Oh also: doesn't a difficulty 8+ mean you will always get a boon when you succeed? Maybe diff 8+ could mean you either lose 1/2/3 boons automatically (for 8-9/10-11/12+ respectively), or it's so difficult/dangerous you automatically receive banes merely for the attempt (which could perhaps be offset by rolled boons).
I really love the dice mechanic. Especially since I have been trying for almost 25 years to figure out how to make a 3 dice mechanic work - and you have nailed it. I had a LUDO-rule in there - if you rolled a six, on any type of dice, you rolled it again and added (like in Parcheesi, sold under the name "ludo" (Latin for "I play") where I live) - feel free to use the name. I sense a weakness, or perhaps it is intentional. Condition, the track on the left of the character sheet, will be involved in all dice rolls a character makes, so maintaining a high condition is 5 times more important than having great attributes. So, if a Bless spell increases your condition by one step that spell will be more popular than a "might" spell increasing your strength by one step. This fits well with games like Exalted, where the essential character attribute is, well, essence, or Mage where Arete is all-important, or an eastern game where Honor is the central aspect of your character or for a mix a game like Pendragon where characters can be ruled by passions. But I am uncertain how well it fits with a generic system. However, you have probably given this a lot more thought than I have and I look forward to the video where you talk about Condition. For another example, if I wanted to emulate "3:16 Carnage amongst the stars" in the 3-dice system (3DS for short) I would put "Rank" in the place of condition. Anyway, this mechanic is so good that I have to rewrite my own RPG to use this instead of my own roll and add system - this is much cleaner. Also, with the roll and add method you will at a minimum have a 1 in 1024 chance of success on any roll, so your advice in a later video to GMs about not letting players roll unless you are willing to let them succeed is very solid advice. Conversely, with all ones being a failure no matter what, there is always at least a 1 in 1728 chance of failing.
This is a very similar game system to Tales of Xadia/Cortex Prime. In that you always roll three dice, your stats are dice, rolling ones are bad. The differences are you count two of your dice for your total, not the middle one. Also you get good things/boons not when you roll high, but when the DM rolls a 1. Playing that system I can say it is a lot of fun.
Yes, I remember finding out about Cortex when I heard about the Dragon Prince RPG! Pretty intriguing stuff, though I have yet to try it out. For me, I like being able to generate all of the results from the player's roll.
Thanks! Yeah, it's a careful balance to strike, but I'm hoping I found a good middle ground. Too much nuance to making a roll, and it takes way too long to figure out what happens. But just pass/fail is pretty boring.
Legend of the five rings have aninteresting concept where you roll a dice pool generally composed of attribute dice (special D6) + skill dice (special D12) then you keep the result of a number of dice equal to the number of attribute dice your rolled. Those dice are not numbered and are covered with four different symbol and some blank face. the symbols are sucess, explosive sucess, opportunity ( a sort of boon), and strife (a negative ressource kind of like stress in other systems). You beat a test if among the dice you kept you have more success symbol than the difficulty of the test. If you keep an explosive sucess you score one sucess and can roll a bonus dice of the same type and decide if you want to keep the result as a bonus, if the bonus dice roll an explosive sucess and you keep it you repeat the process until you don't keep the dice or you keep the result and it is not an explosive sucess. The catch is multiple symbol can be on a dice face, and opportunity, sucess and explosive sucess, often share a face with a strife. So sometimes the player might be confronted with the choice of either failing and not taking strife, or suceeding and taking strife. Strife is bad because if you fill your strife meter you can no longer keep dice that roll a strife and that drasticly lower your chance of scoring sucesses and opportunity. Opportunity when generated can be immediately spent to get information about characters clue, object, get clue about the plot, get combat bonus, reduce your strife or the strife of someone else, increase the strife of someone else, avoid backlash for failing a check (like you try to bribe someone and fail. You can spend opportunity to avoid them calling the cops on you). Some ability even give you the ability to spend opportunity to get more specific and powerful combat bonus than the common bonus everyone can get. I never played the system, so I don't know how well it hold in an actual game, and it does require custom dice. But it is a really interesting concept that add meaningful gameplay decision to dice rolls and it is less work to read the dice than the genesys systems because, they are less symbol, nothing cancel and what you see is what you get. But it does give more decision to player which can slow the game down.
This was just randomly suggested to me, and I am glad it was! Huge respect and all the power to you, from someone who is also in the middle of designing their own TTRPG! So, here's my question to you: when it comes to the stroke of luck mechanic, do you think the GM should just not allow the player to roll if something is meant to be logically impossible (eg. convince the king to hand over the kingdom just out of the blue), or do you think that theoretically, with enough strokes of luck, anything should be possible?
Hey cool, my video got recommended! Maybe that means I'm doing something right, haha. And that's a very good question, something I probably should have addressed in the video. Maybe my next one will be on Dramatic Potential and when to call for a roll, we'll see. To answer directly, no, I don't think a roll should be able to accomplish something well outside the realm of possibility, especially since the players will have tools to help improve their odds using game resources. Bottom line, if the GM calls for a roll with a difficulty of 12, they should be prepared for the possibility of a success. My general rule of thumb is that the GM should only call for a roll if 1) There is a narrative/logical reason that the declared action could fail or succeed, and the outcome will be interesting for the story regardless of failure or success, or 2) the rules specifically call for a roll. That first point is tricky, and it's very much up to the GM. Some things that are typically impossible for mortals (breaking a wooden door down with fists, literally enchanting an entire room with a mere song, etc) should probably be possible in this game, albeit with a high difficulty. If a player wanted to convince the king to abdicate and crown them instead, that should probably be impossible without some kind of leverage or magic or something. And even then, it would probably require an ongoing project with multiple successful rolls before a certain number of failures. It could be an entire adventure on its own! The Succession Heist.
This is so clever, what a fun way to put the math behind the curtain! I’m very interested in what “gaining a stress” would be equivalent to. Subscribing to see more!
Great start! As a fellow indie creator, I wish you the best on this process. I'm working on just a micro setting to start, but always interested to see what new systems are out there. Love the name so far!
Thanks for the interesting video. I'm already looking forward to the next one. I love finding something new and inspiring. I know how long and difficult the development process is, with lots of dead ends. So I keep my fingers crossed and wish you lots of strength and determination.
The dice system you came up with is very nice. I am looking forward to seeing more videos on this as I am trying to make my own game as well. Sometimes youtube really showes me something that I like and I am glad it recomended you.
The system I wrote uses dice tiers too. In my system the DC of everything is 4. And you roll either a d4, d6, d8, d10 or a d12 for tast resolution. Bonuses and penalties don't add to the total of the number rolled, they increase or decrease the dice tier. So a d6 roll with a +1 bonus would mean rolling a d8. That's the main task resolution mechanic.
Very similar to Savage Worlds, except I think they do use modifiers. I do prefer always having a clear target number over the GM arbitrarily assigning difficulty numbers. One of the things I love about Dragonbane is that you're always rolling against your own skill level (it's d20 roll under) and there's no modifiers but boons and banes (advantage/disadvantage).
I've only come across this now, but this looks really really good. I love the core mechanic, and looking forward to trying it out with my players when you finally publish it!
Very interesting video! I definitely will be subscribing. I, like many here, are also interested in designing my own rpg. Even got to play test it a little bit locally. I really like the ideas you are incorporating here! As far as the extended luck roll, I'm a fan of the term 'Exploding' to describe it, or 'open-ending' the roll. The latter is part of Burning Wheel parlance, which is definitely a game that I recommend looking into.
Hey, cool! Hello, fellow designer! I'm starting to think it might be cool to open up a Playtest Exchange at some point, if I continue to have lots of audience engagement. But that's a future idea. And yes, exploding dice! I had considered using that parlance, especially since it's ingrained in the public ttRPG lexicon. I reserve the right to change any name of any rule in the future, so it may eventually change to something like that.
Holy shit, talk about a "great minds thinking alike" moment. My first TTRPG system, the Quick & Dirty RPG System (available on DriveThruRPG) uses this same dice rolling method: roll three dice, with each die taken from a distinct trait, and pick either the middle, low, or high roll. I cribbed this mechanic from the Sentinel Comics RPG, but reworked it so that flat bonuses weren't a thing. My initial way of setting difficulty numbers in Quick & Dirty was to use a Difficulty die rather than a target number, so that I would avoid the "none of my dice can hit this target number" problem. Quick & Dirty, however, follows a Powered-by-the-Apocalypse methodology, however, so I scrapped that idea and instead used a "failure/success with costs/success/critical success" model. Another distinct difference between our systems is that, while we both use the character's condition as one of the dice in the dice pool, Quick & Dirty defaults to Approaches and Tools as the other two traits, whereas you go with Attributes and Skills. In that case, how does gear come into play for Tides of Ambition?
Hey, thanks for the comment! I'd never heard of a dice system exactly like mine, but I'm not surprised I'm not the first person to think of it haha. As for gear, items usually give you additional options for how you can spend boons. I miiiight design some items that allow you to substitute its item die for your Condition Die, especially if they're magical or something. But I haven't gone that direction just yet.
No way. This is basically exactly the system I have been making myself. Great minds think alike! If you don't have it already, granting a character Advantage for having a skill that is more "specialized" than an opponent while making an opposed roll might be useful.
Hey, cool! It's a pretty sweet little mechanic, isn't it? I also just uploaded the second one of these videos about faction-oriented play that you should check out! As for advantage with specialized skills, yeah, that's something I'm working on figuring out. My current idea is to grant advantage when someone's Profession skill (kind of like their background) applies to a trained skill roll they're making. If you get to use both, you also get advantage. I'm hoping that will help keep PCs' backstories relevant in the game. But then again, I might remove the idea of "Profession" skills and just call it your "Background" or something. Not sure yet, playtesting should help!
That happen more often than not, especially if your systems don't require customs dice. Turn out it is really hard to find a dice rolling mechanic that is truly original. There is a nice RPG stack exchange post that list most dice mechanic used in published systems it is nice if you want to expand your horizon and find new concept to add to your dice mechanic. Personally it is the first time I hear of this exact type rolling mechanic but most concept that compose it are nothing new, using dice size to represent how good a character is at something is used in Savage world and other RPG, rolling and keeping dice is a mechanic in Savage world, Legend of the five rings, and Cortex Prime. It is the first time though I hear of a system where you roll and keep the middle result. Often system with roll and keep are roll and keep the best and they use flat modifier, reroll, add dice, or remove dice to give bonuses and maluses. Some systems go even as far as not having a best roll. In legend of the five rings some dice result can be both positive and negative and you can have meaningful reasons to choose a dice result that make you fail but give no negative ressources over a dice result that make you suceed but give negative ressources. And in Cortex prime when you roll, you roll a bunch of dice, total two of them and then choose a dice that is called the effect dice whose size represent how much you suceed. So in situation where you roll first and don't know the score you need to beat, you can be confronted with the dilemma of whether or not you want to have the highest total, and the lesser effect dice, or the reverse. It is important because being beaten in both total and effect dice is the worst result possible it is better to be beaten in score but not in effect dice, so gimping your total for a better effect dice can be a sensible decision.
I love that you think about playing time to read the results of a throw. I have little time to play so your dice allows me to quickly know if the character's action is successful or failed.
Your three dice mechanic is a very good idea, there's no modifier to the rolls and the advantage / disadvantage is auto included, this is brilliant because the resolution is very quick and intuitive. However the dice pool selection can be a bit slow due to constant checking of the character sheet, especially for new players or rpg newbies. Interpretation of the roll, with the boon/bane counting, can also slow the game if you have to reference the book for special effects. Here are ways you could "fix" those issues: - Remove the dice scale from the character sheet, and put the dice on the table / virtual table as an indication of PC party's fatigue/morale. You start with the d12 then after each encounter or challenge you can decrease the die one step (from d12 to d10) depending on how well the party handled the challenge. - You can decide as a GM the rythm of attrition of the morale/fatigue die or you could track the banes rolled and decide to decrease the die one step (12 banes rolled = decreasing d12 to d10, 10 banes rolled = decreasing d10 to d8, etc..). As a GM you will choose what to do with banes, should I decrease the die? Or Should I trigger monster/npc abilities, or even trigger a special event? The bane tracking will work especially well if you don't have to Roll as a GM (player facing), so you can focus on reacting to the players rolls. - Simplify the boons: if the max value is rolled on a die = 1 Boon. A player can use a boon to trigger an ability (or describe a special effect) OR to reroll the selected die to meet a high difficulty. You will think it makes weak PC stronger (more chances to roll a boon on a d4 than a d10) but remember that boons work in pair with banes and small dice have more chances to provoke banes, plus if you take into account the moral/fatigue die mechanic described above, PC will have more chance to trigger their special abitilities in dire situations, end bosses will also activate their special abilities more often (because PC will be fatigued when they encounter them), making tense situations very swingy/epic and speeding up the game (preventing too many rests). There are also great ideas on your character sheet: the flow chart from stats to secondary stats, the symbols you've found (the experience symbol can be improved - an arrow up for xp box is more intuitive for instance-). Try to make a one page character sheet: - There are too many empty lines, you don't need so much space for skills and abilities, - Notes don't have to be taken on a character sheet, even the portrait/drawing space doesn't need to be there. Both can be on a separate page. - You need an artist to tailor the sheet to your game universe, the typos, the symbols and the background/decorum can be reworked/drawn, the character sheet has to be an invitation to adventure, an invitation to play your game. Remember that, with the book cover, general layout and illustrations, it's among the first things players/buyers will look at, and during play it will constantly be referenced, rewriten, corrected, so it needs to be sexy and the information must be easy to find, scores must be easy to track, to sum up: the less the better (less flipping, less entries, etc..). I hope you read this and it helped you in a way. As a game designer, I wish you the best of luck with your game. EDIT: typos and missing words.
