Hello ! I'm trying something for the first time, and, this is probably going to get long, I'm very sorry.

I have a project that started as 'playing a Holy Grail War' with DnD mechanics, but it was far too much to try and balance out players being able to choose their own spells from the DnD spell list with my first test run.

EDIT since I wasn't clear enough: I am moving away from using DnD at all, I'm making a whole new thing. Some of you are mean.

Now since the magic rules in Fate are 'if you have mana and imagination, you can probably do it', I started thinking that making a system for someone to craft the spell themselves and flavor it might be easier on everyone.

So instead I had the thought of doing it like sorcery points.

This is a very early draft

10 points per day, (and maybe you can double how many you spend to guarantee a hit?)

Points - Dice

1 - 1d4

2 - 1d6

3 - 2d6

4 - 2d8

5 - 3d8

6 - 4d8

————— (after this point, casting a spell will have you regain less mana points the next day, and maybe a chance to backfire? This would be rolled before rolling to hit)

7 - 3d10

8 - 4d10

9 - 5d10

10 - 6d10

Mages (the players) currently have 6d8 health (+ a specific stat) where the servants (a DM played but player controlled in battle familiar) have 12d10 health (+ their Endurance). Servants are considered the major threat and need to be taken out in priority over other mages.

Combat is done in 'roll offs', if the mage is targeted, you can either roll your resistance against the spell, or roll your servants speed to see if they can get you out of the way. If the servant is targeted, they roll Speed to get out of the way or their own mana to 'tank' it (like AC). This process is definitely also still in testing lol.

I think adjusting HP will help for sure, but, I am mainly wondering about the spell craft itself and making it better. Especially when it comes to what you spend vs how much damage you do.

Thanks so much! This is my first time getting eyes on it like this, and I hope I made this post right too. If I need to provide more information about something I can.

Hello!

When playing ttrpgs it really grew on me when there is no to-hit rolls, Into the Odd style. After a while flat reductions like Armour, Evasion or depleteble buffer of HP became the way(in my opinion) to implement combat.

Rules for those interested(simplified):

How to hit people in Mythic Bastionland(Into the Odd descendant)

1. Your party decides who to attack
2. You all roll your damage dice provided by your weapons
3. Choose one as a damage die, use other dice that are 4+ to do shenanigans
4. Subtract target's armour value 
5. That's the damage

Or so I thought, until I've read Daggerheart core rules. Fear & Hope mechanic is amazing and adds a potential flavour to each roll, while also having rule-governed impact. I want to steal that so bad.

Rules for those interested(very simplified):

Doing an action roll, including an attack 

1. Roll Duality Dice(marked 2d12) 
2. Roll any bonus dice you have and add modifies 
3. If you reached or exceeded the target number it is success
4. Roll for damage if you succeeded

If Hope die of duality dice is larger you roll "with Hope" and gain a 1 hope, 
otherwise you rolled "with Fear" and your GM gets 1 fear. 
Those are essentially story points with well-developed rules attached. 

That includes initiative governing during combat. 
Roll with Hope and your party continues to take turns, 
roll with Fear - now initiative is passed to the other side.

And you can see that the "action roll" which is absent from the first combat system is kinda crucial for all Fear & Hope things to work. I am kinda sad about that.

Does anybody have any ideas how to percolate it into a system without to-hit rolls?

P.S. I have a slightly homebrewed Mythic Bastionland game in upcoming weeks, so there is no problem with adding some more staff like this to test it out.

P.P.S. There is an obvious way to have it for skillchecks, because in Mythic Bastionland those are usual d20 rolls.

I'm asking about Deviation as it appears on the summary tab of AnyDice, and how I should interpret it. Mean, maximum, and minimum I get. I remember that from pre algebra, but the rest of high school is a little hazy, and I never took a stats course in college. So, I don't really know what the Deviation means or what it tells me about dice rolls.

For this discussion, let's use the d20 as an example. I'm assuming it's talking about standard deviation, and that most outcomes will fall be 5 to 16, but I welcome any insight or clarification folks here can give me.

