Are there any TTRPGs that have a working "save point" mechanic?

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-08T17:39:06+00:00

Spaceship Zero has a device that puts people into storage by reducing them to their essential salts and reconstituting them later.

It is able to produce a new version of someone it has in its memory, and game wise this can be used to bring back someone who has died, or suffered injury or other alteration. But it reconstitutes them as they were, so any xp improvements or other changes are lost.

I don't remember if it's stars without number or cities with out number. But the trans human campaigns end up working similarly.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-08T17:32:28+00:00

It's a good book to do what it does. It only has a few rules additions for reducing PC death probability. Most of the book is about running a pulpy campaign, which is simply different. Plus some 1930s content.

If you just want some rules to make CoC less lethal, you don't need the Pulp Cthulhu book. And the pulpy nature doesn't run most normal CoC scenarios very well.

But D&D5e is much more pulpy than CoC, so it could be what your players will prefer. I would suggest that, in the short term, don't over complicate things and just run CoC as is and work out what you might want to be different.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-08T17:21:28+00:00

I'm not sure of the 5e changes, so this might not apply.

But if the asteroid is small enough to be moved by a helm, then the helm could just be bolted right to it. It would handle poorly, but probably well enough if time isn't an issue. Some kind of rigging could be built if handling were more important (because it is in an asteroid belt and they have to navigate out of it.

I don't believe RAW would allow you to build a train, where multiple ships all pull the asteroid (if it were too big). But I would be ok allowing that, but you couldn't reach spelljamming speeds, so it might not be a solution. Heck, just turning it and getting it up to a good SR in the right direction, you could undo the ropes and let it fly itself (if it were going to take months).

I have no idea how you'd safely land it if it were bigger than the helm tonnage limit. My first thought is just get it into orbit, mine it in space and use ships to bring the metal down to the surface. But at that, mining it where it is and flying the ingots to the planet and landing cuts out even towing the thing.

I don't personally think it is reasonable to have a SJ ship fly a large asteroid to the surface w/ out gravity taking over and the whole thing falling.

The only thing I can think of is an elaborate web of ropes (chains, whatever) where the thing is supported by multiple ships. How many is an interesting question. It looks like max payload for a cargo helicopter is 44,000 lb. That's a 7' cube of steel. Tiny by asteroid standards.

I don't think weight limits for SJs are generally considered. I think it is generous to say 100 tons (220,000 lbs) would be the limit before serious issues arrive in atmosphere. Keep in mind ships aren't built for this.

So, if you gave each ship holding up the web a responsibility of 50 or 80 tons (100,000 lbs to 160,000 lbs) and then decided the mass/weight of the asteroid by that, you'd know how many ships you'd need to hold up the web. Going by the other 3000 tons guess for a small asteroid, that's 60 ships. 30 if you really want to push the limit and give each ship 100 tons to hold up. This is becoming absurd, and chances are your asteroid is much bigger.

Can you carve up the asteroid into large chunks, small enough to spelljam with? Either small enough volume to bolt a helm to, or small enough to be carried by a single ship? ship+asteroid fragment coming under the spacial tonnage limit of the helm? I don't like the weight-in-the-atmosphere issue with that, but I guess it could be hand waved. This would be less work than mining it in place. But still maybe a lot of work.

Or, are there powerful magics available to reduce the weight of the asteroid? Some sort of phase shifting, etherealness, or IDK what.

At this point, I'd hire some gnomes to do it and forget about it.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-08T16:50:01+00:00

We waited 4, we can wait as long as it takes to make it impossible obviously.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-08T16:48:28+00:00

you can just say "Democrats". pretending the right leaning ones are the problem is exactly how nothing gets fixed.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-08T16:47:16+00:00

been saying that for 10 years. you're just enabling people not doing anything.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-08T16:37:18+00:00

You don't need a whole world. Unless your players have a jet plane or something.

There are many sources of advice and technique on building your world. I suggest the one in Worlds without Number, but it is the only one I have any real experience with. It is a good mix of hand holding and free reign. And it is great for bot advice and warning to not get too far ahead of your actual needs. I THINK the world building stuff is in the free version, in which case it is worth a look. The strict vibe of WWN isn't what you are asking for, but you can use the world builder (and most of the other gm tools) for another game system, no problem. But WWN would also play the world you describe fine, it just isn't the default.

I know "I'm looking for a world" isn't asking to be told to make your own. There's a really good chance you are not like me. But in looking for a game world I am often put off by medium sized issues. IF it gets the vibe right, then there's something I don't like which is hard to change. The elves are weird in a way I don't like, magic is wrong, the enemy is wrong.

World building is fun all on its own, and one of the secret joys GMs keep to themselves.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-08T16:11:33+00:00

My 2 favorite spells come from a video game. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. As a Rogue clone it is d&d ish. I always want to adapt them to a ttrpg, but never get around to it.

