Getting Playtest Ready (2025)

We're back!
As denizens of the TNP Discord will know, one of the main things I had been putting thought into over the break is the random campaign generation mechanic. I narrowed down a few of the specifics, and finally put it all into writing, so that I could distribute it for critique and feedback. Overall, I'm very optimistic about this system, based on the responses I got. There are only a few minor adjustments/clarifications that need to be implemented, after which I would say that this subsystem is "playtest-ready."

The basics of it are as such:

1. There are 4 basic types of encounters: combat, exploration, social, and subterfuge
2. A number of encounters are planned for each level, starting with 4 at level 0, and increasing by two every level (to a maximum of 5th)
3. A campaign thus consists of 54 encounters, approximately half of which should be combat encounters; these encounters can all be curated entirely by the DM, or by using a deck of cards to quickly generate a randomized campaign.
4. Face cards, jokers, and clubs are all used as combat encounters; aces are considered "wild" but are recommended to also be used as combat encounters; the numbered cards of the other 3 suits are used to generate (non-combat) encounters of the other 3 types.
5. The party can win the campaign, if they successfully complete a majority of their encounters.

This is something that I feel TTRPGs need -- a definitive ending point, and a way to track progress and success. Ever since it was pointed out to me that the number of cards in a deck (52, plus 2 jokers) corresponds to the number of weeks in a year (and that there are 4 suits, just as there are 4 seasons) I've wanted to bake this sort of correlation into how the random campaign generation was constituted. Clubs being a weapon made me want to associate that with combat; hearts representing social interaction seems intuitive, and exploration being about finding treasure would map to diamonds as a suit. Spades end up being "black ops," I suppose.

Since the numbers and types of monsters that can be generated in a combat encounter have a prescribed formula, starting from a randomly generated series of encounters, the monsters can be thrown into action fairly quickly. This formula will need to be incorporated into the campaign generation documentation, since currently I have it bolted onto the monster mechanics documentation. As mentioned before, some of the keywords and their related mechanics need to be finalized, in order to fully flesh out the archenemy mechanics. But after that? The campaign generation and monster mechanics will be basically complete.

The only remaining tasks then, in terms of completing the DM-side documentation, would be finalizing the non-combat encounter mechanics -- which should involve incorporating the detailed description of skill usage, as laid out previously. After that, I feel at least some "sample" monsters should be put out into the wild for mass consumption, but hopefully playtesting can begin as soon as it becomes convenient to do so.

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Look forward to all of that (and more) coming this year!

As mentioned before (and on the Discord) sequel content will also show up on the blog, as well as any "TNP 1.1" developments -- or possibly even some new ideas in game design, should they arise.

Check back for the next post on January 21st!

Table of Contents (2024)

I found myself thinking about which parts of the TNP system need to be finalized and bolted into the documentation, so I figured a good way to go about listing the missing parts is by listing what's already there. So here's an overview of where the system document currently stands, and how it is structured:

1. Basic Mechanics

• TN10 and TN20
• Mastery and Combat Mastery
• Advantage and Disadvantage
• 5 basic rolls and the 5 dice bonuses (overview)
• Skill Check mechanics
• Saving Throw mechanics
• Attack Roll mechanics
• Extra Damage mechanics
• Class Dice Bonus mechanics

2. Characters

• List of the 3 slates of classes
• Combat Roles (overview)
• Class Categories (overview and breakdown)
• Character Progression
• Core Skills
• Power Sources (knowledge skill progression)
• Skill Synergies
• Feats

3. Combat Mechanics

• Character Statistics
• Engagement, Surge Value, Reserves
• HP and Initiative
• Base Damage and Opportunity Damage
• Initiative mechanics
• Status Effects & Conditions (external doc)
• Actions in Combat (overview and list)
• Skill Checks in Combat
• Disengaging
• Standing Up
• Push/Trip/Shove
• 'No Action'
• Interrupts
• Getting Open
• Engaging
• Standard Actions
• Iconic Attacks, Melee Basic Attacks, Ranged Basic Attacks
• Ranged Attacks
• Melee Attacks
• Reach

So as you can see from this list, what needs to be implemented are (largely) the "DM-side" mechanics. Older drafts of the monster mechanics exist, and a cleaned up overview of those has also previously been posted, here on the blog. (One thing that was mentioned there which also needs to be added are the keywords for things like Forms, Summons, etc. which are interacted with by the archenemy monster type.) The other pillars of these mechanics are the campaign-building, including building of both combat encounters and non-combat encounters.

