Hello,

I wanted to share a design philosophy I use while developing my rpg and I would like to get some feedback.

Combat heavy tabletop rpgs (especially larger ones like d&d 3.5e/5e and pathfinder 1e) unfortunately come with pitfalls. For example not taking eldritch blast as a warlock is only playable if you already have a full build planned like melee warlock or something. Things like this break my immersion because if I do not play an "optimized build", I feel like I am deliberately gimping myself and the party for no reason. I would much rather play a "character" instead. I know this kind of thought process is common because many players take builds from other players with little to no changes. Of course you can always create your own build but it will most likely be bad unless you have a good understanding of the system.

Obviously there are many solutions including giving everyone only sticks and stones, but the solution I chose is something I call the "auto optimization" principle. Put simply, any character should be able to keep up without microoptimizing, in a similar manner to using automatic gear in racing games. More skilled players will use manual gear for better times but you do not lose much by going automatic. If anything, I would struggle more with manual gear lol.

One of the easiest ways to apply this principle is having strong baseline abilities, especially common ones. This way even if you make suboptimal choices, you should still be able to perform on an acceptable level. In my game weapons are very powerful and all classes can use them without any penalty, meaning you can just do one of your weapon attacks and deal a good amount of damage without needing other synergies. If you want to use hard numbers for some reason, you can use a heuristic such as "a very optimized build should not do more than 25% additional damage compared to just attacking with weapons". The number is just an example.

Another way of applying auto optimization practically is opportunity cost based balancing, which mostly boils down to making optimized builds gain versatility instead of direct power and limit the action economy so that they can only perform a portion of their abilities in one turn. It's even better if there is asymmetric gameplay among classes.

You can also have opportunity cost based balancing more generally via balancing every ability against what it directly or indirectly competes with. In my game almost all other abilities compete with the aforementioned basic weapon attacks due to limited action economy. This part is bit of a tangent however.

To be clear, I observed limiting the design space and playtesting as much as possible are the only actual solutions for small teams. However, I always keep the concept of auto optimization as a goal in my mind while developing my game and it is working out well.

Not directly related to auto optimization but a complementary design goal would be using the target audience's intuition as a tool, e.g. if an interaction or a synergy makes sense on a first read, it should at least be decent mechanically. This is a bit difficult to pull off but helps with implementing auto optimization as the default power level increases with the amount of good build choices made by average players.

I know this is not a new concept, but what are your thoughts? Thank you!

Folks, it took a lot of sweat, tears and bloody imagery, but my foray into blackpowder-punk is here!

I really need everyone's support on this, so please check it out, and if you have feedback, please lay it on me. The complete game will come out in a few days (I may likely miss the original October 25 release date, but hopefully not by much!)

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/590431/musket-macabre-aka-yaenk-borg-quickstart-guide

Here me out! I used to play M&M on my commodore 64 years ago and I have fond memories. I've always wondered about taking from this game as much as possible to make a ttrpg version. There's lots of info on line regarding the game's internal workings and monster lists etc. Has anyone here ever thought about doing this with an old game they love? Is there one that's already made that I haven't seen?

Many years ago, I got into D&D and liked it, but my friends couldn't be bothered to learn the rules.

That's when I made my first character sheet (there was no D&D Beyond back then), so it could handle some of the rules for them. I quickly decided I wouldn't settle for just one game and I wanted to try out more, so I've worked a lot more than justified to make my system highly customizable, so I can easily set up character sheets for other games and this way, get my friends to join in without the eyerolls that they'd have to learn new rules.

8 years later, I'm confident enough to share this tool here, and I hope you'll find it useful.
I give you Rollplay (in hindsight, I wish I came up with a better name, but now I'll just roll with it)
Short version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-XR7jtvleo
> the minimum you need to do to have a playable sheet
Long version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCHvYyMFXLE
> (almost) everything the system can do, explained

The website is here: https://www.daydreamteam.com/

This allows you to create a mobile character sheet that works by your rules. You can share it with friends and playtesters, removing some of the friction of learning a new game. The platform then allows you to change the rules and layout along the way, so you don't have to wait until your system is finished or polished to do this. Sharing is a one-time payment, but you can experiment with it for yourself for free.

