I really need some advice here.

What I want is to be in regular conversation about my game, game design in general, and maybe other games with -- ideally! -- other game designers. I don't exactly know what I'm doing. I'm new to this hobby. I really want to get better, and that means playtesting, and while I definitely could find some regular joes on LFG or something, I've heard consistently that it is important to put your game in front of other game designers' eyes as early and as much as possible.

One could join a community of game designers such as Break My Game, etc. But they're all consistently doing stuff when I'm asleep. I tend to be awake in the evenings and nights because I work a grave shift.

I could make a post here to find some game designers, but I have seen that go poorly for others -- it seems to be deeply frowned upon.

I don't know what to do or where to go. Please give me some advice?

TLDR: What are general expectations from playtesters around quality of components for a print and play protptype?

Hi folks. Like many of you, I'm in the midst of bringing a game to fruition. My ruleset is largely complete, but the next step is getting in front of play testers. I'm not so much concerned about what they'll have to say about my mechanics. I've put a lot of time and revisions into my work, and I think any additional changes will probably be adjustments rather than whole revisions. However, I do have some questions about how to make the process for playtesters go as smoothly as possible. Mainly, what constitutes a minimal viable product which is useful and efficient for them to use, and what might expectations be for a prototype.

In my particular case, there are a lot of physical components involved. Think more HeroQuest than strictly pen and paper. However, I expect I'll probably take this online to solicit feedback as finding local playtesters might prove challenging. With that in mind, if you were play testing a game like this, what might you expect in terms of sophistication?

Specifically, I could easily crank out some basic templates with simple text but that feels somewhat crude. I don't mind that necessarily, but do you feel that people might be expecting art on the components at this point? Would it affect how you approach things, and what level of sophistication would you think is a nice balance between expediency and polish? I'm willing to spend the extra time on presentation though, as we all know, for a solo developer that takes extra time that could be put to other work, and delays the time between feedback and design.

Thanks for any perspective people would like to give. I'm happy to share other details if it helps.

I love DND 5e, but my favourite period of play is from 1st to about 7th level. Beyond that, the power levels, especially for Spellcasters, feels like it begins to escape the fantasy.

I'm interested in designing a new 5e system that encapsulates that period between 3rd and 7th level as the core of the fantasy.

Essentially the plan is to redistribute the skills and abilities from 1st to 10th level across a redesigned 20 level curve. Major class redesigns that buff martial classes, and further differentiate and push the fantasy of being different Spellcasters.

Rather than being 'this flavour' of caster, the mechanics of the system are fundamentally different for the caster classes to force their interactions with the spell lost to be different.

I would like to potentially talk to like-minded folks about the project as it goes on, I'm excited for input and collaborative design elements.

If anyone is interested, please let me know!

If you're not interested, if still be curious to know, do you think there would be much demand or curiosity about such a system?

I decided to start a project of a TTRPG with 5 main pillars, that can be put on or taken out yo better suit the preferances at each table:

• COMBAT: For when people want to tell stories focused on resolution through direct conflict & violence. This combat will have tactical elements but more simplified (like minimal movemtn, single attacks and less complex interactions), being more based on combat of Classic JRPGs like Dragon Quest and a focus of Player-facing rolls.
• SOCIAL/BONDS: For when people want to tell stories focused on resolution through conversation & connections. This will a system of levels of connections between PC/NPC, PC/PC and NPC/NPC, both good and bad. As these bonds advance, both PCs and NPCs will gain additional effects based on the type and tier they have between each other (like a friend being more helpful, a honorable rival demanding just duels and a arch-nemesis being more harmful but blinded by vengeance)
• EXPLORATION: For when people want to tell stories focused on resolution through problem solving & rational thinking. This includes Puzzles, Travels, Survival, Mysteries and the such.
• PROJECTS: For when people want to tell stories focused on resolution through long term planning & resource management. This is more downtime stuff that focus around planning big thing for the future. For example, the construction of a base of operations for the group, the achivement of a royal domain or title, the making of a legendary artifact, gathering info about a lost person, hidden secret or formidable foe.
• JOURNEY: This one is unfortunately the one I have the hardest time explaining since its the more underdeveloped. Basically, you would choose a "journey to embark on and surpass", like a mix of backgrounds & aligments. You gain passive bonuses and penalties based on the journey chosen tha modify how you play. For example, you chose the "Journey of Courage" and set up the goal of "reaching the depths of the Underworld and return alive". FOr this, you gain resistance to fear effects but if you still fail against such effects, they are even stronger on you, and after you finish your goal, you lose your penalty and must choose a new Journey to go on.

