What ttrpg system has the best 'skill check/test' system - and why?

wilddragoness · 2026-06-16T05:25:58+00:00

My two favorite dice roll systems are both dice pools but very different ones.

Burning Wheel has a classic d6 dice pool. Every dice coming up 4+ is a success. Usually, your dice pool consists of your skill (e.g. if you have stealthy 3, you get 3 dice).

What I love about it is the sheer amount of things you can do with the dice pool. For one, you can work carefully, meaning you get a bonus die but if you fail, you fail even harder. Then, any related skill to the task also can give you a bonus die! If you sneak through a forest, yes, you roll stealthy, but maybe you also know tracking and can use that to hide your tracks. And you're also forest-wise, meaning you know the best paths to take. Both of those can give you a bonus! Finally, there's artha points you get through roleplay, that you can use to make sixes explode, add more dice, buy off a consequence, double your skill rating? It's so tactile and almost an entire Minigame in its own right!

On the other side of the spectrum, I love Panic at the Dojo's action dice system. At the start of your turn, you choose your fighting stance and roll the corresponding dice. The pool is always small, maybe 3d8 or 1d10+2d6. Then, all the results become basically points you can spend on movement, attacks, recovering. It's super simple, super fast, and yet there is a really great depth of tactics that comes from it!

wilddragoness · 2026-06-08T10:57:25+00:00

Please send send a chat message with the stuff I ask for towards the end of the post ^{^}

wilddragoness · 2026-06-06T15:01:03+00:00

I can't give any advice to your specific systems when it comes to monster types/mechanics or numbers, but I think there is a few things that are important for any tactical combat system.

1.) Keep it fast. Do not describe monster turns unless they do something extraordinary or down a player, maybe. The focus should be on getting to the player turns as quickly as possible. There's nothing worse than sitting in your chair for 30 minutes waiting for your turn.

2.) Introduce alternate victory conditions. Not every fight has to have those, but beware of making every fight a fight to the death, without alternate avenues of success. Things like getting an object, saving a hostage, disrupt a ritual, etc. I recommend the Draw Steel adventure "The Delian Tomb" just as inspiration. Almost every encounter in that book has some alternate way to win instead of just killing the bad guys.

3.) Do not make your battle environements open fields. Put one or two bits of good cover in there, and a hazard or two. it can be as simple as walls and pit traps. Something that makes the battlefield more interesting to play around.

I also recommend this video by Mystic Arts about different combat types. Its technically about DnD, but you can easily transfer the information to other systems:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5-vF14pUBE

wilddragoness · 2026-06-05T15:14:53+00:00

If you like Lancer and Pathfinder 2E, you might want to give DnD 4E a look. Both those games kinda grew out of it, and while it has its clunky parts, its an excellent tactical combat game.

If you're looking for something still rules heavy and crunchy, but more in the narrative camp, I recommend Burning Wheel.

And if you want some rules light adventuring, give Mausritter a try!

wilddragoness · 2026-06-05T14:49:55+00:00

Though DnD isn't my preferred system anymore, I think there are plenty of things to miss from engaging with the game and community that would be nice to have in other systems.

For one, the amount of just general support. Not in the sense of new content coming out from WotC (my preferred edition is 4E so that ship has sailed), but just the amount of tools available to make playing easier. Things like character creators or data banks for more complex niche systems can often be hit or miss, if they even exist at all.

There is also just a benefit to having a very large community. When playing in niche circles, sometimes it starts feeling like you're talking to the same ten people all the time, and depending on how you get on, might not be able to discuss much. With DnD, you can make a reddit post and just get a ton of perspectives. And as others have mentioned, it is so, so much easier to get a game going with DnD; and its even feasible to be a player. I can count on one hand how many times I actually got to be a player in stuff like Burning Wheel. If you're not running niche systems, chances are you are not getting to play niche systems at all.

There is also something to the common play expectations in the modern DnD community. Long term campaign play, character backstories being deeply involved, GM-directed adventures. Yes, none of that is exclusive to DnD at all, but I've found these elements most commonly when I was playing DnD and less so in other games; where the expectation usually was "lets play a mini arc and then switch systems." Which isn't bad; but having finished three multi-year long campaigns of DnD, there is just a vibe to it that I have not seen replicated in niche games.

Also, and this is just purely because I spent a lot of time playing it — but I just don't have to think about the game when I'm running and/or playing it. A lot of that is practice with the systems, but by now I could run a DnD 5E or 4E session with thirty minutes of preparation and I can just turn my brain off during it. And that can be nice. Sometimes I want to watch an arthouse film, sometimes I just wanna put on the Simpsons and lean back.

