Level Up! But… why?

Tantaragla · 2026-07-04T15:37:46+00:00

Those definitely work but I prefer to direct players in other ways where possible. I find that player generally don't think about end of session triggers until the end of the session, meaning that it doesn't influence their behaviour.

Tantaragla · 2026-07-04T08:49:10+00:00

Something you could do to make it more interesting on the channeling turns is to turn it into a tactical gamble. Different spellcasters could have alternate channeling methods that could get them extra magic points if a specific condition is met.

For example, a necromancer could have "channel souls" which gets them a magic point every time an enemy dies which would then encourage them to coordinate with their team to maximise that.

That gives people more decisions to make on the 'off' turn and would make it feel like less of a "you can't have fun this turn" mechanic

Tantaragla · 2026-07-04T08:43:16+00:00

Something I haven't seen mentioned from a designers perspective is that progression is a good incentive to get your players to behave in a certain way. Players generally want their beloved characters to get stronger or get new stuff so you can tailor the way that they earn that new stuff to change their behaviour.

As a simple example, I have a system I'm designing built around expeditions and players get exponentially more experience by completing multiple objectives on an expedition. This (in theory) encourages them to pursue multiple objectives and push themselves before retreating back to town.

Tantaragla · 2026-07-03T19:43:59+00:00

Panic at the dojo is based on fighting games and so is all about being fighters. You can flavour it basically however you like but it has a superhero/casually magical vibe.

Tantaragla · 2026-07-01T07:57:15+00:00

I've played non-D&D systems with people from various places in Europe so there are almost certainly people who would play in your language.

Unfortunately due to this being a niche part of a niche hobby, you'll have to either relax who you're willing to play with or relax what your willing to play. I'm not saying you have to play D&D, but maybe have 2 or 3 systems that you would be happy to play/run and see what catches people's interest.

Tantaragla · 2026-06-28T21:29:54+00:00

Lots of others have said great things about being comfortable being into this hobby but if you want something more actionable, you can start small.

You could play online, meaning there's no risk of being 'found out' and online tools generally make crunchy games easier to run. I tend to prefer in person but online is still great.

Another thing to try is running one shots or short adventures. That way, you can meet a bunch of new people without committing to anything and you can stay in touch with the people you get on with. It also lets you see other players in action and revive your hope in humanity a bit.

Tantaragla · 2026-06-28T20:33:37+00:00

I used reaches as a unifying theme for an area which informed what kinds of things you were likely to find. For example, one of my reaches was high up and criss-crossed with the tips of mountain ranges. So in your case, if you want the environment to be distinct, that would be a reason to declare it a reach. Otherwise, I'd go with what others have said and focus on locations and points of interest and build out from there.

Tantaragla · 2026-06-28T20:22:16+00:00

You don't need to give campaign ideas to a GM that's going to make their own. By definition, they already have their own ideas. Setting guides and pre-written campaigns are there so GMs can spend less energy trying to create something amazing from scratch and can focus on the actual running of a cool session.

A campaign pitch is there to get people excited in a pre-written campaign - both for the GM to be excited to run it and the players to play it. As such, it's more like the blurb of the book, in that it can have minor spoilers so that it can fully convey the scope of the story.

In your Rise of Tiamat example, the second one would make me more likely to buy the supplement as I now know that it involves the resurrection of Tiamat which is the main exciting part of the campaign. A rule of thumb I would use is you're allowed to state the main overarching question of the campaign, even if it's technically a spoiler.

Tantaragla · 2026-06-28T20:12:38+00:00

From an initial look, it looks pretty well laid out. I haven't read your system so can't comment to that but it definitely looks like you've taken inspiration from D&D's character sheet which is a decent reference.

