Reverse Engineering (2025)

I've been thinking on how to handle the skill check mechanics for the sequel, and I realized the original idea had gotten away from me, somewhat.

In TNP, the skill "check" die is a d10, and the bonus die is a d6; to mimic this in a d6 system, the obvious thing to do would seem to be replacing the d10 with 2d6. But somehow I'd gotten to a place where it had morphed into some variation on "d6 pool for everything, all the time," and it still seemed to miss the mark. Without beating a dead horse, the effective mod range is a bit limited, and the dice rolls that matter are likewise pretty limited. So I went back to the fundamental 1d10+1d6 idea.

Ok, let's say the "check" die is 2d6; anytime you make a check, you roll 2d6. Against a DC10, this gives you only a 1/6 chance of success -- so some more dice and/or mods are clearly needed. The average on 3d6 is 10.5, meaning that 3d6 vs. a DC10 is basically a coin flip. What TNP does is essentially increase the number of "bonus" dice you can roll, thus increasing the odds of rolling a high bonus/modifier to your check. We could apply this same logic to a 2d6 system; the base check is 2d6, and the bonus is the highest d6 out of a pool. If we're using the current baselines, this would be a maximum of +2 from Attributes, and probably the same for Skillsets (maybe +3?)

Using anydice, we can figure out the odds for how this works vs. a DC10:

• 2d6+1d6 = 62.50%
• 2d6+[highest 1 of 2d6] = 75.23%
• 2d6+[highest 1 of 3d6] = 81.13%
• 2d6+[highest 1 of 4d6] = 84.37%
• 2d6+[highest 1 of 5d6] = 86.35%

This actually looks really promising, because as the chance of failure drops towards that 15% threshold, the diminishing returns on further boosting a skill start to kick in. Adding the implicit assumption of a 3rd die (except in the case of a +0 mod) also gets around the problem of "only 5s and 6s matter." The problem is that this breaks the check into 2 distinct rolls, which is a bit inelegant; the base 2d6 clearly can succeed, but is unlikely to do so -- but pooling them all together completely changes the math. If the 2d6 is a 3 or less, then the bonus dice become irrelevant (because the check has no chance of success) but a result between 4 and 8 means that success is still possible -- unlike with the "dice pool only" model, where it's just... 2 out of X dice have to equal 10, so if you roll all 4s and 3s (or lower) you're just screwed.

So now that we've established that this works, the immediate question is, can we further reverse-engineer this into a combat system? As I've often said, you should either have a unified system (that usually works great for one subsystem and badly for another) or you have distinct subsystems, but both serve their purposely excellently. The conundrum of an "all d6 system" is that it's not very unified if there are still distinct mechanics for combat vs. for skill checks -- despite everything using the "same" dice. 

The current combat mechanics are based around the supposition of 3d6+mod, where 2 dice (plus a flat mod) are used for the attack roll, with the remaining die (plus the same mod, probably) being used as the damage roll. To make this work anything like the check dice... basically it would mean a significant boost to hit-chance, assuming we're sticking with a cap of +2/+2d6 modifiers (which, you can't really meaningfully go lower than that, so...)

As mentioned in the previous post, the fact of attack rolls having damage as a "release valve" for unused dice means that the attack mechanics will likely/necessarily have to be different than the skill check mechanics. The other consideration is that the "acceptable ranges" for both types of rolls are different; skills should mostly fall in the 45% (i.e. a -1 mod, in D&D terms) to 85% range, whereas attacks probably need to have 55% or 60% as a baseline, and increase to 90% or possibly 95% with teamwork and other bonuses. This all makes it hard to unify mechanics, since unified mechanics should (presumably) produces unified outcome ranges -- so if that isn't the goal, then unified mechanics likewise shouldn't be the goal. This new idea now gives us mechanics that hit both of our prescribed benchmarks; the question next is can we do anything to further simplify and/or unify these two systems, and still produce comparable outcomes?

