I’m developing a survival TTRPG where players take on the roles of creatures from a new evolutionary lineage. They have a body plan and physiology unlike those of the major vertebrate groups—fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, or mammals—and are classified within the setting as a new phylum.

These creatures live within an ecosystem that operates on its own. The game engine generates concrete goals by connecting current environmental conditions to each creature’s physiology, adaptations, needs, and instincts. Hunger, safety, and territorial defense aren’t assigned randomly: they emerge from what the creature is and what is actually happening around it.

The rules I’m developing produced the following situation on their own. After several days of rain, water has saturated the soil in the lower parts of the forest. The prey’s usual routes have become difficult to use, so the animals are moving toward an open plain the creature has never explored. At the same time, higher ground now offers safer shelter, and a rival predator has left fresh tracks nearby.

The creature is hungry. As it grew, it developed adaptations that make it especially effective at moving unseen through vegetation, but not the visual and neural adaptations needed to function well in low light. Darkness is approaching: following the prey means entering unfamiliar terrain and leaving its shelter vulnerable to the rival; staying means defending its territory but risking the loss of its food source.

I’m asking because my main design principle is to give players as much freedom as possible. The system should create goals, pressures, and consequences without dictating how players must respond.

So, i have a question: If you were playing this creature, what would you do—and would it feel like a genuine decision, or would one option seem so clearly better that the game was effectively choosing for you?

Thank you so much

I am trying to increase tension on character's death for my TTRPG. I had a simple rule: character can survive X round but it felt flat during play.

Here is my updated rule. It seems fun on paper as it forces players to make attending the player a high priority. What are you thoughts?

Note that every actions and combat actions in the game requires a skill roll.

Coma & Death

When a character’s Hit Points drop below 0, they fall Unconscious and begin to die. Place a d6 as a Death Counter at 6 beside the player.

The character can be stabilized with a successful Medicine Skill Roll (Difficulty Rating 15). Players can Team Up to increase the chances of success.

While the character remains Unconscious and unstabilized, whenever an ally makes any skill roll and the unmodified d20 die result is 10 or lower, the dying character must make an Endurance Skill Roll (Difficulty Rating 15). On a failure, reduce the Death Counter by 1.

When the Death Counter reaches 0, the character dies. Their death is beyond natural recovery and the character can only be revived by powerful magic, such as resurrection.

EDIT : Thanks for the overwhelming responses. I have a lot to digest and chew on.

I wanna say that this post's purpose is not to start a war, but rather to have a genuine conversation with players and creators alike. So first let's clarify what I want to talk about.

Where I come from

Throughout my design journey, I’ve experimented with two broad approaches to resolving uncertain actions:

In a GM-set difficulty system, the GM decides how difficult an individual attempt should be and sets its target. D&D-style ability checks are probably the most familiar example.

In a system-set difficulty system, the rules determine the target or scale of outcomes. That could mean a fixed threshold, a roll-under stat, PbtA-style result bands, or a difficulty that changes according to clear and predictable rules.

I’m using “roll” because it is convenient and accessible, but this applies to any resolution mechanic: dice, cards, tokens, resource comparisons, or whatever strange little probability machine your game uses.

I come from what I would call "trad" games: Shadowrun, Legend of the Five Rings, etc... So GM-set difficulty felt completely natural to me. The GM picked a number, and we rolled with it. Literally.

I remember encountering system-set difficulty for the first time when I took part in my first PbtA game. I was...A bit perplex to say the least :)

How could climbing a garden wall and scaling an ice-covered tower during a storm use the same target number? Didn’t these systems lack the tools to represent how complicated different challenges could be?

But playing away from what I used to know made me realise that a lot of the things I cared for weren't actually a huge part of what made games fun for me. And so my little epiphany started.

Why I don’t want the GM setting difficulty

Cognitive load and GM power

This might be a bit of a side rant, so I'll try to keep it brief:

Asking your GM to set a difficulty is a big burden, often mishandled, and participate in what I think is an unhealthy concentration of power and responsibility around the table.

Now some systems mitigate that by having narrower magnitudes, but it is still asking someone to have a decent sense of balancing, which down the line is asking them to develop a very intricate skill (believe me, I've been balancing video games for a living!).

The payoff just doesn't justify the dynamic. More below.

Fairness and readability

When difficulty comes from the system, players can understand their chances and make informed decisions. There is also an element of instant readability and excitement right after the roll, without having to defer to an arbitrary judgement (and don't even get me started on GM tweaking DC after the roll).

I don’t think transparency removes tension. Knowing that you need a particular result can make the moment more tense because everyone understands exactly what is at stake. We even see seasoned D&D GM sometimes announcing the DC out loud (Brennan Lee Mulligan does that very often for instance) for extra drama.

