One of the big questions in RPG design is how many rules and mechanics a game needs before it stops being “making things up” and starts becoming a playable game.

A more crunchy system can give players a huge number of clearly defined choices, but those same rules can implicitly limit what players think they are allowed to do.

A more vague system gives players much more freedom to imagine and describe what their characters do, but it often requires additional discussion with the GM to determine how each action works.

I know this is a spectrum, and everyone has a different preference for where they want a game to sit on it.

Today, I want to focus specifically on martial characters, especially in combat.

The crunchy extreme: D&D 4e Warlord

At one end of the spectrum, we have the Warlord from D&D 4e.

It has a huge number of detailed at-will attacks and powers covering different kinds of attacks, teamwork, tactical maneuvers, battlefield control, and so on. It gives the Warlord almost as many different tactical options as a spellcasting class.

So instead of simply I swing my sword.
you have a huge toolbox of things you can do.

But at the same time, many of these options can become what I think of as “paper buttons.”

I once came across an interesting way of describing this idea, though I may be paraphrasing: Whenever you write a rule to allow a character to do something, you are writting a rule that says no one else can do that.

For advanced techniques, this makes perfect sense. If something requires specialized training, it makes sense that a character needs a specific ability or feature to perform it.

But what about basic actions?

If my character is holding a quarterstaff, why can't I simply say: “I raise my staff and try to parry the attack”?

If there isn't a button for Parry, does that mean my character can't do it?

That's where I start to feel the tension between providing options and restricting imagination.

The vague extreme: Legend in the Mist

At the other end of the spectrum, I'd put Legend in the Mist.

With its tag-based system, you can attempt almost anything you can reasonably imagine. You don't need to own the appropriate “button” on your character sheet before you can try something.

You have a lot of freedom over what your character actually does.

But the trade-off is that, ultimately, many of those different descriptions still boil down to:

• getting a different modifier
• determining whether you pass the check
• and sometimes discussing with the GM whether your proposed action is reasonable and how it should work

It's not necessarily a constant "Mother may I?"

But there is still some amount of negotiation between the player and GM.

I've heard an interesting argument that player agency means the player doesn't need anyone's permission to take an action—they know what they can do and understand that their choice can produce meaningful consequences.

I'm not sure I completely agree with that definition, but I think it's an interesting way to look at the problem.

Crunchy vs. vague isn't really about resolution

I know that, if you reduce almost any RPG to its most fundamental level, both approaches eventually become something like " Change a number until it reaches a threshold, and you've overcome the challenge." .

But that doesn't mean the experience of getting there is the same.

The difference between a highly crunchy system and a highly vague one isn't necessarily what the final resolution mechanic does.

It's about how much of the decision-making happens inside the rules versus inside the player's imagination and the conversation at the table.

And that's the part I'm interested in.

So where do you like to sit on this spectrum?

• Do you prefer martial characters to have a large, clearly defined toolbox of actions?
• Or do you prefer having a smaller mechanical framework that lets you describe almost anything?
• Is there a game that hits your personal sweet spot between crunchy and vague?

I'd love to hear what games you think get this balance right.

Edit: You know what!? Let's do this.
If you prefer A. Mana-Based Spellcasting, upvote this post.

If you prefer B. d6 Spell Construction, downvote it.

If you came across this post, please vote anyway—even if you don't have much to say. It would really help me get a sense of which direction people prefer!

Hello everyone!

A few days ago, I posted about a magic system I randomly came up with, where spells are constructed using pools of d6s.

This system was originally not intended for my main game, AstraWeaver. Its dice mechanics are completely separate from AstraWeaver's core system: AstraWeaver uses a 2d12 roll-under system, while this new magic system uses d6 dice pools with a bit of a Yahtzee vibe.

But as I kept developing it, I realized that I was having way too much fun with it.

It's getting dangerously close to becoming more interesting to me than my original magic design. 😂

So before I start twisting the whole system around a magic subsystem, I wanted to ask: which magic system do you find more interesting?

I genuinely like both of them, which is why I developed them in the first place. I'm just one person, though, so I'd really like to hear some outside opinions.

____________

The Common Foundation

Both systems are based on the same basic idea, inspired heavily by Ars Magica.

