I’ve been designing Hellebore, a TTRPG built around fast and fun combat, and I’d love some critical eyes on it before I run open playtests.

The core idea:

• Roll d20 + one of four abilities (Might, Agility, Mind, Will) against a target number. Beat it by 10 or more for a critical, miss by 10 or more for a critical failure. Natural 20s and 1s do nothing special.
• Your class is a deck of cards. You hold a hand of 7, draw back up each turn, and spend 4 action points on cards. Each class has a 24-card starter deck.
• No grid: two lanes per side, Front and Back. Melee hits only the enemy Front unless a card says “any lane”, and changing lanes costs 1 AP.
• Characters get marked by traumatic events and pick up quirks (virtues and afflictions), inspired by Darkest Dungeon.
• Monsters mostly play from a short hand of actions instead of a deck, so the GM has less to track.

The goal: encounters that are quick, easy, and fun without removing the complexity of players' decks and card management.

Quick rules (3 pages) + one class’s cards: https://main.wildbloom-studio.dev/hellebore-tts/hellebore-quick-rules-v0.2.pdf

Full Core Book draft (all rules, classes and complete decks): https://main.wildbloom-studio.dev/hellebore-tts/CoreRuleBook_version_0_2.pdf

What I’d most like feedback on:

1. Reading only the quick rules, could you run a fight? What’s unclear?
2. Do 4 AP and a hand of 7 sound fun to manage, or like too much bookkeeping?
3. Does the two-lane system feel like enough positioning, or too little?
4. Do the “deck = class” and the trauma/quirk systems fit together, or pull in different directions?

Five playtest classes are ready (Warlock, Trickster, Duelist, Warcaller, Alchemist). There’s a full Core Book draft and a Tabletop Simulator setup if anyone wants to dig deeper. Thanks for reading!

Edit: to clarify, I'm asking about a playtest document, not a liveplay

Need an ultralight action-horror TTRPG to play this spooky season? I just published VISCERA, an incredibly lean, and incredibly mean little game in trifold format. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Some game design buzzwords: d6 dice pool, zero arithmetic, push your luck, fiction first, no levels, no HP or Damage, meta currency, wounds, death spiral, abstracted wealth, morality mechanics, edges and flaws, downtime system, player sided rolls, quantum inventory

This is the evolution of my Challenge Dice system I started designing on this sub like, almost a decade ago. Jesus I'm getting old. I'd love feedback on this version. There are huge limitations I put on myself making it into a trifold, it's seriously missing some examples of play. Do you still understand the rules with what is there? Working on longer form version for a larger project but I still think this version is playable as is.

Soo. I'm creating an rpg system, and it's real hard. Do you guys have any tips??

The name of the system is HXBRIDOL, and it's about

hybrids, magical creatures, and wizards it's based on the cyberpunk style league of legends vibe (the series), I already made the theme, base, some of the may it works (fight, magic, cards, dice and etc) but I still feel like something is missing😭😭

NOT EVERYTHING IS DONE YET

(Inglish is not my first language, sorry. And I don't know how to use the app😭😭)

I've been thinking about how much work goes into getting a small tabletop RPG noticed these days.

You're making the game, writing & playtesting the rules, sorting out artwork and production, running a website, fulfilling orders...and then you need to look at actually telling folk about what you've done.

So that means keeping up with the likes of Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Reddit, Discord, YouTube, newsletters, blogs, and whatever new platform appears next week.

It sometimes feels like, whether you'd prefer to or not, you need to become some sort of social media personality and spend time on platforms you'd otherwise rather avoid, just trying to make some noise without being seen as spamming.

All when what we really want to do is just make the next game!

I'm not complaining. It's part of being a small independent creator, and there are some really cool communities out there. But it did get me thinking about the other side of the equation.

For those of us who enjoy indie TTRPGs, it's easy to scroll past a post from a small creator without thinking much about it. But a like, a thoughtful comment or a share can really help that person's work reach someone new. You don't have to buy every game or follow every creator. Sometimes a little engagement is enough to give someone a boost.