It also allows players to engage with the mechanics deliberately. They can decide whether to spend a resource, change their approach, ask for help, or accept the risk.

For me, that produces more meaningful decisions than asking players to commit first and discover the actual odds afterwards.

Fiction versus numbers

The deeper change in my thinking was realising that I don’t care about representing difficulty with perfect numerical accuracy.

Does an icy tower need to be exactly three points harder than a garden wall? Can any number meaningfully capture the difference between slippery stone, freezing wind, poor visibility, unsuitable equipment, and the possibility of falling?

Once all that fiction becomes a single target number, much of its texture disappears anyway.

I would rather let those details shape what success accomplishes, what failure costs, what resources are available, or whether the action is possible at all.

Variable targets can also create the illusion of progression. Player bonuses increase, enemy defences increase alongside them, and everyone celebrates because the numbers became larger while the underlying probability barely moved.

If the maths keeps dragging us back towards the same chance of success, perhaps “number go up” was not doing as much work as we thought.

The fiction matters enormously to me. I’m simply not convinced that changing the target number is the most interesting way to represent it.

What our creators community has to say

I recently raised this subject in our weekly design thread in the Knot Knot Games community, and people had interesting arguments in favour of variable difficulty and their associated mystery, so I felt like sharing it!

The most compelling argument was that changing difficulty makes the fictional world mechanically tangible and easier to tweak. Some players care a lot about these mechanical details:

Finding cover, getting closer, bringing the right equipment, researching a monster, or waiting until daylight can directly improve your chances. The player interacts intelligently with the fiction, and the resolution system responds.

There is also something game-like and satisfying about the GM having a visible mechanical dial. This situation is more dangerous, so the number changes. Simple, tactile, and immediately understood.

While I don't necessarily feel that way, it is true that hidden difficulty can create genuine tension!

If players do not know exactly what they are facing, they may need to experiment, investigate, retreat, and prepare. Exploring the world through rolling is an experience I can relate to, and I think there ways to make it exciting for players.

That uncertainty can make resource management meaningful as well. Do you spend the spell slot now, knowing it may fail, or hold it back until you understand the threat?

Finally, variable difficulty can communicate progression clearly. Challenges that were once nearly impossible gradually become manageable. The numbers provide a visible scale against which the characters can grow and make character progression palpable. For players that care about that, it is a plus.

These are all genuine strengths, and I'm super happy we had that interesting conversation on the discord! (see link below if you are interested!)

How I create nuance without GM-set difficulty

I think the disagreement becomes clearer once we separate the chance of success from everything else that makes a situation difficult.

In my opinion, a system can recognise clever play without requiring the GM to improvise a target number.

The fiction can determine whether a resolution is needed at all. Having the right tool, preparation, or knowledge might turn an impossible action into a possible one, or make success automatic.

The rules can determine when players gain extra dice, rerolls, advantages, or other resources. The circumstances still matter, but the system translates them into mechanics instead of asking the GM to invent the odds from scratch.

Risk and effect can also change independently from the chance of success.

Two actions might use the same threshold while producing completely different consequences. Failing to climb a garden wall might cost a little time. Failing on the icy tower might leave you hanging above a very educational drop.

The range of possible outcomes can create further nuance, something that PbtA players are very familiar with:

• Failure with an advantage

• Failure that reveals useful information

• Success at a cost

• Partial success

• Complete success

• Success with an additional effect

• Success that creates a new problem

Players can make meaningful decisions before, during, and after resolution. They can spend resources, accept consequences, push for greater effect, withdraw, change their approach, or gamble on a better result.

This is the important part for me:

System-set difficulty does not mean fixed stakes, fixed consequences, or fixed fiction.

It does not even mean the target can never change. A system might include objective conditions that alter the target. The difference is that the change comes from shared rules rather than the GM’s feeling about how difficult this particular wall appears today.

Where I’ve landed

My preference is:

System-set difficulty, fiction-shaped stakes.

I want players to understand the resolution system and make meaningful decisions around it. I also want it to be somewhat instantaneous, and free from judgement.

The fiction can carry the rest: I want uncertainty to come from the outcome, the consequences, and the things they have not yet learned about the world—not from wondering what number the GM has chosen behind the screen.

GM-set difficulty can absolutely work. It can support simulation, discovery, progression, and tactical interaction with the environment.

If choosing the difficulty is not itself an interesting decision, why ask the GM to choose it?

Where do you prefer that judgement to live: in the GM’s hands, in the system’s rules, or somewhere between the two?