In the discussion of monster mechanics, the idea of how to handle minions/swarms (with regards to the card-based random generation for campaigns/encounters) basically ironed itself out. The mechanics for "winning" a social or an exploration encounter definitely need to be mapped out; as an adjunct to that, the rules document needs to include a detailed explanation of how Skills are meant to be used.

As you might notice from all the links in the preceding paragraphs, these ideas have already mostly been laid out in the blog -- it's just a matter of incorporating them into the main documentation, cleaning up and refining as needed, and then (hopefully) running everything through some playtesting.

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That's it for 2024! If there's anything else you think should be included in the TNP documentation in order to help you run or play the game, leave a comment below or join the discussion on Discord.

As mentioned previously, blogging is planned to resume sometime in the 2nd week of January.

Having Reservations (2024)

Let's talk a bit about reserves!

I'll start by saying that the baseline assumption I'm working from for the sequel designs, is that all characters just have 10 HP and 10 reserves; 10 is a nice round number, and 10 is the default target-number or "DC" in TNP anyway. But there are other sources to consider.

One of the games that I've played with a D&D group that I'm a part of is the Warhammer Quest: Cursed City board game. This game effectively has a "wounds" system, whereby being hit twice removes one of your four action dice; for all intents and purposes, this means that the player-characters each possess 8 HP. There is no consideration given to a Constitution score or racial/background bonuses. Early drafts of TNP had all monsters function almost as minions, dealing a fixed amount of damage (usually 1 point) which is similar to how monsters in Cursed City tend to work; this allows HP to be relatively low, compared to the 30ish you would start with in modern TNP (or 4th Edition D&D) for example.

Since in TNP, "everything is derived from the dice," earlier drafts had HP as a function of a rolled class die; this was pretty quickly revised to "maximum value of your class die" (producing a range from 4 to 12) but the obvious imbalance this created led to (effectively) a flat 20 HP being added to these numbers, to even things out a bit more. Naturally, monster math and mechanics had to be completely reworked to accommodate this.

However, since the sequel is expressly not built off of class dice, we can use something like a flat 10 HP to avoid all of the complexity that got built onto the original, simple TNP framework. Likewise, rather than needing to have reserves be "maximum of 2d4/2d6/1d8/1d10/1d12" so that all classes are more or less balanced, we can just give everyone 10 reserves and be done with it.

Now, a topic that I brought up in the Discord is the idea of a "TNP version 1.1" which would fall outside of the sequel designs, and be more of "the same" game, as TNP. In particular, one thing I brought up was the (often blogged-about) idea of per-day and per-encounter abilities. So let me break this idea down a bit -- hopefully without re-treading too much ground.

Basically, if the assumption is that "one reserve = one full heal-up" then the idea becomes something like, "if you have [a maximum of] 7 combats per day, you need 7 reserves for healing," meaning any extra reserves can be used to fuel your other class features. The basic idea is that TNP 1.1 would focus around properly implementing this idea.

To wit, a class with 8 reserves (i.e. 2d4 or 1d8 as their reserve calculation) would have 1 extra reserve not needed for healing, each adventuring day; the assumption would be that these classes would have a "once per day" reserve-burning ability. Likewise, a class with 12 reserves (2d6 or 1d12 calculation) might have a "once per encounter" reserve-burning ability.

So maybe the hierarchy ends up looking something like this:

• 8 reserves: 7 for healing + 1 per-day ability
• 10 reserves: 7 for healing + 3 extra healing
• 12 reserves: 7 for healing + 1 per-day ability + 4 extra healing -OR- 7 for healing + 5 for per-encounter abilities

In this case, extra healing might be for the character to top themselves up (if they are a tanky class that is expected to eat more damage than average, and therefore needs more healing) or to spend their own reserves to provide healing for allies -- such as in those situations where monster damage outpaces expectations. I'd like to have a cleaner method, such that the "10 reserve" builds could have more flexibility, but in a "dice determine everything"-paradigm like TNP, I'd rather be limiting these kinds of things to 1/day or 1/encounter, rather than have to somehow use the dice to justify a different limit.