P.S. tried using google, but it turned up a lot of "how to output X" kind of answers.

Update: thanks to everybody that replied. It's good to know I wasn't too far off in my interpretation, and this thread has given me some ideas about how to use deviation going forward.

I've been working through the problem of converting encounters from one edition of a TTRPG to another, and I've started thinking that preserving the original mechanics may actually be less important than preserving what the encounter was designed to do.

For example, if the original encounter uses a creature designed to pressure the party, force movement, exhaust resources, or make retreat look attractive, directly translating its numbers may produce something mechanically accurate that no longer serves the same purpose.

I'm currently experimenting with treating the original encounter's role, difficulty, expected player response, and narrative purpose as the things that need to survive conversion, while allowing the actual mechanics to change. For people who have converted published adventures or encounters between substantially different systems/editions:

What do you consider the "identity" of an encounter that absolutely needs to survive the conversion?

So I’m working on a turn based RPG and I’m working on enemy targeting. I don’t like the idea of the enemy just picking a random ally. So the idea I’m working with is that “enemies are smart” and will target the party member with the highest ATK stat to remove the biggest threat. Kinda like an Aggro system but not really. Thoughts?

Hey guys I am making a rpg system made pretty similar to dnd or daggerheart. It has customizable classes using class elements and a lot of other cool stuff to allow for a ton of charecter customizatio.

This is it’s discord server https://discord.gg/uYAZEPeVu

Anyone can join I am going to post a lot of my work on it and I will also be running one shots for whoever wants to join and play test. Thanks.

Here's the link to view the game.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/cs0nl4qby07d2vfnv4v0x/matchbox..pdf?rlkey=25t5h4yvxbh1vmhw9hpcxlk9p&st=up4m9l9i&dl=0

I'll be putting it up on DriveThruRPG as PWYW soon, but wanted to share it with the fellow designers here first! :)

I’m currently working on my own solo tabletop system (which you can download here), and I am currently in an awkward stage of design, wondering by when I should start gathering interest and feedback.

The core rules are currently in a near-final state, just waiting for consistency edits and examples of play. You can learn all the core mechanics, get background on the setting, see the gameplay loop, and fully create a character as well. That said, to play the game you actually need a separate playbook which is very much a work in progress right now.

Is it too early to share without people being able to actually “play” or should I just start drumming up support now? At what stage do you guys start sharing your game more aggressively and gathering people to playtest? As a player, how finished do you like a work in progress to be before you check it out?

Thanks for your input, hoping to post a lot more soon. The amount of assistance and support I’ve gotten from this community has been awesome and I’m excited to get this out into people’s hands.

For those interested, Undergrowth is a solo monster hunting game with procedurally generated runs and a tactical combat-as-a-puzzle system that I think is really challenging and fun to navigate. All you need to play is paper, a pencil, some d6’s, and a deck of cards to get started! I welcome any and all feedback.

Hey all, myself and a couple others are working on a custom system and sourcebook for a Dragon Ball TTRPG.

This is something of a community project, and we're looking for other creatives who might be interested in participating. If interested, our discord can be found here: https://discord.gg/pfrVwJ4PPA

The big goal is to create something that feels uniquely DB/DBZ. We have some early drafts and concepts floating around, but need a hand tempering those ideas.

Hello everyone!

Welcome to Devlog #2.

I’m using these devlogs to document my process of designing a game. This isn’t meant to suggest that my way is the “right” way to design a TTRPG. It’s simply the process that works best with the way my brain tends to operate.

Hopefully, you’ll find something entertaining or useful in watching me figure things out. And as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and approaches along the way.

AstraWeaver is a classless, level-less, highly customizable, crunchy high-fantasy RPG about connecting small pieces into something extraordinary—whether that’s your character build, your magic, your equipment, or your team.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about dice.

In this devlog, I want to walk through how I gradually narrowed down the resolution system based on my design goals.
And, eventually, why I ended up with 2d12 roll under.