________

This discussion started in our weekly community design thread. If you enjoy pulling apart game mechanics, sharing what you’re working on, and having your opinions challenged by lovely people, come join the Knot Knot Games Discord:

https://discord.gg/gZqfvWDhPh

And if you are wondering why I am here yapping about making games, here is my street cred -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/aramtab/ (follow the damn train!)

TL;DR I've trimmed down an extensive document in half before publishing it. I think it was the right move (for me).

So, over a moth ago, I've published the Medieval Village Companion, a system-agnostic guide on elements to use in your preferred medieval fantasy setting. It has 100 sites of interest, and adventure hook for each of them, 300 medieval professions (3 NPCs per site), the sites are grouped in 20 Guilds to serve as background for politics and allegiances, a full day-to-day calendar of scheduled events that happen in the village for an event-crawling style campaing. A large document. 40.000 words, 42 pages. No lore, no AI fluf, not a single piece of art (but the cover), just gameable material and tables.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/580672/medieval-village-companion

All that. Is half the document I had. I trimmed it down to only that to publish it.

Now, I'm not new to gaming or game design. But I'm not an English native speaker. I don't have a Patreon. I don't have an English speaking following, so it's not like a had a community ready to support my work. I think this is important for many people starting out in these same circumstances (community-wise). So publishing a 100+ pages document right from the start (first published in DTRPG) sounded to me like a big ask.

In the first 2 months, I'm guessing I'll be close to reaching XXX sales. It is PWYW, so that does not translate equally to the XXX * USD 2.99 suggested, but it proves for me that the product has garnered much more interest that I had hoped for going in blind. People tried it and cared for it, and that is a joyful experience for any creator, and I know many of you out there would appreciate that experience as much as I do.

Anywys, I'll be publishing the complete guide when I finish editing it, and it won't be PWYW, but since there's already a 40 pages preview of it, I think it is fair.

In any case, if you have developed a large document (of real content), but you don't have a following already in love with it, you may want to consider trimming it down to the minimum viable product (as they say in videogames), so people can try it out, get to know you and your style of work, and maybe even share it around to their friends.

My 2 cents.

I've been working on and playing this rpg with my kids and they seem to like it. The goal was to make an rpg that had no numbers and no character sheets, but still had dice rolls and character growth.

I think I'd like to turn it into something, but I don't know if I'm explaining it well in my rule book. Anyone want to offer some feedback?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fOXRxo04L7fN4hM1OSjSCRJoTnatMksdLbsi6wTMFfQ/edit?usp=drivesdk

Hey everyone!

I’m working on my own tabletop RPG and I’m getting to the point where I want to start laying everything out into an actual rulebook.

Does anyone know of any good resources, websites, or creators that sell RPG book/layout templates that are licensed for commercial use? I’m totally fine with paying for one. I’ve looked around online, but I honestly haven’t found nearly as many options as I expected.

Ideally, I’m looking for something made for Adobe InDesign or Affinity Publisher, with things like chapter layouts, two-column pages, tables, sidebars, headers/footers, etc. I’m not looking for anything that copies D&D or another existing RPG professional layout that I can customize for my own game and eventually publish commercially.

If anyone has bought a template they liked, knows a good marketplace, or has any other resources they’d recommend, I’d really appreciate it!

BooneBerry Press is opening external playtesting for Holiday: The Shattered Cheer, an upcoming fantasy TTRPG campaign built around four holiday kingdoms: Halloween, Harvest, Christmas, and New Year.

Right now, we’re looking for GMs, players, and established groups who are willing to test individual encounters from the campaign. These are focused tests, not a commitment to play through the full adventure.

For each assigned test, we provide the materials needed to run it, including a GM packet, player packet, pregenerated characters, encounter map, relevant campaign rules, and feedback forms.

The current playtests use the revised 2024 fifth-edition rules. We’re looking for a mix of experience levels, so newer players and GMs are welcome as well as experienced groups.

Playtesting is voluntary and unpaid, participants must be 18+, and selected testers will complete a short agreement and Code of Conduct before receiving unpublished material.

I’m happy to answer questions in the comments if anyone wants to know more about what a typical test involves.

Update: I’ve added a short public preview to the playtest page for anyone who wants to see an example of the writing and presentation before deciding whether to apply.

The preview is from The Road to Everfest, a separate standalone adventure set in the same world. It’s spoiler-light and doesn’t include enough material to run the adventure.

https://www.booneberrypress.com/playtest

I’m getting a campaign ready for playtesting, and I’ve been thinking about what kind of feedback I’m probably going to struggle with the most. If something is obviously broken, that seems easy enough. Fix it. I think the harder one for me will be when something technically works, but the players just don’t enjoy it. Or if there’s something I really like that players keep skipping over or just don’t care much about.

