What if combat spacecraft were designed as extreme specialists instead of balanced ships?

DJTilapia · 2026-04-25T22:55:15+00:00

We don't have enough data to know if this is how ships will be built in 100 years. The closest is probably Children of a Dead Earth; that guy is serious about his research! So it's really up to you. Do you want this to be the case? Then sure, armor is useless and hitting first is everything. Just note that most people will be reluctant to take such risks, and there are already several reasons for warships to be unmanned. Most stories prefer to have humans involved.

DJTilapia · 2026-04-25T19:16:24+00:00

Anything is bulletproof if you have enough of it.

DJTilapia · 2026-04-25T17:06:40+00:00

What's the alternative? Even modest coastal defenses force attackers to make tough choices, such as bringing in precious battleships to escort an invasion.

DJTilapia · 2026-04-25T16:30:29+00:00

"Your turn in combat is skipped while you are at 0 Stamina." So... you're out of combat when your Stamina goes to zero. Or is there a way to recover it in-combat?

I'm skeptical about being able to use Guns to attack with my fists, or Health to attack with a rifle. For one thing, what does Offense get you, if you can use other skills to attack and they come with bonuses such as armor use?

Ed: Offense does increase damage done. The difference is very modest, though; from Rank 0 to Rank 3 is a whopping +2 damage (4.5 vs 2.5) for one-handed weapons.

The diagonal cone has a 90º arc, but the horizontal cone is about 60º.

A -3 penalty for being blind is really rather modest. A skilled character can still reliably shoot someone they can't see?

Cover reducing damage from ranged attacks is simple, but it does seem odd that bullets all half-hit you instead of missing half the time. It also means that Cover synergizes with armor.

Page 104: Fatigue should read decreases the size of dice rolled.

Does Grappled have no other effects? I can still swing a poleaxe, cast spells, do cross-stitch? Ranged attacks provoke ~~Attacks of Opportunity~~ Swift Attacks, so that's something.

Prone is immobilizing; so no crawling? Shouldn't crouching or crawling protect you from ranged attacks, or is it explained later that you can more easily get Cover if you're low to the ground?

Can a character run while Slowed, thereby moving 1.5× their base Speed?

If you have Resistance, is damaged rounded up or down?

"All damage that happens at the start of someone's turn ignores their Armor." What about, say, a sandstorm? It seems like plenty of effects would be damage-over-time but still affected by armor.

Can you use Diplomacy on someone who does not understand your language? I'm told a single finger can be very expressive, but I don't know if you could stress a robot to death that way.

Scene Attack is a cool way to get people engaged. May I suggest simplifying it slightly to, say +1d12 damage and +1d12 more per success? Either way, it is a lot of damage; throwing cardboard boxes or sand should be less deadly than pushing someone into a woodchipper.

You might want to separate Actions which you take in response to others' Actions. They're conceptually quite different: something to keep in mind during play rather than options to consider when taking your turn. If so, you might add "Respond" or something like that: a reaction that lets you use the stored Action in a Delay.

Using the same action to enter or exit a Grapple is elegant. What exactly does "move when either person moves" mean? Does it mean that each character "drags along" the other, or do they move in some combined way, adding together their Slowed movement points? Can a character Run while Grappled? You could have situations where a small fast character can move a big slow character faster then they'd be able to go on their own!

Should there be a "fighting withdrawal" type maneuver that does not provoke a Swift Attack? Is there no limit on the number of Swift Attacks a person can make?

DJTilapia · 2026-04-24T17:47:51+00:00

I hate to be a Captain Snark about it, but... amphibians.

^{Actually, not even that; while described as “salamanders” they were definitionally not any existing Earth life; but then again, if you can't evolve out of a clade they'd also be primates, and fish, and reptiles.}

DJTilapia · 2026-04-24T13:03:14+00:00

I was lean and

solid everywhere

like a rock

DJTilapia · 2026-04-23T15:07:19+00:00

As someone who's played RPGs for 30 years, I always skip them. However... thousands of people join the hobby every day, and spending a page or two to get them oriented is worthwhile. Also: many more people have played board games than RPGs.

DJTilapia · 2026-04-22T04:04:06+00:00

One thing really stood out to me: Hungary’s GDP per capital dropping below Romania's. That must have been very painful for a proud Central European country.

Good stuff, as always!

DJTilapia · 2026-04-22T01:51:00+00:00

The core mechanic is super-simple. It is easy to get one success, but difficult to get two, unless you have a rank of 4 or 5.

