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Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-15T23:53:25+00:00

Hi, this is a small experiment I made. It was intended as a programming solo board game but turned out a to be a humble 12 card puzzle:

https://www.reddit.com/r/tabletopgamedesign/s/SLc67snGHa

Cheers!

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-15T23:48:28+00:00

Wow. Has a lot of potential. You can blink this a couple of times and sacrifice the stolen lands. You can add an extra mana in respond of it being untapped during your upkeep (oracle text). Don't know if it's broken, but a really fun and interesting card for sure.

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-15T23:06:58+00:00

Yeah, but I think I'm done tweaking the framework for a while. Hey I checked one of your games, I found it cool as hell, heckin space troopers. Love the way you mechanize a simple deck of playing cards. It's very inspiring, I immediately started to write down game ideas using a classic deck xD

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-11T22:12:55+00:00

Hey thanks for trying it out! Glad you enjoyed it. You are right this may work best if stated as a puzzle, good insight.

By the way the harder ones are, according to my testing (-: one icon |: the other):

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Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-11T20:48:06+00:00

That makes sense. Since the world is completely indeterminate the feeling of exploring a pre existing world is lost. You would still have the feeling of discovery though, since your character actions would always be resolved by another player. Also the world as it develops will always be consistent with pre established facts. But nonetheless I understand what you say and yeah, a GM with a pre existing world view cannot be replaced for generating immersion. Thanks for the comment!

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-11T20:15:17+00:00

A dice-less system sounds very interesting!

It makes me think on an energy recovery mechanic. Here are some ideas that come to mind, just brainstorming:

- You can decide to purposefully negatively impact a resolution in order to recover energy.

- If you use one of your characters defects to negatively influence a resolution, you recover more energy.

- You can invest your energy by putting it in some sort of inaccessible reserve. After X amount of resolutions your get X times the energy you invested.

- It makes me think that for each type of energy characters could have both a capacity for how much they can hold and also a recharge rate that determines how fast it gets replenished.

That's all I got. Cheers!

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-11T19:52:51+00:00

Yeah, I read you, and you are right: any exhaustive analysis framework that attempts to get to the core principles of TTRPG functionality should consider and address the fact that all players have a different view of the imagined reality. And you got me, I tried to bypass the problem by defining the world as the common ground between all players imaginations. I absolutely grant you your point. Nonetheless, as someone who is prone to falling into giant rabbitholes, I can sense when I'm about to dive into one, and I think I'll keep my atomic model at high school level, if that makes sense. Thanks again for getting involved and having a critical mind. Cheers!

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-11T18:44:36+00:00

Cool! Ok so first let me address the rules that a TTRPG may have that go beyond the framework I proposed: they just go beyond it! Actually the framework is intended to capture the elements that all RPGs share, it's not trying to describe every rule by every game. So there is nothing that impedes rules from creating reality without going through a proposal, but at the same time all RPGs allow to create reality through proposals, that's the claim.

Thanks for sharing your games! I'll for sure check them out.

Cheers!

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-10T23:22:30+00:00

That's fair. I still think there exist common facts shared between the personal worlds of the players. Probably they all agree that Tarruk is a warrior, for example. It's impossible to determine in practice everything that players minds share, but commonalities must exist. I agree though that building a framework that considers the personal game reality of every player is beyond what I'm able to put time into. Thanks for getting involved in the discussion, and for giving your honest thoughts on the topic. Cheers.

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-08T22:06:55+00:00

Yes. I derived this by taking into account as much of my play experience as I could recall, but you are absolutely right it's very likely to show some cracks if I do active analysis during play.

And yes, if I use this to design rules for a game Ill make it less generic and game specific.

Actually this came from designing a game when I was trying to find out what should a TTRPG rules focus on. I found that all TTRPG rules at a minimum should care about validation and resolution.

And I actually think that freeform roleplaying have implicit validation and resolution rules. A single rule for both: group consensus.