To take things kind of full-circle, this brings into question the "sequel logic" of just having a flat 10 reserves for everyone; as with a few things already so far in these designs, the space for building mechanics around spending reserves for stuff other than healing is effectively lost by going to a flat math model. However, it's important to remember that the TNP "reserve-burning" mechanics are actually an attempt to unify 4th Edition's healing surge resource with (if not its per-encounter resources) its per-day resources. With that in mind, perhaps the solution as it pertains to the sequel designs is to re-adopt something akin to the 4e power progression, whereby (for example) per-encounter powers are gained at odd-numbered levels, and these are what essentially fuel your "d6 pool" features. So, reserves and "reserve-burning" abilities are no longer fueled by a unified mechanic -- but the upshot is that the numbers become easier to flatten out and balance.

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Alright! So with today's post being on-schedule, the final post of the year should be on December 10th or 12th, as previously planned. Check back then!

Construction Ahead! [2024-11-20]

Some minor updates were made to the wording, pertaining to the different action types. Now it should be more clear that while things that require 'no action' can be done on your turn or any other turn, interrupts can only be done when it is not your turn; Standard, Move, and Minor actions can only be done on your own turn.
I also realized that it might be worth making a distinction that 'no actions' cannot be used to interrupt enemy actions; for example, you see an archer take aim at you, and you decide to drop prone so that they have disadvantage on the attack. Should this be allowed, or should 'no actions' only be allowed to work as an "immediate reaction" but not an "immediate interrupt" (to use the 4e terminology) -- i.e. no actions might only be allowed to be used at the end of a turn, rather than at any point during the turn in question. If this is to be the case, I might also want to consider whether "no action, on your turn" should also be limited to the end of said turn.

In order to fix the Druid conundrum w/r/t starting roles, I think what I'll do is make the following changes to Disciple-category classes:

1. each gain one role at level 0
2. Class specialization (i.e. at level 1) changed to bonus power source of your choice; can be used to upgrade an existing power source
3. Class Category progression options (i.e. 1st, 3rd, and 5th levels) changed to the following:
• Bonus skill rank: Charisma, Intelligence, or Strength
• Bonus skillset training: Communication or Subtlety
• Gain an additional Role
4. Druids need to spend a reserve, when switching Roles, in combat(?)

Some things that need to be worked back into the rules from the older drafts are the keywords. To wit, if archenemy-type monsters in particular are able to turn off features with certain keywords, this will be important to iron out.
One of the key maxims in TNP is that benefits to you or your allies that you create are assumed to last until the start of your next turn, while penalties you apply to enemies are assumed to last until the end of your next turn. That being said, some such features may have the "sustaining" or "concentration" keywords; sustaining requires you to take a particular action to keep the buff/debuff going (typically the same action used to create the effect) while concentration effects are more "set it and forget it" and typically persist for longer than just one round. Some other important rules that keywords provide are the general mechanics around summoning, and also restoring or regaining HP.

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A bit of a brief update this go-around, due to being in something of a time crunch.
Since there are only two more blog posts planned for the remainder of 2024, it's clear that work on the "2024 edition" will continue, until it's finished. I'm fine with this, since the blog would likely continue on anyway, as the TNP Sequel (working title) is being developed in parallel to the main designs.

Next post is planned for November 30th, with the final post for this year expected either December 10th or 12th; after the winter break, blogging typically resumes around January 10th or 11th.

For full details, check in on the TNP Discord.

Unifying the Mechanics: Spell Dice

Following on from the previous post, let's try and extrapolate the math for weapon dice onto spell dice.

Now, the distinction would be that spells are expected to use either INT or CHA, but if they're using the same actual dice as weapons, then the modifiers might necessarily need to change. To wit, if the assumed "standard array" is +3/+2/+2/+1/+1 but a two-weapon routine is not assumed in the spell math, then we'll need to tinker a bit in order to create something comparable to the weapon dice math.