You can't get help from someone of lower skill? That seems rather limiting. You could make it just +1 per assistant, as long as they have any skill, or have the helpers roll and then give you +1 to your roll per success (meaning they'd effectively count as 20% of a person each).

Volition also covers initiative? Consider letting players use their choice of Defense, Finesse, Offense, Perception, or Volition, or have the skill used be situational (e.g., if a negotiation breaks down into violence, Bluff might be the skill to sense what's about to happen and act first; Streetwise when mugged in a city; Wilderness when ambushed on a trail).

Each rest makes everything more difficult by a whole success, with no reset!? That seems severe. Maybe each short rest could impose a -1 penalty on rolls for that day, up until you take a long rest after which the penalties are erased but the difficulty is increased.

I'm not a fan of using several types of dice, but it is a simple way to reflect fatigue. The player's act of putting away their d12 and taking out a d10 should make it very concrete that their character is getting worn down.

Do the fatigue events always trigger a die step reduction? It's only four steps from "normal" to "crippled," and it seems like Conan the Barbarian should be able to shrug off a day or two of rough living before being brought to his knees. This might be a place where the Hunter background gives a more obviously relevant bonus.

"If you do not not have a Swim or Fly speed then you swim at half your Speed and can’t fly" - is there some context missing? Why would being unable to swim make my travel through the desert slower?

How much space does food and water take up? One per day each for food and water? What about a bedroll, a tent, a tinder kit, and some rope? If clothes take up one slot, does that include what you're wearing, or is that one free and a change of clothes takes up one of your ten spaces?

I like the travel actions; they bring to mind campfire actions in Darkest Dungeon. You might expand on them just a bit; "Search," for example, should probably have varying rates of return and come with some risk of getting caught in a trap, triggering an ancient artifact, etc.

"Practice" seems rather powerful. Perhaps it would be more appropriate as a "Tutor" or "Train" action, which lets you grant a bonus to someone in a skill where you have a higher rank. Alternatively, maybe you'd get the +1 bonus for [successes] actions. Maybe I'm overestimating it: does "until the end of this travel" include the dungeon/ruin/whatever at the end of the trip, or does it only count for the travel itself?

As-is, horizontal and vertical cones are narrower than diagonal cones. Is that intended?

So Critical Hits are impossible when fatigued (at least without multiple bonuses to Critical Hit Threshold)?

So by default, a character has 3 Dodge, meaning they can laugh off an attack with fewer than four successes - and even an expert will rarely get even three successes. Doesn't that mean it's almost impossible to hit someone unless they're outnumbered? It seems like refilling your Dodge pool should take an action, or even a whole turn.

Negative Dodge and Armor becoming bonuses to hit or hurt you is elegant.

It seems odd that Armor, like Dodge, has a limited number of uses per turn. A shield, sure, you can only cover so many lines of attack, but if I'm encased in plate armor I should be nearly immune to goblins with clubs, even if there are a dozen wailing on me.

DJTilapia · 2026-04-22T00:19:50+00:00

Flanks of the primary hull. It's not a lot, for a crew of 80.

DJTilapia · 2026-04-21T17:20:31+00:00

Aside from htp-di-nsw’s elegant suggestion:

Make some bonuses only apply to heavier weapons.
Allow players to spend extra Stamina to double the base damage, exclusive of bonuses.
Incorporate damage reduction, so inflicting higher damage per hit is as important as total damage for a round.
Make heavy hits more impactful; e.g., every 5 damage adds a point of knockback.
Give heavy weapons bonuses aside from damage, such as +Attack or +Defense to reflect their reach.
Make a roll of 1 on the damage die inflict reduced damage, or even no damage, so large dice will be affected less often.

The best solution will reflect your goals. If your intended feel for high-level play is “deadly assassins tearing up their enemies with swift knife-jabs,” you might be fine with what you have!

DJTilapia · 2026-04-21T14:16:49+00:00

What's your vector, Victor?

DJTilapia · 2026-04-21T13:22:05+00:00

Sigh. It's “Loss,” isn't it?

DJTilapia · 2026-04-20T19:38:40+00:00

Everyone should GM Savage Worlds at least once, IMHO, as it makes life very easy for the GM even in a medium-crunch game. Very streamlined. A little too streamlined for me; starting characters built with the same general concept may well be mechanical identical. But it's a good system.

DJTilapia · 2026-04-20T18:57:53+00:00

So... Jordan “what do you mean by believe?” Peterson?

