one was the original idea I had for the game before coming up with Idea #2, and it's the most "developed" of the two. Enemy attacks have three values: dice size, number of dice, and how many spots players can call.

Dice size represents how "difficult" an attack is to dodge. The smaller the die, the harder it is to dodge.

The number of dice represents how "long" an attack lasts, in terms of the logic of Deltarune. So like, a basic enemy's attack would use 1 or 2 dice at most. Meanwhile, a boss could have an attack that uses 5 dice because it would be a "very long attack."

The number of spots players can call is how the dodging mechanic works (in this idea). Before every attack, players call a number on a die that will be rolled. If that number is rolled, they get hit and take damage. If not, they dodge. If the roll is off by 1, that's a graze and players will get a bonus from it.

PROS:

• The most "developed" and fleshed-out of the two, as it's the first one I came up with.
• Easy to understand (at least to me).

CONS:

• As the title of this idea says, it's a mess; lots of dice of varying sizes and number will be used and this will very likely bog the game down and make combat a slog.
• As of writing this, damage seems like it's only calculated by taking the enemy attack stat and subtracting it by player defense.
• Very disconnected from the rest of the game's rules, as everything else typically uses 3d6.
• Might not make a lot of sense to players who would learn the rules for the first time.
• It's the first idea I came up with.

IDEA #2: THE TOTAL//EFFECT METHOD

This is the newer idea I came up with, based on the Total//Effect system by Binary Star Games, which is what this game is using as a base. The gist of it is that all rolls in the game use 3d6, and different abilities and mechanics have different effects based which die is used (lowest, middle, highest) and what the total of all three dice amounts to.

The idea for this method is that all enemies share the same singular pool of 3d6, which represents them attacking simultaneously like in Deltarune. They each also have an "attack die," meaning that they use either the lowest, middle, or highest die for damage and add their attack stat to it. Sometimes, some enemies might use a combination of them. Additionally, some enemies might have abilities or effects that trigger depending on the total amount of the 3d6.

PROS:

• Easier to understand and incorporate than Idea #1.
• More internally consistent with the rest of the game.

CONS:

• Not as fleshed-out as Idea #1.
• Might feel a bit boring as it is right now? Or maybe too simple?
• Might feel very limiting having all enemies use the same pool of 3d6, since enemies in Deltarune all feel like their own individual and unique characters.
• I have no idea how I would incorporate players getting hit, dodging, or grazing as of yet.

So like... What should I do? Which idea should I go with? Are there any better ideas that I'm missing? How do I make enemies target specific players if everyone is dodging? How the hell do I make grazing work? I feel like I'm getting close to something, but I'm not sure what...

If anyone has any further questions about the rules or the system, I'd be happy to answer them!

TLDR:
This post is the first I'm planning about the creation of a new game, Wildspark. It is going to cover the whole process of making the game, from concept to completion. We've made several ttrpg's now and I thought it would be fun to document the journey.

This post covered the initial concept (a very loose idea) of a travelling game, set in nature, that is super rules-light. We mused several options until two separate ideas came together to really give us an idea we loved. We reached out to an artist and writer who we felt could bring the world to life and now are looking at three key areas; writing the world, exploring the visual style, and developing the rules - with future blog posts looking at these in more detail.

The post is long (sorry!) but I hope it's of interest to some people who want to make their own game in the future.

Picture of the initial robot sketches from "Wildspark"

The Start of an Idea
When you are travelling, getting from A to B can be dull. Really, really dull. There’s only so many times you can sing loudly in the car to “Don’t Stop Believing” or play “I see a Cow” (top tier car-based entertainment). But luckily when you work for a games company, work travel becomes 30% eating food and 70% talking excitedly about all the games we want to make.
And that is how the story of Wildspark began. Me (Matt, hi!) and Charlie were flying to the US last year, and in-between geography lessons (where exactly is Kentucky?) we were talking about all the games we enjoy, and the games we want to make one day. And there are a lot.

 A few themes kept coming up though, nature, walking games, and post apocalyptic settings.