As an aside, I think that 4e D&D at least sets the bar for how we should think about spell damage. For example, a "close burst 1" attack would hit all adjacent enemies (for all intents and purposes.) Since we're talking about miniatures on a square grid, this means a 3x3 square, excluding the center square; in short, a maximum of 8 enemies could be targeted. Likewise, strategically, it might be reasonable to assume that a power such as this would not be used unless, say, there were at least 3 enemies adjacent. So in the paradigm of 1dX+mod, this gives us a range of that number, multiplied by [3,4,5,6,7,8]. You can easily see how multiplying (in particular) the modifier so many times can lead to massive spikes in the expected damage curve. Generally D&D (especially outside of 4th Edition) 'tries' to "balance" this by making such AoE spells limited on a per-day basis -- in other words, they make it apples and oranges, and hope nobody audits the math too closely.

If we're building from the assumption that spells are (generally, mostly) ranged attacks, then it would make sense to try and have them be at parity with ranged weapon attacks. In the previous post, we established that a 1d8 ranged weapon attack would add the higher of STR or DEX -- so a 1d8 ranged spell attack should do the same, albeit with INT or CHA. With a +3 mod, this gives an average damage of 6.8 (accounting for the d8 attack bonus math.)

Now, if we take an unmodified d4 attack and allow the spellcaster to make 3 of these per turn (i.e. a magic missile spell, that does "a number of attacks equal to the higher of your INT mod or CHA mod") this comes out to a total of 6.6375 average damage, including attack bonus. Already we can see that this damage almost exactly on pace with the d8; granting more than 3 attacks is probably not in the cards. (If anything, we might be able to do fewer attacks, but attach a small damage modifier to them.) It's probably worth mentioning here that 13th Age tends to use "1d3" for determining the number of targets on multi-target spells, and d4 serves this function in TNP sometimes, for similar reasons.

Finally, a d12 attack with a +1 modifier gives an average damage of 6.45, or a 7.15 average with a +2 modifier. This math is pretty easily attainable if we use our previous mechanic for the d4 two-weapon fighting, whereby the die uses the lower of STR or DEX (in the case of a spell, one assumes INT or CHA).

So, we can see already the framework starting to take shape. We've made attribute modifiers an important part of the math, but kept things relatively balanced within those parameters. I've always sort of liked the idea of having weapon dice function as spell dice; with daggers typically being d4 and staves being d8, I think this kind of thinking maps well to this sort of dice paradigm.

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A relatively short post today, but most of the groundwork was laid in the previous one.
Following post is due on Nov. 20th so check back then!

Unifying the Mechanics: First Attempt

I'm loathe to just post untested mechanics, because I often end up having to revise them later on. But right now, I'm just going to lay out the basic conceptualizations and math for what I think the weapon dice mechanics might look like, in the TNP sequel.

I had mentioned previously that weapon attacks would use either your STR mod or DEX mod as a damage bonus, but that the mechanics would try and steer d12 weapons towards favouring STR; for example, it might be the case that only classes with features that favour STR would get proficiency with d12 weapons, while other classes would not. I'm currently pointing the designs in a different direction.

So, the idea with the attributes currently is that you'll probably have one +3, either one or two +2s and the rest would be +1s (keeping in mind there are 5 attributes in total.)

My idea is this:

• d4 weapon damage rolls add the lower of your STR or DEX
• d8 melee weapon damage rolls do not add a modifier
• d8 ranged weapon damage rolls add the higher of your STR or DEX
• d12 melee weapon damage rolls add your STR

Now, in order for this to work, I've calculated the "weapon dice bonuses" as follows:

• d4: can be added to a miss; crit on a tie -- assuming +2 mod, average damage = 3.6625
• d8: can be added to a miss; crit on a tie -- assuming no mod, average damage = 4.4 (melee)
• d8: can be added to a miss; crit on a tie -- assuming +3 mod, average damage = 6.8 (ranged)
• d12: can be used in place of a miss; crit on a tie -- assuming +3 mod, average damage = 7.85

The idea was to have 1d4/1d4 two-weapon fighting be slightly worse (3.6625 * 2 = 7.325) than the d12 "two-hander" option, with 1d4/1d8 TWF being slightly better (3.6625 + 4.4 = 8.0625), and 1d8/1d8 (4.4 * 2 = 8.8) being outright better than d12 (albeit limited to very select classes.) Likewise, d8 ranged attacks were intended to be a little stronger than d8 or d4 melee attacks, but not stronger than d12 melee attacks. (Note: the assumption being that d4 weapons can be thrown, functioning as both "ranged" and melee weapons, and able to make 2 attacks in either case -- in practical terms, this is exactly how daggers function, in 5e.)