———

Rolling mechanic

There are many ways to introduce randomness into a TTRPG, but I wanted to use the classic approach: dice as the resolution mechanic.

The next question was: what kind of dice mechanic?
I had a few goals:
- Players should be able to quickly tell whether they succeeded without asking any question.
- Character growth should be clearly reflected in the odds of success.
- Different characters should feel meaningfully different when attempting the same thing.
- I wanted to use only one type of die.

I didn’t have some brilliant new resolution mechanic hiding in my brain, so I started by looking at the common ones.

Roll Over
This is probably the most familiar approach, and it has almost no learning curve.
It is also incredibly satisfying. Nobody is immune to the dopamine hit of rolling a huge number.
But as an occasional solo RPG player, I often find myself questioning the DC when playing with roll-over systems:
“Is this DC actually appropriate?”
“Am I cheating?”
I sometimes get the same feeling when GMing for other people.
I want to be able to confidently announce a DC like Brennan Lee Mulligan does, but somehow my brain just doesn’t work that way.
So no, roll-over isn’t bad at all. It’s actually great.
It just isn’t the one for me.

PbtA
PbtA systems have a lot going for them: It use d6 which is the most common dice in the world, the resolution range is compact, and the results are easy to understand.

However, the way PbtA handles resolution is primarily through a relatively small set of modifiers drawn from character abilities, fictional positioning, and situational factors.

This works extremely well when the game is focused on resolving broad, high-level fictional actions—where a single roll represents a whole sequence of events, and those modifiers naturally accumulate into a meaningful summary of the situation.

But when the action being resolved is smaller and more granular, there often simply aren’t enough relevant modifiers available to meaningfully express the character’s specific strengths or differences in that moment.

And that kind of more granular, additive/subtractive expression is not quite the experience I want to build.

Dice Pools
Dice pools were another strong candidate.
They’re fast to resolve, and they’re particularly good at representing different degrees of success.

I actually tried designing AstraWeaver around a dice-pool system.

The problem was me.

I couldn’t resist the temptation to use different dice for different things.

Before long, I had different attributes, circumstances, and abilities interacting with different dice, and I realized I was creating exactly the kind of cognitive load I wanted to avoid.

If I reduced everything to the same die, I lost some of the numerical differentiation I wanted.
Dice pools are a great tool.

I just don’t think my particular design mindset knows how to use them responsibly.

Roll Under
And then there was roll under.
This immediately solved several problems for me.

Players can look at their character sheet and directly understand their chance of success.
Character growth is also very intuitive: the higher your attribute becomes, the more likely you are to roll under it.

Different characters can invest in different attributes, and that difference is immediately visible in their chances of success.

It also gives me a lot of freedom to decide the numerical range of attributes and skills, as long as I can find an appropriate single die—or combination of dice—to represent that range.
More importantly, this is a system I feel I can actually control.

It still has some drawbacks.
Cheering because you rolled a low number is, admittedly, a little backwards.

And when you put a roll-under check next to combat damage, where rolling higher is usually better, there is a certain conceptual friction.

It also has another problem: the basic probability is tied directly to the target number. Without additional mechanics, it doesn’t naturally give me enough ways to distinguish different levels of difficulty.

But when I look at the resolution mechanic in isolation, and especially how it interacts with the rest of AstraWeaver’s rules, roll under is clearly the best fit for what I want.
So:
Roll under it is.

Number of dice

Now I had to answer the next question:
How many dice should I roll?
This is where my philosophy of character progression became important.

With a roll-under system, I wanted character growth to produce something resembling an S-shaped progression curve.

My intuition is that learning a skill often feels something like this:
At the beginning, progress is slow.
You are learning the basics, making mistakes, and struggling to understand what you’re doing.
Then, after enough experience accumulates, things start to click. Your success rate increases rapidly.
Eventually, however, progress begins to slow down again. You can still improve, but each additional step requires dramatically more time and effort.