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Next post is due on (or about) March 15th, so check back then for more!

Stream of Consciousness [2025-02-23]

Today's post will be a bit of a meandering, scattershot affair. Consider yourself warned.

As I had mentioned in a fairly recent post, the math involved with just doing skill checks entirely as a d6 pool (without any static modifiers) is appealing, but this problem still persists:

My first intuition was "Skillsets add ranks, and Attributes also add ranks," or in other words, neither adds a flat modifier, but both could add to the "d6 pool." The problem with this (as was brought to light in discussion) is that it amounts entirely to randomness, whereby you're just rolling more and more dice and hoping for some combination of 5s and 6s on two of those dice (or a 4 and a 6, obviously.)

From a tactile perspective, this is really a problem; no matter how many dice you're rolling, it's really only the 5s and 6s that matter, and the rest are kind of a big waste. The combat mechanics avoid this problem by turning unused attack dice into damage dice, but the skill mechanics don't have any comparable sort of "release valve" for excess dice.

So the temptation is to work flat modifiers into the skill mechanics, so that dice results other than 5s and 6s can still make a difference. The problem then becomes the fact that (obviously) a +0 modifier does nothing, and a +2 modifier (stacked with another +2) does too much -- so in other words, it feels like we almost want there to be a flat +1 modifier to all skills, combined with the +0/+1/+2 Attribute bonus. In which case, what's the point? Put another way, the already narrow +0/+1/+2 range for Attributes is likewise narrowed down to (just) +1 and (maybe) +2, for Skillsets. It might be the case that a reroll or "mastery" mechanic is necessary for the skill math. Perhaps something like, in addition to the modifiers adding dice to the pool, you can also reroll a number of 1s equal to the total modifier? I wouldn't even begin to know how to calculate that (aside from drawing it out on a very long, wide spreadsheet.) Maybe the rerolls are instead of the pool, rather than in addition to it?

Anyways, I feel like I've harped on these proposed sequel mechanics enough, and I'm kind of running around in circles with it. So, onto something else!

Foundations & Building Blocks
An idea that recently came to my mind was that of using a standard set of dominos, for some sort of RPG mechanics. For those unfamiliar, each domino basically has two numbers, between 0 and 6, with each combination of numbers occurring only once -- creating a total of 28 dominos. So why this? Well, it harkens back to a couple of other things I've mentioned before, on the blog:

1. In the game Feint Wars (that I did some playtesting for) 3 suits of cards were used, effectively numbered 1 through 6; each suit trumped one of the other suits (almost like rock-paper-scissors) giving it a +3 bonus in combat, which was resolved by using opposing cards (much like the simple card game War.) Cards were also effectively action points, so they could instead be used to move, up to the number of spaces on the card.
2. Italian Cards: As I've mentioned previously, these cards use 4 slightly different suits, but also the numbered cards only go from 2-7 (aces are still included) rather than the usual 2-10; this range more closely mirrors that used in Feint Wars, but also, a maximum movement speed in the 5-7 squares/hexes range is pretty standard for tabletop RPGs.
3. I've played Settlers of Catan with an add-on deck of cards that sort of mimicked rolling 2d6, just with the deck representing a standardized/normalized/(whatever the proper mathematical term is) bell curve of the range of rolls, equally represented -- thus, removing most of the randomness.

This last one in particular probably most reminds me of the number ranges/values used on the dominos, because the dominos are so closely mapped to 6-sided dice. I know I've also mused about using a full standard deck of 52 cards somehow in RPG design (such as in the random campaign generation system, for TNP) as well as pivoting the current sequel designs towards purely d6 mechanics.

I think these kinds of things are important, because they are so ubiquitous, accessible, and present such a low barrier to entry, both in terms of availability but also cost. In an increasingly online world (where I've heard it said by someone in the RPG space that, "all games are becoming video games,") I want to make games that are simpler and more down-to-earth. I think this is even reflected in the earliest seeds of TNP, where each die shape represented the entire suite of mechanics for one class.

