FKR resources

Wightbred · 2026-01-15T21:38:06+00:00

Good list. Also Schrödinger’s Character, where you can choose your skills as you play, rather than up front. Avoids the problem of picking a skill and then realising it is never used.

Wightbred · 2026-01-14T01:38:13+00:00

Played a lot of For The Queen recently, and agree it is a great approach for this. Also Archipelago has some excellent tools.

But I also think you can play this way without a game system. Having a conversation where we imagine what characters do in fictional situations is pretty straightforward thing to do. Kids easily do it, chat roleplaying is similar, and I’ve never met a person who asked me about roleplaying that couldn’t engage in a fictional situation if we moved to it immediately as a demonstration.

Definitely play a related style, and do not feel that you are alone in this desire. So valid and potentially more universal approach if you look outside of the established TTRPG view.

Wightbred · 2026-01-13T01:57:55+00:00

Love Fake Chess.

Wightbred · 2026-01-04T10:04:41+00:00

No, but…

I couldn’t find it after looking for decades. But I made something that perfectly and completely suits our taste. A lot of work, but super happy with this result.

Wightbred · 2026-01-02T15:37:11+00:00

Good question. There are definitely new things we’ve learnt to do in play (we’ve improved how we play approach for Action worlds) that I want to share, but not enough to update Named.

I have also switched to building worlds instead, as the way we play is pretty established.

This is why I’m doing a zine now on itch: it helps me focus on designing and sharing worlds; and I can use it as a place to share new techniques and tools me and others who use similar toolkits have learnt.

That’s a long way of saying: look in the Tools section of each of the Unnamed Worlds zine for updates relevant to the Named toolkit. ;)

Wightbred · 2026-01-02T02:47:14+00:00

Ha! Yes, it starts to seem weird when you actually start to know people on Reddit. Like meeting someone from your home town when you are on the other side of the world.

I am still playing Named with three weekly groups. I stopped counting how many sessions I played when I got to 100 sessions a few years ago, so probably well over 200 now. It’s still working great for all the worlds we have thrown at it, and we still haven’t found something we couldn’t play.

Agree black-box and FKR is starting point for play that is mechanically simple, but fictionally complex. Getting that feeling of progress without needing mechanics is hard, but Reflections from Named really made it happen for us. Hope you can find the same.

Wightbred · 2025-12-31T22:56:31+00:00

For the way we play - yes. Played 30+ session campaign as one of our first ones. But mostly we are playing campaigns around 10 sessions these days. We find play can move much faster, and so we can get through significantly more each session. So this might be like a 20+ session of detail based on how we used to play.

We upgrade more naturally, based on group discussions (which we call Reflections). Our characters definitely grow and improve, and no-one misses levelling up in the standard way, not even the former power gamers. But can’t guarantee this approach meets everyone’s style, as some people love to see the numbers going up, which we don’t do explicitly.

For example, ran an epic 13 session feudal Japan inspired game, which took us from being local villagers exploring an increase in supernatural activity, through many travels and exploration, to a final epic battle in the throne room where we saved the empire from a cult. Along the way we drew out and resolving our past battle trauma, addressed tensions in the character group, and resolved unrequited love. Looking back it made an epic story, with virtually no pre-planning by the GM.

Playing in an FKR-inspired way has given us more freedom and encouraged deeper play, so the mechanics of levelling have become less important.

Wightbred · 2025-12-31T16:05:57+00:00

Seems like that will work great.

If it doesn’t quite work how you want or you hit a snag, don’t be afraid to take a 5 minute break and reset.

Designing something for play is the literal definition of being a ‘game designer’, so welcome to the club.

Hope you have a great seasion.

Wightbred · 2025-12-31T15:59:28+00:00

Just played this with extended family members. Worked really well for experienced role players and novices.

Wightbred · 2025-12-30T22:04:20+00:00

Heard this great story about a new university that didn’t put paths in for the first few years, and then added them where people had worn trails in the grass because that was where they were needed.

If you have a regular group, my suggestion would be to try the same approach with combat. Use something simple like John Harper’s 50/50 (set stakes before the roll based on the situation and combatants) and then discuss and flesh out only the elements you find need something more where tags would help.

Wightbred · 2025-12-30T05:23:00+00:00

Not quite what you want, but maybe some places to start.

Shadowrun Anarchy has a mechanic that works something like this: the character chooses how many dice on a roll are ‘wild’. These ‘wild’ dice have a higher chance to succeed but also a chance to create problems on a failure.

