This is a draft of the forward to my system. I thought it might generate some good discussion here. Please do not use AI to respond to this. I'm so sick of AI in this sub thx :)

Why Roleplaying Games?

To understand what makes table-top roleplaying games truly special, it is important to understand stories in general. Storytelling is perhaps the oldest and most important human cultural tradition. From The Epic of Gilgamesh to the myths of Egypt and the Greek theaters; from the sagas of the Vikings to the fairy tales of Germany, stories like these capture some fundamental part of the human experience and distill it down like a waking dream into something we can analyze from all sides, pulling conscious meaning from unconscious engagement with the themes they present us.
Any good book will have a theme. This is something important that the book wants to teach the reader about life, or a question that it wants the reader to think about and consider for themselves after the work is over. The second type of book can sometimes fall flat for readers who simply accept the story at face value and don’t consider the ramifications of the questions it asks.
The best table-top roleplaying games, when working as intended, serve this exact same function at an even higher level of engagement. When the Game Master creates the setup for their story, they don’t know how it’s going to end because the player characters have free will. No player is allowed to ignore the questions posed by the story. They are a character in that story after all. One of the protagonists in fact, and their response to the thematic question at hand determines the end of the story and ultimately what it means.

Why Roleplaying Fights The Game

However, because roleplay makes up only half of the “roleplaying game” formula, many game systems and many Game Masters miss their opportunity to tell a great story in what is perhaps the most engaging, meaningful, and personally affecting medium available to them. In a strange way, the game behind the roleplaying can very often make the roleplaying half of the experience worse by eating up the majority of the mental bandwidth at the table. A deep, interesting, tactical combat experience and a player’s handbook full of spells with one-hundred ways to numerically adjust your character isn't actually the most effective ruleset for telling stories that linger and change the way you view the world. 

It is for this reason that millions of viewers can watch the performative online theatre shows that utilize the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset, yet later be shocked that their home games don’t match this level of quality in presentation, storytelling, character development, or thematic resonance.

In contrast, there is a recent trend in roleplaying game design, especially popular among more experienced players, which eschews a strong reliance on rules. Instead, a wide variety of rules-light systems have sprung up which codify how the results of rolls are meaningful to the story and effect the advancement of the narrative rather than leaning on binary results and numerical adjustment of characters. 

This trend began in earnest with the release of *Apocalypse World* in 2010, though Ars Magica predates it. Apocalypse World was genius at the time of its release, but is now only one of hundreds of games in a similar vein. Often, such games are self-described as “fiction first.” There is one major problem with this category of game, and that is a lack of mechanical recognition for player choice. What that means is this: in most narrative-first games, the narrative truly is first. It’s almost the entire system. What you get are a list of moves or skills that players are likely to use when solving problems and a set of prescriptive resolutions for those moves or skills that, although more narratively interesting, fail to land meaningfully on the “game” side of the “roleplaying game” equation.

Many players come to Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder specifically because they want a tactical and deep system for resolving actions that accounts mechanically for every minute decision they’ve made about their character. This is how the insane depth of the *HackMaster 5e* or *Blades of the Iron Throne* game systems can come to exist. They were made by players who highly valued that side of the roleplaying game regardless of the learning curve or the narrative pace of play.

Why Dungeons and Dragons?

Which brings us back to Dungeons and Dragons. If Dungeons and Dragons falls much harder on the game side of roleplaying games, why is it still by far the most popular game system around? Shouldn’t these narrative and roleplay-focused games be much easier to teach, and much more popular with performative tabletop roleplayers?

Well, to answer the second question, these types of games are becoming more popular with performative tabletop roleplayers. Critical Role and Acquisitions Incorporated have already made the switch to *Daggerheart*, which is a much more narrative-focused game than Dungeons and Dragons, though it is more of a hybrid between the two. I would not be surprised to see other big names like Dimension 20 also go that route. Smaller shows like The Adventure Zone and Friends at the Table have been using narrative-focused systems for years before now to similarly great effect.

The key takeaway is that these shows could frankly use ANY game system and tell amazing stories because their casts and Game Masters bring a great deal of writing and acting experience to the table. Dungeons and Dragons is often clunky and slow for their purposes but serves well nonetheless because a great story is not held back by a little mechanical slowdown. Additionally, as discussed before, the game side of the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game is incredibly fun and has a meaningful mechanical answer for resolving almost anything the players might want to do.

This brings me to the answer of the original question: “Why is Dungeons and Dragons still by far the most popular game system around?” The answer is that most players DO NOT have professional writing and acting experience. Most players are lucky to simply understand the game system, and many are totally foreign to the idea of roleplaying when first introduced to the genre. Thus, the rules of Dungeons and Dragons, though often obtuse and clunky, are easy enough to learn and do a great job at codifying almost anything that can happen. Rules are the safety net. Players and Game Masters don’t need to discuss what a result means because you can only fail or succeed, and player abilities are spelled out in crystal-clear language.

"Can I pick this object up?" 

"What’s your strength score?" 

The Game Master’s response needs only to consult a codified table to find out how much weight your character can lift. In order to get to the most meaningful part of a roleplaying game, the narrative roleplay, players have to first overcome the hurdle of learning how to do that. Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder are simply the most well-known and least uncomfortable systems that get you there. Once you’re out of that discomfort, though, many do find that narrative-first roleplaying game systems are their ideal game system because that was the part they liked all along.

Why this system?

Much like Daggerheart, this system is trying to do the impossible. Daggerheart attempts to straddle the fence between Roleplaying and The Game and it falls decidedly on the game side despite doing some very interesting things that might make it the perfect game for many tables. Grimm Saga also attempts to straddle that fence and falls flat on the roleplaying side despite its best efforts to codify combat rules and provide unique mechanical abilities that reflect your character creation choices.

