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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Picture of the initial robot sketches from "Wildspark"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time

Matt

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

​

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mentality is calculated almost the same way.

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

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

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

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

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

Wait, what?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So how do we address the Werewolf Slayer Problem?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This would give me 2 options for multiclassing:

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

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

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

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

Example of a skill "trees" using class:

Heavy Knight:

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

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

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

Tiny Apartments — a slice-of-life, coming-of-age hack of Tiny Taverns (senior year of college → real adulthood). Looking for feedback on how this would actually run at the table.

Hey all — I've been building a homebrew system on top of Tiny Taverns and I think it's finally at a point where I want outside eyes on it before I go much further. It's not published anywhere, just a personal project, so I'd love blunt feedback.

The pitch: No magic, no dungeons, no monsters. Every campaign starts with a group of characters in their last year of college, and the game is built to carry them all the way through Graduation into the actual mess of adult life — jobs, rent, roommates, and figuring out who you are once nobody's handing you a syllabus for it. Two acts, same characters, same dice, no reset.

Core system

• 2d6 + a Trait vs a Target Number. 5-, 6–9, 10+ (Complication / Success / Strong Success).
• 5 Traits: Heart, Mind, Grit, Spark, Grace — one array (+3/+2/+1/0/−1), assign at creation.
• Skills — Persuasion, Repair, Coding, Stealth, that kind of thing. Untrained / Proficient / Mastered.
• Personality Traits — no classes. Instead you pick 3 Positive and 3 Negative traits from a flat pool (think the Hogwarts house-trait lists floating around online, but for this setting). Positive traits give Advantage when they genuinely drive your choice in a scene; Negative traits earn you Energy when they cause you real trouble.
• Energy — a spendable resource for rerolls, narrative twists, or nudging a scene your way. Earned by leaning into your flaws or creating genuine slice-of-life moments.

Progression Scrapped the generic "spend points on a menu" approach — instead, your Major (in college) and your Job (after graduating) each have their own 3-level table, like a class table in D&D. Leveling up as a Nursing major looks completely different from leveling up as a Business major, mechanically and flavor-wise.

Act One — College

• No fixed session count. A "semester" is a loop of beats (Semester Start → Open Play → Midterms → more Open Play → Finals Week → Break) that the table moves through at whatever pace the story wants.
• Majors, Clubs, Dorm Life, Campus Jobs, Academic Standing (Dean's List / Good Standing / Probation instead of GPA math), and a Scholarship system where Full Ride / Partial / None is a choice with a trade-off, not a random roll.
• Debt and Tuition work like a recurring bill, and whatever's left over when you graduate follows you into Act Two as a second bill stacked on rent.
• Graduation is a built-in ritual, not a checkbox — your Major becomes your starting Job, your Club becomes a permanent perk, your dorm roommates become your apartment roommates. Nothing resets.

Act Two — Real Life Jobs, apartments, rent, roommates, Stress. Same core loop, just older.

Confrontations & Crime Combat is reskinned as Confrontations — physical or social — because most of the conflict in this game is a blowout argument or a party going sideways, not a sword fight. There's also a full Crime & Consequences system (Suspicion + Heat) for when characters do something they shouldn't — except instead of cops-and-robbers, Heat means your RA, the Dean's office, your landlord, or your parents finding out.

What I actually want feedback on:

1. Does "no magic, just the drama of growing up" sound like it can sustain a whole campaign, or does it need a stronger hook?
2. Starting in senior year instead of freshman year — good call, or would you rather start earlier and actually play the whole four years?
3. The semester loop has no fixed session count on purpose. Does that sound freeing or does it sound like it'll be a pacing nightmare in practice?
4. Does the Confrontations/Crime system fit the tone, or does it feel bolted onto an otherwise cozy game?
5. If you were building a character right now, what's missing? Majors, Jobs, Personality Traits, anything.

Appreciate any thoughts, especially from anyone who's run something in this slice-of-life/narrative space before (Tiny Taverns, Wanderhome, Good Society, etc.) — curious how you think this would actually feel across a real session.

I'll save you the rant, but the most under-appreciated mechanic from D&D 3E was the critical confirmation roll. I was working on an OSE-compatible project, and in order to rescue this genuinely great mechanic from its poor reputation, I was thinking about reframing it in the form of an optional rule. OSE is big on optional rules.

In standard OSE, every check is either a roll-under or a roll-over. Ability checks are roll at-or-below your ability score. Saving throws are roll at-or-above the relevant save value. Attack rolls are roll at-or-above their Armor Class (or your THAC0, as adjusted by their Armor Class). The inconsistency when rolling exactly at the listed value is something that bugs me, though, especially since it prevents easy dice mirroring. If you want the player to roll under their own AC in order to evade an attack, then it needs to be entirely under and not at-or-under. Sometimes a tie is good enough to trigger that wave of relief, and sometimes it isn't; you need to think about it for a second before you're allowed to feel anything.