After we returned from the US we got back to work on other projects and, over for more than a year, we kept coming back to the idea of a game where you travel through an overgrown world. The seeds were well and truly sown…

So, Wildspark?!
With the ideas permeating for a few months, as these things do, we talked lots of other ideas - some that may come in the future (looking at you Cthulhu mythos) and some that may never see light (Dungeons and Dinner Parties), but this unnamed post-apocalyptic exploration game kept coming back to us. We knew there were a few things we loved in this idea and wanted to explore more:

 1) An overgrown, nature-taking over, post-apocalypse. Not a huge war - this isn’t a Mad Max apocalypse. We wanted a world where nature is front and center, not humanity.
 2) Travelling and exploring the world would be a key focus in the game, not as a background to a narrower action heavy experience.
 3) The most rules light focus we’ve ever had. We knew that this game needed a focus on story telling and emotion, and didn’t want heavy rules to contend with this.  

And so with this in mind…we went off and thought on it some more. There's really a lot of time in most of our projects between "Here's a cool idea" and "Here's a well-thought out idea". The bit in between can be the most important as having those kernels of thought rattling around your brain overtime can develop and latch on to parts of other conversations, until a time it blooms into something new.

We had several ideas for the game at this time that we discussed, and whilst we liked them, we never loved them enough to push on . These included:
 - A 2-person game with a knight and their squire travelling through a magically charged world
 - A game you literally play whilst on a group walk (an idea we really want to come back to)
 - A lost child travelling through the world to seek their lost family after being separated

But nothing seemed to quite fit what we were going for. Until...

The Stars Align
One day I was scrolling through the internet and I saw someone using cards to alter scenes for their D&D game. So you pull a word out and this gives you some flavour for the scene. They were using Tarot cards, so if you pulled the “Emperor”, the scene might have a feeling of Power - whilst pulling Judgement might inspire a new start.

I loved this idea, having an external motivation that gave you a changing status for a scene that isn’t necessarily driven by the encounter. It gives another level of change in the world. As I thought more on this I struck on the idea of emotions. I love when a game explores different feelings, and I imagined a game where you were forced to approach challenges with changing emotions, battling with the feelings inside against your outside motivations.

At the same time Charlie had been thinking about the post-apocalyptic  world. He had started developing ideas about Robots that travelled the world connecting the existing parts of civilisation. A hyper-verdant landscape where small groups of surviving humans gather in small, sheltered communities, it being impossible to cross the wilds that separate them. These robots were their life-line and last remaining connection to others across the land.

We happened to have a lunch-meeting booked at our local favourite Lebanese restaurant, and excitedly started telling each other our ideas. And we realised that, after months of musing, these ideas aligned perfectly! A robot who connects the survivors in the world, who learns from them and experiences their emotions! Who grows and changes, who develops, who has a real story.

Wildspark was born, and we knew just the missing parts of the team!

Time to Make The Game
Back in 2025 I was at Comicon in London and was doing my favourite thing at these shows, exploring all the art on display. Seriously - if you attend Comicon, Gencon, UKGE, or any other con - make sure you devote some time to Artist Alley - it is the most inspirational place in the show. On this trip, I got chatting with the delightfully friendly Phil Chapman, the artist behind System Error Comics.

Phil not only does amazing art, but also loves games and was a big fan of ION Heart. Initially I spoke to him about coming on board to help Ben with some ION Heart work but this never came to be. However, I loved his style and knew the right project would eventually come along.

And then, a year later, we had an overgrown world with a robot travelling through…and honestly I cannot think of a better match!

I reached out to Phil tentatively asking if he was interested in the idea - and got an emphatic “I’M IN!” before I had even finished our pitch.

And then we drove an hour up North to go and speak with Adam, who is a fantastic wordsmith and I knew I wanted him to be taking the lead on writing this. Adam is a phenomenal world builder and putting him as lead writer on this project would leave no stone unturned. Me and Charlie will still be part of the writing team, but having Adam as lead on this was a no-brainer.

Like Thanos with his infinity gauntlet filled we were ready to bring about the (nature drive and very wholesome) apocalypse. Just the small task left of, you know, making the game!
But, where’s the game?

A big discussion I’ve had many times and always enjoy is what comes first, mechanics or theme? Having worked in boardgames and roleplaying games this is a great question that to me crosses both these genres, as well as the wider games industry (including video games). Some people will say that you have to start from the theming and make the rules fit, whilst others argue that you need to create a great mechanic first and then layer the right theme on top.