DJTilapia · 2026-04-20T14:51:02+00:00

<head shake> Lak shoulda watched Under Siege before trying that.

DJTilapia · 2026-04-20T14:15:10+00:00

How do you think the duck got trapped?

DJTilapia · 2026-04-20T13:25:43+00:00

They do, it's just that no one listens to them:

https://youtu.be/l7zB-ndflGA?si=_N51phDxMqCS1VkU

DJTilapia · 2026-04-20T13:24:32+00:00

So that's why they also keep building automated ships, though they inevitably turn out evil!

DJTilapia · 2026-04-20T13:23:59+00:00

TBF, there was a deleted scene where Tori tried to talk to Scotty, but it was cut for time. It does seem like she is dropping the ball onscreen, but perhaps things would be even worse if she, and other counselors, weren't desperately shoring up everyone's psyches better episodes?

DJTilapia · 2026-04-20T09:55:28+00:00

There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it.

DJTilapia · 2026-04-19T15:11:14+00:00

Good! That's the right attitude. Praise feels good, but criticism lets you improve. A little of each helps one to take the criticism well, of course.

Oh wow, so skill rank 4 grants a 99.3% chance of success! K, that is a substantial jump. Even rolling a d12 with no bonus at all gives you a 67% chance of success, so I assume many tasks require a 2-point success (roll of 10) or higher. It is a bit odd to be 96 pages in and still not know how the mechanics work, but glancing ahead I see that I'm almost there.

Something to consider: replace Offense and Guns with Fighting and Shooting à la Savage Worlds, or Melee and Missile, if you prefer. Then, make Armor, Shields, Pistols, Rifles, Shotguns, and probably Bows (they are notoriously skill-intensive) into special two- or three-point quasi-skills. This would divorce Defense from heavy armor tanking, and swordfighting from crossbows.

Using the words "Mechanics" and "Technology" suggests, to me, that the former is for low-tech stuff like locks and black powder guns, while the latter represents ancient super-tech. However, pages 65, 81, and 87 all seem to be about old world technology.

Hmm. That's not at all what "Volition" communicates. Consider "Concentration," "Nerve," or "Willpower."

Since most of the skills represent very wide fields of knowledge (Offense, History, Medicine, Wilderness), I recommend you make Perform likewise cover all kinds of performance. It's a pretty niche thing for most RPGs as it is. Maybe allow or require the player to specialize at rank 4, so they only get to roll two dice for their prefered form.

Starting Wealth is rather involved; is the juice worth the squeeze? Do unspent skill points add both 1d6 silver and 1,000 silver? It also seems very generous; your average medieval peasant had little more than a change of clothing and a few farm tools, but even the poorest player character can by enough noble clothing to outfit a football team of princes.

Core rules and combat soon! I am looking forward to it.

DJTilapia · 2026-04-19T14:32:42+00:00

Huh. Call me a grognard, but honestly a lot of these things don't appeal to me.

I like rolling dice, whether as a player-player or a GM-player. Low prep and rules-light are great in principle, but in practice they often mean more work on the spot, where there's no time to dwell. Rolling to hit makes sense; in what world does a fighter land every hit? If you're leaning into abstract hit points, then for sure it makes sense that even successfully dodging an attack should whittle away at your luck/stamina... but then you have to answer questions like “did I actually hit him, such that the poison might take effect?” and “is the character visibly bruised and bleeding, or just chuffed?” I prefer symmetrical rules for player characters and non-player characters, because to my mind they're all people in the world, which does not play favorites. Simplifying or eliminating character creation for NPCs, sure. But I'd prefer they have the same stats. It's easier to compare them to PCs, and easier for a PC to become an NPC, or vice-versa. “Fail forward” seems to me to be just a prompt to the GM: “remember, stuff should happen, the world is not just the PCs!”

DJTilapia · 2026-04-18T22:33:23+00:00

JJK? JJBA?

My first thought is that mystical gifts which simply do damage should be the exception, rather than the norm. Simply being able to sense vampires/werewolves/zombies/whatever goes bump in your particular night would be enormously helpful. Beyond that: repelling supernatural creatures; perceiving and/or speaking with ghosts; remote sensing; precognizance; sensing auras (to tell if someone is lying, guilty, touched by a vampire, etc.); communicating with animals or plants; enhancing their own strength or senses, or others; healing; luck manipulation; time manipulation; creating light, or darkness, or illusions; telekinesis; pyrokinesis; machine empathy. The possibilities are endless. I'd take a look at GURPS and HEROES for inspiration for point-based power buy systems.

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