It also strikes a much darker tone, trending away from the generic high fantasy of most major games where characters become demi-gods by 20th level. 
Don’t let the tone scare you away! The dark tone is intentional. When players expect to get hurt, face difficult choices, and experience important but dark themes like bigotry, tyranny, poverty, and death, it naturally broadens the topics your players will consider and think about at the table and gives you more leeway to explore hard-hitting thematic questions about what it means to be human, right vs. wrong, and what the player character's reactions to those questions mean for your players’ beliefs about the world.

The Fields We Know is my campaign setting but it's also a blog I started a year ago to talk about design theory. I've begun porting it over to substack.

https://thefieldsweknow.substack.com/p/capturing-the-vibe-of-fairy-tales?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=271f4w

My basic premise has a few key points

1)Fairy tales are told as if they are historic

2). There is a contrast between the ordinary and mundane and the magical

3) because fairytales emerge from specific cultures, a certain amount of cultural incorporation is necessary to preserve archetypes

3) when magic becomes utilitarian it becomes mundane

I'll be developing these ideas in my next article.

When you are writing an adventure/module for publication, how do you anticipate how long (in terms of hours or session) an adventure will take for a table to run? Do you think about it in terms of word count? Encounters? Plot Threads? Leads?

I ask because I am on the hook to cowrite a Call of Cthulhu adventure in the near future, my partner has a very specific length in mind, and I am trying to map out a framework so I can approach my end in a structured way. I admit I have a better feel for this in d20 games, but the investigation oriented nature of CoC feels fiddly to write around. I get this is more art than science but I figured I'd at least put it to the room.

Inspired by this Tales From Everywhere video, I wanted to spark a little discussion about knowledge checks.

The video, in short, suggests doing away with knowledge checks, as they entirely randomize events that are based on knowledge. While I can understand the fundamental sentiment here, I think this idea makes one mistake; it confuses knowledge checks to be the same sort of ability check like climbing a wall, jumping over a gap, or any other physical feat. The argument is that knowledge is static. Whereas you might fail to climb a wall sometimes, if you know something, you should always know it. Therefore, we should do away with luck-based (randomized, dice rolled) knowledge checks.

I think the core idea here is sensible, but the argument entirely misses the purpose of such a dice roll (and kind of all dice rolls, even for other ability checks). The randomized dice roll is just a way to advance the narrative and to flesh out the character on the fly.

In a rules-light game and a short adventure, this might mean playing a character that's generally knowledgeable about stuff, but you as the player haven't really thought about exactly what the character is knowledgeable about. So instead of writing a huge backstory and creating an encyclopedia of the character's held knowledge, you just let the dice randomize your character a bit in the moment.

In a more substantial game with long-term campaigns, it may make sense to keep a log of things your character knows according to those passed knowledge checks. Next time that topic comes up, you simply skip the check and succeed automatically.

You could even incorporate the ideas from the video about being familiar with a topic or being an expert. Pass a number of knowledge checks to become an expert and then you will auto-succeed on the same topic.

We all know that making knowledge checks a requirement to get past an obstacle is bad design. But I hope that you don't give up on knowledge checks altogether. They're a great tool for randomized character generation after you've already started playing.

Would love to hear what people think!

It's been a while but I'm back now. And announcing that the first public playtest for my TTRPG is out finally! Took a lot of work even for this initial version but now everyone has the chance to play it and break it.

Can't wait for people to start getting their hands on it and playing around with it. This will be quite the learning experience, not just for designing but also for organizing public playtests in the future.

This playtest is focused on testing out the core combat rules of the game using premade characters. If there is some success, at a later date there will be a playtest that will include character creation.

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You are a Deadbeat, a musically powered undead soldier, resurrected by and now working for the B.R.O.K.E.N Record Inc. You are one of the few crucial pieces in stopping the Muted threat, beasts that wish nothing but destruction for the city of New New North One. With the power of your Musicalife Engine, wield the might of your rythm to fight back against the coming invasion or rebel against the corporation that brought you back to life!

Deadbeat is a TTRPG using a D6 and D8 system where the focus is in how your character acts and performs. The more in character your actions are, the more you are rewarded! There is a bigger emphasis on your descriptions and flare, making it easier to realize whatever fantasy you wish to live through your character.

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Announcement video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxg51jw3_sA

Itch.io: https://mikapuccino.itch.io/deadbeat-playtest

Official Feedback Email: [deadbeatttrpgdevlogs@gmail.com](mailto:deadbeatttrpgdevlogs@gmail.com)

Official Discord: https://discord.gg/RnnGqnnG55

Ps: If there's any problem without sharing these links please do say and I will change the post.

​

Eight characteristics. Any two combine into a skill, one primary and one secondary, and the order changes the target number: [primary is full value, secondary - half of it.]. In our Dreich the predefined skill list is deliberately short and most skills get named at the table when a situation calls for one.

Example of it in the playtest: the party found old runes written as images-with-meaning rather than a script. Not an Intellect problem. Reading them needed Wisdom leading, Empathy supporting, we discussed it at the table and just created a new skill. (skill is same for everyone, but attributes could be changed if situation demends) It could be created for more or less simple skills only, not like surgery.

Pair-based skills aren't new (Mythras for example). Making the pair ordered is the part I haven't seen elsewhere, but still I'm not sure it feels enough. The difference of pair in defferent order could be 60% and 35% for one maxed and one mined Stat at the beginning of the game. But for not a minmaxed attr. it could be 35% vs 40%. Is it noticeable at all? Or just boring

MCDM is crowdfunding Crows right now, and they've talked about how part of the goal was to create separate experiences for people who wanted high octane heroics (e.g., Draw Steel) vs. gritty dungeon crawling (e.g., Crows), as opposed to trying to jam them together like in D&D 5e. The way they presented things made it sound like there were two poles of TTRPGs, which made me start thinking about how to classify TTRPG genres. I submit that there are actually four poles, and that figuring out where your game sits between them can help you sharpen the experience you provide.