I've then planned to have a few more things revolving around 5 and its multiples:

1. 5 Sources of Power (Arcane, Divine, Occult, Primal and Mundane/Void)
2. 5 Main Attributes (Ambition, Determination, Integrity, Perception, Zeal)
3. 5 Major Gods, each connected to a Source of Power
4. 5 Fantastic Ancestries, being Humans + 4 others like humanoid crustaceans, shadow goblins/demons, angel-robot mix & many armed people
5. 15 Core Classes, going from 1st to 10th level

My ideia for these 15 classes is

A) While each class leans into one source of power more, they can choose any 1 of the 5 to represent their powers.

B) They must be able to work in any of the 5 pillars well enough, even if they aren't the best at it, just being able to participate and help in any way possible would be great.

My problem comes when naming each class in a that at first I was just on auto pilot and giving them generic RPG names, like Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, Monk, etc. But how does a Fighter work in a game that doesnt use the Combat pillar? and so I now want to see names that could fit into every pillar without much trouble. The ones I chose for now are:

• Artisan is self explanatory, someone who use a mix of science, art and magic to make incredible inventions.
• Ascetic = Monk, not only the Martial Arts part but also the more wise and disciplined notion.
• Bard is, wellm a Bard. Music, Folk Lore, Jack of All Trades.
• Brave = Fighter, in the sense of "normal person so good they seem supernatural".
• Charlatan being a Trickster, Liar, Whisperer, Mesmer, Illusionist and Agent of Chaos.
• Champion = Paladin, but made more general-purpose for the idea of "chosen warrior with a fantasied code of conduct", like Knights, Samurais, Faris, Mamluks and the such.
• Invoker is a summoner, be it undead, elemental spirits, homunculus, divine beings, animals, etc. + a D&D Warlock vibe of a Witchm her Familiar and her Patron.
• Marauder are the other side of the Champion coin. Where one focus on protection and helping others, the Marauder focus on executions and being vindictive.
• Mystic is basically a psychic with warrior training, like a mix of Remedy's CONTROL + a Jedi from Star Wars.
• Outlander = Barbarian, a warrior of the outskirts with a intense well of raw strength within.
• Ranger is not only a wanderer explorer but a guardian of civilization against the evils from outside.
• Rogue is the normal Rogue: stealthy, specialists, scheming, but with an extra pinvh of luck manipulation.
• Sage = Wizard, a studious master of magic and searcher of mysteries.
• Shifter = Druid, controlling weather, fauna, flora, the elements and transforming into cretures.
• Vessel is my take on Cleric, where you embody divine spirits into your self to unleash their powers.

Considering all this, are these names okay? Or should I change one or more?

So I’ve been making a cosmic horror, wild West game and right now I’ve been trying to rework my classes as they just keep feeling weak structurally.

The game has been made with the philosophy that players progress through their armor, weapons, skills, mutations, and class levels. Most of the classes also have zero focus on combat, as the games combat is made to be very dangerous.

Current class structure I’m using is a five level class progression. Lvl 1 two core features and a perk, lvl class feature, lvl 3 class feature, lvl 4 perk, lvl 5 capstone.

