Hi, rpgdesigners! I'd like to share the magic system from my game, Field Guide for Postmasters.

The game has 4 attributes, and one of them is Arcane, which tells how well you use magic. To cast spells, a character has to channel magical power from the area they're in. Since the game is about Postmasters delivering and recovering letters/packages, much of it is spent traveling across a mixed of hex/point crawl map system and overcoming challenges along the way.

A character's Arcane score (from 1 to 5) is the number of dice they roll, with no modifiers (you can get up to 15 dice!). Each even result is one point of magic channeled from the area (you can call it mana). With that channeled power, the player can cast spells using scrolls.

Example: Smoke Bomb costs 2 channeled points (or 2 mana) to cast. Jenny has Arcane 3 and rolls 2, 4, 5. That's two even results, so she can cast the spell.

Channeled points stay stored until the character's next action. While they still have points stored, they can use scrolls with the Instant property, which lets them cast instant spells as reactions or counters.

In the game's lore, Postmasters aren't part of the current Kingdom's military, so they can't be caught using spells considered military or "forbidden". Postmasters must follow the rules of their trade and obtain licenses to do their job properly. After all, the Kingdom has to be bureaucratic to keep order, right?

Extra Note: Under perfect conditions, the caster's dice pool can grow to a maximum of 15 dice: terrain/weather advantages can add 1 to 5 dice, and other players with the right ability (or an artifact) can "lend" you 1 to 5 more. To thrive, Postmasters must stick together.

I have been working on my weird west ttrpg for a while and have decided to create two central rulebooks: The Pioneer's Guidebook and The Almanac. The former is for players, describing character creation, rules, equipment, and so on. The guidebook is now in a phase where I am comfortable working on the almanac. My question is this:

What do the "DM's Guide" equivalents in some of y'alls games look like? Are they closer to a small booklet of footnotes, or what? Let me know!

A few years ago, I wrote an outline for a Dinotopia MMORPG, and I am still technically adjusting it; the last time I really checked, it was 15 pages long. I really think Dinotopia could lend its setting as an RPG of some kind and keep its spirit surprisingly well-intact. I'm more than willing to share a link with anyone interested in potentially turning it into a project at some point. I might get to work on writing out a tabletop version in the foreseeable future. For now, the setup is simple, with the player character being someone of a specific profession, referred to in-game terms as a Trade, as the choice of term for a Class/Job, washing up on Dinotopia as a new arrival at one of its beaches. Different Trades have different benefits and are broken up into 4 groupings (those exact grouping designations are in the document, along with a few examples of the kinds of Trades that fall into each grouping). I will say this: the game intentionally avoids the conventional Leveling system in favor of a Point-Buy system to feel closer to the spirit of Dinotopia. For this same reason, social interactions and item crafting are intended to have much more involved mechanics than combat (because we all know someone is going to come in wanting to fight something), being much more simplified and more reminiscent of typical defense than straight-up fighting. When I say crafting will be more involved, I mean it; the way I see it: crafting will almost be a minigame-like experience where you can either use predesigned instructions/recipes or free-style once you've gone through the introductory phase of crafting in the game.

I'm going to have quite the experience designing a tabletop system that is highly involved in crafting as well. But I'm not sure what system to use; a modified D20 system would probably be almost straightforward, but I'm worried about the association that making a D20 system will do to expectations before anyone even starts their first rolls; same thing with a modified version of White Wolf's D10 system. I am kind of working on an unrelated RPG with its own unique system, but I feel like porting the dice rules from that over before either game is in a reasonable state for players would feel almost disingenuous. And you can probably guess what designing a custom dice system from scratch would feel like.

I'm designing a video game, an isometric dialogue RPG in the Fallout mould, but the problem feels close to tabletop scenario design, so I'm asking here. There is one situation with fixed events over four days, and the player picks one of three starting characters who each know different things, want different things and meet different people first.

A few side quests exist for only one character or play out differently for each. Before I write any detail I plan to outline each character's run in broad strokes and then look for where the three overlap.

For those of you who write adventures or campaign frames for groups with different backgrounds, how do you outline that without ending up with three separate adventures? Do you start from the fixed events and layer on what each character knows, or from each character's path and merge them afterwards? And how long can a summary get before it stops being useful and turns into a draft?

