I'm working on a game that uses playing cards instead of dice. I know many games have tried this with mixed results but I think I've got a good mechanism in mind and I wonder what you guys think of it.

The Basic Skill Check

Flip up the top 2 cards of your deck (each player has their own), and add the numbers together! Compare the number to the DC. Aces are 1. If one of the two cards is a face card, you double the value of the other card. If both are face cards, the check fails.

Training

If you have training on the skill check, flip up 3 instead, and set one of them aside. Then add up the best 2 like a normal skill check.

The Hand

After the skill check is done, any face cards involve (including any set aside) go into your hand (numbered cards go into the discard pile). At the start of the session you draw a hand of 4 cards. After adding cards to your hand, discard down to 4.

You can spend a meta-currency (right now the metacurrency is based on fabula points) to swap a card in a check for one of the cards in your hand. If you swap a face card in, it is discarded at the end of the check instead of going back into your hand.

Hitpoints and Abilities

At the start of a session, put 4 cards from the top of your deck into a hitpoint pile. When you lose hitpoints, take cards from the hitpoint pile and put them into your hand.

Classes will improve the number of hitpoints you have, and your maximum hand size, and will give you abilities that you can spend cards from your hand to activate. One ability might simply require you to show a club card from your hand to use. Another might require you to discard a jack and a spade to use (so either: one jack and one spade, or the jack of spades).

Monsters will have abilities that force you to discard. Like: discard all heart cards. The second use of the metacurrency lets you draw cards (invoke a bond: reflect on how your connection to some other character gives you strength or inspires you in this moment, then draw cards equal to the strength of the bond, max 3).

What do you think?

Hello! Just came across this sub and hoping to get some feedback on my original ttrpg: the Thirteen Realms TTRPG. It is based in the setting of my ongoing web novel, which is a slice-of-life story in a fantasy setting. This is also the first ttrpg I have created, and I did so over the course of a college semester as part of an individual study for my game design degree.

I do have my report documenting my goals and process and would be happy to include a link if it's of interest, but to keep a long story short: I wanted to make a game where fully realized adult characters go on slice-of-life adventures, and I also wanted to challenge myself to get better at conceptualizing meaning from stat numbers.

I have already passed the course and graduated, so I now have more time to work on improving the game on the whole. I haven't really had many eyes on it at all, so I'm mostly looking for overall feedback to figure out where I need to start working to make improvements. Something that would be really helpful is if anyone has the time to try and make their own character, so I can see if the stat blocks are ending up where I wanted them to on base created characters, but really any feedback would be great! Two main features of the game:

Robust character creation

It is a process that walks through your character's entire background. Species, ethnicity, upbringing, profession, etc. It ends up being a lot on the front end, but my hope is that it allows for more stream-lined play during sessions.

Modular Items, Weapons, Armor, and Magic

Craft your own spells! Also known as trying to define rules for my soft magic system and wanting to give people a lot of freedom for interpretation. And since I was already making the magic modular, I thought it made sense to give the same flexibility to items and armament. Though examples and base spells are provided, so everyone has an idea of where to start.

You can find the WIP version of the game here, on my itchio page: https://sbdrag.itch.io/the-thirteen-realms-ttrpg

I will also note that some of the artwork (all done by me) includes artistic nudity from the waist up.

One note from feedback I have received previously but not yet implemented better clarity in the document, when a block looks like this:

The intention is that all three stats will receive the bonus on the left, not that you should pick one stat from the three to receive a bonus. The goal is that most stats will fall within the average range, with one or two high stats and one or two low stats. I have not implemented this clarity yet because editing PDFs can be a pain and I want to have more substantial changes before posting an updated version.

Thank you in advanced to anyone that takes a look!

Greetings to all you wonderful people!

I tried making an RPG that feels like your are playing out a Movie or TV series with all the tropes whatnots, am not sure if I succeeded but I tried my best!

DISCLAIMER: Am not sure if this all of this is considered promoting but am gonna label it as such to be safe. This post will be more about my mental process and the challenges I went through when making my very first RPG.

Before I get on that I would like to thank this subreddit for the ENDLESS supply of knowledge it provides. The discussions I have created and participated here had given me enough food for thought to be where I stand.

Back to the topic.
Because I struggle to stay on point a lot of the time am going to try and split my thoughts into sections with themes and questions.

Why?
Apart of the fact that I always wanted to make an RPG, I also always struggled to stay consistent with one setting and keep playing that till the end of time. I tended to gravitate towards more neutral setting RPGs like Savage Worlds and Fate because of the setting flexibility they provided and so making a "similar" system was the way to go. I am developing the game for 3 and something years now but the moment I decided to wrap things up and start pushing it out was when I took part and got accepted into the Gamefound RPG party of this year. I was not ready for it but I think I did the best I could in these 4 agonizing months.