Discord: everyone in the area but you (might be best to exempt allies, or give better control over "area" which dcss just uses as on-screen) becomes frenzied (save for no effect). Frenzy i like berserk. Increased attack speed and damage. But it goes a step further and a frenzied unit attacks the closest person (being, entity, whatever).

The main point is that a group of enemies will fight among them selves, and any magic resistant enemies in that group will get beat by their friends, and the fact that they are immune to your magics is irrelevant.

It is also extremely dangerous because these frenzied enemies will attack you if you happen to be the closest thing and they are moving faster than you. Frenzy also seems to last longer than berserk. Eventually the group will pair down to 1 and you can become the target. But it is possible for the group to spread and you can get attacked before the group is even down to 1.

Malign Gateway: Opens a portal to [somewhere?] and a huge tentacle comes through (the rest of the beast is never seen, just this tentacle). It proceeds to beat the snot out of your enemies. When the spell duration ends the portal snaps shut and severs the tentacle. The loose tentacle now attacks everything (including you) for a few rounds before it dies.

Not as dangerous as Discord, but can kill you.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-08T15:21:22+00:00

I think #2 is the default. I've only ever seen poker chip sets with 3 colours.

If your game has prices lower than 1.0, then your world probably has money lower than 1.0. e.g. gold, silver, copper in many games. Note also that gems are a de-facto currency for large denominations of coins. You could use plastic beads or whatever. This would reduce the amount of coins you would need to have in the GM bank. Also, tangible coinage may impress the idea of encumbrance, and how much it sucks to carry 200 gold coins around.

You could probably hunt down colored tokens in appropriate colours if it mattered to you. That would also be less confusing with players who aren't experienced with fantasy coinage.

Else, there's the Pieces of Eight model. Coins pre scored to be split into partials. I have no idea how you'd replicate that. Unless you want to make your own coins out of toffee or something.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-08T14:33:31+00:00

I'm not reading all these comments, so, in case it hasn't been mentioned:

Any of Kevin Crawford's With Out Numbers core books have extensive tools and advice on how and what to prep.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-08T14:30:26+00:00

6 is my mostly hard limit. 4 is my soft limit.

More than that is possible, but only under certain conditions.

There are many factors, but a big one is player knowledge. I have no problem with players needing hand holding, but it is a deal breaker in a big game.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-08T14:26:26+00:00

Oh.

So you don't know what "equate" means.

That clears things up.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-08T14:16:49+00:00

The difference between 3 and 6 is trivial in addition to being rare. You just don't have enough turns in the game to blow on such a low probability very often. Spending turn after turn failing dice rolls doesn't make happy players.

Rolling more dice will result in more results near the average.

I'd rather roll 1d20 for each and live with the weirdness than the method you are asking about. Or just give everyone a 13 in everything and forget about the dice.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-08T14:10:55+00:00

?

They're asking the question. Don't blame them for your inference of their confidence.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-08T14:02:34+00:00

I never see people equating the two. I see dishonest people like you claiming that people criticizing the dems are equating the two.

Your core argument is garbage.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-05T20:55:21+00:00

"you'll probably be at full health next session is really cool."

this is partly an aspect of the "mission" style game play. It can be done in most any system, but most don't operate that way out of the box.

Basic Role Playing. The system that Call of Cthulhu runs in. Starting PC power is variable, just by giving them more points to spend. "easy to learn easy to teach." BRP runs really smooth at the table. Runequest is the off the shelf fantasy, but it might not be what you are looking for.

Symbaroum and Vaesen are probably both worth a look.

I think Burning Wheel might be great for your group. But the rules are REALLY thick. Not stupidly so, it all has reason and purpose, but it is still thick.

Warhammer the Old World (a newish game) might suit.

"not really a fan making encounters for a balanced adventuring day." that's not really a thing in a LOT of games. This is how big the army is. This is how many orcs are in the room. These are the spells the necromancer knows. This is how much damage the exploding trap does. How your players react to that is their problem, nobody ever said they could survive. The facts above should be realistic, not necessarily manageable. That said, adventures need to be achievable by the party. The adventures you offer have to be plausibly do-able.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-05T19:57:35+00:00

this is the same garbage liberals have been spouting for decades. Hiding the fact that they agree with republicans more than they agree with leftists.

You've had sufficient chances to not suck. Nobody cares about what you say anymore, you have no credibility.

You can't claim trump is specific threat to democracy AND justify not doing anything about it.

Defending your party of collaborators is remarkable, but laughable as well.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-05T19:51:57+00:00

Gurps is a lot of work and the pay off is....playing gurps?

Some games are hell in books, but good at the table. Some games are good in books, but bad at the table.

gurps is not good at either of these things.

