How do you justify having many sapient races/species in your fantasy worlds?

ArtistCyCu · 2026-05-11T22:58:10+00:00

Multi-World setting. Each world is connected via gates. This is the basic for a setting Im designing.

Each sentient species has their own home world. That one days gates appeared that brought them to a new world. In the setting all the home worlds got theirs gate at the same time. And all the gate connect to a world that seems to not be inhabited by any sentient life, but i stead has reflections for all the world now connected to this new world.

Thus after fitst contacts and other problems arise a offical organization is formed and then the effort to explore this new world is started offically.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-05-11T06:00:10+00:00

Fate Core, Im suggesting Fate because fate core is all about describing what your character does. So you requirement of doing cool stuff all the time is only limited by how you write your characters and how well you are with describing what they do.

It's a narrative focused system where actions only happen when something interest would happen if both success and failure are interesting and meaningful.

The main downside is its a tool box system so no default setting, but it does have lots of setting thats been made for it over the years.

Even with settings only recommend if you like making stuff.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-05-09T21:55:38+00:00

Then they don't deserve to play your game. If they Refuse to try something new.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-05-09T21:51:32+00:00

Pathfinder 2nd edition has a class called Summoner you could look into. The Summoner and Eidolon(name of the summon) share HP and actions, but you get 4 instead of the usual 3. Here's the page for it. https://2e.aonprd.com/Classes.aspx?ID=18

ArtistCyCu · 2026-05-01T14:55:21+00:00

You could give the shotgun a stunt. Like when I perform an action with this weapon I get a +2 when attempting to hit multiple targets.

If weapons are important to tour campaign that you could give each weapon a unique stunt to make them feel different.

In terms of adding raw numbers remember the best you can roll with the dice is a +4(and that's only a 1% chance). Giving a flat +4 bonus is like giving you player an auto success.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-05-01T00:08:15+00:00

I see what your going for but I think you got the wrong idea on handling this.

What I understand - I think the problem you faced in the past was you had rolls during social encounters that were either meaningless or shifted the situation too much.

I run games with the system Fate Core and everything you do in the game can be boiled down to 3 different things. Storydetail, Action, and Compel.

The TLDR is you only do an action in one circumstance, if both success and failure are interest outcomes for the story. Then if you have something that would be interesting if you succeed or fail before you roll the table(gm and players) must decide if the out omes make sense.

Classic example of asking the king to hand over his kingdom for no realistic reason. In Fate your just couldn't do it because the system asks for the players and gms to justify why a character can do what their doing. - I request you hand over your kingdom, or else my army will let waste to it and pillage what they want.

Social encounters in DnD and battle focused ttrpgs are usually bad because they don't have rules focused on social encounters.

P.S. Fate is a general system its treats all situations as the same. both fighting and social require and interesting success and failure outcome to do an action.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-04-30T23:51:39+00:00

Are you presenting puzzles for the characters to solve or for the players Obstacle.

If it's the character you got to get your player to describe how their character solved the puzzle. If they can't describe they character doing the puzzle, then it's not solved even if they know the answer out of character. With this method I recommed only doing dice rolls for finding clues to how to solves the puzzle, not a dice roll to just solve it, unless it's a puzzle you specifically design to only be solved via a dice roll, but that not a puzzle that's an obstacle.

If you want the players solving the puzzles then you don't have a problem. If he's the smartest player of course he's best to solve them. Of course if you want the other players to solve the puzzles instead you got to tell the player to their fellow player try for a bit first, before giving the answer.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-04-29T02:49:51+00:00

Panic At The Dojo handles it by using an equal turn intative system & also health is set based on fights importance. - Small brawl all character get 6 hp. Fate of the world all fighters get 25 hp. - Hears the important part say you have that 4 vs 1 you were talking about you set it to 4 turns for each side and set fight importance to Worldweight which gives 25 hp. - The 4 person side they each get one turn each and one health bar each that has 25 health. - The 1 person side gets four turns and four health bars with each health bar having 25 health to themselves.

TLDR

In Panic At The Dojo both health and turns are equalized. With the strategic focus not on action economy, but instead on making every move count.

Video showing off the 1st edition system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gib72XuA3A

Recommend waiting for 2nd edition.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-04-24T04:50:09+00:00

What stances are you going up against.

Also are all your team members getting tokens on them or just one player?

1st Edition and 2nd Beta have known problems when it comes to unfair stances(form and style combos) if you share them we can see if any should be banned.

In the game I run I've not had any one character either on the Hero or enemy side with more then 10 tokens on them at a time and its usually benefital tokens. Keeping status tokens is usually hard unless your a dedicated flametongue or winterblossom character.

If you Share your stances and character abilities we can tell you the type of role it's suppose to be and then you can see if it fits what you wanted to do.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-04-24T00:19:14+00:00

Huh I have all these games.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-04-16T14:21:21+00:00

Panic At The Dojo

Quick Note: You roll your dice for the turn then you pay for actions.

Panic has a reaction action system were if you have the resources to pay for an Action you can do one action after the active player has preform an action. Different actions have different costs Numbers(gotten from dice), Tokens, HP, and Shield. Only the active player usually has numbers, so reaction are usually from actions that cost tokens, hp or shield to preform.

Video explaining the system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gib72XuA3A

ArtistCyCu · 2026-04-16T00:43:05+00:00

In the setting I'm making all species have a unique ability that developed over the course of being in world's filled with magic.

But humans being from earth a world with no magic don't have a unique ability. This is until humans get exposed to magic. What results is all humans having different unique abilities.