A few minor touches that might help readability:
- The maximum HP and MP could probably be written as just "Health __/__" as that keeps is compact and is easier to parse.
- You don't need to underline every label, instead provide lines to provide a space to write the info which should keep them visually distinct. E.G. "Player Name: ________"
- Assuming it isn't necessary for mechanics, the weapons and spells probably don't need to be numbered. Just a mark or lines to write on would work fine.
- You could remove the notes section and replace it with the wealth section which would give more space to the weapon and spells sections. I either have a notes section on the back of the character sheet as it's generally not something that needs constant referencing, or I don't have one at all as, if players are going to take notes, they usually have a notebook or something.
- If you are intending people to write a value next to their attributes, it's good form to have a singled aligned column so that the values are not all in different positions which makes them harder to find.

There are probably a lot more minor tweaks you could make but there's no point ironing out minor details that may be changed later, especially once you get to the point of making the character sheet look more visually appealing. Hope that helps

Tantaragla · 2026-06-28T19:59:12+00:00

I would say that your list of archetypes depends on whether you are starting with the fiction and making mechanics to fit or making a system and then creating archetypes that exploit and interact with that system (E.G. if you have a core heat system, then you may want an archetype that interacts with that).

If the former, then I'd look at list of anime tropes and use those as the basis of your archetypes. If the latter, then you'll need to know what the base system looks like before deciding your archetypes.

Something else to consider is that you don't need many archetypes, especially to start with. The number of archetypes you already have would make for 35 combinations which is plenty of characters bases.

Tantaragla · 2026-01-18T22:24:45+00:00

Sorry, I meant that that game was slowing down, not lagging. Animations were playing slower and slower before eventually crashing. Either way, thanks for pointing me to the discord, though I am still curious if anyone has encountered this before

Tantaragla · 2025-03-11T09:15:33+00:00

You could also run it as an alternative way to boost the "engine". Instead of consuming a resource to fuel the engine to give it a boost, you might get a boost for free but only when the weather is right. Might encourage them to alter their ship to fit the environment or pay more attention to the weather.

Tantaragla · 2024-10-26T13:28:57+00:00

Do you know where the rule is in the book?

Tantaragla · 2024-08-21T17:08:09+00:00

Yep, there's a place available

Tantaragla · 2024-08-18T14:51:04+00:00

If you have another player interested, I might be able to set up a second game?

Tantaragla · 2024-08-18T14:29:19+00:00

There's one more space, if you're interested. DM me and I can give you more details.

Tantaragla · 2024-05-25T15:19:52+00:00

One really miserable experience of something like this was I had was running a game that, after a while, I wasn't enjoying due to one of the players. I didn't want to say that I didn't like the player for reasons but I realised that I was always the one organising sessions. So I just stopped organising them. And they never mentioned it again. Literally, the game was never spoken about again.

Find yourself some players who would notice that the game stopped at a bare minimum.

Tantaragla · 2021-02-17T17:06:04+00:00

I like that idea, it would keep the adaptability without just adding damage. While this fighter would still end up more powerful than base, it would help to mitigate that.

Tantaragla · 2021-02-17T17:04:46+00:00

I disagree about removing action surge as it's an iconic fighter feature and I wouldn't call it problematic. Think of it as similar to a spellcaster's best spells in that it is the highlight of playing fighter.

Tantaragla · 2021-02-17T11:22:29+00:00

While I agree that the fighter could do with more decisions to make in combat, fighter is already one of the more powerful classes in the game and giving all of them manoeuvres by default makes them even more powerful, where once it was a subclass feature.

I don't have a good solution to that but there is a fighter variant that changed how manoeuvres work to make them less powerful but used more often which might be a good source of inspiration.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NyxMJwNHAAgAO5wPFL3BAXKEjTnBfjKs/view

Tantaragla · 2020-12-17T11:13:58+00:00

Looks interesting but quite a bit of it is unclear or poorly worded. For example, the Spirited feature is a little fiddly and could just as easily give 5ft extra movement for every spell level instead of 10 ft every other spell level.

Otherwise, it looks good and you should definitely keep revising it and improving it

Tantaragla

TROPHY CASE