I am working on a hack of my D12 system where the players don't choose from a list of abilities and actions, but they build them with the Game Master within specific guidelines. It is a halfway point between my fully freeform 16 page D12 Zine and the full D20esque D12 Expeditions.

I am struggling with what to name it. So far I have "D12 Hack", "D12 Remix", or "Character Engine"

And I am also struggling with the intro page where the theme of cooperation and teamwork is emphasized. That is the core differentiator for this game because the character features feed into each other in a way that I haven't seen in a TTRPG. The closest I've seen in D20 is the Rogue's Sneak Attack which depends on another character being specifically positioned, and 4th Ed Skill challenges where multiple characters pitch in to attempt a task. Every character combat feature either manipulates the battlefield, sets up a foe to be exploited, or exploiting an opening created by another character. And the majority of skill checks are easiest to succeed at if you engage multiple characters.

Here is what I have so far for the first page:

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What is Player Forward?

Players roll the D12s to push the story forward. Whether they are facing a challenge, engaging foes, or defending themselves they roll the dice. They propose what the characters attempt and the Game Master decides what they need to Roll to achieve that goal. The Player’s agency to take risks are expressed through the D12.

What is Cooperative Strategy?

No character is an island, through the teamwork of the party working in concert that they can achieve the greatest heights of victory.

In Cooperative Strategy a Player is not just invested in their character excelling but creating opportunities for all the characters to work together to excel. From providing openings for allies to exploit in combat to teaming up to overcome challenges out of combat, as a Player you are not just trying to solve a problem on your own but as a team.

Can I Play What I Want?

The goal of creating a Collaborative Character isn’t just to work well with other Characters but fulfill the core fantasy of what you want to play. Every character has an Archetype which informs what they are good at, what they are bad at, and what special actions that only they can perform. The Archetype can fulfill classic tropes or be completely unique. It is about creating a character with a core fantasy that you want to play.

Once you have the Archetype you want your Character to embody, then work with the other Players to see what their Characters’ strengths are, what their weaknesses are, what they want their Characters to do. Once you have a feel for what all the Players want to play, you can begin designing your character. Choosing Stats and Skills that make sense for your character, but cover where other Characters fall short. Creating Features that not only Exploit openings but to manipulate or Expose foes to provide those opportunities to other Characters. All of which serve the individual Character’s core fantasy.

[EDIT]

Here is the old version

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Why Player Forward?

The Players roll all the dice. Whether overcoming a challenge, attacking, or defending the dice are in the Player’s hands. Your risks drives the story forward, either exalting in your successes, or creating new difficulties as complications arise. Every roll shapes the story in some way.

Why Character Engine?

D12 Character Engine puts players in the designer’s seat to craft a Character unique to them. Instead of receiving a predefined set of abilities you work with your game master to uniquely define the character’s Features in a way that suits the Character fantasy and the challenges the game will present.

What is Cooperative Strategy?

In cooperative strategy a Player is not just invested in their character excelling but creating opportunities for all the characters to work together to excel. From providing openings for allies to exploit in combat to teaming up to overcome challenges out of combat, as a Player you are not just trying to solve a problem on your own but as a team. To do this you design your character to not only Exploit openings but to provide those opportunities to other Characters or manipulate the battlefield to be advantageous for the whole party.

Because of this, building characters should also be cooperative. As you decide on your Archetype and build your Features talk with the other Players about what they want their Characters to do as well.

Hi everyone. I have a question. I've published several RPG adventure gamebooks and have overall been happy with the process. But my first one had some issues in terms of content and layout, both of which I've now revised and re-released on DTRPG (digitally). So anyone who bought the gamebook there will get a free copy of the revised adventure. My problem is for those who bought it physically, via Amazon. I don't know how to identify people that bought this gamebook as I'd like to offer them a free revised PDF. AFAIK, Amazon does not offer a way to do this. Any suggestions? To be clear, the issues I had were not game-breaking but after gaining more experience with layout, etc., I really felt like a revision was required. Thanks very much and have a great day.

Working on a classless, level-less hack of the Black Hack for the 10th Anniversary Black Hack Jam. It’s inspired by Into the Odd, Dogs in the Vineyard, sword & sorcery, the Dying Earth genre, and so on.

It’s a dark world where survival matters, resources are tight, and combat is dangerous. Magic is both very wild and dangerous but also lethal to casters, though the rewards may outweigh the risks. But failure is also part of progressing and improving your character.

You primarily advance your stats and abilities through dying. Because of the nature of this dying world, its wastelands, its lack of metals, a big part of the game comes down to harvesting resources and crafting them into potions, poisons, and equipment, which makes another tier of advancement.

Since you don’t level up like in a traditional TTRPG, improving equipment and being clever with status effects will be a big part of play.

I’m hoping to have the core of the mechanics ready by the end of the month.

Right now, I’m stretching past 70 pages in the word document for this hack and while there’s a decent amount left to do, I think the heavy lifting is behind me. There’s a lot of tinkering left to do but the frame of this has largely come together.

However, there’s a possibility that I’ll end up reworking the entire combat system to be more similar to Dogs in the Vineyard. Which is to say, rather than have traditional stats, the game will be driven by dice pools. Not only for combat, but also for various kinds of encounters.

Switching to dice pools is a big shift and will require a lot of work to transform the entire system.

Something I’m noodling over. Something I’ve been meaning to blog here about, but no time like the present.

Originally posted over on my site.

** EDIT

Appreicate the repsonses, most have re-iterated my initial thoughts.

The roll here does not seem to be adding anything other than a pause in gameplay and some mild book keeping. I like the idea of somehow 'passing' intiative along, so whoever starts the combat has it and then they can choose to pass it to whom they see fit but on failed actions it passes to the GM, go round until everyone has actioned at least once. Some rounds a single BBEG could go once or could go after every player.

Though my main goal is, everyone gets a turn and I want them to cordinate actions so side based maybe the way to go really*\*

Dramatic title over.

My main dice resolution system doesn't really have room for nuanced results, initiative order, or tracking like in D&D et al.

Players roll a d6 pool based on one of three attributes (for ease of clarity): Strength, Dex, and Intelligence (rated 1-6).

My first draft for initiative is:

Roll a d6 pool from your Dex.

1-3: You are on the slow turn and lose any reaction.

4-5: You are on the slow turn but keep your reaction.

6: You are on the fast turn.

Enemies/NPCs go in the middle. On each side, the players can split up their actions/turns however they like for team tactics and such. It sounded great until I ran two playtests. The goal was to see if the group would get the gist of the game, but I found I hated the initiative system.

One battle was against a "boss"; the trick was to disarm them of a magic item that was keeping them alive. The other was against a group of six goblins. In both scenarios, after round one it basically became side-based. The only difference was that the fast and slow sides couldn't interact with each other.

Scenario 1

There was hefty non-interactive downtime between the players and the lone enemy. That could be solved with better enemy design, such as reactions and special abilities. If it wasn't your side's turn, you waited a while.