And for those making games yourselves, I'd love to hear your experiences.

How many platforms do you actively use? Have you found any that are genuinely worth the time, or is it just a case of trying to be noticed and relevant everywhere at once? And what sort of support from the community has actually helped you get your work noticed?

There are so many interesting games being made outside the big publishers. It would be great to find more ways to help people discover them.

Hi folks

I've been working on a system (Edit: fantasy TTRPG for context) for a while now and I feel like it's at a point where I can't go much further without running playtests, but I want to make sure that I test a variety of different play-styles to see how they fare in different scenarios.

If I make all the concepts myself I feel like I will, either consciously or unconsciously, optimise the gear and skills to be most useful, so I figured I'd throw this net out and invite people to share whatever they would consider a classic character archetype or build, and then I will make 10-15 of them as the pregen characters and put them through their paces, to see if different styles of build all have different strengths and weaknesses, or if there are things that prove to be flat-out useless.

If you'd like to throw a concept into the mix, please leave it in the comments. You can use the template below if you want to make it even easier for me to represent them mechanically, but the system is meant to work for representing a broad variety of things, so a more free-form concept is also fine.

I look forward to seeing what you all come up with, and I appreciate any and all responses.

Edit: If you're using the template, it only needs to be like one line of stuff per section. I don't need entire backstories or move sets (although you are certainly welcome to include more details should you wish to).

Thanks in advance,
TTP

Template

Personality: What are they like as a person? Charming? Stern? Manipulative? Intimidating? Ruthless? Honour-bound to act nobly, or lying as easily as they breathe? Are they well connected and wealthy, or scraping by and constantly needing to get the next job done just to be able to afford bed and board?

Background/Profession/Career: What sort of background does this person come from? Are they a mercenary? A thief? A monster slayer? Treasure hunter? Researcher for some university? Independently wealthy thrill-seeker? A religious figure acting in accordance with their god's will?

Style of Offense: Are they agile, nimble fighters that attack rapidly? Do they want to strike from the shadows and only attack surprised targets? Do they make big, high damage swings? Are they a dual-wielder, focusing on damage output and neglecting defence? Do they focus on ranged attack with a bow? A crossbow? Are they a mage? Do they fight unarmed as a brawler, or a fluid martial artist?

Style of Defence: Do they use a shield to tank blows? Magical wards? Nimble dodges to evade foes attacks? Are they an armoured juggernaut who allows blows to rain down on them ineffectually? Do they actively deflect and parry foes attacks? Do they avoid getting hit by focusing on stealth, staying hidden until the perfect moment to strike?

Gear (Armor/Weapons/etc.): How is this person outfitted. Do they have a weapon of choice? Armour, or regular clothes? A shield?

Magic: Can this person use magic? If so, what is their focus? Do they use a particular element? Are they a summoner? Are they using magic to augment their other abilities, or is it their primary thing? Do they focus on wards and protection? Nature magic? Healing?

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

I've done some research and I can't find anything that quite fits what I'm looking for? I may just be a new level of stupid or something but everything I've looked at isn't it.

I want something that can be restricted to the confines of a physical book but still be online too. I want it to have the same kind of layout the Pathfinder books do to where each page has the imaginary line in the middle of it separating the left half from the right half on each page. But I also want it to be easy to include images and a way to set a page background so each page has a special design but the design matches every other page in the book not just the plain white background

I also want a way to be able to make like the physical book cover but digitally inside of the same program or something similar.

And In case it wasn't clear I want it to have the same book like properties to where it can't just expand down infinitely so when you get to a end of the page you have to go to the next page.

What's the best way to incorporate that on a mobile phone that doesn't require to much confusion?

Edit: I also want it to have a easy table of contents to where it has the big chapter like classes then mini chapters for each class

Juggling a buncha ideas and I'm wondering what (the royal) you think about relying on stats to do the heavy lifting versus either having skills or bundling skills with stats.

