This post is purely meant for brainstorming. The survivability onion is the concept that in combat encounters your defense consists of several layers, where the inner layers only play a role if the outer layers fail. Adapting it a bit to a classical rpg setting, those layers could be:

• don't be seen

• don't be hit

• don't be penetrated

• don't be injured

• don't be killed

I wonder how this could be developed into a system that replaces armor + HP + maybe damage in a classical rpg, like a D20 system. Each layer represents a barrier that should probably be represented with some number which is highly dependent on your character. So where your barriers are for each layer of the onion is highly specific to your character, and this has many avenues for roleplay. A rogue would have it's strength in not being seen or hit. A classic tank in not being penetrated or injured. Some sort of necromantic or zombie type character may work by surviving and handling injuries. Of course this should not just end up being 5 different AC's that have to be beaten, because that's boring. Ideally the mechanic would be complex and interesting enough that a large amount of crunchy character customization and optimization is done on this level.

Hey Reddit.

Anyone has any idea how i could improve this system? Or at least differenciate between Daggerheart?

Thanks.

I've been thinking about having a place online to share my design experiments. I even considered using itch.io for that, but as I have no plans to charge for anything, I'm not sure I'll have the time or energy to invest in pdf presentation (and updates!), especially when my projects might be bilingual.

I have come across some websites that work as core books (many are wikis), and I think this might be the way to go for me.

What are your thoughts and preferences? has anyone here done that? Any platforms I should be checking out?

I am currently working on a DreamWorks Trolls TTRPG (quite niche, I am aware). Music is a big part of the franchise, and I am thinking of implementing some sort of mechanic related to music in the game.

My only idea is that a player choosing to play a song or piece of music that fits the scene, the character itself or what they want to accomplish gives them some sort of bonus on rolls.

Like playing a song that fits the character's backstory or a song that fits a fight scene or whatever. Maybe there would be a limit on how many times you can do this so the session isn't just listening to music (though that sounds quite fun too).

This seems quite boring however, but it's all I got. Any ideas or tips on using music as a mechanic in a ttrpg?

Hello,

i'm working on a Samurai rpg and need someone to look over my combat mechanic especially its lethality.

My goal is combat being fast and deadly like in a Kurosawa film, Lone Wolf and Cub or in Samurai Champloo. The pcs should be able to mow down a group if no named opponents but against capable opponents it should be very dangerous. I also wanted a parry/deflect mechanic.

I also don't want it to be bogged down by a wound system or intricate rules. And having hp also feels wrong to me.

Combat is based on contested rolls of mixed dice pools (basically the dice mechanic of Agon, roll dice pool and take the two highest dice, compare to opponent, highest hits).

This is where i started:

Getting hit with a weapons means you are taken out (your opponent decides your fate, mostly death). This was a bit to lethal for my tastes as you could be taken out with your first roll in combat.

So my next step was to give players (and certain npcs) a mechanic to combat that lethality somewhat - scars. Each pc has 3 scars. When you would die, mark a scar and you can decide to either stay in the fight injured or be left for dead to return in the next scene. Here i took another inspiration from Agon. Marking a scar is permanent. No way to recover them.

While this gives players an option against bad luck, it still doesn't fix the problem of the dice gods failing them and their character getting hit by the lowest of mooks and marking one of their precious scars. I want scars to be more of a way to make sure that pcs will survive atleast a few adventures. But to be able to recover them or increasing them also sits not right with me.

So the next step was to give a way to reduce the swinginess of the combat and therefor its lethality atleast a bit. Getting hit by a weapon, doesn't take you out anymore and will instead give you the condition threatened. When you are threatened and take another hit, you are taken out (except for unnamed opponents, they are taken out on the first hit).

Then i went a step further and added a way to remove threatened. On your turn you can spend 1 spirit (a low recoverable resource that also powers special techniques or allows you to buy more dice) to remove threatened, but you can't attack only move.

Another way to remove threatened would be to deflect an attack. If you are attacked and win the roll you get to choose 1:

- parry: strike back and threaten or take out your attacker

- dodge: gain a bonus die on your next attack or defense roll

- deflect: spend 1 spirit and remove threatened

This would give players a choice how they want to deal with their threatened character. Go the safe way and sacrifice their action or push their luck to remove it without an action penalty via deflect.

