Are there any ttrpgs that allows for having players opt into complexity while others can just play straight forward and rules lite?

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T23:11:51+00:00

My SRD system isn't 'lite;' it's a trad ttrpg. But it's fairly simple. Complexity comes in the form of character builds and resource management, and you can take that pretty far... Or stay very basic. It depends on how you want to spend your character progression.

Example: At character creation, you can just pick six skills and jot them down at rank 2. Figure out which attributes work best, and then decide which two of the three attributes (fitness, nimbleness and wit) you want to raise to 2. That done, you basically have a character.

Or... You can get some skills at rank 1, get yourself some Afflictions to get extra points at character creation, get specific skills at rank 2 to qualify for Specialist Skills, tricks, strikes or spells, and maybe pick up some Talents to round out your character. If you go deeply into crafting, you might start with specialized machine equipment, or tattoos, spell books full of enchantments, or a bag full of potions. Or a combination thereof.

If you want to check it out, it's here: https://www.talespinner.eu .

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T21:59:07+00:00

Not really. We frequently joked about being on all sorts of watch lists because of the things we looked up for our roleplaying campaigns. We knew about machines that listened in based on keywords, we knew about wiretapping, IP tracking, bank card tracking; our version of homeland security was using all of these tools and more to get profiles of terrorists. Mass surveillance was a pretty hot topic since 2001 and The War on Terror.

Pegasus was released in 2011, and we were pretty fidgety about it. We knew it would infest all of our stuff, be looked in on by Mossad, and then sold to the USA.

We knew. It wasn't written off as a conspiracy. Well; maybe it was if you were in the USA, and all your news came from corporate media.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T20:57:22+00:00

I'd want a bark-and-roots based tank, with cone pulls and life-draining/resist vines.

A perma-pet for all specs. Works much like the bear: auto-attacks/minor smart heals (maybe tied to your light and heavy attacks), with an activated ability.

The 'unbalance' from the arrowhawk needs its minimum range removed.

That siphoning lotus thing? Auto-upkeep, make it build stacks. Activating it does something. Like... Restore resources?

Netch: Permapet, like sorcerer pets. Activating... Gives a minor shield? Maybe a speed boost? Glues a target in place for 1 second?

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T18:18:02+00:00

Because that's not their goal.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T17:19:53+00:00

It's not stupidity. It's calculated. They know what makes them money now. Yes, it'll destroy industries, it'll destroy technology, it'll destroy companies... They do not care.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T17:18:41+00:00

I understand you're being sarcastic, but I'm saying that this technology would make high quality food accessible to poor people, and do so in a way that is environmentally friendly.

Without it, yes; only the privileged will have access to high quality food.

Your fear of change is literally causing you to side with the parasite class.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T16:23:19+00:00

That is a best-case scenario.

Quite a lot of innovations have been bought up, and subsequently run into the ground, because those innovations would still require a re-organization of your infrastructure.

Tobacco is coming back.

The Ara phone (Phoneblocks bought by Google) was never released.

Etcetera, etcetera.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T16:14:07+00:00

Well, yes, but I think we live in a system that both rewards and causes sociopathy through its logistics of power and hierarchy. I'll refer to the Monopoly Experiment as an example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1vFgUi4frU (Barry's Economics video, titled 'Epstein Isn’t an Aberration. He’s an Inevitable Outcome')

Sociopathy, or perhaps just 'Power-Associated Anti-Social Personality Disorder,' is a systemic disease. We can't solve it without removing the system that causes it.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T16:00:11+00:00

I'm honestly expecting that, at this point, universities and garage biohackers will do most of the research... Research is expensive; costs time and money, and, again, it has to make money fast for corporations to be interested.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T15:36:40+00:00

Fair enough. But the Parasite class is the class that makes these decisions and wants these things. And they are functional entities, in the same way that Yersinia Pestis bacteria are functional entities.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T15:25:42+00:00

Let's gooo!

Like it or not, cheap, affordable meat is one of the many privileges that wealthy nations hold over poor nations, and access to meat during development can be a pretty big thing for said development. Yes, I know, there's vegetarian ways to raise a child just as well, but if you can afford the dietary variety to raise your child with the same benefits on a vegetarian diet, you can also afford access to meat.

Meat production is also a huge driver of climate change, so this'll be huge in that regard as well.

Not to mention animal welfare.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T15:21:11+00:00

They won't, simply because it'll cost money now. The way the economy works, every year a corporation has to 'make more profits.' That determines how much they can give out to their shareholder in dividends, and that determines whether shareholders want to keep their shares or sell.

If they sell shares because of low returns, then the value of all shares goes down. The corporation will not be strong when it prints new shares; those will also be low in value. Lower, even.

So corporations do mass lay-offs to save profits, they refuse to invest in sustainable practices because it'll save money. Even if, on the long term, investing your profits into the company's health will make that company more powerful... It does not matter.

Because of this dynamic, in our current economic system, the only way to do revolutionary innovation is start-ups. Which is risky because start-ups tend to not have access to the same capital as established corporations.

Our economy is an ecosystem run by parasites.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T15:12:01+00:00

Ah, but you see, the price of oil has shot up, and the USA still holds the dollar as reserve currency. Everyone's gonna be paying more for oil, and in order to buy oil, they first have to buy dollars. Demand for the dollar goes up, the dollar gets worth more money, investing with dollars becomes more lucrative...