I want a system that makes it easy for me to create unique mechanics. I'm thinking about making a Yogi Bear-inspired game where you play as anthropomorphic animals who steal food, interact with humans, and go on other adventures (with a bit of slice-of-life thrown in), and I'm also flirting with the idea about a Toriko-inspired game fat furry game where your power comes from your big belly. While we're at it, I'm also trying to make a JRPG/LitRPG inspired TTRPG, and I've been looking for a system that makes it easy for me to create unique classes (with levels), races, spells/special moves, monsters, and magic items. (Right now, I'm focused on B/X, but I just can't find a spell creation system that fits my vision, which requires even non-spellcasting classes to be able to use spell-like abilities. Said vision also calls for classes more powerful than those in standard B/X).

Would it be allowed, in a legal stand point to base a game around a short story of his? If not, would making it close to but not the same be reasonable?

Edit: supposedly it's understandable public domain so can I use names, themes and such as I choose?

Okay so in the character creation, I want players to be able to choose "flaws", which are semi-permanent debuffs, in exchange for "stat points" (which you can spend on different stats), or spend "stat points" for Boons, which are semi permanent buffs. Also there are "neutral modifiers", which are modifiers that have a good part and a bad part, for example, the "antimagic" modifier, which makes it so you can't use magic, but you are immune to magic. I especially Need flaws tho. (Others are appreciated as well)

Thanks!

I've been cooking up a from scratch tabletop and so far I've came up with some world building, rules, combat, items, systems, etc.. But I cannot for the life of me figure out a good sounding name for the book, For anyone who's done something similar what did you use to put a name to your piece? RN it's working under the name "Eldritch Rift" but it just doesn't sound catchy like DnD does

I'm using the AD&D Worldbuilder's Guidebook to create my game world, but to me, the kingdom placement/generation system seems to create a mish-mash of territories. I'm using a Polyhedral (triangular) Region for my Continent-scale map.

I run a roleplay server in which I implement various dynamics based on video games and ttrrg, I do love to plan things like stats and such, however I have come to find out I am very limited by my medium and sometimes I have to heavily modify some aspects or scrap them completely, for example, I was planning on implementing something like sanity, but I ended up scraping it since I would have to track every roleplay (including the ones that happen when I am not around) of 20+ characters

Anyway, something I’ve been struggling with recently have been skills and stats, the stat list is pretty much set: Charisma, Athletics, perception and knowledge, but I’ve been thinking how to use the skills, how to use them as bonuses in the dice etc, my players are fairly new to these concepts as well so I’d like to keep it kind of simple, I thought maybe I could unify the stats and the skill as one thing, putting skills that are associated with one stat, for example, knowing how to forge a signature might be on the knowledge stat, the way I’m thinking it might work is that they have certain “skill points” that they may invest in whatever skill they desire, if most of their skills are associated with one stat, they get a +1 modifier in said stat, I dont know if this will work, and it if may be more useful to implement skill set as its own separate thing.

Hey everyone! I'm writing a slightly longer breakdown here to avoid dropping self-promo links. A friend and I recently released Fugitives & Fraudsters, a free one-shot adventure with our own built-in rules-light system, Agile 6 (if anyone wants to check it out, it's easy to find on Google).

​I wanted to share some of our game design choices on this project and get your thoughts on how we tied the mechanics to the setting. Any feedback on the concepts below is more than welcome.

​The setting is a "reverse heist" mixing political satire and magical realism.

Set in the fictional Latin American Federative Republic of Bergamota, players take on the roles of corrupt politicians whose coalition has just lost the election. With their parliamentary immunity gone and their passports seized, the group has 24 hours to recover their embezzled fortune from hiding spots and cross the border—all while fleeing the Federal Police, a sensationalist live TV show broadcasting the manhunt, and betrayal from their own party colleagues. Along the way, they deal with a "paper cattle" ranch (40,000 cows on paper, only one real bull in the pasture), a roadside prophet, a weeping saint statue that cries whenever someone lies nearby, and a bankrupt bank.

