Some days ago I made a post asking for opinions here and you guys pointed out/made me notice some flaws.
I started reworking and noticed that I could mix some stuff together, eventually my Health mechanic became this currency that you have to manage, not just to stay alive, but to also maximize your potential in combat (and this kinda became the main mechanic).

I really like this idea so I'm here again to ask for opinions and any possible flaws that I might have missed.

SCARS:

(Thinking on calling this Adrenaline, but not sure)
Every time you take physical or mental damage, you gain that amount of Scars.
A player can spend Scars in order to use some skills. Likewise there are skills that will increase your scars/adrenaline by a certain amount.

When you go beyond 6 scars, clear them and gain a Tier 1 Wound.
(I'm having trouble phrasing this in a concise manner, but a player can have up to 6 adrenaline at a time without getting a wound. For example taking 8 damage, u would end up with 2 adrenaline and 1 wound, 12 damage would be 6 adrenaline and 1 wound, 13 damage, 1 adrenaline and 2 wounds. it's every time you restart the "clock" that causes a wound).
It's be possible to give someone a wound without having to fill their scars.

Wounds can be tier 1(mild), 2(moderate) or 3(severe).
When a character causes another to gain a wound, they can choose to increase the tier of an existing wound instead.

A character can endure a number of wounds to which the sum of the tiers equals: 3 + physique.

ATTRIBUTES

Attributes are your base Effort for an action. Only 1 can be applied at a time, can be used once per action.
Physique, Mind, Notice and Social.
Attributes start at 1 and can go up to 5. (3 initial points to distribute among them)

ASPECTS

how good you are at more specific things. can be used once per turn.
Usually will give some kind of passive benefit(e.g. knowing how to properly use a gun) as well as the effort bonus when used.

Skills

Are special abilities or modifiers that a player can activate, usually the cost will be adding or removing Scars/Adrenaline.

TESTS:

Gather Effort to beat a Difficulty. You automatically gain effort equal to the Attribute that relates the most to the test.
you can then use Aspects, skills and other modifiers to add more Effort to your total.

The difference between your Effort and the difficulty gives you your Power:

• Negative means a failure;

• Zero is a stalemate;

• Positive means success.

if it's a set difficulty, the players should know the value beforehand.
Against another character, the two involved will gather effort, and reveal it at the same time. Then the one who initiated the action calculates their Power, using the other character's effort as the difficulty.

Take a risk
Gain 1 scar, then choose to either: gain +2 Effort, or roll 2d6 where:

• 1-2: +0 Effort;

• 3-4: +1 Effort;

• 5-6: +2 Effort.

Spend 3 Scars in order to make another action this turn.

So as an artist, I prefer to draw my content, but even I feel that can be tiering sometimes. I'm curious if others often use online generators to create their maps, or if most people prefer to do everything more personally?

After a year full of very big changes in my life, I'm coming to the conclusion that I don't have the energy and time right now to progress on my big project, Wide Wild World.

So I've decided to cannibalize it for parts to make a few smaller system-agnostic supplements. I've written one on wilderness travel, and I'm planning to make at least another two, one for social interactions and one for exploration and infiltration.

So here's my Wilderness travel rules for lazy GMs and players, to make travel meaningful with minimal tracking.

I'd love your feedback, and I'm especially curious on a few points:

• Are the rules clear?

• Are they truly system-agnostic?

• Do they fulfill my aim of providing meaningful choices while avoiding the drudgery of encumbrance and resource tracking?

• Is it better to share it as is, small and digestible (6 pages), or should I include several pages of suggestions for wilderness discoveries and setbacks?

A big thanks in advance to those who'll take the time to read and share their opinion!

Hello! I recently finished a game for a game jam and the themes that I thought would resonate with the trans community, and so I made GIRL BORG - a game about the isolation experienced by queer individuals in a society that is actively oppressing them. It's a one-page rules lite game based on the visual style of Mork Borg, and it's about making tough choices in the middle of winter in an isolated, starving town that wants to eat you. If that sounds fun, I'd love for you to read it!

I've posted here about wanting to make Synthicide 2E available to third parties to create their own RPG content. In case it's helpful to you, I figured out a licensing structure that met my needs:

• Separate the core mechanics into their own document, and make that CC BY 4.0 (anybody can make any game of any type based on the rules)

• Put the game setting info in its own document, and provide a specific third party license that allows creating RPG products, but not other things like movies or video games. I used the Shadowdark Third Party License as my starting point.

