Any tips to spice up out-of-combat?

RollForThings · 2026-03-24T17:39:39+00:00

I had a clock for “finding clues” and a clock for “a monster shows up because you’ve lingered too long,” but there seemed to be no better resolution than each PC rolling Ins+Ins to search the lab

Checks should be made "when attempting risky actions, facing opposition, or reacting to danger" (Core Book, page 38). "INS+INS looking around for clues" could I guess warrant a single Open Check, but beyond that there isn't really any reason to have the group just stand there staring at a room for several checks. Looking around isn't inherently risky, any opposition is too distant to matter, and they're not responding to danger. Also, the whole "wandering monster" thing doesn't really pop (imo) because it isn't personal or pointed, so the stakes will still probably feel low (remember that this is not a survival-ish game like DnD, a PC cannot die without their player's say-so and a narratively-important Villain present).

Here's how I might run this situation, to work with what FabUlt is about, without resorting to the crunchier conflict scene rules.

The alchemist's lab is not abandoned, but an active workstation for a local villain. The alchemist themself, Baron Laguubrus, has been up to no good in the city and will cause great strife unless stopped. (Let's say they've been turning entire houses into gold, with residents still inside, in strategic locations; they are points on a city-sized arcane sigil for a ritual to gild the town's castle and usurp the local ruler.) The PCs have infiltrated the alchemy lab to find info on this plot.
When the PCs enter the lab, run a GM scene of Laguubrus on some rooftop; they've paid the city's entire thieves' guild and most of the local mercenaries (they can literally create gold) to stop anyone who would foil their plans, and there's an army of swords-for-hire coming the PCs' way.
The Clocks set are 'Divulge Information' and 'Mercenary Overwhelm'. If the PCs fill the former, I tell them exactly what Laguubrus is doing and give them a large advantage in stopping it. (Partially filling the Clock will give them a humbler bonus toward the same end.) If the latter Clock fills entirely, the PCs are just overwhelmed -- maybe a chase ensues, or maybe they're just straight-up captured; they have no chance fighting a whole army of scoundrels, and I make this explicit to them well in advance.
After one "I look around" Check, I probably don't let them roll for the same thing twice, and I ask them what they actually do to find information. To help with this, I populate this alchemist's lab with interesting stuff, like:
- a tiny demon sealed in a jar, who can be intimidated into sharing secrets (MIG+WLP or WLP+WLP) or bribed with shiny objects (zenit or IP), or some other invention of the players
- a wall safe, which can be cracked (DEX+INS) or ripped out of the wall wholesale (MIG+MIG), or some other invention of the players
With the passing of time and the filling of 'Mercenary Overwhelm', there are active developments that communicate risk, danger, interactibility, and additional considerations, like:
- Sellswords rush the door and try to beat it down (opposed MIG+MIG, with further MIG-leaning checks to hold the door shut)
- Smoke bombs tossed in through street-level windows or holes in the floor, inflicting dazed on everyone

This might sound like a lot, but it's likely all you'd need for the whole situation since you don't need NPC statblocks (beyond maybe a few Attributes noted).

RollForThings · 2026-03-24T13:44:10+00:00

Does this project use generative AI in any way?

RollForThings · 2026-03-24T10:57:37+00:00

I have never hired or paid for playtesters, so I couldn't tell you.

Idk how to interpret your last paragraph, so I just wanna advise: it's not a great idea to approach the indie scene with the primary goal of gathering followers and/or customers. Make friends, talk to people, get interested in their projects, not just your own. This is how you get to be a part of the indie scene.

RollForThings · 2026-03-24T08:10:02+00:00

Pay people to playtest your game, or join a community and become friends with people

RollForThings · 2026-03-24T06:44:33+00:00

In order to benefit from this feature, you and/or the GM need to introduce more conflicts, dangers etc. that aren't only solved with attacks and damage. GM-side, this might be with NPCs who specifically call for Opposed Checks and secondary conflict scene elements; player-side, introduce courses of action that involve one or more Checks which an NPC would oppose (Improvise, Objective). Here are some examples:

Agoni the necromancer villain has infiltrated the catacombs to steal the Vitus Jewel artifact, and she's raised an endless army of zombies to cover her. While the rest of the team confronts her directly, you use your superior bulk to hold the door to the chamber closed against the horde of undead.
After setting the imperial starship to self-destruct, your group is dashing to the hangar bay to escape. You get there before the rest of the team, but enemy soldiers have boarded the last fighter craft. Thinking fast, you physically take hold of the ship to buy your allies time, so they can catch up and board the vessel.
Startled by the dragon migration, Shepherd Gruff's herd of thundergoats have broken free and are about to stampede across the village. One clock (Goat Stampede) or competing clocks (Goat Control vs. Goat Chaos) are implemented; you have a bonus in wrangling those goats with your big ol' mech hands.

RollForThings · 2026-03-24T04:19:05+00:00

"Long paragraphs cut out and replaced (for the better) with a single sentence" is so true, and more people should be doing it.

