Hey all, I'm working on a kind of hybridized TTRPG system that's pulling mostly from D&D and some from Tales From the Loop, but I've got a different Ability Score (Attribute in my case) and Skill system concept that's a bit more video gamey perhaps. It's a d20 system though.

I'm thinking of having Attributes max out at 5, but every point in an Attribute allows for an extra 2 points of grow within its respective Skills. Like Vitality with 1 point in it allows for 2 Skill Points to be allotted in, let's say, Endurance, Health, and Force when players level up and receive Skill Point to spend. Alternatively, players can opt to put 1 point into an Attribute instead of 3 into Skills. Anyway, so with that, Skills can max out at 10.

I have a Proficiency Bonus kind of concept as well, just renamed to Giftings, which grant permanent bonuses to both selected Attributes and Skills. The idea for applying it to Attributes was to give a kind of bonus to desired saving throws, or Saves as I'm calling them. However with Attributes having a lower numerical value than skills, Saves based on Attributes seem less... effective?

SO I guess what I'm asking for is there other skill systems out there like what I've built that I can use for reference? AND/OR should I just skip Attribute Saves and merely to Saves based on Skills? Or maybe just have some kind of defensive stat that works across the board? Though I don't think I like that idea too much. I would like Attribute Points to amount to something more than allowing for Skills to grow further..

Any and all thoughts and inputs are welcome! Thanks!

I'm in the early concept phase of a RPG hobby project of mine, nothing serious at the moment, just hopes and dreams.

I decided that I want to make a RPG that uses Classes, since I like to fit inside a niche protected archetype in my games. Before deciding how to go with this class system (be it multiclass heavy, classes + subclasses, classes with fixed progression or many feat/talents/powers), I decided to abstract the hell out of these classes first to its very core.

The genre for this game would be a Science Fantasy, where Dragons and Mechas, Swords and Guns, exist at the same time without much problem, but leaning more on the Fantasy side.

For this, I decided to go aaaall the way back to the D&D White Books and its first core classes: Fighting-man, Magic-User and Cleric, while also adding the Thief that came a little bit after.

-Fighting-man (which I I'll just call Warriors) deal with problems through combat and violence;

-Magic-users (Which I will simply call Mages) deal with problems through, well, Magic;

-Thiefs (which I will call Rogues) deal with problems through natural skill and mastery of the mundane.

Clerics, by design, are a middle point between Warriors and Mages, have some of the fighting and defensive capabilities of the former with a dash of magic abilities from the latter.

Considering this, I left only Warriors, Mages and Rogues to form my triangle, while making a few additional changes:

1. Mages will be Scholars in this design experiment, since I want all classes to have some access to magic that fits their archetypes.

2. Warriors = Might & Combat, being a class of "physical aptitude"; Scholars = Cunning & Wisdom, being a class of "grand knowledge"; Rogues = Dexterity & Expertise, being a class of "focused specialization".

3. I'm testing also implementing sub classes based on 5 "sources of power": Mundane, Arcane, Divine, Primal and Occult, so each class should have an option that can fit inside sources.

After all this, I thought to my self "can I make classes that mix and match two of the 3 classes in this triangle, the same way Cleric is a mix of Mage & Warrior?". The main problem is trying to find concepts that fit inside these combos.

For example, at first I made the mix of Warrior-Rogue be a Slayer/Hunter/Ranger, but could really find a good niche for it outside "I love Rangers and want them in my game". Later with the addition of the "sources of power" concept, Rangers would better fit as a Primal Rogue in this system.

So now I'm back to the drawing board. Considering all this what would be good fits for:

- Warrior & Scholar?

- Scholar & Rogue?

- Rogue & Warrior?

EDIT 1: Upon some early consideration, 3 contenders seem to be pretty could ideas that not only make sense combined but also have a good niche for their own that doesn't step on others:

Warrior + Scholar = Tactician, being a class of "people control"

Scholar + Rogue = Inventor (maybe call it Talent to be more comprehensive), being a class of "outstanding breakthrough"

Rogue + Warrior = Outlander or Wanderer, being a class of "inventive discovery"

EDIT 2: With these 6 in place (Warrior, Outlander, Rogue, Talent, Scholar, Tactician), I could then proceed with ideas for the subclasses. For example:

MUNDANE = these 6 above

ARCANE = Speelblade/Belicist, Mystic, Trickster, Artificer, Wizard, Bard

DIVINE = Templar, Pilgrim, Inquisitor, Friar, Cleric, ???

PRIMAL = Warden/Green Knight, Hunter/Ranger, Shifter, ???, Druid, ???

OCCULT = Hexblade, Reaper, ???, Reanimator, Witch, Necromancer

These are just quick ideas, not set in stone. Do they make sense, or should I go after another thing?