Perhaps my earliest great love in tabletop gaming was the original Axis & Allies, but I also ended up playing a lot of Risk with my friends, since it was a little bit more digestible. I never was one to think of making a whole new map, or adding all sorts of different new types of units; I always wanted to make alternate/historical scenarios out of what the game already had, so that I could create a fun, new, accessible experience for people who owned and loved the game. I feel the same about these fundamental pieces of gaming, such as dice, dominos, and cards.

How can we bring RPG design back to these sorts of fundamentals? It's a question that I find is very rewarding to explore.

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With the shortest month out of the way, this leads us into the part of the blogging schedule where updates are """""planned""""" to be on the 5th, 15th, and 25th of each month, until the scheduled break during the month of July. Check back on (or about) March 5th for the next post!

Stream of Consciousness [2025-02-13]

I've been out of pocket for most of the intervening time since the last post, so I haven't had much opportunity to sit down and focus on TNP or sequel stuff. (Other non-TNP stuff has caught my attention recently, though.)

Carrying on from the previous post, one question that came to mind was how to handle the Attribute mods, with regards to skill usage. For example, just because a "+2" Attribute is used as a flat modifier for combat, does that mean it has to be used as a flat modifier for skills, too? Or could that +2 mean "add 2 dice to the pool" instead? It's a little bit unintuitive and inelegant to do it that way, but in the earlier sequel designs, it was intended that the math would function in a similar fashion; specifically, attributes would be flat modifiers for combat but provide "skill rank bonuses" (i.e. add d6s to the pool) when it came to non-combat. (By extension, it was supposed that Skillsets would use a binary trained/untrained convention, for bestowing advantage on the d10 component of skill checks.)

So what would be the value in doing that? Well, basically if you have bonuses to Skillsets that don't interact with combat in any way, you can hypothetically have a bit more variance in those bonuses. In reality though, our acceptable ranges for skill checks is something like (best 2 of) 3d6+0 through 5d6+2 -- effectively meaning a maximum of a +2 Attribute modifier and a +2 Skillset bonus. If our Attributes are capped at only one being a +2, then that would mean more Skillsets could have a +2 bonus (since they'd be paired with +1 or +0 bonuses, from Attributes.) Part of the issue is that for the most part, there isn't a significant difference in the boost from going to an additional +1 flat modifier vs. an additional +1d6 into the dice pool; for skills, where the math tends to remain relatively static and not impacted by situational bonuses, this causes a bit of a lack in variety.

Does the skill check mechanic need to be kicked down to 2d6? The problem is that 2d6+2 is still a <50% success rate, so you'd probably be adding a 3rd die to the pool most of the time anyway... which feels kind of like reinventing the wheel. On the other hand, it'd potentially let Skillset modifiers go as high as +3, without breaking anything.

Honestly, if all of this navel-gazing has taught me anything, it's that using both Attributes and Skillsets for dice pool bonuses is beginning to seem like a more appealing option as time goes on. Having to work around the flat modifiers is too much of a straight-jacket, particularly if you know you're going to layer something else onto it, in addition; having both of them simply add to the pool eliminates this problem entirely. It would also open up the possibility of having a less tightly-banded range for Attribute modifiers, i.e. opening it up to having more than one +2, if nothing else.

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We've got one more post scheduled for this month, so in order to keep roughly on schedule, that should be out by February 24th at the absolute latest. Check back then!

Sequel Musings -- Part 2: A New Paradigm (2025)

In the short intervening period since the previous post, a lot of spitballing and discussion has gone on, in the TNP Discord. Without belabouring the point too much, the combat mechanics have essentially been narrowed down to "keep 2d6," with the baseline assumption starting at rolling 3 dice; any two can be used as the attack roll (scoring a hit on a 10+) with the remaining dice used for damage.