Magic is constructed by combining different Runes, and casting magic requires some form of resource.

There are three types of Runes:

Factions — How the magic acts

• Creation — create or generate something
• Control — move or transform something that already exists
• Destruction — destroy or suppress something

Elements — What natural force is involved

• Fire — heat and light
• Water — water, moisture, friction
• Earth — earth, stone, metal, hardness, density
• Wood — plants and vitality
• Wind — air, pushing and pulling forces
• Electricity — electricity and energy

Laws — What part of a living creature is affected

A Law is required when magic directly affects the internal workings of a sentient living creature.

For this system, a sentient living creature is defined as something possessing Sense, Body, and Mind.

• Senses
• Body
• Mind

Other parameters, such as damage, duration, and area of effect, are determined by spending additional resources.

For example:

• Invisibility: Destruction + Senses
• Command: Destruction + Control + Mind
• Detect Magic / Speak with Animals: Creation + Senses
• Create Ice: Creation + Water + Destruction + Fire

With that foundation established, here are the two systems.

Both are still very much works in progress, so I'm very interested in hearing suggestions.

____________

A. Mana-Based Spellcasting

In this version, every Rune has a Mana cost.

• Faction: 1 Mana
• Element: 1 Mana
• Law: 2 Mana

Spells are divided into three tiers: Codified Spells, Prepared Spells, and Improvised Spells.

1. Codified Spells

Players can spend XP to learn Codified Spells.

These are the fastest and most efficient spells:

• Cost only 1 Action
• Reduce the total Mana cost by 2
• Require no roll
• Produce their effect automatically

Players also learn Runes through Codified Spells. Once a Rune has been learned, it remains permanently available to the character.

Example:

>Create Ice
[Creation + Water + Destruction + Fire]
Base Mana Cost: 2
You create water and remove its heat, turning it into ice.

You can create the ice in any shape you want, and it is stronger than naturally formed ice.
Any creature still touching the ice at the end of its turn gains Slow 1. A creature moving across the ice becomes Prone.

2. Prepared Spells

Players can design their own spells outside of a session together with the GM, using the detailed Rune descriptions and the spell effect list.

A Prepared Spell calculates the full Mana cost of all its Runes and takes 2 Actions to cast.

After a Prepared Spell has been successfully cast three times, the player can submit it to the Grand Academy and turn it into a Codified Spell.

This requires some in-game time and XP, but once the spell is codified:

• Mana cost is reduced by 2
• Casting time is reduced to 1 Action

3. Improvised Spells

Improvised Spells are the flexible, low-commitment part of the system.

• Cost 1 Action
• Require a roll to cast
• Can be cast without spending Mana
• Spending Mana increases the chance of success
• Can only contain 2 Runes
• Cannot contain Laws

The idea is that Improvised Spells act somewhat like cantrips.

Even when your Mana is completely depleted, you can still do some basic magic.

This creates a gameplay loop where you:

Learn Runes through Codified Spells → use Improvised and Codified Spells → develop Prepared Spells → eventually turn them into Codified Spells.

4. Countermagic

There is also a separate mechanic for interrupting someone else's spell.

You can spend Mana to interfere with another spell.

When you do, the original spell is disrupted and explodes around its original target or center point.

Every creature within 1 grid of the center takes 1d6 damage and is pushed 1 grid away.

A creature standing directly at the center can choose the direction it is pushed.

____________

B. d6 Spell Construction

The other system is the one I posted about yesterday:

A Magic System: Building Spells with d6s

I won't repeat the entire system here because this post is already getting long, but there are a few additional details and changes in the edit of that original post.

The basic idea is that instead of paying Mana directly for each Rune, the dice themselves become the building blocks of the spell.

And this is the system that was supposed to be a random side experiment...

...but somehow became the one I can't stop thinking about. 😂

____________

Which One Do You Prefer?

So, between these two systems, which one sounds more interesting to you?

I'm particularly interested in:

• Which one gives you more interesting decisions?
• Which one feels more fun to build a character around?
• Which one would you actually want to play?
• Do you see any obvious problems with either system?

And if you have other suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

I'm still figuring both systems out, so criticism and weird ideas are very welcome.

Thanks for reading!