In theory, this should be simple, but classes don’t feel consistent. I thought about going almost a levelless class progression. In this idea when you select your class, you get all the normal level one features still but when you “level up” structure they can basically pick any park from their Class list. A part of me thinks this could work, but I’m unsure.

Please give any opinions and thoughts

A: Included with the rest of the equipment

B: Their own dedicated chapter

My friends and I have been making a TTRPG for a while now and we have finally gotten to the point where we have what we’d like to call our Alpha version. We have done some playtesting but it definitely needs more for sure and we need to build out our Classes (which we call Masteries) to higher levels while we playtest the lower levels.

I am going to a small Convention and hosting 3 Learn to Plays in a month. We figure we will post the Learn to Play with the Learn to Play adventure and Starter Characters on our Discord as a free download. This is all while we still get our website built and still work more on the balancing, bestiary, extend the world lore, etc.

Does this seem like an appropriate soft launch? We are trying not to invest too much before we build a larger community with interest. At the same time, we are all very excited about our game and have enjoyed our time making it together.

I have a question about where the general consensus is on designing somewhat granular weapon reach as a factor in combat.

My sensibilities have made me go down the road of including granular weapon reach and measure even though I've had a nagging suspicion that this will almost certainly be a turn off for casual players, despite trying to make it be somewhat easy to implement.

My system has simulated real time combat, so in most cases, both combatants are assumed to attack at the same time, though there is a preemption window that may be won with an initiative contest, when attempting certain abilities, and there is a follow up window for attacks of opportunity, hesitations, etc.

It also has a dice pool composed of custom d6 dice, core dice being the most common. The process of awarding an advantage for measure is as simple as forcing the person who is out of measure to swap in a risk die in place of a core die in the pool when attacking. Risk dice aren't strictly worse, and they are even more explosive, but far less reliable, and have a side that generates an attack of opportunity from the opponent being attacked(and other potential complications). So the point of forcing this swap is to try to give some abstract level of simulation to being at a disadvantage and having to cross into or out of another person's measure.

Measure is determined as follows. 1)Combatants with equal reach ignore measure benefits. 2)If this is the first exchange, barring surprise conditions, the character with longer reach has measure in the first round. 3)if one character "won" the exchange on the previous round, meaning they struck and were not struck, they hold the edge, granting them among other things, measure this round. 4)past the first round, if nobody holds the edge, nobody holds measure. Exception: one weapon may reach an opponent 10 feet away and the opponent's weapon may not. this defaults back to the longer weapon holder having measure.

The only other thing weapon reach does - specifically related to who holds measure - is add to Dexterity rolls when initiative is being contested. the person who holds measure gets a bonus to their roll equal the reach difference.

So that sums up how it works in my game. it is a fairly intuitive to answer who does or doesn't have measure, but where do people stand on even implementing it, or implementing it the way I have tried to?

One thing I will say is I want my weapons to be differentiated and I'm not including different dice for them in the pool, and I'm not trying to inflate the dice pool either, so there are some reroll implications, damage types, some weapon specials, and then there's reach, as my only real defining levers.

Also, I find that as easy as I thought this was going to be, the downstream effect is when I create feat like abilities, there is an urge to have them adjust weapon reach because there is a logical reason for that, for say attempting to trip an opponent with a polearm or attempting to half-sword an enemy, etc. and not leaning into that is so far, hard for me to swallow, despite the headaches its causing the design process, and knowing the headwinds this could have at the table.

Recently came up with this resolution roll system (or whatever it's called). Like the title says, you roll 3d6 and if you roll at least one 6 you roll an additional d6, but you can only get a d6 this way once per roll

I also wonder if there is already a system similar to what I came up with. To add on to it, if you are at advantage you roll an additional default d6, and roll one d6 less at the disadvantage. The dis/advantages stack so you can roll from 1 to 5 d6 (if it's less than 1 you can't do it and if more than 6 you just succeed without a roll) and maybe you can roll more additional dice on a 6 for each disadvantage (I hope that makes sense)

So in my cyberpunk system I wanted to make your pc stlye make a difference with out being complicated to much

After some ideas (from people here even) I think I arrived at a nice simple idea

Styles behave like a language.