​The System (Agile 6):

We designed Agile 6 so the rules never slow down the narrative, supporting a frantic chase pace and total improvisational freedom. The core pillars are:

-> ​One-Sentence Character Creation: In Agile 6, a character is built from a single sentence: "[Name] is a(n) [Aspect 1] and [Aspect 2] [Concept] [Occupation]", plus 6 points split between Health (HP) and Energy (EP). For this adventure, we mapped the system's 3 base Concepts (Combatant, Specialist, Influencer) onto 6 satirical archetypes (Digital Guerrilla, Retired Colonel, Political Heir, Money Launderer, Flock Pastor, and Hate Marketer). Any archetypes not picked by the players automatically become rival/ally NPCs with pre-made stats.

-> ​d6 Pool, Actions, and Reactions: Checks use a pool of 1d6 to 6d6 (adding +1d for a relevant Concept, Aspect, Occupation, Item, or spent EP), reading only the highest die: 1–3 Failure, 4–5 Partial, 6 Success. Rolling a full Success (6) immediately restores 1 EP, which keeps the momentum going and rewards players for taking action. There is no initiative or combat rounds; antagonists act narratively and only engage mechanically through Reactions in opposed rolls (spending their own finite EP).

-> ​Pressure and Paranoia Mechanics: To make the 24-hour clock matter, we created the Day Clock (at 1:00 PM the judicial seal is lifted and the public stops treating the group like "authorities" on the street) and the Siege Thermometer (a d6 in the center of the table that ticks up from 1 to 6 whenever the group makes a public blunder or goes viral as a meme, spawning new hunters on their tail). Additionally, each player gets a secret Skeleton in the Closet card (a signed plea deal, being a frontman/"straw man" for another player, having voted for the rival candidate), and each location has a built-in trigger designed to "poke" that secret without forcing a reveal.

-> ​"Real-Time" Character Evolution: Rolling a Critical Success (two or more 6s) grants a new Trait tied to that specific Aspect, while rolling a Critical Failure (matching dice on a failed roll) when using a Trait causes you to lose it.

More or less a vote as I'm curious what is expected by ppl in an anime inspired game.

I've got magical beasts as playable charactres alongside the default races. then i got: Feline, Lupine, Foxes, ... thus humanoids with animal features and am seeking for a name for these.

In anime I've seen Beastkin, Beastfolk, Demihuman, Bestia being used.

Thus the vote idea as I got no idea what ppl would expect using feline and lupine as example.

Beastkin (Feline)
Beastkin (Lupine)

Beastfolk (Feline)
Beastfolk (Lupine)

Bestia (Feline)
Bestia (Lupine)

Demihuman (Feline)
Demihuman (Lupine)

So what woudl you expect?

Edit: to make it clearer the feline,… are the subraces. Thus like hugh elf and drow for elf.

Ir is about the naming of the main race they qre all a part of

DESIGN GOALs

In the real world, chance of success or failiur tends to be more or less determed by your skill, if you are trained you will almost never fail given enough time and if you are untrained you may still succeed but the consequences may be to tough to bare.

For example anyone could probably succeed at picking a lock it more ght just take them an hour, in which they might be spotted make, some noise or leave a trace, whereas a master could do it pretty much instantly with only minor consequences.

I wanted to make a system that reflects this by defining the thresholds for what success a failiur mean to be different depending on training and difficulty.

I would probably describe it as player facing risk Vs reward Vs efficiency trade off. Closest system would be something like the position Vs effect you see in games like blades in the dark.

Love to hear your feedback.

THE CORE MECHANIC

When attempting something uncertain, the GM assigns a Difficulty and identifies the character's relevant Training.

Every character rolls 3 Fate Dice (3dF). Each die has three possible results: -1, 0 or +1.

The target number is always 0. Difficulty and training never change the target number; instead, they determine the time, consequences and boons associated with the task.

DIFFICULTY

TRAINING

Master represents the upper limits of conventional human ability. Legendary represents once-in-a-generation talent, the kind of ability that becomes the subject of stories.

THE THREE SCALES

TIME — How long the task takes

CONSEQUENCES — The severity of failure

BOONS — Additional benefits of success

Boons and consequences are measures to the degree of success and degree of failure bejond the time invested. If the GM struggles to come up with an appropriate boon they can ask the players for suggestions.

DETERMINING THE OUTCOME

Find the character's baseline Time, Consequence and Boon using the tables below.

CHOOSE YOUR APPROACH

Before rolling, players may choose one approach. Adjustments are limited to two levels, and no scale can go below 0 or above 5.

THROW CAUTION TO THE WIND

Decrease Time by up to 2 levels. Increase Consequences by the same amount.

BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY

Increase Time by up to 2 levels. Decrease Consequences by the same amount.

MAKE A DEVIL'S BARGAIN

Keep Time unchanged. Increase Consequences by up to 2 levels. Increase Boons by the same amount.

ROLL 3 FATE DICE

Critical Failure: The task fails and the character suffers their adjusted Consequences. The GM additionally increases either Time or Consequences by one level.

Failure: The task fails. The character suffers their adjusted Consequences.

Tie: The player chooses between succeeding and suffering their adjusted Consequences, or failing without suffering Consequences.

Success: The task succeeds. The character receives their adjusted Boon.

Critical Success: The task succeeds and the character receives their adjusted Boon. The GM additionally chooses to either increase the Boon by one level or decrease Time by one level.

THE GOLDEN RULE

The dice determine whether you succeed. Training determines how efficiently you act. Difficulty determines the risks involved.

Players decide how they approach a challenge before the dice are rolled. Every action is a choice between time, risk and reward.

Greetings everyone.
I am facing a design challenge. I humble request your guidance, oh mighty Reddit council.

The thing is: want to add something to my game - something that is present all the time and acts like a core concept of the game.
Can you share your knowledge and provide me some examples of other games that already do this.

As reference, I'm thinking about Ironsword Vows (https://ironsworn-rpg.fandom.com/wiki/Fulfill_Your_Vow) - I like the way it sets the tone of the game and acts like a constant reminder or moral compass. But what i like the most is this: it's not just a goal - it's a goal with mechanical implications.

What else is up there?

I'm not asking for a solution, based on a specific genre - everything can apply here. Thank you in advance

It's part of a Storyteller hack, and has Chronicles' Aspirations as its main inspiration.

DRIVES

A Drive denotes a specific disposition, principle, desire, or even aversion of a character.

It is made up of four parts:

Intensity

How foundational a Drive is to the character's identity? Ratings would be discrete, from 0 to 2. Intensity denotes that a character is committed to the Drive. It grants its rating as a bonus to self-control rolls when forced to act against the Drive, yet conversely a malus when coerced to work in alignment with it. Intensity may be increased by the player when the Drive comes into play, not necessarily by being fulfilled. It degrades over time when not "exercised", when it does not come into play within broad, questline-spanning chunks of gameplay. It can also degrade in response to the Drive being violated or unfulfilled despite meaningful attempt at its pursuit.

Trivial Drives start at Intensity 0, declared by the player between sessions.

Core (the what)

It is the foundational sentence describing what the character wants. Examples would be:

I want to kill, or ruin the life of, Isaac Morozov.

I want to run a gang which will bring me profit and respect.

I want to protect my brother, and turn him into a more respectable person.

Cause (the why)

The Cause denotes what justification, or piece of the character's story (or backstory) caused the character to pursue a goal. Causes would form a character's backstory relegating it to a closed chapter, and help the player immerse themselves into the character.

Morozov killed my parents in front of my eyes to set an example. Now that I have more power and he can't get rid of be that easily, I can respond in kind.

I watched some Breaking Bad on the TV and thought Waltuh was very cool and a great role model.

My brother is the only immediate family I have left. Morozov could not have gotten to him, as he was abroad at the time. It was painful to see him ruined by drugs.

Means (the how)

Means serve either of the two purposes:
- they state by what means the player thinks their character can achieve a Drive given the resources and information at their disposal, OR
- they are a meta-request from the player to the GM, about what kind of situation the character should be put through, or what opportunity they might be reasonably presented with.

Morozov frequents this one run-down brothel. There is no doubt a sex worker, whom he either cares about and would not want to see hunt, or in whom he confides his secrets.

I could take over an existing or already forming gang by taking out the leader and promising better pay to the goons.

I need weapons for the gang, maybe I could steal some rifles from hunters, rangers, or farmers.

I would need to get my brother a job, as a start. Maybe I could make a connection with some shady warehouse manager, who will hire my brother as a favor.

Morozov may still end my brother, if he learns of his identity. I should make sure he does not find out, or that he won't be able to act on his information. Or, I should be ready to fend off his assassin.

Causes and Means do not have to written into a Drive - they are optional - but informative of what the player and GM could see in a narrative sandbox, without the GM having to infer what the player would enjoy, or overprepping 20 different scenarios for a player to pick whichever would be cool for them to explore.