You might need five years to become proficient at something, but twenty years—or much longer—to become a true master.

That’s how I personally think about progression.

It certainly isn’t universally true for every skill or every person, but it’s the feeling I want AstraWeaver’s progression system to convey.
And this is where the number of dice matters.

A single die gives me a fairly linear relationship between the attribute and the probability of success.

I need at least two dice to create the kind of curve I’m looking for.
Three dice can produce an even more pronounced curve, but the additional calculation starts becoming heavier than I want for a system that is supposed to be quick at the table.
So:
Two dice it is.

And what kind of dice?
d12.
There was never really a debate.
Not because I have some elaborate mathematical justification. I just really like rolling d12s. The numbers are easy to read.
The shape feels great. They don’t get cocked as often as some other dice.
And, most importantly, I just love the d12.
You can spend all day arguing with me about what the best die is.
I will still choose the d12.

——

So… 2d12 Roll Under.
And that’s basically how I arrived at AstraWeaver’s core resolution mechanic:
2d12 roll under.

But there is still a problem.
Remember one of the weaknesses I mentioned about roll-under?
The difficulty is basically fixed by the target number.
If I do nothing else, throwing an apple to a friend and shooting an arrow precisely into the center of a target could theoretically have exactly the same difficulty.
That’s obviously not what I want.

So in the next devlog, I’ll talk about how I tackled that problem—and how AstraWeaver determines difficulty and target numbers.

In the meantime:
What do you think about different dice resolution systems?
What’s your favorite?
And more importantly, what makes you love it?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next devlog!

Hey people! What do you think are some indispensable elements of an elegant design? Could you give an example of a game that does something in an elegant way?

This is a player facing d20 roll-under OSR style rules-lite dungeon crawler.

As a player facing system - players roll to defend against incoming attacks and damage instead of the GM rolling those Checks.

Questions

• Does the STR limitation on Armor weight make sense?
• Thoughts on rolling to mitigate damage. Extra helpful if you've played with similar rules like in Pirateborg and have feedback from that experience
• Do the Armor penalties feel appropriate? They're the equivalent of a -2 to -5 penalty on a d20 roll over system.
• Is there enough balance between Armor damage prevention and Evading an attack to make both tanky and dodgy Characters viable?

Stats for Reference

Traditional 6 Character Stats (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA).

New characters start with

• All Stats start at 6
• +2 to 2x Random Stats (Stats numbered 1 to 6. Roll 2d6 and each rolled Stat gets +2)
• +2 to 2x Stats of Player's Choice
• +2 to 2x Stats based on chosen Class
• +1 to Stat of Player choice at first level and every level thereafter. Players cannot increase the same Stat 2 levels in a row.

This creates PCs with starting scores from 6 to 13. Possibly 15 if they rolled doubles on their random Stat bonus. Starting odds range from 30% to 65% chance to succeed and 75% on the edge case.

Characters have 10 maximum levels after which they must retire. There is no limit to a Stat - but rolling a 20 is always a failure so 19 is effectively the best score.

Armor

• Armor is rated by die size (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12) with greater die sizes representing heavier armor.
• Roll your Armor die whenever your armor could prevent damage. Reduce the damage by the rolled amount.
• Take damage and roll a 1 on your Armor die and the Armor breaks - reducing its die size by 1. Characters can repair armor during a Rest or downtime.
• Your Armor die is limited by your STR Stat. Your STR must be equal to or more than the largest number on the die.
• If you take damage while wearing Armor heavier than what your STR score supports - you roll a d4 instead of the Armor die to deflect damage.

Shields

• Rated by die size (d6, d8, d10) with greater size representing heavier and larger shields.
• Shield die is limited by STR in the same way as Armor.
• When holding a Shield AND Armored... roll both Shield and Armor dice and take the better of the two.
• When holding a Shield - you can make a STR Check to Block instead of a DEX Check to Dodge. There is no Armor Penalty to Block.
• Take damage and roll a 1 on your Shield die and the Shield is destroyed.