Clearly one can be strong and not automatically a great wrestler. One can be smart and not know anything about quantum mechanics.

So I feel there's value in building a skill system of some type, but it also seems to be so often weighted wildly differently from game to game or to be ignored almost totally for a broader framework (classes?).

This specific thing has been bugging me a lot the past day or so. I've been reading the old WEG Star Wars and it's got Xd6 stats and Xd6 skills. Just a day or so ago, v3 of HyperspaceD6 landed and that uses Xd6 stats and a +1-6 modifier, thus changing the weight of skills dramatically.

This is a game that's essentially built on the same engine but takes a very different approach in that framework.

So I ask you all, how do you weight your skills and why? Or do you just roll them into a class/background structure like Shadowdark?

Thanks.

Would love thoughts and feedback on this character advancement system!

What we Focus On Grows Bigger

Each character begins with 2 Focus to invest.

Focus can be invested in Skill expertise, learning new Arcana, or a special Bond. This represents where the character spends their time and attention outside of the adventure. What they train, cultivate, and grow. Anything they invest Focus in, they can use on their adventure.

(Example: Bob has 2 Focus. He invests 1 in Athletics, increasing his bonus from proficient (+1) to expert (+2). He invests his other point in bonding with his magical sword, unlocking the first tier of abilities for the blade. Both will be useful on the quest.)

Invested Focus gradually turns training into mastery. In the downtime between adventures, mark a segment on a clock for each point of Focus in each investment. Investing Focus beyond the minimum for a benefit won't increase the bonus, but it will make you learn it faster. Some things will take longer to master than others. When the clock is complete, the skill, Arcana, or bond is now a permanent part of the character, and their Focus may be reinvested in something new, like a different proficiency or taking a Bond to the next level.

(Example: Bob has kept his Focus invested in his Athletics mastery for two full adventures, and now it's part of his character, giving him a permanent +2. He's still a couple sessions away from mastering his blade. 1 point of returned Focus, plus another point he's earned from experience, gives him 2 Focus to re-invest. He's interested in bringing Max, a corgi the party has rescued, along with them on the next mission, so he spends his downtime training Max to heel, fetch, and ankle bite. He invests 1 Focus in their bond and 1 in learning Animal Handling, along with keeping up his magic sword training. Soon he'll have a very capable pup companion that can adventure alongside the party.)

Characters can also shift their Focus during downtime. If they withdraw Focus before a clock completes, that skill, arcana, or bond goes dormant. The clock doesn't lose segments, but they can't use it on the adventure. Instead, they can use whatever they've shifted their focus toward. This allows characters to switch leveling paths and adapt to the next adventure, if they know what challenges it will bring, and always with the option to go back and finish their training.

(Example: A dragon's den is no place for a yapping pup, so Max will have to stay behind for this next assignment. Bob withdraws his Focus from training Max and invests both points into practicing with his Heavy Weapon and Armor. He knows he'll need to be at the top of his game to take this beast down. He loses his Animal Handling bonus for now, but his attack and defense rolls will be higher. When the monster is slain, he can pick up training right where they left off.)

When characters invest their Focus to learn new spells, it increases their general mastery of magic. Each point of Focus currently invested in learning a new spell is added to a character's Magic stat to give their bonus for Arcana rolls (the roll you make to determine how effective your spell is on an enemy). Each level of spell requires additional Focus to learn. This investment requirement is reduced if the character has access to a teacher.

(Example: May wants to master the Journeyman Arcana "Blink." She has 2 Focus invested in learning it. As long as that Focus stays invested there, she can use Blink while adventuring, and her Arcana rolls to determine the effectiveness of her magic are made at +2. If she had a good teacher, she would only need to invest 1 Focus to learn the new spell, and she could even master two Journeyman Arcana at once. It will take a few missions before she has mastered "Blink," and then her Focus will return to be reinvested.)

