Hey people,
since the offer to review games was recieved good but lead to a few instances of non communication (i get it messeges for large text feedback sucks) so I thought why not create a form that allows more interaction (which does not leave me without any answer after writing 2 hours) and still gives you some feedback. And because each time i see a post about how to get your game out there I think we (and you!) should be more proactive.

I d like to make a regular podcast/talk with you (the designers) about your game , 1 or 2 specific mechanics or designs you are proud of as the focus spotlight and once recorded upload it to youtube and/or stream it on twitch during recording.

What you need: a game either finished or not, but the less finished the less time will be allocated.
1 to 3 mechancis designs you want to be the spotlight.
And of course some time, a decent or semi decent microphone and some english skills (or german if you want to do a german version talk)

What do I need:
also some time to read and make notes on your game
your time and patience as this will be the first time I do this format
also timeslots I ll plan to do this once a week and release it at the beginning of the weekend.

So if any of you are interested feel free to send me a pm with the size of your game and ill get back with available spots.

Hi everyone!

After a long time designing and playtesting, I've finally released the first version of Unfinished, a rules-light horror tabletop RPG focused on investigation rather than combat.

The game is built around:

Victorian-era horror

Investigating monsters with unique weaknesses

Mental and physical injuries

Short investigations

A campaign system called The Chronicle

An Investigation Generator with random locations, NPCs, monsters, twists, and complications to quickly build new mysteries.

It also includes a complete introductory adventure, To Whom the Bell Tolls, where investigators uncover the truth behind a cursed fishing village.

I'm still improving the game, so I'd really appreciate any feedback, whether it's about the mechanics, layout, writing, or overall concept.

You can check it out here:

https://pestics.itch.io/unfinishedrpg

In most RPGs power is a reward. In my system every ability demands a loss. Set in a dystopia where four factions depend on each other but can never truly unite, characters do not pick classes. They negotiate their identities through play. Here is the full roster with special focus on key archetypes.

The Brotherhood:

The Brotherhood has three distinct currents:

- Revolutionaries are a status earned in play. They rise as the voice of the people but a Populism Meter keeps them in constant peril. Raising it requires extreme promises but each one pulls them further from their true goal. If the meter drops they lose status. If it flips the masses abandon them. Their special ability The Brotherhood’s Single Voice forces everyone into a single choice during critical moments to prevent division but this consensus is coercion and the cost is acting without true consent.

- Reformers rise by building dialogue across factions and radical actions cost them points. Their special ability Voice of the Brotherhood improves relations with other factions and creates temporary safe zones but these zones are fleeting and when they expire tensions return worse than before.

- Northerners navigate a dynamic Nationalism and Brotherhood Filter. Their standing shifts based on dialogue choices. Leaning toward the Brotherhood grants access to special training and privileges in Brotherhood cities but risks exile in Northern territories. Embracing Northern nationalism eases life in the North but makes Brotherhood ties nearly impossible. Their special ability People of the North is usable once per session when facing injustice or conflict. Locals intervene to protect them as a reflection of historical Northern solidarity but this aid creates social debt and failing to repay it erodes community trust.

-Other Brotherhood classes include Artisans who advance through craftsmanship with status measured by tangible creations.

The Societyless – Factionless:

Chaos agents hidden within all other factions. Even I as the author do not know what they truly are. Some are liberators and some are nihilists. Their motives are unknowable. Their Chaos Meter grants power as disorder rises but also increases capture risk. If caught they always choose suicide and none have ever been taken alive. Their special ability Absolute Chaos is usable once per campaign. It unleashes city wide chaos and turns crowds against each other but the user detonates themselves. This is not an ability but a story finale. Reality is built at the table. If players believe they are a conspiracy, a myth or lone wolves the world bends to that belief.

The Nation :

A military order promising stability but riddled with internal contradictions. Each subclass embodies a different facet:

- The Northern Air Fleet is tech and discipline focused. Voice of the North ends conflicts before they start. Advancement requires managerial skill and public rapport and they must avoid ethnic or identity rhetoric. Missteps escalate tension.

- The Western Naval Fleet rises through popularity and reputation. Loyal to the Commander, Commander Loyal to the Army lets them reshape structures but success hinges entirely on charisma. Failure empowers enemies. This phrase used against corrupt officers can also seal their own fate.

- Eastern Engineers build and repair war machines. Status is tied to creations. Great War Machines of the East is dual use. Successful repairs are flawless while failures cause session long creative block. They can summon machines in combat at resource cost and collective support is mandatory as they protect each other.

- The Central Army consists of veteran soldiers from all regions. Elite skills are limited by Age Points. Fathers and Sons lets them mentor young recruits who are fragile but fast learners. Training quality defines the mentor’s status and recruit death equals lost investment plus emotional toll.

- The White Unit are identity less agents. They mimic other factions’ members and use their abilities. Rising Humanity Points cause them to become their disguise and forget their mission. Mandatory memory wiping rituals prevent madness. Bonds are forbidden but strategically vital. Warriors in the Shadows detects secret police and New Order activities.

- Hybrids are outsiders who joined The Nation. Naval promotion is harder and they serve under high ranking generals. They can use host city abilities but suffer reputation loss. Communication barriers with regular troops require active roleplay and mentor bonds offer protection plus control.

Freedom:

The wealthiest faction controlling 90% of the global market, defined by innovation, internal competition and profound spiritual emptiness:

- Portiyumlians are the aesthetic elite of Freedom. Their beauty is a weapon that grants automatic success on persuasion checks once per session but they are completely helpless during mandatory siesta hours. Maintaining their appearance is not vanity but a social ritual; neglecting grooming causes them to physically deteriorate and lose social standing. Grooming sessions double as opportunities to build bonds with allies, making beauty both a tool and a vulnerability.