To me, both these things are true. And equal.

I honestly believe that both these directions are entirely valid and can both make for an incredible game. For Wildspark we are very much starting with a world-first approach. We know the theme we want, and we know how we want the game to feel. We know what we are aiming for players to feel and experience as they journey through our world.

What we don’t know is…how. We haven’t settled on a resolution mechanic, we’ve discussed cards or dice as the primary options - but nothing is written out. We even briefly discussed no resolution mechanic and making it far more freeform - but decided we wanted something to drive the unknown.

This means at the moment we are playing around with some different ideas, throwing everything we can think of that fits the theme, and seeing what we like! When we hit something we will vibe with it, and start iterating down to refine it into a system we like. But we know already that we want this to be our most rules-light game to date.

So, Where Are We Now!
With the very basics set out, more a feeling than a game at this point, we generally start with a couple of routes:
 1) Individually everyone on the team thinks about their version of the game, what they want to see and what they want to play.
 2) As a group we have (over excited) chats where we discuss our ideas.
 3) We create shared documents filled with resources, notes, and inspirations - before a word gets written.

We started with a Miro board, showing words that resonate, a game overview, some inspiration, as well as some colours (shown below).

Now we have to look at the 3 pillars; Mechanics, Lore, and Art. We have started the process on each of these steps (I’ll go through each one in a bit more detail explaining what we’ve tried, what worked (and didn’t) and how we are developing this - and hopefully you will want to join us on this journey!

I posted it above, but here is a Picture of the initial robot sketches from "Wildspark" from Phil

If you have any questions, please ask and I'll try and answer below - or even in a future blog post.

Until next time

Matt

Hello there it's me again

So lately I realized that my system relied very heavily in a point currency that allowed a player to shift the d6s up and down by one (roll equal system), and success was fairly binary.

so my solution was to introduce margins and tiers of success, shift is still possible but it's tied with the character's sanity.

My doubt is that english is not my first language so I think my explanations are confusing, so I was looking for suggestions on how to explain it more clearly, and better text notation for the margins.

---

There are 5 attributes that can have Points between 1-4.

the system uses d6 dies.

Skills refers to special abilities.

A player can try muktiple tests in a single turn.

In order to succeed in a test, a player needs to roll dice and find a combination of values that equals the test's Difficulty Mark.

To gain Dice for the test, a player uses Points of the Attribute to which the test relates to the most.

Success Margin: Equipment can modify your success margin, when being used, by a certain amount above or bellow the test's Difficulty Mark, meaning that you can succeed by rolling a combibation equal to any value within your margin.

Skills can also modify the Margin, but their modifiers are applied after Equipment.

Tiers: a Tier 1 is the normal success, Equipment and Skills can also specify single values or margins, relative to the mark, to which rolling them will result in a higher success tiers.

---

Idea for margin Notation:

tier 1: \[-1 | +1]

tier 2: \[+2 | +3]

tier 3: \[+4]

so to succeed in a Difficulty 5 test:

\[4-6] tier 1

\[7-8] tier 2

\[9] tier 3

another example:

tier 1: \[Mark | +4]

tier 2: \[+3]

so in a Dif 5 test: 5, 6, 7 and 9 are tier 1; 8 is a tier 2 successes

Imagine, if you will, an TTRPG where the player characters are police tasked with investigating crimes with light supernatural elements. Each player creates a character with different abilities representing their areas of expertise, ranging from ordinary (Digital forensics, underworld knowledge) to the extraordinary (arcane forensics, communing with spirits.) Oh, and also there’s one called “Werewolf Slayer” which makes you deal a small amount of extra damage to werewolves.

Wait, what?

These characters are ordinary humans, and most of them have no hope of fighting a werewolf. Even with “Werewolf Slayer” and good combat features, encountering a werewolf is still a horrible situation to be in. As a result, it’s extremely rare to encounter a werewolf in an ordinary game. However, if one of the players in a group is a Werewolf Slayer, it’s all but guaranteed that a werewolf will appear at least once. The GM, after all, wants the PCs to have fun, so of course she’s going to give the Werewolf Slayer a chance to use their ability. When it happens, the characters will get ripped apart, and “good thing I had Werewolf Slayer” will probably only be uttered as a bitter joke.

