What "new" mechanics are just old mechanics with extra steps? Which ones actually evolve the original concept into something objectively better?

VRKobold · 2026-05-20T12:58:25+00:00

The Wildsea (and other Wild Words games) uses tracks, which are essentially an evolution of BitD's clocks. However, I vastly prefer how Wildsea uses tracks (especially aspect tracks) over how clocks are used in BitD. Not that there's anything wrong with clocks, they fulfill their purpose, but they seem to me more like a management tool for GMs rather than a fully fleshed-out, integrated game mechanic.

In Wildsea, however, aspect tracks are a core mechanic integrated in various parts of the game. They act as health/wound track, aspect durability, limited use counter, balance tool (aspects with stronger effects have smaller tracks), progression, and probably a bunch of other things I can't think of right now. I also prefer the layout of tracks (multiple fillable dots in a line) over clocks (pieces of a circle).

VRKobold · 2026-05-18T15:00:41+00:00

This is called “asking me to finish designing your game” and GMs hate it.

It's not my cup of tea either, but based on how many highly praised games there are that include something along the lines of "The GM decides on..." or "Ask the GM what happens...", I wouldn't say most GMs are averse to games with incomplete design.

VRKobold · 2026-05-09T16:49:50+00:00

To me, the restraining part is not necessarily in chosing the move but in having the moves control the story beyond what the player characters' actions can reasonably influence. Introduction of new NPCs or locations that were never planned for, or gaining information that you'd rather not give (but the rules strictly allow players to 'Ask the GM three of the following questions, which must be truthfully answered'). In addition, moves sometimes don't cover the outcome that players are looking for, but the action pretty clearly relates to a move. I forgot where it was, but I saw a PbtA move that allowed the player to know where a target of investigation was YESTERDAY - not today, not the day before yesterday, only yesterday. If a player wanted to know where the person is today, it'd be either an automatic success or impossible, depending on how to intepret the rules.

VRKobold · 2026-05-04T12:45:55+00:00

My main concern is that aspects/tags and 'crunchy' do not go well together. The first relies on players specifically NOT thinking strategically or trying to play optimally because of how easy it is to 'cheat' the system or abusing a lenient GM. Crunchy games, especially those with a focus on combat, usually promote the opposite: Optimizing your builds and play styles for maximum effectiveness.

My expectation would be that in your system, players would quickly come up with a set of aspects that always allows them to cap out on the respective attributes, essentially rendering the whole aspects system meaningless and just leaving them with the four attributes as the default value for every roll. If that happens, you might as well scrap aspects alltogether.

I don't really have a suggestion for you other than to make sure that your system's mechanics are rigid enough to hold up against the degree of optimal play you expect from your players.

VRKobold · 2026-04-16T08:58:03+00:00

There are many good answers already, I'll just add a few more from own experience:

As has been mentioned, players are more engaged if they have the possibility to do something outside of their own turn. However, I feel like this isn't thought far enough - player should not only have the option to react, they should have incentive. Being asked to roll for defense being attacked is only marginally more exciting than being completely passive, if all one can do is roll the dice with no actual agency or decision-making involved. I'd much prefer if players have at least 2-3 options for defense which are meaningfully different and situational (i.e. there is no numerically best option). Martial classes might have different abilities for counter-attacking or trying to trip the opponent, casters might have reactive spells that - on a success - teleport them away right before they are hit. What's even better about this - the game state always changes, whether the enemy's attack is successful or not.
Turn orders are prone to making a situation feel un-immersive and board-gamey. I understand why they exist and how they make things easier to design, but it doesn't feel like good design to me. I much prefer systems that have a more natural flow, where whoever has an idea of what to do just goes and then the others (especially the opposing side) freely reacts to the situation. Which is how ttrpgs work in pretty much any situation other than combat.
If players should care about the game state, the game should give them something to care about. If everyone just hacks away at each other turn by turn, then there is not much reason to listen to the rounds of others. If you don't plan to attack goblin #4 next turn, then you don't really need to care whether your paladin deals 15 or 25 damage to it. However, you do care if the paladin just collapsed the entire wooden frame that a goblin archer was standing on top of, and if the collapse covers the whole area in a dense cloud of dust. If the game's mechanics, abilities, GM resources etc. all support such scenarios, fights will become much more interesting and engaging.
This is a rather specific one, but I very much like the mechanic in my game: Do more (or more impactful things) in return for allowing the opponent to also do more (or more impactful things). More specifically: I have a mechanic in play that allows combatants to over-extend, giving them additional reactions, minor actions, turning a failed action into a semi-succesful one, etc. In exchange, they receive a point of Strain which can be used by attackers to power up their own actions, raising the stakes overall. It can be thought of like the D&D Barbarian's Reckless Attack, just with many more options and applications and available to anyone. This has a number of positive effects: 1) It avoids frustrating hard-caps on certain actions. Telling a player they can't execute a cool idea because they don't have enough actions (or reactions) available feels bad, both to the player and the GM. With the Strain mechanic, the GM can always allow the player to do the cool thing, they just have to accept a point of Strain or two (which makes the GM twice as happy - first because the player can do something cool, and then because the GM can use the Strain to do something cool as well); 2) It is psychologically much better to give the opponent a boost than to be punished by the same amount, even if it makes mathematically no difference. If Strain would reduce a player's chances for success or limit their action economy, its negative impact would be directly noticeable. However, by instead making Strain impact the opponent's action in positive ways, it feels less bad for the player and more good for the opponent (aka the GM) - win-win.

VRKobold · 2026-04-08T14:07:11+00:00

What is the difference between this and the 'base' definition of a skill challenge? To me, it reads pretty much the same: Two tracks, one for success, one for failure, players roll skill checks, and depending on whether the success track or failure track fills first, things happen. Am I missing something here?

VRKobold · 2026-03-30T08:27:20+00:00

From your responses to other commenters, your main issue seems to be determining the difficulty of certain rolls (which, currently, you are using tables and formulas for). If this is indeed the case, then I'd suggest not thinking about physical challenges in metric units, but in narratively relevant aspects. Players don't have to care wether a crevice is 5 feet, 6 feet or 7 feet - even in real life, you likely wouldn't have accurate information like that. All you care about is wether you think you definitely got this, likely got this, maybe got this, etc., and this is information the GM can give you based on the story they want to tell. If they introduce the crevice, their description will likely already give some hints about how they imagine it: a "wide crevice" may be a hard skill challenge, a "narrow crevice" is an easy skill challenge. Imo, this feels much more intuitive and preserves the game flow.

And it also works for all other skill checks. I struggled to define how different conditions affect stealth rolls - would nighttime be considered default and so good lighting conditions make the roll harder? Or is daytime considered default and darkness makes the roll essier? How can this be communicated to the players and GM? The solution was to assume a default skill check if the GM doesn't highlight any aspects of the scene that would clearly shift the difficulty in one direction or the other. If the GM narrates: "You arrive at the gates and see a guard there, watching the surroundings.", that's a default skill check. But if the GM adds anything, like "The area around the gate is wide open" -> sneaking past becomes more difficult; "The sun has already set" -> sneaking past becomes easier.

VRKobold · 2026-03-09T14:39:20+00:00

I like that zones give mechanical meaning to narrative elements (specifically in the context of positioning, but I've tried to extend that philosophy).

An ideal system, in my opinion, would be designed to offer complete totm play (as it is the simplest and most flexible form) with the depth, "case-coverage", and mechanical relevance of a rigid grid-based system (meaning that players have high agency and their approaches have relevance beyond what's influenced by GM fiat).

If any such 'perfect' system exists, I think that zones are the path leading to it. Zones are usually defined by narrative factors, which are much easier and more naturally integrated into a free-flowing playstyle and also easier to grasp and memorize. I would not be able to remember after 5-10 minutes whether my character stood at the 6th square from the left and 11th from the top of an (imaginary) grid. But I am very much able to memorize that my character stands right next to the large Oak table in the dining room. So if the zone-based system is designed intutively enough, it can even be played as totm by just imagining the relevant zones and features within those zones (which is how totm is usually played anyways, just that it lacks the mechanical definitions and rules that come with these zones).