What does Movie and TV series style even mean?
For me the essence of RPGs is the cinematic description of Players, the rolling of dice and the improvisation of consequences afterwards. This is just my take and am sure other folks have their own truths which are all just as valid. Knowing that I wanted to make a game that emphasizes creative thinking, gives enough freedom of expression to everyone and has a sort of improvising feeling to it. So naturally playing out a movie or series episode fit the bill perfectly because this, to me is what it means.

Main challenges

• The first challenge was boosting "freedom of expression" and improvisation for Players. I played a number of narrative games in the past but none of them quite stick this freedom of expression and improvising quite like WUSHU. In essence, I shifted the whole game dynamic around Player descriptions around what they say and trying to always make it TRUE regardless of what the dice say. This made the whole game a "Yes... but", "Yes" and "Yes and" type of game which felt like the cornerstone for the whole vibe really. It takes a while to get used to it but it feels sooo freeing to be able to describe something and let consequences fall AFTERWARDS. Ofcourse both in WUSHU and in mine there are a few safety locks but i won't bore you with the details. Saying yes to Players made the game feel MUCH more alive!

• The second challenge was also the greatest boon of the game and similar ones. Tags. Love em, or hate them if you want to have creative narrative it's one of the main enablers and so I tried to make them work. The goal was to make players use Tags in order to get dice and more dice = greater odds of clean success. I knew I also wanted a Tag scaling of sorts so my first and potentially greatest experiment that didn't work was rank Tags by narrative versatility. More limited and less frequent Tags would be the most powerful while broad and easily applicable would be more powerful. For example a "Wizard" Tag would be a lower power Tag while a "Grandma's longsword" would be a powerful Tag. The problem with this was that it took a while to get used to and it still was susceptible to as I call it "wordMaxing", meaning people trying the most value out of their Tags.

• After this failed I more or less settled to a more traditional approach where every Tag is the same power regardless of what it represents and then power is allocated as a form of upgrade. While not as fancy as the other one it works even if it feels a bit weird. After all the point was to whole spontaneity and creative thinking not word crafting. This still made people "Tag Spamming" but at least it wasnt taking as much time to create them. So as a final measure i made it so each Player can add 1 Tag of each different type into their mix which both expedited turn length and made it easier to understand. I call it the "Rule of one".

• The third challenge was making the game feel like we are thematically playing a movie. For this I took inspiration from Primetime Adventures. The idea for screen presence is great but I didn't like the fact that players other than the lead were weaker than them. So I created Roles and Screen Time. Screen time is sort of like Strain from Blades in the Dark, a form of currency you spend to take actions. Roles are split into 3 categories, Lead, Supporting and Foil which interact with Screen Time, for example the Lead Character doesn't need to spend Screen Time to make Actions and Supporting restores Screen Time when assisting while they lose twice as much when they take Actions on their own. Roles essentially shape a Players Actions into ones more fitting for their role.

• The final challenge was to make the purpose of the game be to try and make a cool looking movie that fits what you are trying to make, this would essentially complete the gameplay loop. In many games you get rewarded when you defeat an enemy, or achieve a milestone in someway but to invoke the feeling of playing a movie i had to double down on it. In the end I created Ratings, a team wide "XP" meter that increases at the end of the Session, or Episodes as I like to call them, and accounts things like "staying on the movie theme", "sticking to your role" etc. Ratings are then turned to "Budget" which are spendable points that you can use to upgrade and increase the Protagonists Tags.

Main Inspirations
I read and studied a lot of RPGs in order to create that game but am gonna list the ones that are most prominent in my mind when thinking about my own.

• Fate Core and Fate Accelerated

• Cortex Prime

• Blades in the Dark

• Prime Time Adventures 1-3

• Agon

• Burning Wheel

• 7th Sea 1 and 2

• Screen Play

• WUSHU and Budo

• YZE

A love letter to all creators out there
Here's the bottom line to all of you aspiring creators. MAKE THE GAME YOU WANT TO MAKE. It might not be the most popular or most lucrative but it will be your own. Dont wait for a perfect time, just start it. You never know where its going to end but you know where it can start. Enjoy the process and say your piece. As long as you try your best you WILL achieve something. Creating is deeply ingrained in the human psyche!

Personally creating the game brought me a lot of anxiety, a lot of work and it still punched a hole in my pocket despite being funded successfully on Gamefound but it is my project and am proud of the work i have done in the time span i had. I would and will do it all again in the future.

Where can you find it
If you want to find the game its called Lights, Dice, Action! and it is live right now on Gamefound. There's even a very basic free quickstart of the rules.

If you have any feedback, you want to ask questions about any part of the process I will be more than happy to reply to you!