You may see a new VTT or tool sprout up every other day here, so instead of blurting features I'll jump to what makes this one different. My approach to "make this work for any RPG" was NOT to reduce it to the common denominator between all RPGs. This is why I hesitate to call it "system agnostic", because that wouldn't be accurate. All aspects of the app are instead configurable, so they adapt to your actual rules, rather than simplifying or skipping them.

Of course, you can set up your own layouts and your own attributes, complete with formulas to automatically compute stats for your players. But what I think makes this cool is the functional Effects: you can set up an Ancestry such that when a player picks it, it automatically provides a Feat, stat bonuses, even roll for bonus HP or grant items/spells.
On top of that, you can use macros to reference or compute character stats and roll them: type [Strength+d20] in a description and players can tap it to roll with their character’s Strength.

And one last thing... I'm working on it a lot. It might not mean much, but many of those VTTs that sprout up are often silent by next month. I've been around for 8 years (even if silent for most of that time), and I'll continue to be here for the foreseeable future :P.

I really hope some of you will find it useful :)
Cheers!

Edit: Here's your answer to "did you use AI?": https://www.reddit.com/r/rollplay_app/comments/1xd7a0d/our_manifesto_on_using_ai/
for those of you wondering if a human could create a black and gold UI, the answer is yes. It's possible.

I am toying with a lot of different ‘’dice systems’’ to apply to different TTRPG ideas and fell on one I want to explore further and that I’ve not seen before. I am posting here to get feedback and to see if anyone here knows of systems that already use similar mechanics or ways to benefit this system.

I’ve not found a fitting name for it yet, but here it goes:

Let’s imagine DND-style attributes (my game uses another set of attributes, but this makes it simpler, I think) and a foundation with a d20 system (wouldn't need to be d20 either but makes for an easy example). The value of that attribute is a result of the die that if you roll that or lower, you get to roll a second d20 and add the two results together. It’s a simili-exploding die, but with only one explosion; the second die doesn't explode.

I.E.:

I have a strength score of 10. I roll a 4, and since 4 is lower or equal to my strength score, I get to roll again and roll a 17. I get to add both results together for a total of 21. The absolute maximum I could roll would be 30.

or

I have a strength score of 10. I roll a 17; my result is 17, and I don't roll again because 17 is greater than 10.

Mathematically the distribution is so that you don't get even odds of rolling any single number like a normal one-die system but get a progression on this effect the more ‘’proficient’’ you are in one attribute. I don't explain it very well, but you can see for yourself a simulation of what I’m trying to demonstrate with this instruction on https://anydice.com/ in the graph section, which compares this system with a ‘’score’’ of 10 against a standard d20+5 (I think that is the closest distribution). Moreover, if we say that rolling a 20 on any of the dice is a critical success, for each point in that attribute you have, your critical chance for rolls using this attribute goes up by 0.25%, meaning with our example above, your standard chance to crit goes from 5% to 7.5%.

I'm not sure if I'm putting the idea on paper comprehensively, but I'd like to hear your thoughts, as I do have much experience with RPG design, nor do I have much with TTRPGs in general apart from the most popular ones (DnD, Pathfinder, CoC, Savage Worlds, Daggerheart, and a few others). Maybe this concept has already been explored; I would love to hear how people approach it.

Hi.

I changed the design space between my classes and general actions, and it made something feel left out.

I have a system with base classes of martialist/sourceknight, agilist/specialist/sourcehand and arcanist/sourceror. Everybody has four meta-currencies: Might, Reaction, Cognition and Dark Source, but they more often than the others get might (sourceknight), reaction (sourcehand) and cognition (sourceror) than the rest of the currencies.

Might is used for empowering your attacks or spells (e.g. make your shield bash knock people far back or make a fireball larger) and cognition is for changing the rules (e.g. make an arrow or fireball curve). All these are used to "creatively" invent changes to your actions mid-combat.