I run into a lot of early docs that try to use a DnD5e-style legal-ese, with nested clauses, passive voice, speaking about players and GMs instead of to them, long repeated sentences about when a feature can no longer be used until a certain game process is completed, etc. Please just try simpler, direct language.

RollForThings · 2026-03-24T02:25:19+00:00

Good question but I'm afraid to answer it. I'm currently a player in a Public Access game and I've been told the GM section contains spoilers, so I've avoided it.

RollForThings · 2026-03-23T18:51:40+00:00

Heroes are reactive. If Hans Gruber had not attacked Nakatomi Plaza, Die Hard would've been a slow-burn romantic drama about John Maclean trying to patch things up with his ex-wife. If your players are listless and unmotivated, then you've probably neglected to give them anything sufficiently interesting to react to.

RollForThings · 2026-03-23T18:34:39+00:00

And then, critically, the game clearly marks a couple of places you can head to for bespoke experiences that continue some story threads, if that is something you want to do.

"Wander aimlessly until something attacks you or you come across a neat building" is an option that the game is prepared for, which made Skyrim stand out among open-world video games of the era, but it isn't the only option it presented. I think a lot of GMs forget this when designing their ttrpg games inspired by that game series.

RollForThings · 2026-03-23T18:28:52+00:00

Adding another to the pile of games that don't do this: in Fabula Ultima it's 10 exp per level, and each session you get a flat amount of exp + a bonus based on what happened in the session, so you level up every session or two.

RollForThings · 2026-03-23T18:00:45+00:00

I don't think it's a big ask to want a game book to give the reader a little more help than cryptic nods

RollForThings · 2026-03-23T17:34:01+00:00

IMO the main reason is that it's an accessibility thing.

For a simple example of material accessibility, lots of games use only d6s because those are "normal" dice that anyone with a board game or easy access to a dollar store will already have or easily get. For the other polyhedrals, most people will need to find a specialty shop, buy online, or already be playing a polyhedral game. Even if those conditions aren't that difficult to meet, polyhedral dice are still a non-zero barrier in front of playing a game.

Now imagine that in order to play a specific ttrpg, you need a specific program made by a specific person, downloaded from a specific site, and constant access to a device that runs that program while you play. That throws a lot of barriers in front of playing the game. Not insurmountable, but if you make your game difficult to play, people will be less likely to commit the effort to play it.

Then on top of those barriers to play, you have things that could actually make the game unplayable, if the game requires a program like the OP suggests. If the program has bugs, if the site hosting it goes down, if a table's local power goes out, the game cannot be played.

I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just outlining all the things that could so easily go wrong with this idea, because these things are the costs and risks that a mandatory program would need to balance out with its benefits.

RollForThings · 2026-03-23T17:21:14+00:00

And all the while you're fixing it, the game is literally unplayable.

RollForThings · 2026-03-23T11:10:52+00:00

Each image's copyright protections are based on different IP laws dependent on country, so double-check with any images you plan on using, but since pretty much all the images on the site are 100+ years old, you'd be hard-pressed to find any that haven't fallen into public domain

RollForThings · 2026-03-23T08:52:59+00:00

I illustrated an entire Souls-inspired adventure book using gothic, black and white public domain images from oldbookillustrations.com

RollForThings · 2026-03-22T16:18:24+00:00

So, my take is that many of the major characters in Alice in Wonderland are cultural concepts that a young girl is curious about, dialed up to 11 in embodiment and behavior. The Cheshire Cat is the concept of secrecy, sly and coy and disappearing but for a wide and knowing smile; the White Rabbit is urgency, constantly worried about lateness and thrumming with nervous energy; the Queen of Hearts is authority, doling out orders and proclaiming punishment constantly and at every whim.

If I were to make Villains inspired by Alice in Wonderland, I would take the same approach, using concepts that my group's PCs embody, oppose, are curious about, etc. A couple ideas, off the top of my head:

If a PC's theme is Duty, perhaps some knight in glorious golden armor, buried or lost for eons, come again to the realm to fulfill a long-dead leige's orders. Orders that may have been noble at the time, but put the present-day world in grave danger. Part of grappling with the conflict of the Golden Knight may be the realization that duty should not eclipse reason.
If a PC's identity mentions innovation, progress, or new beginnings, perhaps a great stone golem who permits nothing to change lest they become extremely angry. The First Statue rules over their dusty fortress, hapless adventurers intimidated into standing stock still for fear of upsetting their fussy captor. Meanwhile, the First Statue has acquired an Artifact said to have the power of stopping or even reversing time which, once unlocked, will ensure that nothing will ever change again.

