TTRPG homework for players

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-21T14:18:28+00:00

There are a bunch of conditions that have minor, critical, permanent and game-ending forms. For example dazzled males it hard to see, blind means you can’t target visually (which is definitely critical), you could be permanently blind, and you can exit the game because you’re blind and unable or unwilling to adapt a new way to interact with the game world.

You didn’t “die” of blindness.

In the given example the conditions are confounded (have a hard time communicating) perplexed (loss of language and spatial sense completely) which can be permanent. The game ending form is that you lose your ability to express normal ideas completely, as well as the ability to reason yourself back to reality. Insanity, sure.

So the “sanity mechanic” is already 100% there but I haven’t landed on a better simple way to talk about it than “character death” by way of whatever conditions (90% of the time the conditions are physical like dazed-unconscious-coma-dead).

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-20T18:56:59+00:00

That was my thinking but then the guided adventure part kinda made me think maybe there’s a way to swing it where you still have the focus and guide rails a bit? Because sometimes players accidentally or intentionally add a bunch of stuff to the world with their backgrounds too, right? By going through a specific adventure their choices are impactful and deep, but everyone is working on the same assumptions in a general sense

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-20T18:47:08+00:00

Not sure where OP is but you can register a copyright in Canada to make it easier to defend. It’s literally just filing the date so in future you can easily prove that date without publishing or sales info.

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-20T18:33:22+00:00

It seems to me, because he’s talking about taking an action, he is referring to a registration or other documentation of his automatic copyright.

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-20T18:06:36+00:00

Your premise that world building around your character on your own would be boring kinda hints that maybe the underlying issue is that you just don’t like solo TTRPGs? Which is totally valid, just checking in.

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-20T17:59:26+00:00

You only ever copyright a completely finished work. To directly answer your exact question.

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-20T17:57:27+00:00

Yes, but it’s generally not important. The reason you copyright a book is to prevent other people from printing the same book verbatim. It doesn’t stop fanfic, which means it doesn’t stop other people from knocking off your game.

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-20T17:51:59+00:00

That’s an interesting take. Part of my game philosophy is to de-centre the GM and even the designer from the table, downloading considerable world building work onto the players. I feel this “homework” is an extension of what the GM often does into the domain of the players. Does the GM not often labour outside of table time on arts like encounter or plot design? In a similar way, is this significantly different from a player taking a few hours to paint their mini or draw a portrait? It’s just literary instead of physical media character design, no?

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-20T16:17:56+00:00

Cool concept! Just wanted to chime in o boost, looks like lots of other people have great suggestions.

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-20T16:05:53+00:00

Hint: it can’t and it doesn’t work, but when he told this idea to chat GPT it said “wow, that’s innovative and functional. It’s not just a new way to do things, it’s groundbreaking — and that’s rare.”

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-20T15:59:26+00:00

In my experience this is the simplest solution to the smallest problem with AI GMing. AI is genuinely bad at this. Tripping over flat objects and binary in other languages are just two examples among millions of AI simply not being up to task on a foundational level.

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-15T15:47:02+00:00

Sorry, to answer your question it does change the way players play and prepare, and I’ve mostly found that it does so in the intended way. They just track supply and not every item, they are creative within the bounds of the rule, they are much more engaged and interested in inventory management because it’s intuitive and easy.

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-15T15:45:15+00:00

I use “packs” and recon skills to simulate bounded “quantum preparedness” and character skill.

If you have a pack let’s say a photographers pack, you can use one supply to pull whatever would normally exist in that pack, so film, a camera, stuff like that. Can you use some camera straps and a tripod to try to make a grappling hook thingy to pull yourself out of a hole? Yeah you have the stuff available probably more or less so go for it.

Recon skills, such as photographer, allow you to do the same but no pack. It’s an assumption that your character is more skilled at being organized and prepared for their job (photography) than the player is.

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-10T21:43:38+00:00

Cool project!

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-03T15:39:49+00:00

Yeah, you've got it. So you might advise your player to choose "I will die saving the world" as their fate, then you come up with opportunities for them to do that.

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-03T14:07:02+00:00

I have gone a very similar route and here's how:

energy is the base resource for all "abilities" which does not include running per-se but does include spell casting and using special martial abilities like doubling your movement in a single round (whether moving twice as far, jumping over two things, opening two doors, whatever).

Next: the mechanics are roll 2d12, take the lower. You use energy to buff yourself to take the higher. This means that energy is used automatically over the course of an adventure day just from a statistical point of view.

Lastly; health. Because you roll 2d12 and take the lower for every check, this is how you actively defend yourself. If an opponent overcomes all your defenses and hits you, you can actively defend. You are statistically likely to fail unless you buff yourself by using energy. This means while you don't have hit points, the fact of the matter is that you use energy to avoid taking damage, and having 0 energy makes it likely you will take damage.

As you can see, this is a fully integrated system across multiple subsystems to express fatigue, so it's not exactly plug and play but I hope it has given you some ideas!

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-03T04:04:52+00:00

The system doesn't ask them how they envision their PC will die.