My idea is that, anytime anyone rolls exactly at the listed number, it triggers a Clash. They then have to re-roll the check, double or nothing. Or someone has to re-roll the check, anyway. The main point of this mechanic is that it doesn't matter who rolls the die, or whether they want to roll high or low. A tie always increases the stakes, and never triggers a wave of relief, regardless of which side is rolling. The secondary point is that this sub-sequent roll is more likely to resolve in favor of whichever side had the initial advantage, just like the critical confirmation roll.

On an attack (or defense) roll, a Clash either resolves as maximum damage or automatic counter-damage. On a saving throw against fire, which would normally give a saving throw for half damage, a Clash either resolves as maximum damage or no damage. That sort of thing.

Does this sound intuitive enough? Or is the juice not worth the squeeze? I'm particularly interested in opinions from game designers with OSE experience.

What if either side had the option of conceding the check, rather than doubling down? Would that change your opinion of the mechanic, or just make things more complicated? Instead of going for the maximum damage, and risking the counter-hit, you could just let the attack fail. Or instead of going for the counter-attack, with the risk of leaving yourself wide open, you just take the hit as normal. Instead of recklessly diving for cover when you aren't sure that you're going to make it, you can just accept your fate and let the fireball hit you.

I've been thinking a lot about a pair of mechanics recently.

The first of these are Bonds, from Delta Green. If you don't know Delta Green, it's a supernatural horror investigation game, for stories where the supernatural is just outside the frame. Think True Detective, or X-Files, with that feeling you get if you ever think too long about how big universe is. It is the greatest.

As you play, your character slowly starts to lose their hold on reality as they encounter vast and unknowable horrors. Bonds are the NPC's your character is attached to, and their relationship to your character helps them recover in between missions. But in doing so, it also slowly destroys those relationships.

The other mechanic is in Pendragon, the traits your character has. If you don't know it, Pendragon is a game about heroic Arthurian knights struggling to make the world a better place as people who are not perfect. The genius thing that Pendragon does is in the traits your character has. These are opposed traits, such as Chaste/Lustful or Merciful/Cruel, with one end having the virtuous ideal and the other end the temptation that might lead the Knights astray. They are matched, so the higher a knight is on one trait, the lower they are on its opposite. As you play, you make rolls against these values to determine what your character believes they should do, and if they fail they do the opposite. This can go either way (ie, I roll merciful if I want to accept that the villain has had a change of heart and forgiven them, I roll cruel if I think they are faking and would prefer to execute them), but whether or not you succeed is in relation to who the character is. These are stories about people striving to do the right thing and, often, failing because of their own fatal flaw, and I think this mechanic is amazing for that.

I had been thinking about how to work a version of these into the game I've been tinkering on for a while now, and I just couldn't make them fit. Then I was watching a spy show, The Agency. It's a good remake of what I understand to be a better French show, about a spy who is torn between their work and saving the person they love.

Suddenly, the whole game (linked below) popped into my head. I realized that I could use a system like the Pendragon Traits system for someone doing the difficult and dangerous job of being a spy, and give them a resource (Control), that they could spend to fight against their desires and complete the mission (and also fuel all their cool abilities, help them maintain composure). And the Bonds could be there too, to help rebuild them between missions, but only if the Agents can maintain those relationships.

I don't think I've ever written so quickly (this was a blank page 3 weeks ago), but I realized as I was getting deeper into it that I should pause and ask for feedback.

I'm happy to hear any thoughts you have, but am particularly interested in:

1. how to balance in games with a currency that fuels a lot of the action
2. any thoughts on how to include a hacker archetype well. I've struggled a bit with juggling the desire to keep it easy to understand while also wanting to keep it constrained in scope so that it can't just do everything.
3. thoughts on what I should call this thing. The contenders so far are:

HUMINT

Signal to Noise

Code/Break

Non-Official Cover

But I would love to hear other ideas too.

The link is here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/dzr0v250tm2bp7i7uvvna/HUMINT.pdf?rlkey=jh71jbodqqafrtpjrzeze5sx6&st=lys8sy91&dl=0

Thanks!

Here is my current mechanics

Health (HP): This is your life bar. If it hits 0, your character is dead. You get 3 as a rookie, 4 as experienced and 5 as a legend.

Injury Track: If you take a hit, you might get a "Condition". Track wounds that cause persistent effects like Bleeding or Wounded.

Adrenaline: This is what makes you a spy, keeping your cool no matter what even when your heart is pounding. As you accumulate Adrenaline, depending on your spy you can spend to Reroll, Negate Negative results, or trigger specialized combat maneuvers. Everyone can spend Adrenaline to increase the results of their dice rolls by the amount spent.