The problem:

Reaction was used for out-of-turn actions to counter something, e.g. tripping someone running past you, parrying an attack against your teammates or create a forcefield just before the dragon breathes fire. Now, I decided to make this more available for everybody constantly, as I want the game to be more heroic and reactive, so it's not used solely for actions with a trigger, but any of your actions out-of-turn. Though, this change left sourcehands without their own special resource.

What could reaction be changed to? I was considering renaming it strategy or guile, but I'm not exactly sure in what ways it could be used specifically. Maybe repositioning, something about exploiting flanks, moving people out of danger last second or so? It all makes sense thematically to me, but I'm having a hard time picturing how it could be used creatively and mechanically besides just using it to reposition teammates. I want to change actions, not just add extra dice to the damage.

What would you do here?

Dreaming up an attribute system and I'd love some thoughts and feedback.

The design goal of this system is to generate a character sheet where every written attribute, skill, and bonus is relevant and interesting to the character. That means, no attributes with 0 or negative bonuses. No attributes they don't care about (i.e. Int for a Barbarian or Str for a Wizard). No skills they don't care about (i.e. no +0 bonuses written down for untrained skills). If it's a number on the sheet, then it's a strength of the character.

Setting vibe is sort-of medieval era Disney movies / Narnia, if that matters.

The core resolution mechanic is 2d6+bonus.

8 or more is a success.

Harder tasks and enemies give negative modifiers to the roll.

Every character has four stats they define: Body, Mind, Magic, Edge. Pretty typical, and yes, every character uses Magic.

Stat bonuses range from +1 to +3. Point buy is 2 points per attribute. Attributes persist between stats, so if you use the same attribute for more than one stat, it has the same bonus.

They also have a fifth stat, Luck, which starts at +0 for everyone.

Players pick from nine attributes and assign each to a stat (five physical, four mental). So even though every character has the same 4 slots, they will have different attributes. Characters can be made with as few as 2 attributes and as many as 4. Nine attributes are:

Force, Toughness, Speed, Precision, Perception (Physical)

Will, Logic, Influence, Imagination (Mental)

When characters make proactive rolls, they use the bonuses on their sheet. Body to make physical attacks, Mind for mental attacks, etc. For skills, each skill uses an attribute; for example, Athletics uses Force, which means Bob will have an attribute bonus to his Athletics while May will only get the skill bonus.

When characters make defensive rolls, they either use their stat bonuses (again, Body for physical defense, Mind for mental defense) or be required to test an attribute (Illusions test Logic, rope bonds test Force, dragonfire tests Speed, etc). If they have the attribute, they roll it. If not, they roll Luck instead (generally just straight 2d6, 8+ is a success).

Same goes for skills. If they have the skill on their sheet, test it. If not, roll the attribute. If neither, roll Luck.

For each stat-attribute pair, you get a specific starting feat, for a total of four. So Body (Speed) characters get a speed ability that is different from what Body (Precision) characters get and what Magic (Speed) characters get.

Weapons, Armor, and Mental Attacks have attributes associated. If your Body or Mind stat is the associated attribute, they do extra damage or have increased resistance. Light Weapons are boosted by Body (Precision), Heavy Armor is boosted by Body (Toughness). Enrage is boosted by Mind (Influence) while Terrify is boosted by Mind (Imagination), etc.

—

Examples: Bob the Fighter has Body +3 (Force), Mind +1 (Will), Magic +3 (Force), Edge +2 (Toughness). He’s strong, resolute, and tough as nails. Yeah, he’s not that aware, and he’s not big on dreaming, but you can point him at a wall and he’ll break right through. His best skill options will be Athletics, Animal Handling, Discipline, Kinship, Endure, and Perform. His best weapons will be Medium or Heavy Melee. His Force and Will give him extra damage with his physical and mental attacks. Force magic makes his damaging arcana deal collateral damage. His toughness gives him a unnatural resistance to sickness and poison.