I've been thinking about a new magic system inspired by Ars Magica. I'm not sure if something similar has already been done, so I wanted to throw the idea out here and see what people think.

The basic idea is that spellcasters don't have a fixed spell list. Instead, they construct spells by combining d6s, which I'm calling Rune Dice.

The Basic Idea

The number of Rune Dice a spellcaster has is equal to their Key Casting Attribute, which ranges from 5–12. A dedicated spellcaster might start with 8.

At the beginning of a game, they spend 1 Magic to roll their 8 Rune Dice:
{1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6}

These dice represent the magical vocabulary currently available to them.

There are three types of Rune:

Factions — How the magic acts

Factions are free and don't require dice.

• Creation — create or generate something
• Destruction — destroy or suppress something
• Control — move or transform something that already exists

Elements — What natural force is involved

• 1 — Fire
• 2 — Water
• 3 — Earth
• 4 — Wood
• 5 — Wind
• 6 — Electricity

So the example pool contains 2 Fire, 1 Water, 1 Earth, 1 Wood, 2 Wind, and 1 Electricity.

Laws — What part of a living creature is affected

A Law is required when magic directly affects the internal workings of a sentient creature.

• 1 + 2 — Senses
• 3 + 4 — Body
• 5 + 6 — Mind

So the same pool also contains 1 Senses, 1 Body, and 1 Mind.

A spell can contain at most one Faction, one Element, and one Law.

For example:
Creation + Fire → a fireball
Creation + Wood + Body → healing a wound
Destruction + Mind → putting someone to sleep

The corresponding dice are removed from the available pool and moved into a Used Rune Pool.

This means your available magic changes as you cast spells. If you keep using Fire magic, you can eventually run out of 1s and temporarily lose access to Fire.

Spell Power

A damaging spell starts at 1d6 damage.

To increase its damage, you spend additional dice matching the Element used.

For example:
Creation + Fire = 1d6
Spend another 1 = 2d6
Spend another 1 = 3d6

For non-damaging effects, additional dice can instead increase things such as strength, duration, or other properties of the effect.

I'm currently considering five basic areas:

• Single target
• Line
• Cone
• Semicircle
• Square

Single target and square areas don't require an additional die initially. Extra dice can increase the number of targets or the size of the area.

Line, cone, and semicircle effects require one additional die to establish the area, with further dice increasing its size.

Duration

For spells maintained during combat, the caster spends 1 unused Rune Die per round to keep the effect active.

Outside combat, spending 2 additional Rune Dice can maintain a spell until the end of the current scene.

Manipulating and Recovering Dice

Magic can also be used to manipulate the Rune Dice.

For 1 Magic, the caster can increase or decrease one unused die by 1.

For example:
3 → 2 turns an Earth die into Water.

For 1 Magic, the caster can also reroll all dice currently in the Used Rune Pool, returning the new results to the available pool.

So Magic is partly a resource for controlling and refreshing your magical vocabulary.

What I'm Worried About

I can already see a few problems with this system.

1. It takes some time to learn.

Players need to recognize both the Elements and the Laws from the numbers. Looking at:

{1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6}

and immediately seeing both:

Fire, Fire, Water, Earth, Wood, Wind, Wind, Electricity.

and:

Senses, Body, Mind

will probably take some practice.

2. A good quick-reference sheet seems necessary.

Players would probably need a reference showing the Factions, Elements, Laws, basic effect rules, area rules, etc.

3. Players might spend too much time designing spells.

This is probably my biggest concern.

If the system is too open-ended, a player might spend several minutes thinking:
“I have Fire, Body and Wind… maybe I can do this… or perhaps this…”

I think the system needs clear guidelines for what each Element, Law, and Faction can reasonably accomplish, while still leaving enough room for creative spell construction.

It's still very much a random early concept, and I'm sure there are plenty of holes in it.

Has anyone seen a system that does something similar? What problems do you think this might run into at the table?

I'd especially love to hear from people who have worked on freeform magic systems before.

Edit:

1.  The randomness is tied to resource management—players can technically cast any spell, and the dice determine how much Magic it costs. Because player can spend Magic to manipulate the dice.