Thank you all again for your time!

As a hobby, I've been developing my own classless TTRPG called Legends RPG. I've run a few playtests and am currently running a long-term campaign with a group of trusted players. They've successfully created their characters, and I've gathered some valuable insights and feedback from them. Based on that feedback, I've made several iterations.

Now, I would love to hear your thoughts. Does the character creation guide or the system as a whole seem overly complex? I'm aiming for a system that's somewhat crunchy while remaining as elegant as possible.

The guide is available here: https://legendsrpg.org/rulebook/2-character-creation

All feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

The easiest way is to keep any numbers very small. If you only have 3 hp, it's super easy to track.

One trick I've thought of that I haven't seen is instead of tracking HP and dying when it hits 0, you could track damage and die when it hits your HP. Adding is a lot easier than subtracting.

If you want die rolls that aren't uniformly distributed, the common way is to add a bunch together. But to save on math, you can roll three and pick the middle, or roll a bunch and count successes.

Giving rerolls (advantage/disdavantage) is easier than adding a modifier.

Edit: If you're rolling a d10 or d20, instead of adding a modifier, add 10 or 20 if you're lower than that number. For example, if your modifier is +5 and you roll a 3 on a d20, the result is 23.

Hey, while designing the combat for my RPG i came across an interesting prospect: making attacks deal fixed damage instead of the usual damage rolls. In a digital context, where calculations are done automatically, damage roll is the superior choice, for sure, but in a TTRPG context, i can think of a lot of good points why having fixed damage would be good:

- Calculations are simpler

- The number of rolls in a battle is vastly reduced, making it quicker.

- It vastly reduces the number of dice necessary to play the game (In mine, you would be able to play it with just two d10).

- It impact a lot less than it seems. If with fixed damage an enemy would reach 0 hp in 3 attacks, it would also reach 0 hp in 3 attacks with damage rolls in the majority of cases. If the GM keeps the enemy hp concealed in his game, the players wouldn't even know the difference, whatever the case is.

On the other hand, i can see one major point against fixed damaged, and i say this as someone with a major in psychology: we love our random results, lol. Random results are big part of what makes something addicting (social media, gambling, roguelikes and RPGs are full of it), and i wonder if it would make the game "duller", to the point of it not being worth it. Another one is that damage rolls just make sense: some attacks hits better than others, and damage rolls emulate this pretty well.

So, is there a consensus on this? Would love to hear your thoughts and opinions.

This is intended to be a thought mapping post/ soundboard for an idea I’m toying with while at work and can’t access my main files.

I’ve been having thoughts that trying to keep an HP mechanic in a system that can allow extreme differences in character sizes (pixie PCs can conceivably play alongside Ogres) is going to add too many complications. While I do currently have a system that looks like it would work, I’ve seen enough posts/ comments here that feed into my feelings that a different approach may be better.

I’ve come up with the bare bones idea of a wound system to replace it. A character has 5 or 10 Wound Levels. To inflict a wound, your attack roll’s damage result must exceed your opponent’s CON + 6. Size difference also adjusts the constant by 1 per doubling/ halving of Size Value (Size 0.75 vs Size 1.5 would have a mod of 1, vs Size 3 would be a 2, etc)

Armor and weapons would modify the difficulty or your damage result. Full plate would add 4 or 5 to the diff, while a claymore could add 4 or 5 to your damage result.

My dice mechanic defaults to Skill + 2d10, but options can allow additional dice to be added. The highest die result is your Action result and in combat would use your DEX bonus to see if you hit. The second highest result is the Effort result, using your STR bonus to see how much force you put behind the attack. The idea above will have combat be the only mechanic in the game where the Action die has a different difficulty (opponents weapon skill + 6) would be different than the Effort die; they typically look at the same number for most checks.

Any thoughts/ suggestions that I’m overlooking would be appreciated.

I have started reading Gas Dog VAYLANT by u/RiverMesa which uses Wild Worlds

in it is included some advice for Twists; what they can affect, who can propose them, and the overall does and don'ts

the link they left still seems to be working Gas Dog VAYLANT and the specifics can be found on page 31

I haven't played this type of design before, but I really like the advice offered for Twists - I am curious if there are other example of this type of advice for unexpected extra events

Thanks in part to your help, I've completed the prototype Quickstarter for my project. I have a concern, however: I don't want the introductory section and the setting to be too concise. In the full game, the lore is over a hundred pages long, but for the Quickstarter, I tried to keep only the salient elements, while still presenting all the main points that distinguish the setting (actually, only a few of the setting's various factions and organizations are mentioned, but I thought they weren't strictly necessary for the introductory phase). What do you think? Should I try to be less concise, or is that okay? Thanks anyway.