It's probably worth mentioning here, that the difference from this ethos compared to TNP, is that TNP assumes a baseline damage of 1d8 (or at least something in that ballpark) with 1 class die bonus being added to it; in the sequel math, the damage die and the bonus die are always the same die, meaning the base damage die isn't always the same, and thus the bonuses have to be calculated accordingly. So instead of one static baseline with multiple (5) possible modifiers, there are 3 static baselines but also 3 static modifiers.

Now, as you can see, the "unifying" aspect of these mechanics is that the weapon dice bonuses function off of the assumption of "crit on tie" being part of the dice trick, for all three. In TNP, the d4 could be added to a hit or a miss; this has been changed not only to make the math work (and to unify the mechanics a little better) but also because the assumptions are more like:

• weapon damage dice can "always" roll a number that will change a miss into a hit (or crit)
• the "d6 pool" mechanic does not have the above functionality, but it is going to be able to be added to a miss or a hit (much as the d6 bonus can, in TNP)

In this way, these mechanics (I think) serve to better compliment each other; the d6 pool is the more steady/reliable bonus, whereas the weapon dice bonuses are more for the "hail Mary" situations. I'm also leaning towards the idea that the weapon dice can always be used as damage and as an attack bonus, but a d6 that is used as an attack bonus cannot also be used as damage; the attack bonus would still be limited to one die (as in TNP) meaning you could not use both a weapon die and a d6 from your pool to modify the attack -- it would have to be one or the other.

The other aspect of these dice bonuses is that the overall hit/crit chances are fairly closely comparable, but not identical; working from the baseline of 50% hit/5% crit, these bonuses improve those odds, as follows:

• d4: 62.5% hit / 10% crit
• d8: 70% hit / 10% crit
• d12: 60% hit / 10% crit

You can kind of see from this that we end up with fairly balanced math, but a lot of the uniqueness of the class dice bonuses has been lost. You do kind of have the option of attacking more (d4), hitting more (d8), or hitting hardest (d12) -- all of the little fidgety bonuses are gone, so it's a lot cleaner, but also more... well, sanitary would be a good word to describe it.

Anyway, I had the idea to use the "STR mod as damage bonus" as the way of steering d12 towards favouring STR, and the rest of the experimentation and resulting math just sort of flowed from that assumption. Hopefully this will help the rest of the system to likewise come into focus. I may also apply similar ideas towards spell damage, offering different bonuses whether INT or CHA is used.

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That's all for October! Assuming we get back on track, the next post is scheduled for November 10th.

Construction Ahead! [2024-10-22]

I somewhat recently did another small pass, tidying up the class documents; this was sort of necessitated by me adding the class category descriptions to the main TNP document. While trying to make a comprehensive, cohesive, and coherent summation of the class categories and their progressions, I came to realize that some streamlining was still warranted.

Some of these changes resulted from holdovers, going back to before the class categories were finalized (i.e. when Paladin was still going to be a Disciple, along with Occultist and Druid; this has since been swapped so Warlord is now the 3rd Disciple class.) Specifically, Disciples gain a bonus attribute rank at level 0, but the choices are limited to STR, INT, and CHA; originally I had Warlord with the option for STR or CHA, Occultist with the option for INT or CHA, and Druid with the option for STR or INT -- but when writing an overarching description for this class category, unifying the options just made more sense than not.

Another thing that I believe was cleared up in this pass is that Disciples (through their 1st/3rd/5th level class category progression) can also gain an additional trained skillset, but only have the option to pick Communication or Subtlety.