2. Players roll all their dice for free at the beginning of every session, and during the session, they can spend Magic to re-roll their used dice pool at ANY TIME.

3. I'm thinking of creating a list of spells for players to "prepare" from, and during a session, they can only use those prepared spells. I think this narrows down their choices to: "Should I cast the spell my current roll gives me for free, or should I spend Magic to manipulate the dice so I can cast a different prepared spell that the roll didn't naturally give me?" Meanwhile, I'll provide clear guidelines for spell creation so players can create new spells with their GM between sessions.

Hello everyone!

Welcome to Devlog #2.

I’m using these devlogs to document my process of designing a game. This isn’t meant to suggest that my way is the “right” way to design a TTRPG. It’s simply the process that works best with the way my brain tends to operate.

Hopefully, you’ll find something entertaining or useful in watching me figure things out. And as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and approaches along the way.

AstraWeaver is a classless, level-less, highly customizable, crunchy high-fantasy RPG about connecting small pieces into something extraordinary—whether that’s your character build, your magic, your equipment, or your team.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about dice.

In this devlog, I want to walk through how I gradually narrowed down the resolution system based on my design goals.
And, eventually, why I ended up with 2d12 roll under.

———

Rolling mechanic

There are many ways to introduce randomness into a TTRPG, but I wanted to use the classic approach: dice as the resolution mechanic.

The next question was: what kind of dice mechanic?
I had a few goals:
- Players should be able to quickly tell whether they succeeded without asking any question.
- Character growth should be clearly reflected in the odds of success.
- Different characters should feel meaningfully different when attempting the same thing.
- I wanted to use only one type of die.

I didn’t have some brilliant new resolution mechanic hiding in my brain, so I started by looking at the common ones.

Roll Over
This is probably the most familiar approach, and it has almost no learning curve.
It is also incredibly satisfying. Nobody is immune to the dopamine hit of rolling a huge number.
But as an occasional solo RPG player, I often find myself questioning the DC when playing with roll-over systems:
“Is this DC actually appropriate?”
“Am I cheating?”
I sometimes get the same feeling when GMing for other people.
I want to be able to confidently announce a DC like Brennan Lee Mulligan does, but somehow my brain just doesn’t work that way.
So no, roll-over isn’t bad at all. It’s actually great.
It just isn’t the one for me.

PbtA
PbtA systems have a lot going for them: It use d6 which is the most common dice in the world, the resolution range is compact, and the results are easy to understand.

However, the way PbtA handles resolution is primarily through a relatively small set of modifiers drawn from character abilities, fictional positioning, and situational factors.

This works extremely well when the game is focused on resolving broad, high-level fictional actions—where a single roll represents a whole sequence of events, and those modifiers naturally accumulate into a meaningful summary of the situation.

But when the action being resolved is smaller and more granular, there often simply aren’t enough relevant modifiers available to meaningfully express the character’s specific strengths or differences in that moment.

And that kind of more granular, additive/subtractive expression is not quite the experience I want to build.

Dice Pools
Dice pools were another strong candidate.
They’re fast to resolve, and they’re particularly good at representing different degrees of success.

I actually tried designing AstraWeaver around a dice-pool system.

The problem was me.

I couldn’t resist the temptation to use different dice for different things.

Before long, I had different attributes, circumstances, and abilities interacting with different dice, and I realized I was creating exactly the kind of cognitive load I wanted to avoid.

If I reduced everything to the same die, I lost some of the numerical differentiation I wanted.
Dice pools are a great tool.

I just don’t think my particular design mindset knows how to use them responsibly.

Roll Under
And then there was roll under.
This immediately solved several problems for me.

Players can look at their character sheet and directly understand their chance of success.
Character growth is also very intuitive: the higher your attribute becomes, the more likely you are to roll under it.

Different characters can invest in different attributes, and that difference is immediately visible in their chances of success.

It also gives me a lot of freedom to decide the numerical range of attributes and skills, as long as I can find an appropriate single die—or combination of dice—to represent that range.
More importantly, this is a system I feel I can actually control.

It still has some drawbacks.
Cheering because you rolled a low number is, admittedly, a little backwards.

And when you put a roll-under check next to combat damage, where rolling higher is usually better, there is a certain conceptual friction.