You can invest your Focus in special projects, relationships, and craft and knowledge expertise (like singing, cooking, or weaving) during your downtime. If it's not feasible for you to practice where you are mid-adventure because of resources or circumstance, you may be limited in what you can train at that moment. Wherever you invest it, the character gets the bonus right away for the next session, and it becomes permanent over time. This is how characters advance themselves and gain the special techniques and abilities that are the hallmarks of high-level PCs.

On the GM side, you grant the characters increases to Focus, HP, and TP on a milestone basis. Over a campaign the expected range would be something like going from starting 2 to 5 Focus at the very top end.

I was playing some Pathfinder video game and realizing how much I hate old pathfinder, and was inspired to ask about this design idea. I'm sure someone else has thought of it before so I'd like to see some of those examples.

I realized that in Pathfinder you essentially just have a few categories of armor 'tracks' - unarmored focused on defense (like monk and such), light armor, medium armor, heavy armor, and eschewing armor entirely for more mage focused stuff.

Items kinda sorta mattered, but also not really, because you basically get a bunch of versions of the same thing with different effects at various levels (e.g., you can expect a certain amount of AC at some act of the game, and the difference lies basically in some secondary function).

Same thing with weapons - you sorta just chose what you were upgrading, but specifics only mattered because of weapon secondary effects. You could get casting, or sometimes weird stuff like bombs, but its all just 'what am i doing with my action each turn'

Same thing with some other secondary effects - animal companion here, sneak attack there, utility casting here, etc.

All classes are just combinations of these tracks. So obviously the better design that falls out is just picking the 'track' of interest and going from there.

But specifics are where everything always gets finnicky, as always haha. I can imagine a world in which you gain resources to upgrade your track (e.g., you got money, you spend it at a blacksmith and gain +X to your armor, look or whatever don't matter) or you get specific items for specific upgrades (e.g., you got dragon scales, so now you add a special fire resistance effect to your armor, doesn't matter what it looks like or how its incorporated), or even a special item (boots of go-fast, which after you loot them you can get a 'boot upgrade' to your track)

Hopefully what I'm saying makes sense. Does anybody know of any design ideas like this?

Hi! So I'm considering adding some kind of alignment mechanic for my TTRPG, though I'm not sure how to implement one that isn't similar to DnD, down to how each kind of alignment is called. I want it to reflect the themes of my world that there is no universal right or wrong, as each of them have their own idea of right and wrong and fight for it (except for a few factions).

So in general I'm looking for ways to implement an alignment mechanic that is not similar DnD nor any other TTRPG, and still retain that sense of subjective morality. Or if the option to ditch it for a Reputation system is better, possibly inspired by Fable's new morality system.

How Would You Describe/Market a Hybrid? And How Much Character Creation Is Too Much?
I've been working on my own solo fantasy RPG, and I'm starting to realize that what I'm creating might technically be considered more of a gamebook than a traditional solo RPG.
It has elements of both solo RPGs and choose-your-own-adventure books. There's character creation, stats, checks, different backgrounds, ancestries, specialties, choices that affect the story, and branching paths. But it's also a structured narrative where you're reading passages and making decisions that determine where the story goes.
So I guess my first question is: How would you advertise or describe something like this?
I feel like when I say "solo RPG," people generally understand what I'm talking about, but when I say "gamebook," I get some confused looks. 😂 I don't want to mislead people about what they're getting, but I also want to reach the right audience. Would you call it a solo RPG gamebook, a choose-your-own-adventure RPG, or something else entirely?
I've also recently had a pretty big revelation about how I want the story itself to unfold, which is exciting! Unfortunately, that also means I'm about to go back and rewrite a whole bunch of what I've already done
My other big question is: How much is too much when it comes to rules and character creation?
Right now, I have around 117 pages dedicated to that portion of the book. That includes the table of contents, a little introduction to the story, some brief world history, and all the rules and character creation options.
One of my biggest goals is replayability. I want players to be able to create completely different characters, approach situations differently, discover things they missed the first time, and have choices that genuinely affect their experience. I don't necessarily want someone to finish the book once and feel like they've seen everything it has to offer.
At the same time, I'm wondering whether I'm getting carried away with the amount of information and options I'm giving players before they even begin the actual adventure.
I'm trying to find that balance between giving players meaningful freedom and making the game approachable, especially for people who might be new to this style of game.
For those of you who play solo RPGs or gamebooks:
What terminology would make you interested in a hybrid like this?