So, I stumbled over this video today not really looking for RPG design notes but I'm glad I did. Sounds like a solid dice mechanic. I like the one in Ironsworn a lot. It's fun having a variable level of success and failure while dodging the need for charts and tables. Not too much a fan of Boons and Banes vs. Critical Hits and Misses. I think Stroke of Luck mechanic is a nice underdog touch and really plays into heroic action.
Just suscribed and I have to tell you, this system looks very cool and easy to understand! I hope you keep working on it and be able to play it some day
I just started looking into these videos of yours and I’m pretty excited to learn more about what you’re crafting. The character sheet alone feels like an improvement over plenty of other systems. I’m someone who watches a lot of Matt Colville’s videos and I feel like you get inspiration from that mind as well.
Thanks so much! Yeah, I've drawn inspiration from so many different sources, I don't think I could separate out the DNA if I wanted to. Matt Colville is probably in there somewhere though, haha.
@@elementalyarn Hey if you've got time, what do you think about a ttrpg that only uses a DndBeyond-like web app to play? Meaning there is no physical dice, so the random numbers can have whatever curve you want. For instance, in my testing I've settled on a squared curve, meaning rolling a natural 1 or 20 is now a 1/40 chance and obviously you are more likely to roll near your average, a cubic curve was too much, you'd roll a natural 9-11 on almost every roll. Give it to me straight, what do you think of this idea?
@@tristunalekzander5608 I think there's a lot of merit to that idea. I think it's kind of surprising that we don't have any real in-depth digital ttRPG experiences like that yet. Not on the scale I'm thinking, anyway. I think about how cool it would be if a group of friends could pull out their phones and just start playing a ttRPG, no physical materials required. The app would have everything you need. And yeah, I like that the software can just use whatever curve you need! At that point though, I wonder if a d100 system would be pretty good, kind of like in XCOM, where you can see the percentage chance of success for any given thing. 100 options is fiddly on your own, but maybe easier with an app?
@@elementalyarn Thank you for the response my friend! Yes, originally, I was going to do a percentile system, but I decided to keep it as a d20 to basically make it easier to copy DnD content and rules without having to change much or reinvent any wheels. And I know! We have DnDBeyond, but it's more of a digital character sheet than an actual game, for instance you can equip 100 swords at once if you want, so you still have to remember rules and keep track of various things like it's a board game. While mine will not only fix that but also let the players select the enemy they want to attack or cast a spell on themself, so combat can often be as fast paced as a strategy rpg video game. Eventually there will be a minimax AI too, so the GM can choose to manually play an NPC's turn or let the AI do it, and players can test out their characters against various enemies before joining a campaign, or the GM could even run a simulation of an encounter to get an idea of how the party might fare. We definitely think alike! I also really like the idea of needing nothing but your phone and an internet connection to play. That's why the game is optimized for theater of the mind, your "speed" is just another ability, just like strength or dexterity. Thank you for the feedback my friend, I will definitely let you know when the app is working and hosted somewhere so you can check it out. Could be a while though, considering I am the sole developer right now, but you probably know how that is haha
I really enjoyed your video. 👍Not only the game mechanics, but also your presentation was nice. It inspired me to take another look at my own system (seems eveyone who GMs enought builds one of those) and integrate a mechanic for "boons and banes". Thank you!
Thank you so much! My second game design update is out now, about how campaigns work in the game, and I demo a sample campaign starter draft in it. I'm thinking my next one will be a rundown of combat in the game, since I'm sure people will be interested in that!
I'm also creating my own RPG. I started of by not even knowing how to play DnD or any other popular RPGs but I was determined to get somewhere on my own. In the beginning it was very different from DnD but over half a year I got closer and closer to DnD and just a few weeks ago I decided to replace some of my math to be the same as in DnD since it could be annoying for DnD players that the math in my games are different but similar enough to mix them. The main differences between DnD and my game are: 1. I made fully functional hex based digital battlemap program that is easy to set up and edit on the go and I'm trying to make the combat rules to be compatible with the battlemap. 2. In my combat, a character has 10 action points (AP) in their turn. There is an AP cost diversity in abilities, spells, improvised actions and even weapon attacks depending on the weapon. Moving also requires 1 AP / hex. The reasons for this are, moving in DnD doesn't cost anything, which I think is just absurd, I also wanted a wider diversity between weapons with the different AP costs since there should be slower and faster weapon like a warhammer and a dagger. 3. Strength, dexterity and mana don't give the character bonus to their attack rolls, but their damage scales linearly with these stats. 4. I completely got rid of the armor class system. Being tanky in DnD was kinda wierd for me, the PCs' AC doesn't differ much, a ranger's AC is just lower by around 3 than a paladin's, so the only way to become tankier is just having more HP. In my game, the characters have an evasion, physical, and magical resistance stats. Evasion is somewhat similar to the AC in DnD, the attacker has to roll higher than the defender's evasion. Physical and magical resistances are percentage stats which negates the given percent of the damage it would take. Although this requires an additional and manual multiplication every time someone takes damage but in my opinion it's worth it. Light, medium, and heavy armor pieces give gradually more resistances but medium and heavy armors also decrease evasion, so basically the players have the decision whether they want to be more easy to hit and take less damage, or hard to hit but take higher damage. The main difference between the two types of defensive stats are, area and homing attacks cannot be evaded, but if you have low evasion you are easier to apply negative status effects on. I hope I can inspire you too in some way (might also just be an excuse so that I can talk about my game XD) and I look forward to your next video!
I know, it's so fun to get the chance to talk about your hobby! My friends and relatives aren't the most attentive audience, haha. I love the hex grid! I too have ambitions to create a digital tabletop experience for this project, and hexagons are the bestagons (to quote CGPGrey). And it sounds like you've put a lot of thought into your design. If and when you have a playtest-able document, feel free to share! I can't guarantee I'll have time to try it out, but maybe we can get a community of playtest-swappers up in this thing! Because let's be real, that's the hardest thing about game design is getting people to try it out.
@@elementalyarn I am sorry to disappoint you but my goal is nothing more than being able to play my own system in my own games with my players. I don't intend to publish anything and the surprising advantage of this is there is no need for many testers and balance patches because most balance and other kinds of problems would only be visible on a grander scale with many many players, campaigns, and meta-players who dig themselves into details. The reason why I decided to make my own design was I didn't like how complicated DnD was and as a DM I felt restricted by the rules in an unrealistic way like the AC system, the free movement, the low equipment diversity, the predefined classes, abilities, character customization and progression, the rules for dmg calculation, the detailed status effects and so on.
I've read a lot of ttrpg rulesets and I'm writing my own and I really like this. My own system has an even more unusual dice mechanic but I really like this. I particularly like the inclusion of "condition" in every roll. I'm going to spend a bit of time thinking about how the probabilities work in this.
This is super exciting. I'm eager to get some sort of setting video to get deep into the theme/lore. I'm totally gonna play this, the rolling system looks simple and like it can keep my friends' attention. Also the aesthetic of your character sheet satisfies me deeply, makes me wanna print it and just admire the symmetry :)
That's what I like to hear, and I'm glad the sheet pleases you as much as it does me. I'm sure it will still change quite a bit as time goes on (it's actually missing a "Class Resource/Misc" field atm). I've had a few requests to hear more about the game's setting, so maybe I'll cover that topic in one my next updates.
As weird as it felt at first i've really grown to like the "mathlessness" of the d20 roll-under system that Dragonbane uses. No bonuses or modifiers, those are all already included in your score for a skill. You just roll the dice and if the number is lower than the number on your sheet you succeed. This includes attacks with weapons, just roll and if the number is lower than your skill in the weapon you hit. There's also 5e-style advantage/disadvantage but again, that doesn't equate to any more math. Only time you ever really need to calculate anything is when rolling for damage. This has a similar vibe to that and i think it could make for a cool game! Keeps the numbers pretty low but that's not necessarily a bad thing, makes every point matter more. Only concern is that you'll constantly be comparing 3 different dice with 3 differently readable fonts/colors which might take just a tad more brain power than rolling the same die and adding. Obviously not a huge deal but it might be the difference between reading a text at size 11 font and reading a text at size 9 font, during long hauls it might strain the brain a bit more than usual.
A small design point, put something small under skills that states if you’re untrained, roll 1d4. I know some players will look at their sheet and say “I don’t have that skill” assuming they can’t attempt a roll at all.
I like your basic dice mechanic idea. It's quick, simple and always allows for success and failure. It will also tend towards the middle which gives you some consistency on things you should be good at. But it also has one of my favorite things in that the results are on the dice, you don't take your dice roll and go back to add a bunch of modifiers, which is always slow. I'm going to be curious to see how you handle opposed tests. Do characters have static defenses, or is everything an opposed roll?
Yes! Modifiers are cool and all, but I like to eliminate arithmetic wherever I can. Gets in the way of the flow of things! As for opposed tests, I'm glad you asked. This will be a future video, but I'll say that this is a player-oriented system. The GM won't be rolling that often, except for random tables and stuff like that. So when a player acts upon something, they roll. When something acts upon a player character, the player rolls to resist. NPCs typically use static values for both offense and defense, for example. In terms of combat, I think this can help the players feel more engaged, because they're actively defending themselves, and making decisions all the while.
OMG, I LOVE what you've come up with! I am so fed up with the typical d20 system of adding modifiers ad infinitum. I play with people who struggle with math and it drags the game to a halt. I've been working on my own dice mechanic as a "hack" to the d20 system, just converting the modifiers to dice and taking the top results. However, I think what you've come up with is so elegant and works on so many levels. I can't wait to see what you've come up with!
Very, very interesting stuff here. I'm loving what I'm seeing. The Core Mechanic is pretty great! One question though: around 15:34 when explaining Stroke of Luck you say the 6 is the result, but shouldn't it be the 5? Unless I misheard, you didn't say this roll had Advantage, so it should be middle die, yes?
Sorry I am late to seeing this as I was looking at other systems. I really like the simplicity of your 3 dice mechanic. I will check some of your other videos but are there any one-shot adventures being planned to play test this? Would love to join for a night. I don't know if you have a discord setup.
I've seen similar things before, not really that new or original. With that being said, I like the look and concept. Reminds me of Traveller with the skills which brings me to my questions: 1. Does the game have an 'age' mechanic where an older character might have more (or be better at) skills but their condition die is lower than normal? In other words, can I play a 80 yo gnome science teacher who has really great skills but his condition can never be better than a d8? 2. How is condition deteriorating? Is it going down at the same rate for the whole party? Do you character attributes determine if it goes down or not (as there is no Constitution)? Does it go down as a result of hard (or lengthy or monotonous) labour? Will it go down after chopping wood or crunching numbers for 4 hours or does it go down steadily until the party rests and if so, what are the penalties for not resting? 3. How does magic work in your system? Haven't seen any spell slots or mana points or a spell list on your character sheet. As you say in the into, in your system, 'there's always a cost'. What's the cost for casting spells? 4. Any information about the world lore would be appreciated. You've described it as 'steampunky magic-fueled sword and sorcery game' which is very broad and kind of 'throw all in' term.
Thanks for commenting, I really appreciate it! 1 and 2. I'll have to devote an entire video to go over Condition and how it works. But basically, it represents a character's overall health and wellbeing. Whenever you rest for the night, your Condition will shift one step toward one of the five stages. For example, sleeping in the rain without shelter will probably shift your Condition toward Spent (d6). Resting in a bed and having a hot meal shifts it toward Active (d8). Your Condition can also be degraded when you take a particularly nasty hit from an attack. Ordinarily though, attacks inflict Stress or Damage, which are easier to heal than your Condition. I don't currently have any plans to make rules regarding a character's age, but if I did, that might be something interesting to look into. 3. I currently have 7 classes, each with their own unique playstyle. Nocturnals, for instance, have a unique stat called Hunger. Using their dark powers inflicts them with Fatigue, which they can remove by feeding on other creatures. But once your Hunger reaches zero, you're fully satiated, and cannot feed any longer. Like I said, each class has its own unique playstyle, and its own resource. "Spells" are typically Class Abilities. And the cost depends on the class. What's missing on this character sheet is a generic "Class" resource field, I just haven't figured out where to put that quite yet. 4. I will have to dive into the lore and world in a future video. This video is already much longer than I wanted it to be, and I think I'll save my response for that video. I hope you'll understand. :)
I had been working on my own RPG since the 1980s, a few years ago I finally shelved it. I love the design and the world building but building solo only gets you so far. Right now I am considering resurrecting it again as I am not a fan of D&D (or Pathfinder) or the directions they are going. I will be watching your development with interest.
