Hey folks!

My frog knight RPG has changed and evolved quite a lot since I first started working on it. Thanks to the feedback I've received from playtesting (thanks guys!), I'm currently doing a complete overhaul of the system, turning it into a micro-RPG of around 12–15 pages max.

One of the core ideas is that frog knights are brave. Despite their tiny size, they follow a chivalric code, and a big part of the gameplay revolves around fighting enemies that are much larger than them. You have very little HP, attacks can easily be deadly, and you're just a bunch of tiny frogs, but you're also brave knights who have a quest to complete above all else.

The tone is somewhere between epic, absurd, and fairy-tale/fable-like.

The thing I'm struggling with is: how do I actually encourage players to behave like this?

If you give players very little HP and make combat genuinely dangerous, the natural response is going to be to hide, outsmart enemies, avoid fights, or run away. And that's perfectly reasonable! Mausritter also puts tiny characters in a huge and dangerous world, but its mechanics naturally encourage stealth, survival, and cleverness.

So how would you encourage players to attempt bold, heroic charges and reckless acts of bravery, knowing that they could very well die?

I'm assuming that, beyond simply relying on the tone and fiction of the game, there needs to be some kind of simple mechanical incentive pushing players in that direction.

What do you guys think? How would you approach this if you were designing the game?

Thanks for your thoughts!

Hello folks!

I'm working on a tabletop RPG called BOG, where you play frog knights exploring dungeons in a cursed swamp. Recently, my game got playtested by a group other than my own. Reading through their experience, I realized I'd drifted pretty far from what I originally wanted this game to be.

When I started working on BOG, I wanted a minimalist RPG, few rules, but still genuinely fun and satisfying to play. As development went on, I kept adding more and more rules, and by the end I'd wandered pretty far from that original vision. That's fine though, it taught me a lot along the way. Now I want to go back to that starting point (without necessarily starting all my work over from scratch), because I think it's what actually interests me most, and I've realized it was a good idea to begin with.

So I wanted to hear your thoughts on minimalism in tabletop RPGs.

How do you approach doing more with less? Most minimalist games I see tend to be pretty narrative-focused, so do you think that same philosophy translates well to a dungeon crawler specifically? How do you figure out which rules to cut and which to keep, without the game ending up feeling empty or dull? And more broadly, what are your thoughts on this direction in game design overall?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

Hello folks!

For the past few months, I've been working on a small OSR tabletop RPG called BOG, where players take the role of frog knights exploring dungeons in a cursed swamp.

The game is designed around simple and fluid rules, deadly combat, and cooperation between players. It is a dungeon crawler meant for short adventures of a few hours, with fast character creation and a variety of tools to help the Game Master improvise and run dangerous dungeons.

I'm a French independent game creator. The core rules are already written, along with a bestiary and several ready-to-play dungeons. I'm now preparing the next steps and will soon start working on more illustrations.

BOG is planned for release in both English and French around September (hopefully!). It will be available as a digital PDF.

I'm currently looking for passionate tabletop RPG players and Game Masters who would like to playtest BOG with their group. The goal would be to run an adventure, answer a few questions afterwards, and provide honest feedback to help improve the game. All playtesters will be credited in the final version of the game.

I believe playtesting is one of the most important steps in creating a tabletop RPG, and I would really appreciate the help of people willing to discover the game and share their experience.

If you're interested, feel free to leave a comment or send me a DM. We'll chat a little bit first, and then I'll send you a compiled playtest version of the rules, in English or French.

Thank you very much for your interest and your help!

Hello folks!

I’m still working on BOG, my tabletop RPG about frog knights exploring dungeons in a cursed swamp. Since the game is largely focused on exploring dangerous ruins and mysterious places, combat needed to play an important role. But I’ve found that designing a good combat system is really difficult.

What I wanted was something simple and smooth to run, but still at least a little strategic and with a few original ideas of its own. I tested a lot of different approaches, but there was always something that didn’t quite work, or it just didn’t really capture what I wanted BOG to feel like.

So I’ve finally arrived at a version that feels closer to the mark, and I’d like to share a summary of it here to get your feedback. I’d love to know whether it sounds interesting to you, and whether it feels reasonably balanced.

So, first, each frog has two resource pools: Stamina and Vitality.

Stamina represents a frog’s ability to absorb blows, endure fatigue, and keep fighting, while Vitality represents actual health and life force. In practice, when a character takes damage, it comes off Stamina first; once Stamina is reduced to 0, further damage goes to Vitality instead. Stamina is relatively easy to recover after a fight, while Vitality requires proper care and a longer period of rest. If Vitality drops below 0, the character dies.

The creatures the frog knights fight use the same system.

When combat starts, the GM decides which side logically has the initiative depending on the situation: either the frog knights or their opponents. During the players’ side of the round, they can act in whatever order they want.

On their turn, a player can move, cast a spell or attack, and potentially use a combat action.