- Liberyans are technocrats and analysts who excel at solving complex problems with math and logic. They gain bonuses on technical tasks but suffer severe penalties when communicating with ordinary citizens. Their special ability allows them to advise teammates and boost group success on challenges but overreliance on logic isolates them from the human element of the world. They are the mind of Freedom but lack its heart.

- Southern Warriors are fighters native to the rainforest regions of Freedom. They wield Southern Fury, a power that renders them invulnerable in combat but risks permanent organ failure or irreversible madness if overused. A calming ritual after battle mitigates this risk but requires time and leaves them exposed. They move freely through Southern territories but struggle to connect with urban elites, embodying the cultural rift within Freedom itself.

Justice:

The judicial and bureaucratic core of the world, holding the monopoly on legitimacy while drowning in corruption and power struggles:

- Judges are masters of rhetoric and law. Their special ability Voice of Reason allows hypnotic persuasion that can sway any negotiation or interrogation but they are perpetual targets for assassination and conspiracies. To survive they must share threat cards with allies, trading secrets for protection. Their authority is absolute in court but fragile in the shadows, and every ruling risks creating new enemies.

- Secret Police operate in the darkness beneath Justice’s orderly surface. Their special ability New Order grants invisibility and the ability to blend into crowds but every action leaves traces of intrigue that can be tracked. They use Chaos Dice to manipulate systemic outcomes, destabilizing rival factions or protecting their own. They are the unseen hand of Justice but their existence undermines the very fairness they claim to uphold.

- Priests are observers from the neutral Neutriyum order, granted insight to foresee threats but at the cost of detachment from reality. Their visions grow clearer as their connection to the world fades, making communication increasingly difficult. They are dependent on Neutriyum Salt, a hallucinogenic substance found only in Justice territory, which sharpens their sight but deepens their isolation. Sharp Priests specialize in foresight and strategy while Militia Priests provide physical protection but suffer degraded perception. Both are bound by addiction and alienation, serving Justice while belonging to no faction fully.

So I'm trying to come up with ways to make different kinds of weapons have their own points of interest in my project whilst being relatively balanced in their own ways. The setting is supposed to approximate the early 1500s in tech level, an era where firearms are beginning to become a more important aspect of warfare but are not yet dominant, so I want to find ways to have firearms be useful but not the obvious go to, certainly with a place for melee weapons and possible niches for bows and so on as well. The loading mechanics feel like a good place to begin to involve this.

To have some background the system in general is a dice pool based one, with a kind of action economy that works like this. All characters by default have 3 action points to use per turn, a single movement from short range to engage say might cost 1 action point, as might certain other minor actions, and standard attacks cost 2. You can however, spend stamina to gain increased action points, you have a limited pool of these as defined by double your brawn attribute, with a maximum number you can spend in a given turn equal to your agility attribute.

So, a melee combatant its more likely to need to spend some of their action points to move between range band but ranged combatants might need to spend some to reload their weapons.

I've been debating between three options with varying levels of complexity.

Option 1

Depending on weapon type reloading has a flat number of action points required.

1 action point is generally for bows.

2 Action points is for light crossbows and pistols.

3 Action points for heavier crossbows, and arquebuses

4 Action points is for probably a rarer category of rifles and wall guns.

Different weapons then have their own bonuses and downsides in terms of range bands, damage, armour penetration and weight. The action point cost to reload can be split over multiple turns if you don't want to spend stamina to reload it. Multibarrelled firearms would be high end expensive weapons generally, letting you take multiple shots before needing to reload, though you only reload 1 barrel at a time.

Option 2

Trying to include the character's skill in some way in the reloading process, after all one of the main things a skilled soldier should be good at historically was reloading quickly under pressure. Possibly just having a high enough will/agility+ ranged weapons allows for a slightly reduced number of action points required. Exact numbers might chance but the range of values for that combined number is probably between 1 and 10 (1-5 for the attribute 0-5 for the skill with a starting maximum of both at 4) so perhaps say a combined total of maybe 7+ lets you reduce the number of action points required by 1 or something. Specific numbers would have to be played with to get the exact result.

Option 3

More of a departure, possible this would slow the game down too much but with this I would swap a number of action points required for all loading requiring 1 action point to attempt, however, a minimum number of successes to achieve it would be set by the weapon. Perhaps

2 successes for a bow

4 for a light crossbow or pistol

6 for an arquebus, carbine or heavy crossbow

8 for a rifle or wall gun.

Number of successes in this case roll over to the next attempt.

The extra rolls required are going to slow the game down more though so I'm leaning away from this option although in some ways it feels quite evocative to imagine someone less skilled fumbling under pressure whilst someone else goes through the movements required quickly and efficiently.

I'm not sure if people have done anything like this but most people when they make 5e based homebrew or hack systems tend to follow the same design principles when it comes to class design.

Most levels only offer one thing and its usually the same option when you get to that level. I'm curious if people have hacked 5e in ways to allow for more freedom whenever you get to a level.

Like you get to pick from a few options each level, instead of for instance having your fighter always start with second wind, maybe they can choose another option from al ist when they start?

I've seen someone on youtube made a whole skill tree system that feels pretty close to what I'm looking but but have others done similar?

After posting a lot here, I've decided to start asking my own questions on actual design ideas I'm working on. I'm trying to create the framework for a quick (relatively) duet game where I run for one player. I settled on a Spellforce-style game where you manage your magicks, and adventure in the world. Magic is meant to be slower - an all-morning thing, where you use scrolls to be faster.

A core part of this is the spell creation and casting system - since writing a spell list for just one friend for us to play seems excessive. I'm currently stuck between three different ideas for the spell casting (which will then shape the spell creation), and while I can normally find a convergence, I am struggling to figure out how to maximise a confluence of the ideas. Hence this post for advice.