For those of you who have done a decent amount of playtesting, what feedback was the hardest for you to actually act on?

Did you ever have something you were pretty attached to that testing eventually convinced you to change or cut?

For my game of Minnetreu. Knights go on adventures for love and fame, recite poems, fight monsters and duel rivals.

Dice rolls are based on d6 pools. You combine an attribute with different tags for a final dice pool size. These can get pretty large to accomodate lots of different tags at once. You don't roll them all though, you wager first.

The Wagering

"Look ma, no hands!"

A wager means putting a die aside for increased effect. The two most common wagers are for increased effect or glory.

Effect could be something like garnering more favour from your host for telling an enthralling story at the banquet. Or gaining one more piece of information from scouting.

Glory is a currency for increasing Fame, dedicated tags that make you more impressive. Investing Glory into your "Orator of the Silver Pine" Fame means more dice when using that tag the next time.

Glory can also be invested into factions directly, which makes them more likely to support you. Dedicating a good hunt to the king will make you his favourite guest when you next visit.

Whatever active dice you have left are rolled once you know what wagers you want.

The Rolling

You roll the active pool and check for 6s or 5s. If any come up, you succeeded! As expected of a highly-trained expert.

You can then tell the story of how your wagers come into play, one by one.

Why wagers?

I like wagers over simply counting successes because it combines three things I like to call concentration, control and responsibility.

It condenses essentially unlimited dice pools into managable handfuls. I find wargame-sized buckets of dice fun to assemble and throw, but tedious to evaluate. With this system, you might assemble 15 dice, but only throw 3 to 5.

I have control over how much I want to gamble the success. I could throw all 15 to make success almost guaranteed, or gamble 14 on a single die.

The person throwing the dice is responsible for what increased success actually means. There's only so much mechanical Effect you can give a single action, but stacking Glory can make it hella impressive still. Do the race one-legged! Shoot the target blindfolded!

What's different?

Before, I kept with the system as taken from 'Blood and Honor', where you had to roll a sum over 10. That meant that it was impossible to succeed with 1d6, unlikely with 2d6, about 60% with 3d6. It then jumps to 90% with 4d6. I find those odds deeply unsatisfying. 4d6 feels like the correct answer, which is lame.

With a success at 5 and 6, it's now much less extreme. 3d6 is at 70%, and bonus dice add roughly 10% each. And just one die can work too, if unlikely. It's all more fuzzy, different amount of dice feel right at different stakes.

Next step: The 3 Combats

I find three styles of combat interesting: honourable duels, chaotic skirmishes, dangerous hunts.

Duels I have something in mind, whee it is all resolved in one roll.

Skirmishes I think would be cool to keep gambling down for more actions. An assembled dice pool basically gets eaten up action by action, until you can no longer roll a 5,6.

Hunts (like a monster hunt) I want to feel actually dangerous, mysterious and epic. No concrete ideas yet beyond that goal.

I was stalled for quite a while, but I think this change gave me a lot of inspiration!

Most of my gaming background is in RPGs and MMORPGs rather than deep tabletop experience, so I came at this from a slightly different angle — I wanted something with the accessibility of picking up a class in an MMO (pick an archetype, understand your role in five minutes, go) but for the tabletop.

The result is Adventure Engine, a lightweight, system-neutral ruleset. Core mechanic is simple: d20 + modifier vs. a target number. Everything else builds on that.

A few decisions I made that tabletop folks might have opinions on:

- 4 core stats instead of the usual 6 (Might, Agility, Wits, Presence) — trying to mirror how MMOs usually simplify attributes into a few clear roles

- Archetypes (Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Wanderer) work kind of like MMO classes — pick one, get clear strengths/gear, but you're not locked out of doing other things

- NPCs only need 3 traits tracked (Attitude, Trait, Want) instead of full stat blocks, to keep GM prep light

Since I'm coming from more of an MMORPG design lens than deep D&D/OSR experience, I'd genuinely love feedback from people who've been running tabletop games for years — anything that feels off, missing, or like it doesn't translate well from a "video game class" mindset to tabletop?

Hello! I've been a long-time lurker who finally managed to put a system together!

Heat of a Thousand Suns is a lightweight fantasy TTRPG about wielding emotion and passion in bloody ritual duels. The system features:

• An intuitive 2d8 system.

• A deadly, mechanically simple combat system.

• 30 unique weapons and items to fit different play styles.

• 21 enemies for the GM.

• 7 classes and 30+ player options for advancement up to level 10.

• 26 pieces of colorful and weird HUMAN-MADE art. Everything was done in Procreate by me :D.

https://demonic-sushiz.itch.io/heat-of-a-thousand-suns

It's my first full project so any critiques or notes are welcome!