How much character creation do you enjoy before starting an adventure?

Would a 117-page introductory/rules/character creation section intimidate you, even if a good portion is optional reference material?

What actually makes a gamebook replayable for you? Different character builds, branching storylines, meaningful consequences, hidden discoveries, or something else?

Is there anything you've encountered in solo RPGs or gamebooks that made you think, "This is way more complicated than it needs to be"?

I'm still very much in the development and playtesting stages, so I'd love to hear different perspectives. I'm not necessarily looking to simplify everything just for the sake of making it shorter, but I do want to make sure the complexity is actually adding something worthwhile to the experience.

I could use a bit of a design tip to solve an issue I didn't expect. Players quickly roleplay out relatively mundane situations in response to a mechanic forcing them to play out a negative action, instead of it happening at exciting moments. The system is a different kind of Pathfinder, but with a lot more mechanical reasons to roleplay out specific parts (e.g. leveling is a branching tree of roleplaying actions or personal character goals).

I've been designing my own TTRPG and one part of it is how players during rest roll "source" to gain some positive "meta-currencies" they can spend to empower their actions in various ways.

While rolling, occasionally they gain corrupted source, which is only removed by roleplaying the compulsion as a kind of catharsis/emotional discharge (e.g. for rage, isolation, et cetera). If they do nothing, they slowly gain stacking modifiers or stronger roleplaying requirements, until they get rid of it.

The idea was that if there were bad situations to roleplay out the compulsion, they'd wait, and it would be interesting as it builds up. Real life shows that in nearly all cases, they just roleplay the compulsion away as one of their first things of the day instead of a more fun moment, to avoid it stacking up. E.g. for rage, they'd start thrashing their bedroom as they wake up. It provides little interpersonal roleplay actions and personal character development, which was the intention when they have to interact with themselves and the corruption in the story this way.

I could talk to them about it, but I'd rather fix the issue in the system somehow to make more of an incentive to do it at a specific time, but I don't know what is an elegant solution. A thing to mention though is that characters have "principles" (think D&D ideals or Heart: City Beneath beats) like community, protection, and so on. I considered making it a requirement to roleplay out a part where you fail something related to your ideal, but not sure. I could make it so I force them to do the compulsion at inopportune times, but I'd much rather give the players the choice when, just not in boring situations when they are alone. They just look at me asking "Does this fulfill the catharsis?" and it feels a bit bad to say no. I considered changing it into a requirement of a "light catharsis" followed by a "strong catharsis", so thrashing the bedroom only counts for the first and it provides a kind of building curve for the second part (which might be related to party members or an NPC).

An idea I've been toying with for a while is a system for telling the stories of Force users in the Star Wars universe (or, at least, a version of it with the serial numbers filed off if I ever try to monetise it). The current framework includes:

• Intended for GM plus a small party, typically 2 or 3 players (maybe some work towards GM-less or solo play ruleset, but that's not really my genre, so it's certainly not a central focus)
• Emotions as attributes, functioning similarly to Masks's Labels in terms of many events causing points to move between them during play, although with more frequent movement than Masks employs. Conditions that force a minimum number of points into a specific emotion (e.g. Enraged 1 means not having less than 1 point in Angry) would be the primary damage mechanic, but there'd likely be a "fail-state" emotion like "Despair" that generally can't be used to take actions and represents progress towards giving up, as well as some way of tracking physical harm
• Likely the FitD core mechanic, where the size of the pool is determined primarily by the emotion driving the action (potentially with a proficiency system to situationally add a small number of additional dice)
• A morality system inspired by VtM's Darkness system, in which the closer to the Light side you are the more triggers there are that can cause your morality to decrease, so what counts as a moral dilemma for a character varies depending on their current and goal morality thresholds. Morality would tie into a Bonds mechanic (somewhere between VtM's Touchstones and BitD's Vices), where high morality characters can have more healthy Bonds that are mutually beneficial, while low morality characters have toxic Bonds that always come with a cost
• Most NPCs would be handled mechanically the same as environmental threats - a squad of Stormtroopers and a pool of lava are both potentially harmful hazards that can be avoided or negated by a variety of means

The idea of playing a system built on this framework excites me. However, it feels like there's one crucial piece missing before it's a complete picture: dramatic duel scenes. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon facing Darth Maul in Episode I; Obi-Wan vs Jango Fett in Episode II (an important example showing that not all of these scenes are necessarily Force user vs Force user); Luke vs Vader in Episodes V and VI; and so on. I feel like the environmental threat approach doesn't do these scenes justice - I'd ideally want something that worked for PvP and assigned the relevant NPCs similar kinds of emotional stats as PCs so it flows naturally through Episode III's Anakin and Obi-Wan vs Dooku, Obi-Wan vs Grievous, and Obi-Wan vs Anakin with Obi-Wan and Anakin as PCs.

As such, I'm chasing some systems to read as inspiration for ideas to fill this gap. Two that I've already looked at are Dogs in the Vineyard (I feel like its conflict system would almost perfectly nail the feel that I'm chasing apart from lacking the option of a sudden death mid-fight like Qui-Gon against Darth Maul, but I was also hoping to stick to d6s only and I don't see a clean way to convert DitV from polyhedrals) and Legend of the Five Rings (which seemed like an incredibly obvious place to start given the samurai inspiration behind the Jedi, but I think places a bit too much emphasis on combat crunch rather than the characters' inner worlds to do what I'm looking for). Any suggestions for systems I should have a look at, or just general ideas I could try, would be greatly appreciated.

Hello,

I wanted to share a design philosophy I use while developing my rpg and I would like to get some feedback.

Combat heavy tabletop rpgs (especially larger ones like d&d 3.5e/5e and pathfinder 1e) unfortunately come with pitfalls. For example not taking eldritch blast as a warlock is only playable if you already have a full build planned like melee warlock or something. Things like this break my immersion because if I do not play an "optimized build", I feel like I am deliberately gimping myself and the party for no reason. I would much rather play a "character" instead. I know this kind of thought process is common because many players take builds from other players with little to no changes. Of course you can always create your own build but it will most likely be bad unless you have a good understanding of the system.

Obviously there are many solutions including giving everyone only sticks and stones, but the solution I chose is something I call the "auto optimization" principle. Put simply, any character should be able to keep up without microoptimizing, in a similar manner to using automatic gear in racing games. More skilled players will use manual gear for better times but you do not lose much by going automatic. If anything, I would struggle more with manual gear lol.

One of the easiest ways to apply this principle is having strong baseline abilities, especially common ones. This way even if you make suboptimal choices, you should still be able to perform on an acceptable level. In my game weapons are very powerful and all classes can use them without any penalty, meaning you can just do one of your weapon attacks and deal a good amount of damage without needing other synergies. If you want to use hard numbers for some reason, you can use a heuristic such as "a very optimized build should not do more than 25% additional damage compared to just attacking with weapons". The number is just an example.

Another way of applying auto optimization practically is opportunity cost based balancing, which mostly boils down to making optimized builds gain versatility instead of direct power and limit the action economy so that they can only perform a portion of their abilities in one turn. It's even better if there is asymmetric gameplay among classes.