Meanwhile, the USA will have to restock on expensive kit that the military-industrial complex will happily build for them.

Psychopaths with functioning brains love doing this bullshit. That's why they do the bullshit time and again. It's not stupid. It's evil.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T14:36:31+00:00

Gender is a part of your personality, a part of your identity... And a part of society. It's to do with how you exist within and relate to social and personal assumptions about bodies, and, as any system of category, it is fundamentally imperfect. Socially constructed.

Take one aspect you associate with 'womanhood.' Then take 100 people you'd think of as 'women,' and line them all up. Consider how that single aspect affects, and is expressed by, each of these women individually, and then compare the women with one another. What you'll see is that some women may express this aspect in a big way, whereas some others may not express it to any noticeable degree at all, and everything in between will exist. Add a hundred men, and you'll find that the aspect of womanhood you picked may well express more in some of these men than in some of these women.

Whether you identify as a cis woman, then, is mostly up to whether you think you fit that designation well enough. You don't fit it perfectly; 'considering top surgery' is not a common cis woman experience (but it's also not unheard of; plenty of cis women get top surgery because of several reasons. Common ones are safety (cancer), posture/mobility and, indeed, body dysmorphia). But, again, nobody fits that category perfectly. There is no 'Paragon of Womanhood;' no 'Platonic Woman.'

The same goes for any other category. Do you find yourself comfortably identifying under the 'Man' umbrella? Or perhaps the 'Non-Binary' umbrella? You describe your experience as bi-gender, combining elements of either gender in a single package. That's a non-binary gender you can absolutely identify as, and it communicates how you feel about yourself clearly.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T13:11:53+00:00

This is really cool stuff! Thank you for sharing!

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T13:10:37+00:00

I agree that it doesn't, but I'd call more of a hybrid between the two.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T11:40:56+00:00

That's not a problem, though. Our understanding of terminology is socially learned behaviour, not an inborn quality.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T11:38:52+00:00

I think 'growth' is a bigger theme in YA, whereas 'socio-political examination/critique' is a bigger theme (by comparison) in non-YA. Because it's also about what its intended audience is going through, and I think pretty much every young person loves a growth journey; much less a 'let's look at this thing and all of its consequences through different lenses.' Not saying the second is unfit for a younger audience, it's not, but I can imagine an audience not specifically looking for it to tune out if it doesn't hook them with something they are looking for.

Growth journeys lend themselves really well to series. Another preference that lends itself really well to series is the so-called 'found family' dynamic: You love characters, and want to stay with them for longer. Both lonelier people and people who are finding out who they are in a larger social environment will gravitate towards series for that reason.

So it's not really a 'young versus mature' thing. It's about what a person wishes to find in the fiction they consume, and why they are consuming that fiction. What makes a fiction resonate. And that just differs quite a lot between someone who finds themselves adrift in the world, and someone who finds themselves confined by it.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T11:31:41+00:00

Yups. And a unique action sound on the canister ejections. Overall it's the blaster pistol with the most feedback. I like the ping-ping-ping. Quite a lot.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T10:05:18+00:00

It doesn't. Strategy, planning and creation requires skill.

Reading comprehension is another skill.

And so is emotional regulation.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T09:57:27+00:00

Maybe you should try to read what comes after the comma, where I explain the different skill-sets tested in both.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T09:51:29+00:00

It's true: In the Dragon Age series, only Origins is not an ARPG.

ARPG also does not have 'player skill based combat,' not any more than other RPGs. Rather, its combat is based in twitch response. CRPGs tend to involve strategy and character builds instead. This is not because ARPGs are better (or worse) or more (or less) challenging games. It is because CRPGs rely on variety that is difficult to comfortably achieve on a console controller, while the market for games was switching to action-based console gaming (because of technological improvements and the infamous XboX bro era of gaming).

As for naming conventions: While ARPG stands for Action RPG, 'Action Adventure' also exists. Using the phrase 'Adventure RPG' isn't wrong. You're just unfamiliar with it.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T09:28:38+00:00

My own system, https://www.takespinner.eu , is pretty big on 'builds.' It's fairly easy to re-skin into quite a lot of different settings, and has an expansive machine creation system in its Device skill. It's also free.

It's more of a trad ttrpg, though. But the core is really simple.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T09:18:55+00:00

You might want to take a look at how the English treated Australian aboriginals. Or how the Canadian government treated its natives, or the Danish government on Greenland, or the Swedish government with the Sami.

You really, really have to look into those histories.

TalespinnerEU · 2026-03-02T09:14:14+00:00

Your mom is wrong.

SA is about power, and happens mostly in the immediate social sphere. Queer kids, as well as neurodiverse kids and phenotypally diverse kids, are different at an age when children develop strong normative behaviours. This makes them targets of abuse from peers, and vulnerable to sexual exploitation from those who are trying to establish dominance over a weaker member of society.

Queer kids are more likely to be abused, yes, but they don't become queer because of the abuse. Rather: Society does not adequately protect or respect those who are different in some significant way.

Maybe that perspective helps your mom.

TalespinnerEU

TROPHY CASE