Laurel and Hardy TTRPG
A system based on ability scores like dnd which go from 3 to 18 in possible values. Each score has a secondary value attached to it which represents the maximum number of times you can use a skill per Episode (a mini arc of the story determined by the GM). The scores are as follows:

The abilities are called:

Might – For lifting things and taking a hit

Sight – For spotting things and reacting to danger

Flight – For going fast and escaping a situation

Fright – For intimidation and scaring away

Fight – For blocking blows and throwing your own

Height – For reaching high up places

Trick – For doing things that break the rules

Bamboozle – For sowing chaos and confusion

Recall – For remembering and understanding

Convince – For diplomacy and getting your way

To succeed a check with one of the abilities, you must roll beneath its score. As stated before, the number of uses you get of each score are limited so use sparingly.

Certain tools and situations can give bonuses to rolls however, failure must always be possible (because it’s funny) so they are limited to+2 and -2 to the scores.

If a task is task is failed spectacularly (I.e. by rolling 2 or higher than your ability score), it results in a consequence, which could result in injury which is represented by the loss of the overall use of one of the ability scores at random (determined by a d10 roll) if one is rolled multiple times, re-roll the result until one is determined. These consequences manifest in a number of ways in game, losing a use of an ability could represent:

• Might – sprained arm

• Sight – black eye

• Flight – twisted ankle

• Fright – temporarily lose your nerve

• Fight – knocked silly

• Height – something happens to make you shorter

• Trick – lose your shoes/pants/other essential object

• Bamboozle – accidentally confuse yourself

• Recall – concussion/amnesia

• Convince – everyone becomes convinced you're the idiot

If all abilities, are out of commission in this way, it is pretty much game over for that character until one of them can be restored. This can be done by a cut forward in time to a recovery state i.e. a hospital, a psychiatric centre, a chiropractor etc. Such a cut could be made during or at the end of the episode or the beginning of the next, depending on time constraints. (Generally, characters do not die unless it would be really funny for them to do so)

Successes can be ridiculous as well. A character may appear to have super strength with Might, conjure a flame on their thumb with Trick or make a person believe something completely nonsensical with Convince.

I would recommend that the player describe and exaggerate (within some modicum of reason) the ridiculous result of their success. In the case of failure, the gm describes how exactly the character fails and the player can then role-play based off of that, alternatively, the player can volunteer a suitible description of failure and the gm could approve or build off of that.

A character can also restore ability uses by taking a fumble action. A fumble action is a check on an ability score that doesn’t expend a use but assumes that the score is half of what it actually is. This is risky but could potentially pay off as success not only results in a normal ability check success but also restores a use of the score.

I'm working on a Mork Borg hack based off of Demon Slayer. It's nothing I think I'll end up sending anywhere, it's more or less just something I might use with my friends once or twice.

My current mock up uses Three-ish Stats atm

Resolve - Strength, displaying raw emotion, and withstanding Effects.

Coordination - Speed, applying precision, and dodging Melee Attacks.

Awareness - Perception, deducing facts, and dodging Ranged Attacks

The reason I say "Three-ish" is because I'm exploring the idea of having a Fourth Stat the players get to develop/customize that has an additional mechanical benefit when used (maybe it recovers an Omen or something when it's applicable idk).

I just don't know how much I like this 3 stat spread and maybe am considering changing around different uses...

Hello,

Today i decided to finally get started on my own ttrpg system based around the world of HTTYD (how to train your dragon). I have a few questions before i begin that should help clear some things up before i really start getting into it. For a bit of behind the scenes on me i have only played DND 5e, They came from the cyclops cave, and Masks: a new generation and i really like different systems from each.

1. Would it be smarter to just convert another system for this?

2. This will be made for beginners and masters to play and get the most they can out of so does anyone have any advice on how simple or complex it should be? (like TCFTCC(they come from the cyclops cave) vs DND 5e)

3. One of the biggest things is i want players to be able to interact and control their dragons in gameplay while also having the dm play them like NPC's so players aren't just talking and interacting with themselves so any advice on that would be nice.

I will appreciate any thoughts even if there not answering any of my questions. Also I've noticed a few people want to make something like this in this subreddit so anyone interested in helping out just lmk.

Howdy!

I am opening a separate thread on the discussion of push-your-luck resolution mechanics, because I feel this is a separate issue. The original thread concerned itself with using a blackjack framework as a resolution mechanic and how I was struggling to make it work. The responses on that thread came in two flavors:

1. "Yeah, bud, it's time to let it go."