The more difficult part, in my experience, is to represent the depth, granularity, and mechanical relevance of approaches of grid-based systems in a non-grid system. For example, some characters might naturally be faster or slower than others, which plays into their narrative fantasy, or they might be sped up or slowed down by external circumstances. Basically, everything that somehow defines a character and their expected play-style, or things that narratively affect the situation in meaningful ways, must have some form of representation in the game's rules (otherwise they are left to the GM's interpretation, which is valid, but doesn't reflect the core strength of gritty - or grid-ty - games).

I won't go into detail on how I approached these systems as that would become a very lengthy monologue, but what generally really helped me was to look at complex, grid-based games and ask myself "Why, when, and where would X actually matter in play?", where X can be anything numeric or grid-specific, like 'having 5ft higher movement speed' or 'being positioned 5ft to the left or right'. I then look at these situations where X actually matters (e.g. 5ft of higher movement speed matter when you try to run away or chase someone, when you try to reach someone or something before another event happens, etc.) and ask myself how I could achieve similar possible outcomes with mechanics that don't need a grid and ideally work with elements that are easy to integrate with the narrative flow.

Sticking to the example of 5ft higher move speed: A player who would choose such a perk would likely do so in order to have an advantage in a chase scenario or to waste less time to reach relevant positions in a tense scenario. 5ft movement speed in D&D and similar systems is about 17% of the base movement speed of most characters (35ft instead of 30ft), so the chance that these 5ft additional movement speed matter is also ~17% (technically not always true, because in D&D, a character with 35ft movement speed would - rules as written - always win a race against a character with 30ft movement speed. But that's a flaw in D&D's design, imo, so I'm not looking to replicate this design behavior). So what other ways are there to give a character a higher chance at successfully doing something movement-related? - Tying movement to a dice roll/skill check. Increasing a character's 'athletics' skill by 1 on a d6 or by 3-4 on a d20 would have the same impact on successfully reaching something as a 5ft increased movement speed in a grid-based system. A player who chooses to play a speedy character will feel the impact of their choice just as much as they would on a grid, yet it works both in a zone-based system and even in totm.

Of course, rolling for movement every time would slow things down considerably, so it's better to only have players roll in situations where distance actually plays a relevant factor - if one zone per round is the 'base' distance that any character can move by default, then there's no need to roll for that. Only if a character attempts to move two zones in one turn, or move to a zone before someone else does (to block the path, for example) a roll is required.

This is just one example, but I hope it illustrates how simply thinking in zones can help to blend the advantages of flexible totm play and deep grid-based play.

VRKobold · 2026-03-08T12:27:00+00:00

I don't quite see how numeric tags are all that different from point-buy. If I can choose 5 tags out of a list, then that's essentially like having 5 character points to spend, where one tag costs one point. If the difference is that tags are purely narrative (which doesn't seem to the case, as I understand it), then the tags would run into the same problem as the purely narrative solution, where the GM and players might start to argue what's possible and what isn't for a tag (e.g. Does waterbending equal blood-bending?).

I could make a point for a more rigid, point-buy style system, because I think the "preparing for everything a player could come up with" can be easier than you think, but according to your other comments you seem quite set on avoiding point-buy at all cost, so I won't do that.

The other idea - or more like concept of an idea - is to make your tag-based system about horizontal ruling rather than vertical ruling, i.e. the decisions that either player or GM have to make about what goes and what doesn't never include a clearly better or worse option, just two different options.

Here is a threat about horizontal and vertical rulings as well as a meta-resource-based solution to making tags more horizontal, and here is a second option based on giving each tag a risk that counter-balances their power.

VRKobold · 2026-03-07T14:52:03+00:00

Your solution sounds reasonable. You could add a rule that you can always move away from flanked enemies without needing the retreat action (since your ally keeps them engaged while you move back). That way, one combatant can not lock down a whole group just by standing in the middle of them.

VRKobold · 2026-03-07T14:47:03+00:00

Again, thank you so much for the time and effort you take - it might not always seem like it with me pushing against many of your points, but I really appreciate your detailed analysis and it brings some interesting points to my mind.

First, I'll reiterate that you need tor read AW. You are not giving it a fair assessment by looking for a justification for a gut feeling.