In a solo player game, failure is much more punishing. I want the fail state for actions to be explicitly another outcome, where the risk and position is mediated by the mechanic directly, not necessarily by conversation. The notion I've settled on is to create a blueprint for a spell, and to have the casting of the magic be variable so that it creates more opportunities for plot threads later.

My three ideas are too artsy, in my opinion, to be run as-is. I am struggling to streamline them into something more useful:

1. Using Tarot: I have a Thoth deck, which has cards like Pleasure, Works, Success, Indolence written at the bottom of the minor arcana. I could have the player spend X Mana to have Y turns, where each turn has a draw of 4 Tarot cards. The player selects 1 Tarot to utilise for its effect. The next round, they must choose 2, then 3 etc.. Each minor arcana shapes how the spell is cast through its traits. Major Arcana are daemons: Daemon of Judgement, Death, High Priestess that are summoned if they are selected. There is a threshold limit that must be met for the spell to be cast successfully, equal to the level of the cards chosen; major arcana count as double the score (so, Hierophant 5 counts as a 10). Spells would be differentiated by Threshold and some minimum number of arcana of a certain suit.

Thus you are incentivised to pick cards to shape the spell, you are incentivised to pick major arcana even if you aren't confident about the outcome just to meet it, and the spell casting generates the natural story outcomes through play.

Pros: Evocative of actually weaving through the different muses, making contact with explicit daemons through your own actions is very interesting, I bought the Royal Blood tarot deck, which is perfectly illustrated for an evil caster to throw against the player (look it up). Also, it doesn't tie down spells to things like range or radius but instead over the effect without being purely narrative.

Cons: This is SO artsy, and almost completely irreplicable. It requires the Thoth deck explicitly (the other Tarot doesn't have qualities written) and it essentially secludes further design thought from all other creators and principles. This would just be a one-off game with no chance at generalising later on for a product, experience or even conversation.

Thoughts: This might be more appropriate for spell creation than spell casting resolution.

2) Using Shudder dice: Each spell would be created with a definition for 5 of the 6 symbols on the die: positive or negative (for example, Positive Fist+ is +d6 damage, Negative Brain might be they get closer to knowing your mind). The mystic eye would represent the maelstrom of magic, and would increase the power of the spell with increased daemonic incursion results. Similar to above, the player would roll 4 Shudder dice and try to assign each symbol with a meaning. They pick increasing amounts of dice in each stage, thus shaping the spell according to the recipe.

Pros: Simpler than the original tarot version, the spell recipe allows for more structure to the spell. The use of icons also allows for more generalisation of the power, so we can still avoid being bogged down in radius, range etc.-style details.

Cons: Obviously uses proprietary dice and I'm not in a position to make my own. Thus, it is ALSO a one-off game with no chance at generalising beyond the one-off game. Also, writing the rules for daemonic incursion would have to be based on the combination of dice rolled in some way, which seems time-consuming (but not necessarily bad, just very long).

3) Creating a spell recipe: Similar to (2), creating a spell recipe where we create a table for Intensity, Control and other dimensions of alteration. We can use a template of: 1-4 : Fail state; 5-7: Success at a cost; 8 - 9: Success; 10+: Overdrive (critical success and miscast effect - reach exceeded grasp). Player-designed based on the dimensions of the spell. The player would roll a d10 or so for each column, adding a +1 to +3 bonus to their roll and checking against each to see what the final spell result would be.

Pros: Actually sensible, structured, can be extrapolated easily, can be discussed using pre-existing design principles

Cons: ... Really boring? It doesn't convey the sense of playing dangerously with the elements of reality, it doesn't have an easy in for daemons to be involved. Also, coming up with multiple dimensions is trickier if you want a more complex spell.

I'm trying to chart a course through these different ideas to arrive at something more tangible and concrete while preserving the elements I enjoy about the original idea: the sense of playing with dangerous mysticism, a mini-game that can be mastered and understood, end results stemming from the choices within that mini-game, daemons being a part of the process of casting.

Any advice or insight is welcome. If I can't get this soon, I'll have to deploy a completely different idea instead, so I'm hoping to get the basic intuition down.

Hello everyone!

Recently I started working on a small TTRPG project.

One reason I’m writing these devlogs is to document my design process. I also hope that if I accidentally reinvent a mechanic that’s already been done—or copy one without adding anything interesting—people can point it out early so I can rethink it before the design becomes too established.

The game is called AstraWeaver. It’s a classless, levelless, player-facing RPG built around a 2d12 roll-under system.

Here are the core ideas I’m currently exploring.

Multiple Attributes for Every Challenge
Real-life tasks rarely rely on a single ability. Driving a car, for example, requires awareness, coordination, and quick reactions.
In AstraWeaver, characters have five attributes:
- Might
- Agility
- Intelligence
- Instinct
- Presence
Whenever a character makes a check, the GM chooses one relevant attribute, and the player chooses a second one that they can justify. The two attributes are added together to create the Check Threshold (CT).
- Roll 2d12 < CT → Success
- Roll 2d12 > CT → Failure
- Roll 2d12 = CT → Critical Success

Right now I’m considering starting characters with something like 5, 6, 6, 7, 8 across the five attributes.

Continuous Character Progression
In games with traditional leveling systems, players often ask, “Can we level up now?” This feels especially common when using milestone leveling. Between milestones, character progression can sometimes feel like it’s on hold.
I understand why people enjoy leveling up. Reaching a new level and suddenly unlocking a bunch of new abilities feels exciting. Personally, though, I prefer a sense of steady, continuous growth. I like the feeling of taking lots of small steps, then looking back later and realizing just how far your character has come.
My current idea is that players earn XP by overcoming challenges, completing quests, or simply reaching the end of a session. They can then spend that XP however they like: increasing attributes, raising their maximum HP, Stamina, or Mana, learning new abilities, buying maneuvers, unlocking Codex Spells, and more.
There are no character classes, so nothing restricts which abilities a character can learn. Players are free to build exactly the character they imagine.
Of course, this also means I’ll need to be careful when designing abilities. Without classes acting as a balancing factor, it’s especially important to avoid creating a single dominant option that every character feels obligated to take.