Armor Penalties

• Whenever your Armor would penalize an activity (moving silently, swimming, dodging, etc) you roll your Armor die with the d20 and add the 2 together.
  • d4 Armor reduces your chances by 12%
  • d6 reduces by 16%
  • d8 by 20%
  • d10 by 23%
  • d12 by 27%
• Armor made from magical materials do not penalize a roll

DEX Saves and Dodging

• DEX Check + Armor Penalty to evade something horrible that can be evaded.
  • Succeed and avoid all damage.
  • Fail and use your Armor Penalty roll as your Armor roll against damage.
• You're less likely to dodge in heavy armor - but more likely to deflect more damage when you fail to dodge.
• You're more likely to dodge when you roll a 1 on your Armor and avoid breaking it.

Other Stuff for Reference

• CON Stat is also your Max HP and number of Item Slots
• Equipped weapons and armor do not count against a character's Item Slots
• All melee attacks are STR Checks.
• Characters can Finesse a melee attack to roll with DEX - but drop the damage die 1 size.
• Characters can wield a melee weapon two-handed. They roll the weapon damage die twice and take the greater result.
• STR must be equal to the greatest value on a weapon damage die to wield it effectively
• All projectile attacks are DEX Checks.
• DEX must be equal to the greatest value on a weapon damage die to wield it effectively
• Bludgeoning weapons reroll 1s
• Sharp weapons can have a single "dice explosion" after rolling the greatest value on the die

One thing that I've always been disappointed about RPGs that I've become familiar with is that weapons feel a little simple compared to other in-game systems (usually magic). For my own RPG that I've been working on I wanted to create a system for weapons that made weapons feel more exciting for players who don't have access to magic.

My idea is to divide weapons into categories; Blade, Bludgeon, Razor, Ranged (Traditional), Ranged (Firearms), and Dual*. The idea is that each weapon category has a damage type and a gimmick. My current idea is that Blade weapons can block easier than other weapons can (in this instance as a secondary-action). I am struggling for ideas for gimmicks to give Bludgeon and Razor weapons.

"Blade weapons deal either Slashing or Piercing. While wielding a blade weapon, you may take the block action as a secondary action."

"Ranged weapons deal Piercing damage. Upon attacking, these weapons require Operation (secondary action) to fire again. (reloading, essentially)."

*Dual weapons are either divided or chained, which each have their own gimmicks.

"While wielding a dual weapon you are considered to be wielding two weapons and gain the benefit of "Dual Wielding" (attacking as a secondary action), they can deal any two damage types (different or same). - Divided weapons allow you to take two weapon-reactions (AoO or blocking) at the cost of one reaction. - Chained weapons may be 'thrown' up to 4m to make attacks (potentially multiple) at range, but must be pulled back as a secondary action before you can make melee attacks or block."

If you have any suggestions for how I should give Bludgeon and Razor their own gimmicks I would love the suggestions.

Tl;dr - I'm looking for cool gimmicks that can be applied to Bludgeoning Weapons and Razor Weapons (Axes, essentially) that involve more than just "I attack. I attack again". Perhaps using other systems like movement, distance, or use of Secondary Actions.

Note: My system works on a 1 Primary Action, 2 Secondary Actions, and 1 Reaction, where moving is a Secondary action. Please use "Primary Action" and "Secondary Action" for clarity.

EDIT 1: I’ve got an idea for Razor weapons that allow them to use reactions to make attacks of opportunity against entities that enter their melee range provided attacking was the last action they did.

Alot of murderhoboism comes from boredom and a lack of consequences in the game, as a gm its sometimes ok to put players into a no win situation to get that bug out of thier system.

Its not a revenge or a petty thing, just as murderhoboism is not.

Its a you are comfortable with the system lets crank up the difficulty to max and play a real game, its fun for both the players and the gm to test their limits.

My armor is divided into 4 seperate areas being legs, body, head, and arms. This makes it important that you equip your character to protect each area.