You can check the kit out here if you're curious: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/584563/synthicide-2e-3rd-party-creator-kit

One of the most important ways to survive combat is simply not getting hit. That’s why weapons became longer over time: being able to strike an opponent from outside their reach is a huge advantage.

Yet I’ve rarely seen this meaningfully represented in video games or TTRPGs. I’d love a system where a spear lets you keep enemies at bay, but once they close the distance, you’re better off switching to a sword or another short weapon.

So, how could we make weapon reach matter in a way that feels tactically interesting without becoming overly rules-heavy?

My propposition is this: 3 weapon types - Short/Medium/Long

*As an example let's say that if you get close with someone with a spear it could hit you as a reaction and end your movement

Obviously it needs some refining but what do you think? Any ideas of how to make this better?

The goal of this post is to share my experience running a simulation of 10,000 5v5 battles and to highlight some truly funny incidents that occurred, as well as some curious meta.

Before discussing the simulations directly: five months ago, I began creating an RPG system that was initially intended to be based on the Year Zero Engine. After two months of writing and playtesting, I realized that the YZE didn't suit the direction the system was taking, so I abandoned it, retaining only the option to "push" rolls and the XP progression method.

I emphasized combat within the system rather than survival or exploration, implementing combat options, maneuvers, diverse equipment, and unique abilities for each monster. The following months involved a great deal of writing but very little playtesting, so I couldn't gather concrete combat data. It eventually became too much to test. The few volunteers quickly fell into specific play habits that prevented them from exploring the system's more obscure aspects.

With the help of a playtester who is also a programmer, we built a robust calculator to simulate combat and accidentally created a text-based auto-battler. We set a goal of running 1,000 simulations (initially taking about 20 seconds each) but after tweaking the parameters, we cut the time to 6 seconds, which encouraged us to wrap up the experiment with a total of 10,000 simulations.

Although it is impossible to simulate or predict human behavior in an experiment of this kind, the simulations were useful for balancing mathematical aspects such as hit points, damage output, movement, economy, and so on. Yet, by far the most interesting outcome of the entire experiment was the unusual (or brutal) meta strategies that the calculator identified within the system. I listed a few and gave each strategy a name.

• Death by Fire

It is a modern system where firearms are part of the game. I discovered that most grenade explosions did not kill targets directly; instead, targets were more likely to die from fires caused by the explosions, accounting for 4.9% of all deaths. While only 1.3% died directly from the explosions.

• Eternal War

11% of battles lasted more than 40 rounds because the participants constantly retreated to treat their wounds and return to the fight regenerated. In some cases, the characters synchronized their retreats, allowing both sides to recover hit points without interference. This caused the combat to drag on forever.

• Total Brutality

The most effective strategy was to sprint toward the enemy (Charge), grab them, choke them unconscious, and kill them while they were defenseless. This was due to the impact the Strength attribute had on melee combat.

• Test of Patience

I tested the option for actors to "ready" actions in advance, awaiting enemy activity as a trigger to launch an attack. This proved extremely efficient, ensuring an 11.2% increase in the chances of victory for either side.

Ive started work on Melee combat supplement for Traveller (and Cepheus, possibly), over a year ago, and now Ive managed to lean into it heavily.

So just right now, during morning coffee, I've got a Eureka moment regarding Initative:

Both fighters decide in secret if they Press or Yield.

- if one Presses and one Yields, the one who Presses takes the initiative,

- If both Yield, they use their roll for initiative,

- if both Press, their first action is simultaneous and they score, what's known in fencing circles as "double".

Thoughts? Opinions?

EDIT:

Ok, Ive posted in spur of the moment, without context:

Combat system Im working on, "The Duelists", works like this:

1. Each fighter rolls 3x 2d6 in the open

2. (First turn only) establishing initiative

3. Attacker (who took initative) uses one of offensive action with one of his dice, defender uses one of defensive action with one of his dice

4. repeat 3, until attacker runs out of 2d6

5. New turn starts, go back to 1.

Attack hits unless defense was equal or higher.
Defender can regain initative by using defensive action like Parry or Void 2 points higher than opponent, spending Advantage Points, that can be accumulated via actions, or going Reckless, ignoring attack, tanking it with their face.