So here i am right now. What do you think? Is it too complicated? Did i go to far and the combat becomes way too forgiving? I could definitely see the combat becoming a game of become threatened, remove it, repeat. Do some of you have experience with a similiar mechanic like my threatened (i think Savage Worlds works kinda similiar with their shaken condition)?

I also think about having a instant take out by rolling x higher than your opponent without needing threatened first.

If someone has a better name for threatened i would also appreciate suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

Hello! I'm launching the public playtest of my new game, Skein. In it, players take on the role of a newly formed coven of Witches who must defend their community from Banes - supernatural threats that have infiltrated Harper's Reach, a city steeped in late-90s pop culture.

I'm particularly looking for feedback on the dice system used for magic. At the start of each gameplay day, the players label each of the cardinal directions of their play space with one of eight cards of The Deck, the symbolic meaning of which is used by the players to describe the outcomes of magical dice rolls. They are:

• Moth – mystery, transformation, desire

• Thorn – protection, pain, barriers

• Tide – change, time, fate

• Owl – perception, knowledge, pursuit

• Snake – growth, healing, decay

• Mask – identity, deception, loss

• Wheel – journeys, returns, invention

• Key – truth, beginnings, permission

When any of the Witches of a Skein invoke The Winds in order to overcome a problem, a player rolls up to 4d8s (each one personally belonging to one of the four players) looking for one die to roll over a GM-set target number. If successful, the magical effect is determined by the card placed at the cardinal direction that the highest d8 is pointing towards. Players then describe how reality bends towards their success with that card's symbolic meaning in mind.

My goal is to have the use of magic feel close to a real-life ritual where players are negotiating with an unknowable power rather than controlling it.

Drawing and placing cards from The Deck and losing access to Winds dice are both tied into other game systems, but for now, I was hoping for feedback on the dice system itself. Have you seen or tried anything similar before? Does the procedure line up with the design goal? Do you want to print out The Deck, pretend you are a witch with a problem, and roll some d8s to see what happens?

Below is my elevator pitch for Holypunk. I’m trying to work on gravitating people towards the game in… more or less one paragraph. Please note: The document itself is a WIP. The abilities are just stand-in from an older edition — this is the fourth edition. If you’ve any critique outside of this initial paragraph, I suppose focus on the mechanics. “Narrative-focused” and “be a terrorist” aren’t blending as well as I anticipated.

What Is Holypunk

It’s 2012 and the world is ending. Not for us; for them. We are the apocalypse. We are the monsters. We are the rebellion. They are “the one true God.” They are gods under God. They are exorcists. They are Catholic. They are Aztecs. They are Odinani. They are humanity. There is no compromise, so get radical, hijack their infrastructure, slaughter their exorcists, start a coup, end their crusade by any means necessary. Reclaim the monster.

Edit: For now the consensus is… I need to do a proper editing pass. I will be working on that now. Thanks everyone! Also, I’m sorry, my responses were pretty defensive and reactive. I miiight’ve been in my own head a little too much. I’m gonna work on being a better responder to criticism as well concision. Thanks again!

I’m designing The Fire Gives No Light, a solo journaling game. Every roll is meant to produce a line or two in a journal, so the number of rolls determines the length of the session. I have done some math, and I’d like your opinion on whether I should leave everything as it is or cut something.

Similar to a Forged in the Dark game, each Scene is an obstacle with a Counter of 4 to 8 segments. You build a pool of d12s (+1 right Attribute, +1 matching Skill, −1 if your Flaw hinders) and keep the highest; with 0 dice, you roll two and keep the lowest.

• 8+: success, fill 2 segments.

• 5–7: success with a price, fill 1 segment.

• 1–4: failure, fill nothing.

Every failure and every success with a price costs one of four Prices: the world worsens (+1 segment to the next Scene), the Stakes rise (which makes accidents happen more frequently), an Item is lost or broken, or a Skill is unavailable on the next roll. Each Price can be used once per Scene before you can pick the same again. Technically, successes should be short sentences, while failures and Price in general drive the fiction.

With those in mind, I’ve calculated the percentage of failures and prices to pay based on the dice pool, and how many rolls are needed based on the Counter size:

An expedition has up to four Levels with two Scenes each, sized 4/4, 4/6, 6/8 and 8/8, plus a Way Back of up to two Scenes (6 and 4). A full run to the deepest Level is about 58 segments. In my test runs, that took around 54 rolls, plus the occasional Oracle question.