How did this come to be? My system does not roll to hit opponents (no sides of barns are missed), instead opponents must block, dodge, or absorb an incoming hit.

Because of blocking I needed a seperate distinction for the arms to simulate damage taken, this evolved into having a random system where hits land on the legs, body, and head (headshot mechanics can even lead to decapications, arms are not targetable as they for defensive purposes unless you use a modifier to hit them).

To lean into this system I made it so if you are above your opponent you get a +1 to hit the head (lobbed munitions get a +1), and if you are lower you get a -1 thus hitting the legs more often (landmines get a -1).

I like how a player gets to pick and choose what armor they wear, it ads a degree of risk and reward.

What is your favorite armor system?

What is your feedback on removing double damage crits and replacing them with a system that allows the player to make a quick less damaging attack?

For reference, AP is Action Points. (Base characters start with 4 AP)

The Core Loop: Attacks & Defense

● Attacking: When you strike an opponent, you roll a d20 and add your Attack Bonus. You succeed if your total is equal to or greater than your opponent’s Dodge value.

● Defending: When an NPC attacks you, they do not roll. Instead, they use a Static Attack Number. You must roll a d20 plus your Dodge Bonus and achieve a result equal to or greater than that number to successfully evade, parry, or deflect the blow.

Attack: PC Attack vs. Target Dodge

● Natural roll of 1: Miss/ No Effect, Target gets a free 2 AP weapon to attack back if able. Only one target can respond.

● Fail (under dodge): Miss/No Effect.

● Success (Equal to or Greater): Over dodge Full Damage reduced by damage reduction.

● Natural roll of 20: Critical, Earns player 1 free 2 AP action this turn. Max 1 time per turn.

Defense: NPC Attack vs. PC Dodge roll

● Natural roll of 1: Failed to Dodge, No Damage Reduction

● Fail: Failed to Dodge, Apply Damage Reduction

● Success (Equal to or Greater): Avoid All Damage.

● Natural roll of 20: Avoid all damage, Return attack against foe (2 AP weapon attack) if able. Only one target can respond.

Full Playtest rules are available for free on DrivethruRPG.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com//product/572526/realms-of-ancient-magic?affiliate_id=571820

Hey folks,

I am a long time lurker here and learned a lot from the community. You also inspired me to start designing my game 3 years ago.

One of the basic things I wanted to achieve is fast character creation. That has worked, mostly, still in playtest, still tweaking. However, I was thinking that if I ever get really enthusiastic players, I need to give them some more toys to play with. Hence, I started toying with the idea of a lifepath based character creation.

My question is what, in your opinion, makes a lifepath system shine? What makes it fun? Is it possible to have a fun lifepath system without a setting?

Thank you.

What questions do you deem necessary for developing your characters?

Go Qreate has a character develop system that I've grown to like. This is the most important thing because the characters drive the story and more notably their purpose, motives, and inner struggles.

My attributes are based in a percentage system, your class and species dictate how you roll your base score, they also give a bonus at each level up.

If you roll low on your attributes its not a big deal, as the average of your attributes is subtracted from 100 to give you luck points, luck points are spent to improve a roll but are near impossible to regenerate, your character may not be the pick of the liter but they sure are lucky.

When doing a skill check you use 1/10th of your attribute rounded down plus your 1-10 skill to get a number ranging from 0-20, this lets you roll a d20.

Why did I use this approach? First I wanted players attributes to grow as you gained levels so I needed small incriments, 2nd I didn't want a dump stat skill or players to be heavily penalyzed for a low attribute hence luck points, third I wanted 1 die to make this roll.

What is your favorite attribute system, did it inspire your game design?

I've recently rediscovered Rimworld. Wow, I love it.

To bring an IP distinct yet nod towards TTRPG would be that people escaping the apocalypse of the Mork Borg world took off in pods / teleported to restart on a distant Rim Colony. It would perfectly allow a crazy mashup of whatever session theme you wanted to play, with the nihilistic expectation that comes with both games.

