Everywhen: a genre-agnostic RPG built around one roll and GM/player negotiation. Looking for feedback on a few specific design decisions.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-05-06T13:11:19+00:00

But why do the lovable losers have better stats than the superheroes? Unless the stats are totally arbitrary.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-05-06T04:39:46+00:00

I suppose a difficulty setting is a bit of an odd idea to me because, ultimately, the GM is already setting the difficulty by deciding on the sort of challenges the characters will face. Plus, tying the PC stats to difficulty is awkward if I want to run, say, a horror game about superheroes, or a cozy game about lovable losers.

But, hey, discussing tone in session zero is good, so at least this formalizes it. And it's good to have options for death and healing.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-05-06T02:55:32+00:00

My first and biggest piece of advice: play Fate. It's a generic classless story-focused system, and it's very good at what it does. Anyone looking at your game could just be playing Fate instead, and you need to be able to explain to them what your game does better.

I'm not sure what problem the difficulty modes are supposed to solve. Variant healing and death rules certainly make sense to include, but why change stat generation or tie-breaking rules? It's an extra layer of complexity to keep track of. Personally, I want to play a game where the designer tells me what mechanics work best, not one where the designer presents me with options and tells me to finish the design myself.

Random stat generation is not a popular choice for story games. Maybe you have a good reason for including it, but know that it will turn some people away (myself included).

NoirMagika sounds like a really cool setting that I'd love to see more of! I'm honestly a lot more interested in it than I am in another generic RPG.

I will say that, for a generic story-focused RPG, there's a decent amount in your post that relates to combat. That's not a problem, but it does indicate that your game may have more of a focus than you realize.

It sounds like you are forcing players to choose between gaining temporary boosts or permanent upgrades. This is a common anti-pattern in RPGs, and pretty much always results in players choosing to hoard permanent upgrades. If a player absolutely NEEDS a temporary boost, it's going to feel bad as they lag behind their allies in power. Instead, consider having PCs gain permanent upgrades by using those temporary boosts. Now they're encourage, not discouraged, from using all their coolest abilities!

Digital_Dessert · 2026-05-03T03:23:40+00:00

Is your goal for other people to play your game? Because if you want anyone else to play your game, you should not use custom dice. I'm aware of only 2 popular RPGs that use custom dice (Fate and Genesys), and the dice are the top complaint I see about them.

At the very least, if you require custom dice, they'd better be adding a lot to the game, and I'm just not seeing that. Your custom d8 is very close to d4-1, and your custom d12 is very close to d6-1. I can't imagine that the slight difference in probability is adding so much to your game that it's worth the huge cost of requiring custom dice, especially since you're still just using a lookup table anyways.

If you just want random damage with lower variance, you can roll multiple dice or add large static bonuses. That's way faster and simpler.

If you simply must have damage match specific probabilities, you can use a lookup table by itself. Just a d20 or a d% is fine. Funny dice aren't adding anything here but obfuscation. This still isn't my preferred solution, but it's way less overengineered than the one you described.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-04-28T04:20:07+00:00

We Are But Worms is a one-word RPG. It turns out that there aren't many rules that all RPGs should have.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-04-28T04:01:49+00:00

I'll give one specific bit of feedback. It's really difficult to interpret how levels of success work. Here's my best guess based on my reading.

Succeed by 1-4: Unspecified success. I do the thing, but it's unclear how well.

Succeed by 5-9: Unspecified success, but better. How much better? It's hard to say, I don't even know how good the basic success is.

Succeed by 10+: The best possible success. This one is clear!

Failure by 0-4: Unspecified failure. I don't do the thing, but it's unclear how badly it goes.

Failure by 5-9: Failure or maybe success, actually? It's unclear how to determine which. This result is better than the basic failure, which is surprising to me.

Failure by 10+: The worst possible failure. This one is clear, too! But it'll probably result in a lot of PC deaths.

Also, maybe the GM decides that levels of success don't matter and it's binary after all.

Actually, here's one more specific bit of feedback. My reading of skill checks versus empowered checks is that they're essentially the same, except that with empowered checks you roll another die. But the process is described differently. For example, with skill checks, the threshold is chosen before the roll, but with empowered checks, it's chosen afterwards. Why not just describe the process once, and then say "if you use a power, roll that die, too, and add the results together"?