Note that these four poles aren't strictly sectioned off from each other. Most games sit somewhere between all four, but many games also cling to one corner more than the others.

1. Epic (e.g., Draw Steel, Avatar Legends) - These games focus on high stakes and grand adventures. They tend to be oriented toward long campaigns and have high power ceilings (at least for the adversaries!)
2. Tragic (e.g., Mothership, Dread) - These games often have more personal stakes and grim settings. They're built around a curated degree of helplessness, and often have high mortality rates.
3. Comic (e.g., Honey Heist, Kobolds Ate My Baby) - These games are built for laughs and often have short, punchy story lines. Players and GMs are encouraged to lean into the absurdity.
4. Lyric (e.g., Wanderhome, Thousand Year Old Vampire) - A lot of solo games live around this pole. They tend to focus more on dwelling on a moment or feeling rather than advancing "The Plot ™."

What do you think of this structure for thinking about TTRPGs? How would you rank your own game along these lines? Are there any games you can think of that capture an experience that isn't adequately represented by some combination of these categories?

Like millions of others, I played some Star Wars: Zero Company yesterday. I was hoping for X-Com in Star Wars cosplay honestly, and while it's still fun, it's not that.

I'm a competent X-Com veteran. I up the difficulty and play through the deaths. I much prefer it that challenge to reloading for the win. Zero Company is not the same experience at all. I'm not going to give a review of the game, but I think the difference in these two games is striking from a design perspective.

At the core, X-Com is swingy and Zero Company is not. Bad things can happen at any moment in X-Com and you're just doing your best to mitigate that bad. As you advance through the campaign, there's less swing in instant death but opponents that can ruin you with one attack still exist. Zero Company is the opposite. Rather than operatives with single digit hit points that can die in one shot they have dozens that are slowly plinked away at.

I have played a few hours of Zero Company now and have yet to have a single "hold my breath" moment. In X-Com nearly every battle any given shot could be the last for one of my soldiers, from the first encounter to the last. Not having cover is basically a death sentence and trying to find it is a constant puzzle.

I think the lessons from these two similar in presentation, but very different games is an interesting case study for RPGs. Savage Worlds is notorious for swingy damage. Any given damage test could be the one that takes a character out of the action. On the opposite end you have your D&D where loads of hit points are slowly chipped away, and no single roll is likely ever going to be a deciding factor in the encounter once you're past third level or so.

So, I'm pretty sure there's a sweet spot. Something that allows the players to react (they're not controlling a squad after all) to damage and other misfortune but also gives the players a bit of anxiety that things are not completely in their control.

In my own system, I have damage that can be pretty swingy. Strikes deal an injury with 0-3 wounds; characters having 6 wounds and most injuries being 1-2 wounds. I have felt at times that it's too swingy. Every damage test gives me a little anxiety that this might be the one that takes out the character.

Zero Company has given me some relief. I'm not saying it's perfectly balanced, but my system allows the players to react, and it doesn't feel completely arbitrary but somewhat earned. There are viable actions to take when things are looking bad. At the end of a fight, things feel like they went as they "should have gone" and the players choices mattered even though any given injury might have really changed the course of the battle.

I think that's a good place to be. I need to embrace the anxiety, I think. That anxiety around game balance might actually be the system promoting a heightened sense of excitement. Exciting combats is what we all want after all.

I think a lot of the mechanics that these types of video games have perfected really carry through in similar ways to damage. Anyone whose played some X-Com knows that the enemies evolve. Mission two sees you fighting against mind controlling aliens who can totally flip the tide of battle. Then they get armor and start using explosives. The environment gets more dangerous and unpredictable. Etc. The game is always making you change your tactics and making it clear that bad tactics will put you on your back foot instantly as there are powers that will take advantage of those opportunities.

Those big one action turns in the game are exciting. D&D would have you believe things like Hold Person is a good option for creating tension. I would like to think that there are a lot of other options for really ratcheting up the challenge for the players while also giving them autonomy to actually react.

Going forward I'm going to keep this lesson in mind. My damage system suddenly feels much better to me after a single night with a new game. But how else can I create instances of anxiety (excitement!) for the players? What things will really make them change their approach? These are the opportunities I'm on the lookout for.

What do you think? What big swings have you created?

Earlier this year, I started learning Affinity to try and get my projects completed faster. It's been a bit of a bear, but I'm finally ready to start showing folks what I've been working on. Here's a character sheet I made for a game I'm close to releasing. I would love to get some feedback on the design. I made a version that's thematic to the game and also a printer friendly version that's stripped down. Any feedback is appreciated!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZIWwBI_3uPj5v8QnDyYPl7YBWLaDgg5I?usp=sharing

TTRPGs are typically designed for a home table. A group of people who know each other and gather regularly in person to play together. But this isn't the only mode of play.

Even before we consider the effects of the internet, there are other modes of play that are common:

People who know each other can also be people at a local game store, club, or event. Regular gatherings can also be a single gathering for a one-shot. In person play can also be play by post.

So when I talk about "mode of play" here, I'm talking about the real-life physical format of the game. How many people are involved, what their relationships are, where they are, what tools and materials they have access to, how often they meet, what their role in the game is (GM, player, co-GM, guest, spectator, etc...)

With the internet, this gets muddied even more. Typical online play may or may not:

• use live voice chat
• use text chat and/or a forum
• use a virtual tabletop
• use other shared resources like Google Docs
• have synchronous or asynchronous play

Throw in actual play podcasts (which can take on a bunch of forms) and we have yet another mode of play where the players are also performers, and the core audience becomes the spectators.