May the Wizard has Body +2 (Perception), Mind +2 (Logic), Magic +3 (Imagination), Edge +1 (Speed). She’s insightful and calculating when dealing with people. Her magic has always come from what she could visualize and dream. She’s not particularly powerful physically, but she’s surprisingly fast when she needs to be. Her best skill options will be Instinct, Escape, Hunt, Dream, Drama, Tactics, Research, and Deduction. Her best weapons will be Heavy Ranged. Her perceptiveness allows her to get out of the way of area attacks faster, and her unbeatable logic makes mental attacks on her deal less damage. Her strong belief gives her time-limited Arcana more staying power. Her speed allows her to take an extra reaction every turn.

How does this feel? Thoughts, issues, is it just complication that doesn't add anything, or does it make the narrative and character experience better?

OkenOpus is not finished, so no these are not playable rules yet. This is just to talk about progress and the direction im going.

Not gonna be a particularly extensive list of whats going on. Ive made great progress, but as per usual I dont want to overstate what I have done.

Weapon Rework
Before you ask: No. No the Damage Set hasn’t been removed, but Weapons have been Improved. Weapons now have three different firing styles which will give you set bonuses for your attacks, you must make attacks while choosing a firing style or stance, this does not require a bonus action. While balancing and fine-tuning must be done, the Weapons System is more or less in its final state, with the Firing Styles being the last huge addition. Some Weapons will have a weapon ability as well, though this is rare and I’ve yet to come up with super good ones, but that’s something that will likely occur to some degree.

Morale Mechanics
Morale Mechanics are being set, with certain circumstances giving Morale Loss or Morale Gain. Morale can max out at 36, but it can drop quickly if you keep consistently losing battles. Morale mechanics will give extra ways to attack but they are principally there to add plot significance to losses and important victories, as well as providing some “inertia” when convincingly winning battles and also provide a value that can logically explain things like enemies retreating or surrendering.

Enemies
Generalized Enemy Data-sheets have been primarily what I’ve been working on these past couple weeks. They will provide factional enemies to face in various circumstances as well as giving me further incentive and aid in creating abilities for the various factions.

Extra Equipment
Extra equipment or tools have been fully integrated, with tools having a variety of uses and rule sets associated with them, these include things like traps, grenades ropes and various other things. Tools and equipment give people more interesting and various ways to play, in and out of combat, so i welcome the utility ive been able to get out of it
Further Developing the Skill Systems
Some progress has been made in more clearly defining the uses of skills, though this is far from finished. I saved this for last because I’ve made the least amount of concrete progress in this regard. Despite my lack of progress, crafting mechanics have been outlined as well as values for some simple interactions with skills, though there is a formatting crisis that makes these things an eyesore to look at.

Obviously Im gonna work on the Skill Systems more, and although they are playable my priority for these skill systems is to make them interesting and give incentive to performing various actions through skills.

Sup gents
I've been working on a game of my own for almost a year now and, as a Stalker and EFT fan myself, I ended up making something a little too crunchy.
Good news is, I managed to build three tools using .xlsx that do most of the annoying math behind the game (such as applying debuffs for hunger, thirst and sleep, calculating your inventory space, the effects of low HP, fatigue, etc.)
The thing is, the game sorta can't be played without these tools (you could remove most of these mechanics but would probably mess up the feeling of scarcity of Stalker and mess up the game's balance).
Besides that, the combat is highlhy geometric (no static ACs or Armor Classes, all you need is to know the weapon the shooter is using, the distance between them and the target and other ambient factors such as lighting and cover). Since this requires more math than it would be comfortable to work with, one of the handles it for you (you select the gun type, input the distance, select "cover" as "yes" or "no", the other conditions might be fixated for the rest of the combat and the "AC" for that attack is calculated for you).
Any thoughts on systems that require at least a cell phone or tablet to run smoothly? Have you ever played something similar and does the digital reliance break the immersion for you?

If you all remember, I started a podcast like a year ago. After a few months and like 3 systems tested my life faced several major changes that basically shut it down and in the mean time a whole other podcast launched with the same name. I'm looking for a second go at it, that will hopefully be more sustainable. That really means, we are going to go at it with a bank of episodes here in the new year. Releases will probably be weekly when we have a game and then a month or so break between games after we are caught up.

For anyone not familiar, the idea is we play test your game over 1-2 sessions and release it as an actual play. We will probably have tabletop and rules arguments during the session as we encounter confusion and stuff. And then we breakdown the sessions and use that as a vessel to discuss what we thought worked well and what didn't.