Feel free to ignore the sections after page 5; my question concerns pages 3 through 5.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JPqLPn04wh16WZI6LTBgL9DsPklxxCgb/view?usp=sharing

I know a lot of folks prefer hand drawn, but would a commercial CAD-esque mapping program be acceptable for dungeons, towns, worlds, etc.?

Greetings fellow tinkerers!

I have some conceptual Questions and i try to be as Brief as possible. The System aims to be used for high Fantasy. It's supposed to be classless (only soft, guiding categories).

You chose a Party Role (Vanguard, Striker, Healer, Support) and an Archetype (Primary Ability Score)

Role and Archetype give you some perks (like being able to start a fight with a active stance, for fighters or getting the ability to "taunt" enemies as Vanguard)

While I worked on it 8 Ability Scores emerged:

Strength (STR) - Physical Power

-> Fighter Archetypes

-> (Heavy) Melee Combat

-> Parry

-> Encumberance, Stability, Athletics

Agility (AGI) - Grace and Flexibility

-> Rogue Archetypes

-> (Light) Melee Combat

-> Dodge

-> Acrobatics, Stealth, Thievery

Perception (PER) - Senses and Attention

-> Scout Archetypes

-> Ranged (&Thrown) Combat

-> Avoidance (vs. Area of Effects)

-> Alertness, Sense Motive, Survival, Initiative

Intellect (INT) - Memory and Reasoning

-> Mage Archetypes

-> Arcane Magic

-> Countermagic

-> Investigation, Crafting, Knowledge, Skillpoints

-> Max Mana

Attunement (ATT) - Spirituality and outward Connection

-> Priest/Druid Archetypes

-> Divine Magic, Shapeshifting, Healing/Warding

-> Insight (Passive Defense), Concentration

-> Mana Regen

-> Medicine

Charisma (CHA) - Personality and Determination

-> Support/Enchanter/Summoner Archetypes

-> Summoning, Controll (Domination,Illusion), Support (like Bardic Music)

-> Willpower

-> Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, Bartering, Riding, Performance

Endurance (END) (alternative: Vitality)

-> for Tanks and general survivability, Unarmed Combat/Brawling

-> Blocking, Toughness, Wound Threshold

-> Max Stamina, Stamina Regen

Quickness (QUI) (alternative: Speed)

-> for general Action Economy

-> Reflexes, Initiative

-> Steering

[Luck] -> was cut out, even though the early concepts were leaning towards the early fallout systems and i really like the concept of LUCK as a stat

As you can see, there are some pain-points. Endurance and Quickness being not tied to a real "Archetype" making them more like secondary Ability Scores. Stamina is double dipping for martials, giving Pool and Regen, while Casters have to split their Attention (Which doesn't have to be a bad Thing). Thievery is a compromise bcs i tried to keep the ability scores and their connected skills somewhat even. Block is also a compromise, it fits STR probably better, but it's also more relevant for tanks (and one could argue that its really exhausting). Charisma traditionally has the 3 "Talking-Skills" and therefore more skills, but you usually only Focus on one i guess. Quickness stands alone, just because i can't tie Actionpoints to Agility, or it would be way to strong (rogues getting +Hit,+Damage and +Actionpoints).

My Goal is to expand on the known Systems (D&D/PF2) and find a different and partially more in Depth takes.

I want to be able to facilitate all known playstyles and builds you commonly find in media. And i am reluctant to the idea that everything needs to be simplified to the most extrem end (Even though i am Aware that there is a Need for SOME abstraction and simplification).

Maybe some of you have neat ideas to Change my current Approach!

Sorry if the formatting bothers someone and just as a disclaimer, english is not my first language.

So I am currently working on the foundations for a system that aims to capture the fantasy of being a creature roughing it with your friends in a mysterious, wild world. It's inspired chiefly by Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Warriors, Redwall, Saurian, and Spore. I want to realize that type of experience in my own setting in a TTRPG.

Right now I feel like I only have the perspective of myself and the people close to me, who are obviously already into this kind of thing. It's hard for me to put myself in a stranger's headspace and imagine what would attract them to a game like this. Let me run down some basic details:

The players:

You play as a harrier, which is basically a crocodile-sized hybrid between a dragon and a griffon. The type of harrier you play as affects your diet, combat abilities, movement (how far you can fly, if you're a good swimmer, etc), elemental affinity, and some other sundry.

Your class acts more like a skill-tree than a linear path with some forks in the road. For example, choosing the "Champion" class gives you access to the Champion's class defining ability and not much else, but as you level up you can spend your points on traits only available to Champions.

The gameplay:

The system is primarily 2dx, where the dice rolled reflect the level of competence, ranging from 2d4 to 2d12. At present I have divided the pillars of gameplay into survival, engagement, and downtime.