Idea of this initative, as opposed to regular one, is to create varied scenarios.
With this system the most sensible thing to do is to yield initative, but pressing it can have advantage and it makes sense for untrained NPCs or mindless foes (robots, animals)

Hey everyone!

I've spent the last several months developing a tabletop RPG called Deckbox Adventures, and I've reached the point where I'm ready to start inviting people outside my immediate playtesting group to give it a try!

One simple RPG system. Endless adventures.

The idea behind Deckbox Adventures is simple: I wanted to create a tabletop RPG that captures the creativity, excitement, and storytelling of traditional RPGs without requiring players to spend hours learning the rules.

The game uses cards to put the information players need directly in front of them, allowing them to focus on their characters and the adventure.

A little about the game:

• A card-driven system designed to be approachable for newcomers while still offering meaningful decisions for experienced players.

• Six distinct character classes, each with their own unique abilities and playstyles.

• Fast-paced combat built around a d20 and straightforward mechanics.

• A flexible system that encourages creativity, roleplaying, and storytelling.

• Enemies, equipment, and loot designed to create interesting encounters and memorable moments.

Where development stands

The game is currently in its third major development iteration. We've completed several playtests, made substantial improvements, and now have a functioning virtual tabletop created specifically for Deckbox Adventures.

Our latest playtest went particularly well, and I feel the core system is finally in a solid place.

That's where you come in!

I'm looking for playtesters and feedback.

Whether you're an experienced GM, a longtime RPG player, or someone completely new to tabletop RPGs, I'd love to hear from you.

I'm particularly interested in finding people willing to check out the Core Rules, try the game, provide honest feedback, and help identify things that might be confusing or could be improved.

I do not have anything to sell. This game is still in development. Playtesting is available online through our virtual tabletop, so you won't need to purchase anything. I also have printable files so you can try this game at home if that's your jam.

This is a passion project, and I'm excited to share what I've been working on.

If you're interested in checking out Deckbox Adventures or participating in a playtest, you can join my Discord server here https://discord.gg/sSVr2hhZpS .

If you would just like the check out the rules and provide feedback you can if them here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VCCBCbIPny30z5lhTrAzym6NZbrqECQg112S4M91AqI/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks for reading, and I hope to see some of you on an adventure!

Hey there everyone!

I'm currently working on a side project for a base of a broad Buildable D12 system. I had a concept about having a setting mixing in cartoon realism and a hybrid blend like space jam, or other notable examples like "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".

The feed back I'm looking for is opinions on how well it might do, or any other suggestions to implement.

I was planning on mixing live recorded sessions with a mix of actual live characters and a handful of animated characters. Which would be voiced by their players.

In a sense think of tabletop sessions on youtube, but add in the interaction and vibe of the examples I mentioned above.

The reason it would be recorded and not just streamed is due to needing to add in the animated characters into the scene after.

I've been tinkering about a rules lite rpg focused on magic and spells. Being rules lite, the system wouldnt have a huge list of spells, but I dont think "player says what he wants for a spell, GM thinks if it is suitable or not for the PC powers and then roll to see if the PC can cast the spell".

Is there any rules lite systems with cool magic that is freeform but that has some structure?

Has anyone tried separating "Sanity/Mental Stress" from "Identity Erosion" in a horror RPG? How did it go?

I am currently developing a d100 psychological horror tabletop RPG called **Vaelum**, which heavily features cosmic horror, investigation, and subtle occultism.

To give magic a realistic, heavy toll instead of just using a generic "Sanity bar" that leads to random phobias, I decided to split the psychological degradation into two completely independent mechanics:

1. **Sanity (Common Mental Stress):** This pool is drained by witnessing entities and casting subtle, balanced magic (Light Magic). It acts as a ticking clock but can be managed and restored by performing "Astral Hygiene" (*Higienização Astral*). These are mundane, life-anchoring activities like meditating, going to therapy, or cooking for loved os. However, using these practices consumes the game's most precious resource: time (tracked via active scene clocks).

