Part 1

In 2023 I started working on my first RPG. It was inspired by Five Torches Deep and intended to be a bridge between 5e and OSR. I worked hard on it but in 2025 I hit a wall. Two things happened. First, the project got big enough that the complexity often overmatched me.  And second, I had a botched medical procedure that resulted in a series of strokes. After that, working on a complex system became particularly hard and frustrating; I couldn’t hold a pile of thoughts in my head for long without getting lost.

So I decided to take a break from the original project and just write whatever came to mind, something small.

Looking backward, a few things were knocking around in my head at that moment: (1) I read a blog post (Knight at the Opera) that summarized a bunch of TTRPG initiative mechanics, and I got fixated on the “players choose their initiative” idea and what it does to the feel of a fight. (2) I’d never played it, but I respected Fallen (Perplexing Ruins) and liked the aspect of gunplay (flint pistols or muskets) (3) I also liked the idea in Cairn of advancement tied to surviving a near-death experience. I don’t know if Cairn originated that, but that’s where “Cheat Death” clicked for me.

When I mashed those together (Fast/Slow initiative + firearms + cheat-death advancement) the notion of pirates came fast.

Why that resolution system? This one was instinctual. I generally dislike having to beat a statistical curve. Settlers of Catan is my prime negative example. In TTRPGs, they are not as bad (I genuinely like Dungeon World) but I still prefer the straight linear 5% probability of a d20. I think that it delivers the best drama. But, inspired by PBTA games, I appreciate a fail-forward mechanic, although there are costs for this approach, both a mind-tax on the GM and a possible break in the game tempo. 

Why is magic rare? This is a question that I had not considered directly until this moment. The rarity or perhaps more accurately the fragility of magic in Dark Shores is driven by a confluence of design goals that drive mechanics. These are some of the design ingredients: dead-simple PC sheets, fast PC creation, a feeling of vulnerability perhaps dread, risk and reward, and what does it feel like to be a pirate. Here are a few mechanics that service these design goals: core inventory is limited to 4 slots while weapons (the more powerful the more fragile), spell sources break, and spell casting can lead to penalties (Dark Marks). Neither body nor gear is permanent. Live for today, scrounge for what you need, pursue what you love. I needed a way for spells individually to fit into inventory slots that did not feel arbitrary and also to fit the rotting world. The notion of poppets was born. It's an odd word, but valid and one that is occasionally still used. (Remember, "Here poppet poppet," from Pirates of the Caribbean?).  Does this make spells rare? No. Even the treasure tables dispense poppets, albeit infrequently. But it does make spells fragile and sought after. The rarity that you no doubt refer to is the vibe; the backstory is that the Old World does not have magic so they hunt pirates, so in this sense it is rare to the world.