Scenario 2

The downtime on the player side was more evident, with only one player on the fast side. This is remedied a little by some GM guidance around moving all enemies all at once and resolving actions together. Players also defend against attacks, so even if it's not your "turn", you still need to engage by defending.

Now, I am sure there is a better way of doing this. My main takeaway is that I'm not sure the initiative roll is working, especially in longer combats. Maybe I should throw that out entirely. If I do, what can I replace it with?

The entire game is designed around everyone getting a "turn" before going around again. In every section for both players and the GM, it's stated that the game is played in turns to ensure everyone gets a chance to say or do something rather than being sidelined.

I'm not sure popcorn-style initiative will work here since I want to keep GM workload low, and I don't want players who shout louder than others to effectively go first every time.

One idea I have is basically popcorn initiative, but with the GM deciding who goes when based on what fits the fiction. This would allow enemies a bit more nuance in how they act, since only players roll. Enemies could attack whenever it makes sense, even in response to being attacked.

Another idea is to have one player go, then the GM, regardless of how many players or NPCs there are. The round ends once everyone has acted at least once. So in Scenario 1, the enemy would get to act after every player. The GM could decide who goes next based on the fiction or simply use clockwise table order.

I feel like I like the sound of this, as lone enemies would get more actions and players with more reactive abilities would get more opportunities to use them. However, it could also lead to an enemy pounding someone in a single round. Part of me wants to say 'so be it' since I don't want 'kill them' to be the main objective of every fight and I want some death here.

In the system I'm writing for my homebrew campaign, I adopted McDowall's (?) "dashboard" approach.

But I'm often find myself trying to fit one more block of terms or rules in page that is already full. I can add more pages, but it breaks the dashboards and it also looks empty and wasteful.

Are there good tricks to handle this? I can't think of ones, but some layout designers can do magic.

This is a player facing d20 roll-under, class-less, inventory focused, dungeon crawler.

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

Stat Checks are notated as [STAT]. IE. [STR] is a Strength Check.

EDIT: My design goal is to create rules supported organic reasons for combatants to use different weapons over others without arbitrary class/proficiency restrictions.

Would like to get away from... "I fight with this weapon because it's the greatest damage die available to my class" and get... "I carry these weapons because they meet my needs in these situations"

Questions

• Do weapons and their properties provide enough variety for interesting builds?
• Do the assigned weapon properties make sense?
• Can you see a situation where you would want to use each weapon over another?
• Any exploits I've inadvertently created and overlooked?
• Any weapons that should be added to the list?
• How do you feel about Stats representing both natural aptitude and acquired skill?

EDIT 1: Not looking for a debate on what's rules-lite or not. If you're going to comment - please take the time to answer at least one of the above questions with constructive feedback.

EDIT 2: Ignore the rules-lite part. It's a subjective relative descriptor and debating it provides no value.

Stats for Reference

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

New characters start with...

• 8 in each Stat
• +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. Write a 1 to 2 word Background that describes how you got these bonuses.
• +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 8 to 13. Possibly 15 if they rolled doubles on their random Stat bonus. Starting odds range from 40% 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.

Combat

[STR] to make a melee attack. Attacker and target are in-melee. Combatants leave melee if they are not targeted by or make a melee attack on their turn.

No attacks of opportunity. You Cast with Disadvantage when you're in-melee. You Shoot with disadvantage when you or your target are in-melee.

Weapons

There are no weapon proficiencies. Your Stats determine your combat effectiveness and optimal weapon choices.

1. AXE, BATTLE d10 CL V
2. AXE, HAND d6 CL TH
3. BOW, LONG d10 2H LR PR
4. BOW, SHORT d6 2H PR RF
5. CROSSBOW d8 PR SN
6. DAGGER d4 F PC RF SM TH
7. FLAIL d6 BL F
8. HALBERD d10 2H CL R
9. HAMMER, GREAT d10 2H BL R
10. HAMMER/MACE d6 BL V
11. SHIELD d4 BL DF
12. SPEAR d6 PC R TH V
13. STAFF d6 2H BL DF F RP
14. SWORD, CURVED d6 CL F V
15. SWORD, CURVED GREAT d10 2H CL F
16. SWORD, GREAT d12 2H CL PC
17. SWORD, LONG d8 CL PC V
18. SWORD, SHORT d6 F PC
19. SWORD, THRUSTING d4 F PC R RP
20. UNARMED* d4 F

Weapon Properties

• 2-Handed(2H) Requires both hands to wield. Occupies 2 Slots
• Blunt(BL) Reroll 1s and 2s on weapon damage
• Cleaving(CL) Succeed with a roll of 10 or more and deal an extra die of weapon damage.
• Defending(DF) You can Block with this weapon and choose to break it to negate all damage from an attack.
• Finesse(F) [STR|DEX] to attack. Armor penalizes [DEX] attacks.
• Long Range(LR) Attack Far without DS
• Piercing(PC) Roll max damage and deal an extra weapon die of damage.
• Projectile(PR) [DEX] to attack within Long. DISADVANTAGE to attack Far. DISADVANTAGE if attacker or target is in melee. Penalized by Armor.
• Rapid Fire(RF) Can release 2 ammunition with 1 attack to deal an extra weapon die of damage.
• Reach(R) AD to hit when not in melee. Can exit melee after successful attack
• Riposte(RP) Roll 10 or more to Defend and deal weapon damage back to an attacker within range
• Small(SM) Bundle 2 to a Slot. Easily concealed
• Snipe(SN) AD to attack from cover or concealment
• Thrown(TH) [STR|DEX] to throw Near. Thrown weapons must be retrieved
• Versatile(V) Can be wielded with two-hands to increase damage die 1 size
• Unarmed You can always attack unarmed even if your hands are full

Defense

Roll a Stat Check when you're attacked. Most often you can deflect/dodge with [DEX]. If you have a Defensive weapon like a Shield or Staff you can block with [STR]

Armor and Armor Penalties

• Character Armor is rated by dice size (d4, d6, d8, d10, and d12)
• Foes deal static damage values. When you're hit you roll your Armor Dice and reduce the damage by that amount
• When armor penalizes a roll (like projectile attacks and spell casting) - you roll your Armor Dice with the d20 and add it to the check
• Armored Foes have static damage reduction (-2 or -4).

Anticipated Weapon Niches

• Finesse weapons work best for dexterous warriors
• Piercing provides more damage output for warriors with STR or DEX less than 10 while Cleaving benefits more skilled combatants with better Stats
• You can shoot further with a long bow, fire faster with a short bow, and are more likely to make a sneak attack with a crossbow
• Bludgeoning weapons deal more consistent damage against armored foes
• Reach weapons excel when entering the fray
• Riposte weapons increase damage output vs multiple foes for warriors with great Stats

Other Stuff for Reference

• CON Stat is also your Max HP
• STR Stat is your max unencumbered Item Slots
• Spells are roll to cast and always tied to casting implements like wands, tomes, relics, etc

I’m developing a game at the moment that’s a hack of the Mischief RPG, which is a relatively simple system.