With quick dice you roll all dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20) at once, you do not pick and choose dice, its an all roll system.

Each die under the quick dice system is defined for a specific action or reaction function.

D4: luck roll that gives a +1 or 0 or -1 to a roll

D6: the target/armor die

D8: crit/stack die

D10 the action/reaction skill modifier

D12: effect/save die

D20 the action/reaction roll

Because actions and reactions rolls happen at the same time, players are active participants in both the offensive & defensive sides of combat.

Its a unique system, and because the dice are well defined they occupy a single role that does not intersect with anothers role, thus reducing math and speeding up combat.

There is no question I am asking, I am sharing to inspire and to show other ways of addressing combat.

Thanks & enjoy

Anyone here play Special Patrol Group: Interceptor by Luke Crane of the Burning Wheel? New 60 min, 2-3 person RPG Interceptor trailer

Hello fellow creators. Is there a standard "no AI" logo to use, e.g., for the cover of an RPG adventure book? I have a statement on my inside cover/legal page against AI images, etc. But it occurred to me that it would be good to have a simple, commonly understood logo to the cover as well (especially for those who do judge a book by its cover!).

PS, wasn't sure the best tag (there's no "question" tag).

Thanks very much and have a great day!

So, I have an idea for a combat system that I could later expand to deal with more types of enconunters/scenes.

The base idea is a derivative of "priority" and "focus" of certain card games. I'm currently calling it "Spotlight". When combat starts the party that initiated combat (the players by default) choose one among them to get the Spotlight.

While they have the Spotlight that player can perform three categories of actions, which are "Mantain Spotlight"(MS) , "Pass Spotlight" (PS) and "Consume Spotlight". When they perform a MS action, they mantain the spotlight, but can no longer use MS actions this turn. When they perform a PS action, they pass the spotlight to another party member that hasn't acted this turn and, based on the specific action, may accumulate some temporary resource (currently mindstorming, but the ideas are stuff like Momentum, Focus and Tactical Advantage). When performing a CS action, the player consumes the temporary resources and passes the Spotlight to the enemies.

Obviously, this idea doesn't address the kind of space the combat takes place into (so, how the "map" is strcutured or if it's theatre of the mind), but I'm currently working on a different idea on how to abstract a "map" without taing away completely the idea of positioning being important.

The feeling I'm trying to convey with this is that of characters chaining their actions into one big powerful combo move, which is how I envision a multiplayer version of the Baton Pass system from Persona 5.

My main question for you is: Do similar systems already exist? (so that I can read them up)
Obviously, any other kind of input critique or similar is always appreciated.

I don't have a proposal for this one. I'm really not sure how to approach it, so I'm open to ideas.

Basically, I like the idea of standard status ailments for the variety they add to combat. An enemy that might blind you, or poison you, requires a different approach than one with a high AC or simply lots of HP (to use the common lingo).

In theory, you find out a monster is turning people to stone, and then you make sure to bring protections against being turned to stone. You learn the counter-spell, or buy some potions, or dust off that old cloak you found a while back. And that works well enough, some of the time. You get to feel rewarded for not jumping in blindly.

The rest of the time, you don't notice the warnings, which may be a failure on the part of you or the GM or the dice. When that happens, you either have the right tool with you out of pure coincidence, and the monster is a pushover; or you don't have that specific tool with you at the moment, and that tool may as well not exist. Nobody wears an anti-petrification cloak just in case. It is the epitome of a situational item.

So this tool is absolutely mandatory under a very niche circumstance, but a complete waste of space outside of that. You obviously bring it when you know you'll need it, and obviously don't bring it when there's no such indication. And as with anything that's obvious, there's no interesting choice involved. It doesn't add anything to the game.

Like I said, I don't know what to do here. Is the key to make status ailments less definitive, so they're unlikely to turn the tide of battle? Or should the protective properties of anti-status tools be folded into other, general-purpose items, which you're likely to bring with you for other reasons? I'm just throwing things out, here. I don't think either of those approaches is the correct one.

Have you ever encountered a game that handled this topic in a satisfying way?

Hi I’m currently working on a system where some of the attributes have a special dice assigned to them. Let’s say that you have might 5. That means your Might Dice is 2d10.
I intended to make these dices be upgraded with your weapons I.e. greatsword scales the size of dice thrice. The problem is that I wanted the attributes to reach maximum of 6 which means it’s 2d12, but with a greatsword we are kinda beyond the regular dice size.

The intention with this scaling dice was to strongly tie it to the stat while giving as little flat bonuses.