It also has another problem: the basic probability is tied directly to the target number. Without additional mechanics, it doesn’t naturally give me enough ways to distinguish different levels of difficulty.

But when I look at the resolution mechanic in isolation, and especially how it interacts with the rest of AstraWeaver’s rules, roll under is clearly the best fit for what I want.
So:
Roll under it is.

Number of dice

Now I had to answer the next question:
How many dice should I roll?
This is where my philosophy of character progression became important.

With a roll-under system, I wanted character growth to produce something resembling an S-shaped progression curve.

My intuition is that learning a skill often feels something like this:
At the beginning, progress is slow.
You are learning the basics, making mistakes, and struggling to understand what you’re doing.
Then, after enough experience accumulates, things start to click. Your success rate increases rapidly.
Eventually, however, progress begins to slow down again. You can still improve, but each additional step requires dramatically more time and effort.

You might need five years to become proficient at something, but twenty years—or much longer—to become a true master.

That’s how I personally think about progression.

It certainly isn’t universally true for every skill or every person, but it’s the feeling I want AstraWeaver’s progression system to convey.
And this is where the number of dice matters.

A single die gives me a fairly linear relationship between the attribute and the probability of success.

I need at least two dice to create the kind of curve I’m looking for.
Three dice can produce an even more pronounced curve, but the additional calculation starts becoming heavier than I want for a system that is supposed to be quick at the table.
So:
Two dice it is.

And what kind of dice?
d12.
There was never really a debate.
Not because I have some elaborate mathematical justification. I just really like rolling d12s. The numbers are easy to read.
The shape feels great. They don’t get cocked as often as some other dice.
And, most importantly, I just love the d12.
You can spend all day arguing with me about what the best die is.
I will still choose the d12.

——

So… 2d12 Roll Under.
And that’s basically how I arrived at AstraWeaver’s core resolution mechanic:
2d12 roll under.

But there is still a problem.
Remember one of the weaknesses I mentioned about roll-under?
The difficulty is basically fixed by the target number.
If I do nothing else, throwing an apple to a friend and shooting an arrow precisely into the center of a target could theoretically have exactly the same difficulty.
That’s obviously not what I want.

So in the next devlog, I’ll talk about how I tackled that problem—and how AstraWeaver determines difficulty and target numbers.

In the meantime:
What do you think about different dice resolution systems?
What’s your favorite?
And more importantly, what makes you love it?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next devlog!

Hello everyone!

What I originally posted was meant to be my first devlog. However, thanks to everyone who commented, I realized I skipped the most important question—I jumped straight into talking about mechanics before explaining what this game is actually about.

So I hope this can serve as a proper Devlog #0.

This post is here to define AstraWeaver’s identity, both for you and for myself. It’s a promise to future me: whenever I get lost in the endless ocean of mechanics, I can come back to this post and remember what this game is supposed to be.

Special thanks to Peter from Tales from Elsewhere. His TTRPG pitching framework inspired the structure of this post, and I think it’s a wonderful way to explain what a game is trying to achieve.

In this devlog I’ll cover:

* What is AstraWeaver.
* The vibe of AstraWeaver.
* What players can expect.
* What GMs can expect.

Hopefully, by the end, you’ll have a clear picture of the experience AstraWeaver is trying to deliver.

⸻

What is AstraWeaver?

AstraWeaver is a crunchy high fantasy TTRPG with a hard magic system, classless and level-less progression, 2d12 player-facing roll-under mechanics, and extensive character customization.

The game’s name comes from constellations.

Individual stars mean very little on their own, but by connecting them together they become something greater. That idea—connection—is the heart of AstraWeaver.

You connect attributes to solve challenges.

You connect abilities and maneuvers to create powerful combat combos.

You connect runes to craft new spells.

You connect with your allies to overcome impossible odds.

Almost every major system in AstraWeaver is built around combining small pieces into something stronger than the sum of its parts. Teamwork isn’t just encouraged by the setting—it is deeply supported by the mechanics.

The vibe of AstraWeaver

In AstraWeaver, you begin as a novice hero.

You aren’t destined to save the world because a prophecy says so. You become a hero through the things you accomplish.