Thanks so much for the interest! And yeah, I empathize with that, it's hard when a game evolves into something different than what you used to love. For me, I find a lot of design inspiration by playing and reading a wide variety of games. I seldom outright copy any other mechanics, but it really gets the wheels spinning in my brain. If you do resurrect your own project, I'd be interested to see what it's about! If I can maintain traction on this channel, I might open up a game design Discord server so people can exchange playtests and get feedback and such.
For the stroke of luck you said "if it is the highest roll possible" Do you mean specifically for that dice, or the dice set? Eg. Assuming no advantage/disadvantage: D6 -> 6 D8 -> 5 D8 -> 7 Does my D6 get a stroke of luck? What if the 2nd D8 rolled a 6? Which 6 is chosen? (Presumably the D6 with stroke of luck would be mechanically advantageous, does that make it "the higher roll"?)
It would have to be the highest roll possible for that specific die; the die that is used for your result. So in your example, yes, you would get a Stroke of Luck on that d6. As for that second scenario with two rolled 6s on a d6 and d8....hmm....just when I thought I'd made it proofed against weird edge cases. I think if two dice are tied for the result, you can pick which one to use. So you would get your Stroke of Luck (if you need it, which isn't terribly likely; most rolls will have a difficulty of 6 or lower).
Awesome, going to follow this. Nothing I say here is intended to be a "you should do this" kind of statement, just thoughts/considerations. Banes/Boons the first thing that comes to my mind is how boons are far more stacked in favor for the player. My question is, what % chance do you have in mind for a player to roll a bane/boon per combat/scene/session? Every dice has a chance to roll a 1 bane, but D10 can roll 8, 9, 10, and D12 can roll 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Also based on the 11, I'm taking it that SoL also trigger boons, which means even more chances to get boons. There just seems to be a ton of favor in getting a boon comparatively to getting a bane, would like to hear more about this. Depending on the complexities of the boons, a simple roll to open a door could get bogged down by trying to figure out what to do with 1 bane and 5 boons. Can a boon simply cancel out a bane and vice versa?
Excellent questions, thank you! Yes, the dice are definitely weighted to help out the players with Boons more than Banes, and that's pretty intentional. The way I plan on balancing it is to make Banes fairly weighty on their own compared to Boons. 2 Banes is going to be more harmful to the PC than 2 Banes are beneficial, for example. Also, d12s are fairly rare, so rolling 5 Boons on a single roll probably won't happen very often. As for bogging down rolls with having to figure out what to do with Boons and Banes, yeah, that's something I'm trying to keep an eye on. One way to help mitigate this is not to call for too many frivolous rolls. Another is to emphasize in the rulebook that if the player can't think of a cool use for their Boons, then it's acceptable to simply add a really flavorful description that demonstrates how effectives and badass their character is. These aren't all-encompassing solutions, but further playtesting will reveal if it's sufficient. Do Boons and Banes cancel each other out? Not currently, but that may change in the future. Time will tell.
Great video. I cannot wait to see the end result. I do have a question. Based on your character sheet, and how rolls work. I do not see what bonus a "Class" would be. I see the section for class abilities, I am just curious if using something like "You have 3 specialist abilities", would not allow for some variation in characters and then you could go classless. Just say, here are some templates for things like "Fighter", "Thief", "Mage"...😁That way you get the people who like to use "point buy" classless systems.
Great question! At certain stages in the design process I did consider doing a classless system, but I eventually decided it would still be cool to have a number of iconic archetypes, each with their own unique mechanics and playstyles. That said, I'm not currently planning on doing any kind of set class progression. Instead, you purchase upgrades your character by spending Experience. You can choose from your own Class Abilities, or from the list of General Abilities. In this way, you can really make your character unique by choosing what to train in as you go. Plus, I also have (I think) a very elegant method of multiclassing, if you want to start branching out.
I spent 2 years working on creating my own rpg ttgame while purchasing lots of others. I like D&D, Dungeon World and DCC . Then I found game system that combines the best of all 3 that I love called D100 Dungeon by Martin Knight!
Hey, that looks pretty cool! My very first RPG experience was a typical dungeon delve, and I had a blast. I do think my tastes have migrated to a more story-driven, narrative game, though I still enjoy a good dungeon run every now and then. And I love me some good old-fashioned tactical combat. I think that's part of the reason I've had a hard time finding the perfect game for me. I want something that can deliver both!
This is dipping closest somewhere near Savage Worlds in my head, but I really do like measuring things by the Boons rather than the DCs. Looks fun to try out! I think the only part that will be a little bit to get used to will be resolving in some dice rolling bots, but with something like rolldicewithfriends, I think this looks like a middle ground of narrative but with some snap!
A minute in and I already know why its called Tides of Ambition. Getting players to agree on a common goal, that's big stuff. Kidding aside I do like science fantasy, though it doesn't get a lot of attention.
I think this could be a good way to have players who is used to dnd try something different. I once tried running a Dungeon World oneshot for the group I play in and they did not enjoy it because it was too much in the other direction of what they are used to. This seems like a very good project! I look forward to hearing more about it. Please let me know when I can buy it haha :D
Just stumbled upon your channel, got probably recommended to me since I follow a few people making their own TTRPGs. Looks overall not bad, however I cannot completely agree with you that the dice mechanism being in the end irrelevant. Sure, I get it, your game seems to be like most games focused on the abilities of the characters, and that is indeed the paradigm of the hobby, so I can understand that you have that perception that all dice mechanisms lead to similar results. But my design goal is very much to break away from that paradigm of ableism, and I think there are things that can be done to make games feel very differently from what we are used to the moment people start to step back and look for other things to roll other than if the character can perform a certain action.
Yes, you are correct. I'm mostly responding to the broad trend of newbie game designers who think they've solved D&D by making it 2d10 instead of 1d20, haha (bashing myself a bit here). I was trying to make the point that I haven't done anything revolutionary with doing dice this way, and that the game's quality is based on a lot more than any particular randomizing element.
Popping dice should be at -1 for subsequent dice, so if I roll, say, a 6 on a d6, i would roll a d6-1 on the next and subsequent dice so as to make it still possible to get a result of the max roll of a single die. Otherwise, in my example, it is impossible to roll a 6; you can only roll a 5 or a 7+. Question: can popping/exploding dice grant boons? If so, is 3 boons the maximum you can get on a single die (like if a d12 pops)? Also if so, can you reroll all three dice if they come up max to "boon fish"?
So far I like your ideas, boons sound like a great resource. A complaint I get from people who play D20 systems is it's too complex and I've been trying to simplify it. I was thinking instead of mountains of bonuses like d20s usually give, I'll allow stacking of advantage and disadvantage. This way numbers are easier to manage and forces players to get creative looking for ways to stack advantages
What about ties? if you roll 3,5, 5, and keep middle, you could keep 5, or you could have a critical and keep both. Maybe spend a resource to activate the crit?
It's definitely something I've thought about! In the end though, I ended up scrapping any rules having to do with doubles or triples. They end up incentivizing players to roll smaller dice in a weird way (rolling doubles or triples on 3d4 is a lot easier than 3d12, for example). That said, it's possible I might come back around this idea in the future, if I can figure out how to make it work!
@@elementalyarn Yes, it is much easier to roll doubles on d4's, but if you roll 2 2's, that still only gives you a 4, and the average on a d12 is 6. They would have to roll double 3's or triple 2's just to average a d12. Not to mention if there is a cost to activate the doubles or triples, it may not be worth it.
Thanks! In my experience, rolling dice for character stat generation is fun for games in which you don't expect your character to live very long, because the stakes are pretty low, and it's fun to play out a character's (sometimes short) life. So having some variety between PCs attribute totals isn't a big deal. But for games where you become invested in a character's story and personality, and you might be playing them for a long time, I prefer things to be more evenly spread across the party. For example, if I'm doing a D&D one shot with rolling for scores, I'm more tempted to go all the way with randomness. Roll 1d20 for each stat down the list, no swapping. Roll for a random race. Roll for a random name from Xanathar's Guide to Everything. But for a more serious game, I'd rather go with point buy or standard array. So to answer your question, this game will probably have a standard array of dice which you can distribute across the five attributes. Currently I'm thinking (d10, d8, d6, d6, d4).
One of the problem I can see is that the system doesn't have a high granularity, they are only 5 possible value for an ability score, rolling for stats on such a small scale might cause too much balance problem between character. Or create character that can easily become perfect, as they progress, erasing what differentiate them.
This is very interesting! Your core resolution is very cohesive and finds that balance between being intuitive for new players and having a learning curve that experienced players can take advantage of. I'm curious about how you utilize the class progression structure for your game. Also Tides of Ambition is a cool evocative name.
I'm so happy to hear that, it took me weeks to refine the title into Tides of Ambition! For a while I'd been calling it "Spheres of Infinity," but that didn't seem quite right anymore.
Thank you for sharing! Very excited about this! I have lots of questions, but I will wait for more content as I am sure most of my questions have been handled already. I'm particularly excited about mechanics or features that characters can take. The main mechanic of rolling 3 dice has such a cool design space. What if all 3 dice are even or odd, the same number, are an arithmetic sequence, and so on; though the boon/bane mechanic gives you so much without having to dip into any of that. Stuff like "Critical Strike: Reduce one of your largest die with a d4 on your next attack. If your attack succeeds, multiply your damage by the result of that d4. Your condition/stress deteriorates by 1 step." If there is any opportunity to playtest a small portion of the game I would be very interested. Also you stated Kickstarter is not something happening right now, but is there a way to contribute through something like Patreon? Super cool, can't wait to see more. First time I've ever used the bell on youtube.
Ohh wow! So many things! Thanks so much for all the kind words, it's pumping me up! I actually thought for a long time about whether I want there to be any kind of trigger for when all three dice roll the same number, but I couldn't think of a way to do it right. If it was a beneficial trigger of some kind, then that would weirdly incentivize rolling 3d4, for a higher likelihood of rolling triples. Which is a shame, because I really liked the idea of triples doing something cool. I guess I could have triples grant an extra Boon, as a bit of a consolation prize to people rolling smaller dice, but we'll see. Once I have a playtest document ready to go, I'll be sure to let you know! And aw man, I wasn't expecting a Patreon bid so soon, haha. For now, I'll just put out all my stuff publicly, I don't think I have enough content to divide into Patron and non-Patron yet, if that makes sense. And finally, thanks for using the bell! Just FYI, I do post the VODs of livestreams and such on here, and videos like this take me some time to make. So the next video or two you get notified of probably won't be the next development journal. Just managing expectations, haha.
@@elementalyarn Of course! Keep it up. Already 307 views. That's ~100 people watching it 3 times! That would fill a university lecture hall. Yeah that's fair. Are there that many scenarios where 3d4 is going to succeed without rolling the same number or getting the lucky streak? I guess if you roll all 4's then get the lucky streak with a boon on top of that. But the chances are like 1/64 for that to happen, and you get the same thing with two of three dice being 4's with 1/16 chance just without the boon. I don't know. I'm guessing d4's are used in untrained skills/attacks in addition to low attributes and condition, but this seems like something that could be described by: with lucky streak and all same number boon, "and by a total miracle, you have succeeded with style" versus with lucky streak and without the all same number boon "and by a total miracle, you have succeeded". You should add it as an optional rule in the playtest. I will be that person that tries to abuse it, and I would let you know if I succeeded haha. Perfect! No worries! I'll check out the other content too!
I wish you the best of luck, fellow game designer! How do you handle in your stroke of luck mechanic a difficulty which exceeds the success die by one?
Oooh, good question. I'm embarrassed to say I hadn't thought of that. But I think the rule will stand. If your result die is a d4 and you roll a 4 on a difficulty of 5, I think you've earned it. I don't typically feel too bad about tossing a bone to the PCs. For one thing, it feels good to win as a player. For another, I can always beef up the opposition to account for the difference.
200+ pages for rules!!! while I like a detailed game system, I've gone the 'less is more' route. I have an index card RPG. the rules are on 5 pages and the character sheet is a 3×5 indexcard. a character takes 2 min or less to create. there are no baseline stats, just skills and abilities. the core mechanic is 2D6 with an initial success at 7+. similar to you, top end is 12, but it auto fail is 2 (2D6). that gives a possible success range of 3 to 12. I could modify to using 1D12 and use three of them for adv/d-adv like your system. but it might throw off my 2D6 mid range by going to a single D12.
I'm usually not a fan of exploding dice, but the fact that you only use them if you would fail the role I think compensates the usual issue of smaller dice having advantage over larger dice I would be really interested to see the actual math One question tho. You said an 8 or higher gives you a boon. Is this 8 face value, or 8 total?