As for attacks, the core mechanic is pretty simple and follows the game’s general resolution system. To make an attack, the player rolls a number of d6s equal to their Vigor or Dexterity score depending on the weapon used. Attributes range from 1 to 3, and the player keeps the highest die. The target then makes a defense roll, rolling a number of d6s based on their armor and also keeping the highest result. If the attack roll is higher than the defense roll, the attack hits.

If the attack beats the defense by 4 or more, it counts as a critical success (for example, if the defender rolls a 2 and the attacker rolls a 6). Likewise, if the defense beats the attack by 4 or more, that would be a critical failure. I haven’t fully decided yet what criticals should do, but the idea would obviously be some kind of exceptional success or catastrophic failure.

If the attack hits, the attacker rolls the weapon’s damage die, and the damage is applied to Stamina or Vitality as appropriate.

The part I’m most interested in is the combat actions, which are meant to be the core tactical layer of the system.

Each round, all frog knights share a common pool of Bravery points equal to the number of frog knights participating in the fight. On a player’s turn, they can spend these points to perform combat actions. Any unspent Bravery is lost at the end of the round and does not carry over. The pool resets every round based on the number of active frog knights.

The available combat actions are:

• Reinforced Strike (cost 1): the attack deals one extra damage die.
• Reinforced Guard (cost 1): a nearby ally gains +1d6 to their defense against the next attack.
• Feint (cost 1): grants advantage to the next attack made by an ally against a specific target (they roll +1d6 on their attack).
• Decisive Blow (cost 2): a successful attack is automatically upgraded to a critical, without needing the usual 4-point margin. This must be declared out loud before rolling, so the group can agree on the bravery spend.

I’m pretty satisfied with how this part feels in theory.

When a frog is attacked, they still roll their armor dice as usual against the attacker’s highest die. Shields can also absorb damage completely, but they have 3 charges before breaking.

Overall, I’m happy with the direction of the system. We’re planning to test it in play soon, but I’d love to know what this evokes for you in theory. My goal is to strike a balance where combat feels tactical and shared between players without becoming too complex or slow.

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Hey folks!

I wanted to share the combat system from my upcoming roleplaying game, BOG, which should release in September. In BOG, you play frog-knights exploring dungeons in a cursed swamp.

Combat systems are probably one of the hardest parts of RPG design to get right, so for this game I was aiming for something simple, easy to run, and not too heavy, but still with enough room for tactical choices and teamwork.

The basic idea is that frog-knights have two pools: Grit and Vitality.

- Grit is basically stamina and your ability to keep fighting and absorb hits. You roll 2d6 for it at character creation (rerolling if you get double 1s).

- Vitality is your actual health, and it’s more important. You roll 1d6 + Dexterity + Vigor for it at character creation. Dexterity and Vigor are stats that range from 1 to 3.

Damage goes to Grit first. Once that hits 0, damage starts going to Vitality. If Vitality drops below 0, the frog dies.

Grit is fairly easy to recover after combat, while Vitality needs actual healing. Enemies work the same way and also have both Grit and Vitality.

How combat works

At the start of combat, the GM decides whether the enemies or the players act first. On the players’ side, everyone can act in whatever order they want.

On your turn, you can move and then either take one combat action or cast a spell.

To attack, you roll your weapon’s attack die against the target’s defense die. If your attack roll is higher, you hit, and the number rolled is also the damage dealt. If the defense roll is equal or higher, the attack misses.

Combat actions

There are three combat actions:

Assault

You make an attack and add a +1 to +3 bonus from either Vigor or Dexterity, depending on the weapon. The tradeoff is that your defense becomes 1 until your next turn, so you leave yourself open.

Guard

You attack normally but without your stat bonus, while keeping your full defense die.

Feint

You don’t attack. Instead, you distract the target and give the next frog attacking it an advantage, increasing the size of their attack die.

On top of that, shields can absorb damage, but they usually only have 3 uses before they break and become unusable.

That’s the basic idea. I’ve done a bit of playtesting and so far it’s been working pretty well. I’m also considering letting a frog in Guard protect another nearby frog, which would push teamwork a bit further.

I’d love to hear what people think. Does this sound balanced? Does it seem fun and interesting enough to you? Does it remind you of any existing systems I should take a look at?

Hey! I'm currently developing BOG, a minimalist dungeon crawler where small but brave frog knights explore a cursed swamp.

I wanted a resolution mechanic that felt different from the usual single d20 or dice pool, while staying fast and simple at the table.

Here's what I came up with: every roll uses two D6, one is your Luck die, the other is your Risk die.

• Luck > Risk → success
• Risk ≥ Luck → failure (ties go to risk)

You add your relevant stat (1 to 3) to your Luck die. Without any bonus, you're actually slightly more likely to fail than succeed (around 42% success). A stat of 3 pushes your odds up to around 83%, but you're never fully safe.

For advantage/disadvantage, you simply roll two Luck dice and keep the best (or worst) result, no extra modifiers to track. It's been working well in playtests so far because it's fast, tense, and the two dice "racing" against each other adds a nice physical feel to the roll.

What do you think of this system overall? And curious if anyone else has experimented with opposed dice mechanics like this, and what you think of the base odds slightly favoring failure?