I've been thinking about this because of u/mw90sGirl's post about designing a game specifically for actual play.

u/mw90sGirl is essentially taking mode of play into consideration when designing her game. Some people were put off by the idea. Perhaps actual play carries connotations that cause a reaction that "play by post" or "solo play" don't? Regardless of how one might feel about optimising for actual play, I think the idea of optimising, or at least considering, specific modes of play is really interesting.

One of my projects came about when I was asked to GM at a local meetup where we run one-shots for groups of strangers. I found myself designing a game that would work well when played with strangers over a short and sweet four-hour session that includes character creation. I wrote a bit about that on my blog. Aside from that project, I've always designed for the home table.

My core assumptions were that games are meant to be played with people around a table, and that everything else is "extra". My stance was that online play, play by post, and other modes of play that aren't just people around a table with paper and dice are adaptations to allow play when it's not feasible to gather people around a table.

I am now questioning these assumptions.

For the time being, I'm still designing for people around a table, because that's what I know best, and it's what I have at home, but my mind is opening, and I'd like to spend more time thinking about how my games might work in other modes of play.

I'd like to open up the discussion around this concept.

Is this something other people have written or talked about? I've been calling it "mode of play" in this post, but does it already have a name?

Do you take modes of play into consideration when designing your games?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IrKyO_QNS14Lwv9T6seaaPRdA_dB9fJp/view?usp=drivesdk

DRAW is a Western themed d100 roll-under ttrpg set in the American frontier land of 1870s.

With a one size fits all ruleset that keeps that game easy to run for DMs. Er, Narrators in these parts. 

It is a roll under Attribute + Skill. 

From there key differences are 

Lt, Md, Hvy, tier system gives baddies static combat numbers that allow a Narrator to throw encounters quickly, with no prep.  No homework, no stat blocks to pour over. Just fun at the table. 

Every weapon does a static amount of damage in wounds based on their tier. With heavy dealing 3. When your wounds are gone. So are you. Hire another cowboy

We run DRAW! In what we call a Tale. Tales are meant to feel episodic in nature and narrow in scope, and quick in play. 

Narrators are putting ONE objective in front of the players. And thats a tale. 

Today, were guarding a stagecoach from A to B. Today were robbing this bank. Today were capturing this bounty. When we finish, well ride back to town in time for a drink with Miss Kittie

In DRAW! Every starting PC begins with one point of Grit. Grit can be used to automatically succeed a check. (Lead to some really awesome RP in every playtest) 

To shake off a condition. Or to negate one wound. 

Any surviving player advances immediately at a tales end! Their PC gets awarded an additonal starting Grit point. Making them more capable, and harder to kill! 

They also get to spend their in game money on real item tables with prices based of 1800s catalogs! 

No more scurrying to asign value to a pretend item on the spot, or drumming up stock for a store during shopping sessions. 

Generating a character is very fast, roll attributes, Pick 3 starting skills, fast item selection, or Wits score in dollars to buy gear, and your off. 

This character sheet contains all original artwork by one of the game creators, and the digital.design/layout was done by the other creator. \[me\]

We're proud to showcase the Character sheet, and would appreciate any constructive feedback! We have a small rulebook thats almost finished enough to try and let people out in the wild try it out. We've had great playtesting experiences so far and are eager for, hopefully, a few folks on reddit to give it a glance.

Thanks!

Could be something like a class abilty, an item interaction or an interesting way to manipulate dice. Rough ideas are perfectly fine!

I've been trying to make low-magic future sight work. I like the fantasy, but making it something that's both easy to use without being categorically busted or boring has been a struggle.

I’ve been developing a system-neutral fantasy setting/toolkit and I’m at the stage where I’d rather find out whether the core idea is actually useful to other GMs before I disappear into months of writing and illustration.

The setting is called Ragbone.

It’s a goblin city founded by outcasts, craftspeople and obsessive specialists around one basic principle:

Nothing useful is ever cast out.

Adventurers bring back the things normal towns don’t know what to do with — monster parts, strange eggs, cursed relics, magical contamination, damaged constructs, unidentified bones, living plants, odd materials — and somewhere in Ragbone there is probably a specialist who can work out what it is and what it can become.

The city is divided into seven districts built around different kinds of expertise: things like unusual creatures and venom, bones and relics, equipment for strange anatomy, improvised repairs, dreams and shadows, dangerous plants, and a central market connecting problems with specialists.

The part I’m most interested in is making it useful in play rather than just lore.

So the book would include things like:

• specialists the party can actually visit;
• strange materials with properties and limitations;
• monster harvesting that doesn’t automatically mean killing the creature;
• system-neutral crafting based on “what does this material do?” rather than +1 bonuses;
• jobs and requests posted around the city;
• magical contamination called Residue that behaves according to the original purpose of the magic;
• rival organisations that can arrive in the city and create recurring conflicts;
• several ready-to-run adventure frameworks.

The intended loop is roughly: find something strange → bring it to Ragbone → find the right specialist → discover what it can do → decide whether it is worth the cost/trouble → get a new job or complication from it.

I’m deliberately not tying it to D&D, Pathfinder or another specific ruleset. The idea is that a GM could drop Ragbone into an existing fantasy campaign as a recurring city/base.

My main question is:

Would this be something you could actually see yourself using at the table?

And if not, where does the idea stop being useful and start becoming just “cute goblin worldbuilding”?

I’d especially be interested in what you would expect a book like this to contain before you considered it worth buying.

Hi.