You’ll explore forgotten ruins, hunt dangerous monsters, solve mysteries, help ordinary people, and sometimes stand against ancient evils. Every journey leaves its mark on your character.

Growth doesn’t simply happen because you reached a certain level. The adventures you complete provide the experience, materials, knowledge, and resources needed to improve your equipment, develop new abilities, and create stronger magic.

Downtime is just as important as adventuring.

There is no miracle spell that instantly erases injuries. Healing magic, potions, and bandages only help heroes keep moving a little longer. True recovery requires returning somewhere safe and spending time to rest.

During that downtime, heroes craft equipment, invent spells, improve their base, prepare for the next expedition, and perhaps even leave behind a legacy—a legendary weapon, a famous spell, or a thriving workshop that changes the world.

But the world doesn’t stop while the heroes rest.

The enemy continues pursuing its own goals, forcing players to balance recovery against the ever-growing threat.

What players can expect

AstraWeaver is designed for players who enjoy freedom and meaningful progression.

Character creation has ancestries and backgrounds to represent where are you from. But you can fully decide where you are going. This game is completely classless. You build the hero you imagine instead of fitting into predefined roles. Want a wizard who can go RAGE like a barbarian? Go for it. Want to create weapons and spells that perfectly match your playstyle? That’s equally valid.

Customization goes far beyond selecting abilities. Players can craft equipment, create spells, and develop unique combinations that mechanically support their own fighting style rather than existing as flavor alone.

Every attack automatically deals damage. Instead of rolling to see whether you hit, you roll to determine whether your added maneuver or special effect succeeds.
The interesting decisions don’t come from whether you attack successfully—they come from how you attack. Every strike can be combined with maneuvers and abilities, allowing players to create powerful combos, set up their allies, and execute creative tactical plays together.

Progression is continuous rather than tied to levels.Heroes earn XP through the things they accomplish, and that XP becomes the resource used for character upgrades, crafting, spell creation, and many other forms of growth. Every adventure moves your character forward, so there’s never a need to ask, “Do we level up yet?”

What GMs can expect

AstraWeaver aims to reduce bookkeeping so GMs can focus on running adventures instead of managing rules.

Most rolls are player-facing, allowing players to resolve the majority of actions themselves while giving GMs more attention to devote to storytelling, encounters, and the world.

The game also includes simple tools for adjusting challenge difficulty, making encounter design more consistent without requiring GMs to constantly invent DCs on the spot.

Combat uses a zipper-style initiative system. Whichever side begins combat acts first, then play alternates between the two sides as each chooses who acts next. This keeps everyone engaged, encourages teamwork, and helps avoid situations where one side dominates the entire first round before the other has a chance to respond.

Monster design is also built around reducing the GM’s workload.

Stat blocks stay compact and easy to run, while monsters include tactical guidance that helps them fight intelligently. Players should feel they lost because the enemy made smart decisions—not because the GM secretly wanted them dead.

⸻

That’s AstraWeaver.

A game about connecting ideas, abilities, allies, and adventures into something greater.

I hope this post communicates the heart of the project.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Every comment helps shape the game into something better.

In the next devlog, I’ll dive into the 2d12 roll-under system—why I chose it, what problems it solves, and how it became the foundation of AstraWeaver.

Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you in the next devlog.

Hello everyone!

Recently I started working on a small TTRPG project.

One reason I’m writing these devlogs is to document my design process. I also hope that if I accidentally reinvent a mechanic that’s already been done—or copy one without adding anything interesting—people can point it out early so I can rethink it before the design becomes too established.

The game is called AstraWeaver. It’s a classless, levelless, player-facing RPG built around a 2d12 roll-under system.

Here are the core ideas I’m currently exploring.

Multiple Attributes for Every Challenge
Real-life tasks rarely rely on a single ability. Driving a car, for example, requires awareness, coordination, and quick reactions.
In AstraWeaver, characters have five attributes:
- Might
- Agility
- Intelligence
- Instinct
- Presence
Whenever a character makes a check, the GM chooses one relevant attribute, and the player chooses a second one that they can justify. The two attributes are added together to create the Check Threshold (CT).
- Roll 2d12 < CT → Success
- Roll 2d12 > CT → Failure
- Roll 2d12 = CT → Critical Success

Right now I’m considering starting characters with something like 5, 6, 6, 7, 8 across the five attributes.