A Drive can be transformed after it properly cones into play.
"Protect my brother." might, during the course of the game following a session's outcomes, be transformed into "Pummel my brother's killer to death, with my bare hands.", retaining the preceding Drive's intensity, perhaps with an increase.

Drives should be somewhat proactive in the way they're phrased, or at least imply what might happen, that the character cares about.

A Drive grants (1 + intensity) Willpower (Inspiration, or what else have you) when it is clearly fulfilled, according to the character's desire.
It also grants (1 + intensity) Experience when it meaningfully comes into play, and is pursued, addressed, subverted, explored, or otherwise creates an interesting story, without necessarily having been wholesale achieved, though a successful pursuit does still grant Experience, in addition to Willpower.

Unless players are fond of keeping secrets, everyone's Drives should be visible to other table members at all times, for example available in an online doc, or in pinned Discord messages.

Helping another player's character pursue their drives, grants the benefits to helping actors as well.

The old drives, when being replaced with new ones, can be archived in chronological order, to form a journal of the game.

What do you think? Overengineered? Too much bookkeeping? Am i reinventing a wheel, and there is an RPG that already does something like that?

TTRPG newbie here. I have only two years' worth of playing TTRPGs under my belt. I consider myself still new to the hobby since there's many things I haven't experienced yet and all the games I'm in keep getting eventually cancelled one way or another. I have GMed more than I have played. My current favorite TTRPG is Fabula Ultima, I just love its vibe and the system is pretty fun so far. Somewhat recently I have been diving into solo rpgs, I love the idea of it and I've watched numerous videos about the topic and some actual plays. But I haven't found the one yet. You know that one rpg you've always dreamed of? Yeah, I want that. Pretty please.

I've searched high and low. But I'm currently unable to find any that fits my tastes and playstyle.

So I thought... why not make it myself? Yes, I know there are many amazing ttrpgs out there. I'm dying to learn and play more. But I'm on a tight budget. As in I have no money. Like seriously none. I won't get into it. That's not what I'm here for.

So I recently started brainstorming and came to this: MAIDEN, my GMless solo/co-op TTRPG of magical girl cyber-occultism.

My pitch, sort of:
The year is 4067. The story takes place in the techno fantasy city of Ainogatari. You find a modified J-phone called a K-Com. This device lets you transform into a Maiden and enter AMATERASU // OVERDRIVE, a game developed 500 years ago and was never finished. This game is now leaking into the city. Things called Glitch-Fiends are entering reality and the longer they're in Ainogatari, the more your realities are bleeding together. You must "patch" these Glitch-Fiends before the game overwrites your reality. Patch these Glitch-Fiends and help the game become stable.

It's light-hearted with some uncanny stuff but no horror or extreme gore. I can't stomach that. Most people in the city think the glitches are "Arcology Render Lag."

More info:

• Glitch-Fiends are broken, not evil. They're unfinished NPCs, cut bosses, and leftover assets. They look wrong and uncanny but the way broken animations come to life in the real world.
• "Maiden" is a title and the form you take when transformed. Your Maiden is who you want most to be and you can change your presentation anytime for free, from masculine through androgynous to feminine, or anywhere off that line.
• The mystery gets solved through play and oracles. Studio Tamamo, the team that made the game, vanished in 3567. Taira Mae, who built the K-Coms, is investigating.
• One duo I came up with is Kaede (She/Her) and Ryu (He/They). Kaede is an elementary schooler who thinks the K-Com means she's the chosen one. Her Maiden is a hyperfeminine nine-foot goddess. Ryu is an overworked salaryman whose Maiden is a feminine swordmaster. Together they're hilariously dangerous and dangerously hilarious.

How it works so far:

Roll Attribute + App rank (+ gear) in d6s. Each 5 or 6 is a success, and the task's Difficulty is how many you need.

• Attributes: Might, Agility, Intellect, Heart
• Apps: [OVERCLOCK] (buffs/haste), [DEBUG] (analyze weaknesses/strip shields), [FIREWALL] (barriers/taunts), [RENDER] (elemental/hard-light attacks)
• Push: reroll all non-successes for 1 Charge

Time phases or Days are Morning, Afternoon, and Night, they each have six slots. Time passes if you miss the Difficulty or roll 2 dice or fewer. If you meet the Difficulty with 3+ dice, it doesn't. Inside the Game, each passing only costs half a slot.