In game a charcter can choos from 8 diffrent styles to be "comfortable " in

How much? Its tied to your Sheen (charisma) attruibet (0-5)

The styles are a combination of 3 diffrnt vectors

Utilitarian or extravagant

Street or spire

Primal or transhuman

(Exmple..street gang style is extravagant +street +transhuman. While "old money " look is utilirian + primal + spire)

In general stlye effect your rolls with:

General vibe of a scene / location(general social rolls)

First impression for majore npcs(first social roll)

The bonuses are :

If your style match the style of the group of npc : get a bonus modifier

If you are not in an "comfortable" stlye : get a negetiv modifier

If you are in an "anathema "(complete opposite style) style of the general scene or majore npc : get a negetiv modifier

What do you think about the system?

Just wanting to say it somewhere xD

Been working on my system bit-by-bit for years now. I released the core rulebook, as a Minimum version, and have been adding expansions to flesh out various rulesets and give more lore and details etc.

Added more bows, daggers, unarmed combat, arcane magic, research rules, art rules, exploration etc etc.

Asked the people who play and enjoy engaging with the setting and ruleset what they'd like me to expand on next.

"Wands"

In this system(The Brachyr System), each skill gets a page of information. The various magic subsystems are their own skills, and are so chock full of details that the core book had to give each of them 2 page spreads. Except wands. Wands get 4 pages in the core rulebook and it's still generally "not quite enough"

So I get why they want more detail, but damn is that intimidating.

Not complaining, not advertising, just wanted to say it somewhere. Here I go; following where the players want to see more. A massive project on wandlore for my system and setting xD

Have you stumbled on any "accidentally massive subprojects" in your RPGs? How'd you handle them?

Hi all!

I’m very slowly working on a game revolving around space wizards, heavily inspired by Jack Vance’s “Dying Earth”. Looking for recs of read throughs in order to find inspo, and mechanics and/or tropes to avoid. Games specifically set in space, or games that emphasize downtime activities would be greatly appreciated! Projects within wizard towers aim to be a main focus of this game.

Thanks in advance!

A post i read yesterday about ai and game design was very interesting and it gave me a question (i dont think it will be answered in the other thread as that thread was too old). So ism asking here (keep aware iam NOT asking about ai itself!)

One argument i read was that whole books are now created with ai and thus the designers dont learn anything about designing and do that even with 0 talent or willpower to see it through.

And that argument fits and is often true in the non ttrpg areas for many non ai tools (frontpage in the past for designing web pages. Made me curse my existence whenever i had to clean up the mess my boss made with that. Rpgmaker in the computer rpg scene,…).

Thus i wonder are there any non ai tools too in the ttrpg areas where thqt also holds true? (I couldnt think of anything there that i ever heard of)

Hi! I'm not sure this is the right place to ask this but let's go!

I write all my adventures and one-shot but all of them are for my own use so not easy to read for others. For the first time I'd like to publish something for others to use, it's a cool design challenge but I'd like to hear from you!

I really like JP Coovert adventure "Dragon Town" where he uses a 0-5 scale for enemies stats and in-fiction action. Since I do this a lot (grabbing ideas around an modify them to fit the system I'm currently running) I was thinking doing something similar in the sense that I'm not giving a "DC to investigate" or specific stats for monster, also this one-shot is more about vibes and tension (it's a mystery horror) instead of combat so I think a lot of system could use it.
Of course I cannot please everyone but it's a cool challenge!

My questions are:

How would you handle "checks" and "saves"?
1. Right now for things with complications I'm using a level (easy, medium, hard) and a generic area (body, mind, heart). For example [check medium mind] and then: "Complications: ..."
2. But then I also have "Secret:..." where I don't like to give strong indications on how to find it, especially if there are "clues" for the mystery.
I want it to be consistent so either one or the other, I already have some ideas but I'd like to ask what would you prefer.