So how does that hit-chance look, when a modifier is applied to it? (Calculated by using the highest 2 of 3d6):

• +0 = 35.65%
• +1 = 52.31%
• +2 = 68.06%
• +3 = 80.56%

From that, I would argue that we can eliminate +3 as an option for the combat math; the percentage is already too high, and the system needs to account for other bonuses. The basic idea would be that bonuses granted from class features, teamwork, etc. would add more d6s to the pool; much like TNP, extra dice not used for the attack roll would be used for extra damage -- and the attack roll would never exceed 2d6+mod.

For combat math, I think it's safe to assume that your highest modifier would always apply. It also means that on a "basic attack" the average damage roll (on a hit) would be the remainder of [2d6+2 - DC10]; if the average of 3d6 is 10.5, and at least an 8 needs to be added to the +2 in order to score a hit, that remainder ends up being 2.5 -- in which case, I would argue that it probably makes sense to also add this +2 modifier to the damage roll.

Now, moving away from combat, to the skills side of things...

If we use the TNP "skill grid" as our basis, we can rank skills by assigning a value to them, based on both their Attribute and their Skillset. If our assumption is that combat math is fueled by Attribute mods (which range from +0 to +2) then we have to shape our Skillset bonuses around that. That all being said, we don't need to give as much consideration to outside modifiers, the way that we would do with combat.

My first intuition was "Skillsets add ranks, and Attributes also add ranks," or in other words, neither adds a flat modifier, but both could add to the "d6 pool." The problem with this (as was brought to light in discussion) is that it amounts entirely to randomness, whereby you're just rolling more and more dice and hoping for some combination of 5s and 6s on two of those dice (or a 4 and a 6, obviously.) The upside is that even at "highest 2 of 6d6" the success rate is only just approaching 75% which also means that even by adding 4 additional dice to the baseline 3d6 roll, the math only then breaks the 80% mark. If the +3 modifier math was deemed too high for combat (because it reaches this 80% mark) then it stands to reason that a +2 cap for Attributes means a +1 cap for Skillsets, if these modifiers are meant to be potentially combined together. By letting one of these numbers be dice instead of a flat modifier, it gives us a bit more wiggle room for some variety. A +2 modifier added to "highest 2 of 5d6" (i.e. +2 dice to the pool) would cap out at just over 90% success rate -- which is basically the absolute ceiling of what I think would work, for skills. 

This also begs the question of, in a spread of 5 Attributes, how many +2s, +1s, and +0s should a character have? If you're able to overlap two +2 Attributes with a +2d6 bonus on two Skillsets, suddenly you're at that mathematical ceiling, for something like 1/3rd of the skills in the game. If skillfulness is meant to be spread across a party of 4 or 5, then this wouldn't make any sense. It probably stands to reason that a well-rounded party would have one character with a +2 for each of the 5 Attributes -- meaning an Attribute spread of something like +2/+1/+1/+0/+0 as the default. By extension, this would allow bonus dice from Skillsets to have a bit more flexibility, since we only need to worry about one Attribute's worth of skills ever approaching that 90% (and of those, probably/maybe only one out of 3-4 applicable, overlapping Skillsets.)

Anyway, that's a lot of talk about dice probabilities and math. The challenge once you find a dice engine that hums, is how to convert that into something that feels like the type of game you want to be playing. In essence, you back-port the mechanics onto the character classes as best you can, rather than starting from the character concept, and trying to make up mechanics that fit and work.

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As the blog schedule goes, the next post should be up on or about February 12th, so make sure to check back then!

Sequel Musings (2025)

Perhaps it shines through in some of the posts I've made about the TNP sequel before, but the designs (such as they are, thus far) don't really have me as excited as some of the breakthroughs I experienced when working on TNP. For example, I don't like how the 'first attempt' mechanics boil down to "sometimes you use this mod, sometimes that mod, and other times no mod." Broadly speaking, I think the weapon damage die mechanics don't carry the same pop that 'class dice' do in TNP (because these mechanics don't stack, unlike TNP) even though they're meant to behave similarly. The weapon damage dice feel like a compromise, particularly when the attack math is laid bare, and there ends up being no variance in the crit bonuses.