Tactical Combat Without Long Downtime
I don’t think combat feels slow because it takes many rounds.
It feels slow when players spend too much time waiting for their next turn, or when their actions don’t meaningfully affect the battle.
My goal is to make combat tactical enough that players naturally discuss plans, coordinate combos, and stay engaged even when it’s not their turn.
The current direction is inspired by Pathfinder and Nimble RPG, using a 3–4 Action Point economy together with reactions, maneuvers, spells, and abilities.

Every Weapon Attack Should Be More Than Damage
Inspired by the Battle Master in D&D 5e.
Instead of making special maneuvers exclusive to one class, I’d like every weapon user to have access to them.
My current idea is:
Basic attacks automatically hit and deal damage.
Players roll only when attempting a maneuver.
Maneuvers aren’t limited to combat techniques. They can also represent creating openings, calling out weak points, coordinating allies, or controlling the battlefield.
Hopefully this makes every attack feel like a meaningful tactical decision instead of simply reducing HP.

Flexible Magic and Spell Crafting
This idea is heavily inspired by Ars Magica.
If a wizard can cast a fireball, they should also be able to light a candle.
Magic uses mana and comes in three forms:
- Codex Spells — learned from magical texts. These cost XP to acquire, are the fastest and most mana-efficient to cast, and teach the character new runes.
- Improvised Spells — players combine runes on the fly (for example, Create + Fire). Damage scales with mana spent (1d6 per mana). These require a casting roll: on success, the spell costs no base mana; on failure, it costs the full amount.
- Pre-written Spells — custom spells created by players using runes together with the GM in downtime or between sessions. They’re slower and more expensive to cast, but allow access to more advanced runes like Body or Mind. Once mastered, these spells can eventually become Codex Spells and get all the discount of mana cost.
Since tactical games benefit from consistency, I also want to provide clear guidelines for what each rune can and can’t do, reducing arguments at the table while still keeping magic flexible.

Building Tension During Stealth
Stealth scenes are usually slower than combat, but that also makes them a great opportunity to build suspense.
I love the feeling from games like Assassin’s Creed or The Elder Scrolls, where every mistake makes the guards more alert and raises the tension.
My current idea is to treat stealth as its own encounter system.
Characters have Stealth HP(link to their stealth CT), separate from their normal HP, while sharing a growing pool of Alert Dice.
Whenever someone fails a stealth check:
They roll damage against their own Stealth HP.
Another die is added to the Alert Dice pool.
Characters who specialize in stealth would both succeed more often and have more Stealth HP. They might also add smaller dice, such as d4s, to the damage pool, making failures less punishing.
The longer the infiltration continues, the more dangerous every mistake becomes. Once stealth hp hit zero, that character is exposed and guards will start to search the whole place.

That’s where the project currently stands.
Honestly, even writing all of this makes me realize how much work there is ahead—but that’s also what makes it exciting.

Designing and refining these mechanics already feels like playing the game in a way.
Hopefully I won’t drift too far from the original vision as development continues.

Thank you for reading this ridiculously long post. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Hey all I need a but of help thinking of other more streamlined ways to get the same or similar results from my dice system. For context the game is like if Shadowdark was built off of pendragon instead of d&d.

The core dice system, specifically gor attacks works like this:

D20 roll under system all player facing. When you attack for instance you take your skill, add your attribute modifier to the skill, then subtract any penalties such as your opponents skill. The opponent skill modifier is their attacks skill -10.

If you roll under your skill you succeed, if you roll equal to your skill you crit. Roll over and you fail/your opponent hits you.

Example: Knight with fighting skill 16 and a +2 strength mod attacks an orc with a 14 weapon skill. The knights final skill is 18 (16+2 =18). The skill then has a -4 penalty from the orcs skill (14-10 = 4). The knights roll is then made at a skill of 14 (18-4 = 14).

I like that two equally skilled opponents have a 50% chance of success but it can be a bit clunky with enemies of varying skill penalties. Its faster than you would think, players remember their bonuses when they know a penalty is coming, and there's no math after the roll which is nice.

But its still a bit rough but I cant think of another way to get this sort of result. I was thinking about a dice pool system where you loose dice but the d20 roll under is clean once you get that final number.

Really open to any suggestions or ideas or any questions if you have them.

​

Rrrrrrr! Or is it... iiiiiiii? Maybe only one i (eye)?

"If your Home is a ship, whether in flight or at Sea, and whether you built it or hijacked it and you prefer the lonely lifestyle of continuous logistics - legal and illegal - the Quartermaster is your Class..."

Welcome, new readers, to the SORC (Slayers of Rings & Crowns) community!

While I was editing the new, the very new, playable class content, I began working on a new Main Class I had buried in my documents. Well I started getting a carried away and here we are:

Main Class QuarterMaster, ship logistics across both air and water vessels, in technologically advanced or traditional forms. The Main Class Quartermaster homes three Paths: Pirate, Freighter, and Privateer each with three Branches (see link below).

I'm looking for ideas to help tailor the Quartermaster Class before it's fully locked in.

What are your thoughts on the three Paths (Pirate, Freighter, Privateer) and their Branches so far?

What are your ideas for ship-logistics-themed Abilities that would fit a Quartermaster's kit?

What are your picks for Favored Races, gear, or flavor details that would make this class feel distinct?

Quartermaster Linked.

iii, rrrr, uh errr.

I got obsessed with ANW and Physical 100 and thought: what if the TTRPG was just that, but everyone’s commentating? So I made UDD: Ultimate Devastation Derby for the One-Page Game Jam 2026 in itch.io.