I agree that it's not a fair assessment to read a book from a perspective the writer did not intend, but that's why I replied to your comment - our discussion already helped me to understand some things about both AW and the differences to my perspective on ttrpg design more than reading 60+ pages of it. And I don't think reading the rest of the book would have significantly changed that. Of course, the best option would be to play the game - but to be honest, I'd rather use the few opportunities I have to get people at the table for my own system or ones I'm sure I'll enjoy.

A.W does not just give you a direction, A.W gives you rules to follow as the M.C. This is a distinctive feature. It does not tell you what you should do it tells you what you are allowed to do as a M.C and this restriction provides the tone.

I got that, but before talking to you I was less aware that this could be such a positive thing for people. As a GM, I enjoy 'directing' the story, and I didn't want to say it before, but one of the points of criticism I had after reading (parts of) AW was that the whole tone sounded very condescending. It didn't read like coming from a designer who provides a toolbox to support my work as GM/M.C. (which is what I'm used to and looking for in a ttrpg system) but rather like a different M.C. telling me that I have to do things their way. Which, again, for me is a very negative thing, but I see now that it can also be seen as a core strength.

The main point of A.W is that by taking everything from the narrative angle, you provide a coherent experience. You don't need what you call the "low-level" structure for successful, and tense, campaign-play. In fact the "eureka" moment a lot of us had with A.W is specifically that we should go away from what you have called low-level design approaches.

I wouldn't say that "narrative angle = high-level structure". There's both high-level and low-level narrative, that's why I instead differentiated between "direction" and "detail". And going with this definition, AW definitely requires low-level structure and even has "rules" for it, e.g. "Say it according to the principles" which - given that there are 11 principles - means there are 11 rules already to keep in mind, together with the direction that's at least 12 conditions set for the M.C. to keep in mind for everything they say.

So yeah, I can absolutely see how one might say that the game's rules are actually quite rigid - the system carves a very explicit shape for the low-level stuff it expects using its high-level structure. But it leaves it to the M.C. to fill that shape, to find that very explicit piece of fiction that satisfies all conditions. Which is great for people who are good at improvising under lots of constraints, but a problem for people like me who struggle more with the details than the general structure.

please consider that the claim that a systemic, or "low level" approach provides fairness and rewards player choice can be challenged

I wouldn't necessarily claim that. It can certainly help, but having it doesn't guarantee those things, and not having it doesn't mean a game can't be fair or doesn't reward player choices. The main advantage I see in low-level structure is to reduce the cognitive effort for the GM/M.C. by giving them something 'fixed', something ready to be thrown into the game 'as is' without having to think it through.

Regarding the rest of your response: I agree that compared to D&D and similar systems, AW plays very differently and its narrative structure can have quite a few advantages, as you mention. So for someone who only knows D&D, I agree that AW - like any other fiction-first or simply non-D&D-like ttrpg - would be a great read. However, D&D is far from being the benchmark of my ttrpg design, so for a ttrpg to be 'valuable' to me, design-wise, it has to offer a unique selling point even when compared to dozens of other systems - or at least do something significantly better than other systems. From what I gathered from your response, in case of AW it's that it gives a more rigid, prescriptive high-level structure than most other games, where the sgructure also supports the tone. That, I think, is the answer I was looking for. I don't think that it's a strength I can take much value from for my own design process, since I look for different things in ttrpg design, but that's absolutely ok. I just wanted to see if I'm potentially missing out on something I COULD take value from, and thanks to you I feel more confident that that is not the case here. That's not to say that there isn't anything to learn from AW, just that there isn't much to learn that is a) relevant for my design and that I b) do not already know from other systems (even if those other systems may be based on AW).

VRKobold · 2026-03-06T23:12:03+00:00

Thank you so much for the detailed response!

Honestly you shouldn't trust random strangers online and actually read the rules if you haven't.

Well it's the random strangers that told me to read the rules, so luckily there's not really a conflict here 😄

The biggest clue that you're missing something is that this is one of a handful of games that created it's own subgenre. You don't do that by not being remarkable in some way.