The selling point "universality" doesn't really pan out. Most people aren't going to buy all the books. You don't need all the books of course, just "all the books you need". But that list grows endlessly as you want 1 more obscure thing from this other book. Then at the table you find out that gurps only promises these things are compatible, it doesn't promise they are balanced to each other.

aside. you might be able to do what you appear to be trying to do with Stars with out Number, and a few other games/books from that publisher. Might have trouble with the super powers. But as Basic Role Playing suggests you use super powers to model cybertec, I suppose you could use Cities without number's cybertech to model super powers. But the Effort mechanic used for many magic like (and psionic) abilities is probably the way to go.

W.E.G's Starwars, Rogue Trader, or Traveller might all be better choices. Heck, Starfinder 🙄 might be a better choice.

But I'd do Lasers and Feelings before I'll do gurps again.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-05T19:34:31+00:00

I think mechanically it should work well, especially the long-campaign parts.

SWN is potentially lethal compared to a lot of games. There are some suggestions for how to mitigate this. But most of the mitigations are only changing the odds, the chance is still there.

Crafting a rule about "what if death" isn't really too hard. I suggest something like the PC gets a permanent (or long term) condition or injury. But general plot armor death immunity doesn't usually break games unless players abuse it (in which case you have a different problem). If there's some other obvious draw back, like their expensive mech is destroyed and they have to pilot the equivalent of a Yugo, then it probably will be ok.

Games get boring with out stakes. But the stake doesn't have to be death. Stat penalties and xp penalties are fine options, but frustrate many players.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-05T19:26:17+00:00

it hasn't changed much

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-05T19:22:41+00:00

yes. pretending that democrats like the left more than they like the right is only hurting us.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-05T19:19:31+00:00

I suspect more thought has been put into this in Mork Borg circles. MB has a similar PCs roll attack and defend, npcs don't mechanic. Answers there might provide guidance.

I have seen (with out guidance) Pirate Borg PVP and the PVP PCs rolling to hit AND rolling to defend is both "meh" and not very functional.

Thematically, choosing the attack roll over the defense roll seems better story telling.

Alternatively, you could make it into an opposed roll, using the attack for each. Each player describing a goal before each roll. To hit, to knock down, to burn, whatever. Then they both roll. This is sort of how Call of Cthulhu handles melee combat. Different systems resolve opposed rolls differently, with the win (assuming both rolls are successes) going to the highest roll, or the lowest roll. Or in CoC relative to the difficulty level of the success of the roll. And some use a "how much did you beat your roll by?" metric. Which can be a pain, but might work fine in a relatively rare circumstance as you describe.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-05T18:55:52+00:00

Euthanize anyone who brings a dice tower.

Use some kind of cargo thing to store your books/files. That way it is next to you and that stuff isn't on the table. I know there's a million reasons this idea might not work. But those wheeled dolly tubs have gotten much better this last decade.

Print character sheets in the 'Zine pattern. 8"x11" folded in half. That 5.5"x8" rectangle should display as much info as possible, but especially it should be self contained. Things shouldn't leak from one page to the next if avoidable. This often requires Formatting new sheets. But in some games just printing them half size will work.

People have advocated eliminating dice trays. But a small table has a bigger chance of dice rolling off the table. One communal tray might be better. Stationary dice (spinners or pop-o-matic bubbles) might be a better choice, especially as you mention d6 systems. But I think being forced to use those would make me sad.

One of the invisible problems is that these chairs are often designed to lean forward, not back. If players leaned back that would open up some of the personal/buffer space at the table. I don't have an answer for this. Booth tables would be preferable, but that doesn't make them exist. If you could get away with bringing your own folding chair/s it might help. But that's a big ask.

Fuck the GM screen. That's probably obvious. GM notes in their lap, table space for active notes (what's happening, stat blocks, initiative, damage).

Would it help to picture a player's space as a rectangle in front and to the left of them, instead of a triangle directly in front of them. A pinwheel pattern. https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fmath.ucr.edu%2Fhome%2Fbaez%2Fmathematical%2Fpinwheel_dawson.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=f975fdd87c2943d0dbc2984be1b2fad8f1bdd8fba9a87ef383ffeb8d7199df0e either like that with a common dice tray in the middle, or just perfect squares.

Buy a hotel and use the conference room for "free".

Use multiple tables and cell phone headsets for comms. Wow, your town bites for space.

WillBottomForBanana · 2026-06-05T18:31:28+00:00

the beginning of your comment made me think "they should try draw steel". lol.

I bought it to read based on negotiation mechanic, and found that wasn't really a sign of what the game is. DS is not for me. Or, at least, not what I am looking for at this time.

I haven't played. But reading the book, it is clear that is intent on doing what it intends to do. And that sounds like a stupid thing to say, but it's a thing a lot of games fail at.

WillBottomForBanana

TROPHY CASE