I am liking that boon/bane system; the all-or-nothing pass/fail checks in D&D kind of gets stale and I prefer something with degrees of success or failure. Those "Yes, and..." "Yes, but.." "No, but.." and "No, and..." situations. Out of curiosity, will there be any mechanics or abilities that would allow a character to bank their boons for a certain amount of time (perhaps being lost at the end of the encounter/end of day) or do they always have to be spent on the roll that they're gained on?
The dice-mechanic is fascinating. But isnt it incredibly hard the tell as a GM if a certain target number is heard or easy to over cum? Its very heard to tell whats the % chance of rolling a certain number if you roll three dice and picke to lowest, the highest or the on in the middle. Great game design, but I wouldnt feel like I could foresee if a challenge is heard or easy. Did You do the math?
Thanks for the comment! There will be a helpful table provided in the rulebook to inform the GM and players on the general difficulties associated with target numbers. They range from 2 (very easy) to 4 (moderate) to 7+ (Very Hard), with descriptors for each integer. The nice thing is that the difficulty of tasks don't care about the capabilities of the character attempting it. The target number is the same regardless of who is attempting it. A contributor actually did crunch all the numbers for me, though. Here's the spreadsheet. The table at the right shows the average results for every possible combination of dice. :) docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rXakZhX3ONPM-GZZxVGi5G42C_j3Tlivk_QJsdStAAw/edit?usp=sharing
@@elementalyarn the mechanics are very intriguing. I just wished there was a lighter version of the system. I am interested in how the game develops and I will watch the other videos on this topic. Also the spreadsheet is very impressive 😅
Yes, actually! Probably not for standard rolls, I like the bounds of the 1-12 range, it helps keep things consistent in LOTS of ways. But I've always found the d20 to be perfect for rolling on random tables. The even 5% chance distribution lends itself perfectly in my opinion. d% is typically more than you need. So I definitely see the GM rolling a d20 for random tables quite a bit (if they so choose), as well as the players sometimes. For example, the Inventor class has a random table of weird tech vernacular as a roleplaying aid if the player wants it. So if your gadget malfunctions, you can quickly whip out "It's not my fault! The oscillating potentiality siphon is conducting the wrong voltage!" On the other end of things, I'm also thinking of incorporating a coin (d2) into some of the rules as kind of a "let fate decide" mechanic. But the core dice mechanic uses d4-d12 exclusively.
have you looked at the sentinels of the multiverse system? it's based on cortex prime. might be a good reference for your system as they are very similar.
I can't say I've heard of that one. When I search for it, I see a card game and a board game? I'd love to learn more about it, but I'm having a hard time locating it.
@@DiomedesRangue You know, I do remember that system, now that you mention it! I remember being intrigued because it was sorta similar to my game, haha. To be honest though, I don't think I've ever actually heard of someone actually playing a Cortex game. I'll have to look up some examples of play.
I'm usually disappointed by random "I'm designing an RPG" videos on YT because 90% of them are a game that already exists, but the creator has only ever played D&D so they think they're a genius. But I keep clicking them because of that 10%... And this video is one of the 10% of promising systems. The core here actually seems cool, and it's not something I've seen anywhere. Some games do dice pool with different sizes, but I can't think of any that do the additional boon/bane interpretation
Too many boons on a turn may slow things down? Might turn a "yay critical!" moment into a paralysing player moment of "too many choices of what to use my boons for"
Yes, that is something I'm keeping an eye out for. I can't think of a way to eliminate that analysis paralysis entirely, so I'm working to include ways to mitigate it.
@@LeFlamel It depends on your game view, a;; dice in DnD set are Platonic except D10 but if necessary it can be fixed with an extra D20 marked differently
@@LeFlamel Geometrically speaking that's false. Platonic solids are having 2 key properties that other solids don't. 1. All sides are having the same area and D10 kind of does it. 2. the sides are equally placed against each other (symmetry is the same everywhere) and this is where D10 fails It fails not because the manufacturer made an error but because it is theoretically impossible to craft a 10-sided dice. You can look it up on your own, D10, D24 and D30 are all facing the same problem, if you look at one spot, the sides will be placed against each other one way and at another spot the placement will be different, It will be fair to admit that the computer does the job for you in hiding unfairness, but once you make your game physical, the unfairness in rolling will come back. What I am saying is 20 = 10/2, that means if you double mark each side on D20 you will get a fair D10 which sounds like smart and creative solution to me, but that is up to you. Another thing to point out is that 20 has plenty of factors, so by double marking you can set up D2 D3 D4 D5 D10 and D20 which kind of helps you to replace the DnD set.
I'll be sure to include my reasoning behind things in future videos. Many of your questions could videos all their own. Why am I making my own system instead of a setting book? Because I want to, that's why. Why aren't I writing a novel? Or writing fanfiction? Or learning to paint? I dunno. This is what I'm passionate about at the moment.
I just spoke with author that said that his third book in his series of Steam Punk books had to be sold as an Alternate History book because Steam Punk is functionally dead and not able to move units any more. Just saying...
Maybe i can give u some inspiration from a system I designed. The overall idea of is: 1) There IS a whole system (1-100 skills/proficiencies. DCs for tests set invisibly by the DM, 3 levels of success and 3 levels of failure based on the roll, with skills improving slightly with use at the end of a session, mana and fatigue as limiters, etc. It's all there under the hood, because: 2) The players don't know the rules of the system. There's no player manual. It's a narrative experience where you say what your character does and how, and then roll. Character creation is narrative as well (no rolling stats or picking spells from a list. Tell the story of your character's life, interests, hobbies, etc, and the DM assigns skill points. Everything about the character is custom made, including spell effects etc) But the cool and very fun thing is the experience of the players as they begin to DISCOVER how the system works, push to discover their character's limitations, etc. Beyond, of course, what already makes sense for them to know to begin with. The DM knows the exact stats of the characters, but the players only know a narrative approximation, similar to what you know about yourself in real life. They test themselves to see how strong they are, how quick they are, etc, and how much they're improving. They'll know that one character is the strong one, and one's the quick one, because they wrote the backstory, but it won't be like "I have 20 dex and so I have a +5 on this and that". The point is to create a more narrative approach to the game, but without losing all the tactics and feel of combat from something like D&D, basically. You lose the min-maxing, but you gain in much more organic and unique feeling characters and storytelling that isn't bound to the rigid "computer game" style rules of D&D.
Banes and boons put a heavy burden on the DM, having to create complications beyond success or failure on each roll. Banes seem overly punishing. Boons being the universal resource means that feats don't actually provide vertical power, only horizontal. No skill list makes things super unbalanced. Heavy Melee and Folklore are not equal. System seems like it wants to be crunchy and freeform at the same time, which only leads to frustration.
Well, I mean this in the best possible way but I really don't like it, I'm gonna try to give you some proper criticism which strongly disagrees with the other comments here. It's nearly impossible for 1 person to create a TTRPG system along the scopes of DnD that isn't just going to be both more difficult and worse than the established games out there. On top of this, you have to somehow find players that are willing to learn your system. Now the major flaws in your game system is the huge amount of RNG. You've somehow taken DnDs system and made it far more luck based because you have no modifiers. If the chance of success is like you said somewhere between a 2 and a 6, once it's a 7-12 that already means if you're rolling without advantage it's unachievable to reach that result if 2 of your dies are a 6. Even if your character is really really good at something they're still very likely to fail a check that's only a 7-9 in difficulty rating. I understand you've been working on this for a long time and are passionate about it, but have you done some basic math on the outcome of results with various dies? Do you understand that your idea of 2-12 difficulty check essentially makes anything above a 7 nearly unattainable for most characters? If that's the case, why does over half your difficulty checks even need to exist if they're almost never going to be achieved unless it's by a character which excels in that field? Also your boons/banes idea is a bit ridiculous as it comes up far too often. If you throw just 3d6's than the chance of getting at least 1 boon and/or bane is around 60% and I didn't do the exact math on it. This isn't some special condition that's happening, it's more common to have boons and or banes than it is not having them. With a d20 a natural 20/1 still has some form of specialty attached to it, as there's only a 10% chance of receiving one (without advantage/disadvantage). Than there's the extra difficulty coming from using your system, which as some people have pointed out is simple to understand, but it's still far more difficult than DnD is. And on top of all this, how does it work with monsters? And NPCs? Isn't it going to be a nightmare to run as a DM? It will slow down the game by A LOT, and DnD is already very slow as combat goes. This makes the DM rolling easily 3 times as slow. Than there's you stating there's far more options, but I don't see those on your sheet at all. I see heavy melee attack as an option, what if I want to grapple? What if I want to throw my axe at an enemy? What if I wanna punch an enemy? Where are all those dies options at? How do I know what to use for that? Really if you start looking at all the options for an actual game, it becomes far too complicated and far too luck reliant. There's too much to keep track of, not enough space to put all your options into, it will just become too cluttered. I really mean this in the best possible way, but your system is a lot worse than DnD is, and faces a lot of extra problems. One person just simply cannot make anything better, especially in their free time. And your players most likely aren't going to be willing to relearn an entire new system full of flaws that's likely going to have to go through various iterations. I don't want to bring you down, but somebody is going to have to tell you the truth. This is likely never going to work.
also here because of a random suggestion. Interesting Ideas so far but nothing completely new. Feels like a lot like savage worlds (different dice size instead of flat bonuses, exploding dice etc.) mixed with some other Ideas. Why did you want to build your own mechanics? I am designing RPGs too and I usually start with making "supplements" for existing games (made a Spaceship-Supplement for Cypher and a Bodysnatcher Splat for World of Darkness). Creating new Mechanics is a lot of work and rarely worth it imho.
Yup, I've done plenty of supplemental content for other games. I once made a 60-page rulebook for the Dragon Age RPG to provide options for the Jade Empire world. I've done a bunch of D&D 5e custom content, some of which is published on MrRhexx's shop. But at the end of the day, game mechanics is something I'm hugely passionate about, and I couldn't stop if I tried. Will it be worth it? Depends on your frame of reference. Will I get rich off designing RPGs? Certainly not. But can it be fulfilling anyway? Probably!
@@elementalyarn Rich? I think there are only a handful People who are getting rich designing RPGs and most of them are working on DnD ;) Honestly my Newest Project is something where I am seriously considering designing my own Mechanics too because I can't find a perfect fit for it. It is going to be a hybrid Deckbuilder-RPG where the Cards are Spirits and the PCs are Shamans. Even though making the Cards is a ton of work. I have already gone through like 3 different Versions with different Systems and nothing really clicks for me. I will keep an eye out for your Game. It could be interesting. Who knows? I am more interested in Abilities, Equipment, Spells and similar things than the core Mechanics though.
I don't think I've ever been so immediately excited by a game mechanic
Wow, this core mechanic is really incredible, it could very well be adapted for almost any ttrpg, good job mate and i wish you good fortune!
Thanks, friend! And yes, I also see the potential for expanding out to other genres and such. :)
I got nine boons. Screw this I'm going to Vegas baby:)
9 Boons. Look at me. I'm the Game Master now.
I like the 3 Dice mechanic. Sounds cool man hope it takes off for you!
Thanks, friend!
Oh also: doesn't a difficulty 8+ mean you will always get a boon when you succeed? Maybe diff 8+ could mean you either lose 1/2/3 boons automatically (for 8-9/10-11/12+ respectively), or it's so difficult/dangerous you automatically receive banes merely for the attempt (which could perhaps be offset by rolled boons).
I really love the dice mechanic. Especially since I have been trying for almost 25 years to figure out how to make a 3 dice mechanic work - and you have nailed it. I had a LUDO-rule in there - if you rolled a six, on any type of dice, you rolled it again and added (like in Parcheesi, sold under the name "ludo" (Latin for "I play") where I live) - feel free to use the name.
I sense a weakness, or perhaps it is intentional. Condition, the track on the left of the character sheet, will be involved in all dice rolls a character makes, so maintaining a high condition is 5 times more important than having great attributes. So, if a Bless spell increases your condition by one step that spell will be more popular than a "might" spell increasing your strength by one step. This fits well with games like Exalted, where the essential character attribute is, well, essence, or Mage where Arete is all-important, or an eastern game where Honor is the central aspect of your character or for a mix a game like Pendragon where characters can be ruled by passions. But I am uncertain how well it fits with a generic system. However, you have probably given this a lot more thought than I have and I look forward to the video where you talk about Condition. For another example, if I wanted to emulate "3:16 Carnage amongst the stars" in the 3-dice system (3DS for short) I would put "Rank" in the place of condition.
Anyway, this mechanic is so good that I have to rewrite my own RPG to use this instead of my own roll and add system - this is much cleaner.
Also, with the roll and add method you will at a minimum have a 1 in 1024 chance of success on any roll, so your advice in a later video to GMs about not letting players roll unless you are willing to let them succeed is very solid advice. Conversely, with all ones being a failure no matter what, there is always at least a 1 in 1728 chance of failing.