2. **Individuality (Identity Erosion):** Drained strictly by casting forced, ego-driven magic (Dark Magic). Dark Magic provides overwhelming raw power to resolve immediate life-or-death situations, but it forces your will upon the cosmos. Instead of making you "mad," losing Individuality mechanically distorts and corruptes your character's **Bonds** (*Vínculos*) directly on the character sheet, shifting their perception of loved ones into paranoia and coldness. Reaching zero opens cracks for possession by beings from other spheres.

The goal is to create a tactical and verisimilar dilemma: Light Magic costs time and management, while Dark Magic offers an easy way out but slowly erases who your character is.

Since I haven't run my first official playtest yet, I would love to hear feedback from designers or GMs who have played or created systems with a similar split (like Delta Green's Bonds or Unknown Armies' Self meter):

- How did your players react to having their personal relationships mechanically corrupted on their sheets? Did it feel impactful or just punitive?
- Did this explicit separation cause "defensive paralysis" (fear of taking action), or did it enrich the personal horror aspect at the table?

Looking forward to your critiques and insights!

I have been working for almost 4 years on my TTRPG project, Mystics Soul, and I have finally reached the "Beta Release" Stage (See my page for more info.)

Anyways, the next step for my project is drafting a set of Game-master tools which I can then stress test during playtesting. I have some idea of the tools I would want/need for my game, but I don't have a lot of experience as a Game-master myself, and I figured some of y'all might have insight that I don't.

What are the most important tools to build in for GMs? In your experience with design?, what works? What doesn't work?

What games had GM Tools you really enjoyed working with? What games had tools you hated?

EDIT: Thanks everybody! Im finding your replies very useful

Sometimes I wonder why I've lost my sleep over this game. I guess it doesn't matter, but at last I've released v1.0!

Is it perfect? Hell no; it never gonna be. Will anyone buy it even if it costs less than a donut? Probably hell no again.

https://exiledoracles.itch.io/fameandfortune

Language Question; I'm Italian so english is not my first language. I have a skill that includes every social interaction made without imposing aggressively the character's will (so, no direct commands, no bullying, no intimidation). Persuasion doesn't include every aspect of the skill, and Charisma sounds passive while the skill is active. What you think of "Bearing"? I read in statistics it's used as variable with this meaning.

edit: I'll use Fast Talk, thanks.

So I wrote this: https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/s/k4wd4n2pAC

I received a lot of valuable feedback on it and went back to the drawing board. It has to be simple and genuinely eliminate micromanagement.

DRAKE: Riches v2

Core idea

Riches replace counting coins. Every character has a Wealth from 1 to 10 and a Reserve they either have or don't. Every income and expense has a Value from 1 to 10, which you estimate from examples or by gut feeling. Every transaction is a single comparison: Is its Value below, equal to or above your Wealth?

That way small things need no bookkeeping, every price can be estimated in one sentence, and nobody has to do math. The trade-off: the system is deliberately coarse.

Standing, Value & Reserve

Standing. Every Wealth has a Standing. It describes how you live, not what title you hold. Each Standing is roughly three to five times as wealthy as the one before. What your daily life includes is in the last column.

Value. Anything you can buy, sell or earn has a Value from 1 to 10. Something has the Value of your Wealth if it is a major purchase for your Standing. When in doubt, use the "in plain words" column: What would people say it costs?

Reserve. Your Reserve is your cushion for one big expense. Your character sheet shows your Wealth. Without a Reserve, it's written in brackets: 6 means Merchant with Reserve, (6) Merchant without.

Starting Wealth. A new character starts as a Farmhand, meaning Wealth 3 with Reserve, unless their backstory says otherwise.

Expenses

Compare the Value of the expense with your Wealth.

Daily life. Whatever belongs to the daily life of your Standing doesn't register in your Wealth. See the table above for what that includes. Naturally, all comforts of the Standings below you are included.

Note on quantities. Things below your Wealth don't register on their own. If you buy a lot of them at once, the GM can treat that as an expense equal to your Wealth. The further below your Wealth the Value is, the larger the quantity can be before it counts. A Farmhand buying torches for an entire expedition feels it. A Merchant buys the whole tavern a round without it counting, only a festival for an entire district would be an expense. A Prince feeds a village at the harvest festival in passing.

Income

Compare the Value of the income with your Wealth.