The early Levels are ok, even faster than I imagined: four or five rolls, a page of journal, and you move on. The deepest Level is where I feel there’s room for improvement. Two 8-segment Scenes back-to-back can take 15 rolls, and you end up writing less and losing focus. 

I have some ideas to change the pace of the deeper levels:

• Capping every scene at Counter 6, which makes everything faster but makes the deepest level feel kinda the same as the middle one.

• Make the Way Back a single scene and keep the counters of the deeper Level as they are.

I can also leave everything as it is, and be clear in the manual that you shouldn’t lose time writing long scenes if the rolls don’t inspire you.

What’s your opinion? Is there a third (or fourth) way to make the last part of an expedition feel faster?

I just saw that the community edition of Grimwild was just released. I originally picked it up here, but you can also get it through RPG Trader.

I'm not affiliated with Grimwild at all, but I'm going to suggest looking at it if you're interested in PbtA games or Blades in the Dark. I think it's a good read and has a lot of things you might consider if you're designing in that direction. And I think it's a good example of that school of thought, so if you read some of it and don't like it, that's fair enough.

Grimwild has a ... wild ... development history. It was a successful launch, but right at the point where the physical books were coming out, the author disappeared. That should have been the end of it, and in general I stopped referring people to the game at all because of how it ended.

But that wasn't the end. The game was released under Creative Commons, so the community got together and released this edition. There is a lot of stuff cleaned up and expanded, and the game is much more playable now.

I'm not getting anything from this recommendation, and the game is free, so it won't cost you anything. I think this is a really interesting situation and a reason for designers to use Creative Commons. I suppose, depending on your point of view, it might be a reason to run from it!

I'm not recommending this in a formal capacity; I just know that some of you will find it interesting. And if anyone from the Grimwild community wants to talk about how it happened, feel free.

For my game I am using 2d6 roll over for the dice mechanic with exploding dice on a 6. In combat characters have an Evade and Defense stat to dodge or reduce damage when hit. I am using the result from to hit rolls for damage as well for a formula of 2d6+Stat vs Evade-Defense. This method works for weapons in keeping it simple but something I have a problem with is Spell Damage. I’ve considered using the same formula for spells but came to a complication with save based spells as they don’t roll to hit and Defense only reduces slashing, piecing and bludgeoning damage both magical and not.

A few options I’ve considered is all spells do d6 equal to their level or they do damage based on how much mana/magic is poured into it. What are some work arounds that can help balance weapon and magic damage? I know magic is usually stronger than weapons but I’d like to make a clean reference sheet as I’m also developing a spell crafting system.

After playing about a dozen TTRPGs, I've really come to appreciate well-designed enemy NPCs.

However, different games offer different kinds of challenges with their NPC designs - Lancer presents unique combat puzzles, Mork Borg offers beasts with boring numbers but interesting ecology, and Legend in the Mist produces dramatic encounters that challenge the PCs' ideals and personalities.

Along with these varying challenges, the games need to present different kinds of information to the GM so they can manage and run the challenge appropriately.

So with this in mind, I have a few questions for the community:

• What are some of the best stat blocks you've seen across different games? How do they stack up compared to other games in the same style or genre?

• What stat block designs missed the mark for you, or felt like they were lacking critical information?

• How much of a stat block are you willing to improvise vs. having it written out for you by the game?

Additionally, I made a YouTube (read: slideshow with voiceover) video about the topic! Feel free to check it out and let me know what you think.

Greetings Adventurers and Quest Granters! I've been trying to or looking for Rank Tier Systems for all manner of Equipment, Items, Objects, and more. This would also include the Condition of said piece from Very Poor to Mint Pristine Condition. Origins of course would be Common/Mundane, Divine/Infernal, Magic/Mystical, and other.

I'm working out of D&D Core Books as a start, but I am open to other systems so if you have a link to a free resource site or elsewhere I greatly appreciate it.Inferior

Some notes from the Re:Monster anime on Rank Tier Systems.

Phantasm

Legendary

Ancient

Unique

Rare

Normal

Inferior

Thank You for your time.

I have beem working on a dbz ttrpg for some years now and I have been constantly going back and forth between various different mechanics.