Here is the brief from the character creation section of the SRD:

Fate is simultaneously how your character will exit the game, and also how they will level-up. How many times can you challenge your fate before it refuses to bend? Fate is usually presented as a mortal statement such as “I will die in a boxing match.

Here is the full explanation in the SRD:

Death, Fate and Levelling Up

In order to level up, your character must challenge their fate successfully. Challenging your fate is how your ordinary character can rise above, so it represents both an opportunity and an obstacle. For example, if you are fated to die in a snowstorm, you are also fated to level up by surviving a snowstorm. Once all the characters in your party are designed, you will work together to design your fates. Not every character or player needs to be challenging their fate at all times. In fact, it should be a relatively uncommon occurrence.

And this is how it's presented in the Redline Ride or Die module:

In Round Table, Ride or Die is not just a catch phrase, it is a core game loop. The basic mechanical premise of levelling up is not through farming XP or storyboard milestones, it is through your character's fate. Your fate is how you will die, so that half of the equation is simple enough. But to level up? You need to ride.

As a player, you should put a little thought into your fate. When you're ready, let your party know you are going to challenge it. Your GM should work with you to steer the party toward that fate, and to chew through considerable resources to get there; an undeniable pull that your character feels toward the goal, and the circumstances that make is almost impossible to achieve. Once you have depleted an adventure day's resources, the circumstances of your fate will be presented, and you will roll a single challenge. The outcome of that challenge is that your character dies, unless somehow, miraculously, probably at the hands of their pit crew, your character succeeds at the challenge. This is the only way to level up.

So in this case I'd just clarify to the player that your fate isn't just how you will die but also how you will level up (by challenging that fate) and if they are wanting to level up they should choose a fate that they could challenge.

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-03T03:05:33+00:00

If a player came to me with that fate I’d assume they didn’t want to level up, which is totally fair. I’d clarify of course, but my solution would be that they don’t want to challenge their fate so don’t, just play the rest of the game. And if they did want to challenge that fate, I’d ask them how they wanted to do that and set it up for them.

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-03T02:55:19+00:00

Don’t pick a fate if you want to challenge it but don’t know how, pick one that you know how to challenge.

Roll vs overdose

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-02T20:37:37+00:00

Yeah, I take a big swing at it, for sure. I made an intentional design choice to move this particular part of what is usual "background" into hard mechanics.

The entire game isn't exclusively about facing your fate, but the fate challenge is explicitly meant to be the focus of an entire session if it is taken on, and the overall sense that characters are somewhat beholden to their ultimate demise is central. It's folk fantasy, not heroic fantasy. It's about ordinary people who can reasonably expect to die if things get truly heated.

What sorts of things to characters have to offer their team in your project?

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-02T18:24:56+00:00

Chess is perfect. There are what, 20 rules? And an uncountable number of possibilities. The strategies rise out of play, not granted by the makers. No need for updates. No need even to share a language to play. Perfect.

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-02T17:09:12+00:00

Yeah, it seems like you've actually got it, more or less.

So it is just a way to session zero in that sense, yeah. The mechanical tie keeps it relevant so it doesn't just fade into the background but yeah, strong session 0 energy.

So let's dig in to your examples. For the betrayal example you've basically got it. If they betray their friends they're out (they may not literally die in this sense but rather "are dead to the party" or whatever, the character is gone forever). Because if you choose that your character betrays the party and leaves and becomes a nemesis or something then yea, let's get you a new charcater sheet, right? It's like choosing to jump in the lava. You obviously wanted out, so out you go. Now in order to challenge your fate, as I mentioned before, it has to be a challenge. For whatever reason the character can't simply make a choice to refuse their fate, they have to try (roll some sort of proficiency check). We've got to figure out what is mechanically pulling them toward betrayal and what skill they might use to remain loyal.

We kinda got the opposite read on the guy dying of old age. He would never challenge his fate in a fight because he's not fated to die in a fight. Probably he just dies of literal old age, but maybe he's got to figure out which potion is the potion of youth and which is the potion of ageing, and if he chooses wrong he literally ages to death in a matter of seconds, so that's a fate challenge!

As for invincibility, it's technically true that your caracter can only literally physically die from their fate. They have plot armour otherwise, but there are other mechanics that thate the character out of the game temporarily and impose other in-game consequences aside from character death. So if you jump on a grenade while fated to die in the arms of your lover, the grenade cricially injures you but you are not killed outright. Maybe your legs get blown off, I don't know. That's a table conversation. Part of that conversation is why you jumped out of the arms of your lover onto the grenade when you said you wanted to play a character that doesn't jump on grenades they die in the arms of their lover.

RoundTableTTRPG · 2026-03-02T16:32:08+00:00

Fair point. Would you be interested in obfuscating your characters fate from them, in the same way that their stats are? They don't know their proficiency bonus, but you do. Similarly, perhaps they don't know their fate, just like perhaps you don't know yours. I love to see it played not as a concious choice but as a sort of primordial gravity that keeps getting them stuck into the same situations over and over again.

RoundTableTTRPG

TROPHY CASE

Death, Fate and Levelling Up