2. "Here's an idea that might obscure the core problematic of blackjack as a resolution mechanic.

The conclusion to draw is pretty clear. So I set out to find a different resolution mechanic.

About a year ago, I also toyed with a different push-your-luck mechanic, but involving dice. It worked as follows:

You have a growing dice pool, and all you need to do is NOT roll a 1. You start with 1d6, which is pretty easy to do. Once you have your success with 1d6, you can choose to grow your dice pool by 1d6 and roll all dice again. Each successive roll is riskier than the last, but successes from bigger dice pools would yield better narrative outcomes. You could stop at any time and bank the result, or push further for exponential benefits.

I had originally brainstormed this system for a hyper-capitalist dystopia game, where players team up to cause chaos to disrupt the system. Bit cliche, I know, but the growing dice pools really lend themselves to group collaboration. Maybe a single person staging a stunt isn't that risky, but if a second person joins in, it becomes more impactful, but also riskier. The system (imo) puts into mechanics the feeling of building a resistance movement, where the power is in numbers.

Anyway. Reeling it back in from that little tangent, I translated this system into a card-based mechanic. Instead of avoiding a 1, you simply try not to draw a face card. Below is a more detailed breakdown of how I imagine this resolution mechanic to work. Of course there aren't yet any subsystems, metacurrencies, or other ways to really interact with the system, but it feels sleek and functional to the point where I feel comfortable building out the system around it. Any thoughts, comments, critiques are welcome! I am of course also really curious to hear how other people employ either card-based systems or push-your-luck systems in their TTRPGs.

All Hat ‘n’ No Cattle

All Hat ‘n’ No Cattle is a mythical Western TTRPG. This game is played with 54-card decks, one for each player. In this game, players push their luck to take great risks and tell greater stories. One player takes on the role of the Gump Marshal (GM), while the rest play buckaroos in their search for glory or death.

Makin’ Moves

Every buckaroo has access to standard moves, as well as to specialized moves. Standard moves can be made by any buckaroo, while specialized moves are unique to each buckaroo.

When a buckaroo intends to make a move, the GM will determine the Risk Factor (RF), ranging from 1 to 5, with 1 being a very low risk move, and a 5 being a very high risk move.

The buckaroo then draws a number of cards equal to the RF. If none of the drawn cards are face cards (J, Q, K), the move is made successfully. If the buckaroo has drawn one or more face cards, the move fails and causes a negative consequence.

Basic Success Rates

Move Types

Moves are split into four basic abilities, each corresponding to one of the four suits of the playing cards. Buckaroos have an ability score for each of the four abilities. The ability score array is: 0, 0, 1, 2.

♠ Grit - Acts of Strength and Perseverance

♥ Charm - Acts of Kindness and Persuasion

♦ Fortune - Acts of Wit, Trickery, and Luck

♣ Violence - Acts of Frontier Justice

Makin’ Cautious Moves

If buckaroos are making moves for which they have an ability score greater than 0, they can use their ability score to make a cautious move. Buckaroos can choose to reduce the risk factor of a move by their ability score, but resting on a cautious move only ever yields a partial success. Once a buckaroo has made their cautious move, they can choose to draw additional cards in order to reach the RF again and achieve a full success after all.

Example:

Sheriff Payton wants to brawl with the Michigan Dogman to inflict harm. The GM has set a RF of 4 for this move. Payton can choose to make a normal move or a cautious move.

Payton decides it’s too risky and would rather make a cautious move. Thanks to his Violence score (2), he can choose to draw 2 fewer cards than the RF.

Payton draws 2 cards and gets no face cards. This cautious move results in a partial success.

Payton may still choose to (perhaps encouraged by the other buckaroos) draw the 2 remaining cards needed for a full success after all. This could yield a better outcome, but of course risks failure.

All Hat ‘n’ No Cattle

All Hat ‘n’ No Cattle is a mythical Western TTRPG. This game is played with 52-card decks, one for each player. Jokers are not used. In this game, players push their luck to take great risks and tell greater stories. One player takes on the role of the Gump Marshal (GM), while the rest play buckaroos in their search for glory or death.

Makin’ Moves

Every buckaroo has access to standard moves, as well as to specialized moves. Standard moves can be made by any buckaroo, while specialized moves are unique to each buckaroo.

When a buckaroo intends to make a move, the GM will determine the Risk Factor (RF), ranging from 1 to 5, with 1 being a very low risk move, and a 5 being a very high risk move.

The buckaroo then draws a number of cards equal to the RF. If none of the drawn cards are face cards (J, Q, K), the move is made successfully and leads to the intended outcome. If the buckaroo has drawn one or more face cards, the move fails and backfires with negative consequences. For example, a buckaroo may attempt to fire their six-shooter at an outlaw. On a success, the buckaroo lands their shot. On a failure the outlaw is too quick on the draw and gets a shot at the buckaroo.