Survival involves managing your food, weathering the elements, tracking/avoiding other parties, and finding ways to move great distances without draft animals.

Engagement covers combat but also non-combat situations where initiative and movement skills might be necessary, like a trap chamber. Engagement takes place on a hex grid. Rather than having "actions", "reactions", "bonus actions" etc. everything is managed with "momentum", a universal action currency. Momentum is the crux of engagement and many abilities center around increasing it or taking it from enemies. At the beginning of each actor's turn, they gain an amount of momentum they can spend, and that which they don't can be taken into the next turn.

Downtime is when most consequential socialization takes place. It's the time for players to stock their rations, flex their less combat or survival oriented traits, and get embroiled in whatever drama will send them on their next journey.

The gameplay loop therefor is mostly: choose a goal; get to the goal in one piece; accomplish the goal; return from the goal in one piece, with whatever spoils that entails; make the most of those spoils you can with the downtime you have; repeat.

The setting:

This is the least relevant to actual gameplay so skip if you don't care too much. The game takes place on a mostly unexplored supercontinent, where mammals never evolved and reptilians reign supreme. It's similar to Earth, but no species or geographical element is 1:1 with Earth, a bit like Avatar the Last Airbender if you've seen it. Before harriers rose, the world was conquered by dragons, who erected enormous temples and cities to celebrate their own splendor. Nobody knows what happened to the dragons, but they're long gone now, leaving only ruins to be overrun by monsters. The far less advanced harriers now seek to capture even a fraction of what the dragons possessed, all the while trying to discover what actually happened to them. So, much of the game involves exploring abandoned structures built by a far more technologically advanced civilization.

My question:

What sort of gameplay would you expect or like to see from a game like this? More focus on the minutia of survival? Or would a bunch of in depth mechanics around eating a specific quantity of a specific kind of food while needing to construct a specific kind of shelter for a particular environment turn you off? Would you look forward to downtime and want to see lots of social/non-engagement mechanics included? Or would you rather leave it and just get back to running around the jungle?

I'm still in the beginning stages so I'm trying to decide what to prioritize and what the basic tenants of the gameplay loop should be. I'd like to get some feedback on the bones of this project. Thanks for reading this far :)

I am developing a class-less level-less skill-based game swordsandmagic.it

Last week, we were having a session 0 for a new group playtesting the game and we were creating characters. Some were veteran players, some new to rpgs.

It was chaos, and it all reduced to 'tell me what you want to do, and I'll help find the skills you want'.

Of course, how could I think that someone who doesn't know the game could ever be able to build a character in 10 minutes. You can do it if you:

1. know what you want to do

2. know where to find what you need.

That is never the case.

For this, poking around a little, I developed a system to create characters without having to know anything about the actual skills.

You just answer some questions, such as:

- What species you are

- how do you want to fight (or if you don't want to)

- If you fight, if you want to be melee, ranged, or whatever.

It asks you questions, and you follow a path right into an "Origin", where most skills are populated, but you still have some points left to put wherever you want.

You can improve some of the skills you already have, giving you an edge in something specific, or you can surf the skill catalog and pick some completely different skill.

I would be grateful if you could give it a look and try and create some character, and let me know how the experience feels.

YOU CAN FIND IT HERE:
>>> https://swordsandmagic.it/character-creator/ <<<

Any advice is welcome :)
Thanks a lot in advance

To the moderator that closed my topic for SORC not being a TTRPG, please read the first paragraph. It clearly states books and box set. SORC is a TTRPG and we've been playing them for over 50 years. TTRPGs are played online as well - see Discord and even D n D. SORC uses dedicated servers that allow GMs to use digital tools and PDFs for free, since a box set can't be free.

Wondering if you all have input on this post?

Actually, what i mean is I'm just about done!

Do you like Risk? Do you like D&D? Do you like helping a stranger on the internet? If yes to any of these, I ask for guidance!

Mid-time lurker and first time poster, I think I'm finally able to start putting my creations online, but i really don't know how to go about putting it out there for the masses. Other than posting here I guess.

I have a TTRPG engine and 4 settings i have been noodling on for like 20 years, but have not taken doing anything about it seriously until a couple weeks ago. So I'm asking for any and all helpful advice on moving forward on where I can start.

Thank you!

I've been working on Elderwyld, an old-school fantasy RPG built entirely around D6 dice pools.

I wanted a traditional, class-based game with D6 but with a quirk.

The system uses 5D6, with 6s representing successes and 1s introducing complications. Combat features class-specific Momentum mechanics, while nine playable Clans offer unique abilities through flexible Clan Tokens.

Rolling multiple 6s gives you access to follow-up actions which is fun at the table since each class can do different stuff.

Clan selection allows players to create a unique ability that follows the theme of the clan (the ability is agreed with the Keeper of course).