This sounds simple yet with satisfactory depth I hope to try it at some point in the future.
It's simple and easy to understand. I like it!
Definitely want to see this game sounds cool and we'll thought out
Nice job. Very clean and easy to understand.
This is a very similar game system to Tales of Xadia/Cortex Prime. In that you always roll three dice, your stats are dice, rolling ones are bad. The differences are you count two of your dice for your total, not the middle one. Also you get good things/boons not when you roll high, but when the DM rolls a 1. Playing that system I can say it is a lot of fun.
Yes, I remember finding out about Cortex when I heard about the Dragon Prince RPG! Pretty intriguing stuff, though I have yet to try it out. For me, I like being able to generate all of the results from the player's roll.
This looks like a great system. Lots of flavor possible when you know more than just that you succeeded or failed.
Thanks! Yeah, it's a careful balance to strike, but I'm hoping I found a good middle ground. Too much nuance to making a roll, and it takes way too long to figure out what happens. But just pass/fail is pretty boring.
Legend of the five rings have aninteresting concept where you roll a dice pool generally composed of attribute dice (special D6) + skill dice (special D12) then you keep the result of a number of dice equal to the number of attribute dice your rolled.
Those dice are not numbered and are covered with four different symbol and some blank face. the symbols are sucess, explosive sucess, opportunity ( a sort of boon), and strife (a negative ressource kind of like stress in other systems).
You beat a test if among the dice you kept you have more success symbol than the difficulty of the test. If you keep an explosive sucess you score one sucess and can roll a bonus dice of the same type and decide if you want to keep the result as a bonus, if the bonus dice roll an explosive sucess and you keep it you repeat the process until you don't keep the dice or you keep the result and it is not an explosive sucess.
The catch is multiple symbol can be on a dice face, and opportunity, sucess and explosive sucess, often share a face with a strife. So sometimes the player might be confronted with the choice of either failing and not taking strife, or suceeding and taking strife.
Strife is bad because if you fill your strife meter you can no longer keep dice that roll a strife and that drasticly lower your chance of scoring sucesses and opportunity.
Opportunity when generated can be immediately spent to get information about characters clue, object, get clue about the plot, get combat bonus, reduce your strife or the strife of someone else, increase the strife of someone else, avoid backlash for failing a check (like you try to bribe someone and fail. You can spend opportunity to avoid them calling the cops on you). Some ability even give you the ability to spend opportunity to get more specific and powerful combat bonus than the common bonus everyone can get.
I never played the system, so I don't know how well it hold in an actual game, and it does require custom dice. But it is a really interesting concept that add meaningful gameplay decision to dice rolls and it is less work to read the dice than the genesys systems because, they are less symbol, nothing cancel and what you see is what you get. But it does give more decision to player which can slow the game down.
Wow! This is such a cool and unique dice mechanic. I like virtually every aspect of it and I agree with all your justifications for it.
This was just randomly suggested to me, and I am glad it was! Huge respect and all the power to you, from someone who is also in the middle of designing their own TTRPG! So, here's my question to you: when it comes to the stroke of luck mechanic, do you think the GM should just not allow the player to roll if something is meant to be logically impossible (eg. convince the king to hand over the kingdom just out of the blue), or do you think that theoretically, with enough strokes of luck, anything should be possible?
Hey cool, my video got recommended! Maybe that means I'm doing something right, haha.
And that's a very good question, something I probably should have addressed in the video. Maybe my next one will be on Dramatic Potential and when to call for a roll, we'll see. To answer directly, no, I don't think a roll should be able to accomplish something well outside the realm of possibility, especially since the players will have tools to help improve their odds using game resources. Bottom line, if the GM calls for a roll with a difficulty of 12, they should be prepared for the possibility of a success.
My general rule of thumb is that the GM should only call for a roll if 1) There is a narrative/logical reason that the declared action could fail or succeed, and the outcome will be interesting for the story regardless of failure or success, or 2) the rules specifically call for a roll. That first point is tricky, and it's very much up to the GM. Some things that are typically impossible for mortals (breaking a wooden door down with fists, literally enchanting an entire room with a mere song, etc) should probably be possible in this game, albeit with a high difficulty.
If a player wanted to convince the king to abdicate and crown them instead, that should probably be impossible without some kind of leverage or magic or something. And even then, it would probably require an ongoing project with multiple successful rolls before a certain number of failures. It could be an entire adventure on its own! The Succession Heist.
This is so clever, what a fun way to put the math behind the curtain! I’m very interested in what “gaining a stress” would be equivalent to. Subscribing to see more!
Thanks Bones, appreciate the sub! Combat videos coming soon!
Great start! As a fellow indie creator, I wish you the best on this process. I'm working on just a micro setting to start, but always interested to see what new systems are out there. Love the name so far!
Thanks for the interesting video. I'm already looking forward to the next one. I love finding something new and inspiring. I know how long and difficult the development process is, with lots of dead ends. So I keep my fingers crossed and wish you lots of strength and determination.
Thanks so much! Some days it feels like the simplest thing in world. Other days, it feels daunting and enormous.
The dice system you came up with is very nice. I am looking forward to seeing more videos on this as I am trying to make my own game as well. Sometimes youtube really showes me something that I like and I am glad it recomended you.
Hey, I'm glad too! I think my next video will be about combat and initiative and that type of stuff.
The system I wrote uses dice tiers too.
In my system the DC of everything is 4. And you roll either a d4, d6, d8, d10 or a d12 for tast resolution.
Bonuses and penalties don't add to the total of the number rolled, they increase or decrease the dice tier.
So a d6 roll with a +1 bonus would mean rolling a d8.
That's the main task resolution mechanic.
Very similar to Savage Worlds, except I think they do use modifiers. I do prefer always having a clear target number over the GM arbitrarily assigning difficulty numbers. One of the things I love about Dragonbane is that you're always rolling against your own skill level (it's d20 roll under) and there's no modifiers but boons and banes (advantage/disadvantage).
i love this system honestly, you did a good job making it
Thanks, I'm pretty proud of it, and I'm excited to share more about my project in future videos!
it was randomly suggested this, I guess i'm juste wathing a lot of TTRPG content, but i'm quite interested to see how it goes!
Thou hast been blesst by ye algorithm.
May thy blessing push you forward with the development of your marvellous game.
I thank thee for thine kind words! Blessed be to ye algorithm!
Gotta come back to this later. Looks intriguing!
Thanks, let's see if I can hold your attention with future development journal videos!
I've only come across this now, but this looks really really good. I love the core mechanic, and looking forward to trying it out with my players when you finally publish it!
Very interesting video! I definitely will be subscribing. I, like many here, are also interested in designing my own rpg. Even got to play test it a little bit locally. I really like the ideas you are incorporating here!
As far as the extended luck roll, I'm a fan of the term 'Exploding' to describe it, or 'open-ending' the roll. The latter is part of Burning Wheel parlance, which is definitely a game that I recommend looking into.
Hey, cool! Hello, fellow designer! I'm starting to think it might be cool to open up a Playtest Exchange at some point, if I continue to have lots of audience engagement. But that's a future idea.
And yes, exploding dice! I had considered using that parlance, especially since it's ingrained in the public ttRPG lexicon. I reserve the right to change any name of any rule in the future, so it may eventually change to something like that.
Holy shit, talk about a "great minds thinking alike" moment. My first TTRPG system, the Quick & Dirty RPG System (available on DriveThruRPG) uses this same dice rolling method: roll three dice, with each die taken from a distinct trait, and pick either the middle, low, or high roll. I cribbed this mechanic from the Sentinel Comics RPG, but reworked it so that flat bonuses weren't a thing.
My initial way of setting difficulty numbers in Quick & Dirty was to use a Difficulty die rather than a target number, so that I would avoid the "none of my dice can hit this target number" problem. Quick & Dirty, however, follows a Powered-by-the-Apocalypse methodology, however, so I scrapped that idea and instead used a "failure/success with costs/success/critical success" model.
Another distinct difference between our systems is that, while we both use the character's condition as one of the dice in the dice pool, Quick & Dirty defaults to Approaches and Tools as the other two traits, whereas you go with Attributes and Skills. In that case, how does gear come into play for Tides of Ambition?
Hey, thanks for the comment! I'd never heard of a dice system exactly like mine, but I'm not surprised I'm not the first person to think of it haha.
As for gear, items usually give you additional options for how you can spend boons. I miiiight design some items that allow you to substitute its item die for your Condition Die, especially if they're magical or something. But I haven't gone that direction just yet.
No way. This is basically exactly the system I have been making myself. Great minds think alike! If you don't have it already, granting a character Advantage for having a skill that is more "specialized" than an opponent while making an opposed roll might be useful.
Hey, cool! It's a pretty sweet little mechanic, isn't it? I also just uploaded the second one of these videos about faction-oriented play that you should check out!
As for advantage with specialized skills, yeah, that's something I'm working on figuring out. My current idea is to grant advantage when someone's Profession skill (kind of like their background) applies to a trained skill roll they're making. If you get to use both, you also get advantage. I'm hoping that will help keep PCs' backstories relevant in the game. But then again, I might remove the idea of "Profession" skills and just call it your "Background" or something. Not sure yet, playtesting should help!
That happen more often than not, especially if your systems don't require customs dice. Turn out it is really hard to find a dice rolling mechanic that is truly original. There is a nice RPG stack exchange post that list most dice mechanic used in published systems it is nice if you want to expand your horizon and find new concept to add to your dice mechanic.
Personally it is the first time I hear of this exact type rolling mechanic but most concept that compose it are nothing new, using dice size to represent how good a character is at something is used in Savage world and other RPG, rolling and keeping dice is a mechanic in Savage world, Legend of the five rings, and Cortex Prime.
It is the first time though I hear of a system where you roll and keep the middle result. Often system with roll and keep are roll and keep the best and they use flat modifier, reroll, add dice, or remove dice to give bonuses and maluses. Some systems go even as far as not having a best roll.
In legend of the five rings some dice result can be both positive and negative and you can have meaningful reasons to choose a dice result that make you fail but give no negative ressources over a dice result that make you suceed but give negative ressources.
And in Cortex prime when you roll, you roll a bunch of dice, total two of them and then choose a dice that is called the effect dice whose size represent how much you suceed. So in situation where you roll first and don't know the score you need to beat, you can be confronted with the dilemma of whether or not you want to have the highest total, and the lesser effect dice, or the reverse. It is important because being beaten in both total and effect dice is the worst result possible it is better to be beaten in score but not in effect dice, so gimping your total for a better effect dice can be a sensible decision.
I love that you think about playing time to read the results of a throw. I have little time to play so your dice allows me to quickly know if the character's action is successful or failed.
It makes a bigger deal than a lot of people think. Any way you can streamline the process means more time for the narrative!
This journal approach as you build is super helpful to other designers (like myself) - many thanks
Your three dice mechanic is a very good idea, there's no modifier to the rolls and the advantage / disadvantage is auto included, this is brilliant because the resolution is very quick and intuitive. However the dice pool selection can be a bit slow due to constant checking of the character sheet, especially for new players or rpg newbies. Interpretation of the roll, with the boon/bane counting, can also slow the game if you have to reference the book for special effects. Here are ways you could "fix" those issues:
- Remove the dice scale from the character sheet, and put the dice on the table / virtual table as an indication of PC party's fatigue/morale. You start with the d12 then after each encounter or challenge you can decrease the die one step (from d12 to d10) depending on how well the party handled the challenge.
- You can decide as a GM the rythm of attrition of the morale/fatigue die or you could track the banes rolled and decide to decrease the die one step (12 banes rolled = decreasing d12 to d10, 10 banes rolled = decreasing d10 to d8, etc..). As a GM you will choose what to do with banes, should I decrease the die? Or Should I trigger monster/npc abilities, or even trigger a special event? The bane tracking will work especially well if you don't have to Roll as a GM (player facing), so you can focus on reacting to the players rolls.
- Simplify the boons: if the max value is rolled on a die = 1 Boon. A player can use a boon to trigger an ability (or describe a special effect) OR to reroll the selected die to meet a high difficulty. You will think it makes weak PC stronger (more chances to roll a boon on a d4 than a d10) but remember that boons work in pair with banes and small dice have more chances to provoke banes, plus if you take into account the moral/fatigue die mechanic described above, PC will have more chance to trigger their special abitilities in dire situations, end bosses will also activate their special abilities more often (because PC will be fatigued when they encounter them), making tense situations very swingy/epic and speeding up the game (preventing too many rests).
There are also great ideas on your character sheet: the flow chart from stats to secondary stats, the symbols you've found (the experience symbol can be improved - an arrow up for xp box is more intuitive for instance-). Try to make a one page character sheet:
- There are too many empty lines, you don't need so much space for skills and abilities,
- Notes don't have to be taken on a character sheet, even the portrait/drawing space doesn't need to be there. Both can be on a separate page.