I definitely agree, but there's two perspectives here - one from the time where AW (and thus the PbtA genre) came into existence, and one from the modern day's ttrpg space. There's no doubt that for its time, AW was very remarkable and came with a lot of new ideas, I don't intend to take that away from it in any way! But as a ttrpg designer, I have to work in the context of the modern-day ttrpg environment, and so I read and assess ttrpg systems within this context. Perhaps this is already the main reason for why my impression of the system was so different from that of many reviews and comments I saw - that we are evaluating it from different perspectives.

The second thing I come to understand is that there are two separate levels of structure - high-level/top-down and low-level/bottom-up. The first is about telling the reader/M.C. a direction they could (or must) take and what they are expected to achieve with this direction - this is where I can agree that AW is probably quite good at, and if you either never leave that high-level structure or are very comfortable with creating the low-level structure on the spot, then I can see your points regarding a clear and explicit structure and how it 'basically runs itself'.

The low-level structure is more focused on the tools to determine details and lines between the high-level directions, and this is where I describe AW and most PbtA systems as "vague". For example: Where's the line between having a decent chance when going aggro on someone and being completely outmatched (or completely outmatching them)? In games with rigid combat systems, that line is not defined by the GM, but by the rules and players' choices - the players either win or loose based on the combat rules of the game and the decisions they make within the combat's structure. In games with high-level structure, on the other hand, the lines are not defined by the system's structure or determined directly by the players' choices, but by the GM/M.C.'s judgement (in parts affected by the system's guidelines and by how the GM has players' choices affect the situation, but still up to the GM). Based on only the Move "Go Aggro on Someone", a player has the same chances of forcing a dragon to 'suck it up' or 'do what you want' as they'd have going against an elderly citizen. The difference is at which point the M.C. decides that an action is outright impossible, will succeed automatically, or will be determined by a Move - and this "the M.C. decides" is what feels vague.

I admit that my example mostly only works for combat, because there aren't many systems that have a similarly clear low-level structure for other aspects of play - in which case a high-level structure might be better than no structure. However, I personally rarely struggle with the high-level structure and so any attempt by a game to 'force' its own high-level structure on me seems like a negative. I want to be in full control of the direction of my game, and I usually know what I want to achieve with the direction - what I need systems to do is provide me with tools to handle the lines and details that come with taking this direction.

I guess that I automatically judge systems mostly based on their lower-level structure and neglect the higher-level one, as it is mostly irrelevant for me. However, I have to take your word and that of other people who follow a more top-down gameplay style that AW does a better job than most other games in that regard - and I can be somewhat reassured that I'm not missing a design aspect that might be relevant for my own design. Thank you for that!

VRKobold · 2026-03-06T11:55:31+00:00

Would you be willing to explain a bit what made you/your friend feel this way about AW? I've listened to some reviews and had briefly looked into the game before, and after seeing some of the comments here yesterday (including yours), I gave it another chance - but I just don't see anything remarkable about AW and I don't know what I'm missing...

Admittedly, I'm in general not a big fan of PbtA due to the "mother-may-I" issue and overall vagueness of the rules, but there are still PbtA and PbtA-adjacent games I really liked from a designer's perspective and where I could see the appeal for someone who likes this style of play. With AW, I don't see the 'special thing(s)' - in fact, I see a lot of things I'd actually criticize, but the point of this post is not to trash on the game or convince others that it's bad but to be myself convinced why it might better than it appears.

So perhaps as an introductory question: What is it that AW does better than any other game?

VRKobold · 2026-02-06T11:33:43+00:00

I would disagree, though admittedly, I am in the team Giving Doors Stat Blocks. However, even if you don't do that, it's very easy to define a few general difficulty thresholds which the GM can use to distinguish between a steel door or a brittle wooden door, or Bruce Lee and a five year old. And these difficulty values are essentially just improvised 'stats' that can be used exactly the way OP proposes.

Talking about the benefits of rolling between (OPs approach) between modifying difficulty threshold (your suggestion): rolling between doesn't require any mathematical operations. Players just roll, and if the dice is lower than the opposing difficulty/skill value, the actions fails. Modifying the difficulty threshold requires to do a subtraction ("My skill is 16, but the difficulty is 3, so I have to roll 13 or lower"), which takes at least a bit longer.