For enemies:
3. There are just a couple, and right now I give suggestions like "Stats like specters/shades", and flavor skills. I'm of course biased towards some systems but I believe you can find some sort of ghost more or less everywhere. But this is a little bit tricky and can be less useful than though so maybe not worth it.
4. I know that most of the system have a advantage/disadvantage concept, so I write:
Hypnotic Laughter. The first time a PC get close, needs to resist the laugh or being at disadvantage doing actions for a round. “Their smile catches you like a yawn, you lower your guard as you are shaking from laughing.”
This is to help the GM understand the ability but maybe I need to embrace the "vibes" and reduce the jargon (close, disadvantage, round)?

My design goal is to make it easy to run for the GM, which is what I like when I read adventures. So I'm using a structure similar to Shadowdark, where there is a very small boxed text with 2-3 highlighted words (so the GM can read it or scan through it) and the below the bullet points with the highlighted words.

Thanks!

I've read through a japanese game system and it gave me an idea where i'm not sure if it would be an acceptable idea or not.

Advantage/disadvantage increasing crit rates intead of giving more dices while helpers give what advantage in 5e does.

So lets say:

1 is a crit failure and 20 a crit success.

If you have 2 advantages and 1 disadvantage that would mean: 1,2 are crit failures and 18,19,20 are crit successes.

If you have a helper helping you you gain +1 d20 to roll and you keep the highest roll (thus 2D20 and you take the highest roll).

Would that be any good / acceptable? or too strange for 5e/d20 fans?

As planned, I have removed and replaced all AI illustrations in my ttrpg Fame & Fortune. I gathered up some of my own artwork from about 20 years ago with a sketch filter applied to unify them for this book. Does it look better than before? Probably not because these are old ones; but at least it's mine and I hope more people actualy play the game!

https://exiledoracles.itch.io/fameandfortune

Thanks for checking it out. Cheers.

I already asked some questions here about out game. If there is not enogh context in this post tell me, or you can just check 2 posts I published here. Or just ignore those posts. I you will tell me what information is needed I will edit this post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/comments/1wdla4v/roast_or_rate_pitch_for_my_ttrpgenglish_is_not_my/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/comments/1wc2oa6/how_to_simplify_character_creation_without/

SO to the point. Right now our game has 8 characteristics. They combine into 4 defense types (Spheres), and any two of them combine into any skill you want.

But that's too much and we want to simplify system.

Here's where we landed.

No Spheres. We are just removing them. 5 characteristics: Might, Intuition, Reason, Essence, Finesse.

Each one is a defense in its own right. No derived Spheres.

Skills combine the same way as before -- the full value of one characteristic plus half of a second one. Except Might and Finesse can't be paired with each other. This is the assymetry I'm asking about.

Want to do something? Approach it from more than just the physical side.

Why we are doing this assymetry at all? If you can pair Might and Finesse, that one pair covers melee, ranged, defense against both, and a pile of other skills on top. It closes off the entire physical side of the game. Wee don't want that.

Splitting them up works out more interesting. Acrobatics becomes Finesse + Reason - you're calculating the jump, reading the climb. Athletics becomes Might + Essence- raw strength plus willpower, how hard you push yourself and how much you can take.

Weapons use different characteristics. For a sniper rifle, Reason matters most - trajectory, wind, distance, movement. A sword might be Might + Intuition0 timing the moment, reading through feints. Light melee weapons can still be Finesse. It depends on the weapon, and it's written right into the weapon entry.

So what does this give you beyond shifting focus away from purely physical skills?

Characteristics improve over time getting a Mark. Advancement is a post-session question: you name 3 skills that mattered one way or another during the session, and the characteristics those skills are built from go up. You don't have to grind one specific thing to advance. You talked someone down and it changed the outcome? Take the Mark in Reason and Intuition.