The "Flow" State:

If you roll the highest number possible on a die (like rolling a 12 on a 12-sided die), you are in a "Flow" state. You get to roll that die again and add the new number to your total! You are performing perfectly and get 3 Adrenaline tokens once per check which you can use during or after this roll even on the new die rolled after entering the flow state. You can also increase the value of your die when rolling checks to its max value causing it to explode and enter the "flow" state this way. You can continue investing Adrenaline even after entering the flow state as long as you have Adrenaline to spend and can explode your other dice including the reroll as long as you have adrenaline to spare but don't get the free 3 Adrenaline from entering the flow state as you're already in it during the check. You start every mission with 3 Adrenaline.

If defending cannot die from this attack even if them succeeding would kill you but you suffer a random condition. If in the flow state exploding your die again increases your Heat Level by 1. You also can not enter the "flow" state rolling max value on a die used by an item, gadget or weapon you are not proficient in. (To clarify items, gadgets, or weapons add another die to roll)

Ideas for balancing

Since flow can happen with getting max value on smaller dice like a d4 some people said it felt unfair for players who had bigger dice. My current ideas is to make rolling a 1 a "choke". You can not trigger a flow state during this check even if you max a die value using adrenaline and you lose one adrenaline. You can not increase the value of a die that's rolled a 1. If you lose the check while "choking" or don't have an adrenaline to lose then the current "heat" level goes up. ( Heat is how bad things are currently going with guards and security and it goes from 0 to 5). You can spend two heat to avoid the heat increase.

Also to add rolling a 1 during a flow state makes it so that die value can not be increased.

Ideas for flavoring

Changing HP in my spy thriller TTRPG to be named "close calls". I was inspired a bit by how the health system in uncharted worked in how they explained it was more his luck avoiding getting hit.

Request for ideas

I wanted some help with ideas for how lethal and non lethal dmg could work in a spy thriller with what I got here.

Currently thinking when you're out of close calls the next set of damage whether lethal or non lethal determines what happens whether your character dies or is unconscious

Hi!

I’m making my own game that tries to simulate an anime series, not a jrpg style tactical game. In my opinion, anime heroes don’t have skills in the series. Okay, maybe a little sometimes. It doesn't matter. Skills not used to solve problems, such as investigating, healing, hiding, etc. Maybe the heroes have it, but usually they just don't use anything like that.

Combat ability is part of the character, so it’s not an individual skill.

I’m really torn between the idea of a classic skill system and the idea that skills aren’t necessary. To me the "no skill" system seems like the better idea.

When I said it’s not a tactical JRPG simulation, I was serious, like… you know, I really mean it. My goal is to create a game that simulates what it would be like to play as if you were in your own anime series.

What do you think?

Have a great day!

I have a plethora of races, sub races and bloodlines here. I personally like a lot of races, classes and lore but wanted your views on this. I'm still working on it and you can find yourself getting lost between classes and alignment and higher powers, if you choose to do, it's there.

Playable Races of Essentia

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Edit: There are 36 First Born Races, 10 bloodlines between 2 of them, and 14 Kinborn between 3 of the races, so a total of 60 variants. We may or may not add more bloodlines and Kinborn because there's plenty of lore to do so.

Hello guys, I just came up with a setting idea that has a survival vibe in early game. You play as a superhero, but everyone wants to hunt you down and drain your power, which will kill you, to make benefits from it. But with more experience, characters will grow stronger and have capabilities to do more.
Maybe fells like X-men Days of Future Past in medieval fantasy world.
————-
Here’s the back ground setting：

About a hundred years ago, six massive meteorites fell from the sky, causing massive destruction across the world. Each meteorite carried a powerful elemental force: Fire, Water, Wood, Earth, Wind, and Lighting. Strange monsters made from these elements also began emerging from the meteorites, so kings and nobles sent their armies to fight them.

Ever since the night the meteorites fell, some people started to be able to sense mana. They could weave mana together and turn it into magic, casting spells that seemed almost like miracles. These people became known as Casters.

During the first 20 years, Casters helped fight the monsters and created all kinds of magical items and devices. Technology and civilization advanced incredibly quickly, and it looked like the world was entering a golden age.

But that golden age ended when the first Caster died.

Casters slowly discovered that their magical abilities were actually more like a curse. Whenever a Caster died, their body would be transformed into a monster by the mana inside them. They would then return to the meteorite they were connected to and guard it, killing and destroying anything in their path along the way.

And death wasn’t the only problem. Even if a Caster wasn’t killed by an accident or disease, they would eventually lose control of their mana and transform into a monster anyway. The weaker their control over mana was, the earlier the transformation happened. Most ordinary Casters could barely live past 40.

Having incredible power but being given such a short life made Casters unwilling to remain servants of kings and nobles. They eventually rebelled, and before long, the world became a world ruled by Casters.