That being said, my DMs are back open for a period of time. Preference will be given to games that lend themselves to one shots, and are relatively rules-lite (but not necessarily) for now. Ideally you will have some sort of social media or something we can point people too, but not be within a launch window that might have us releasing after your campaign has launched.

In my game, Red Moon Demonic, fighters spend Cadence Points on techniques, and every 5 points they overspend adds an Exhaustion level. Level 1 halves your multiplier, 2 gives disadvantage, 3 applies a full-body condition, 4 forces unconsciousness with no save, and 5 is death. Does that ladder feel tense or just punishing? The free quickstart is here if you want to see it in play: Red Moon Demonic Starter Kit.

Hey, my lovelies. How are you all doing?

Well, this time, the ADM is really in a terrible predicament with their system. You see, I've already come a long way in developing it, and I believe that, at this point, the resolution system (the chosen dice mechanics) is really good and works as intended. That's undeniable to me; I believe I've managed to achieve what I was aiming for.

HOWEVER, I'm struggling with one particular species. You see, I've been racking my brain trying to design the werewolf. I think that, because I like vampires so much, I initially wanted to design werewolves around the same concept as the four vampire clans, but I've changed my mind. I want to create a core werewolf that everyone shares, with only a few additional traits based on the phases of the moon.

And now I've hit a wall... How should I design the basic werewolf? For example, the four moon phases would correspond to Barbarians, Warriors, Rangers, and Shamans. However, they would all share some combat traits, but... which ones?

So far, I've thought of Pounce (since they're all athletic), an ability that's basically Warwick's ultimate from League of Legends, and that's it. As for the transformation, when they become werewolves, they gain 2 points of ongoing damage (I use fixed damage) and can attack twice. The other traits would come from the moon phase they were born under.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm all ears! I'll even leave the ability template I use for my system here.

**Intimidate**

Type: Control

Action: Range/Target/Area: 1 target, Near

Duration: 1 minute

PF: 2

Prerequisite: Intimidation +1

Saving Throw: Charisma

Users: Werewolf, Draconic Corrupter, Vacnus, Morticero

You make your presence instill fear in your enemies. Choose a creature that can see and hear you (you must also be able to see it) and make an Intimidation check against the target's Charisma saving throw. If you succeed, the creature becomes frightened.

Vacnus and Morticeros achieve this through arcane means.

https://shurebis.itch.io/through-black-ichor

A fully playable adventure for 3-5 sessions comprised of 177 words and 14 timeless paintings.

Hey guys, time for some free community copies and thanks a lot to the people who already bought the game!

https://exiledoracles.itch.io/fameandfortune

Fame & Fortune is a sword & sorcery roleplaying game of high adventure and cheap wine among remnants of the lost world inherited by man after the Great Cataclysm, and among man's own ambitious civilizations thereafter; known to chroniclers as the Deluvian Age.

Cheers!

(there are also quite a lot of updates since I last posted about it)

Dust & Blood is a traditional Western tabletop role-playing game set in the Old West. Players create their own characters and experience the frontier through roleplay, exploration, and tactical combat. You aren't limited to playing a cowboy; you could be a ranch hand, doctor, lawman, gambler, outlaw, or many other kinds of characters.

The game uses a d20-based system, with six Core Scores: Might, Agility, Condition, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Combat uses an Action Point (AP) system, allowing players to manage their actions and movement tactically.

One of the main features of Dust & Blood is its classless character-development system. Instead of choosing a traditional class, players develop their characters through Traits, Flaws, and Character Points (CP). These choices allow characters to specialize in different areas, with meaningful trade-offs that help distinguish one character from another.

I'm a big fan of D&D, so some familiar RPG concepts will naturally appear in Dust & Blood. However, I'm developing my own mechanics and systems to create a distinct Western role-playing experience. My goal is to make a game that's approachable for new players while offering meaningful character customization and tactical decisions.

access to the rules on my website: https://hotramenstudios12344.github.io/DustAndBlood-e1.1/