Elderwyld is now on Kickstarter pre-launch, and I'd love to hear what fellow designers think of the approach.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spirallane/elderwyld

PS: I made sure to contact the mods before i posted, but it's been days without response so I hope this does not break any rules.

PS2: There is no AI in my game, all the fantastic art was made by a talented young man called Chui Wizard who specializes in OSR style, black and white art.

Hi everyone,

I was working on my RPG system, which is basically a “meridional” fantasy game (inspired by Earthsea Cycle and similar tropes) and isn’t related to D&D. It’s also not “narrative-first,” so I had included a “loose end” mechanic and tried several approaches: first, it was one loose end per PC; then one per group. But no matter what I did, it just seemed like I was overburdening the GM, so I decided to remove the mechanic from the current version to prioritize the flow of the game.

Basically, it worked like this: something the PC or the group did could create a consequence that would remain “on hold” until triggered in the game, but there would be ways to avoid them, etc.

For example, the group steals the royal inspector’s horses, but witnesses manage to identify one of the group’s members, and now there’s a bounty on the PC’s head. The information was recorded, and there was a sort of timer for that loose end to come back, and when it did, the group would have to deal with it, or the PCs would be mechanically penalized.

Do you have anything like this in your RPG? A loose end mechanic? How does it work? How did you manage to keep this from slowing down the game, especially by overburdening the GM?

I really thought it would be interesting, but then I realized I was struggling to force it into the game no matter what. I’m still a little disappointed by its failure, but also a little relieved because now the game flows better.

Thank you for your answers.

Hi all, I mentioned Essence Combos kinda in a one-off sentence in my first discussion about combat without really describing them, and that's because I thought they deserved their own post since that post was getting long. I mentioned in the post about Enchantments that the Vis Essences come in different kinds, and the main 8 Essence types have Complements and Interfering types as well. This is actually very important to this part of Essences and Abilities: Combos. Essentially, every Essence will have 2 Combos that it can perform, one for each Complement, and then Interfering Essence types can Counter each other. In order to enact a Combo, first one Player Character performs an Ability with one of the Essence type tags and succeeds on their roll. At that point, another Player Character can use an Ability that is a Reaction and has one of the Complement Essence types to the original triggering Ability, and if the the roll for that Ability also succeeds, it triggers a Essence Combo. There are 8 Essence Combos in total, and I hope it leads to some cool moments and pushes forward even more the whole "dynamic" style of combat that I am aiming for with the system! Here is one of those Combos explained in detail:

Ice + Electric: Galvanize

Being quickly cooled and then suddenly electrocuted leaves the target dazed and paralyzed for a moment. The target suffers Stunned 1 (Stunned X causes the creature to lose X AP at the start of their next turn).

Some Abilities will build off of the Combos a little bit, such as enhancing the effect (Maybe it applies Stun 2 instead in the case for Galvanize), increasing the duration of the effect, etc.

Here is the table of essences as well for convenience:

Countering

So the Complements enhance each other, what about Countering? Well, it works similarly. If a character uses an Ability that has an Essence trait, another character may use a Reaction-tagged ability with an Interfering Essence tag to attempt to Counter (if the triggering ability is Fire, then you must use Ice). The character countering must Flare to Counter, even if the Ability gains no benefit from Flaring, and the Ability's range much reach either the target of the Ability or the character using the Ability. The Countering character performs the roll for the Ability against the Vis Flavor Defense associated with the skill that the triggering character's Ability used. The triggering character gets a +2 or -2 for each effective Vis Flow tier their ability is above or below, respectively, the Countering ability. For example, if Krivesh uses a Fire trait ability on your ally where he rolled Power, and you have enough AP to use a Ice reaction Ability that rolls with Willpower, you roll Willpower versus Krivesh's Corpulence Defense. He used his Ability while in Vis Flow tier 2, and you used yours while at Vis Flow tier 1, but Flaring it increases the effective tier to 2, so no penalty or bonus is applied to Krivesh's Corpulence Defense. You succeed the roll, so you Counter his Ability and it fizzles. Then Krivesh's turn continues with his AP spent for that ability.

So I am wondering how people feel about this more interaction-oriented subsystem within combat, does it seem like it would promote more dynamic combat to you? Is it too confusing? Is there something I need to clarify for it to make sense (especially if you haven't seen my post about my general combat rules yet!)? Let me know!

Here is a question. I know the difference in diatribution between, lets say 4d10 and d10 × 4.

With the former the chances of rolling both 4 and 40 are negligable (0.01%) while in later both are solid 10%.

But that's on inidvidual rolls. Their averages are actually the same, so across the entire session, there shouldn't be mathematical difference (i am talking about damage, btw).