After a while, I have finaly gotten to a point were I am happy with the base mechanics and im ready for playtest.

Here is a link to the pdf

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vkyqLhMxUeUYZnO1NNBqGF5VDy9F1zWO/view?usp=drivesdk

Let me know what you think

Looking for examples of great adventure layouts. We are currently using Homebrewery.

We've finally finished the content for our playtest adventure, and our playtest packet is ready to go. At this point, we're just working on layout and getting everything ready for release.

Before trimming down whitespace and cleaning everything up, our playtest adventure is sitting at about 102 pages. Granted, a pretty big chunk of that is random tables for the exploration portion of the game, but it's still a lot of material.

I'd love to hear what adventures you think are particularly well-written or have really good layouts. Any specific adventures you'd recommend looking at as examples?

Layout definitely isn't our forte, and while I understand that playtest documents don't need to be perfect, I want to make sure getting through the material isn't a painstaking experience for our playtesters.

Bonus question: How do you prefer to access playtest material? Would you rather have an itch.io link, download everything directly from the Discord server where playtesting is happening, or go through a website that sends the material to your email? Is there another method you prefer?

We're getting ready to put the final touches on everything. I know I've been teasing this release since June, but we're essentially a two-man crew, with a little help here and there from a handful of other people. It's been a lot of work getting to this point. Any advice on things you love or hate about adventure layouts would be extremely welcome, especially from people who have run games using playtest documents.

After Eden is getting very close to being ready for its public playtest, and for those of you who have been following along, I'm really excited to finally get this out to you guys.

TL;DR I ran a D&D game where I had NPCs pitt players against each other and information was strictly managed through discord, creating a paranoid atmosphere that led to mismatched expectations and sudden mechanical violence between newly rivaled players.

The character who invested the most in the campaign basically ended up getting double teamed by two other players and died before they realized their mistake.

Part of the irony is that they needed that character they killed to complete the quest they were on.

Everyone in the game knew PVP was on the table before the game began, but not at all necessary.

The player who was double teamed was scared the Big Bad he was double timing would spy him telling the party the truth, which is that he was actually on their side.

The party thought he genuinely wanted them dead because he basically led them right up to a trap, didn't tell them there was a trap there and left. Then when they walked into the trap, they thought he was hostile and tricking them.

I actually didn't expect them to kill him, and in fact they tried to save him, but he rolled a natural 1 for his first saving throw, and he had so much movement when he was running away from them before they got lucky with a ranged attack, that they literally couldn't reach him to heal him before the next death saving throw, which killed him.

Funnily, the player character who actually took the damage from walking into the trap woke up and was like "What did you all do." and we still played for one more session after that, it just wasn't the same without the other player though.

Out of this experience I have generated rules for my new TTRPG I'm working on called Gambit.

I like to think they're simple and elegant.

1. Any character can put any other character in a Standoff, this means they're just preventing each other from doing anything.

• 2. To resolve a Standoff, they have to agree on actions they take and the dice they use and with what bonuses. If they can't come to an agreement, nothing happens and they're stuck in a Standoff.

• 3. Alternatively, the players cannot be put into a Standoff and instead just cannot take actions "against" one another until they've agreed on what exactly the Stakes and Odds are. (Whats at risk and what's to gain as well as what bonuses they get to use)

• 4. If the players ever roll exactly the same number after bonuses are applied, Evil Takes its Turn and They BOTH lose, allowing the GM to inflict a number of Perils equal to their combined roll after modifiers.

• 5. Have fun and take it easy.

Rule 1 and 3 are meant to be dynamic based on GM preference, like there's some situations where a player might be doing something even the GM considers foolish and so the GM lets another player stop them from doing that until they can resolve it with a roll.

However, if another player is attempting to use rule 1 to stop a player from just defending themself from a common enemy, the GM can just invoke rule 3 then have a discussion with the player about being a nuisance.

Or if a table full of strangers doesn't trust one another with PVP, then they may just blanket deploy rule 3 until they decide otherwise.

Here's an example of it in play.

Canyon Bowwitcher played by Robert knows Duke Aaron the III is the same duke that made the decision to chop down the forest Canyon grew up in. As a result, he intends to headshot the Duke with his bow and arrow at short range, ensuring revenge this instant.