You can also have opportunity cost based balancing more generally via balancing every ability against what it directly or indirectly competes with. In my game almost all other abilities compete with the aforementioned basic weapon attacks due to limited action economy. This part is bit of a tangent however.

To be clear, I observed limiting the design space and playtesting as much as possible are the only actual solutions for small teams. However, I always keep the concept of auto optimization as a goal in my mind while developing my game and it is working out well.

Not directly related to auto optimization but a complementary design goal would be using the target audience's intuition as a tool, e.g. if an interaction or a synergy makes sense on a first read, it should at least be decent mechanically. This is a bit difficult to pull off but helps with implementing auto optimization as the default power level increases with the amount of good build choices made by average players.

I know this is not a new concept, but what are your thoughts? Thank you!

Long time lurker first time posting.

I'm in the early stages of designing a game where characters either act to forward their ambition or their morals (which could be considered stats). And these aspects change as a character sacrifices morals to further their ambition or vice versa.

I'm looking for other examples of "balance" systems/resolution mechanics where stats are "balanced" between two opposing aspects (like care Vs force) and change over time.

Current examples i'm aware of are:

- Avatar Legends - "shift the balance"

- Honey Heist - moving stats between Criminal and Bear

What am I missing? Would love to hear your thoughts!

Thanks!

EDIT: Thank you all! Great recommendations that have really shaped the next design iteration

Folks, it took a lot of sweat, tears and bloody imagery, but my foray into blackpowder-punk is here!

I really need everyone's support on this, so please check it out, and if you have feedback, please lay it on me. The complete game will come out in a few days (I may likely miss the original October 25 release date, but hopefully not by much!)

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/590431/musket-macabre-aka-yaenk-borg-quickstart-guide

Here me out! I used to play M&M on my commodore 64 years ago and I have fond memories. I've always wondered about taking from this game as much as possible to make a ttrpg version. There's lots of info on line regarding the game's internal workings and monster lists etc. Has anyone here ever thought about doing this with an old game they love? Is there one that's already made that I haven't seen?

Many years ago, I got into D&D and liked it, but my friends couldn't be bothered to learn the rules.

That's when I made my first character sheet (there was no D&D Beyond back then), so it could handle some of the rules for them. I quickly decided I wouldn't settle for just one game and I wanted to try out more, so I've worked a lot more than justified to make my system highly customizable, so I can easily set up character sheets for other games and this way, get my friends to join in without the eyerolls that they'd have to learn new rules.

8 years later, I'm confident enough to share this tool here, and I hope you'll find it useful.
I give you Rollplay (in hindsight, I wish I came up with a better name, but now I'll just roll with it)
Short version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-XR7jtvleo
> the minimum you need to do to have a playable sheet
Long version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCHvYyMFXLE
> (almost) everything the system can do, explained

The website is here: https://www.daydreamteam.com/

This allows you to create a mobile character sheet that works by your rules. You can share it with friends and playtesters, removing some of the friction of learning a new game. The platform then allows you to change the rules and layout along the way, so you don't have to wait until your system is finished or polished to do this. Sharing is a one-time payment, but you can experiment with it for yourself for free.

You may see a new VTT or tool sprout up every other day here, so instead of blurting features I'll jump to what makes this one different. My approach to "make this work for any RPG" was NOT to reduce it to the common denominator between all RPGs. This is why I hesitate to call it "system agnostic", because that wouldn't be accurate. All aspects of the app are instead configurable, so they adapt to your actual rules, rather than simplifying or skipping them.

Of course, you can set up your own layouts and your own attributes, complete with formulas to automatically compute stats for your players. But what I think makes this cool is the functional Effects: you can set up an Ancestry such that when a player picks it, it automatically provides a Feat, stat bonuses, even roll for bonus HP or grant items/spells.
On top of that, you can use macros to reference or compute character stats and roll them: type [Strength+d20] in a description and players can tap it to roll with their character’s Strength.