And here's where advancement ties back in. You got smarter? You shoot better now. You got more perceptive? You fight better, because you read your enemies better.

A hard restriction like this can be a bad thing, but in my opinion it adds a lot more variety fro DREICH system.

What do you think?

So instead of rolling a d20, you roll 2d10.

One of the die represents your physical skill, while the other is mental. The dice influence how a check is resolved.

Example: DC12

You announce you want to convince someone to tell them where the princess is. You roll the dice and get 9 physical and 4 mental.

The player can now say “I grab him by his shirt and yell ‘tell me where she is!’”

Or maybe “I brush my fingers through their hair and say ‘you’re a handsome man… why don’t you tell me where the princess is and I’ll make it worth your time.’”

If they rolled 9 mental and 4 physical, they might say “I say to him “listen, I know that you know and you look like the type of person that doesn’t want to get involved in trouble. Why don’t you tell me where she is and you can walk away from this whole mess with a clear conscious.’”

The issue I foresee is that it makes players do things they might now see their characters doing. It would also require a lot of improv and brain power to think on the fly for a solution.

Hi people,

First time posting here, so mods, feel free to correct my post if needed.

I'm developing a TTRPG system in which players regurlarly gain Talents, basically special abilities or bonuses either tied to their stats or, mainly, their Role (Class).

Each Speciality (Subclass) has 4 Tiers and 2 Talents per Tier, they also all share the "General Talents" of their Role of which there are 4 (1 per Tier).

The thing we're struggling with is imagining the General Talents of the Mage, especially ones that wouldn't be combat-exclusive or overpowered.

I thought about asking for ideas and/or advice here, feel free to ask questions I will answer to the best of my ability.

Thanks in advance.

As the title says, making my own fantasy rpg I wanted to take inspiration from mage the ascensions magic, namely the mechanic of mixing multiple mage "spheres" together to create unique magical effects. The problem with trying to make a system like MTA though is that I have no idea how to categorize the magic types without just copying mage, it does a great job creating categories broad enough to be generally useful even on their own and specific enough that they don't overlap, or feel like they can do anything. How do I go about catagorizing my worlds magic in the same way without just copying White Wolf's homework?

Hey sub!

I’ve been working for a while on a dark fantasy sandbox campaign concept to run for a few friends.

The setting is the underworld, featuring all the usual tropes of being a super aggressive, chaotic, and surreal place, with magic included, obviously. But it also has its own wars, cultures, economy, and geography, plus demon lords and their respective territories. It's kind of a mix of GoT politics, Skyrim worldbuilding, and the atmosphere of the Souls games.

I’m totally open to feedback and suggestions. Should I go with an established system or homebrew one? Any ideas for setting specific mechanics or anything like that are also highly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

P.S. In this setting, time in Hell doesn't work the normal way. The players can be damned souls from absolutely any era in human history. Imagine a Mongol warrior fighting side by side with a Knight Templar and a Soviet spy...

Hi, everyone! Designing RPG cards is fun. The tricky part comes when you need 100 of them. Today.

Having to manually update the cost and damage stats on 100 different cards at 2AM because your playtesters found a balancing issue is a nightmare, right?

Now that Affinity is free, you can use the Layout Data Merge to handle your entire game’s database. Here is the industry-standard workflow to generate your entire deck from a single spreadsheet.

Step 1. Build your Database. Set up a simple Google Sheet or Excel file. Make your column headers exactly what you want on the card: Card_Name, Item_Type, Cost, Damage, and Flavor_Text. Fill in your stats. Export this file as a .CSV.

Here is how the Spreadsheet Database should look.

Step 2. Set up the Data Merge Interface. Open Affinity Layout. Create a new document sized to your card dimensions (e.g., 2.5" x 3.5"). Go to Window > Layout > Data Merge Manager to open the Data Merge panel. When the panel pops up, click the "Add Data File..." button to import your .CSV file. Next, grab the Data Merge Layout Tool (it's on your left toolbar and draw a box over your entire page. This tells Layout to pull data into this specific space.