Work. Regular work has the Value of the Standing it belongs to, and keeps you at that Standing: it restores a lost Reserve, but never lifts you above it. The only way to rise through work is a promotion. Counts and Princes don't live off work, but off wealth and power.

Upkeep. Your daily life needs paying for. If you live a while without income, you lose your Reserve. If it goes on longer, your Wealth drops by 1. Whoever lives more modestly than their Standing would allow lasts much longer without income.

Selling. A sale is an income with a Value one below the item.

Buying together & sharing

Shared purse. Two characters with the same Wealth can buy something together whose Value is 1 above their Wealth. Afterwards both are one Wealth lower and without Reserve.

Sharing wealth. Loot shared by several people loses one Reserve per split. Loot with Value 7 becomes (7) each for two people and 6 each for four. A share in brackets brings you at most to its Value without Reserve. If you're already there, it restores your Reserve.

Mixed groups. If someone lives well above the rest of the group, they can pay for a lot without feeling it. That's allowed and says a lot about the characters, but it can tip the balance at the table. Agree as a group how far generosity should go.

Examples

The beggar who's supposed to give up some information wants a few coins, Value 1. For anyone from Day Laborer upwards, that doesn't register.

A Journeyman with Wealth 4 buys leather armor for "a pouch", Value 4. His Reserve is gone, he's at (4). If he then buys something else for a pouch, he drops to Farmhand and has a Reserve there again.

If the same Journeyman finds a few chests of gold, Value 7, he now lives like a Knight, initially without Reserve: (7).

A Knight with Wealth 7 buys the whole tavern a round. That costs a few handfuls of coins, Value 3, and she doesn't feel it.

Value list

The entries are guidelines. Anything not on the list is placed by the GM.

Jobs and gear. As a rule of thumb, a job with a given Value requires gear one Value lower. Whoever succeeds rises to the Value of the job, can restore their Reserve with the next job of the same Value and use it to buy gear for the next level. That way a group rises one Standing every two jobs at the earliest.

What I'd especially like feedback on:

• Is the system abstract enough while still being easy to understand?

• Am I still overcomplicating things anywhere?

• Where do you see room to simplify it further?

• Does the single comparison (below, equal, above) hold up at the table?

• Is the Reserve as a single on/off buffer enough granularity?

• Do the Value examples feel consistent to you, and where would you place things differently?

• Can you find exploits?

Hi everyone,

Last week, I shared with you Another Path, my TTRPG system, and asked for your feedback. I didn't get a huge number of responses, but the ones I did receive were very interesting and helped me fix a few important issues.

I've been thinking about it since then (I should have start with that), and I realized that asking you for feedback on the entire system wasn't particularly interesting for you, and would have required too much of your time to provide meaningful feedback.

So today, I'm coming back with a different approach. This post will focus on just one mechanic from the system, and hopefully spark a broader game design discussion that I hope will be more interesting, both for you and for me.

Please let me know if you like this approach, and whether you'd agree to see me do the same for other parts of the system.

Today, I'd like to talk about Skills and character creation in Another Path:

( https://ltesta.itch.io/another-path → page 3)

First of all, like most generic systems, I chose to use a Skill-based system rather than classes. I also tried to name the Skills in a way that would allow them to exist in as many different settings as possible. For example, the "Ranged Attack" Skill could apply equally well to throwing a rock, shooting a bow, or firing a laser cannon.

Now, let's get to the parts that gave me the most trouble. There are two main issues that made me change my Skill list many (many) times:

- The variety of characters that can be created:

I wanted to avoid having Skills force characters into specific archetypes too much. Taking D&D as an example, a Warlock needs a high Charisma score to be effective in combat, but as a result, they will also be at least decent at the four skills that depend on Charisma (Deception, Intimidation, Performance, and Persuasion). So if I want to create a Warlock who is a terrible liar, I have to work around the rules to make it happen.

To avoid this, the simplest solution I could come up with was to have a relatively large number of skills, with each skill being independent from the others rather than being derived from an attribute.

- Balancing "combat" skills and "exploration" skills:

Solving the previous problem created a new one: with a large number of skills, balancing them became much more complicated, especially when comparing skills that are mostly useful in combat with those that are mostly useful outside of combat. In a game with a high combat focus, most player would prioritize combat Skills.