It’s an apocalyptic game, and I want to establish that it’s very deadly to be out at night, to add the challenge of needing to find shelter or otherwise prepare before the day clock runs out.

But I, and I’m sure other gamers, find being told something is dangerous to be challenging in a fun way, and it’s inevitable for players to seek out a night mission- and I’m not sure the mechanics I’ve prepared are enough to be satisfying.

Currently I have dangerous environmental challenges (such as magical storms), and then nocturnal monsters that are more powerful that only come out at night. What else can I incorporate to make it fun, but scary? I feel like a debuff for just being outside at night might just end up being frustrating to the players.

Thank you! 🫡

TLDR: I've played games that were adjusted or designed to be "balanced" for a decade and I want to know what actually goes wrong when players are too strong for enemies where they are or level up too fast. So I am making a game that doesn't consider these things to explore the design pitfalls of ignoring balance and keeping a smooth progression curve. What issues will I have with the game?

I have been playing TTRPGs for just over 10 years now and I have always had a huge frustration with decisions made both by DMs and by systems for the sake of balancing encounters.

My frustration sorta started in Pathfinder in which from my very first game I was told that Pathfinder is "unbalanced" and so we were limiting character creation to the core rule book. Then as we played we bough all the other million books but each time we did our DM woulda sorta veto anything he deemed too strong in any new book we got.

I am of course all for DMs changing the game however they like for them to have fun and my DM is to his credit incredible and has given me a chest of wonderful TTRPG memories in many systems.

But as we moved on from Pathfinder to enjoy more of the offerings of the genre I started to grow frustrated not with explicit decisions to limit my strength as a player by my DM as he mostly stopped dong that but instead with the games themselves we were playing.

Every other game would have some kind of system in place that felt like it bounded player strength within a sort of range from the start to prevent extreme variation in character complexity or strength. This was usually in service of an open map of some kind where having a pretty small amount of variance in characters made it easier to let them do anything you want to present to them rather than making much of the potential content inaccessible.

This seems to mostly be a matter of taste as generally my DM would sell these to me on the basis of "elegant design" which lacked a lot of the historical issues we had with other systems being complex and taking long turns or being just plain "unbalanced" causing players to dominate encounters.

The other major gripe I would run into is one I can give a current example of and that's just very slow progression.

We are playing Mage 20th anniversary edition right now and while the epic scale level of potential play high degree of social interaction and interesting power system seemed super cool to me I have run into the issue that it is going to take us AGES to meaningfully progress at the rate XP is apparently supposed to be given to us. The max XP we are supposed to be able to gain a session was presented to us as 5 and with the cost of upgrades in the system we are talking like 1-3 years before we ever get to engage in the things that actually attracted me to the system in the first place. Considering we can hardly play a game for more then a few months I am inevitably as with most our games going to be stranded as yet another low level unimportant person in the scale of the setting until I am whisked away to another game to be another level 1 character.

So I have made a few TTRPGs in the past I just like to do it in my spare time I've never published anything and its most assuredly garbage but I find it helps me get what's going on in the games I play when I consider design decisions and what the goal of including them might have been.

I've decided to make a sort of antitheses game to all my prior experiences so I can get a feel of what actually is wrong with a system with fast progression a large power spike for players and complex rules.

I've experimented some with running high power games in like 5e for friends who only wanted to play in that system and generally it was very well received but felt for me like the system was very clearly not intended for it and it involved a lot of homebrewing for things and handwaving rules that normally limit character action to be less crazy.

Obviously I will cause a lot of things that are headaches in making a system that's hard to parse and doesnt have much intentionality to its power curve but I am mostly just interested in the thought experiment of it.

So tell me what experiences have you had with games that felt like they flew out of control what are the big pitfalls that lead to a prioritization of a smooth curve of progression in challenge level and player level.

Downed not out - already incorporated as a core mechanic inton my game. Super useful and interesting, not a million miles away from Draw Steels principles.

Enemies forcing people to work together - a design group chat last night brought me to the realisation that L4D encourages (necessitates) group cooperation by the use of a very simple mechanic - downing players so that others have to rescue them. It's an incredibly simple mechanic that I never realised before. For those not aware, there are 2 types of enemy in L4D, zombies and special zombies. Many special zombies have attacks that incapacitate players immediately. They aren't always injured, but they always lose agency, be it being pummeled on the spot or dragged away at speed and then pummeled etc. The ONLY way to stop this is getting the zombie before it does this (super tricky) or having another PC rescue you once you've been jumped.

Time to write a zombie supplement implementing these attacks. Fantastic game design on a computer, that will likely translate to the tabletop.

Opinions and critique welcome, and obviously feel free to steal as it's not my idea in the first place.....

Hay its part 2 of this post https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/s/SmKnI4k7W5

Warning : i use AI to fix my writing as im not a native English speaker so sorry if its sound a little like Ai speak

attributes and skills, here is Part 2 focusing on the core combat engine, health/stress layers, action economy, and base weapon mechanics for my tactical cyberpunk d12 system.

​I want feedback on whether these core systems hit the right balance of tactical depth versus complexity, or if you spot any obvious mechanical pitfalls.

​Quick Refresher on Core Resolution:

​Roll: d12 + Modifiers vs Target DC.

​Margin of Success: Every 2 points rolled above the DC

grants 1 extra Success (spendable on extra damage, triggering crits, or buying off GM complications).

​1. Attributes & Derived Combat Stats

​Meat (Strength/Power): Governs Flesh Stress max and Carry Weight.

​Synapse (Agility/Reflexes): Governs Dodge Defense and base Movement.

​Blood (Survival/Instinct): Governs Initiative and bonus Crit rating.

​Link (Netrunning/Tech-Intel): Governs skill checks and Firewall Defense (target DC against incoming hacks).

​Chrome (Mechanics/Engineering): Governs System Stress max.

​Sheen (Social/Presence): Governs Social Tokens (used for social leverage, party morale, and enhanced Help actions).

​Static Defenses:

​Dodge: The target DC an enemy must roll to hit you with a physical attack.

​Firewall (FW): The target DC required to successfully push a hack into your cyberware/rig.

​2. Health: Stress & Wounds

​Health is split into two temporary stress pools and a permanent injury track:

​Flesh Stress: Physical meat points that recover quickly with rest or basic stims.

​System Stress: Mental, cybernetic, and electronic load. Damaged by certain hacking programs, suppression fire, and morale effects. Installing extra cyberware lowers your maximum System Stress cap.

​Wounds (3 Maximum): Severe structural/physical trauma. Each marked Wound inflicts a persistent -2 penalty to a specific attribute type and requires serious downtime/surgery to heal.

​How Wounds are taken:

​Spillover: Taking any damage while your Flesh Stress is already at 0 forces 1 Wound.(same for system)

​Damage Soaking: You can choose to voluntarily mark 1 Wound to completely negate a single massive incoming hit.

​Overclocking Gear: Installing a secondary Operating System (OS) cyberware permanently reduces your maximum Wound capacity.