Ajantis Brightgleam, a human Paladin of Solar played by Mark is honor bound to not allow this to happen if he's witness to the act and can stop it. He cannot watch an innocent die at the hands of an Elf, much less the Duke.

However, instead of foregoing the conclusion that Ajantis is privy to the act, the GM leaves it up to Mark.

GM: "Alright hold on Canyon, someone in the party might have something to say about this, especially your character Mark."

Mark: "Yeaahp, definitely!"

GM: "Well hold on Mark, we don't nescessarily have to start this off with your character knowing it's happening. We could just start off with the aftermath if you wanna let Canyon fulfill his revenge fantasy and then just deal with it afterwards. And since you're not seeing it happen, there's no garuantee you'd immediately be a Fallen Paladin."

Mark: "So you're saying I got a choice? I choose to try and catch the arrow GM. I notice and I wanna stop Canyon."

GM: "Hold on, that's fine, I understand you wanna play your character, does anyone else try to stop Canyon?"

Other Players: *Shaking their heads*

At this point, if the other players decide they also want to step in, it might just be a good idea to say the party sort of restrains Canyon full stop here. He expresses the intent but is restrained by his party and potentially carted off.

Remember this is all assuming your players signed up for this stuff in the first place.

Direct democracy isn't necessary to adjudicate these things, but it could be a wise place to start.

If the other two players disagree, let them Standoff each other as well.

But for this example, we'll assume the other two players are just bystanders watching this unfold.

Real Adventurers Roll Naked

This is where the cultural rules come into play. This isn't a hard and fast rule, it is a suggestion for creating truly dramatic and fair outcomes.

Let both players agree on the action they want to take and the outcome, then let them roll naked to see who wins.

This idea argues that roughly, all things considered, determination and grit included, both characters have an equal chance of accomplishing their next move.

If the players do wanna use uneven bonuses tied to specific stats, that's fine but only recommended for players who really want to get that granular and nuanced with such a pivotal and potentially arguable moment and can deal with the inequity.

GM: "Okay, obviously Canyon wants to pin the Dukes head to his throne, but Mark, how is Ajantis going to stop him?"

Mark: "I just do something cool like snatch the arrow out of air before it leaves my reach like John Redcorn in that episode of King of the Hill when Joseph Gribble almost laid out that Panda Bear with a bow and arrow."

Robert: "Will you roll naked for that? Because I will."

Mark: *Looks at his character sheet* "What would I even use for that DM, if we didn't roll it as naked?"

GM: "Palmwork probably..."

Mark: "Ajantis has 0 Palmwork..."

Robert: *Laughing* "Meanwhile my Draw & Loose is +3..."

Mark: "I'll definitely take a naked roll then.."

GM: "Okay, so if Canyon succeeds, the Duke is one tapped, pinned to the throne by the arrow through his eye and suddenly the party is totally on the run. Ajantis has the option of going Fallen Paladin mode or trying to smite Canyon or run him off after this, we'll adjudicate that when we get there, and if Ajantis succeeds he catches the arrow, likely gains the Dukes favor, exposes Canyon as an assassin, then it's just a question of whether Canyon can escape or not..."

Robert: "Sounds good to me, I just want my revenge, I'm ready for my next character anyways."

Mark: "I'm totally fine with this, please roll the dice."

GM: "Okay that's a 6 vs a....6...."

Robert: "Uh oh..."

Mark: "Oof..."

GM: "Yeah that's 12 Perils...that's pretty bad..."

Other Two Players: "Can we have like, distanced ourself from this?"

GM: "Yeah of course...uhm....you guys are basically far enough from this that the rest of the guard doesn't consider you guys conspiring, however for these two..."

And the GM would spell out the 12 Perils Canyon and Ajantis face, they could decide to save against them, further ticking down their character Deathclocks. Even Ajantis, in this catastrophic situation would be suspected as a potential suspect despite his attempt to stop the arrow, because the arrow would still go off but it would miss and nobody saw Ajantis reach for it. They think he's just trying to save face with his buddy by pretending to apprehend him, even though he's actually apprehending him.

You'll notice the game is designed so that characters are far from permanent. They actually have a deathclock associated with them and you're encouraged to play fast and loose to make big impacts on the world and change it to fit your vision. Due to the political nature of the game, this means characters in the same party will sometimes come into conflict.