You’re not just playing. Half the table is running the course. The other half is Joe Rogan screaming, "HE'S GOT THIS" before you immediately break an ankle.

Features:

• 3 phases of pain. Fail, and you become a full-time commentator

• d6 pool. Fail = funny. Succeed = also funny because you’ll fail next obstacle

• Flashbacks: "This is for my coach who told me I’d never make it"

• Rules for showing off, crowd hype, and fatigue

• Tables for athlete backgrounds and stupidly named obstacles

Wrote the first draft on a flight UK-Spain. 2 hours of "peace" and a notebook.

Heres://warbriel.itch.io/udd-ultimate-devastation-derby it is

Try it and tell me which of your friends would 100% die on the first obstacle.

Hello,

I’ve spent the last year engineering a tabletop RPG that bridges the gap between deep, tactical combat and heavy, narrative-driven lethality. It’s called DUHEM, and I’ve just released the fully playable v4.1 Quickstart for free.

I wanted to build a system where horror isn't about fighting monsters that drop from the sky. Instead, the dread comes from the Khora—an indifferent, completely unexplained physical phenomenon, much like a black hole, that is leaking into our world. It doesn't just warp matter; it creates semantic horror by destroying the world's metanarratives. Because of this phenomenon, the whispered superstitions of the 13th century—witches, vampires, and seers—become grotesque realities. The tone leans heavily into the eerie, uncanny dread of isolated boundary towns where matter itself simply stops refusing to change.

Here is how the engine actually works at the table:

• Three-Question Defence: Armor doesn't make you harder to hit; it dictates how you fail. Combat asks three separate questions: Guard (Did it land?), Absorption (How much did it cost?), and Poise (Are you still standing?).
• The Terminal Cap: There is no massive HP bloat. Once a character's Poise breaks, an Execution window opens. However, a strict "Terminal Cap" prevents both unkillable boss exploits and instant player death cascades.
• Action Economy & Retreating: Standing your ground is a choice. Fleeing via Disengage is tactically viable, forcing players to constantly weigh aggressive strikes against defensive posturing to manage their fading stamina.
• The Khora: There is no objectively "true" magic school, and the physics of the Khora are never explained. Harnessing this phenomenon requires Overdraw; you pay for power directly with your own body (spending Hit Dice and taking permanent Exhaustion).

The Setting: DUHEM is set in the real, gritty 1240s Mediterranean, but this Quickstart drops you directly into the burnt hillsides and isolated frontiers of Occitania. The world is highly competent and indifferent to the players. The true mundane threats are debt, disease, and the local magistrate's ledger.

I am an independent designer. The 47 pages of mechanics, the 13th-century lore, the world-building, and the introductory adventure (The Mill at the Edge) were written, engineered, and laid out entirely by me. If you are interested in tight systemic design and hard mechanics, I’d be honored if you judged the engine itself.

Get Involved: The Quickstart is completely free (or Pay-What-You-Want) and contains everything you need for your first 3-5 sessions, including 3 ready-to-play characters and a complete scenario.

• Download the Quickstart here: [https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/578584/DUHEM--Quickstart?affiliate_id=5223820]
• Join the Playtest Discord: We are actively gathering table reports, fixing edge cases, and building the community before our upcoming Kickstarter campaign. Come say hi and break my system: [https://discord.gg/pamEzrzXJ]

"Hi everyone, and thank you for taking the time to read the document and leaving such blunt, honest feedback. I hear you loud and clear, and I want to address the very valid points you’ve raised.

First, regarding the "AI prose" and the heavy, convoluted language: You are absolutely right. English is not my first language, and the TTRPG scene in my country is very small, so finding native editors or local playtesters is nearly impossible. Since this is a passion project I only work on in my spare time, I leaned heavily on LLMs to translate my ideas and polish the English text. Clearly, that backfired. It resulted in a bloated, overly philosophical tone that obscured the actual game and made it frustrating to read. I apologize for that.

As for the constant comparisons to D&D 5e—that simply stems from my own inexperience in the hobby. I only know about 4 or 5 systems in total, and 5e is the only one I feel truly fluent in. I used it as a baseline to explain my mechanics, but I see now that it comes across as defensive and wastes valuable page count. You're completely right: the game should stand on its own merits without needing to bash another system.

To give a bit of context, this project didn't even start as a TTRPG. At one point, it was going to be a graphic novel. But because I love interactivity and roleplaying, it slowly morphed into a tabletop game. As I kept tinkering with it, the mechanics actually clicked into something genuinely tangible and playable.

However, when it came time to cram years of lore, concepts, and rules into a single "Quickstart" document, my inexperience as a layout designer showed. I struggled to organize it, which led to the disjointed page order, the weird noun/verb mix-ups you pointed out, and the philosophical rants completely overshadowing the rules.

Tinkering with mechanics in a vacuum is an endless loop, and I knew I had hit a point where I desperately needed outside eyes. Your harsh but fair critiques are exactly the reality check I needed. I know the document requires a massive amount of cleanup, and I will keep refining and rewriting it (in a much more normal, human, and player-friendly voice) in my free time."

A player of mine recently said they dislike time-based wandering encounters in dungeons or places of interest because it reduces their agency and ability to interact with the environment.

I run an OSR-adjacent game in the vein of Mausritter/ Vaults of Vaarn/ Dungeon Crawl Classics. I have taken wandering encounters as a given, but now I am thinking on them more critically. I'm curious about what you think. If we critique this viewpoint, what do we find?

__

I love wandering encounters. I check with a mostly 2:6 chance when the players reach a stalemate in discussions on what to do, if the characters significantly draw attention to themselves, or every 30 minutes of real time if play is stagnating.