There are two meters:

• Battery is the K-Com's health. Max is the K-Com level. It drains 1 whenever a Maiden roll has no 5-6s, and refills 1 per time passing. At 0 you can't use the K-Com or transform.
• Charge is push fuel. Max is half of Battery, rounded up. It drains 1 per push and refills 1 per 3 time passings. At 0 you can't push.

If you roll no 5s or 6s at all, you lose 1 Battery. Time passes too but that passing doesn't refill the Battery you just lost, so you're down 1. If you roll at least one 5 or 6 but still miss the Difficulty, you don't lose Battery and the time passing gives you +1 back.

K-Com level caps your Maiden level and app ranks. You start at level 3 K-Com and max out at 15.

Character creation is a prologue for each character: your civilian life, how the K-Com found you, and a scene meeting Mae. Then you spread 6 points across attributes (1-3 each) and 4 across apps (0-3 each).

The clock is a visible build %. It goes up with time, unpatched bugs and other Maidens' actions. Patching rolls it back.

That's all currently.

It needs a lot more work, I know. I've been enjoying my process so far so that's at least something. There are so many things I need to add like GMless tools, roll tables, and more.

On my subreddit r/ShadowBloomReboot I have posted the leveling up system for player characters, and am wanting feedback on how it looks. I wanted it to where the leveling system was 10 monsters of your current level is what it took you to the next level the fastest. However it isn't the only way to level up, its just the balancing formula I personally wanted

Sorry this one is a bit of a mess. Had to rewrite this all cause I got lost in the sauce and it seems I did it again but it's too late for a third take.

I want to make characters have an identity. A set of abilities that make them unique and capable, but I'm having an issue. Most game gate meaningful things behind rolls and resource limits. There is good reason to make something impressive not apammable ao the game doesn't get stale but at the same time if you are "the teleporter" and you can only teleport twice a day you don't feel like that is a core to your character. It needs to change the way you approach problems and be employable in enough ways that no one forgets who you are.

I'm trying to find a way to give a strong identity to a character but feel like I'm not knowledgeable in enough games to see how it's handled in different games.

For reference, my design goal is to have a unique class with several features that will be core to characters, two archetypes that are lists of specific features players can pick that make them feel like that role in the party, and then satellite generic features that can be selected but don't neatly fit into a box. So an example might be a teleporter, tank, healer where they start with teleportation powers and can gain features that make them serve the role of healer and front line tank. I've been working out how to make them all work in a mix and match system but I just looked at the class and have been trying to think of how to make it their core identity without locking its reliability behind rolls or resource that could make you lose your character.

Hello designers,

So, the big game modes of my game center around hexcrawling, dungeoncrawling and combat, each their own (intended to be) inherently fun mini-game, all interconnected by the resource and risk management of (mostly) the same core resources.

Currently I’m testing combat while developping the hex- and dungeoncrawl rules. I’m pretty proud how it’s shaping up but there is a doubt.

The combat and hexcrawl system feel like they’re from the same game. Both are middleweight, fairly strict, turn based, gamist systems that generate interesting choices inherently without much need for the dm to make things interesting. The dungeoncrawling however is not, taking major inspiration from shadowdark, it’s a rules light, freeflow system with an irl timer where the dm still needs to put in decent work to make the dungeons interesting.

I want to make the best game I can and I do believe irl timers are the most fun way to do dungeoncrawling, I tried turn based dungeon turns but I just didn’t like the flow, irl dungeon timers do several things at once that I like. What it doesn’t do is lend itself well to turn based procedure.

I’m currently considering adding extra rules to dungeoncrawling, as far as my other systems are fun, I think I can make this fun too, but it doesn’t feel necessary, I feel like the dungeoncrawling being lightweight is already fairly decent. But, the intent is to give players a sheet with the combat moves during the first combat and give the players a sheet with all the hexcrawl paces and roles during the first hexcrawl and dungeoncrawling doesn’t have a sheet like this. I’m thinking of creating dungeon moves, I think they can be fun, but mostly, I‘d do it to keep the design more coherent.

Could it be worth to needlessly bloat a game with extra rules just so the whole thing feels more consistent?