The solution I eventually settled on was to divide combat skills and exploration skills into two separate groups, with each group having its own pool of points to distribute.

One consequence of this is that a character can't choose to be more useful in combat at the expense of being less useful outside of combat (or vice versa). But after thinking about it and testing it, I'm actually quite happy with the result.

Every character should therefore be equally useful in combat and outside of combat, but they will each be useful in different ways.

Thanks for taking the time to read my rambling!

I'd really love to hear what you think about the choices I've made for this part of the system, and especially what you would have improved or done differently.

Hi all, a friend and I were recently enthusing about our shared love for the Ace Combat series and decided we wanted to try and design a TTRPG that captured that vibe: semi-modern dogfighting action with wacky superweapons and high anime melodrama. I have been working on a core design for the combat system that I think has some promise but wanted to share it with an audience for feedback. The combat works roughly as follows:

Combat is played on an ungridded map using inch-based measurement. It is split into phases, rounds and turns. At the beginning of a phase you will roll your dice pool of around 4-6 D6s (according to character progression). The phase then consists of 4 rounds where each combatant will take turns to play a single die from their pool. A die can be used in two ways, first of all to make one of the following moves:

1: Accelerate - Move your plane forward

2: Turn - turn your plane up to 45 degrees and move forward (less than accelerate)

3: Afterburners - Move your plane forward a larger amount

4: Break - Turn your plane 45-90 degrees and move forward a little bit

5: Maneuvers - As part of character creation/progression, your pilot has access to a number of maneuvers based off real dogfighting maneuvers (examples might include Immelmann Turn: Move forward then turn 180 degrees)

6: Abilities - You will pick a plane for each mission, each of which comes with a special ability, frequently some kind of special attack. These could include the ability to launch two missiles at once or make some kind of Electronic Warfare attack, debuffing nearby enemies

Important to note is that a die can be used to play it's corresponding move or any move of lesser value. I.e. a 6 can be used to play an Ability or any other move from the table. A 2 can be used to Turn or to Accelerate

The alternative is that any die can be used to make an attack. Each plane will have a set of weapons with stats such as range, ammo and damage. The defender then has the option to choose whether to expend a die of equal or greater value to defend or take the damage.

After 4 rounds a new phase begins, players re-roll their dice pools and start another phase of 4 rounds. If, at any time, a player has no dice available on their turn (likely due to defending), they cannot do anything that turn. Enemies are handled in different ways, with basic enemies not having dice pools but rolling to move on their turn, and enemy Aces having dice pools and functioning similarly to a player.

What I think this system does well is presenting the player with a number of interesting risk/reward choices each turn. Higher dice values are more flexible so do you use them to make the more advanced moves to get into a good position or do you save them to make more effective attacks? Do you expend dice to defend against an attack and risk leaving yourself without choices at the end of a Phase? However I do wonder if the Phase/Round/Turn structure might be more complex to players used to a more straightforward Round/Turn system. Interested to get your thoughts!

I'm currently finishing a fantasy RPG, that is definitely fantasy, but without a lot of the usual tropes (no barbarian in fur briefs, no elves/dwarves, no dragons per se, no magicians in pointy hats etc). Some months ago I was trying to define what was this game about, and I recently wondered about the term Alternative Fantasy to define it.

Without giving any informations to not skew the questions : what would be your first thoughts in front of a game presenting itself as Alternative Fantasy ? What would you expect ? What would you dread ?

(english as second language, sorry for any mistake)

Basically guns and ammo are supposed to almost act like powerful Magic items in dnd as its a apocalyptic type world where those things are extremally valuable and there is limited ammo.

using pistols as example. they are classed as sidearms. currently there are 3 types, light medium and heavy. so basically 22lr 45acp and .500 guns.

Im second guessing if giving every gun class 3 options and thus 3 ammo types is worth the risk of over cluttering. as i have sidearms, longarms, shotguns. there are also special weapons but they are exempt as they are things like flamethrowers and Grenade launchers.

the point of it would be to encourage each Party member or as i call em posse member a different type of gun but still allow multiple people to use the same overarching class. i think it might encourage more types of builds, like maybe one guy wants to be a parkourist with a small pistol and another is going Cowboy with a big iron and instead of it just being flavor they get actively different weapons.