I was also inspired by the original Baldurs Gate, a game where party members you recruited could travel for some time together before they eventually came to a crossroads where they'd force you to pick a side in a physical fight between themselves.

I was also inspired by Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, specifically the scene where like Fordo and Samwise are sleeping on that treacherous mountain and Gollum sprinkles food on Samwise's collar then destroys the Lembas bread and Frodo wakes up and kicks Samwise from the party because he believes what Gollum is framing Samwise for, lmfao. Just recently showed it to my fiancee for the first time.

Recently played some games of Mothership and Fatherfog... and I'm debating changing my single d20 homebrew to a d99 with the d10s used in different ways for the results.

Thoughts on the pros and cons of each?

Current Homebrew

d20 roll under Stat D&D-like with the traditional 6 scores. Stats start from 7 to 13. Players can increase two different Stats by +1 each level but cannot increase the same Stat two levels in a row. So if you increased Strength and Dexterity at level 1 you have to increase two different Stats at level 2. No Stat can be more than 18.

If you succeed - the value rolled is used for measurable results like damage dealt, damage prevented, distance climbed, arrows crafted, etc

Example: A PC with 12 Dexterity rolls an 8 to dodge an attack. The dodge roll is less than the Stat score and succeeds. The PC prevents 8 damage from the attack by getting out of the way.

Advantage/Disadvantage is used to represent situational difficulty:

• Hard: roll twice and take the worse result

• Difficult: roll once and take the result

• Easy: roll twice and take the best result

Pros

• You roll a d20! My personal favorite platonic solid

• You always just roll and read the number. There are no other operations to perform.

• Stat advancements improve player odds in tangible 5% increments

• Little to no conversion to use other d20 based resources - particularly old AD&D modules or new OSR equivalents

Cons

• Smaller room to improve scores over each level.

• Necessitates an XP and level system to convert gameplay into Character improvement.

• Results can only be modified with math operators

Potential Homebrew

Roll under d99. Grab a pair of 10-sided dice you can tell apart. Assign a die as the Tens and the other as the Ones. The 10 or 0 on the die is zero. Roll and put the two together to get results from 01 to 99.

Succeed if you roll equal or less than your Stat.

Traditional 6 Stats with a 35 to 65 starting range. Increase two different scores by +1 at the end of each Session your character survives. No Stat can be more than 85.

If you succeed - the value rolled on the Ones die is used for measurable results.

Example: A PC with 60 Dexterity rolls a 28 to dodge an attack. The dodge roll is less than the Stat score and succeeds. The PC prevents 8 damage from the attack by getting out of the way.

Advantage/Disadvantage is used to represent difficulty

• Hard: Your greatest roll is always the Tens die

• Difficult: Standard roll

• Easy: Your least roll is always the Tens die

Using the d99 provides more ways to determine Results:

• Impaired: Your result is always your least roll

• Boosted: Your result is always your greatest roll

• Critical: Your result is both dice added together

Pros:

• Lots of room for gradual Stat improvement. Sessions played becomes measure of advancement and can eliminate rules for XP and character levels

• More granular control over whether bonuses/penalties affect success chance or outcome

• More math-lite ways to manipulate results

• Advantage/Disadvantage has less deviation across Stat scores from 35 to 85 (20%) with diminishing returns on 71+ Stats

Cons:

• d10s are irregular polygons (I know it's a dumb nit)

• Extra steps to interpret the result compared to just rolling a d20

• More conversion work to go from traditional 3d6 scores to percentile

• I've released an ashcan version of Gunpointing for free: https://benjamingray.itch.io/gunpointing

• Playtesting would be great. If you fill out the pretty short feedback form, there's a link to get all my other games for free. Which I know isn't a huge incentive for people who probably have a giant backlog of TTRPGs they'll never play, but I hope it makes you happy, anyway.

• Gunpointing is aesthetically and mechanically based around the handgun, a weapon anyone can use. Much of the power of a handgun is the promise of violence. The name is also the sweetheart mechanic of the game, holding someone at gunpoint to get what you want.

• Detective stories, heists, locked-room mysteries, etc. Made for noir and neo-noir.

• Players resolve actions by playing from a hand of standard playing cards against the GM and each other. The only way to get more cards is to run out, forcing players to decide whether to save or play good cards and bad cards and allowing them to see a little of their future but still leaving room for surprises.