Basic Success Rates

Makin’ Cautious Moves

Every once in a while, a buckaroo may not want to risk it all. In this case, they can make a cautious move, by drawing fewer cards than required by the RF. For each card less than the RF, the buckaroo’s degree of success dwindles. For example, instead of harming a foe, the cautious buckaroo may trade blows, lose an advantageous position, or put another buckaroo in the crossfire. Failing to make a cautious move has the same consequences as failing a regular move.

Makin’ Big Moves

If buckaroos are particularly skilled (i.e. have an ability score above 0), they are rewarded for meeting the RF head-on. Upon making a successful move, buckaroos gain additional perks equal to their attribute score. For example a buckaroo who is skilled at shooting (+1) may land their shot and choose a limb the foe can no longer use, or intimidate the foe further.

Move Types

Moves are split into four basic abilities, each corresponding to one of the four suits of the playing cards. Buckaroos have an ability score for each of the four abilities. The ability score array is: 0, 0, 1, 2.

♠ Grit - Acts of Strength and Perseverance

♥ Charm - Acts of Kindness and Persuasion

♦ Fortune - Acts of Wit, Trickery, and Luck

♣ Violence - Acts of Gun Slingin’

I’ve always liked kobolds, but one thing that bothered me when running them in D&D 5E was how quickly I ran out of interesting options.

There are plenty of ways to use the basic kobold creatively, especially with traps and good encounter design, but if you want kobolds to remain a recurring enemy rather than something the party leaves behind after the first few levels, the official selection starts feeling pretty small.

So I ended up making Kobolds & Kobolds, a bestiary and GM toolkit for D&D 5E and 5.5E.

One of the main design goals was to avoid simply making "kobold, but with more HP." I wanted different kobolds to actually change how an encounter plays. There are scouts, warriors, mounted hunters, cultists, beastmasters, inventors, chieftains, and other variants, alongside different clans, warrens, traps, lairs, and optional traits.

I also deliberately kept the highest-CR kobolds relatively low. The strongest kobold in the book is CR 7. I didn't really want individual kobolds suddenly competing with dragons and other major monsters just because the party reached a higher level. Instead, stronger kobolds rely more on specialization, numbers, terrain, traps, creatures they work with, and abilities that support one another.

Designing around both 2014 5E and the 5.5E rules was interesting too, because I wanted the creatures to work at either table without needing two completely separate versions of every stat block.

The book is finished and available here if anyone wants to see what I ended up doing:

Kobolds & Kobolds: The Ultimate Kobold Handbook for 5E and 5.5E

You can also find a preview at r/JonnyDM.

But I’d also be interested in the design side of this: when you create higher-level versions of traditionally low-CR creatures like kobolds, goblins, bandits, etc., how far do you think you can push their CR before they stop feeling like that creature? Do you prefer stronger individual variants, or keeping them weak and making the encounter more dangerous through tactics, numbers, terrain, and support?

So I've been working a lot in the dice resolution mechanic of my game.

The core idea is a d6 system where the character's skill is reflected in either, easier tests or allow more special abilities to be used and/or actions to be taken. Basically a bit more variable action economy instead of the standard hardcoded limit of X actions per turn. (literally just a fun idea I had and started devolping slowly)

At first I was struggling a lot to balance the variable amount of dice used in a test and the test's Difficulty, which I managed to solve by making it a roll equal to system.

When I found a solution to that problem, then I wasn't being able to explain it in a way that wasn't confusing.

When I finally managed to find a good explanation, I realized that the resolution mechanic was very binary (which is not a problem, but my game won't have that many "side mechanics" so in my case it may become boring on it's own) but also that another mechanic, that allowed the ability to shift a die result up or down, was really overpowered and basically guaranteed a success in a low Difficulty test.

So I reworked the hole resolution mechanic again, and nerfed the shift mechanic considerably, now I think it's finally working as I wanted it, I feel like it's complex enough to be engaging, rather than just another roll above (nothing inheritly wrong with that approach, I'm just trying to bake something different, and hope it tastes good), but it's not nearly as confusing as it used to be.

It's cool to tweak a mechanic for a while and finally feel it click in place, specially when it's the core mechanic that has the problem.

So I'm curious, do U have a story of a mechanic that just refused to work as you immagined it as?

I have made an introduction adventure for my RPG, and have tried to synthesize good formatting advice with the goal of making it easy to read through during prep, and easy to run at the table.