- You need an artist to tailor the sheet to your game universe, the typos, the symbols and the background/decorum can be reworked/drawn, the character sheet has to be an invitation to adventure, an invitation to play your game. Remember that, with the book cover, general layout and illustrations, it's among the first things players/buyers will look at, and during play it will constantly be referenced, rewriten, corrected, so it needs to be sexy and the information must be easy to find, scores must be easy to track, to sum up: the less the better (less flipping, less entries, etc..).
I hope you read this and it helped you in a way. As a game designer, I wish you the best of luck with your game.
EDIT: typos and missing words.
So, I stumbled over this video today not really looking for RPG design notes but I'm glad I did.
Sounds like a solid dice mechanic. I like the one in Ironsworn a lot. It's fun having a variable level of success and failure while dodging the need for charts and tables.
Not too much a fan of Boons and Banes vs. Critical Hits and Misses.
I think Stroke of Luck mechanic is a nice underdog touch and really plays into heroic action.
Found this awhile ago, go me inspired to actually start writing down all my favorite mechanics from table top games and start writing my own TTRPG.
Just suscribed and I have to tell you, this system looks very cool and easy to understand! I hope you keep working on it and be able to play it some day
Thanks! I plan on getting a playtest packet ready to send out at some point in the future!
I just started looking into these videos of yours and I’m pretty excited to learn more about what you’re crafting. The character sheet alone feels like an improvement over plenty of other systems. I’m someone who watches a lot of Matt Colville’s videos and I feel like you get inspiration from that mind as well.
Thanks so much! Yeah, I've drawn inspiration from so many different sources, I don't think I could separate out the DNA if I wanted to. Matt Colville is probably in there somewhere though, haha.
6:05 That's a clever way of having a narrower curve around the average without having to add up a bunch of dice.
Exactly! I always found the d20 to be so swingy, but experiments with switching to 2d10 or 3d6 tended to slow things down with lots of arithmetic.
@@elementalyarn Hey if you've got time, what do you think about a ttrpg that only uses a DndBeyond-like web app to play? Meaning there is no physical dice, so the random numbers can have whatever curve you want. For instance, in my testing I've settled on a squared curve, meaning rolling a natural 1 or 20 is now a 1/40 chance and obviously you are more likely to roll near your average, a cubic curve was too much, you'd roll a natural 9-11 on almost every roll. Give it to me straight, what do you think of this idea?
@@tristunalekzander5608 I think there's a lot of merit to that idea. I think it's kind of surprising that we don't have any real in-depth digital ttRPG experiences like that yet. Not on the scale I'm thinking, anyway. I think about how cool it would be if a group of friends could pull out their phones and just start playing a ttRPG, no physical materials required. The app would have everything you need.
And yeah, I like that the software can just use whatever curve you need! At that point though, I wonder if a d100 system would be pretty good, kind of like in XCOM, where you can see the percentage chance of success for any given thing. 100 options is fiddly on your own, but maybe easier with an app?
@@elementalyarn Thank you for the response my friend! Yes, originally, I was going to do a percentile system, but I decided to keep it as a d20 to basically make it easier to copy DnD content and rules without having to change much or reinvent any wheels.
And I know! We have DnDBeyond, but it's more of a digital character sheet than an actual game, for instance you can equip 100 swords at once if you want, so you still have to remember rules and keep track of various things like it's a board game. While mine will not only fix that but also let the players select the enemy they want to attack or cast a spell on themself, so combat can often be as fast paced as a strategy rpg video game. Eventually there will be a minimax AI too, so the GM can choose to manually play an NPC's turn or let the AI do it, and players can test out their characters against various enemies before joining a campaign, or the GM could even run a simulation of an encounter to get an idea of how the party might fare.
We definitely think alike! I also really like the idea of needing nothing but your phone and an internet connection to play. That's why the game is optimized for theater of the mind, your "speed" is just another ability, just like strength or dexterity.
Thank you for the feedback my friend, I will definitely let you know when the app is working and hosted somewhere so you can check it out. Could be a while though, considering I am the sole developer right now, but you probably know how that is haha
@@tristunalekzander5608 Yup, for sure! I'd love to see what you come up with!
I really enjoyed your video. 👍Not only the game mechanics, but also your presentation was nice. It inspired me to take another look at my own system (seems eveyone who GMs enought builds one of those) and integrate a mechanic for "boons and banes". Thank you!
Thank you so much! My second game design update is out now, about how campaigns work in the game, and I demo a sample campaign starter draft in it. I'm thinking my next one will be a rundown of combat in the game, since I'm sure people will be interested in that!
the core mechanic is really cool -- I LIKE the boons n banes for the rolls, very cool idea
I like this. I also like the initiative system (or maybe I should say not initiative system) for combat you talked about in another video.
I'm also creating my own RPG. I started of by not even knowing how to play DnD or any other popular RPGs but I was determined to get somewhere on my own. In the beginning it was very different from DnD but over half a year I got closer and closer to DnD and just a few weeks ago I decided to replace some of my math to be the same as in DnD since it could be annoying for DnD players that the math in my games are different but similar enough to mix them.
The main differences between DnD and my game are:
1. I made fully functional hex based digital battlemap program that is easy to set up and edit on the go and I'm trying to make the combat rules to be compatible with the battlemap.
2. In my combat, a character has 10 action points (AP) in their turn. There is an AP cost diversity in abilities, spells, improvised actions and even weapon attacks depending on the weapon. Moving also requires 1 AP / hex. The reasons for this are, moving in DnD doesn't cost anything, which I think is just absurd, I also wanted a wider diversity between weapons with the different AP costs since there should be slower and faster weapon like a warhammer and a dagger.
3. Strength, dexterity and mana don't give the character bonus to their attack rolls, but their damage scales linearly with these stats.
4. I completely got rid of the armor class system. Being tanky in DnD was kinda wierd for me, the PCs' AC doesn't differ much, a ranger's AC is just lower by around 3 than a paladin's, so the only way to become tankier is just having more HP. In my game, the characters have an evasion, physical, and magical resistance stats. Evasion is somewhat similar to the AC in DnD, the attacker has to roll higher than the defender's evasion. Physical and magical resistances are percentage stats which negates the given percent of the damage it would take. Although this requires an additional and manual multiplication every time someone takes damage but in my opinion it's worth it. Light, medium, and heavy armor pieces give gradually more resistances but medium and heavy armors also decrease evasion, so basically the players have the decision whether they want to be more easy to hit and take less damage, or hard to hit but take higher damage. The main difference between the two types of defensive stats are, area and homing attacks cannot be evaded, but if you have low evasion you are easier to apply negative status effects on.
I hope I can inspire you too in some way (might also just be an excuse so that I can talk about my game XD) and I look forward to your next video!
I know, it's so fun to get the chance to talk about your hobby! My friends and relatives aren't the most attentive audience, haha.
I love the hex grid! I too have ambitions to create a digital tabletop experience for this project, and hexagons are the bestagons (to quote CGPGrey). And it sounds like you've put a lot of thought into your design. If and when you have a playtest-able document, feel free to share! I can't guarantee I'll have time to try it out, but maybe we can get a community of playtest-swappers up in this thing! Because let's be real, that's the hardest thing about game design is getting people to try it out.
@@elementalyarn I am sorry to disappoint you but my goal is nothing more than being able to play my own system in my own games with my players. I don't intend to publish anything and the surprising advantage of this is there is no need for many testers and balance patches because most balance and other kinds of problems would only be visible on a grander scale with many many players, campaigns, and meta-players who dig themselves into details.
The reason why I decided to make my own design was I didn't like how complicated DnD was and as a DM I felt restricted by the rules in an unrealistic way like the AC system, the free movement, the low equipment diversity, the predefined classes, abilities, character customization and progression, the rules for dmg calculation, the detailed status effects and so on.
@@bercibi64 Fair enough and good luck!
I've read a lot of ttrpg rulesets and I'm writing my own and I really like this.
My own system has an even more unusual dice mechanic but I really like this. I particularly like the inclusion of "condition" in every roll. I'm going to spend a bit of time thinking about how the probabilities work in this.
That’s a really cool mechanic.
This is super exciting. I'm eager to get some sort of setting video to get deep into the theme/lore. I'm totally gonna play this, the rolling system looks simple and like it can keep my friends' attention. Also the aesthetic of your character sheet satisfies me deeply, makes me wanna print it and just admire the symmetry :)
That's what I like to hear, and I'm glad the sheet pleases you as much as it does me. I'm sure it will still change quite a bit as time goes on (it's actually missing a "Class Resource/Misc" field atm). I've had a few requests to hear more about the game's setting, so maybe I'll cover that topic in one my next updates.
I like the dice mechanic. Because I suspect you could play it more easily with kids that can't calculate yet or not as well.
God damn 200 pages? You really made it simple. I'd like to see a gameplay of this.
As weird as it felt at first i've really grown to like the "mathlessness" of the d20 roll-under system that Dragonbane uses. No bonuses or modifiers, those are all already included in your score for a skill. You just roll the dice and if the number is lower than the number on your sheet you succeed. This includes attacks with weapons, just roll and if the number is lower than your skill in the weapon you hit. There's also 5e-style advantage/disadvantage but again, that doesn't equate to any more math. Only time you ever really need to calculate anything is when rolling for damage.
This has a similar vibe to that and i think it could make for a cool game! Keeps the numbers pretty low but that's not necessarily a bad thing, makes every point matter more. Only concern is that you'll constantly be comparing 3 different dice with 3 differently readable fonts/colors which might take just a tad more brain power than rolling the same die and adding. Obviously not a huge deal but it might be the difference between reading a text at size 11 font and reading a text at size 9 font, during long hauls it might strain the brain a bit more than usual.
A small design point, put something small under skills that states if you’re untrained, roll 1d4. I know some players will look at their sheet and say “I don’t have that skill” assuming they can’t attempt a roll at all.
I like your basic dice mechanic idea. It's quick, simple and always allows for success and failure. It will also tend towards the middle which gives you some consistency on things you should be good at. But it also has one of my favorite things in that the results are on the dice, you don't take your dice roll and go back to add a bunch of modifiers, which is always slow. I'm going to be curious to see how you handle opposed tests. Do characters have static defenses, or is everything an opposed roll?
Yes! Modifiers are cool and all, but I like to eliminate arithmetic wherever I can. Gets in the way of the flow of things!
As for opposed tests, I'm glad you asked. This will be a future video, but I'll say that this is a player-oriented system. The GM won't be rolling that often, except for random tables and stuff like that. So when a player acts upon something, they roll. When something acts upon a player character, the player rolls to resist. NPCs typically use static values for both offense and defense, for example.
In terms of combat, I think this can help the players feel more engaged, because they're actively defending themselves, and making decisions all the while.
OMG, I LOVE what you've come up with! I am so fed up with the typical d20 system of adding modifiers ad infinitum. I play with people who struggle with math and it drags the game to a halt. I've been working on my own dice mechanic as a "hack" to the d20 system, just converting the modifiers to dice and taking the top results. However, I think what you've come up with is so elegant and works on so many levels. I can't wait to see what you've come up with!
Very, very interesting stuff here. I'm loving what I'm seeing. The Core Mechanic is pretty great!
One question though: around 15:34 when explaining Stroke of Luck you say the 6 is the result, but shouldn't it be the 5? Unless I misheard, you didn't say this roll had Advantage, so it should be middle die, yes?
Sorry I am late to seeing this as I was looking at other systems. I really like the simplicity of your 3 dice mechanic. I will check some of your other videos but are there any one-shot adventures being planned to play test this? Would love to join for a night. I don't know if you have a discord setup.
I've seen similar things before, not really that new or original. With that being said, I like the look and concept. Reminds me of Traveller with the skills which brings me to my questions:
1. Does the game have an 'age' mechanic where an older character might have more (or be better at) skills but their condition die is lower than normal? In other words, can I play a 80 yo gnome science teacher who has really great skills but his condition can never be better than a d8?
2. How is condition deteriorating? Is it going down at the same rate for the whole party? Do you character attributes determine if it goes down or not (as there is no Constitution)? Does it go down as a result of hard (or lengthy or monotonous) labour? Will it go down after chopping wood or crunching numbers for 4 hours or does it go down steadily until the party rests and if so, what are the penalties for not resting?
3. How does magic work in your system? Haven't seen any spell slots or mana points or a spell list on your character sheet. As you say in the into, in your system, 'there's always a cost'. What's the cost for casting spells?
4. Any information about the world lore would be appreciated. You've described it as 'steampunky magic-fueled sword and sorcery game' which is very broad and kind of 'throw all in' term.
Thanks for commenting, I really appreciate it!
1 and 2. I'll have to devote an entire video to go over Condition and how it works. But basically, it represents a character's overall health and wellbeing. Whenever you rest for the night, your Condition will shift one step toward one of the five stages. For example, sleeping in the rain without shelter will probably shift your Condition toward Spent (d6). Resting in a bed and having a hot meal shifts it toward Active (d8). Your Condition can also be degraded when you take a particularly nasty hit from an attack. Ordinarily though, attacks inflict Stress or Damage, which are easier to heal than your Condition.