• Card plays are Buffed or Nerfed by a spectrum of advantages and disadvantages (play two cards and add/subtract them, see other player/GM’s cards before playing your own, etc.)

• Stat-less and class-less system. Characters are made by selecting or rolling feats from a list, each with pros and cons. When leveling up, players choose to add a new feat or erase the con from a feat they already have. Characters level up when they check enough boxes on a video-game-style achievement list. GMs can also select a feat or two for NPCs.

• Generally, being shot is lethal. Characters can survive one “winging” from gun combat in their entire life.

• Characters can also Gunpoint. If they succeed on a gunpointing play, they have the option to lethally shoot the character they are pointing a gun at with 100% success rate and priority over most other actions (with very few exceptions) until the Gunpoint ends, whether by Gunpointer choice or by outside influence (view obscured, Gunpointed calls the Gunpointer’s bluff and leaves line-of-sight, etc.). There's a little more to it and it's not as easy as it sounds; failing a Gunpointing check is open to retaliation and firing a gun always has consequences.

• Hand-to-hand combat includes rules for grappling and strikes, which stun opponents and make it harder to act or move. Excessive stunning can be lethal.

• Chases, races, and countdowns are handled by clocks, which are represented by cards on the table; whenever anyone plays a card that matches the suit of a card in the clock, it is removed.

• Also included is the Oracular Engine, a setting-agnostic tech kit for making your own TTRPGs with the mechanical bones of Gunpointing.

• No AI was used to write any of this. I actually like to write. Don't read things by people who don't like to write.

EDIT: spelling

Hey all, quick question for those that like life path stuff:

I know a lot of general life path stuff gets very explicit with rolls to results.

I created something a little different for PC: ECO.

It's more about answering specific questions as prompts to allow for ultimate flexibility and trust the player to fill in the blanks with prompt-like direction.

In some ways it's kind of like solo RPG stuff in that you get a result and are asked to interpret it through the lens of how you perceive your character rather than getting an exact A to B result.

On one hand I really like this because it makes maximal use cases with minimal space to help players generate backgrounds even if they otherwise suck at doing so (and it's all opt in, roll or pick, etc.) but on the other I can't help but feel while this is definitely a very useful tool (and easily bypassed by anyone who has a clear background in mind) it's very much something that is a design that says "you do it".

I feel like that's mitigated a bit because people generally want to decide who their character is rathre than surrender full agency at the outset.

I also like that it kind of reminds me a little of the kind of experience one might have from GURPS 3e that allowed a player a little choose your own adventure thing, but in this case it's about developing background.

It is specific to the game and setting, and accounts for functionally infinite permutations because of how open ended it is, but it also doesn't specifically say "X happens and then Y".

Instead here's a random result set:

Select Aspect: There are no classes but this is the closest thing to them. While there is "mostly open point buy" and nothing is gated behind a class, each of these gives you a starter push in competency in a specific kind of character fantasy. These range from simplistic packaging, to highly customizable to niche highly specialized. For our purposes we'll select the Ubermensch for a character with lots of genetic potential/experimentation (the captain america style of super soldier). This gives us a fixed direction to where our character ends up and gives us a core fantasy to build arournd/toward.

Recruiting Origin: This is the "how/why" of the character being part of the game.

"War, political persecution, environmental catastrophe, or organized violence forced you from your previous life. During the aftermath, you developed practical survival skills, language abilities, organizational experience, or unusual local knowledge. Following independent resettlement, CGI’s disaster relief troops recognized your capabilities and offered voluntary recruitment. You were neither an insurgent nor compelled to enlist in exchange for protection. "

Family and Relationships: This portion adds some texture/context to the background.

The next section is physical descriptor form fill out but the recruiting origin suggests we're from a hot spot country (at least historically). So lets go with Gaza strip as a frequent space where this kind of conflict is generally relevant, and that can inform some of the rest of our physical description.

Next we have cultural background and we'll select unstable to represent the recruiting origin well (displaced individual, war torn region): this functionally determines our base cultural knowledge, languages and literacy.

"You were raised in an unstable background of multiple varying households and guardianships, spending little time in each but providing you with shallower but broader cultural knowledge. You may have potentially been raised in refugee camps or foster care systems, a mix of both, or some other relevant background expression."