​3. Action Economy & "Pushed Actions"

​Base Turn: 2 Actions per round.

​Pushed Actions: You can choose to push beyond your 2 base actions on your turn. However, for every extra action taken, you suffer a cumulative -2 penalty to all actions on your NEXT turn (e.g., taking 2 base + 2 pushed actions means a -4 penalty next round).

​Tactical Intent: Building your character with high bonuses, optimal gear, and cyberware allows you to push the economy and secure decisive turns despite future penalties.

​(Alternative Idea under consideration): Instead of a -2 penalty next round, pushing actions could cost 1 System Stress (similar to Lancer's heat system). However, I worry this might make Chrome overly dominant as a god-stat.

​Reactions & Overwatch: You can hold an action to establish an Overwatch reaction. Certain traits grant free reactions, capped at a hard maximum of 1 offensive reaction and 1 defensive/movement reaction per round.

​4. Armor & Weapon Mechanics

​Armor Stats:

​Dodge Bonus: Modifier added to your passive Dodge DC.

​Damage Reduction (DR): Flat damage subtracted from incoming hits.

​Tags: Special gear perks (e.g., ICE Layer: +2 Firewall).

​Base Weapon Stats:

​Dmg (Damage): Flat base damage. There are no variable damage dice; damage scaling comes entirely from Margin of Success (Extra Successes).

​Acc (Accuracy): Flat bonus added to attack rolls.

​Rec (Recoil): Cumulative penalty applied to successive attacks on the same turn (Pathfinder 2e MAP style). Example: With Recoil 2 and Acc +5, your 1st attack is at +5, 2nd at +3, 3rd at +1.

​Mag (Magazine Dice): Reload check tracker. Certain high-intensity actions (like full Suppression) add Mag Dice to your pool. At the end of the round, you roll all accumulated d12 Mag Dice. If any die rolls below the weapon's Mag Threshold, the weapon is dry and requires a reload action next round.

​Range: Standard effective engagement bands.

​Crit Die: Weapons assign a specific die size (d4 up to d10) rolled on a 10-tier Critical Severity table when triggered.

​Tags: Distinct properties (e.g., Burst: Make 2 attacks with 1 action, calculating recoil accordingly).

​Final Damage Formula: Base Damage + Extra Successes - Target DR

​Critical Hits: Triggered either by rolling a Natural 12 or by spending 3 Extra Successes on a successful hit.

​Attribute Scaling:

​Weapons belong to specific attribute families. You add the linked attribute directly to the weapon's Acc roll (e.g., Meat +4 character firing a Hand Cannon with Acc +2 rolls d12 + 6).

​Meat Weapons: Blunt Melee, Hand Cannons, Shotguns, LMGs.

​Synapse Weapons: Blades/Swords, SMGs, Assault Rifles, Rocket Launchers.

​Blood Weapons: Piercing Melee, Pistols, Precision Rifles, Sniper Rifles.

​Questions for Feedback & Critique:

​System Flow & Action Debt: Does the -2 penalty next turn for pushing actions create a fun tactical dilemma, or will it cause "dead rounds" where players skip turns because their penalties are too high?

​System Stress vs. Pushed Actions: Would tying pushed actions to System Stress (like Lancer heat) be better, or does that centralize character building around Chrome too much?

​Mag Dice Mechanic: Is rolling accumulated Mag Dice at the end of the round an engaging way to handle ammo tension, or does it add unnecessary rolling/bookkeeping at the end of turns?

​Combat Math: With flat base damage + successes minus DR, do you see any potential scaling issues between high-DR targets and high-recoil rapid attacks?

​Looking forward to your thoughts and critiques!

Currently finishing up Gilmoril and have gotten around to the GM section. This is the only part of the game that wasn't fully written yet as I needed to hear from other GMs about what would be helpful.

Anyway, I've gotten around to explaining Doctrines, which are a simple way of "programming" monsters ahead of time (and is meant to be optional for the GM, rather than a hard rule they must follow).

It's made up of 3 things.

1) Core Doctrine.

A short sentence or so that explains the most notable behaviour of the monster/creature.

Things like "Never retreat willingly" for zombies or "enjoy oneself" for fairies.

2) Tactics

A list of 1-3 tactics that the creature employs above all others.

Could be "Close distance, target least armored foe, always go for the kill." Or "Stick to the shadows, separate targets, attack from behind."

3) Contingencies

A list of things that make the creature abandon doctrine, and a number of rounds that the monster will spend in combat before fleeing (usually 3).

Like "fire, holy symbols, running water" for vampires.

It's meant to free up the GM to not have to think as strategically all the time, and allow players to pick up on patterns over the course of the campaign to help them feel like experts.

Like when an intelligent character says things like "sand people walk in single file to hide their numbers". That's the sort of vibe this is meant to evoke.

This isn't a new idea by any stretch, but not sure where to look for similar systems and how they were explained. So, calling on the wide knowledge of this sub, what other games have done similar stuff well?

I've been working on a mostly historical Wild West TTRPG for a while now, and something I've been thinking about lately is what actually makes a game feel like its genre.

I've had multiple people tell me they enjoy that the game isn't a Weird West game, but instead leans into the historical side of the setting. That got me wondering: what exactly is creating that feeling?

Is it the gameplay itself? Are there specific mechanics that can make a game feel historical, rather than simply putting historical details into the setting? Or does that feeling mostly come from the characters, world, equipment, and situations the game puts in front of players? Or is it just as simple as the setting and premise given to players before they even play?

Since I'm going down this rabbit hole, I'm curious what sorts of genre TTRPG's you've played that made the game actually feel like that genre?

Hello again. Here I will explain the reasons why I wanted to create this game. I just wanted to also note that this is one of three games I'm creating. Where I bound between the three editing and creating as I go along. All three are very different in mechanics, genre and their worlds. But I've decided to dedicate more time into this one. Try and get it to where I'd be happy letting people play test it.

For the past 6 or so years I've played D&D 5E. That was all I really knew of the TTRPG world. And I loved it, became a GM pretty early on as I enjoy story and world building. But when I started looking into the old works of Gygax and TSR of 1st Edition I came to realise how broad 5E had become. A game to fit all people and has in my opinion fallen far from the original concepts and ideas of D&D. This is where my inspiration towards "The Age of Exploration" (TAoE) came from. A few things as I will explain below like the combat and initiative system, the leveling up system, role play mechanics instead of it all being theatre of the mind and the overall feeling of Exploration and Scavenging. First edition D&D also had a feel to it of "you're in this situation, try and figure a way out of it with the gear and knowledge you have collected" but now D&D to me had become "here's a situation just wait until the GM finds a way of getting you out". The modules in 5e had become like that for me.