I don't currently have any plans to make rules regarding a character's age, but if I did, that might be something interesting to look into.
3. I currently have 7 classes, each with their own unique playstyle. Nocturnals, for instance, have a unique stat called Hunger. Using their dark powers inflicts them with Fatigue, which they can remove by feeding on other creatures. But once your Hunger reaches zero, you're fully satiated, and cannot feed any longer. Like I said, each class has its own unique playstyle, and its own resource.
"Spells" are typically Class Abilities. And the cost depends on the class. What's missing on this character sheet is a generic "Class" resource field, I just haven't figured out where to put that quite yet.
4. I will have to dive into the lore and world in a future video. This video is already much longer than I wanted it to be, and I think I'll save my response for that video. I hope you'll understand. :)
I had been working on my own RPG since the 1980s, a few years ago I finally shelved it. I love the design and the world building but building solo only gets you so far. Right now I am considering resurrecting it again as I am not a fan of D&D (or Pathfinder) or the directions they are going. I will be watching your development with interest.
Thanks so much for the interest! And yeah, I empathize with that, it's hard when a game evolves into something different than what you used to love. For me, I find a lot of design inspiration by playing and reading a wide variety of games. I seldom outright copy any other mechanics, but it really gets the wheels spinning in my brain. If you do resurrect your own project, I'd be interested to see what it's about! If I can maintain traction on this channel, I might open up a game design Discord server so people can exchange playtests and get feedback and such.
For the stroke of luck you said "if it is the highest roll possible"
Do you mean specifically for that dice, or the dice set?
Eg. Assuming no advantage/disadvantage:
D6 -> 6
D8 -> 5
D8 -> 7
Does my D6 get a stroke of luck?
What if the 2nd D8 rolled a 6? Which 6 is chosen? (Presumably the D6 with stroke of luck would be mechanically advantageous, does that make it "the higher roll"?)
Also, looks 10/10 would buy
It would have to be the highest roll possible for that specific die; the die that is used for your result. So in your example, yes, you would get a Stroke of Luck on that d6.
As for that second scenario with two rolled 6s on a d6 and d8....hmm....just when I thought I'd made it proofed against weird edge cases. I think if two dice are tied for the result, you can pick which one to use. So you would get your Stroke of Luck (if you need it, which isn't terribly likely; most rolls will have a difficulty of 6 or lower).
All for the cause of ironing out what looks to be a really great system 😊
Awesome, going to follow this. Nothing I say here is intended to be a "you should do this" kind of statement, just thoughts/considerations. Banes/Boons the first thing that comes to my mind is how boons are far more stacked in favor for the player. My question is, what % chance do you have in mind for a player to roll a bane/boon per combat/scene/session? Every dice has a chance to roll a 1 bane, but D10 can roll 8, 9, 10, and D12 can roll 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Also based on the 11, I'm taking it that SoL also trigger boons, which means even more chances to get boons. There just seems to be a ton of favor in getting a boon comparatively to getting a bane, would like to hear more about this. Depending on the complexities of the boons, a simple roll to open a door could get bogged down by trying to figure out what to do with 1 bane and 5 boons. Can a boon simply cancel out a bane and vice versa?
Excellent questions, thank you!
Yes, the dice are definitely weighted to help out the players with Boons more than Banes, and that's pretty intentional. The way I plan on balancing it is to make Banes fairly weighty on their own compared to Boons. 2 Banes is going to be more harmful to the PC than 2 Banes are beneficial, for example. Also, d12s are fairly rare, so rolling 5 Boons on a single roll probably won't happen very often.
As for bogging down rolls with having to figure out what to do with Boons and Banes, yeah, that's something I'm trying to keep an eye on. One way to help mitigate this is not to call for too many frivolous rolls. Another is to emphasize in the rulebook that if the player can't think of a cool use for their Boons, then it's acceptable to simply add a really flavorful description that demonstrates how effectives and badass their character is. These aren't all-encompassing solutions, but further playtesting will reveal if it's sufficient.
Do Boons and Banes cancel each other out? Not currently, but that may change in the future. Time will tell.
Great video. I cannot wait to see the end result. I do have a question. Based on your character sheet, and how rolls work. I do not see what bonus a "Class" would be. I see the section for class abilities, I am just curious if using something like "You have 3 specialist abilities", would not allow for some variation in characters and then you could go classless. Just say, here are some templates for things like "Fighter", "Thief", "Mage"...😁That way you get the people who like to use "point buy" classless systems.
Great question! At certain stages in the design process I did consider doing a classless system, but I eventually decided it would still be cool to have a number of iconic archetypes, each with their own unique mechanics and playstyles. That said, I'm not currently planning on doing any kind of set class progression. Instead, you purchase upgrades your character by spending Experience. You can choose from your own Class Abilities, or from the list of General Abilities. In this way, you can really make your character unique by choosing what to train in as you go.
Plus, I also have (I think) a very elegant method of multiclassing, if you want to start branching out.
I spent 2 years working on creating my own rpg ttgame while purchasing lots of others. I like D&D, Dungeon World and DCC . Then I found game system that combines the best of all 3 that I love called D100 Dungeon by Martin Knight!
Hey, that looks pretty cool! My very first RPG experience was a typical dungeon delve, and I had a blast. I do think my tastes have migrated to a more story-driven, narrative game, though I still enjoy a good dungeon run every now and then. And I love me some good old-fashioned tactical combat. I think that's part of the reason I've had a hard time finding the perfect game for me. I want something that can deliver both!
This is dipping closest somewhere near Savage Worlds in my head, but I really do like measuring things by the Boons rather than the DCs. Looks fun to try out!
I think the only part that will be a little bit to get used to will be resolving in some dice rolling bots, but with something like rolldicewithfriends, I think this looks like a middle ground of narrative but with some snap!
A minute in and I already know why its called Tides of Ambition. Getting players to agree on a common goal, that's big stuff. Kidding aside I do like science fantasy, though it doesn't get a lot of attention.
I think this could be a good way to have players who is used to dnd try something different. I once tried running a Dungeon World oneshot for the group I play in and they did not enjoy it because it was too much in the other direction of what they are used to.
This seems like a very good project!
I look forward to hearing more about it. Please let me know when I can buy it haha :D
Haha, thanks! Once I have a playtest packet ready to go out to the public, I'll let you know!
Character Sheet looks great!
Just stumbled upon your channel, got probably recommended to me since I follow a few people making their own TTRPGs. Looks overall not bad, however I cannot completely agree with you that the dice mechanism being in the end irrelevant. Sure, I get it, your game seems to be like most games focused on the abilities of the characters, and that is indeed the paradigm of the hobby, so I can understand that you have that perception that all dice mechanisms lead to similar results. But my design goal is very much to break away from that paradigm of ableism, and I think there are things that can be done to make games feel very differently from what we are used to the moment people start to step back and look for other things to roll other than if the character can perform a certain action.
Yes, you are correct. I'm mostly responding to the broad trend of newbie game designers who think they've solved D&D by making it 2d10 instead of 1d20, haha (bashing myself a bit here). I was trying to make the point that I haven't done anything revolutionary with doing dice this way, and that the game's quality is based on a lot more than any particular randomizing element.
Popping dice should be at -1 for subsequent dice, so if I roll, say, a 6 on a d6, i would roll a d6-1 on the next and subsequent dice so as to make it still possible to get a result of the max roll of a single die. Otherwise, in my example, it is impossible to roll a 6; you can only roll a 5 or a 7+.
Question: can popping/exploding dice grant boons? If so, is 3 boons the maximum you can get on a single die (like if a d12 pops)? Also if so, can you reroll all three dice if they come up max to "boon fish"?
So far I like your ideas, boons sound like a great resource. A complaint I get from people who play D20 systems is it's too complex and I've been trying to simplify it. I was thinking instead of mountains of bonuses like d20s usually give, I'll allow stacking of advantage and disadvantage. This way numbers are easier to manage and forces players to get creative looking for ways to stack advantages
What about ties? if you roll 3,5, 5, and keep middle, you could keep 5, or you could have a critical and keep both. Maybe spend a resource to activate the crit?
It's definitely something I've thought about! In the end though, I ended up scrapping any rules having to do with doubles or triples. They end up incentivizing players to roll smaller dice in a weird way (rolling doubles or triples on 3d4 is a lot easier than 3d12, for example).
That said, it's possible I might come back around this idea in the future, if I can figure out how to make it work!
@@elementalyarn Yes, it is much easier to roll doubles on d4's, but if you roll 2 2's, that still only gives you a 4, and the average on a d12 is 6. They would have to roll double 3's or triple 2's just to average a d12. Not to mention if there is a cost to activate the doubles or triples, it may not be worth it.
I want to play this! Have you given thought to rolling dice for character creation ability scores?
Thanks! In my experience, rolling dice for character stat generation is fun for games in which you don't expect your character to live very long, because the stakes are pretty low, and it's fun to play out a character's (sometimes short) life. So having some variety between PCs attribute totals isn't a big deal. But for games where you become invested in a character's story and personality, and you might be playing them for a long time, I prefer things to be more evenly spread across the party.
For example, if I'm doing a D&D one shot with rolling for scores, I'm more tempted to go all the way with randomness. Roll 1d20 for each stat down the list, no swapping. Roll for a random race. Roll for a random name from Xanathar's Guide to Everything. But for a more serious game, I'd rather go with point buy or standard array.
So to answer your question, this game will probably have a standard array of dice which you can distribute across the five attributes. Currently I'm thinking (d10, d8, d6, d6, d4).
One of the problem I can see is that the system doesn't have a high granularity, they are only 5 possible value for an ability score, rolling for stats on such a small scale might cause too much balance problem between character. Or create character that can easily become perfect, as they progress, erasing what differentiate them.
This is very interesting! Your core resolution is very cohesive and finds that balance between being intuitive for new players and having a learning curve that experienced players can take advantage of. I'm curious about how you utilize the class progression structure for your game. Also Tides of Ambition is a cool evocative name.
I'm so happy to hear that, it took me weeks to refine the title into Tides of Ambition! For a while I'd been calling it "Spheres of Infinity," but that didn't seem quite right anymore.
The good ol' fantasy heartbreaker
Thank you for sharing! Very excited about this! I have lots of questions, but I will wait for more content as I am sure most of my questions have been handled already. I'm particularly excited about mechanics or features that characters can take. The main mechanic of rolling 3 dice has such a cool design space. What if all 3 dice are even or odd, the same number, are an arithmetic sequence, and so on; though the boon/bane mechanic gives you so much without having to dip into any of that. Stuff like "Critical Strike: Reduce one of your largest die with a d4 on your next attack. If your attack succeeds, multiply your damage by the result of that d4. Your condition/stress deteriorates by 1 step." If there is any opportunity to playtest a small portion of the game I would be very interested. Also you stated Kickstarter is not something happening right now, but is there a way to contribute through something like Patreon? Super cool, can't wait to see more. First time I've ever used the bell on youtube.
Ohh wow! So many things! Thanks so much for all the kind words, it's pumping me up!
I actually thought for a long time about whether I want there to be any kind of trigger for when all three dice roll the same number, but I couldn't think of a way to do it right. If it was a beneficial trigger of some kind, then that would weirdly incentivize rolling 3d4, for a higher likelihood of rolling triples. Which is a shame, because I really liked the idea of triples doing something cool. I guess I could have triples grant an extra Boon, as a bit of a consolation prize to people rolling smaller dice, but we'll see.
Once I have a playtest document ready to go, I'll be sure to let you know! And aw man, I wasn't expecting a Patreon bid so soon, haha. For now, I'll just put out all my stuff publicly, I don't think I have enough content to divide into Patron and non-Patron yet, if that makes sense.
And finally, thanks for using the bell! Just FYI, I do post the VODs of livestreams and such on here, and videos like this take me some time to make. So the next video or two you get notified of probably won't be the next development journal. Just managing expectations, haha.
@@elementalyarn Of course! Keep it up. Already 307 views. That's ~100 people watching it 3 times! That would fill a university lecture hall.
Yeah that's fair. Are there that many scenarios where 3d4 is going to succeed without rolling the same number or getting the lucky streak? I guess if you roll all 4's then get the lucky streak with a boon on top of that. But the chances are like 1/64 for that to happen, and you get the same thing with two of three dice being 4's with 1/16 chance just without the boon. I don't know. I'm guessing d4's are used in untrained skills/attacks in addition to low attributes and condition, but this seems like something that could be described by: with lucky streak and all same number boon, "and by a total miracle, you have succeeded with style" versus with lucky streak and without the all same number boon "and by a total miracle, you have succeeded". You should add it as an optional rule in the playtest. I will be that person that tries to abuse it, and I would let you know if I succeeded haha.
Perfect!
No worries! I'll check out the other content too!
I wish you the best of luck, fellow game designer! How do you handle in your stroke of luck mechanic a difficulty which exceeds the success die by one?