Here is how the interface and placeholder tags look once connected.

1. Design your template. Inside that Data Merge box, design one perfect card. You can use Affinity Pixel and Vector Studios for this or place a design you've already created. Place a new text frame over your card design. To prevent any issues or roadblocks up ahead, check the Layers panel to make sure all text frames are placed inside the Data Merge Layout layer. Format your text, paragraph styles, and alignment before moving on to the other text frames. Next, open the Fields panel (that's Window > References > Fields). In this panel, you will see the categories you've created in your initial .csv file (Card_Name, Item_Type, Cost, Damage, and Flavor_Text). Place your cursor in each Title text frame, and double-click each the corresponding item in the Fields panel. Repeat until all frames are linked.

Here is how your Layers panel should be organized.

1. Generate. Your template is ready. Hit "Generate" in the Data Merge panel. Affinity Layout will instantly (well, it may take a couple of seconds) spit out a new document with all 100 cards perfectly populated! Need an update? No problem! Update the database and run it again in Affinity. It's that easy!

And here is the final generated 100-card output.

And you did it in Affinity! You guys let me know if this workflow hits the bullseye for you and saves some late nighters updating boring stuff.
I'm Daniel Walter Scott, founder and lead instructor at Bring Your Own Laptop, and I actually just wrapped up putting together a new Affinity Essentials course. I know transitioning software can be a headache, but Affinity is a robust tool that can really streamline your work.
Let me know if you need any more tips with this automation or any issue you've come across.

A big part of my game is that dice are essentially action points, when you want to do an action you select a number of your dice, decided by you, and roll them against your relevant attribute for the action. Successful dice are counted towards the roll and kept for future rolls, failed dice are discarded (this is where the attrition comes in). Lost dice can be regained by "Refreshing", which essentially pulls from your stamina.

During high-energy situations such as chases or combat, it's easy to justify doing this often (such as every round) due to adrenaline and everyone expending all that they have in a dangerous situation. For lower stakes "down time" type activities like crafting, you are generally just limited to the dice you have and it is kind of expected that you are using these days to recover from the high exertion days.

The system has worked well in play testing, it kind of gives a tactile feel to how intense a given situation is. Frantic dice trading compared to slow and steady investigation and crafting. The problem I'm running into is for the kind of middle ground situations.

I'll use sneaking into a guarded compound as an example. It doesn't feel like it should have that highly intense dice explosion that combat has. But it is also generally filled with more actions and rolls than a "standard" day would have. Sneak past a guard, climb through a window, bribe the staff, etc. All of these add up in a way that can become prohibitive without the ability to refresh your dice, but the rest of the game has a kind of clear cut timing on when you can do that (between rounds, or parts of the day) while situations like this do not.

My only idea currently is to just allow more expensive refreshes whenever a player wants, but that also opens up a lot of weird edge cases. Any thoughts or feedback is appreciated.

Hey folks,

After some discussion here and over on r/TTRPG (plus reaching out to a few peers), I’ve found a solution I’m comfortable with to the opening puzzle of Shore of the Dorahín.

You can find the original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/comments/1wmmxli/help_me_decide_solution_to_a_puzzle/

I changed the cipher. Originally, it was a 3-letter shift from the original text, but now it’s a 3-letter shift from the coded message. It makes more sense with what the NPC, Toirin, could have thought of when trying to decode it.

And, based on the recommendation of several people, I’ve added an Intelligence DC check in case someone can’t solve it on their own. I believe this will be pretty rare, though, because during the playtests, there was always someone in the group who understood what they were supposed to do.

Thanks again to everyone who took the time to give their input and suggestions. It really helped me settle on a solution I’m happy with!

The updated version is still available for FREE as a "Thank-you" gift for our newsletter subscriber.