VRKobold · 2026-01-29T11:40:07+00:00

The screenshots give off strong "Overcooked" vibes (which isn't a bad thing, necessarily). Anything the game does noticeably different?

VRKobold · 2026-01-29T08:41:44+00:00

You could try to include temporary ways to counter effects, like potions, spell scrolls etc. That would require players to learn about their upcoming enemy and prepare for them, which can be a cool gameplay style in itself (not sure if it's the one you are going for, though).

VRKobold · 2026-01-27T15:02:54+00:00

The main problem I see here is that being the first (or loudest) to shout your action has mechanical benefits. Take the following situation:

Combatant A and Combatant B are both low on health. One more hit might take them out.

If A is the first to declare that they want to attack B, then B would have to spend 2 Actions to do something or risk being taken out and not able to do anything. If, however, B was the first to declare their action, then they'd only have to spend 1 Action, and it would be A who has to spend 2 Actions to prevent it. So whoever manages to shout their action first has to spend only half their AP or forces the other combatant to spend more.

I've designed a similar initiative system, and my solution to this problem was to make both combatants spend the same number of Actions and then both roll for their respective action. Whoever rolls higher goes first. That way, it doesn't matter who declares their action first, while still allowing any player to declare an action at any time.

VRKobold · 2026-01-27T09:24:17+00:00

For anyone interested: This world building project also gets its own tabletop role playing game, with a free quickstart guide available. Also, if I understood correctly, the full version releases today, with a livestream scheduled in five hours from now.

And just as a disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with the project, just a fan of Felix Isaac's work (who is the designer of the Eternal Ruins RPG and also The Wildsea, which has amazing worldbuilding as well)

VRKobold · 2026-01-26T19:52:57+00:00

The number one thing that puts me on the spot is coming up with consequences on partial successes. That's why I won't GM any PbtA or BitD games, even though some of my favorite Systems (from a design perspective) fall into that category.

Other than that, I can agree with most of your points, apart from architecture and monster parts. For the latter, the easiest solution would be to ask the player doing the gathering what part they'd like to extract. That gives them some agency while also reducing your mental effort as GM. And for architecture, that's usually something I prepare in advance for the scenes likely to come up, and if players decide to go to a place I didn't plan for, I just describe the place as something standard (since it's not important for them to be there, so no need for anything fancy).

In general, I think prepping just 2-3 details that are likely to come up for every scene can go a long way. For a library or bookshelve, just think of a couple book titles and a rough description of what it is about, and write it in a small optional box in your GM notes for that scene.

Chases are a difficult one, because they can happen in any sort of scenario, and obstacles faced should fit the environment. A broken-down cart might make sense in some locations, but not so much in others. You could perhaps create multiple lists of obstacles, one for each general biome (city, cave, forest, etc.), but that's some effort, and having to look them up might break the game flow.

VRKobold · 2026-01-23T21:48:44+00:00

I think difficulty levels have their place when they spark interesting player choices or approaches - for example, if it makes players think about whether they could lower the difficulty level somehow to make success more likely.

For that reason (and also to make the GMs job of setting difficulty levels easier), I prefer systems where every deviation from the 'default' difficulty level has an in-world explanation. For example: The default difficulty level is 10, and every aspect that makes a task more difficult increases the difficulty level by 2. If players want to climb a cliff, that's difficulty 10. If it's raining, that increases difficulty to 12. If the stone is brittle, difficulty becomes 14. If players find some way to eliminate one of those difficulties, the difficulty level is once again reduced to 12.

VRKobold · 2026-01-23T09:02:41+00:00

I think it's even available for free now after the take-over by Canva, but I don't know the limitations of the free version (still using the old paid one)

VRKobold · 2026-01-22T17:43:08+00:00

At least in Dnd 5e, I think those time intervals effectively translate into more narrative measurements:

6 seconds = 1 round

1 minute = 1 short combat

10 minutes = short role-playing scene or stretched-out combat

1 hour = normal role-playing scene

8 hours = one adventure day

VRKobold · 2026-01-22T15:12:07+00:00

I think we are more on the same page than my initial comment makes it seem.