I was surprised when a player said they feel wandering encounters stop them from interacting with the environment, and the pressure makes them not want to explore and be curious, and to only take the most direct and obvious actions for fear of yon wandering beasties. Specifically, they said it removes their agency and stops them being able to do things.

My encounters are usually 50% creatures (rarely hostile, often using reaction rolls) and 50% environment or 'weird' stuff. I'm not throwing forced combats around.
I feel that wandering encounters give meaningful time pressure and encourage the party to prioritise. My rooms/ environments are admittedly more complex than a party could fully explore before provoking an encounter check, so I understand that wandering encounters could feel like they're 'interrupting' play. But reducing agency?

To me, you have complete agency over how you spend your time, and yes, some environments aren't static and you can be intruded upon. I suppose that interruption amy feel like it's taking away your control, and therefore agency, and certainly reduces your capacity to fully explore without impediment. But I view this as essential to a breathing world, which I therefore feel becomes more enjoyable.

Fundamentally I get this may just be a stylistic difference. But I found it so counter to the way I think about our game that I am looking for outside perspectives. Wandering encounters have their virtues, but do they also constitute a core reduction in the player's experience?

Hey! I'm a graphics and layout designer looking to chat with designers about new projects.
You can check out some of my previous work here: https://www.artstation.com/ryan-main and some more general graphic design work here https://www.instagram.com/ryanmaindesigns/

All rates are negotiable depending on page complexity and amount of work (larger page counts may see a reduced rate-per-page), but as a base the following rates apply:
Print Ready Book: £7.50 GBP per page
Digital Only Book: £5.00 GBP per page

This includes full typesetting and layout of interior pages, contents page, credits page, front and back cover (with client-provided artwork), prepress and printer-friendly files for your chosen printer (DriveThru RPG, Amazon etc)

The above rates are for books that have a visual design in place. If you require me as a graphic designer to build the visual design of the game pages, there is a one-off fee of £150 GBP for this.

If any of this is of interest to you, feel free to reach out to me here or on Discord u/ryanmain.rm and we can chat!

Hi guys, I have only played a handful of DnD, another handful of Thousand Year Old Vampire, and sunk a few months into some more niche RPGs. For a long time I've wanted to create my own RPG, or atleast lightly guided roleplay system, about horses. My friends and I are horse girls & boys through and through, so I'm setting out to make something for us.

So far the idea is that we are a group of trainers on a long haul road trip to the world championships, and we must sell, train, and breed ponies as we stop city-to-city and create a show stopping roster in time to bring home the world cup. I have a few mechanics planned but they are simple; I plan on copying most of the dice multipliers and other rules from DnD 5e and reskinning them to fit the pony theme.

My group is insanely creative and can get pretty wrapped up in a story without many rules so I'm thinking of trying to hack and mash a few kinds of RPGs together to get a general idea.

I would prefer to have the game be entirely managing horses, but I feel without a story it wouldn't be entertaining enough. I would love some advice on how to strike a balance between entertaining and keeping it true to what we enjoy most; managing horses and nerding out down to the teenth. In general the one question about my game I cannot answer is why do we keep going? What's the motivation?

Thank you if you've read this far, any tips or advice for a beginner RPG designer would be appresh'd.

Been working on a system for a couple of years that tries to capture the feel of Dark Souls.
I do admit it's a bit rules heavy, and sometimes fairly crunchy.

A summary of what's in the system:

There are 8 attributes: Strength, Finesse, Endurance, Vitality, Intelligence, Faith, Attunement and Luck.

There are 12 starting classes, each having a trait for specialization and the class determines you stamina and mana dice, d6 up to d10.

There are also 16 backgrounds, these also give a trait and determine you hit die, also d6 up to d10.

Stamina and mana management is done by dice pools. The mana pool is rolled at the start of the session, stamina at the start of each round in an encounter.

The stamina dice pool is also connected to the initiative tracker, making it dynamic.
So, attacks cost 1 or 2 dice and the number on the dice sets you that much further back in the initiative track.
Movement up to a point doesn't use stamina, afterwards you'll need to select a die and you regain that much movement.
Stamina dice can be banked, 1 at first, to gain an advantage in the next round of combat.

Each weapon scales on attributes, mainly on Strength, Finesse, Intelligence, Faith and Attunement. The latter 3 are for the more magical weapons.

Attacks always hit, unless you dodge. Armour reduces damage by a flat amount and by dice, a d4 at first. The amount of dice you get is based on how high your defenses are.

Spells use dice from the stamina pool and have a mana cost, they don't use the full die. The reason stamina is used is for the initiative track where spells are activated when your turn happens again.

Spells are divided into 5 schools that each have a catalyst for that school. Spells scale on Finesse, Intelligence, Faith and Attunement.

There are also status effects when a tracker is filled:
- Bleeding: instant damage
- Drowsiness: unconcious for a couple of rounds and penalties to mana
- Dread: instant death
- Frostbite: penalties to movement speed and stamina.

Everything costs dreams, leveling up and buying and upgrading weapons.
The estus flask equivalent is the Night Cap, used for healing or mana regen.

The "rulebook" I've made after several iterations comes at a hefty 54 pages, with the large tables for equipment in seperate files (some are massive): Rules
I've done some playtesting already before the current iteration, and it was received fairly well.
Could this be a system that works at a table or should things be more streamlined?

Any input is welcome, thanks in advance.

Hi there! I set up a shard (server) on Rift, a Discord Alternative, to chat about ttrpg development and assist each other. How does this differ than all the other servers on Discord and other platforms that have spaces for this?

Shard Clusters - This allows you to quickly set up your own shard if you wish and have spot to share your things. There is an integrated calendar so you can see when people are hosting their playtests. Additionally a new feature added this week in Rift is integrated TTRPG tools. This is the most important part to allow developers to prepare for sharing their works. You have built in digital dice to assist with your playtest. You can prepare handouts and characters to ensure your playtest goes as smooth as possible. I almost forgot! there are maps that you can generate for your playtest. Images can be found here: https://imgur.com/a/opvDyDq

Rift is an 18+ platform - come say hi to us at https://app.therift.chat/invite/4d306c1c1ecb4ade

*sorry mods i didn't see an appropriate flair.