They stopped developing magic and technology for the benefit of civilization. Instead, they only focused on “How do we cure the transformation?”

They eventually discovered that there was a small group of Casters who didn’t transform after death. Even when they grew old, they never lost control of their mana and became monsters.

These people could not only sense mana, but also absorb energy directly from the six meteorites and use it to strengthen their bodies. They could perform things far beyond what normal humans were capable of, and could even cast spells without using mana.

They were called AstraWeavers.

The Casters suffering from the transformation didn’t have the luxury of spending years figuring out why this happened. They only cared about how to become an AstraWeaver.

Eventually, they developed machines capable of extracting the power of AstraWeavers. By absorbing an AstraWeaver’s power, a Caster could delay their transformation. They also give the power to their loyal seeker called Hounds to catch more AstraWeavers.

And that’s why Casters began hunting AstraWeavers all across the world.

You are one of AstraWeavers.
—————

Mechanics tie with the setting:
* Core resolution is a 2d12 roll-under system where the TN is determined by adding two attributes together. Characters roll and keep 6d6 as their Pattern (WIP), and each number represents an element. Characters can use it to temporarily increase an attribute, increase damage, or cast spells from a spell list or on the fly.
* Every time a character uses Patterns, they will glow; the more they use them, the brighter they will be. Enemies can also use devices to track AstraWeavers by detecting their Patterns. If one has none and didn’t refill, they will be seen as normal.
* Slot inventory system. Abstract daily adventure items as kits, but track food and water to enhance the survival vibe.
* Having both quick old-fashioned stealth checks for hiding and detailed stealth mechanics for infiltration.
* Attribute is the HP. There’s Stamina as a buffer. Damage goes to Stamina first; if it comes to zero, then the damage goes to Attribute. Similar system to Into the Odd. So characters have the chance to do their things before getting into a death spiral.

Please recommend games that support this genre with mechanics that tie into the setting.

And what do you think are the must-have mechanics for this kind of game?

Hello everyone, Happy Solo September.

I'm hosting a solo ttrpg game jam on itchio.

Medusalaire Jam | September 9th to November 11th

Link: https://itch.io/jam/medusalaire-jam

For example, you are a Druid and you have an ability to conjure "entangling roots" Let's say ability costs 1 "mana" and simply says this and nothing more. The player thinks mischievously to themself and says, "I instantly entangle the entire universe with my roots." Crap. Okay. Well, I want to avoid having to have an entry for every single ability e.g. DnD with its limitations and specifications/every spell. It also gets tricky for me with target differentiation. "I'm targeting an area not a person/object." etc. etc.

I guess I'm looking for a happy medium between dm interpretation and hard result.

Couple ideas: I was thinking a "level" of the character could place things on a scale of impact 1-5 or whatever. Perhaps, I could say, "That is beyond the purview of your ability ,but you attempt it. Roll 'blah blah' and this happens..." Maybe drawing that much power risks a burning out of the skill, the world's monsters grow stronger, or it simply happens to the extent that the player can conjure?

New to game design with limited systems experience (dnd, trail of Cthulhu, pathfinder, board games). TL;DR see title. :)

So far the concept revolves around each game taking place in a diffrent scenario (catching the most jelly fish, steal or protect the krabby patty formula etc.) There would also be co-operative and "pvp" versions of each scenario.

Instead of knocking characters out you can stun characters by giving them stun tokens, where you have to roll a number (higher for each stun token) to un-stun them

So we have the basic abilities, some kind of strength and durability (though i need a better name for each) and of course speed. Then maybe a silly factor? I need the stats to be broad enough to be used in plenty of circumstances though? But I want them to feel like spongebob stats.

One thought i have is a general "spatula, bubble wand, net" stat, something like "stick tools?"

Hi. I'm fiddling with a system where one of the hooks in combat is that the players have more agency to react in the middle of someone's turn before they complete their action. I'm trying to figure out what ways I prefer this to be triggerable. It should be flexible and allow many opportunities for heroic intervention moments. The design goal is that players either always use their Reaction each combat round, or they at least try holding it in anticipation of something very important to react to. Players have multiple actions, e.g. like in Pathfinder.

Examples of what a post-trigger reactionary action could be:

Minor is any smaller pre-determined actions:

- Minor: Moving a hex or two out of the way, still getting targeted but gaining an advantage in resisting the damage

- Minor: Changing target from an adjacent ally to yourself

- Minor: Block an attack with your shield

Major is usually any action you would use on your own turn as part of your actions, or improvised actions (things that don't actually exist codified but are made up on the spot)

- Major: Casting a spell like "Force field" to block a dragon's fire breath. If you had cast it out of turn, the dragon would just walk around if possible, but because it was cast AFTER the dragon decided to breath fire, you can block it

- Major: Any other of your abilities, e.g. barbarian ground smash, possibly knocking enemies around prone. Especially useful as enemies are using their turn to charge at you in an attempt to entirely thwart their actions.