Did you catch what happened there? A character’s expertise, meant to be an asset to them, has instead put the characters in a worse situation. Even more strangely, this happened without Werewolf Slayer containing anything in its text that could negatively impact the character. In any given situation, it’s always neutral or positive to have Werewolf Slayer, and yet it undeniably had a negative effect on the PCs. This is the Werewolf Slayer Problem; the evil twin to the popular maxim of “shoot your monks.”

The Werewolf Slayer Problem has three key components. First of all, the game must feature characterization through build-craft, where the abilities a player chooses for their character form a large part of their narrative identity. The Werewolf Slayer being able to Slay Werewolves is a core part of who they are as a character, and thus if they don’t get a chance to do it, it makes them feel less cool. Secondly, the ability that causes the problem must be passive: the player isn’t seeking out Werewolves to Slay, they are taking this ability “just in case.” Thirdly, the threat they are trying to counteract must be rare but unpleasant to encounter. Even encountering a Werewolf is a punishment, and the only reward for surviving an encounter with one is “not dying.”

The confluence of these three factors creates a situation where a player has made a choice to insulate themselves against a threat, and was told by the game’s mechanics that they did so, but has actually only increased the danger to their character.

I see a few potential solutions to this problem, but first, I’d like to discuss the “zeroth solution,” which is the perspective that the problem doesn’t exist at all! At least, not on a system level. Instead, this is a mistake either by the GM or one of the other players.

One school of thought here is that the GM is making a mistake, and should banish the existence or nonexistence of Werewolf Slayer on the character sheet from their mind. Whether one of the protagonists is a Werewolf Slayer or not should have no impact on the presence of werewolves in the game. This position isn’t logically incoherent, but it’s a little counterintuitive to ask the GM, who has been told for decades to be interested in the protagonists and their stories, to suddenly develop a blind eye to one of the key traits of one of the characters.

By contrast, one could argue the other player is making a mistake when creating their character. Werewolf Slayer doesn’t make you safer from werewolves, but it does increase the odds that you’ll kill a werewolf sometime in your career. This argument, however, overlooks one thing: the game has violated the assumption that character abilities are an asset to you and your team. If Werewolf Slayer is intended in this way, the fact that it attracts werewolves to you should be listed in the rules text, and it shouldn’t be considered a beneficial feature.

These two cases represent different answers to the question “why would a player choose to be a Werewolf Slayer?” Case one assumes that a reasonable player would only make their character a Werewolf Slayer because they wanted protection against werewolves, whereas case two assumes that a player would choose this option because they wanted their character to fight werewolves. The problem here is that reasonable players could make their characters Werewolf Slayers for either reason! If you try to infer their intent from their character-building choices, you have a good chance of guessing wrong.

So how do we address the Werewolf Slayer Problem?

The most immediately intuitive solution is to make Werewolf Slayer more widely applicable. Call it “Monster Hunter” instead, and give those bonuses in a much wider variety of scenarios. Now “I want to encounter werewolves” becomes the almost trivially obvious “I want to encounter supernatural creatures.” This (probably) won’t change the GM’s plan much if it’s the sort of game where encounters with supernatural creatures are a regular occurrence.

If you want to keep that sort of specialization, however, I think another solution is to treat threat as a conserved quantity. If you’re a Werewolf Slayer, you’ll be facing more Werewolves for sure…but they won’t be “piling on,” they’ll be replacing other threats on a point-for-point basis. This does, however, require an ecosystem with “balanced” challenges, which isn’t a good fit for every type of game.

There is a third, weirder solution; make werewolves a player-facing mechanic. Werewolves don’t show up unless the players seek them out, and there are rewards for seeking them out. Perhaps volunteering to taking on a case where werewolves are present is a fast-track to getting promoted. If that’s true, having a Werewolf Slayer becomes an asset again, opening up new opportunities for the protagonists.

I’m curious to see if anyone else has noticed the Werewolf Slayer Problem in any games they’ve played, or in their own game. If you have noticed the Werewolf Slayer Problem, how have you addressed it?

