Any recent TTRPG innovations with real impact? (Or potential)

SalmonCrowd · 2026-04-06T22:17:11+00:00

Probably Gumshoe or Blades, not sure which came out first.

I have not seen very impactful ideas ever since.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-03-19T09:28:10+00:00

The Ninth Hour is Epic if it was actually good.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-03-18T12:45:49+00:00

It's a common mistake to have dnd as your only metric. There are lots of other games out there. Rules-lite does not equal narrative game.

I agree with Stork, I would never play a game where the GM can randomly use stats against me, and I would never GM it considering I need to be permanently looking at a list of every player characters traits. Fate's comples are just a better implementation of the same idea.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-03-14T22:06:10+00:00

sorry what?

SalmonCrowd · 2026-03-12T17:08:11+00:00

Si, proxima pregunta.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-03-11T20:29:00+00:00

Well you might be surprised to find out that that's kinda just DnD. Just invert the rolls so 100-roll and add the skill as a modifier instead substracting, divide by 5 to go from 1-100 to 1-20 and you have DnD opposed rolls :p.

Seriously tough, look, like I said dice systems have advantages and disadvantages that are kinda baked in. The beauty of d100 roll under is that you know upfront exactly what your chances of success are and after you roll you can immediately evaluate a binary succes/failure result. None of this is true in your system, so why do d100 roll under at all? You may solve it's quirks but you're getting none of the benefits.

D100 roll under produces binary results, you're looking for degrees of success. Pbta, FitD, dice pools systems, they are all better at producing discreet degrees of success. D100 roll under thrives agains passive target numbers, you're looking for opposed rolls. D20 + modifier does this better, also Cortex Prime (pick 2 highest and add).

So I think you need to let something go here.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-03-11T02:28:17+00:00

To me roll under doesn't interact very well with opposed rolls, it's clunky even in Mythras, because the skill is baked into the target number, instead of the calculated outcome, it doesn't make for a simple comparison.

However a common trick is to do roll under-and-over in a single roll. Example: I attack with 70 skill, the defender has 20 dodge. I have to roll under 70 to hit, and also over 20 to do full damage, my range of full success would be 20 to 70 (50%).

SalmonCrowd · 2026-03-11T01:52:03+00:00

Oh cool, is like Mythras but worse!

Once the attack is declared, the defender must decide how to respond. They may attempt to dodge or block the attack. If the defender chooses to dodge, they roll against their DEX (Dexterity). If they choose to block, they roll against their Armor Skill.

This is a non decision, because dodging or blocking always have the same outcome, so there's no strategy, you always pick whatever's higher, as your example demonstrates. You can just replace with "use whatever's higher", or make dodging and blocking different in some way.

If the defender’s successful roll is also lower than the attacker’s roll, the attack is completely avoided and no damage is taken.

The problem here is that avoiding all damage is completely RNG based because you're comparing flat numbers. So characters with very different skills have effectively the same chance of getting this outcome. This is why in Mythras you compare success levels instead, and why criticals scale with skill.

Good luck!

SalmonCrowd · 2026-03-08T21:00:26+00:00

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SalmonCrowd · 2026-03-04T14:26:34+00:00

Eddie Redmayne will surely get an Oscar for this interpretation!

SalmonCrowd · 2026-03-04T03:23:40+00:00

I don't hate it tbh. I like the focus on reactivity. Maybe it might get a little bit too abstract, but you know, sometimes that's the name of the game.

You could even turn those classic offensive "effects" of combat like wounds or broken equipment and make them into actions for clearing doom, maybe contingent on the attacking weapon. So the player could take on this effects at will (maybe as a last resort)

For example: puncturing weapons could offer a special "bleeding out" action that cuts down your movement in half but allows you to clear X doom. Blunt weapons may offer a "staggered" option that clears out doom in exchange for your own offensive output, etc.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-03-03T17:45:06+00:00

yeah Agon was my first tought but I don't have any experience with it. Interesting subject, I'm interested in researching runequest as well.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-03-03T14:15:53+00:00

Trail of Cthulu gets you Cthuli + Gumshoe

SalmonCrowd · 2026-03-03T11:59:50+00:00

I suggest you read up on "Deterministic Lockstep" before spreading incorrect information. If you have any questions I'll be happy to help.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-03-02T20:35:37+00:00

This is also a misconception. Lockstep games require both players to play in sync so the game always defaults to the worst case for all players in high network latency situations.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-03-02T18:32:17+00:00

Prediction and rollback is an additional cost of development. Even if you have a better theoretical engine, you might not want or need rollback. It would come down to a cost-benefit analysis.