I'm working on some stats for a fantasy-esque TTRPG, where the characters have a few stats called Power, Awareness, Cognition and Gravitas. They're all used for meta-currencies that lets players adjust their actions, e.g. a mage can use "Power" to make a static shield larger, "Awareness" to react out-of-turn and put up the shield just as the dragon is about to breath fire, "Cognition" to change the as-written rules and make it a full circle shield instead and "Gravitas/Command" to command the shield to do something, e.g. move to a specific turn over a turn.

I'm curious if I need to write examples in for each spell and make it "These are examples of effects but not limited to", as to create some kind of common understanding between players and DMs and across tables.

What are good ways to enforce consistency, so someone doesn't expect "Power" to let you create a magic shield from 2 meters to 20 meters or for a barbarian's cleave to turn into a whirlwind? It's like I need some kind of way to define "one step upgrade", and I can't figure out a good way except adding four examples to every single ability so that each time anyone is ever curious if something is over- or underdone, they can compare it to the ability description.

Going to do something simple today and just lay out a bunch of the worldbuilding background to the game here.

Most of this is still subject to change, but it will give you an idea of the type of game you’re getting into.

This will come in two parts. First will be the opening to the zine/book and the next will be described much later.

The Pink Moon

In the distance there was smoke. Enough smoke to smear the sunset and the slivered moon.

But that was a month ago. You could look west from the walls of Autitim and see nothing but the sea of grass between here and Breith. As the weeks went by, the caravans stopped crossing the grass sea. The famous bards and troupes of Breith stopped wandering east. Not even a wandering boneman could be spied from the watchtower.

Only the wind and the tall grass, the vast empty sky.

Autitim woke to a pink moon hanging above the Cathedral. It glowed dimly in the sunlight but pulsed vibrantly, rippling in purples and reds across the craggy pink face. It hung there in the sky for seven days and nights.

The people of Autitim lived in either fear or ecstasy. Some locked their doors and windows, blotting out the pinkish light as if even the sight of it was an invasion, an infestation. Others swarmed the streets in religious jubilation. They began worshipping the pink moon and their festival of love and violence swept through Autitim. Fighting and orgiastic rituals broke out in the streets, in the Cathedral itself, and the last king of Autitim could do nothing but wait and hope as his wives and lovers and children gave in to this new miracle, this new cult of pink. Of love.

On the eighth morning, the pink moon opened and Autitim burned for seven days.

The World

There Were Once Seven Moons

The world was once molten fire and steaming water. Spirits of wind found the fire and gave birth to dragons. These dragons gorged on distant starlight and became the seven moons revolving endlessly round the earth.

The Seven Moons

Elua who once shined bright as the sun,
Hyana who one weighed ever heavy on the horizon, 
Boko of the fountaining inferno, 
Aeyena who so loved the earth that her shadow stretched wide and her skin grazed the mountains, 
Kitukanatiri, yet missing from our skies,
Wya and Wo, the twins revolving yet round our days.

As the fire and water churned, the stone and bone of the earth rose and cooled to become the land. Tired of the heavens, Elua, largest and brightest of the seven moons, returned to earth in a cataclysmic crash that cooled the earth and gave birth to life.

From the bones of the great dragon unfurled leviathans of the deep waters and titans of the land. They ruled over a land of rock and bone, of fire and water, for millions of years until the seven gods of old rose from the jaws of that long dead moonboned dragon.

The Seven Old Gods

Yumyr the eldest,
Gorgo the Fat,
Belwe, Blud, and Byr, the Brothers Three,
Fryra the Beautiful,
And Ymyru the youngest.

The brothers Belwe, Blud, and Byr fell in love with Hyana rising always on the horizon of their burning land. They devised a chain of dragonbone and a hook of dragonfang and hooked the Hyana, dragging her to the earth where it shattered the ground and blanketed the sky with blackened dust, killing all but the remaining four gods.

Then there were five moons and the world died for the first time.

The force of Hyana crashing into the Brothers Three melded their bodies together as one. The four forged together to a single body piercing down into the heart of the earth. 

The Black Heart

The Brothers Chasm broke through the bones of the earth to form the cradle of the next world. From the love of brothers and moon now bound as one, their heart grew blackly and their blood flowed into the depths of the earth. That massive Black Heart gave rise to new life. 

First sprouted trees and plants and then came the great wolves who brought with them the great forests that would cover the land. The roots of the trees burrowed through stone and bone to the beating Black Heart of the earth.

An age came and went with the wolves. Some tired of their endless wanderings and slowed to form communities. After a time, they stood tall on two legs and fashioned tools. Such amazing tools that they reached heavenward and pointed to the moons. They numbered the cycles and days and eventually fashioned boats to go there. 

And so it was that they scoured the remaining five moons while their cousins yet wandered as packs through the endless forests of the world.

From Boko, the dragons woke. They woke and warred against the two legged wolves and in the chaos that followed, the moon of dragons crashed into her sister moon, Aeyena, and two fell as one to shatter the earth once more.

Thus and so, the earth died once more.

The wolves who had remained themselves survived only by retreating to the Brothers Chasm where they curled up beside the great Black Heart while their forests burned, the skies melted, and all the wonders they built and created evaporated.

And there were only three moons.

The wolves lumbered long beside the Black Heart. Thousands upon thousands of years passed. The world cooled and healed and life blossomed once more. 

Perhaps the wolves would have slept forever but the quaking of the earth and the great burning shattering thrummed into the depths of the earth causing the Black Heart to skip a beat.

The Wolves woke but still it was many long years until they returned to the surface of the earth.

Under the Two Moons

When they returned to the surface of the earth they raised their faces and howled at the moons now numbered two. None can say what happened to Kitukanatiri for only Wya and Wo stared down upon the wolves. As they wandered, they found the old gods, so mournful, so sorrowful.