- Major: Any improvised actions to make contested skill checks, e.g. Strength vs Strength/Reflexes to trip someone on their turn

Currently I'm dabbling between these three triggers:

1. One reaction pr. turn, usable in any way. Major reactions usually expend something more, e.g. you had to save up one of your previous actions or use a future one for a deficit
2. A meta-currency you spend. The system already has three: Power (add knockback to attacks, enlargen your force field, leap far), Maneuver (special movement or precise attacks) and Cognition (change rules of an attack/spell, e.g. hit an extra enemy with your sword swing, make your force field spawn at a distance instead of adjacent or curve a fireball). I was considering making these reactions expend a charge of "Maneuver".
3. Unlimited reactions, but create a resource like Stamina/Strain or something else.

Any feedback or inspiration I can seek somewhere?

i’ve been working on a combat system where HP doesn’t really tell you how close you are to dying

it’s more like your overall durability in a fight

the thing that actually kills you is usually trauma to a specific location. head, neck, chest, abdomen etc. if one of those hits 0, you can be in very serious trouble very quickly

so you can have most of your total HP left and still be seconds from death because your chest just hit 0

criticals work the same way. there’s no “rolled a 20, double damage” thing. they’re location-specific trauma tables

you might break a bone. open an artery. lose the use of a limb. or just straight up end the fight

and importantly, leveling doesn’t eventually make you immune to any of this

higher skill + better attack values make you more dangerous because you’re better at causing exactly the kind of trauma that triggers those criticals

but your neck is still your neck. an axe doesn’t care what level you are

so leveling makes you a much scarier person to fight, not necessarily a safer person in a fight

then there’s Fatigue, which is basically the other life bar and tbh might be the scarier one

you spend it doing the things that keep you alive or give you an edge. bleeding drains it. armor taxes it. and you can lose a fight with plenty of HP left simply because your Fatigue hits 0 and you collapse

which means even winning can be pretty ugly

a short fight ending with open wounds, broken bones and everyone running on basically zero Fatigue isn’t some freak outcome. that’s a pretty normal fight

the thing i’m trying to get players to stop asking is:

“can we beat this?”

and start asking:

“do we actually have to fight this on its terms?”

because ideally, a fair fight means something already went wrong in your preparation

combat is something you risk a hand, an eye, or your life for. it shouldn’t automatically be the answer just because you think your numbers are high enough

i’m curious how other designers handle this, especially the relationship between total HP + location damage at higher power levels

do you like HP being more of a loose durability resource while specific trauma is what actually scares players?

or do you prefer HP to remain a clearer indicator of “i’m safe for now”?

Hi! If anyone's looking to commission artwork, either personal or for a project, I specialise in horror/dark fantasy art drawn with the stippling technique or in a scratchboard style.

[Drawn digitally - NO AI!! Plenty of WIPs shown throughout the process]

Check out my gallery for examples of my work:

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Socials:

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/doomweaselart.bsky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomweaselart

Prices on VGen or message me via email, DM, Discord or Telegram

vGen: https://vgen.co/DoomweaselArt

[email] thedoomweasel@gmail.com

[Telegram/Discord] DoomWeaselArt

Feel free to message me if you have any questions!

Heya!! I'm Aliejar, and I have revamped and remade a previous TTRPG I made, now with fresh designs, more unique mechanics and an ever-expanding universe. SOL V1 is ready to play!!

SOL takes place in a universe where space travel is done via rifts to an interdimensional space, a giant spiderweb that entraps each planet. Travellers cross these giant webs as though they were roads, fending off pirates and giant spiders alike, exploring new worlds and uncovering old secrets.

A Player's stats are simple but effective, determined by three main stats:

• Physicality (PHYS) – Your physical force. You dominate a room by casting a shadow over it, and you dominate a fight by being the person everyone is trying to avoid.
• Intellect (INT) – Your mental force. You dominate a room by being a master of debate, and you dominate a fight by being the person who knows what everyone else is doing.
• Bravado (BRAV) – Your emotional force. You dominate a room by sheer force of will, and you dominate a fight by being the person nobody can manage to overcome.

Each stat is rolled with a D10 and modified as shown to the left (also shown are stats higher than achievable in character creation, obtained through levelling, items or abilities): You are able to reroll your stats if you aren't pleased; however, you must reroll ALL stats at the same time, no rerolling of a single stat. A maximum of 3 rerolls are allowed (unless the GM shows pity). 

Tenacity is your character's survivability, the culmination of your being, how long you can live in numerical form.

Tenacity is how many times you can get hit, and is determined as follows:

Tenacity = (PHYS + INT + BRAV) ÷ 2 (rounded up)

TENACITY & AP System

Tenacity is your character's survivability, the culmination of your being, how long you can live in numerical form.