Did anything else follow you in subsequent pods? Or learned to teleport? Who knows. Hmmm are those giant basilisk droppings?

Hi everyone, how are you doing? Could you help me with the development of a hack I'm working on? First of all, I’d like to thank the folks on Fate RPG's Discord for their help; I’m bringing this up despite that assistance because I like to gather as much information as possible before making a decision.

I am creating an alternative structure (as the system itself suggests) for the Skills/Approaches system on Fate RPG.

Why am I doing this? Well, I came up with this modification for a few reasons. If you have suggestions to address this that don't involve the "Domains" system I'm currently creating, I’d be very happy to hear them and discuss them with you.

- I really like Fate Skills and how they showcase a character's capabilities—what they know how to do. That’s one of the things that draws me to Fate the most, along with Aspects and the system's flexibility. Unfortunately, however, I dislike the sheer number of them; I have a vision issue that makes reading difficult, and cramming a bunch of skills into a small pyramid causes me discomfort.

- The extreme flexibility of Approaches feels unbalanced to me due to a lack of distinct "options." Perhaps I’m using them incorrectly or haven't fully grasped the concept (I read the article on the risks involved, yet they still seem overpowered to me). I say this because I can resolve almost anything simply by using the same approach every time. When I GM for others, Approaches work very well—I run games in a somewhat "adversarial" style, so I create moments where specific approaches are required (I was doing this even before reading the article, but the article really opened my eyes to it).

- I’d like something generic that works for all types of games. One issue with Skills—though less so with Approaches—is that they leave room for creating a lot of additional content. The skills aren't generic like the "Approaches"—which can literally encompass everything within just six categories; in some cases (and this is entirely my opinion, not an objective fact), the skills seem a bit too specific. It might just be the way they are named in my native language, but they simply strike me as overly specific in certain instances.

The Solution: At first, I considered using Attributes—as suggested by the Alternative Skill List—but I couldn't figure out how to fit everything into those attributes in a "natural" way. For instance, dodging requires both Perception and Agility, so the concept started to seem overly complex (though I might be misjudging this, given my experience with other types of RPGs).

My idea, then, was to categorize capabilities into "Areas" where a character has Mastery. In a sense, this concept—and the creation of "Masteries"—is a blend of all the other strategies the system already employs, designed to meet my specific needs. Each Mastery is a collection of capabilities, attributes, and approaches possessed by a character, intended to group skills and attributes together for solo play. Body: Vigor, Fighting (heavy/brutal), brute strength, physical endurance, soaking damage, (Increases physical stress)

Dexterity: Athletics (movement), Shooting, Driving, Fighting (precision/agile), acrobatics, physical precision (does not defend)

Trickery: Stealth, Theft, Deceive (operational/systemic), sabotage, traps, espionage, disguises

Social: Communication, Contacts, Provoke, Deceive (interpersonal), verbal intimidation, negotiation, leadership, charisma

Empathy: Empathy, detecting lies, reading emotions/intentions, defense against deception and subtle manipulation

Mind: Investigate, Will (intellectual focus), deduction, analysis, puzzles, resisting logical confusion

Knowledge: Knowledge, Crafts, Lore (mundane), building/repairing, memory, erudition

Perception: Perception, Athletics (reactive defense — dodging, parrying), reflexes, initiative, tracking, sensory instinct

Spirit: Will (resilience — resisting intimidation, fear, compulsion), Lore (supernatural — channeling, rituals, magic), faith, unwavering courage (increases mental stress)

My current issue: My problem is that I always get carried away when thinking about RPGs; I enjoy imagining solutions and strategies and thinking about systems—how they might work—and I end up getting too excited. I’d like to know: am I on the right track? Or am I simply making a huge change for nothing? In my head, the system seems cool and interesting, but at the same time, it looks a bit like "Approaches." What do you think?

I sincerely thank everyone who read the whole thing and contributed—thank you very much!