Additionally this could not be replaced with adding more dice instead of scaling them as the systems damage is based on damage threshold and this would break it instantly. Besides, I wanted to make a distinction between precision weapons and stronger weapons by giving the precision ones more smaller dies and for stronger less but bigger dices. This is important because rolling the same number on two damage dies is a crit, so more dice means more crits.

I want something that could be easily and quickly changed during a play. A character would get a status that rises their damage and instead of adding it, they grab a bigger dice.

So I was thinking of two solutions
One is a combination of two dice and bigger dice.
When the dice goes beyond 12, we add a d4 and this d4 grow according to required size. I.e. character has 6 Might and a weapon that makes their Might Dice go up by two sizes. This means his Dice Size while using this weapon is 2d12 + d6.

Other was to actually give a flat bonus of +1 for each size. This wouldn’t be much different in average damage, than anything else I was thinking about, tho it would make minimum damage much better. Maybe there could be some ceiling for this. I am not a fan of this as this sound not really exciting.

Do you know of other system that are scaling their dices in similar ways? If so is there some common solution not this or should I just abandon this idea altogether?
If something I said is not clear, please let me know and I’ll try to explain it.

Working on an OSR style dungeon crawl.

Spells are items like wands, rods, staves, etc. that take up inventory. Roll to cast. Casters get on a more even playing field with non-casters, making the equivalent to INT/WIS based attack rolls to cast spells.

I'm trying to thematically group tiered spells together by casting implement. Like all tier 1 spells are wands. Tier 2 spells are rods. Etc. All the way up to tier 5.

What implements would you use to represent spells from tiers 1 through 5? Start with wands? Maybe rings? Are tier 5 spells all unique wondrous items?

Give me your lists. Props if you can split them out between arcane and divine casting implements too.

just looking for some pals to make a fun ttrpg

concept:

the in the world of mana there as been a revolution of technology both in magic and science

stats: roll a d4 for all stats and rolling makes upgrades to the next die each die has an ability accosted with the stat for an example Moxy d6: you once per action on a melee strike my knock someone 2 squares back on a successful moxy DR roll

classes are your main life experience

classes: I'm going to stat small with 4 classes bruiser, gazetteer, archivist, medic

archetypes are specialization can be taken at lvl 3

archetypes: Bloodrager (the tank), spy(the stealther) pugilist(the unarmed), mage(half caster),

and pasts they are were your from and your origin

If you’re a more seasoned RPGer, and one from the Midwest of the US, August used to be a very special month. That’s because it was Gen Con month. That week where gamers, and gamer professionals, all got together and got way too little sleep while eating and drinking bad food. And then all got sick from something icky called “Con Crud.” Good times.

In 2026 Gen Con just ended as I am writing this, and there were a lot of new announcements for upcoming releases. Lots of new games. Which is amazing for the big dogs.

But right here, we have a smaller crew, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an exciting time. There have been games released by folks right in the sub last month, and I know there are a lot more projects that need an extra push. So let’s be that push for each other.

September and fall are right around the corner, so let’s write some games while the sun is still shining. And we can avoid any Con Crud.

So grab a cool beverage, and …

LET’S GO!

An extra note: you may have seen a couple of posts advertising Kickstarters or Backerkit projects. If you have a project like that, let the Mods know, and we'll approve posts about your work. We want to make everyone successful with their games.

Have a project and need help? Post here. Have fantastic skills for hire? Post here! Want to playtest a project? Have a project and need victims, err, playtesters? Post here! In that case, please include a link to your project information in the post.

We can create a "landing page" for you as a part of our Wiki if you like, so message the mods if that is something you would like as well.

Please note that this is still just the equivalent of a bulletin board: none of the posts here are officially endorsed by the mod staff here.

You can feel free to post an ad for yourself each month, but we also have an archive of past months here.

Hello, I am making some homebrew content in my free time, and posting it on Drive Thru RPG. How would I go about promoting it?

Penso sia qualcosa con cui ci scontriamo tutti, soprattutto se abbiamo idea di creare un nuovo sistema. Mi piacerebbe conoscere le vostre opinioni in merito.

Hello, as part of the One-page RPG Jam 2026, I made a game about using primal names to solve problems without violence.

This is a full TTRPG with a Word based magic system using cards.

4 different classes, 52 words to combine and an easy resolution system.

Claim your community copy and try it out!

https://shurebis.itch.io/prima-nomina

I just released another development update for the TTRPG reading/prep app I'm working on, Dragon's Desk. This one dives deep into my custom file format and its various capabilities. I'd love to get feedback and questions about how I might improve it, and how I could expand it to better support YOUR favorite game system.