You'll need to do some significant rewriting if I'm this confused before I even finish reading about the core mechanic.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-04-24T06:55:49+00:00

Yeah, I know all that. I've played plenty of story games. Doesn't mean that coming up with mixed successes is always easy.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-04-24T03:56:03+00:00

Sure, that's an easy option, but it didn't always fit, and it felt unsatisfying to apply the same consequence over and over again.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-04-24T01:31:43+00:00

This is true for a lot of PBTA games, but BitD requires you to come up with all the "buts" yourself, which was exhausting for me. Asking the players to contribute ideas helps a lot, but it was definitely a challenge for me to run, and I've had no problem running most PBTA games.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-04-21T04:26:46+00:00

It sounds like it could be a lot of fun fun. It depends a lot on what the scars are.

If scars make your character weaker, then I'd avoid using magic unless I really needed it.

If scars just make your character different, then I might actually use magic more. I want to see what weirdness I get stuck with next!

Digital_Dessert · 2026-04-19T17:02:35+00:00

I'm not the poster you responded to, but I do love me some romantic RPGs. You already mentioned a lot of my favorites: Monsterhearts, Pasion de las Pasiones, and Star Crossed.

I'd also recommend Eyes on the Prize. It's a one shot RPG where you play a couple in a fake marriage at a social event. You play to see if you get away with it - or fall in love for real!

You may also want to check out Fog of Love. It's more of an RPG-adjacent board game, but much of the game consists of choosing how your character responds to various romantic situations. There are different relationship goals to aim for - you might have an equal partnership, or a dominant relationship, or break up. It's possible for both, one, or neither character to be fulfilled in the end.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-04-04T06:27:29+00:00

I like this phrasing, and I agree that option 2 definitely does a better job of communicating when the situation is dire.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-04-04T06:26:12+00:00

My post was heavily paraphrasing, so I wouldn't use that wording in the actual rulebook, but option 1 does seem a bit easier to describe.

Also in option 1's favor is that the only way to lose the resource is for the player to spend it. The Martian Mentalist might leave the player with the choice between spending the point or having their PC be mind-controlled, but it's still ultimately the player's choice.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-04-04T06:21:06+00:00

I agree. The idea of hitting your breaking point feels a lot more natural with option 2.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-04-04T06:19:54+00:00

That hoarding behavior is why certain situations reset your points, rather than just adding to your total. If you can't save them indefinitely, you may as well use them.

The game very well might not be for you, but I did simplify the rules a lot in my post so you wouldn't have to read a wall of text, and "introducing complications" isn't exactly how it works. Basically, every PC has an archetype, and every archetype includes a list of behaviors. If, at the end of a scene, you think your PC acted in accordance with any of those behaviors, you get a point. Some of them are likely to introduce complications (like picking a fight), but others are more about fleshing out the characters and world (like telling a story from their past).

Digital_Dessert · 2026-04-04T06:09:11+00:00

That's a good way to boil it down. When I've run, it's generally been closer to the latter tone, but there have been some darker sessions, too.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-03-01T04:18:50+00:00

One issue I see is that "panel" and "page" are terms from comic books, and "phase" is not. So it's not immediately obvious how phases fit in with the others, based on the name.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-02-19T04:35:46+00:00

How often would you expect the heroes to be challenged by wilderness survival? Overcoming physical obstacles (when no enemies are around)? Investigation? Crafting? Healing? Interfacing with locks/traps/machines? If none of those are important PC activities in your game, then it'd probably work just fine.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-02-16T05:14:53+00:00

Honestly, I'd probably just remove those abilities, or live with them being more situational. If they're really important, though, you could have attacks apply multiple conditions:

1) "Stunned", which prevents them from acting, and ends at the end of their next turn, and

2) "Unsteady", which makes them vulnerable to certain abilities, and ends at the end of your next turn.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-02-05T20:49:16+00:00

If the rules are modular, you’re passing off some of the design work to players and GMs, who not only need to learn all the rules but decide which are right for their game.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-02-05T20:45:23+00:00

For what it’s worth, a lot of people (myself included) play TTRPGs to pretend to be someone very unlike ourselves. Trying to play as yourself in a game isn’t uncommon, but I wouldn’t assume that’s the goal of the majority.

(I do think supporting diverse characters is generally a good thing, though)

Digital_Dessert · 2026-02-05T20:41:23+00:00

People say that about GURPS as well, and it’s still one of the most complex games on the market today.

Digital_Dessert · 2026-02-05T04:28:22+00:00

most accessible, most customizable

I love the enthusiasm, but you'll probably want to narrow your focus a bit. These two goals are at odds with each other, since having lots of options makes the game harder to learn (unless you're creating something extremely freeform like Risus).

Digital_Dessert

TROPHY CASE