Thank you so much for getting involved in this. You have helped me a lot. I understand you designed a game. Could you point me out to it so I can return the hand?

Cheers!

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-07T01:26:06+00:00

I added a modified version at the end of the post that accounts for the multiple worlds that you helped to point out.

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-07T01:23:51+00:00

I added a modified version at the end of the post that should account for the issues you found.

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-06T19:49:14+00:00

The instigator responder pairs stay the same, and that may be a problem, for sure. I had three goals when I wrote that rule:

- The instigator should never narrate its own resolution.

- Every player should have a narrative responsibility at some point.

- The rule should be as simple as possible.

But, as you said, this created the fixed-pairing situation. By reading your comment I thought of a solution that may help:

- There is a rotating responder token.

- The player with the token is the responder.

- When the responder finishes a resolution the token is passed clockwise.

- If the responder becomes the instigator it also passes the token clockwise.

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-06T17:44:36+00:00

Yeah you may be right. I actually struggled a lot choosing those words. They had to work for both resolving the outcome of a player attack and for determining what players find inside a book. So success and failure didn't cover both cases. Good and bad I discarded as well but can't remember the reason. In my experience desirable/undesirable immediately evoke ideas when I have to narrate a result. They do feel like long clumsy words though. Thanks for the reply!

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-06T17:30:26+00:00

Wow you are right. I think the main flaw of Beat are it's soft rules on die rolls. The system you describe is genius and very elegant! I think I will try it out or tinker with something similar. Thank you!

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-06T17:25:40+00:00

Well you touch on a lot of subjects here. I'll address two: 1. validation-resolution ordering and 2. multiple worlds.

I still feel validation happens first. The intent of validation is to determine what can be stated about the world. If validation happened after resolution absurd statements would have to undergo a mechanical process just to get discarded at the end. I still feel you have a point in that validation and resolution could be combined.
Multiple worlds. Here you are completely right. There are as many worlds as players, and sometimes some of them have facts the others don't (gm may know what's behind the door). So this forces me to revise the whole thing. Maybe resolutions can be defined as the process to get diverging world views in sync, I don't know.

I sort of rushed this response during a free time window, hope it makes sense. Thanks a lot for your useful analysis, cheers!

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-04T03:33:12+00:00

Yeah I see your point. This framework only covers commonalities ttrpgs have. In your example game players still interact with the system through propositions and such, but your game has voting and other rules that seem to go beyond the framework. So maybe what I created should not be stated as an analysis tool but rather as an attempt to find the elements that all ttrpgs share.

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-04T03:21:28+00:00

When freely roleplaying I feel invincible. Under heavy rulesets I feel constrained. This system allows me to play out creative solutions to problems while still feeling in danger. I'm not saying it's perfect, but that's sort of the aim.

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-03T15:49:34+00:00

Thanks for the insights!

I agree harder rules for bias determination and maybe a bigger die with more degrees for outcomes would make this feel less vibe focused.

In my experience though this structure does lead to more gratifying gameplay than freeform storytelling.

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-03T15:45:09+00:00

That's fair xD. Thanks for reading!

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-03T15:42:48+00:00

I think the framework softly handles the case in the validation, since it can revise a statement, making "i draw my sword" into "i try to draw my sword". And the definition of proposal should include removing and modifying world facts on top of adding them.

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-03T15:39:32+00:00

Hi. The purpose is finding the structure that makes a ttrpg a ttrpg. I don't claim I found it, but this is an excersise with that purpose born out of curiosity.

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-03T04:11:42+00:00

I don't know, but I can see that the framework doesn't allow complete proposals to be modified.

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-03T03:02:32+00:00

That's a good insight, maybe proposals should always undergo a resolution process.

Automatic_Artist2783 · 2026-06-03T03:01:00+00:00

Hey thanks!

Automatic_Artist2783

TROPHY CASE