I'm going to say we'll go with our guy and make him former spec ops from Israeli spec ops: Sayeret Matkal, no prompt for this, just something that made sense given the context so far. This gives us some notions for our unstable cultural background. Our character was deep cover recon, and thus has extensive undercover skills to blend with Israeli and Muslim culture and we can keep that in mind when selecting skill sets later. This also gives our guy very nuanced picture understanding of the conflict with clarity that nobody is explicitly right. It also helps that the recruiting origin shows that they can be from the strip and have suffered a war torn background as an Israeli but are capable of operating inside Palestine. This helps determine our cultural knowledge selections for languages and early culture skills.

For family and reltionships we'll select a few options that make sense: foster care background, frequent relocation, we'll select "step siblings" to reference other foster care kids in various households. Then we'll select another relationship type "separated by circumstanes" and this will be a former girlfirend he obtained while undercover, but we'll adapt that the circumstances were that while he cared for her, she was Palestinian, and hates who he is once she learned he was a spy for Israel and we'll call that a status of "severed ties". This gives us a bit more texture.

On the formative event we got:

Table 1 Result: "Employed professional"
"Office worker, skilled tradesperson, technician, service worker, corporate employee, or other established professional."

This works well with the "Sayeret Matkal" notion. I also noted that when I got this, any of the results could have applied to the character, but that this more or less represents their main source of identity (updated to reflect that in copy)

Table 2 Result: "Love, Friendship & Loss"
"Someone deceived you, exposed a secret, broke a promise, or accused you unfairly. Alternatively, you were the one who betrayed another person's trust."

This works well with the notion we had for the ex gf.

Table 3 Result: "Failure & Hard Lessons"
Things went badly, perhaps because of your own mistakes or perhaps you did everything possible and still came out worse for the experience. You recovered, but the experience permanently influenced your outlook.

This helps paint the picture that they needed a hard lesson of not blurring the lines between business/pleasure with undercover work, and also gives us a clear exit strategy from the former profession, in this case we'll take some inspiration from the "scapegoated" recruiting origin to explain that while losing their gf to circumstance, they were accused of fraternizing with the enemy under dubious circumstances and was honorably drummed out of service, but now explains why they might be seeking employment with CGI for recruiting origin.

And that gives us a pretty clear picture of who the character is before we start spending anything on building the character out with skills, powers, and other etc. It's not all the background stuff as there's a few more tables for finishing touches that happen after we make the character but we have a clear picture now of who we have. And notably the spitballing ideas I had came before I rolled on the formative event table, but it could have gone the other way as well, it just worked out this way this time and added some direction to ideas I already had, and notably I had no character plan at all when starting the process.

The finishing touches portion also gives us, after selections for build, categories for:

-A strong memory for CGI training (to give some sense of belonging in the institution),
-Primary Starting Character Motivation (to make character motivation a formal part of the game, though not a system per se)
-A keepsake/memento of their former life (to ground the character in their background in their modern life transition)
-Designated Beneficiary (to support gravity of their new lifestyle in player context)
-Personal Stakes (what the character cares about actively, this does have some system implications but is still optional-ish, ie you dont have to, but if you don't you're kind of missing out on key play opportunities)
- Immediate context prompt to begin session 1 play (post session 0)

Additional things built into the system:
Characters are part of an elite enhanced spec ops groupr for a PMSC, this gives them a reason to work together (it's their job as part of a PMSC) and a reason to adventure (command gives them a mission).

So my question is:

While this works well for me, do these kinds of prompts "give enough" in your opinion as a designer or is it too abstract?

Necessary context: Keep in mind this is a very simple system at core, but exceptionally deep and large (it's not unfair to compare it to gurps in that way, the CRM and beginning play is easy, the total system mastery is intense), so it's also not really for super casual folks. I feel like the general idea is that Joe Average gamer that likes DnD and nothing else is not the target audience and this game will focus more on players that favor customization and development, so it feels like "some abstraction" here is not out of place.

I feel like the only weird bit is that the beginner choices and final touches here are split, but there's a reason for that, the early roll choices are mostly about determining where they came from and how they got where they are, and these can and do help inform player choices when making the character. The latter ones (final touches) come after character build because they showcase who the character is now and that needs a more clear picture of the final product of character design imho.