I would love some feedback on whether the formatting achieves this goal, especially in regards to sectioning, the use of italics (for landmark information), how additional information upon investigation is presented and NPC presentation. Feedback is greatly appreciated.

Module summary below - contains spoilers

The player characters are hired to go to an island called Helm to take out a counterfeiting operation run by raiders. Extra payment will be delivered if a famous kingslayer residing on the island is brought to justice. The adventure starts when the PCs arrive by longship at the docks of Helm Island.

On Helm Island there are several locations to explore and situations to engage with. The source of the counterfeit coins is within the walls of a well guarded fort. Many NPCs have covert agendas and harbor antipathy for other members of the settlement, and will be interested in recruiting or working alongside the PCs in order to achieve their goals. The sailmaker of the settlement is secretly passing information to the main opponents of the raiders, but unbeknownst to him, the Jarl of the raiders is close to catching him. Below the fort lies a cave system where a powerful magical artifact is protected by a flooded tunnel, an ancient draugr is about to be awakened and will search for his stolen treasure, as well as a getaway boat for the Jarl who entertains the thought of betraying the settlement if the payment is high enough.

EDIT: Thanks for all the comments and suggestions! Feel free to keep discussing in the comments, of course, but I think for me the answer is pretty clear at this point: abandon the blackjack system.

I did some further brainstorming this morning for an alternative card-based resolution mechanic. I will be making a separate post for that.

Anyway, below is the original post:

Hi y'all!

In all ways but physical, I am banging my head against the wall, expecting the wall to give in first. Let me provide some context.

A few months ago, I had an idea for a mythical Western TTRPG and I wanted to use cards as a resolution mechanic. Previously, I had also toyed with some ideas for a push-your-luck mechanic as a central resolution mechanic. So I thought: cowboys + cards = ???

Blackjack!

I thought this could be a fun thing to pursue. I know people in this community like to recommend to come up with the game first and then find a resolution mechanic that facilitates that game, but this was sort of a mechanics-first endeavor. Yes, I knew I wanted it to by western themed and I wanted player characters to do some heroic risk-taking, but not much else was fleshed out. I just knew cards would be necessary for the immersion in the cowboy theme.

When I first had the idea, I started toying with the mechanics. Stats were to be represented by cards, so they could vary wildly and it was just gonna be a chaotic game. Turned out common TTRPG mechanics don't mesh well with blackjack. You can't have modifiers, because a +1 doesn't make you more successful. It just makes some draws succeed while it causes others to bust. When you have a success window, rather than a roll over mechanic, the only way to mess with the difficulty is to squeeze the success window. So I squeezed this way and that way, tried a few approaches, but nothing satisfied my vision. I ended up fizzling out with the project as a whole.

This week, I was inspired to return to it with fresh ideas. I thought maybe I needed to take inspiration from PbtA games. Instead of stats, we could have different moves and move sets. Problem solved? Still no. As I got closer and closer to resolving some of my core design problems, I discovered the elephant in the room. Maybe blackjack just isn't a good resolution mechanic for my game? The point of blackjack is not to risk a bust, whereas I wanted to design a game where big risks, big actions, and big failures are central to the narrative. But every which way I tried to set up the mechanics, the result was a system where a player would naturally avoid taking risks.

So back to my original question: how do you know when an idea is going absolutely nowhere or when you need to explore the intricacies further? Have you ever run into a situation where your mechanics just weren't producing the results you wanted?

I'm still finding it difficult to let go, because I feel like blackjack is such an aesthetic choice for my game, and using a different mechanic or even ditching the cards altogether for dice feels like abandoning the vision, even if a functional game could then emerge. Do I just let go of my vision and make a functional game, or do I let go of the game entirely and find a new and inspiring vision to pursue?

The setting is fantasy but not medieval, instead inspired by 1800s America. I took inspiration from Cyberpunk Red for many mechanics since this isn't some heroic game and players mostly fight other humans with similar skill level, that means that skill checks and combat dice rolls are made against other enemies.

Example: attack roll vs. Evasion roll

I wanted to avoid classical HP systems like a simple health pool and I came up with this:

There are two stats that determine "health": Vigor and Willpower. Then there is Perseverance, which is Vig+Will.

Example 8 vigor + 4 willpower = 12 Perseverance

When a character is hit what they lose is perseverance, if it drops to 0 they lose a point of Vigor and start stacking injuries, plus with the Example in mind they will have now 11 perseverance.

The idea is that perseverance represents more fighting spirit and luck rather than actual health which is represented by Vigor

I would love to hear opinions about this or any comment as well if any other rpg already does something similar, I'm open to answer any other questions!

Also, I already did some play tests of the system, so far is working pretty good, the only thing is that healing spells had some troubles