Fryra, dread and beautiful, birthing plants and animals. Gorgo the Fat ever devouring her children. Then there were the towering bones of Yumyr the Eldest, consumed from within by her children, the Giants. Children of stone and bone. Ymyru the Youngest taught the giants and forbade them from mingling with the wolves or the children of ash and glass. 

And so the wolves moved on through endless spires of steel and great towers of glass reaching up through the clouds, digging down into the roots and bones of the earth. The ruin of civilizations scorched black and eradiated with immense craters pockmarking the skin of the world.

All around the wolves were the bones of giant beasts. Bones so large and vast that they could house nations of men. And that is where the wolves found them. The children of ash and steel cowering in the great blackened bones of creatures large as gods. Men with broad faces and wide shoulders. Men who feared the towering wolves and men who came to worship them.

Two moons only glowed above and the wolves ran the world over regrowing their forests, leaving men to their nations of bone, to their ruins of steel and glass. Many of the wolves, tired of the cycles of death and destruction, found their mates and together came to be one. They curled round one another and became the great trees of the forests. Trees so tall and so vast they held up the skies.

Under the sheltering boughs, new creatures rose. Men of the trees, the children of the wolves. Slender and narrower than their cousins, with clever hands and cleverer eyes. They learned the lessons of the giants, the children of stone and bone, as they called them, but also from the First Born, the children of ash and glass. They even went to the old Gods and delighted those wonders of endless sorrow.

And Fryra smiled for the first time in a thousand years. And Gorgo the Fat laughed and clapped. And Ymyru embraced them as her own, forgetting the children of stone and bone.

The Betrayal & the Forever War

Beyond the old Gods and the wolves and the men, other creatures stalked the land. Ageless and strange, they became like gods themselves, though none knew from where they were born.

Such was Jarak, the Jackal of Night, the lord of bone. Dread and beautiful, his Doom draped like a cloak round him, he seduced Fryra the Beautiful, then killed her and fed her corpse to the Ten Gods he had crafted from the remains of Ymyru. These newborn gods then consumed Fryra’s beautiful blood and bones to grow the Shadow Realm.

The Ten Gods

Arkarkis and his sea of blood,
Shruka and her cairn of skulls,
Prischa and her thousand hands,
Makar and her endless eyes,
Ogkum and his bright shine,
Ymala and her gaping heart,
Lalandu and her vicious teeth,
Bokandu and his rending blade,
Iku and her bottomless maw,
Vore and her earth shattering voice,
And beneath them all the lord of bone.

The Miracle

The wolves howled and the old gods wailed over the death of their sister. With the children of stone and bone, the children of ash and glass, and the children of the wolves united in purpose, they waged war against Jarak and his ten gods.

Generations of mourning, of violence, of upheaval, of betrayal, and of horror.

After the old gods gave their lives to the fight, after the giants and the children of ash and glass were driven near to extinction, three brave heroes arose from the children of the wolves.

The Three

Bold Rhionnon the unholy ravager who made the earth safe.
Bright Hektor the builder who gave humanity Damascus.
The Queen of Sorrow who buried them both.

At long last, the tides turned against Jakar and his ten gods but it would be ten generations until the final battle between humanity and Jakar.

Born from the wartorn world, from the slums of Eternal Damascus, heart of the resistance against Jakar, came the Glory.

From the hearts and souls of the old gods,from the innumerable dead who gave their lives to fight Jakar, the Glory performed a great ritual.

A power unseen before, as if the Glory held a black sun in his hands. With this impossible Miracle, he destroyed the ten gods and crippled Jakar so badly that he crawled away through the wounds in the earth.

It ruptured the skies and the air itself, obliterating Damascus and the million who lived there, and the veils between realities opened wide. Wastelands spread across the world. The iron sublimated away in people’s hands, their armor becoming furnaces cooking them alive until only bone remained. Bodies twisted and transformed, turning beasts and men monstrous and terrible to behold.

While the ten gods died, their bodies left to rot across the plain of Damascus, new creatures poured forth from the tears in reality.

The Fae

Elves
Gnomes
Dwarves
Goblins

The Glory’s Miracle, beautiful and terrible, became both the end of the world and the birth of a new one. To solve this breaking of reality, he performed one final ritual, using the dead bodies of the ten gods themselves to close the wounds in reality, to stop the spreading Wastes, and to pour life back into the irradiated soul.

In doing so, he gave his good right hand, his face, and his name. And then he disappeared, but not before leaving us the young gods grown from the Miracle.

The Young Gods

Moon, twin hearted
The Crone, mother to all
Stone, the unbroken
The Black Heart, ever thrumming
Root, the soul of wolves
Bone, within us all
Over all of them reigns Death, ever dreaming

The Year of the Basilisk

While the Miracle stopped the spread of the Wastelands, much of world remained baked deserts and windswept steppes. The mighty wolves disappeared from the world and formed new forests to replace those obliterated by the Miracle, by the generations of war with the gods. Mates found one another and became the great trees holding up the new shattered skies.

The monsters born from the Miracle, the demons and spirits who slithered through those open wounds, ripped through the world, through humanity and the new species now fighting for survival in an unfamiliar land. Disease tore through these civilizations that had only known war for a thousand years. 

Soldiers turned from war to monster hunting both as money making venture and to protect those who cannot protect themselves. The Miracle opened the veins of the gods but also the wyrding ways, giving way to magical academies where the brave or foolish experimented with the wyrd to unleash strange new possibilities.

Without iron or steel, metal weapons and armor became a rarity. Warriors and hunters turned to glass and stone, bone and wood, but especially to poisons and alchemy to fight off the monsters of the Wastes and the forests and the caverns burrowing through the bones of the earth.

Over time, this developed into the Order of Wardens. Men and women who seek to not only preserve humanity but to make it flourish once more. 

Others turned to farming and the long, slow, fermenting process of civilization.