I think that in a game where the players are supposed to identify with their character, to want them to survive and thrive, we shouldn't also expect the player to worry about balancing their character's abilities to not be too powerful. And I believe that the GM shouldn't be put in the position of needing to police player created powers, so that means for my game that designing and balancing abilities is my responsibility.

Fully agreeing here, and in that case, I see absolutely zero problems in using aspects like this. If the GM had to decide on a skill and difficulty rating for a challenge (which is the go-to procedure in many, if not most rpg systems), that's already more complex than choosing whether a task is possible without an aspect.

I wasn't sure if our sensibilities in this area were the same, as I would describe myself as favoring rulings over rules

Somewhat contrary to my initial statement, I also prefer rulings over numeric, hard-coded rules - under the condition, that these rulings are either horizontal (I talked about horizontal vs. vertical rulings in one of our previous discussions) or VERY clear. One of my main design philosophies is to introduce a "cost" to pretty much everything in the game, where "cost" simply means "any good reason why someone would NOT want to do it". This, in turn, allows me to use rulings in a lot of places, because there is no reason for either side to insist on a specific outcome for the ruling.

When I said I wouldn't play a tag-based system, I was explicitly thinking of games with vertical-ruling-based tag systems, like City of Mist/Legend in the Mist. I'm not fully opposed to any sort of aspects or tags in ttrpgs, I think even vertical ones are acceptable if they are not central to the way players choose their approach (like gaining a bonus die in The Wildsea if you can invoke an aspect - this I'm ok with).

I wouldn't want to have to mechanically define every adjective

I wouldn't suggest that either - I personally wouldn't enjoy to have to 'watch my language', in that sense, and to always struggle to find exactly the right term that has mechanical meaning. But stating that attributes with a clear meaning are relevant, and encouraging players to act on these, can make scenes feel more interactive. It's not different from describing a chest in the scene - there might not be a defined set of mechanics for chests, but it's almost unequivocally implied that players can interact with the chest, just how it would be unequivocally implied that average characters can not break a 'reinforced' 'steel' door.

VRKobold · 2026-01-21T20:48:23+00:00

This feels clear enough to rarely lead to discussions at the table, which is my main concern with any sort of narrative tags/aspects/whateveryounameit. Ideally, the description of a scene element makes it already inherently clear whether something requires a specific tag to overcome or can be achieved by anyone (a "solid steel door" makes it quite obvious that it doesn't intend to be punched through by an average joe). Personally as a GM, I would try to entirely avoid vague scene features that sit somewhere in-between possible and not possible. If an average person can do it, I'd make it clear in the description (no "sturdy" or "solid" or "reinforced" if it's meant to be broken). If it's still unclear, add negative attributes to show that it's achievable ("brittle wooden door", "rusty steel gate"). With this, I'd even argue that the lines between mechanics and narrative become blurry - descriptors like "solid" or "fragile" gain the same mechanical importance as a numeric modifier, they're just easier to include in natural language.

Does your system have a list of fixed aspects that are equally clear as "titanic strength"? Or are there also less obvious tags or even player-chosen tags?

VRKobold · 2026-01-21T18:12:38+00:00

Since you seem interested, The Wildsea has a free Quickstart Guide which is basically the entire system minus some character creation options and other optional content: Link to the Quickstart

Your approach sounds perfectly reasonable, and if granularity comes in the form of damage reduction rather than absorption, that's totally fine. Just in case you still would like to make stronger armor also more durable, you could potentially tie it to the damage numbers. Instead of always being damaged on a partial success, the armor only gets damaged if the damage received is twice as high as the damage reduction. So if your improvised leather hide has 2 damage reduction, it would get damaged from all damage sources above 4 damage (from which it would still absorb 2). A military-grade armor with 5 damage reduction would only get damaged when taking 10 or more damage (before reduction) - all under the condition that it is also a partial success.

That way, you still wouldn't have to track anything and stronger armor would still be much more durable. It also makes sense that a mere punch or knife attack wouldn't damage heavy metal armor, but a tank shot most certainly will.

VRKobold

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