Oooh, good question. I'm embarrassed to say I hadn't thought of that. But I think the rule will stand. If your result die is a d4 and you roll a 4 on a difficulty of 5, I think you've earned it.
I don't typically feel too bad about tossing a bone to the PCs. For one thing, it feels good to win as a player. For another, I can always beef up the opposition to account for the difference.
Lot's of cortex prime like mechanics, and that's what sold this to me >:D
200+ pages for rules!!! while I like a detailed game system, I've gone the 'less is more' route. I have an index card RPG. the rules are on 5 pages and the character sheet is a 3×5 indexcard. a character takes 2 min or less to create. there are no baseline stats, just skills and abilities. the core mechanic is 2D6 with an initial success at 7+. similar to you, top end is 12, but it auto fail is 2 (2D6). that gives a possible success range of 3 to 12.
I could modify to using 1D12 and use three of them for adv/d-adv like your system. but it might throw off my 2D6 mid range by going to a single D12.
I'm usually not a fan of exploding dice, but the fact that you only use them if you would fail the role I think compensates the usual issue of smaller dice having advantage over larger dice
I would be really interested to see the actual math
One question tho. You said an 8 or higher gives you a boon. Is this 8 face value, or 8 total?
Wow, I was actually working on something similar to this, but I moved on. I really like this idea though.
I am liking that boon/bane system; the all-or-nothing pass/fail checks in D&D kind of gets stale and I prefer something with degrees of success or failure. Those "Yes, and..." "Yes, but.." "No, but.." and "No, and..." situations.
Out of curiosity, will there be any mechanics or abilities that would allow a character to bank their boons for a certain amount of time (perhaps being lost at the end of the encounter/end of day) or do they always have to be spent on the roll that they're gained on?
"fine, I'll do it myself"
The dice-mechanic is fascinating. But isnt it incredibly hard the tell as a GM if a certain target number is heard or easy to over cum?
Its very heard to tell whats the % chance of rolling a certain number if you roll three dice and picke to lowest, the highest or the on in the middle.
Great game design, but I wouldnt feel like I could foresee if a challenge is heard or easy. Did You do the math?
Thanks for the comment! There will be a helpful table provided in the rulebook to inform the GM and players on the general difficulties associated with target numbers. They range from 2 (very easy) to 4 (moderate) to 7+ (Very Hard), with descriptors for each integer.
The nice thing is that the difficulty of tasks don't care about the capabilities of the character attempting it. The target number is the same regardless of who is attempting it.
A contributor actually did crunch all the numbers for me, though. Here's the spreadsheet. The table at the right shows the average results for every possible combination of dice. :)
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rXakZhX3ONPM-GZZxVGi5G42C_j3Tlivk_QJsdStAAw/edit?usp=sharing
@@elementalyarn the mechanics are very intriguing. I just wished there was a lighter version of the system. I am interested in how the game develops and I will watch the other videos on this topic. Also the spreadsheet is very impressive 😅
Do you plan on adding any mechanic to introduce a d20 into the game?
Yes, actually! Probably not for standard rolls, I like the bounds of the 1-12 range, it helps keep things consistent in LOTS of ways. But I've always found the d20 to be perfect for rolling on random tables. The even 5% chance distribution lends itself perfectly in my opinion. d% is typically more than you need. So I definitely see the GM rolling a d20 for random tables quite a bit (if they so choose), as well as the players sometimes.
For example, the Inventor class has a random table of weird tech vernacular as a roleplaying aid if the player wants it. So if your gadget malfunctions, you can quickly whip out "It's not my fault! The oscillating potentiality siphon is conducting the wrong voltage!"
On the other end of things, I'm also thinking of incorporating a coin (d2) into some of the rules as kind of a "let fate decide" mechanic. But the core dice mechanic uses d4-d12 exclusively.
Random suggestion. But a good one
have you looked at the sentinels of the multiverse system? it's based on cortex prime. might be a good reference for your system as they are very similar.
I can't say I've heard of that one. When I search for it, I see a card game and a board game? I'd love to learn more about it, but I'm having a hard time locating it.
@@elementalyarn I would also recommend the cortex prime core rulebook. It's a toolbox game, so plenty of good stuff to take.
@@DiomedesRangue You know, I do remember that system, now that you mention it! I remember being intrigued because it was sorta similar to my game, haha. To be honest though, I don't think I've ever actually heard of someone actually playing a Cortex game. I'll have to look up some examples of play.
@@elementalyarn I haven't seen any good examples of play, they all seem pretty bad. I remember someone did a video on the core mechanic though.
I'm usually disappointed by random "I'm designing an RPG" videos on YT because 90% of them are a game that already exists, but the creator has only ever played D&D so they think they're a genius. But I keep clicking them because of that 10%... And this video is one of the 10% of promising systems. The core here actually seems cool, and it's not something I've seen anywhere. Some games do dice pool with different sizes, but I can't think of any that do the additional boon/bane interpretation
Too many boons on a turn may slow things down? Might turn a "yay critical!" moment into a paralysing player moment of "too many choices of what to use my boons for"
Yes, that is something I'm keeping an eye out for. I can't think of a way to eliminate that analysis paralysis entirely, so I'm working to include ways to mitigate it.
For D10 you can use double marked D20, that way all dice will be fair
What's wrong with d10s?
@@LeFlamel It depends on your game view, a;; dice in DnD set are Platonic except D10 but if necessary it can be fixed with an extra D20 marked differently
@@iliakurkin6445 does not being a platonic solid make the rolls unfair though?
@@LeFlamel Geometrically speaking that's false. Platonic solids are having 2 key properties that other solids don't.
1. All sides are having the same area and D10 kind of does it.
2. the sides are equally placed against each other (symmetry is the same everywhere) and this is where D10 fails
It fails not because the manufacturer made an error but because it is theoretically impossible to craft a 10-sided dice.
You can look it up on your own, D10, D24 and D30 are all facing the same problem, if you look at one spot, the sides will be placed against each other one way and at another spot the placement will be different,
It will be fair to admit that the computer does the job for you in hiding unfairness, but once you make your game physical, the unfairness in rolling will come back.
What I am saying is 20 = 10/2, that means if you double mark each side on D20 you will get a fair D10 which sounds like smart and creative solution to me, but that is up to you. Another thing to point out is that 20 has plenty of factors, so by double marking you can set up D2 D3 D4 D5 D10 and D20 which kind of helps you to replace the DnD set.
Can you add a WHY to all of this? WHY did you make this? WHY the same faction? WHY not just a setting book? WHY these stats? etc
I'll be sure to include my reasoning behind things in future videos. Many of your questions could videos all their own. Why am I making my own system instead of a setting book? Because I want to, that's why. Why aren't I writing a novel? Or writing fanfiction? Or learning to paint? I dunno. This is what I'm passionate about at the moment.
I just spoke with author that said that his third book in his series of Steam Punk books had to be sold as an Alternate History book because Steam Punk is functionally dead and not able to move units any more. Just saying...
Maybe i can give u some inspiration from a system I designed.
The overall idea of is:
1) There IS a whole system
(1-100 skills/proficiencies. DCs for tests set invisibly by the DM, 3 levels of success and 3 levels of failure based on the roll, with skills improving slightly with use at the end of a session, mana and fatigue as limiters, etc. It's all there under the hood, because:
2) The players don't know the rules of the system. There's no player manual. It's a narrative experience where you say what your character does and how, and then roll.
Character creation is narrative as well (no rolling stats or picking spells from a list. Tell the story of your character's life, interests, hobbies, etc, and the DM assigns skill points. Everything about the character is custom made, including spell effects etc)
But the cool and very fun thing is the experience of the players as they begin to DISCOVER how the system works, push to discover their character's limitations, etc. Beyond, of course, what already makes sense for them to know to begin with.
The DM knows the exact stats of the characters, but the players only know a narrative approximation, similar to what you know about yourself in real life.
They test themselves to see how strong they are, how quick they are, etc, and how much they're improving. They'll know that one character is the strong one, and one's the quick one, because they wrote the backstory, but it won't be like "I have 20 dex and so I have a +5 on this and that".
The point is to create a more narrative approach to the game, but without losing all the tactics and feel of combat from something like D&D, basically.
You lose the min-maxing, but you gain in much more organic and unique feeling characters and storytelling that isn't bound to the rigid "computer game" style rules of D&D.
Sounds cool! When I eventually start up a Yarn discord server, maybe I'll start up a playtest channel to try out various systems and ideas!
Banes and boons put a heavy burden on the DM, having to create complications beyond success or failure on each roll.
Banes seem overly punishing.
Boons being the universal resource means that feats don't actually provide vertical power, only horizontal.
No skill list makes things super unbalanced. Heavy Melee and Folklore are not equal.
System seems like it wants to be crunchy and freeform at the same time, which only leads to frustration.
Thank you for your feedback, I will be sure to keep an eye out for those concerns during future playtests.
Well, I mean this in the best possible way but I really don't like it, I'm gonna try to give you some proper criticism which strongly disagrees with the other comments here.
It's nearly impossible for 1 person to create a TTRPG system along the scopes of DnD that isn't just going to be both more difficult and worse than the established games out there. On top of this, you have to somehow find players that are willing to learn your system.
Now the major flaws in your game system is the huge amount of RNG. You've somehow taken DnDs system and made it far more luck based because you have no modifiers. If the chance of success is like you said somewhere between a 2 and a 6, once it's a 7-12 that already means if you're rolling without advantage it's unachievable to reach that result if 2 of your dies are a 6. Even if your character is really really good at something they're still very likely to fail a check that's only a 7-9 in difficulty rating.
I understand you've been working on this for a long time and are passionate about it, but have you done some basic math on the outcome of results with various dies? Do you understand that your idea of 2-12 difficulty check essentially makes anything above a 7 nearly unattainable for most characters? If that's the case, why does over half your difficulty checks even need to exist if they're almost never going to be achieved unless it's by a character which excels in that field?
Also your boons/banes idea is a bit ridiculous as it comes up far too often. If you throw just 3d6's than the chance of getting at least 1 boon and/or bane is around 60% and I didn't do the exact math on it. This isn't some special condition that's happening, it's more common to have boons and or banes than it is not having them.
With a d20 a natural 20/1 still has some form of specialty attached to it, as there's only a 10% chance of receiving one (without advantage/disadvantage).
Than there's the extra difficulty coming from using your system, which as some people have pointed out is simple to understand, but it's still far more difficult than DnD is. And on top of all this, how does it work with monsters? And NPCs? Isn't it going to be a nightmare to run as a DM? It will slow down the game by A LOT, and DnD is already very slow as combat goes. This makes the DM rolling easily 3 times as slow.
Than there's you stating there's far more options, but I don't see those on your sheet at all. I see heavy melee attack as an option, what if I want to grapple? What if I want to throw my axe at an enemy? What if I wanna punch an enemy? Where are all those dies options at? How do I know what to use for that?
Really if you start looking at all the options for an actual game, it becomes far too complicated and far too luck reliant. There's too much to keep track of, not enough space to put all your options into, it will just become too cluttered.
I really mean this in the best possible way, but your system is a lot worse than DnD is, and faces a lot of extra problems. One person just simply cannot make anything better, especially in their free time. And your players most likely aren't going to be willing to relearn an entire new system full of flaws that's likely going to have to go through various iterations.
I don't want to bring you down, but somebody is going to have to tell you the truth. This is likely never going to work.
also here because of a random suggestion.
Interesting Ideas so far but nothing completely new. Feels like a lot like savage worlds (different dice size instead of flat bonuses, exploding dice etc.) mixed with some other Ideas.
Why did you want to build your own mechanics? I am designing RPGs too and I usually start with making "supplements" for existing games (made a Spaceship-Supplement for Cypher and a Bodysnatcher Splat for World of Darkness).
Creating new Mechanics is a lot of work and rarely worth it imho.
Yup, I've done plenty of supplemental content for other games. I once made a 60-page rulebook for the Dragon Age RPG to provide options for the Jade Empire world. I've done a bunch of D&D 5e custom content, some of which is published on MrRhexx's shop. But at the end of the day, game mechanics is something I'm hugely passionate about, and I couldn't stop if I tried. Will it be worth it? Depends on your frame of reference. Will I get rich off designing RPGs? Certainly not. But can it be fulfilling anyway? Probably!
@@elementalyarn Rich? I think there are only a handful People who are getting rich designing RPGs and most of them are working on DnD ;)
Honestly my Newest Project is something where I am seriously considering designing my own Mechanics too because I can't find a perfect fit for it. It is going to be a hybrid Deckbuilder-RPG where the Cards are Spirits and the PCs are Shamans. Even though making the Cards is a ton of work. I have already gone through like 3 different Versions with different Systems and nothing really clicks for me.
I will keep an eye out for your Game. It could be interesting. Who knows? I am more interested in Abilities, Equipment, Spells and similar things than the core Mechanics though.
Everyone get tired of D&D. You know what happens? They come back to D&D. Good luck on your ruleset.
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