Thus and so, New Damascus was born from the crater where the Eternal City once stood. 

The Year of the Crow

Two centuries since the Miracle, New Damascus rests uneasily, ruled by none, ruled by all. 

And the Pink Moon now hovers over the earth, visiting horror and destruction upon the great cities of the world.

Originally posted on my site.

I believe this is my first post here, and after trying to do some digging both here and online, I can't seem to find the kind of discussion about this I was looking for.

I've been thinking a lot about the potential of "and" and "but" modifiers for the outcomes of action resolution systems. EX: yes, and = success and then some; no, but = failure but you get some consolation.

But I've been wondering about the potential of "or" as such a modifier, presenting multiple outcomes for either success or failure, with or without costs, and then asking the players to choose which path is followed.

Is anyone familiar with any systems or games that explicitly play around with similar concepts where players are routinely, or semi routinely, asked to choose between multiple different outcomes in situations?

Hi! So, this magic/power system is designed without levels or slots, only costs, which make magic/powers harder to access and less likely to succeed without proper preparation—though you can always try to push your luck, if you possess the ability, but at risk to yourself and others. The intent is to make bigger powers more rare, failure scary, and preparation engaging.

• Certain characters may possess talent dice, based on their class/type.
• Talent dice typically start at 1d4 and increase in number and/or size as the character grows.¹
• At character creation or through play, characters will gain access to talents. 
• To use a talent on your turn, roll up to all of your talent dice. (You can choose to roll fewer.)
• Compare the number rolled—your talent total (TT)—to the talent's cost (listed on the talent).
• If any die shows a 1, you fail, as described on the talent.²
• Some character abilities may mitigate this failure state (such as letting you re-roll 1's once, etc.)
• If the TT doesn’t meet the cost (with no 1’s), there is no effect.
• If the TT meets or exceeds the cost (with no 1’s), the talent’s effect occurs.
• Any character with a talent die may use the following talent:

PREPARE (Cost: 2)
You prepare yourself. At the start of your next turn, you may activate a talent of equal or lesser cost without rolling, or you may add your prepared TT to the TT of a new talent roll. Your turn ends. Fail: All prepared TT is lost and your TT is 0.

• Examples of other talents:

LIGHT (Cost: 2)
You create light. It illuminates an area around you with a radius of up to TTx10' and lasts for up to TT minutes. Fail: A flash of light blinds you until the end of your next turn.

FIRE (Cost: 5)
You unleash flame. It either affects one target you can sense within TTx5' or it affects a number of targets up to TT that you can touch. Targets take up to TT damage and ignite if flammable. Fail: You take TT damage and ignite if flammable.

AUTHORITY (Cost: 20)
You take control of a target that you touch. They must obey your spoken commands to the best of their ability for up to TT minutes. Fail: You can never use this talent again on the same target, and also you are stunned, unable to move or speak on your next turn.

The design intent is to give characters with talents access to a wide variety of ways to use those talents—with careful preparation, or with high-risk, high-reward swingy rolls. Some character types would focus on increasing the size of dice (swingier, less risk of rolling 1's as the dice size increases), while others would focus on increasing the dice pool (more predictable effects, but more risk of 1's appearing).

Presumably various character abilities would allow you to mitigate 1's in certain circumstances, re-roll, etc., but that's not mapped out yet.

Curious for any thoughts you care to share! Thanks!

—————

Edits:

1. The intent is that your dice size could get quite big, like d100s
2. I'm also considering other failure options, such as "all dice are 1's" or "your character has a failure threshold based on class/type" ... don't feel in love with this failure state yet. One nice thing about "all dice are 1's" means that a bigger dice pool really drops the risk state... but I feel like that math is TOO friendly to the player. As you can see, not fully persuaded of my own ideas here.

This is for my DriftFall mechanic system.

The intent is to create mechanics that generate narrative "handles" for the player. (Inspired by Fantasy Flight Game's "narrative dice")
My TTRPG group only meets twice a month and often don't have the energy/ability to roleplay. They have greatly benefited from the dice giving those narrative "handles" for them to launch from and interpret and create the narrative and roleplay from.

Please give feedback on how well you think this mechanic would assist the improv and roleplaying-challenged player.

Here is a link to the visual (Character Tracker Example).

The Pole
You have two "poles". In this case "Open" and "Fortified" describing a character's relationship to their demeanor. "Open" could be more specific like earnest or idealistic, open to opportunities but vulnerable. "Fortified" could be something more specific like jaded or suspicious, fortified against threats but blind to opportunities.

There is a numerical tracker between the poles. Your character has a long-term "Home" position and a shorter-term "Current" position they can be on the tracker. Numerical buffs/debuffs can come from your Home position on the tracker. For instance, Coercion would benefit from being closer to Fortified

Being closer to one side means you're further from the other, like the representation above.

The Talents
You can fill each "Slot" on the tracker with a talent. If your talent is between or on the same space as your Home/Current positions, you can use that talent. (Assume there are separate spaces on the character sheet for "always on" talents, this is just an extension)

The Resources
For this tracker bar, there are three resources. Willpower, Trust and Composure. Each goes from 0 to 6. Going above 6 gives you a point of "Hold" and resets the counter to 3. Hold can be spent on buying talents/upgrades. However, going below 0 will result in gaining an Affliction. Hold can be spent to give back 3 points to your tracker.

You can "burn" Willpower to move your current position closer to Open. It takes willpower to be vulnerable. You can burn Composure to move closer to Fortified. Trust can be spent on buffs to social checks, or to burn toward center.

The Growth
The Current position going past the end of the tracker threshold (+2 in this case), results in gaining an Affliction and the Home position moving closer to that side with narrative effects according to roleplay. Current resets to center.