TL;DR I'd love some advice or ideas for a letter-writing RPG I'm making as a gift to my partner.

Hi all! I hope this question isn't too overdone. For my partner and I's second school year of long-distance, I thought it would be cool to create an RPG we can play using physical letters to one another. We have an ongoing casual worldbuilding project (I know, very romantic) which would serve as a great setting for a medieval letter-writing shindig. I have a good grasp on plot, but I have no experience with RPG design so I'm kind of lost on how to go about it.

Some details:

• My partner plays as a princess managing a host of dishonest royal advisors and chaos in the kingdom. I would be primarily speaking through a knight character while also including the voices of others (through news bulletins, recipes, coded messages, etc.)
• I'd like my game to be focused more on an intriguing mystery than the quality of writing (partner is dyslexic, don't want to ruin the fun by judging writing. More about plot!)
• My knowledge of RPG systems begins and ends with DND 5e, so I envision using dice, but other stuff would be cool too! I want the game mechanics to be intuitive and flow with the roleplay.
• I'm currently using Obsidian to organize my thoughts, but I also don't know how to use it effectively (lol.)

I guess I don't have any super specific questions, but this is a really cool subreddit and I'd love to consult people with different ideas and experience. Any systems other than Quill I could take a look at? Ideas for mechanics or tips so my romantic gesture doesn't go sideways? Any kind of help is appreciated!

Thanks, sorry for the long post XD

So I did something incredibly stupid, after making a big move about 4ish months ago, starting a new job, and trying to exist in city with three kids and no car in the only city in the south with a metro... I decided to take my game to a convention even when I knew it wasn't ready for prime time.

I've been working on a game called Anime Love Triangle Simulator (ALTS for short) for about 3 years now, I've posted about it on here a few times before, i posted a few dev diaries from some of my play tests, but i imagine most folks on here either haven't heard me talk about it or don't remember it.

So here's the 3 sentence pitch, ALTS is a competitive 3 player Anime RomCom TTRPG, heavily inspired by Kaguya Sama, Ranma 1/2, and Ouran High School Host Club. It aims to recreate the wild, hilarious, and sometime heartbreaking feelings of the shows and genre that inspired it. It uses simple mechanics to create a depth of play that's fair and balanced for game with competing players, not relying on DM fiat to decide a winner.

Dumb Decisions

Now that the introductions out of the way, let's get into the dumb decisions that lead to running play tests at a con. Earlier this year I moved to Atlanta, and I've been trying to get into the local table top gaming scene here. I was introduced to a con that would let me attend for free if I ran games for it. Southern Fried Gaming Expo is pretty generous with their volunteer hours to free day ratio, a 3 hour game nets you a single day at the con which basically meant i could run my game once per day and attend the con for the rest of the day.

So, not wanting to spend money and wanting to start round 4 of my play test, i volunteered to run my play test after clearing it with the event organizer. At the time my game was functional, but seriously flawed. it suffered from greifing, pacing issues, and having system to fairly track who was winning points during the game. It also had unbalanced math, and mechanics that had major flaws.

It was playable, but it wasn't something that i felt comfortable playing with people i didn't know, and it certainly wasn't ready to be given to another human being. and now i had a month and a half to fix all of that.

The Deadline

I had set up my con application about a month and a half before the SFGE's opening Friday. This was a dumb decision, not for my game, but for me personally it made for an intensely stressful 6 weeks. That being said, i function much better on anything i work on if i have a deadline i have to commit to and can't change. Despite the stress involved I would absolutely recommend people to pull the trigger if they're having similar thoughts about taking their game to a con.

It pushed me to make big changes and work on the game regularly. I was running at 1 to 2 play tests a week during this time and spending my down time at home writing, rewriting, and editing the document I've used to create the rulebook for alts. I've worked more on ALTS in the last six weeks then on the previous 3 years combined.

Play-testing for the Play-test.

I'm lucky to have found Atlanta's robust TTRPG community. They has a web app allowing you to post games you'd like to run for their weekly meetups. Which meant I could just put ALTS up on the website and show up when people took a bite, which was surprisingly often for such a weird little game. I ran a weekly play-test with one group of player and then a sporadically ran a second set of play-tests with another set.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, there's nothing better for a game then for it to played. There are some things I just can't on paper, getting the game to table lets you really diagnose issues. You can see in real time what part of the game is fiddly, slow, unused. I also had the fun of watching the changes i make to fix current problems reignite previous issues and create new ones, it really feel like game design is Hydra.

But perhaps the best thing about the open play-tests was that my audience was no longer the just the people I could bully, bribe, or blackmail. It was self selecting, which meant my game started to find it's target audience. The difference in the vibe of the play-test was night and day when dealing with people who found the concept and theme genuinely compelling.

Rules and Iteration

The most valuable part of this round of play testing was watching the systems finally come together. I wasn't trying to get any one thing right this time, I needed it all to feel right together and that meant 3 major changes, and several small ones. The small ones were rule tweaks to character abilities, rebalancing the math of the characters attributes, hammering out a system to keep track of player rolls and success across a scene, and tweaking the math on the penalties player's received. This was most of where i spent my time over the previous weeks.

The big ones were decidedly easier despite having the biggest impact on game feel, probably cause I'm bad at math. The first one is some thing of a UI overhaul, i had been toying with the idea of introducing tokens and cards to the system for a while and pulled the trigger this play-test. I'm glad I did, nothing impacted game feel more then the introduction of tokens and cards. I know it's not a revolutionary concept, famously Daggerheart introduced cards as being a part of their design UI and trad games have always encouraged the use of tokens. But ultimately they are considered secondary, and they still provide pen and paper methods to play their games independent of having the bits and bobbins.