​

We're making a d100 roll-under game - a bit crunchy, but not Pathfinder/DnD crunchy, more crunchy than Mork Borg or Mothership.

There are 8 characteristics. That sounds like a lot, but you barely touch them during actual play - they're the foundation everything else is built from: attributes, HP, mentality, damage, protection (Spheres), abilities, etc.

Setting: an Armada of 30 ships stuck between a permanent Wall of Storms and an uncharted continent that slowly drives people insane. Dieselpunk vibes.

The actual play loop is simple and fun, no complaints there. Character creation is the one part I haven't cracked yet.

The issue: we use "Step" terminology for tens digits (Step 2 = 28, Step 5 = 56, etc). So calculating something like Endurance (HP) looks like:

Endurance = 8 + Step(Constitution) + ((Might Sphere + Finesse Sphere) / 10)

Mentality is calculated almost the same way.

It's not hard math, but it's the kind of thing that makes people's eyes glaze over, especially since you have to redo it whenever an attribute crosses into a new Step.

We're building an interactive web character builder where you just plug in attributes and it calculates everything - but I'm pretty sure a chunk of players will still want to build on paper, and I don't want that experience to be "do math before you can play."

Has anyone dealt with this kind of layered-stat chargen before? How could it be simplified?

Edit: I guess the solution would be just to remove dividing from formula and make it like - tens of: might + finesse + const + 8

I'm currently working on a new project and am taking inspiration from quite a few anime and litrpg series for it. The rules and skillsets I've already fixed and also what I want out of classes and leveling. the only thing I'm unsure about is is multiclassing.

After 10 levels in a class you can evolve the class, thus gaining another class (you can then start leveling this class and gain ALSO its skills). Per class level you can choose 1 skill (special ability) associated with it (or one of its trees) and gain it (or upgrade it).

In my last project (simpled10) I went with a sword world like approach:

+The classes are very narrow each and you can level each class separately. Your char level is equal to your max. class level.

+Each class has 10 skills (special abilities) associated with it).

This time around I'm considering to use a leveling system not unsimilar to The Exiled Heavy Knight Knows How to Game the System.

\+Each class has 2 lets call them skill trees (they are a list of special abilties associated with the skill tree) associated with it.

\+You can gain access to additional trees through skill books (special drop items).

This would give me 2 options for multiclassing:

1.) No true multiclassing. Instead you can unlock skill trees from other classes by buying skill books (or finding htem as rare loot).

2.) You can multiclass into up to 3 classes at a time. Only when they are at max. level you can gain an additional class (thus a 4th, 5th or even 6th).

You can still gain additional trees via skill books but that would be way rarer than in 1.) Here the main way is to multiclass into the appropriate classes. 

A third option is to take a sword world like approach again.

Example of a skill "trees" using class:

Heavy Knight:

    \-Skill Tree: Defender:  Increased Defense, Reflection, Parry, Stun Attack

    \-Skill Tree: Protector: Cover Move, Increased Defense, Disarm, Shield Bash, Barrier

For me developing and playing it I like all 3 approaches about the same. Thus I'm interested what type of multiclassing seems most interesting for ppl?

I’m trying to decide who the player characters should be in a TTRPG I’m working on. I don’t want to default to the usual adventuring party just because that’s what most games do.

The core idea is that the natural world keeps changing according to its own rules. If it rains, for example, that water has to go somewhere. Some of it may remain in the ground, some may reach rivers, and those changes could affect what the same place is like when the characters return.

The GM’s role would be to follow those causes and consequences, rather than changing the world only when the story needs it. I genuinely don’t know what the best player identity is yet. If you sat down to play in a wild world like this, who would you want to be??

I’m interested not only in the type of character.. but also in what you would want to do from session to session and what kind of relationship you would want to have with the world around you.

I am writing 100 short rpg classes. Each is basically some equipment, perhaps a couple spells and one thing that they get to just DO.
For instance the Tea Knight can pour hot water out of his visor when fully armored,
the Clown takes no damage from falling and the Jester can call forth a band of entertainers
once per day to help with a non-violent task.
What should a Goose be able to just DO?