EUREKA!

So, I thought today would be as good a day as any to provide an update on my latest TTRPG project. Yes, I know that I was supposed to be transcribing my old games, so I could publish them here, while working on the new game… but my old games frankly suck. So we’ll update them later. But I have worked out an issue I was having with my new game, specifically where it comes to the math rocks.

We’re all about the d6’s, y’all!

I’m a huge fan of “Powered by the Apocalypse” games, including the related “Forged in the Dark” system, and many of these games employ the d6 in mostly similar fashion. Basically, failure results on any single d6 roll that is 1-3, a conditional success (or success with complications) on a 4-5, and a complete success on a 6. If you’re talking classic PbtA games, that is usually 2-6/7-9/10+, but it is the same basic idea.

I am also a big fan of dice pool games, such as “Shadowrun”, but in that case feel the pools can bit a bit outrageous (rolling 18d6 for damage on a cannon might be cool, but it also slows combat to a crawl). So I was thinking of keeping things a bit smaller, and more focused.

Here’s what I have in mind: There will be three stats for each character, Mind, Body, and Spirit. These will in turn cover mental faculties, physical abilities, and other options (powers, occult abilities, faith, etc). Each character will rank their stats three, two, and one, depending on which attributes the favor most, moderately, and least.

The stat that has a 3 gets three d6 to roll on relevant actions, the 2 gets two dice, and the 1 gets – you guessed it – one die to roll. The total target for success will always be 4+, so even with only one dice you can succeed fairly often, with two you are likely to succeed, and three it is almost always guaranteed… Almost always.

So this might seem fairly wonky, and a bit overpowered, but that’s rather the point of the game. Characters in my system are meant to be Big Damn Heroes who are fairly competent at what they do. In fact, they are world-class in one style of action, pretty damn good in another, and still competent in the remainder. Of course, they will start out fairly limited, with only one skill for each stat to start out with, and they will gain others through play.

Yes, that does mean that a character that attempts to perform a skill outside of basic combat and what skills they already have will default to using only one dice, regardless of the stat it is associated with. This will encourage the characters to grow through failure.

Oh, yeah, there is that. Like many PbtA games, players keep track of each time they fail on a skill use (outside of basic combat skills, that is). When they have five failures, they choose a new skill to learn, and go back to zero failures. This is on a stat-by-stat basis, so five failures with Body means they can pick a Body-related skill, five with Mind allows for a mental skill choice, and so forth.

So no, you can’t keep failing with your lowest stat to rack up skills related to your higher stats. Sorry.

Anyway, I know this is getting convoluted, and I have yet to really write this all out in a cohesive manner, but I just wanted to post about what I’m working on right now. This is of course all subject to change.