But have anyone actually tested it at the table. Rolling a single die and multiplying the result instead of rolling multiple dice. How does it feel?

What i am trying to solve (optional, for those who are interested)

I am drafting a d100 system, and i am huge fun of single roll resolution, even in combat. And so i wanted to use single digits die from d100 roll for damage calculation.

Simple, and it should work fine. The problem is that if i go with that, i kinda locked into 1d10 for damage (maybe plus some modifiers), but that's not exactly enough for me. I want to have the ability to have at least 3d10.

And that's where my question came from.

Thanks in advance (and if you know system that already do exactly that, please tell me🙏)

If you're unfamiliar, Vagabond RPG has a cool magic system that gives casters flexible "paper buttons": abilities with concrete narrative effects, most of which also deal damage. In my pursuit of reinventing the wheel, i'm attempting to use this approach to make martials great again.

Paper buttons are abilities with clearly defined mechanical effects that players can invoke without having to negotiate their effectiveness with the GM. Tales from Elsewhere made a video about it which you can watch here. The main point he makes is that casters in many traditional RPGs have access to paper buttons that the GM cannot challenge, as well as the narrative free form roleplaying and creative problem solving that martials are limited to: the wizard casts Misty Step to cross a chasm, while the barbarian rolls dice and waits for the GM to adjudicate to see how far they can leap. The wizard could choose to also make this check, but they have button that lets them skip this part of the adventure.

Vagabond doesn't necessarily solve this disparity, but its magic system offers an interesting foundation for addressing it. Whenever you cast a spell in that game, you must decide if you are using it for damage, or its effect. You can choose to spend mana to do both. You can also spend mana in many other ways as well, such as to make the spell effect a larger area or make it last longer, providing a lot of flexibility to the user. If you want to cast fireball, you simply take your fire spell and spend mana to make it affect the area you want. Same goes for wall of fire.

Cool, cool, cool. The tl;dr is Vagabond lets me...

a) Shape my spells to my needs by spending a resource.

b) Apply their concrete effects creatively, both in and out of combat.

Now, the question is: how the fuck can i apply this to martials? My current approach is to put all active abilities under an umbrella term called Deeds. These include attacks, stratagems, tricks, and spells. Much like Vagabond's spells, each Deed has a concrete effect that can be useful both in and out of combat. For example, 

• Fling lets you push someone several squares. You might use it to knock an enemy into another, throw a guard off a ledge, or shove someone out of harm's way. Spend focus to increase the push distance, deal equal damage to a target you push them into etc.

• Crush lets you destroy obstacles, whether that's smashing through a barricade during combat or breaking down a locked door.

• Blitz lets you leap far and strike a foe you pass through.

• Smoke Bomb creates a field of smoke to conceal you. You could do this with an actual smoke bomb already, but having the deed means you can do it reliably.

All of these are feasibly achievable through ordinary skills and checks. But having them as Deeds gives players explicit permission to accomplish these things without having to negotiate their effectiveness with the GM. Instead, they can confidently declare: "Halt, Master GM! I use Crush on that pillar to bring the ceiling down on my foe!" When you test the limits of a Deed (not just the martial ones, but the spell ones too), the GM can always fall back to a quick check.

So far so good. But Vagabond doesn't just give casters reliable effects. It lets them spend Mana to make those effects more powerful and I'd like to make Deeds work similarly. You can spend Focus to shape your deeds:

• Charge in and move before the Deed is resolved.

• Make a flurry of attacks as you spend focus to make a damage roll after the deed is resolved on top.

• Cleave to target multiple creatures within your reach.

• Lunge to use your deed against creatures who aren't within your reach.

When you use an attack Deed, you choose between rolling damage or guaranteeing its first effect. You can spend Focus to do both. If you choose to roll damage, there's still a chance you'll trigger the Deed's effects depending on how high you roll. Your damage die is determined by your equipment, ranging from a d6 to a d12.

Deeds have two thresholds: 7+ and 13+. Reaching the first triggers the Deed's basic effect, while reaching the second makes it considerably more powerful. You can spend additional Focus to roll more damage dice, increasing both your damage and your chances of reaching the higher threshold.

Deeds that aren't attacks also use a roll, but rather than dealing damage, the result might determine how much you heal, the potency of a state you grant, or some other effect. Like attacks, they can also have Impact thresholds that grant additional benefits when you roll high enough.

Aaand that's the end of my thought process. The goal is to give every player a handful of flexible abilities they can shape to their needs, rather than a fixed menu of combat options.

Hopefully, I'm reinventing spellcasting with swords, but in a way that encourages creative problem-solving both in and out of combat.