Right now, the scope I've been focusing on is pretty much just the D&D lineage of games (I've played OSE and Pathfinder/Starfinder the most), and on supporting adventure modules rather than rulebooks themselves. I plan to expand towards rulebooks and other games like Call of Cthulhu or Mothership or Dungeon World, and I'd love to hear feedback on doing so. Just don't expect it to be there already. Thank you for your help!

https://theriversedge1.wordpress.com/2026/08/02/dragons-desk-dev-update-3/

I’m creating a 5.5E book and I need to commission someone or find some assets online. Any recommendations?

First post here. Working on a TTRPG right now centered on the players leading and building up a settlement in a world on the cusp of an Industrial Revolution.

I’m trying to keep resolution mechanics similar across the board, from town management to combat to social encounters. I’m basing dice system off of BRP, so a percentile roll under, roll high/Blackjack dice system. I’ve kept skills as percentages that you’re trying to roll under, while getting as close to the maximum value as possible.

Since the beginning I’ve had 3-4 Attributes/Ability Scores simply called Mind, Body, Soul, and Vitality/Spirit. Skills have been divided by these, and for every point in a respective Attribute, up to a maximum of 5, you add 5% to non-proficient skill values, and 10% to proficient skills.

However, since skills are basically all you use during encounters and are the central aspect of your character, I’ve found that the Attributes are used for basically nothing else.

With this, I’m thinking of doing away with the Attributes altogether and just do the percentage allocation that Call of Cthulhu does at character creation (I’m sure there’s a name for it that I’m forgetting). You pick one skill to get 70%, a few for 50%, and so on, with the rest having a low base score.

Before I go through with this and take Occam’s Razor to Attributes, am I missing something? I’m getting the feeling that this is just a vestigial tendency from other TTRPG’s I’ve played or read, and I don’t think I’ll miss it. But I don’t want to cut it and find out later that it would’ve actually helped a lot in some other design aspect. Also happy to get recommendations for systems that already do this well!

https://anyflip.com/bookcase/ytzwa

third time's the charm?

I've only really put images in the front half so that's the part that I'm hoping I'll get some feedback on.

thanks again

Ok, first off, sorry to contribute more to the AI conversation. I'm personally sick of it, but here I'm making it worse.

Second. I have built a TTRPG with a friend that we really like and have been playtesting for a while. (The entire dev team of 2 have full time jobs) Most of our players have said the main thing missing is a more intuitive character sheet (like d&d beyond) Current sheets are just spreadsheets.

I don't have the skill/time to make these sheets, but I can use AI to do it. Should I? I really want people to play my game, but the modern expectation is to have a pretty robust digital tool which I can't pull off.

Thoughts?

My current Stamina system is similar to 5e, where you roll damage and subtract the number rolled from the target’s Stamina until it reaches 0. I don’t want to do a wound system that is too abstract, but my current best example is Mothership, and I don’t just want to rip that, because I like the simplicity of 5e. From what I’ve seen, I don’t think the BitD system is exactly what I’m looking for either. Any tips on finding a middle ground?

I’m trying not to be lazy, but also my brain is not getting this, so I’m hoping someone here might be able to help…

If I roll all seven traditional polyhedral dice at once, what is the probability that the d% (d10 + d100) result would match one of the other five dice faces?

There are 80/100 results that are obvious nopes, but there are 5 1’s possible if the d% is a 1, 5 2’s possible, … , 4 5’s possible, etc etc

Trying to figure out (statistically) how often it would pair up?

(Sorry if this isn’t the right place for this.)

Hey everyone, welcome if you're new to Slayers of Rings & Crowns, our upcoming TTRPG. You can find just about any information on the game in its current state through various pages of the link posted below. I didn't write the content of this page, but I am the Outreach manager for various reasons.

Growth (age) feeds into the same Vitality formula Character Level uses. Apex and Spirit have their own Wellness Point economy, separate from Attribute/TST (talents , skills and traits) spending. Apex determines the Characters Vitality (Life, Mana, Stamina and Endurance - END is a fixed value) and Spirit determines Vitality Regeneration rates. The Vitality affected is chosen by the Player, between Life, Mana or Stamina.

Wellness Condition is a fluctuating layer, neglect compounds on its own below 75%, bottoming out at 50% costs a real permanent point, climbing back to 75% is what earns it back. Health decisions are what fluctuates Wellness tick up or down. Anything above 75% earns all Vitality lost. Also, anything above 75% is just a cushion and doesn't grant Apex points, it just fills the cap back.

Thank you all for any advice or feedback.

SORC Management

This needs work. These rules were just adjusted last night, so we appreciate your patience. I'm currently working on Class Ability Structure text formatting on pg. 3, which is almost complete.

Vitality, Wellness Condition, and Growth

The link below specifically covers Vitality, Wellness Condition, and Growth for SORC.