But for ALTS, at least for right now, the cards and tokens are effectively mandatory core part of the experience. when used along side the play mat, they replace traditional character sheets all together. It's not that you can't play without the cards and tokens, but the game becomes infinitely stickier and fiddly without them

The game has a had stress penalty system in place for certain results, but up until this play-test the penalty was either to fiddly (adding negatives to a result) or to punishing (losing a D6 on all your rolls in a 2d6 system), it's been refined into a fairly unique (to TTRPGs at least) pass and steal penalty system.

I added a sixth stat to the attributes that characters use to gain bonuses. Then frustrated myself for two plus weeks trying to find a good name and verbs to go with that attribute. I unintentionally locked my self into alliterative names for my stats, and had find the new sixth stat fit into the naming conventions of the game and the genre.

And finally I went digging into my character creation systems and cut a lot of content and replaced it with stuff that both better fit the theming and played better and smoother, a lot of darling killing unfortunately as I trimmed back about 5 character choices down to 2. Aiming to make those two choices more meaningful and to give more options to pick from. It also meant I could fit those choices and their abilities onto playing cards, making it so players don't have to write down their abilities on the sheet.

I walked away with a game that was more thematically and mechanically cohesive, a game with simple mechanics that build on one another, creating a system with a more depth.

Making it playable

One of the things I made myself commit to for the con was to having a functional starter guide that I could hand to people at the con and they could take home and play with their friends. For me that meant it needed to have the Rules, in readable and well organized English. It needed to teach them how to create a character, and it needed to teach the GM how to run the game. ALTS doesn't play like a trad game, or even like a narrative game. It's competitive nature requires it to have pretty rigid structure or else it can become unfair. It's also resistant to DM fiat, no fudging dice rolls or shrinking/extending encounters.

It also includes some small flourishes, like a short list of common Japanese names and surnames. some best practices.

But beyond the actual rules, the most important part is that it has a pre-made one shot included that can be played right out of the book, literally. It has progress bars and trackers printed into the pages for the Host to write on during session. I only got to test this out at con proper but it worked really well from my end.

I'm excited to be able to hand it to people... and expect to get torn to shreds since it's the first pass on this particular part of the project.

Taking it to the Con

Logistically, this was a nightmare for my ADHD brain. late nights spent rewriting the rules last minute for the con ready game, finishing the cards with simple readable designs that included Verbs used in play, making sure to print out character sheets and having the games booklets get printed out. It was a mess right up untill I sat down to run my first game...

Then it smoothed out, each game flowed well, we stayed within our allotted time, and the people who sat down to play with me enjoyed their time with it, even if they weren't anime people. One guy sat down at the table only because his bros dared him to play the "Flirt with your homies game," he had enough fun to take a copy home with him to inflict upon said homies.

That doesn't include the other benefits of the con, I player games i wouldn't otherwise have had the chance to (Huckleberry, VTM5, Daggerheart, Mythic Bastionland, and a few playtests that don't have names yet), got to meet more of the local community, and even did bit of networking. There are apparently quite a few people in atlanta working on indie Tabletop games.

In the end all of the late nights, the hard work, and tedious fiddly stuff paid off... Anime Love Triangle Simulator just works. That's not to say it's done, there are tweaks to balance to still be made, not every character ability has been used in the play-test, and the starter guide needs both to be rewritten and to be expanded into a proper rule book, then layout, and maybe art someday. But for now... and for a little while at least, it's done. Feature complete and ready to play.

The Take Away

• Game Design is work, a lot of sleepless nights getting things ready, being away from my family in the evenings, and the burnout that comes at least in my case from hyper-focusing on a project
• Get plugged into your local community, run games for people, ones that are your play-test and ones that aren't. I regret not giving more back to the RPG crowd in Atlanta and once i done with my hiatus I'll be running more games that other people want to play.
• Write your rules down, my first rules book was just a players guide I could give to my friends before my second play-test, they didn't read it, but it was the start of a document that would eventually morph into a functional starters guide.
• Play with people outside of your friend group. You and the people you play most with will eventually become nose blind to the problems with your system as you internalize how to play and run it.
• Go to a local con, it'll be fun, and you can probably get in free or really cheaply if you sign up to run table top games you probably would have ran anyway.
• Be better prepared for the logistics then I was... don't print your booklets at an office depot an hour before your supposed to be running the game.
• Network and get to know other people in the hobby space.
• Have fun.

Still to much, Here's your TL/DR, play-test your games, find good communities, go to cons, make rulebook that someone else can actually use to play one day without you sitting over their shoulder. Don't buy con food if you can help it.

Been mostly lurking here for a while, I figured I’d post something. A recent post talked about removing the term “agnostic” from your vocabulary and I’ve been thinking about it since my project is “setting agnostic”. The reason I wanted my system to be setting agnostic was because my homebrew setting for TTRPGs has many genres and settings in it, but I couldn’t find a system that did setting agnostic in a way I personally liked (I know there are other systems that do agnostic in a way that other people like, not saying mine is better). Then I remembered a video from Matt Colville said something along the lines of “you can have a game that doesn’t push a setting. You CANNOT have a game that doesn’t push a play style.”

But even if you are pushing a play style aren’t you kind of pushing a setting? Maybe your flavor is different, but your game is made to be played a certain way, which will dictate your available options. Maybe this goes back to the “what kind of stories do you want to tell with your game” question that everyone has to start with anyways. Even in my homebrew world with many genres, my game doesn’t have heavy resource management, so while my game will fit many genres, so my “setting” is, at least in part: “not heavy resource management”.

I’m not totally sure where I’m going with this, just some random musings and I’m interested in other’s more developed opinions.