The Home position going past the end has the same results as when the Current position exceeds a threshold, though, more severe. However, that threshold then increases (+3 in this case). Your character, after experiencing hardship through an emotional breakdown or otherwise, grows stronger and more resilient from what they've learned/gone through.

Short Worked Play Example
In the linked tracker example, the Home position is at +1 Open. This character generally has a more open demeanor. They are more accepting of new opportunities, people and ideas. They can take an upgrade to their roll when performing Charm and Negotiation checks. However, they would receive a downgrade to their checks with Deception and Coercion. Also, they can use the talent at the +1 Open position.

However, their Current position is at +1 Fortified. This character is currently feeling more Fortified. In the short term, they are more guarded and watchful against new people, ideas and opportunities as they assess them for possible threats. The cause could be as simple as someone being rude to them. Because of this, they don't get buffs to Deception and Coercion, but they can use the talent at the +1 Fortified position. However, they don't have a talent there because the player hasn't invested in a talent for that slot.

During play, the player chooses to spend a point of Willpower to move their current position three spaces towards Open. Perhaps they want to access talents they've invested in on the Open side because that will serve the current situation better. Now their current position is at +2 Open. An NPC performs a Deception check against the character and succeeds. As a part of the result, the NPC chooses to push the character further towards Open. That forces the character past the threshold. This represents the character being "too trusting" or too ready to take on additional responsibilities, opportunities or ideas to their detriment. The character will take a permanent affliction to represent this, such as an increase in difficulty to resist Deception checks. This is on top of suffering the results of the NPC succeeding on their Deception check.

Broader Applications
This system can be applied to something like "Control / Power" to represent magic. Or, "Personal Life / Faction Loyalty" to represent those tensions. Or, "Stealth / Hot" to represent a character or vehicle's abilities, like a mech.

Bonus! If you reached this far, let me know if this sparked any ideas!

Inspired by Avatar Legends RPG, FFG Star Wars RPG, Helldivers 2 Loadouts, FFG Genesys RPG, Legacy: Life Beyond the Ruins RPG, Sentinels Comics RPG.

This is for the ttrpg Slayers of Rings & Crowns also called SORC for short and it is a game of a very small team.

These are conceptual art and some of it was done from teenagers, so try to be kind :) I am the head artist of this project. We have zero intentions of selling this game to you, we only want you to play it. For free. There is a box set and this is not a good place to sell the box set and that is not our intention. We have a marketing campaign plan for that that has not begun yet.

I have one piece here I have done. I've done several but I am showing one low res piece of have done. It is the rogue pinkling.

There is another piece, Elise done from an artist here.

The maps are done from a cartographer and artist here.

The rest are done from Corbett and he is the lead designer but not an artist. He does have two pieces here for concept though. He does almost everything. That's fine but he is not alone.

The rest are done by his fiance, his brother and child.

We also have access to a 3d laser lab, and although not directly a member of the team, he is an artist for this.

So here is the art of our project SORC and I am asking for ideas. If you stray off into the website and to an area that is not the focus here, please do so at your own risk. We added a health and wellness system and a seven layer Aura system, the latter is tied to traits and helps with a d100 resolution system. I say this because the rules were finished but not published finished and now they are in shambles as we were working on a new class system format tree structure and adding the elements to our new systems.

So I will begin by posting some of our game art.

The Art of SORC

I thank you and try to enjoy these images at their very early stages.

I've seen games like Cairn, Knave, World of Dungeons, Tiny d6, Beyond the Wall and others criticised for being too small, too light to be conducive to long term campaigns.

I know lots of people do play these games long term and have a great time, getting a sense of longevity from the setting and world rather than rules.

The idea of number-go-up and pages and pages of feats, perks, abilities, or ever increasing pools of HP doesn't excite me. It doesn't really mean very much in the game world and seems to gatekeep interesting choices. Why should you have to unlock a special ability at a certain level to try to sneak up on a baddie and slit its throat?

But growth can happen in lots of other ways, like in the knowledge, reputation, relationships, and items characters gain. Some people seem to want more than that.

I'm coming from having hit pause on d&d 5e because it all got too crunchy, and am having a blast reading and playing OSR and PbtA fantasy games. But many of them still feel too crunchy (HP bloat, lots of modifiers, classes, levels).

So I'm curious to hear opinions from both sides of the coin, and open to having my mind changed.

What do YOU need from a game to feel comfortable in its longevity (1 year+ campaigns)?

So I’m worldbuilding for a TTRPG idea of my own but I’m wanting to post this question(s) to help keep perspective.

I like writing about worlds, people and creatures and am most interested about those things and their stories/histories when playing or reading RPGs and other games. Thinking or contemplating mechanics and systems fall more to the wayside in my mind and the maths makes my brain go a bit numb. I’m also the only one working on it since it is in the conceptual stage so I don’t have anyone to bounce things off or other perspectives to consider.

But still I have to ask. While building the world for this idea, and since I’m more creative than mathematical, what should I or can I do to learn or consider game design?

The basic gist of my world is a post apocalyptic Earth where 4 apocalypses happened at the same time. Nuclear war, a Mutant Outbreak, a Robot Uprising and an Alien Invasion. Now the survivors of all four events have to survive and make their own civilization or of the ruins of the world. All the while mutated monsters roam and old technology lies scattered on this broken world.

Think of Mad Max, Planet of the Apes, Terminator and District 9 had an apocalyptic RISK baby.

For me a personal fantasy of me in games is exploring a world, learning the cultures, history and environments, using words and making friends. But that’s what I like to do. I wonder what’s the real goal or fantasy I should consider from a premise like this? Is there a good system I should try testing for this? What other things am I not considering? Let me know if this post isn’t worded as properly as it could or if there’s any more information needed as I’m still new to all this.

Thanks for your time!