Continuous Character Progression
In games with traditional leveling systems, players often ask, “Can we level up now?” This feels especially common when using milestone leveling. Between milestones, character progression can sometimes feel like it’s on hold.
I understand why people enjoy leveling up. Reaching a new level and suddenly unlocking a bunch of new abilities feels exciting. Personally, though, I prefer a sense of steady, continuous growth. I like the feeling of taking lots of small steps, then looking back later and realizing just how far your character has come.
My current idea is that players earn XP by overcoming challenges, completing quests, or simply reaching the end of a session. They can then spend that XP however they like: increasing attributes, raising their maximum HP, Stamina, or Mana, learning new abilities, buying maneuvers, unlocking Codex Spells, and more.
There are no character classes, so nothing restricts which abilities a character can learn. Players are free to build exactly the character they imagine.
Of course, this also means I’ll need to be careful when designing abilities. Without classes acting as a balancing factor, it’s especially important to avoid creating a single dominant option that every character feels obligated to take.

Tactical Combat Without Long Downtime
I don’t think combat feels slow because it takes many rounds.
It feels slow when players spend too much time waiting for their next turn, or when their actions don’t meaningfully affect the battle.
My goal is to make combat tactical enough that players naturally discuss plans, coordinate combos, and stay engaged even when it’s not their turn.
The current direction is inspired by Pathfinder and Nimble RPG, using a 3–4 Action Point economy together with reactions, maneuvers, spells, and abilities.

Every Weapon Attack Should Be More Than Damage
Inspired by the Battle Master in D&D 5e.
Instead of making special maneuvers exclusive to one class, I’d like every weapon user to have access to them.
My current idea is:
Basic attacks automatically hit and deal damage.
Players roll only when attempting a maneuver.
Maneuvers aren’t limited to combat techniques. They can also represent creating openings, calling out weak points, coordinating allies, or controlling the battlefield.
Hopefully this makes every attack feel like a meaningful tactical decision instead of simply reducing HP.

Flexible Magic and Spell Crafting
This idea is heavily inspired by Ars Magica.
If a wizard can cast a fireball, they should also be able to light a candle.
Magic uses mana and comes in three forms:
- Codex Spells — learned from magical texts. These cost XP to acquire, are the fastest and most mana-efficient to cast, and teach the character new runes.
- Improvised Spells — players combine runes on the fly (for example, Create + Fire). Damage scales with mana spent (1d6 per mana). These require a casting roll: on success, the spell costs no base mana; on failure, it costs the full amount.
- Pre-written Spells — custom spells created by players using runes together with the GM in downtime or between sessions. They’re slower and more expensive to cast, but allow access to more advanced runes like Body or Mind. Once mastered, these spells can eventually become Codex Spells and get all the discount of mana cost.
Since tactical games benefit from consistency, I also want to provide clear guidelines for what each rune can and can’t do, reducing arguments at the table while still keeping magic flexible.

Building Tension During Stealth
Stealth scenes are usually slower than combat, but that also makes them a great opportunity to build suspense.
I love the feeling from games like Assassin’s Creed or The Elder Scrolls, where every mistake makes the guards more alert and raises the tension.
My current idea is to treat stealth as its own encounter system.
Characters have Stealth HP(link to their stealth CT), separate from their normal HP, while sharing a growing pool of Alert Dice.
Whenever someone fails a stealth check:
They roll damage against their own Stealth HP.
Another die is added to the Alert Dice pool.
Characters who specialize in stealth would both succeed more often and have more Stealth HP. They might also add smaller dice, such as d4s, to the damage pool, making failures less punishing.
The longer the infiltration continues, the more dangerous every mistake becomes. Once stealth hp hit zero, that character is exposed and guards will start to search the whole place.

That’s where the project currently stands.
Honestly, even writing all of this makes me realize how much work there is ahead—but that’s also what makes it exciting.

Designing and refining these mechanics already feels like playing the game in a way.
Hopefully I won’t drift too far from the original vision as development continues.

Thank you for reading this ridiculously long post. I’d love to hear your thoughts.