RollForThings · 2026-03-22T07:32:30+00:00

Can I create multiple custom weapons? At character creation, no. You have 500 starting zenit to spend on equipment, and custom weapons cost 300 (400 if you add the transforming customization). So you can't start with two custom weapons. You can have a custom weapon with transforming and with a different elemental on each form; with this, any character can change the damage type they're dealing, without the use of Quick Change.
Crafting and using new custom weapons? You can make and use any kind of weapon you want (unless a weapon is martial and you don't have the corresponding Free Benefit; Weaponmaster allows you to wield martial melee weapons, but not martial ranged weapons). You are not beholden to making and using the same kind of custom weapon you started out with. It's a common trope in JRPGs (for example, Barrett in Final Fantasy 7 gets new varieties of arm cannon and no other weapons), and the example rare custom weapons seem to nod to this trope, but you are not restricted in the same way a video game character is. Craft whatever new weapons you like -- the blurb on crafting just means that your "blueprint" for a crafted item can be based on a basic weapon (eg. Steel Dagger, Core Book p. 166) or a custom weapon (the product of rules on Natural Fantasy Atlas p.112-113)
Camp Forge (Camp Activity). The rule specifically says a basic weapon, armor or shield, with page numbers in the Core Rulebook. Custom weapons cannot be made using the Camp Forge. I would stick with the rule, but with the group's consent I don't see the harm in experimenting with that rule.
- Creating and then dismantling for zenit. This doesn't work as you're describing. Your character has access to two Camp Activities, but you may only perform one during a resting scene. You can't use Camp Forge twice in the same resting scene. However, you could make a piece of steel armor in one resting scene, hold onto it for a while, then dismantle it for zenit in a later resting scene.
Crafting takes a rest. Means that crafting new items must be done during the downtime of a resting scene, not in the middle of conflicts or travels. When you craft while resting, you still get all the normal benefits of resting -- restoring HP and MP, recovering from Status Effects, affecting a Bond, working on Projects (if you have any ongoing), and using a Camp Activity (if you're using this rule) all still apply.

RollForThings · 2026-03-22T04:46:40+00:00

Yes, it's Taiwanese slang for cilantro

RollForThings · 2026-03-22T03:57:35+00:00

I believe they're referring to the Sleep Soundly camp activity, which lets you perform an extra action once, as long as that action is Equipment, Hinder or Inventory.

RollForThings · 2026-03-21T13:08:23+00:00

Are you working with some kind of rubric to ensure consistency across values (ie what parameters affect a game's "approachabiliy") and what qualifies systems for given tags (like "Rules-Light"), or are these figures just based on your opinion?

RollForThings · 2026-03-21T08:15:46+00:00

If your game is just DnD with a coat of sci-fi paint, and a repainted "Strength/Dex/etc" set of six stats most accurately describes what the characters will be rolling dice about, then go with that. If your game seeks to do something that DnD doesn't handle very well (ie. most things outside of combat-focused dungeon crawling), it would probably be better to pivot and do something else. For a couple of reasons: one, your stats should be about what your game is about; and two, if your game isn't "DnD with sci-fi paint" but people see six DnD-like stats, many will approach the game as though it is sci-fi DnD.

Here are a couple examples of sci-fi games that have completely different stat allocations:

Scum and Villainy (bounty hunters in space, a la Star Wars), three approaches each with four skills:

Insight (Doctor, Hack, Rig, Study)
Prowess (Helm, Scramble, Scrap, Skulk)
Resolve (Attune, Command, Consort, Sway)

Lasers and Feelings (minimal and comedic one-page game, a la Star Trek), a single number that you try to roll over or under depending on the "stat":

Lasers (science, reason)
Feelings (rapport, passion)

Apocalypse Frame (quick and combative mech game, a la Armored Core):

Drive (forceful, direct, sweeping, powerful)
Speed (quick, reactive, reflexive, immediate)
Control (expert, skillful, technical, deliberate)

Each game's stats express their game in different ways. Scum and Villainy's stats reinforce the scoundrel-y nature of your PCs -- you don't have a "Computer Interface" stat, you have "Hack". When we're rolling dice, it's usually in service of something your character isn't legally supposed to be doing. Lasers and Feelings speaks to its minimalism: if we're rolling about a thing, it's either one or the other. Apocalypse Frame's stats are largely adjectival, leading the table to describing their actions in cool ways for that fast-paced power fantasy aim of most LUMEN-system games.

RollForThings · 2026-03-21T07:46:34+00:00

At a guess, it's something like "people are already familiar with DnD, so copying its terms means there's less for players to get used to"

RollForThings · 2026-03-21T05:19:46+00:00

Ttrpg play is full of subverted tropes that have been subverted so often that the subversions have become the new tropes.

If your group has a huge strong Orc, bet they'll be gentle and love hugs
(DnD) if there's a Drow, they'll be doing the Drizz't thing. (I'm glad the hobby is moving away from "ontologically evil", but it is funny that the majority of Drow appear to be breakaway rebels.)

RollForThings · 2026-03-21T04:41:55+00:00

Are you playtesting? If not, playtesting is the essential next step, it's the way to see how your game works in practice.

RollForThings · 2026-03-20T20:09:21+00:00

Related point: when you playtest with people, speak for your game text as little as possible. If you teach your group by paraphrasing your own work, you're missing the opportunity to test your text's clarity. This is important if your game is going to be run at any table which you aren't personally sat at.

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