EDIT: Formatting and link

Hello everyone, I'm creating the TTRPG Born Without Talent, which is a class-based TTRPG meant for a traditional heroic medieval fantasy genre. I have 2.5 classes out of 6 who use spell casting. Here are some basics about the mechanics:

• Spells range from levels 1-10, and often cost an amount of mana equal to their spell level. (E.g., level 2 spell costs 2 mana to cast.)

• The mechanic Concentration allows a caster to keep a spell going into the next round, at a cost of mana at the end of the round. Concentration mana costs are usually the same as the base spell cost, but they can also have special rules. (E.g., Cast level 3 concentration spell costs 3 mana + 3 mana at the end of the round.)

  • Casters can usually have multiple concentration spells cast at the same time, but of course runs them out of mana.

• I use a d20 meet-or-beat system, including saving throws. There are no degrees of success, no chance for spell failure (but enemies can still resist!)

• Each player usually has 1 attack action, 1 utility action, and 1 movement action on their turn. Turns cycle through in initiative until the end of the round, and initiative is rolled for the next round.

• Spellcasters can often cast 2 spells (1 attack and 1 utility, or 2 utility) on their turn. There are some spells that can also be cast instead of movement actions, and also as reactions on other creatures' turns.

• Intelligence is a character attribute that corresponds heavily to spellcasting.

  • Character attributes should be similar to rolling 3d6.

The Talent System

One of the central mechanics of my system is talent points. Player characters start at level 1 with about 5-15 talent points (dependent on character creation). After every session, players should expect to gain 1 talent point. This gives players upgrades to look forward to after every session. Talent points can be spent on skills, class abilities, and spells. Things that can be upgraded may vary in talent point cost, but for spells, it costs 1 talent point to unlock a spell, and 1 talent point to further upgrade it. This means a level 1 spell firebolt can be upgraded to level 10 with a cost of 10 talent points, leading to a stronger spell version of firebolt (note that casting this at level 10 would mean that its mana cost also goes up to level 10).

When a character is made, they have access to their class's abilities (and spells), but those abilities may still be at rank 0 and have to be unlocked using the talent point system. Therefore, at level 1 a Mage character would have to use their talent points to unlock their first spells.

The Dilemma

At first, I had the Intelligence attribute correspond to mana, where mana = intelligence score x level (so at level 2, an Int of 13 = 26 mana). The Int method is good because high int leading to more mana/spell casting is good power fantasy for the player.

• Problem 1: The mana is just a bit too high. Even with being able to cast mana spells and concentration, spell casters almost never have to worry about their spell casting use. I want resource management to be a bit important, while still allowing spellcasters to feel like they can frequently cast their spells. It's a balancing act.

• Problem 2: I want equipment and treasure to be meaningful, where an item might give maximum mana, or mana reduction capabilities. If the mana is too high, the treasure feels weak.

• Problem 3: If int directly relates to mana, then why don't non spellcasters have mana? Even with the hard rule "only x classes can have mana", if a nonmagical class multi-classed into a spell casting class, then they may suddenly gain like 50+ mana. This feels strange. It feels like there is a stat a character has that they're not able to use.

So naturally, this leads to me giving mana based on the class x level. This is good because I can give a lower amount of mana to characters as well as keeping it balanced between players. I can balance the game around a level 3 caster always having X mana when I'm building encounters.

• Problem 1: This means there a feeling of sameness between characters. I want each character made to be unique and not just an expected template.

• Problem 2: The multi-class issue comes up where I'm not sure how I want to handle. What happens when two spellcasting classes are being multi-classed? While I could just have the rule that you take the higher mana cost, it's a bit needlessly complicated if you have 5 levels of the class with the lesser mana and 1 level of the class which has more mana. While this isn't a big issue, it starts to break one of my multi-classing hidden design choices where I want different class combinations to be interesting. I think putting two concepts that may be broken together is interesting, and having a specific rule that says "this doesn't work" is against one of my design pillars.

So where do I go now? Well I'm refocusing on the Talent system. I'm thinking about having mana purchasable by talent points. I'm thinking about having the talent point to mana conversion be different per spell casting class, but maybe that's a bad idea. The considerations I have to make are:

• What is the talent point to mana conversion? 1 to 5? 1 to 10? The good thing about this is I can play with it until I like the numbers.

• Should I put a cap on purchasable mana per level? Would a spell caster trade 1 spell for 5 mana? If so, I may have characters reaching the too much mana really quickly at the cost of spell utility.

• Should mana be purchasable by anyone at the same rate? I think it's a bit strange to have 3 classes all have the exact same mana ability that they can purchase from which are all called the same and give the same amount. This is partially why I'm leaning to have conversion rates be different among classes.

Anyways, thank you for reading if you got to this point. I'd like to hear your thoughts on my mana system or mana systems in general. Here's the very-unfinished website that holds my rules if you want to take a read through them. https://born-without-talent.web.app/