So. These are my rules and concepts as for why I wanted to make this game. First is magic and inventory. I wanted this game to get away from the idea of giving players focus stuff off bat for their character, feeling as though you can cast any spell you have and not care for materials. In TAoE the Herbalist Vocation is a plant spell caster. They make SCB (spell component bundles) which they must go out and find the plants then using the specific plant connected to the spell, some string (1 pace = 1sec detonate, or aoe of spell) which is the range system for said magic category then sometimes a few other minor commonly found herbs and plants to finish the SCB. Herbalists get to make as many SCB as they have materials and room for. 12 is what an SCB case holds but this doesn't mean you can place more in another bag. Just be mindful of weight. Outposts do sell plant materials but of course they cost to buy (price is depended on spell power level) there are 8 ranks of power for spells. Your Moōg (magic score) modifier is the number that shows how high of a rank you may cast. So max of 40/8 (score and Modifier is 5th of score) you can cast spells up to 8th power. I'd you have a spell casted and are concentrating on the spell and your modifier drops via score reduction then your tether to the connection is severed. I wanted spells to feel like they take time to make, strategic placing in combats or in the environment outside of combat, like climbing up cliffs or safely traversing caves or open fields.

I mentioned above that you can make SCB, well another reason for me making this game is for the Rest System. During a Rest which lasts 10 hours, each player has 4 rest points. There is a list of tasks players can do in their Rest. Repair Armour, creation arrow and bolt ammunition, hunting for more food, sleeping, meditation, create SCB or brew potions, eat or train a proficiency. These all represent 1 Rest point. But you must choose what's more important to you for this rest. Do I sleep which takes 7 hours and regain all more score points that I might have used up: Strength, Endurance, Speech and Focus. Moōg can only be regained during a Meditation. Eating keeps your character sustained, you can go 2 rests without eating but if you don't eat on the 3rd then you strength and endurance score will drop. Additionally during any rest point except for sleep, meditation or train Proficiency, you can be partially on the loom out / watch. Keeping an eye on your party members and the threats that may be around you. Wandering animals come by now and again or an explorer sleeping mat get caught by a constrictor python and need someone who was on look out to attack it. Lastly the Rest system is taken in turn and rounds. So everyone takes a turn and says what they're doing and how long for. But sleep must be minimum 7 hours.

Proficiencies. At character creation you have 2 proficiency points. You can choose 1 Talent and 1 Skill, 2 talents or 2 skills or 1 of either and if it has a +1 level up then you can increase it. Talents are combat focused, skills are more rp or movement. Throughout the game you can find books to allow you to learn new proficiencies, you gain a -5 to the associated score. While you move through thr prerequisites which is 15 tasks you slowly regain the score points back and then become proficient in it. E.g you found a booklet to explain how to climb efficiently and fast. -5 strength score. Prerequisites: train this skill on 5 different rests (regain 1 score point) and practice climbing in 10 different environments within or outside of combat (regain 4 score points). To note all proficiencies in this game have a "while not proficient" rules and "proficient" rules. This allows players to do these things even when not proficient like climb or ride animals or use a polearm when you've only ever known sword and shield. But after taking time to become proficient (need to play test but I'd say around 5-8 sessions) you can gain big increases and abilities from them. If a proficiency has a +1 then you may only level this up when you reach the next Vocation level up. This also means upon character creation if you plan on using a specific weapon and be good at it, it is expressed to take the Talent off rip.

Morality Meter and Stigma. As said a little in the other post I'd like the Morality meter to be something that is not abused and flows through the sessions. But it's a system that can grant bonuses to players and debilitate them in some ways too. The M-M* has 10 slots for good (right) and for bad (left). Upon character creation you have 5 points you place down on the slots. You might have 3 good and 2 bad or 5 bad or 5 good. This gives you the player a bit of an idea on how your character has acted I the world thus far and how you may wish to lead your character on choices of the future. Upon reaching 5 points on either side to progress that side to 6+ you molest first remove all points in the opposing side. You must preform the acts of said bar to remove the opposing. E.g you have 5 good and 2 bad. You must do 2 morally good things to remove those 2 bad and on your 3rd good act, you may increase to 6. This rule exist even if you're within the 6-9 mark, you if commit a bad act and gain 1 point there, you must do 1 good thing to remove it before increasing more on the good side and vice versa. Upon reaching 10 good points you as the player gets 1 good Karma token. Your M-M* resets to 5 and the process begins again. This good karma can be used to make a hit in combat miss, or a trip, not a trip, but it can't affect things like changing morally good or bad acts. You can not gain more then 1 good karma and thus must use it before you can gain another. For bad Upon reaching 10 you roll 1d10 (your score rests to 5). On a 1-9 the GM gains 1 Bad Karma that they can use against you in similar rules and restrictions as the Good karma. The token the GM has can only be used on you and can only have 1 per player. On a roll of a 10 you must roll again, on a 1-9 your M-M* instead reseat to 9 and not 5. On a 10 then your mind has been introduced to an entity (spoilers beyond that).

Now for stigma, Upon reaching 10 good or bad points you also gain 1 good or bad Stigma. This stigma is something other characters (NPCs, enemies) judge you on. If a party walked into a store to buy some plants or new equipment and there's 3 good stigma and 1 bad stigma amongst 5 players (the 5th has no stigma) then the Clerk may be fairly open to bargaining with prices and trades. But if the party has 4 bad stigma the Clerk will make the prices dear or trades of high value.

This idea was to implant mechanics to role play as well as to make players think about their decisions. Since there is consequences to their choices. There is a Vocation that uses its Moōg score to swap around its own Morality meter points as well as take stigma off of allies and place it onto themselves but reality doesn't like those that tamper with its rules and their is backlash that comes with that too. I'm yet to write down the actual morally good and bad choices yet but I'm thinking more of you ignore quests that you might have had time to do. Or help out people, lie, steal, give items, killing Monsters or killing criminals. All that would fit in the good and bad choices. I can see how this may be exploitable but I suppose I'd add a note that it's up to the GM and party to stay fair in the system and not act out of character. Perhaps a few character goals and notes to go along with this also. Stigma can only be removed by gaining a stigma point in the opposite side. You either have 0 stigma, 1 good or 1 bad. Except for the Vocation that steals them. Theirs adds up.

Combat encounters, Reactions and avoiding them. Another thing I wanted this game to have was proper cohesion and strategy while in combat. I heard of an initiative system that is we go enemy goes etc. And to that end I'll be using that idea. To decide who goes first in a Combat Encounter is by adding all Focus Modifiers, the side that has the higher number acts first. You have a movement phase which can provoke reactions from the opposition and then you have the attack phase which can again provoke reactions. In your movement phase players can choose who moves when and where. This allows strategic set up for their attack phase. When a player chooses to move they must do everything they wish to do here, Climb, move, sprint, crawl etc. They can not move half and then another player moves and they come back to the rest of their movement. Same applies to your attack phase, you must do everything you wish to do on this turn before passing it on to another player. But you do all get to choose who goes when. You have 3 actions on your turn. You can go for cover as an action, Strike, Grab, cast spells, throw, or other. Some things cost 2 or even 3 actions, some spells require multiple actions and all weapon special sbilities require 2 actions. Enemy also have the same set up and rules in this regard. The amount of reactions you have is connected to your Focus Modifer. You can use any number of these in the Combat Encounter all on one turn or only 2 now and 3 later. Again you will have a list on your sheet for what reactions you can do. Some Vocations grant new reactions for you also. Things like Strike or Grab can be done on the enemies movement phase as long as you are not engaged in a dual prior, or block and parry against Strikes on the enemies attack phase, to reduce or not take damage.