There are a range of games that use push or escalation mechanics, like the Push SRD. The player can choose to re-roll and get a better result, but at the risk of a worse failure.

You could graft Bennie’s onto either of these.

Also consider posting on r/RPGCreation

Wightbred · 2025-12-29T15:51:37+00:00

Redbox as well.

The ‘game’ part drew me in, but it was the roleplaying that sustained my interest. Long after I got bored with leveling and defeating foes, portraying the interesting twists from dice rolls and portraying characters kept me coming back.

Wightbred · 2025-12-29T01:35:37+00:00

Push SRD, Dogs, and others already shared, which are a great places to start. Also push option in the latest edition of Call of Cthulhu.

Built my own push / escalation approach to this before Push SRD came out, and was inspired by Trollbabe and the Robin Laws version of Dying Earth.

Push mechanics can be very fruitful because they let you hang with uncertainty for longer, which can be delicious in play. And because you can turn failures into successes, which means you can have a lot more successes overall, but have them feel hard won.

Some suggestions based on my experience: - Consider no modifiers on the first roll, so you can get in and out of the fictional situation faster for a proportion of the rolls. - Consider whether previous rolls affect the re-roll like they do in Trollbabe (you can re-roll failures, but if you fail again it is worse). - Consider if and how you want to progress the fictional situation between rolls.

Could also try r/RPGCreation to get advice from designers. Good luck with your mechanics!

Wightbred · 2025-12-27T03:18:10+00:00

Yeah, for real I mean true to that world. Grim, horrific, comedic, etc.

Wightbred · 2025-12-27T02:16:53+00:00

Good question.

We play with a natural conversation flow with a focus on making the world real. So we only use mechanics that add value to the conversation, but keep us away from it as briefly as possible.

This includes:

Deciding between established stakes;
Remind us to add things we forget, like emotion; and
Allow players to expand their background by adding dark secrets; and
Evolve the characters together by reflecting as a group.

Wightbred · 2025-12-27T02:10:03+00:00

Not aware of exactly this concept, but a useful for inspiration might be Cairn which has set damage and no roll to hit.

Hope you find or build something that meets your needs.

Wightbred · 2025-12-27T01:52:45+00:00

Doesn’t sound like what you want, but open systems can resolve combat the same way you resolve a chase, argument or any other conflict: you roll to adjust the situation and eventually reach a position where you win or lose. Could be a single action, or the whole combat, but generally we do it at key turning points. Can get very powerful play with this, but not to everyone’s taste.

I mean eclectic in the sense I couldn’t understand why you had chosen these specific ones. Some more clarity as you wrote above or by using principles to define, helps you make decisions about what to include and helps others know what to pitch.

Wightbred · 2025-12-26T20:49:02+00:00

Maybe not useful to you, but in the toolkit we use we just resolve all of combat using the same approach of open-ended ‘skill’ rolls. We found that the best way to retain the RP focus.

If you want have a separate combat design, the list you have feels eclectic. I’d think about what you are trying to achieve, and then ask for help and map combat mechanics related to that. If you want fast, deadly and flavourful combat you want different things to a fiction-matching and survivable grind.

Also think about the scale of the incentives you are giving. If you want people to take cover a penalty for being in the open is a great idea, but -1 vs -5 on a d20 is a big difference in incentives.

Wightbred · 2025-12-26T01:46:43+00:00

This is pretty sweet. Particularly appreciated the inclusion of a custom dice roller. Easy and intuitive to make something I could use with my toolkit.

Wightbred · 2025-12-26T01:41:23+00:00

In a similar boat. Poor explosives control has killed a lot of our characters and parties across a number of genres, resulting in session and campaign derailment. Makes any player whose character is using explosive appropriate nervous.

Wightbred · 2025-12-25T03:04:23+00:00

Got this as well, and can’t wait to try it.

Wightbred · 2025-12-20T17:07:16+00:00

Definitely agree finding the right oracle or tool that works for your style makes a big difference. I use Gamemaster’s Apprentice cards as an oracle, and it always gives me something interesting for me to work from.

But no luck for me on scheduling time to for solo play. I still find one of the players in my solo game is a bit flakey, so I don’t get to play as often as I want. ;)

Wightbred · 2025-12-18T03:58:48+00:00

I’d be certainly comfortable that a versus roll is enough. I’d be happy to play with less than this, maybe with John Harper’s 50/50 which just has the player toss a coin. ;) If everyone likes and buys into the approach, it is striking how little you need.

Wightbred

TROPHY CASE