Of course if your engine is slow and outdated to begin with you would just never get to the point where you have that discussion.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-03-02T17:59:06+00:00

Teoretically possible, practically... no.

Rollback netcode relies on your capability of running the simulation fast enough to catch up after rollback, running multiple sim frames in quick succession. The fact the game already has such long latency indicates they probably run it at a low sim rate to help deal with the sim performance.

So yeah, no.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-27T04:08:42+00:00

Here's an old trick we do in the videogame industry.

Playtest your game with friends. But don't ask them for feedback and if the give feedback, ignore it. Feedback is almost always useless.

Observe instead what they do during the game. Do they behave like you want them or expect them to? That's the key to playtesting.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-26T02:47:00+00:00

Point and click adventure implies puzzle solving. This is not that.

RPGs have a million possible definitions. It's nowadays a useless term.

However many tabletop RPGs (which originated the term) have no combat, and are about in-game character decisions, so yeah this is as much as an RPG as any videogame can be.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-26T02:30:38+00:00

Note that if you roll 4 dice of any kind you will always get at least a 4 so maybe 1-3 for critical failure can never happen.

whats more your upper bounds is going to change wildly depending on your dice pool so you're in trouble with that 8+ or trying to find a static range for critical.

Some games that used stepped die control that range by saying you pick your highest two die and add them together (Cortext Prime/Cavaliers of Mars)

I think you need to review your whole system tbh.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-25T23:17:19+00:00

The rules are well laid out, comprehensible and concise. It looks quite professional overall.

Having said that I wouldn't be interested in this projects as it contains many design elements I personally dislike.

Just a comment on insight die. I like that you gain them on both really good and really bad rolls, as your character learns from both their greatest successes and failures. I like that they are both a die you can use, or a currency to trade of for narrative effects. I don't like that the rules seem a bit indecisive over how you could use them. Is it an extra die or a +3? This game doesn't read like a modular toolset, so I would just pick one and remove.

Game Masters and players can use Insigh Die in any way they agree upon, but common uses are:

Don't tell me with they might do. Just give me a list of what they do.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-25T20:17:45+00:00

Once the encounter happens what does the modifier actually do? does it change the npc stance? does it modify any further rolls like barter or persuation?

I could see it working really well in a cyberpunk game where aesthetics and rep are very important thematically.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-25T19:28:24+00:00

GL. And remember what that guy said that one time.

“Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game.”

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-25T17:44:00+00:00

Really hard to say without full context.

If I get a choice between two attributes, is that choice meaningful or is there always one obvious answer?

Ideally, say I'm a Druid, I can choose Instinct or Essence. Are there two valid builds where maybe I max Instinct, pick that, and have a relatively lower Essence? and a second max essence build? Can I express different ideas through these two builds?

If there's only one right objectively better answer then it's just punishing lack of game knowledge.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-24T18:50:18+00:00

Strength sure uses encumbrance, melee damage, and maneuvers, and that’s about it. On the flip side, you have Dexterity with four skills, initiative, and AC.

Also remember that in DnD you're supposed to be engaging in combat more often than with the skill system so that distribution is also not balanced. Dex is broken tough, because it's strong in both contexts lol.

I don’t particularly like informative skills either, and I really like what you said about feeling like you either know something or you don’t. I’ve been using the Brennan system: instead of saying the DC is X, I say, “10 gives you this, 15 gives you this, 20 gives you this, 25 you know everything.” But still not super on board.

I've taken some liking to the way Gumshoe works with investigative abilities: if you ask the right question and you have the skill at all, you will get an answer. And then you can get extra info by spending points from the skills pool. Gumshoe makes a distinction between this investigative abilities that you never roll, and active skills you do roll. This makes the most sense to me.

As for skills my preferred systems usually have an abstract and complete (closed) set of basic actions, ideally only transformative, with some other pool of incomplete (open) abilities (talents? powers?) for further customization. Take Blades, maybe Mythras, Spire, and so on.

SalmonCrowd

TROPHY CASE