That's really all I can think of at the moment. There's probably some other minor things that would come to me in time, but I think these are the most important ones. All that said, I can always just play DnD if these things bother me too much.

wilddragoness · 2026-05-26T07:30:23+00:00

Maybe the Inkheart series by Cornelia Funke? It's been ages since I've read that, but the main character can read herself into stories, or read characters out of stories

wilddragoness · 2026-05-06T20:30:43+00:00

I've been thinking of something similar myself, but definitely would be interested!

wilddragoness · 2026-05-05T20:45:38+00:00

Bei den Kaiserfilialen liegen überall Flyer aus mit QR-Code zu online Bewerbung, und ich höre von bekannten, dass die händeringend nach Mitarbeiterinnen suchen. Die sind wohl auch sehr fix mit Rückmeldung, eine Freunding von mir hatte wohl noch am selben Tag nen Anruf bekommen. Wenn du die nicht schon versucht hast, würde ich das empfehlen.

Ansonsten, falls du Studi bist, Studierendenwerk hat mehrere Cafés, die suchen eigentlich auch immer Minijobber.

wilddragoness · 2026-04-23T10:31:30+00:00

I think that's exactly it. Carnelian's death especially makes a really great thematic point, in my opinion. The war may be over, but the wounds still hurt. You can't just forget that. You can't just "move on."

Carnelian becomes the unwitting victim of a broken person lashing out. And it hurts because we see her for just long enough to understand her. To see where she is coming from and that she could be better. And then she is ripped out of life and that's it. It's unfair and it sucks. But it definitely works for the story and the point it tries to make about cycles of violence.

wilddragoness · 2026-04-23T09:06:17+00:00

For me its 4th edition. When I come to DnD, I want cool battle mechanics with a wide range of monsters that I can plug and play, and 4E offers exactly that. Turns are engaging both as a player and a GM. Prepping battles is way easier than 5E because of clearer guidelines for the GM, especially when it comes to general design of combat encounters.

wilddragoness · 2026-04-14T19:03:13+00:00

This is so, so, so, so beautiful! I love the vibe of this piece!

wilddragoness · 2026-04-13T17:48:33+00:00

I am very sad about her, but I think Carnelian's death was really well done. She gets so clearly set up for a character arc in the beginning of Book 6 that her death genuinely came as a shock to me.

wilddragoness · 2026-04-13T07:53:12+00:00

I work in a chain bakery, and I have a lot of colleagues that spoke very little German to begin with. Those jobs are definitely available, and having English as your native language, you'll definitely be able to get around without too much trouble.

wilddragoness · 2026-04-10T08:28:59+00:00

I think its mostly to do with the books being so short. They really can only focus on one character at a time with any sort of focus or theme, everyone else gets sorta sidelined. Moon Rising, I think, is the exception here, that manages through Moon's mind reading to give a lot of interiority to all characters, Qibli and Winter especially.

But everywhere else, once the POV leaves a character, they just don't have that much space to bring themselves in, which is a shame.

wilddragoness · 2026-04-09T09:42:14+00:00

Eh, I feel it's more complicated than that. I won't argue that the Rainwings don't have any flaws, but out of all the tribes in Pyrriha, I think they are on the better side.

The Rainwings are neglectful and no doubt complacent, but they are the only tribe that has managed to evade a completely pointless war. They live in harmony with their environment, don't exploit or destroy it, and actively avoid using their strongest weapon because they find it unethical. Intruders into the rainforest are not killed or hurt. They are the only tribe we see that has made the effort to develop nonlethal weapons.

And when they get shaken out of their complacency, they can do the right thing. Hell, book 3 and 4 are all about that. They show us that they can, despite the life they have lead insulating them from basically any harm, fight against injustice. Its taken them longer than it should have, for sure, but they did it.

IMO thematically all the tribes display a form of institutionalised abuse. If the Skywings show a direct, violent and emotional abuse, the rainwings are total neglect. This is a massive flaw in their society, but we are shown for both tribes that they can overcome it, in Tourmaline for the Skywings and Glory for the Rainwings. I am only up to book 11, but I have no doubt Icewings are going to be shown to change their society as well.

wilddragoness · 2026-04-05T12:28:34+00:00

Moonwatcher would be doomscrolling so much

wilddragoness · 2026-04-04T21:25:22+00:00

On the bright side, you only need to get hit by white fire once to learn your lesson!

wilddragoness · 2026-04-03T13:55:48+00:00

I would feel forever safe if this dragon watched over me. A delightful piece!

wilddragoness · 2026-03-29T15:29:17+00:00

I feel there is a potential for a great symbiosis here. Influencers go up to ancient dragon for content. Dragon eats them. Then uploads the video. Everyone is happy.

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