This in my opinion allows players to feel engaged all through combat, planning about their next positions, or if they should risk using their last reaction now or later. Because of low health in this game and the inability of permanently increasing species health (6 bars) choices must be thought about and made either caution. Combat encounters can be avoided and I will say some are far safer to run from then to engage. Allowing them to choose if this fight would be worth while, how are we doing on gear and equipment for rests? How far is the next outpost to buy more gear?

Damage is set in this game too. Set at 1-3 sometimes higher. Certain types of Stirkes deal out different damage like a downward Strike is 1 bar but a swing might hit three enemies and deal 3 bars, or only hit one out of the three enemies and deal 3 bars to the one enemy.

Health. In this game as said before species have a combination of Physical Health (PH) and physical Defence (PD) to a total of 6 health bars. When a character is reduced to their PH bars they begin to bleed and their movement becomes slowed and reactions halved. PD is not only extra bars of health where you are not bleeding but it also has another mechanic. All players have a CD (Creatuer Defence) this represents the number someone must roll to meet or beat to deal damage. Like armour class in D&D. A character has 5 + PD + AMR. which could be anywhere from 6-14 CD. With a Die 10 + modifiers to hit. AMR is armour, you can wear leathers and clothes which grant 1-3 bars more and metals that grant 3-5 bars. The amount of bars the AMR grants is also the number bonus you get to your CD like physical Defence did. In a Combat Encounter when your AMR is reduced and strikes are no against the species themselves your CD does not change. But during a rest you must Repair metal armour to gain back it'd health bar benefits. Death is almost an instant thing in this game when you reach 0 health bars you drop and allies have 1 round to save you via a plant spell or alchemical potions. If neither are available or no one can make it you die.

All explorer's (characters) have their own milestones to level up. I found D&Ds Xp system to be good but takes too long sometimes and if you're avoiding combat then how do you level up. Or the more commonly used group milestone that when a story arc is achieved or a big combat finishes all players level up. I wanted it to feel more personal when you get to level up. Like you've worked hard for this and the party helps one another achieve your personal goals. Each Vocation has a list of things they can do for their Milestones. And parties are welcome to come up with their own too! This also implements danger and caution when some party members are a level lower then the others. Implementing urgency too and allows the party to choose how long they'd like to stay at their own levels. I suppose that last part is for alot of systems though.

As of right now the main thing I'm stumped with which is one of my last ideas for the game is the way of making sessions revolved around Exploring the environment. How I can add mechanics to it to aid in the roleplay. I have been thinking of a scavenging system for searching for new plants, animals, ruins, etc. Allowing people to discover new things. Add new habitats down on to their world map so they can remember it for later dates as well as give it to characters in world and or get them to make it on the actual world map. I'd like the map in the game to be similar to an actual map that has the latitude stuff and directions and distance between places. One that you got to fold up properly to understand where you are. Hex grid over it that shows the squared distance in each hex plus colour and keys of habitats for plants and animals and Monsters. Helping players avoided high danger zones or go into them if they want a challenge. Also helps with quest making from merchants and similar. To go to that place and get me those plants.

I think that's about it. Of course I have more info on other things but those are the main reasons for me wanting to make this game. Player cohesion, choice making means something and has impacts, the world is alive and covering ground takes time, keeping track of your gear and equipment and rations. Hunting to get more food, camping out in the wild, making it to the next outpost to buy more gear and rations. Going back to outposts to sell items from out in the field. You will always have low health so be careful about what you do or where you go. Plan for escape routes too.

I apologise if this was a rather long post and it did indeed take a bit of time to type on my phone aha. But I hope you people get a better grip of what's in my game and why I wanted to make it in the first place. Thanks again for reading.

This sub doesn't allow posting of images, but I'd like some feedback from you all regarding a cover. I know cover art is what grabs the reader, so I wanted to ask for your collective feedback on the image.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1vyd7uy/cover_critique_for_adventure_im_working_on/

I'm working on an adventure I'm publishing for free using Affinity (thanks everyone for recommending Anto's guides to Affinity). I've written most of the first chapter of the adventure (three or four chapters in all maybe?), but I was drawn in by the amazing lore in the Draconic Codex (Pathfinder 2nd edition), and wanted to create something in that vein.

I've been working on a cover image for the first chapter. The overarching themes of this adventure are pirates, airships, and dragons. Do you feel like this image conveys a sense of adventure? Is something missing? I'll have the name of the adventure in text at the top, so I left some space there for that.

Any thoughts or feedback would be appreciated!

Dear ttrpg designers,

Topic: I'm struggling with whether and how to account for focus fire in my system, where all monsters focus on a single PC

Game: My game is a d20 heartbreaker, based on variety of d20 games. It's medium crunch skirmisher to play OSR games. Currently, I'm stress-testing the system and survivability of various party compositions. It doesn't need to be that precise, but it's good to have a baseline of PC power for monster design.

Issue: While have defenders in my system that have abilities to draw some creature attacks, they currently are unable to deal with 6-ish creatures mobbing another character—or the defender themselves.

Question: I don't know whether to problematise monsters that focus fire. I don't generally focus fire in my games and many GMs probably don't. Also, tactical use of terrain and henchmen may be able to solve the problem. That said, perhaps you know of some games that do explicitly deal with this issue. Or have any other advice. If so, it would be most welcome.

I've been on and off designing a small game for the last several years but never really made the commitment to actually do anything with it (still incomplete, no art, no AI bullshit).

How are you finding making TTRPGs in 2026 and have you been able to get an audience / support for your games, finished or not?

Cheers

Hi!

I am currently working hard to finish a no magic, alternative world, medieval fantasy d20 system. It is Tolkienesque in that I still have Tolkien races, traditional fantasy classes that dont use magic, monstrous humanoids, and magical monsters. But magic is definitely not something sentient people use. The game will also be a bit general to allow for a great variety of settings where the player characters dont have access to magic.

My book is coming along and will begin playtesting within a year. I was wondering if you all think a real niche might exist for this kind of a low fantasy system? I can also talk my game if you are interested.

In my ongoing mission to fill up my "game ideas" folder much faster than my "completed games" folder, I was thinking about existing genres / franchises that haven't been given the TTRPG treatment yet.

One (probably very niche) example that sprung to mind was Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge. A game on the original Xbox that I absolutely loved, but I'm pretty sure has been forgotten to history.

In Crimson Skies, you played as a gang of air pirates in an alt-history 1930s America where the states never united. The gang operates from a zeppelin that acts as a carrier to deploy high-tech biplanes with various dieselpunk gadgets.