So I'm beginning to lean in a new(ish?) direction.

I've made a post in the past, offering and evaluating some alternative "DC10" mechanics. The suggestion that made the most sense (in the paradigm of the attribute ranges extrapolated from TNP / projected into the sequel design ideas) was basically 2d6+mod, where 'advantage' would be "3d6, keep the 2 highest" and 'disadvantage' would likewise be "3d6, keep the 2 lowest."

In addition to that, I've also teased other concepts I've had in mind, for other RPGs I might want to design -- with this one in particular jumping to mind:

an ultra-lite mechanical system, that fires off of d6s only (and maybe a standard deck of 52 cards) that can easily be played on a bus, or out on a camping trip

So why do I bring this up?
I'm sure I've posited this before, but if you're going to push forward with "d6 pool" as your 'unique selling proposition' (particularly if the decision is made to shed the 'weapon damage dice' mechanics) then the next question invariably is, why keep the d20?

I keep finding myself answering that question with a question: What do you replace the d20 with?

One of the mechanics that I had used in previous RPG designs was sort of... mixing and matching attack dice and damage dice, to create "power attack" or "precise attack" mechanics. So for example, if the attack roll was 1d10 and 1d6, and the damage roll was 2d6, a "precise attack" would let you use the two highest dice out of all 4 -- ensuring you a better chance to hit, at the cost of lowering your overall/average/maximum damage. Perhaps the d6 pool could be modified to perform this sort of function, as well?

Just spit-balling here, but lets say your default mechanic is to roll 5d6, and you can use up to 2 of them as your attack roll (probably adding an attribute modifier, or similar) with any remaining d6s used as your damage roll. In a way, this sort of brings back the tradeoffs that class dice bonuses have, where you're often using a die to score a hit (or a crit) at the expense of using that die for damage. To wit, you would be trying to compile the two lowest d6 rolls possible to hit that "DC10" mark, so that your higher rolls could be preserved for damage.

This ultimately begs the question of how the d6 pool is to be bounded. If at its core, the system is relying on "2d6+mod" in order for DC10 to be at all viable, then it stands to reason that the design might have to hand-hold players towards ensuring their main attack stat is at least a +2 (assuming that such stats are used for both number of dice in the pool, and for attack modifiers... which might be messy.) Then, situational and/or "power" bonuses can ping either flat numbers or secondary stats, in order to add more dice to the pool. And, if the assumption is that the d6 pool is both your attack and your base damage (because we're not using weapon damage dice) then your floor actually needs to be +3 / 3d6 in order for this to work. That all being said, a straight 2d6+3 vs. a DC10 isn't significantly better odds than 1d20 vs. DC10 -- with the added downside that +3 is already near the ceiling of where TNP designs would imply that attribute modifiers ought to be.

Maybe you just say "screw it" and make it so that the default roll is 3d6, with any modifiers being over and above that? In that paradigm, a +2 mod might give you 5 dice total, with your attack roll being (effectively) 2d6+2, with 3d6 remaining for damage. Something about that feels "off" though, to me. Heck, maybe the attack roll needs be changed to 1d6 and the DC changed from 10 down to 5?

Anyways, I think there's something to this, but I haven't quite hit the nail on the head just yet. I already feel as though marrying the 2d6+mod ethos to the "d6 pool" idea has more going for it than... "weapon damage dice, but also d6 pool, but also d20." I'll have to give it some more thought to try and clean this up (and admittedly, I don't really know how to calculate for this type of dice-rolling, since it isn't a simple "keep the highest" or "keep the lowest" sort of rule -- so I'll have to dig deeper into that, too.)

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Hopefully that was an enlightening post, for everyone.
Next entry is due up on January 31st, so check back then!

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.