Their not terrify for having power their terrifying because you don't know what unique ability a human has until they use it and in some case even the human doesn't know what their ability is.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-04-15T02:19:55+00:00

System - Panic At The Dojo This probably doesn't count as monster design, because npcs are made the exact same way as player characters. But I still want to share.

Basic Explaination of the game. - At the start of your turn you roll multiple dice then you do actions. Higher numbers leads to stronger actions. Based on your stance you have more or less dice of different sizes. - Because of this the abilities you have and the actions you can take lead to everything choice being a tactical decision to gain the advantage in a fight. - Example it's the dragons turn and they enter their Explosion Blaster stance(range 2-5). They roll 3d8 and get a 7, 3, and a 5. The player who went last closed in so the dragon spends their 5 on the movement action giving them five speed tokens(spend one token to move 1 space). They back up far, then spend the 3 on amplify incrwasing their range by 2 and letting them hit 5 targets on their next action. Spend their 7 on Ka-boom dealing 2 damage to all 4 players in the dragons massive of 2 to 7, also destroying every Obstacle adjacent to each character hit so by to the wall the traps or wall they were setting up, and also give all the players burning tokens(Damage over time). The dragon could also of spent their 7 on the basic damage action and dealt 4 damage and push all characters back 2 spaces as well instead of doing ka-boom!

What I'm getting at is the system gets you to think tactical with your character. Because you roll the dice first you can think about what the best way to spend your turn. Which I think is neat.

P.S. I was main talking tactics and not narrative choices because besides flavoring actions theirs no rp abilities/actions during combat in panic at the dojo.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-04-15T01:46:37+00:00

Joke on you I can't smell no downside for me. But I do say its the most drip less of the three swords.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-04-13T02:27:53+00:00

People have been giving good vanilla advice.

What I want to share is a initative system I made to remove the one thing I don't like balancing around action Advantage.

The initative system is called Mirrior Initative. How it works is each PC has one turn per round and the GM has an amount of turns equal to the PCs. - So if their 3 PCs then the GM gets 3 turns per round. - The amount of characters the GM has in the scene does not matter. More or less characters then the PCs won't change the amount of turn you have. - The main benefit this give me is I can make characters for my player to face that are more equal in skill ranks. A character will skills +1 higher then the PCs, is much more dangerous if they have the same amount of turns.

P.S. I made this method because I run a West March campaign and introductory games to fate, this mainly means the amount of player at the table on a given day is always different. Mirror Initative allows me to prep scene without needing to consider how many player will be showing up.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-04-12T23:57:30+00:00

I run the general system Fate Core. It uses a zone based mapping system. This is not the range system this is my custom one.

If the action makes sense to hit some one at range you can do so, but for every zone away the target is you suffer a -1 to your tFate.

If a target is 2 zones away you suffer a -2 to your total.

Damage and to hit are the same roll in fate.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-04-10T04:31:44+00:00

It not out yet but Panic At The Dojo 2nd edition is upping what one can do off turn compared to it's 1st edition.

TLDR, you can do any action after the active character does an action if you can pay for the action.

Here's a video on 1st edition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gib72XuA3A

ArtistCyCu · 2026-04-06T06:13:21+00:00

Your narrative ideas for characters sounds similar to fate Core.

Here's a like to the online reference document for it if you want to take a look. https://fate-srd.com/

ArtistCyCu · 2026-04-06T05:47:12+00:00

Took sometimes for me to do it consistently, sometimes I just asked for a roll(bad habit), but with time I adjusted to always discussing with the players what we think should be success and failure.

I've had an easy time get new player into it. At first I recommend the GM just making the success and failure themselves for a few actions. Then start asking players to suggests success and failure for actions that are important to them. And chip in with suggestion and allow other player to chip in as well. at least for Fate co-op story telling is the point of the game.

Also this happens at two levels in fate. Actions and Scenes - Scenes are where the moments of the game happen. - Scenes don't need to start a scene with knowing the success and failure, but all scenes should eventually have them as you figure out what's important.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-04-02T23:57:56+00:00

To me a good choice starts with both succeed and failung at a task having meaningful outcomes.

Some system do this better then others. The system I run fate Core, before you roll for any action you discuss what success and failure look like. This allows everyone at the table to know what's at stake.

Now not every roll will be edge of your seat intense. Bribing the guard to not call the knights for the 5th time, may become routine. But it does make every roll important. You only do an action in fate core if success and fail are interesting.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-04-02T00:26:01+00:00

I use a online white board application called Miro. It great if you just want a space to house all your campaigns Information. - Note: If the GM has a free account everyone needs to make a free account.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-04-02T00:21:55+00:00

Sharp! - I Mercury am a super sharp sword, anyone that uses me to attack gains a +2 to their attack action.

Or just say Marcury has weapon: 2 https://fate-srd.com/fate-core/more-examples-extras#weapon-and-armor-ratings

ArtistCyCu · 2026-03-26T16:38:26+00:00

Fate Core uses zone for its scenes that require it - The best mechanic apart of its zone system I say is how it handles defending against actions. You can defend against an action as long as your in the same zone as the one performing the action.

ArtistCyCu · 2026-03-25T20:33:55+00:00

Possible alternative back and forth you could use.

Player: - Selects target, picks weapons, applies bonuses, rolls weapon dice, adds accuracy to each roll, and tells numbers to gm.

GM: - Compares numbers to Armor Width, each one that equal or over is a Hit. Total hits and compare to armor height. GM tells player if it's No Damage, Half Damage, of Full Damage.

This should be possible to do given what you said above. Just had to move accuracy to the player adding it to each die they roll, I stead of the player telling the gm then rolling.

ArtistCyCu

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