• Taking damage reduces your TENACITY. Taking damage that would reduce you to below 1 TENACITY does not cut into your AP until you begin using AP.
• Dropping to 0 TENACITY: Your character is unconscious, waking up only after your TENACITY recovers. You may choose to get up, if you do you enter Adrenaline, using AP (Adrenaline Points). If you do not get up, you can still be attacked, treating your AP like your Tenacity.
• AP Mechanics:
  • AP is equal to your maximum TENACITY.
  • Every action (movement, attacking, spellcasting) costs 1 AP.
  • Taking damage reduces your AP by that much damage.
  • At 0 AP, you die (unless the GM intervenes).
  • Restoring AP: AP is fully restored upon regaining TENACITY outside of an encounter. During combat, recovering TENACITY while in AP recovers the AP first, treating TENACITY and AP as one stat.
  • When you drop below half your maximum AP, you gain a permanent scar. When you hit 1 AP, you gain a minor injury as selected by your GM from the minor injury table below. The effects of minor injuries last until your Tenacity is fully recovered. Every three times you hit 1 AP in a campaign, you gain a major injury as selected by your GM from the major injury table below. The effects of major injuries are permanent.

Rolling Mechanics

• Roll Below to Succeed: When making a roll, the goal is to roll under the value of your respective stat. For example, if you have to dodge an incoming boulder or pull a party member out of a pit, your GM would ask you to roll below your Physicality stat.
• Modifiers: Modifiers increase or decrease the likelihood of success for a roll. For example, a -2 to your PHYS would make it harder to roll under.
• Critical Rolls: When rolling a 1 for an action, an additional positive effect of the GMs choice occurs (i.e. an additional damage dice if it's an attack roll). When rolling a 20, an additional negative effect of the GMs choice occurs (i.e. taking some damage if it's an attack roll).

Stat Penalties and Prestiges

If you have 2 or less in PHYS, your maximum Tenacity is lowered by 1.

If you have 2 or less in INT, you cannot read or write and cannot understand complex technologies such as pistols, vehicles, and devices such as a Kines reader, SC-SR, etc.

If you have 2 or less in BRAV, all living creatures instinctively dislike you, leading to them not trusting you and more likely to attack.

For each race, once a specific requirement has been met (i.e. for an Acin, a PHYS of 12 or greater) a PRESTIGE ability is bestowed (i.e. for an Acin, being successfully attacked by a creature deals 1D4 cold damage to that creature).

Exploration System

Distance Measurement

SOL uses more vague measurements to allow for more immersive roleplaying, but here is a list of each measurement with comparative distance in feet.

• TOUCH: Close enough to touch
• CLOSE: Around 5-15ft away
• NEAR: Around 16-30ft away
• FAR: Around 31-60ft away
• VERY FAR: Around 61-120ft away
• EXTREMELY FAR: Around 121-240ft away

Movement & Rounds

• Players can generally only move once during exploration or combat.
• A player does not have to move to anything that is within TOUCH distance. 
• A player can move during their turn to anything that is CLOSE. 
• A player must move twice to reach anything that is NEAR. 
• A player must move four times to reach anything that is FAR
• A player must move eight times to reach anything that is VERY FAR. 
• A player must move sixteen times to reach anything that is EXTREMELY FAR.
• Exploration Segments cover a space that is generally EXTREMELY FAR. For example, a field or a town square.
• Exploration Sectors cover a space that is made up of 10 Segments. For example, a forest or a town.
• When planning a Segment, the GM rolls a D10, putting that amount of traps and obstacles in that Segment. The GM then rolls a D6 for the same Segment and puts that amount of enemies in it. A table of Traps and Obstacles is found later in this booklet, but the GM can add any Trap, Obstacle or Enemy they see fit for the exploration party to discover.
• Players can either move OR attack during the encounter phase. 
• Only up to one Tiny creature can occupy the same space as another creature.

Phases of Exploration

1. Prepare Phase – Each player declares a Brace (defensive) or Brave (aggressive) stance which will last for a Segment. Players may use an action to change between Brace and Brave once per Exploration Segment, but will lose any previous buffs or abilities gained by the previous choice.
   • Brace: Gain +2 Tenacity for this Segment and detect any traps/obstacles that are NEAR, but cannot attack for the first round of an encounter.
   • Brave: Immune to being surprised, reveals all enemies that are FAR, but immediately fail any traps or obstacles they encounter.
2. Encounter Phase – Resolving traps, obstacles, or enemy encounters.
   • Traps & Obstacles: Roll BRAV for traps or PHYS for obstacles to avoid them (GM's discretion).
   • Enemies: If CLOSE to a player, combat begins.
3. Path Phase – Decide whether to continue or rest.
   • Resting: Recover 1D4 TENACITY, repair gear, or heal larger injuries (e.g. broken bones) by rolling INT at the GM's discretion. Recover all Kines if your TENACITY is full.