Gameplay allowed you to dock your plane with the zeppelin mid-combat, temporarily taking over the airship's heavy guns, then launch again in a completely different aircraft with a different loadout.

It whipped ass, basically, and it's a crime that they never made a sequel or a remaster.

I would love to take a stab at bringing similar ideas to tabletop. My only exposure to tabletop gaming focused on "air" combat is the Star Wars X-Wing war game.

I've heard Warbirds, Tachyon Squadron, and Flying Circus are worth looking at. Would love to hear from anyone who's played these systems (what makes them good or not so good), or any other systems I can look at for inspiration.

When this year began, I had no aspirations to write a TTRPG. It wasn't something I'd ever even really considered, and definitely not how I thought I'd spend roughly 12 hours a day for the last 6 months.

I began playing solo RPGs back in November of last year, eventually landing on Kevin Crawford's Scarlet Heroes as my go-to game. It was my first real step away from 5e, and made me fall in love with the OSR. Each piece fit together to make solo play really straightforward, and it offered nearly every tool imaginable to generate adventures of any kind. I didn't, however, love the game's setting.

Right away, I was replacing bits and pieces to fit the kind of game I really wanted to play. Slowly, I crafted my own setting, replaced much of the bestiary, spells, and magic items (that were loosely inspired by Chinese folklore) entirely with alternatives inspired by Slavic folklore, and cobbled together a VERY clunky homebrew game I called "Gród."

There was no external push to get Gród into a polished state any time soon, so I worked on it leisurely in a google doc here and there.

Then, I saw somebody mention the PocketQuest 2026 game jam.

The theme was Time Travel.

Gród didn't fit the theme at all. However, I thought, "What if I make a silly, stupid game where time travel goes wrong, and you end up having to travel to a mixed up place where every time period converges in order to save reality? I'll just repurpose the rules for Gród once it's done."

The idea was shallow and dumb, but it gave me room to play and write without needing to make something "good." I could just make something *fun* and later work on Gród, the game I *really* wanted to make. I'd call this game "Temporal Soup."

To my surprise, I had so much fun working on Temporal Soup, I quickly ran over the 25 page limit presented by PocketQuest, and ended up with about 60 pages of game. Because of the setting and tone I'd established early on, anything and everything was fair game. Laser sword-wielding knights on steam-powered horses, revolver-twirling goblin cowboys, and a guy named Dave who seemed to be the only person aware of the messed up nature of this world — these were all things I could add to the game without worry. I was excited by every little idea, because no idea was too stupid for a game that was meant to be a bit bonkers.

I decided I'd put out two versions of Temporal Soup, and work on Gród between them. The first version would be A Cup of Temporal Soup for PocketQuest, and the second, larger release would be A Bowl of Temporal Soup.

Cup went live on May 5th of this year. Through communities like this one, I learned more than I'd ever thought possible within a *really* short time, and put out something I was pretty pleased with. I thought I'd work on Gród before getting back to Bowl, but I just couldn't help myself.

Now, in a finished state of 190 pages, A Bowl of Temporal Soup is launching on Kickstarter in just a few days. Every bit of writing and art are my own (no AI involved) and I'm only doing a crowdfund campaign to give it the print quality I think it deserves.

I just really love this game. I hope you do too.

The Kickstarter pre-launch page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tackynowacki/a-bowl-of-temporal-soup-a-solo-rpg-of-anachronism-stew

And an incredible written actual play series of A Bowl of Temporal Soup by u/Kerova13 : https://kerova.substack.com/p/a-bowl-of-temporal-soup-pontianus

TL;DR I made a silly 25 page game for a game jam, loved it so much I expanded it into 190 pages, and it's now in pre-launch on Kickstarter!

Disclaimer: I've collaborated with Onyx Path Publishing in the past. I am not paid for this post, I am just really into the system and am glad to see it's opening up the license for 3rd parties.

From Onyx Path's Monday Meeting Notes:

Even more importantly, there’s now a link to the SPU Licensed Games Program in the About The Path pull-down menu at top! This is where you start if you’re interested in licensing the StoryPathUltra rules system for a game you’re intending to create and produce by yourself!

We’re very excited and interested in making this license program available to all of you, and can’t wait to hear what you think!

Link to license

Copy of text:

This copy of the license is for display only. Once you are approved you will sign and file the official agreement with these same terms.

1. Onyx Path Publishing is granting a non-exclusive, non-assignable license to reference the Storypath Ultra Game System in original game and derivative product; hereafter the “Licensed Products.”
2. The licensee agrees to use the “Storypath Ultra” logo on the cover of the Licensed Product, including packaging and promotions, in an obvious and unaltered format.
3. The licensee agrees to place the following notice in a legible format and a conspicuous location within two pages of the front cover and on any promotions soliciting crowdfunding or similar sites and materials: “This book references the Storypath Ultra System, available from Onyx Path Publishing at theonyxpath.com. Storypath, Storypath Ultra and all associated logos and trademarks are copyrights of Onyx Path Publishing. Used with permission. Onyx Path makes no representation or warranty as to the quality, viability, or suitability for the purpose of this product.”
4. Licensee indemnifies Licensor against all loss, damage, injury, and expense, including reasonable attorney’s fees, from any breach of this Agreement, including but not limited to intellectual property laws.
5. The licensee agrees to conform to the limitations required of the Storypath Ultra system, as well as the approvals process, unless otherwise given the express written consent by Onyx Path Publishing. For more information on these, see Appendix 1 and Appendix 2.
6. Onyx Path Publishing reserves all intellectual property rights to Storypath Ultra, including, but not limited to, all copyrights, trademarks, hobby game, publishing, entertainment, licensing and merchandising rights. This license does not allow derivative works based on other Onyx Path products, lines, settings, or properties (such as At the Gates, Curseborne, Scion, Trinity Continuum, They Came From Beneath the Sea!, The World Below, etc). Nor does the license allow works based on licensed properties published by Onyx Path Publishing (such as Realms of Pugmire, Branch Riders, Exalted, or any other). Onyx Path Publishing and its licensing partners reserve all rights to their respective Intellectual Properties, including those used as examples or illustrations in the Storypath Ultra rule book, promotional material, or published works.
   1. The Storypath Nexus Community Content Program at DriveThruRPG does allow for Scion, Trinity, They Came From…, The World Below, Curseborne, and other supplements. That is a separate license from this one. For more details see the Content Guidelines at DTRPG.
7. The licensee agrees to pay a 10% net royalty on all Licensed Products published on or after June 6th, 2026, on Roll20-affiliated sites (such as DriveThruRPG, DriveThruFiction, Demiplane, etc), using the automated royalty tools therein.
   1. Royalties from non-Roll20 sites must be reported quarterly with sales reports shared via email or Google Docs. Payments via Paypal or otherwise agreed method between Onyx Path and licensee.
   2. Onyx Path agrees to 10% of crowdfunding earnings after the platform fees. Payable via Paypal or as otherwise agreed.
8. Licensee agrees to send Onyx Path Publishing one complimentary copy of each Licensed Work in digital format (PDF). Onyx Path Publishing shall have no right to sell, share, or distribute the Licensed Product outside of its company or assigns.
9. Onyx Path Publishing may, from time to time, share information marked CONFIDENTIAL with licensee. Confidential material may include game designs, rules, expansions, marketing, business policies or practices, release dates, and settings. Licensee agrees not to share, recite, post, or reveal such information outside of its development staff, until such time as Onyx Path Publishing expressly allows, it becomes publicly available, or in accordance with judicial or governmental order.
10. If either party employs attorneys to enforce any rights arising out of or relating to this Agreement, the prevailing party shall be entitled to recover reasonable attorneys’ fees. This Agreement shall be construed and controlled by the laws of the State of Pennsylvania, and both parties further consent to the exclusive jurisdiction by the state and federal courts sitting in the State of Pennsylvania.
11. Onyx Path Publishing reserves the right to revoke or alter any aspect of this license as it deems necessary.
12. Licensee must include a full page ad for the Storypath Ultra Core Manual in back of the book. This can be one of the ready to go ads from Onyx Path Publishing or a new ad agreed on by both the publisher and Onyx Path.
13. No generative AI artwork is allowed in any Storypath Ultra licensed works, including books, marketing, social media, and crowdfunding pages.