In hindsight, the Druid not getting their combat roles (i.e. forms) until level 1 feels a little off, especially for the Shapeshifter. That being said, swapping out either their level 0 perk (bonus attribute rank) or one of their 1st/3rd/5th level features (bonus power source, or Communication/Subtlety training) in order to put a combat role in at level 0, would leave their level 1 "class specialization" feeling kind of wimpy. It also would feel weird to give them a role feature at level 0, and then have their "specialization" (at level 1) be... you gain a different role feature; that seems unintuitive.
This is somewhat negated by the other perk of Disciples, namely that (unlike other classes) they are free to change their subclass, by spending a reserve. So a Druid might start off as a Summoner, but then switch to a Shapeshifter at level 1, when their forms kick in.

All told, I may still have to revisit this.

An interesting wrinkle, that I think is worth mentioning:

• 'core' progression only provides feats at level 3 and 5
• Skill Expert, Jack of All Trades, and Disciple classes can take the Bonus Skill Training feat
• Skill Experts gain a bonus trained skillset or attribute as their class specialization (i.e. at level 1, but not as part of their 1st/3rd/5th level class category progression)
• Jack of All Trades classes can gain an extra feat at any of 1st/3rd/5th level, as part of their class category progression -- but Bonus Skill Training is a feat that can only be taken once

...so potentially, a Skill Expert can have 4 trained skillsets/attributes by 3rd level; a Jack of All Trades can get up to 3 trained skillsets/attributes by level 1. By contrast, a  Disciple can also have 3 by level 1, but the 3rd has to be either Communication or Subtlety; however, at level 3 or 5, they can potentially take the Bonus Skill Training feat, to boost that number to 4. It's also worth pointing out that at 1st/3rd/5th levels, a Jack of All Trades can take the same type of upgrade (but not, for example, double up on the exact same feat) whereas Disciples have to take a different upgrade at each of these levels. I think all in all this does a good job of making the Disciple not step on the Skill Expert's toes, while also not making them just "Jack of All Trades, again" either, despite sharing many similarities (both having the combat role feature mechanics, in particular.)

Another change that was implemented was to make sure every domain granted a bonus knowledge skill rank:

• Life domain grants a rank with one Divine or Primal knowledge skill
• War domain grants a rank with one Martial or Shadow knowledge skill
• Divination domain grants a rank with one Divine knowledge skill
• Enchantment domain grants a rank with one Arcane knowledge skill
• Misdirection domain grants a rank with one Shadow knowledge skill
• Blood domain grants a rank with one Primal knowledge skill
• Stone domain grants a rank with one Martial knowledge skill

I thought this was sort of an important thing to add, not only to make sure that the Ideologue category (i.e. the domain classes) really emphasized having knowledge skills -- and adding some flavour to those subclasses -- but it's also important for the Blade Master classes, which have the option to borrow from these domains (as well being an option for Bards.) In this regard, I feel like the Cleric's Life domain is sort of doubling as the "Nature" domain, while War is doubling as the "Death" domain, to explain the extra options that these ones provide. (Also worth noting, the Sage and Guardian domains each grant a bonus rank to a skillset or attribute; to balance this out, Cleric gains a bonus rank to Charisma -- which Paladins also get.)

Another insight that I took away from these updates is that the skill rank limitations might need to be more clearly spelled out. To wit, with a core skill, the idea was that you could gain one rank in it from the skillset for that skill, and one more rank from the attribute for that skill; it might not be clear that a "skillset" rank bonus from a domain and a "skillset" rank bonus from a feat (just for example) should not be able to stack. The intent has always been to encourage broadening your skill competencies, rather than endlessly doubling-down on one or two skills.

Conversely, after going over the text, it almost seems like knowledge skill ranks are given out like candy (particularly to the Ideologue classes.) While these ranks are currently capped at 1+level, I think that might not be necessary. Oddly enough, with "flavour" or "ribbon" abilities such as knowledge skills, I'd actually lean more towards encouraging people to pick a lane and stick with it, rather than dabble in all 10 skills. That all being said, I do think a final cap of 6 ranks is probably reasonable (and needed) if the ceiling on knowledge skill ranks per character is somewhere around 10.

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That's all the new updates for today's post. Check back by October 31st for the next one!