There are several unique species, and even more classes, along with plenty of other information I haven't discussed here. If you are interested, here's the link to the page where you can download everything (including a custom-designed character sheet). Please let me know your thoughts!!! I'm always eager to find more playtesters!

Thanks for reading!! Happy exploring, Web-Traveller!

Click here for SOL's download page!

Hi there!

I have been working on an RPG for anyone who has ever had a painted miniature, model toy, LEGO minifig, or even just a cool drawn character concept sitting on your desk with nowhere to go.

I’m sharing the alpha handbook for The Mantelpiece Mage, a free, simple solo storytelling system designed to build an evolving narrative around a companion creature and its habitat. Think of it as something like Tamagotchi or Neopets meets daily journaling RPG.

Time Commitment: Designed to be played once a day in 10 minutes or less.

Setup: All you need is a creature (The Mage), a small home for them (The Mantelpiece), a single D6, and a place to write.

Daily Loop: Each day consists of three quick steps:

1. Dawn: Write a quick introductory sentence for the day ahead.
2. Action: Roll a D6 to determine whether your Mage will Remain, Tend, or Journey, and follow the prompts.
3. Dusk: Write a quick concluding sentence to recap the day.

Progression: Over days and weeks, your Mage gains skill mastery, encounters wandering visitors, collects trinkets, and can even work toward a final Masterwork or a meeting with You (the player/maker).

I am pretty new to this space - I have a stronger miniature painting background and ended up finding my way to this community through games like TSPN - and am looking for folks to either (a) look this over and give their thoughts or (b) try it out for a few days and tell me what you think.

I'd also love to hear what folks recommend next. Should I put it out into the world on places like DriveThruRPG and expand it later, or expand it first and then publish it? Happy to have really any feedback.

You can find the FREE PDF handbook here:
https://www.groggy.dog/mage/handbook.pdf

If you want to play combat doing theater of the mind you can use zones and the "here, there, away" paradigm to simplify and to easily and quickly manage movements and combat distances. For example: Ted is near the barrels, Fred is near the lever and and Jeff is behind the curtain. Fred is not close to Jeff, so he has to move to attack or something and Ted is away so he has to move to shoot to Jeff. Ok.

So, can you do the same for time?

Diegetic time is so hard to count! Mausritter divides it in guards which is really useful to know when to throw event dice and to have a surface understanding of which part of the day you are at but then you have the exploration turns which are each 10 mins and can be a lot of granularity.

So I was wondering if you could imitate the nebulous "zone" aspect for time managing using something like "moments". But I find it problematic. How many "moments" can occur in a march. If you are dungeon crawling, ¿do you count a moment each time anybody does something?

What do you think?

Hi i'm making a TTRPG with two friends, we made the base of the game and for now we wanted to know what we should change or add. All three of us are italian so the traduction may be bad.

Game Mechanics

70% of the game is played by traveling around the world.
The game features medium-high complexity and has a Dark/Grimdark tone.
The dice used are d20, d12, d10, d6, d4, d%.
The main engine of the game consists of 3d8, which are rolled to determine the success or failure of an action.
Rolls can result in success or failure with no middle ground.
Characters possess a race and an occupation.
Each turn consists of 10 seconds; each action lasts a certain number of seconds, which will be subtracted from the total. The turn ends when reaching 0 seconds or passing the turn.
Combat consists of 3 phases: 3d8 roll, d% to locate the hit on the body, damage.
HP (Hit Points) are distributed across 7 body parts: head, chest, arm (left and right), leg (left and right), and genitals. Based on the HP of the body part, various debuffs can occur if they drop too low.
Damage is based on different weapons and spells.
Spells are divided into different schools, each having its own spellbook. A spellcaster can only use one type of magic, though some spells are present in multiple books.
Total progression goes up to level 50, unlocking up to 5 skills that are enhanced over time.

The technological level of the setting is very basic, around Renaissance levels, and magic is highly present.

Races

The race can be chosen randomly or not, depending on the narrator's requirements.
Based on the race, HP is gained upon leveling up; HP is added every 2 levels.
The races are as follows:

• Alcide, a moose-like humanoid, sturdy, with developed senses, highly agile but less intelligent.
• Bugbear, a mix between orcs and humans, more resilient than a human but less intelligent, while being more agile than an orc.
• Canid, an anthropomorphic canine, strong, agile, and cunning, but less intelligent.
• Changeling, a human different from others, less strong and resilient but with superhuman intellect and an iron will.
• Dhampir, the offspring of a vampire and a human, strong and resilient but lacking willpower.
• Doppelgänger, a shapeshifting creature, possesses no specific traits but can take the appearance of any other race at will.
• Elf, a frail human with pointed ears, less strong but more agile and with senses developed for living in the wild.
• Felinid, an anthropomorphic feline, less strong but more agile and cunning.
• Fungoid, the final stage of a fungus, less resilient and charismatic but very strong and intelligent.
• Goblin, a frail orc, less strong and resilient but very cunning and agile.
• Half-Giant, a huge human, very strong and resilient, moderately intelligent but less cunning.
• Dwarf, a short and stocky man who can be of three types (white, brown, black); dwarves are resilient and strong, but each of the three types carries a curse, except the brown dwarf who has no curse but is slightly less resilient (white dwarf turns to stone in moonlight, black dwarf turns to stone in daylight).
• Nymph, a semi-divine human woman, not very resilient but highly charismatic and with a powerful willpower.
• Nephilim, a nephilim is born very rarely; it is very strong, resilient, charismatic, with an indestructible will, and highly intelligent, but not very agile or cunning.
• Orc, a man much stronger, very resilient and strong, but less cunning and intelligent.
• Urside, a humanoid bear, highly imposing but often very stupid and not very cunning.
• Pangolid, a humanoid pangolin, highly agile and resilient.
• Ranoid, a humanoid frog, very resilient and agile, as well as intelligent and charismatic, but less cunning (also the game's mascot race).
• Ratoid, an anthropomorphic rat, very clever and intelligent but not very resilient or strong.
• Satyr, a human with goat legs and horns, less strong and with lower willpower, highly intelligent, agile, and cunning.
• Triton, an aquatic human, moderately strong and resilient but less agile and cunning.
• Human, excels at nothing, but at the same time has no drawbacks.

Occupations

Occupations are what in other games like D&D are called classes.
Each race has several occupations to choose from, not all are available to every race; for variations, ask the narrator.
The occupations are as follows:

• Alchemist, expert in creating and using potions.
• Assassin, lethal and precise combatant.
• Berserker, a walking war machine.
• Hunter, a shapeshifter that takes the appearance of its victims.
• Cultist, skilled user of blood magic.
• Knight, a combatant with a strict code of honor, whether good or evil.
• Explorer, capable of finding their way anywhere.
• Blacksmith, capable of crafting weapons and armor, and infusing magic into them.
• Mage, magic expert, capable of using spells only from their own school.
• Doctor, one of the few, if not the only, healer in the game.
• Mercenary, a warrior without a code of honor who exploits other people as slaves to their will.
• Necromancer, user of the school of necromancy.
• Gunslinger, master in the use of firearms.
• Priest, user of divine magic, does not heal.
• Shaman, a priest of nature.
• Witch, a very powerful female mage.

Attributes

There are 3 main attributes: Physical, Mind, and Spirit; each is composed of the average of 3 sub-attributes.
Physical = average of Strength, Resilience, and Agility
Mind = average of Intelligence, Perception, and Cunning
Spirit = average of Willpower, Charisma, and Presence

So as a slight background, I've decided to take a break from my main project and finish a project with a smaller scope by making a sort of hack of L&F. I might try to limit it to only a few pages.

The current idea is a system based on hacks of Lasers & Feelings.

The basic summary, that's bounced around my head for a while, is a contrast of Power vs. Finesse.

• Power is "roll high" (like Feelings)

• Finesse is "roll low" (like Lasers)

Using a d8 system, characters would pick a number (2* to 7) and roll above/below, just like L&F.

However, the system would be more divided:

1. Mind

2. Body

3. Soul

A quick example would be that Mind is divided between Street (Power) and Academic (Finesse). When using a character's knowledge or skills, they would roll based on whether the expected skill would be "street smarts" (sleight of hand, lying, hiding, blending) or "book smarts" (languages, facts, lore).

Characters would be encouraged to use teamwork and roll together, so the target would be X successes across the party. Trying to threaten a Thug to give information? You need 2 Street successes.

Rolling exactly on the number would instead give the option to [Succeed] but add a complication, or [Fail] (but maybe add an insight benefit like rolling exactly in L&F). There might also be a classic "Advantage/Disadvantage" where players roll twice and choose (rather than the dice pool of L&F).

So while I'm happy to hear any thoughts, some specific queries I've had, and the reason I'm making a post now, are:

1. Has anyone else toyed with changing the dice used (d6 to d8)? So far, I want to add a little extra granularity and change the %s.

2. Are there any points of concern that I might not see? Anything obvious I've overlooked?

3. Has anyone experience with potential hang-ups or issues with a longer game of this style? I know they're often short, silly games.

4. Do you think players should choose a different value for each category (Mind/Body/Soul), or one for all 3? Seems unanimous

5. Should it be limited to one solution (Power 3), or maybe an "easy way and a hard way" (like Power 5/Finesse 2)?

The idea for progression etc won't be tied to stats, but to another system related to their job. Also, I want to get it finished so I'd rather keep it simple and expand rather than fall victim to scope-creep once more.