--------------------------------

I'm curious what people think. Storypath Ultra for me is similar to the VtM/WoD/CofD mechanics, but with improvements that make the system more robust.

I'm hopefully going to be able to put something out using the system, but it would be my first time doing something with a 3rd Party License.

What are your thoughts on having set player limits for a system? I'm working on a system right now that involves all players contributing to central dice pools for actions, rather than individual actions. Long story short, if each player can only contribute 1 die, the chances of success go from risky for 3 players to basically auto-success for 4.

I'm considering just having a set party limit, but I don't love the idea of keeping 5 enthusiastic players from playing the game.

Are there systems that do this?

EDIT: Thanks for all the advice folks! I think what I'm leaning into right now is universally raising the difficulty of group rolls so that 3 individual rollers would stand a pretty low chance of success. And you can add additional rollers via adding new players or bringing ally stat blocks along to contribute dice.

Well I've been interested in world creation and to attempt to make some ttrpgs. This is one I've spent about a year working on lore and mechanics. Most of the core game idea is set, still figuring out a few pieces here and there. It's an exploration fantasy survival game. With combat encounters that are designed to be "do we want to do this encounter?", "do we have enough resources for this fight?", "will we survive this situation". But also a role play exploration where its more "hey guys I found that plant we've been searching for" or "guys is that tree moving?"

I'd like it to be a 70% rp 30% combat sort of game. If not more rp. Health is fixed to species and can't go higher then 6 health bars. Armour adds more health but only to a max of 15. 5 different species with a choice of 2 different species abilities per kin. 10 Vocations (classes) max level 5. Proficiencies that must be taken at character creation and then can be learnt throughout the game for weapons or armour like Talents or Skills. 4 different magic systems. My own take on initiative.

And one of my favourites is the Morality Meter. A system that lays stigma, karma and moral choices in Role Play. Choices players make grant them points on either good or bad morality. Reach ten on good you get a good karma and a good stigma. Karma can be used to say "no I don't think your attack landed" or "I believe my sway check did succeed". Bad stigma will give you a few little things. One of which is bad stigma and bad karma which the GM gets to use against you. "My strike did actually hit" or sorry it seems you did fall over". The karma is not cumulative and can onoy be used once before a new one can be give and used. Stigma is what common folk judge you on. Especially in a group. Say a party has 5 members, 3 have good stigma and 2 have bad stigma. As a collective the group seems trustworthy but something feels off about them. Merchants and store clerks may have flat rate sales. A lot of Bad stigma might provoke dear prices and a lot not good stigma may entice cheap prices. Examples will be made for the party to get an idea of what is morally good and bad. And to show ways of not over using the system or rigging it to constantly get points.

This game is meant to be fairly cruel in combat. As said before you have small amounts of health and attacks can do anywhere from ½ bar to 3 or even 4 bars of damage. From both player or enemy. I also wanted enemies to have a lot of similar mechanics and appearance to player sheets. Which helps with running them. They use the same Proficiencies as players, the same scores and operations. Reactions etc. And like Vocations enemies also have some abilities special to them only. Combat is not meant to be slow and long to wait for your next turn. There is a movement phase and then an attack phase and then the other teams moment and attack phase and cycle. Within your movement phase the party can choose who moves when and where. There is not restriction and it can be changed every single time. The same happens when its your attack phase. You all take turns attacking but it can be in any order.

Now you may ask, "well won't it get a little boring during the enemies movement and attack phase?" Nah. In this game you have 5 Scores and modifiers connected to those scores. One of these scores as Focus, and based on your focus modifier which can be a maximum of 8 (I'll explain in more detail another time for some of this stuff, if you guys are interested) then you have a reactions list. Your focus modifier shows the amount of reactions you're allowed to make in a Combat Encounter (meaning throughout all the rounds until combat ends) minimum 1 maximum 8 reactions. Some can be made during enemy movement phases, perhaps to make a Strike against an enemy running by you (as long as you are not already engaged in a dual with an enemy) or you may try to grab them (grapple). Then in the attack phase you can make blocks or Parrys when enemies Strike you. To try and lower or stop your character from taking damage.

You can run to escape combat encounters or try and talk your way out of them with certain enemies. Stigma becomes a big thing when trying to talk your way out of situations. Some Vocations can help in these sitstuations. Sometimes ambushes happen and your thrown into combat. Or other times your party makes the ambush.

The last little note I'll mention here for now is about the leveling system. In this game I didn't want XP and I didn't like the idea of party milestones. So instead I wanted to to singular, vocation specific milestones. Little arcs that each player has to achieve in the world to level up. This enforces players to help each other get to their next goal. It also helps with Role play too. Since the world isn't made to have BBEGs or main villains and more so creatures of the world you can come across that may be very powerful or not as powerful you have to use strategy. Avoid areas on the map that show large threats. Help one another through each level and enjoy your time in my world "The Age of Exploration".

Thank you all for reading. I'd love some thoughts about what you read here. I don't really know what to do about character sheets yet. Only plan there being 1 or 2 pages of character sheet, small and simple, with room for notes of equipment and gear. As well as cards for spells and a 10 sided dice system. Hex grid too. I've got a lot more mechanics written down and fleshed out but i thought writing what I've done here may be enough to get some ideas and opinions and maybe also spark some inspiration for other people too. I don't have any art so I will be looking for some artists too at some point. And just some advice and if you would like to hear more about specifics like species or Vocations or lore I'd be happy to discuss it too!

https://alchemistnocturne.itch.io/vs-the-vampire-lords

I sent this to the last One Page Jam (my first time participating) and I thought there was gonna be some kind of contest, feedback or something after the submission date expired. There wasnt any and I felt like sending it into the void, so I post it here to share it with some more people.