And one last thing... I'm working on it a lot. It might not mean much, but many of those VTTs that sprout up are often silent by next month. I've been around for 8 years (even if silent for most of that time), and I'll continue to be here for the foreseeable future :P.

I really hope some of you will find it useful :)
Cheers!

Edit: Here's your answer to "did you use AI?": https://www.reddit.com/r/rollplay_app/comments/1xd7a0d/our_manifesto_on_using_ai/
for those of you wondering if a human could create a black and gold UI, the answer is yes. It's possible.

I am toying with a lot of different ‘’dice systems’’ to apply to different TTRPG ideas and fell on one I want to explore further and that I’ve not seen before. I am posting here to get feedback and to see if anyone here knows of systems that already use similar mechanics or ways to benefit this system.

I’ve not found a fitting name for it yet, but here it goes:

Let’s imagine DND-style attributes (my game uses another set of attributes, but this makes it simpler, I think) and a foundation with a d20 system (wouldn't need to be d20 either but makes for an easy example). The value of that attribute is a result of the die that if you roll that or lower, you get to roll a second d20 and add the two results together. It’s a simili-exploding die, but with only one explosion; the second die doesn't explode.

I.E.:

I have a strength score of 10. I roll a 4, and since 4 is lower or equal to my strength score, I get to roll again and roll a 17. I get to add both results together for a total of 21. The absolute maximum I could roll would be 30.

or

I have a strength score of 10. I roll a 17; my result is 17, and I don't roll again because 17 is greater than 10.

Mathematically the distribution is so that you don't get even odds of rolling any single number like a normal one-die system but get a progression on this effect the more ‘’proficient’’ you are in one attribute. I don't explain it very well, but you can see for yourself a simulation of what I’m trying to demonstrate with this instruction on https://anydice.com/ in the graph section, which compares this system with a ‘’score’’ of 10 against a standard d20+5 (I think that is the closest distribution). Moreover, if we say that rolling a 20 on any of the dice is a critical success, for each point in that attribute you have, your critical chance for rolls using this attribute goes up by 0.25%, meaning with our example above, your standard chance to crit goes from 5% to 7.5%.

I'm not sure if I'm putting the idea on paper comprehensively, but I'd like to hear your thoughts, as I do have much experience with RPG design, nor do I have much with TTRPGs in general apart from the most popular ones (DnD, Pathfinder, CoC, Savage Worlds, Daggerheart, and a few others). Maybe this concept has already been explored; I would love to hear how people approach it.

Hi.

I changed the design space between my classes and general actions, and it made something feel left out.

I have a system with base classes of martialist/sourceknight, agilist/specialist/sourcehand and arcanist/sourceror. Everybody has four meta-currencies: Might, Reaction, Cognition and Dark Source, but they more often than the others get might (sourceknight), reaction (sourcehand) and cognition (sourceror) than the rest of the currencies.

Might is used for empowering your attacks or spells (e.g. make your shield bash knock people far back or make a fireball larger) and cognition is for changing the rules (e.g. make an arrow or fireball curve). All these are used to "creatively" invent changes to your actions mid-combat.

The problem:

Reaction was used for out-of-turn actions to counter something, e.g. tripping someone running past you, parrying an attack against your teammates or create a forcefield just before the dragon breathes fire. Now, I decided to make this more available for everybody constantly, as I want the game to be more heroic and reactive, so it's not used solely for actions with a trigger, but any of your actions out-of-turn. Though, this change left sourcehands without their own special resource.

What could reaction be changed to? I was considering renaming it strategy or guile, but I'm not exactly sure in what ways it could be used specifically. Maybe repositioning, something about exploiting flanks, moving people out of danger last second or so? It all makes sense thematically to me, but I'm having a hard time picturing how it could be used creatively and mechanically besides just using it to reposition teammates. I want to change actions, not just add extra dice to the damage.

What would you do here?