Deconstructing the Dice: A "Generic" TNP? (2024)

One of the overarching conceits in TNP is class dice, and how they power all of the mechanics, for each and every class. But what if we were to take a more traditional "generic" D&D-style approach, particularly to the roles of the dice? This is an idea I've been pondering recently, and I've alluded to the general concept of it in at least one previous post.

Specifically, what I want to focus in on today is weapon dice, and how you might start from the general (particularly 5e-ish) D&D approach, and "TNP-ify" the concept. So lets get down to basics.

Broadly speaking, 5e has very few weapon damage die archetypes, with (usually) one obvious best choice out of the available options. Now, not every character is proficient with every type of weapon, but let's set that aside for now. Broadly, most thrown weapons do 1d6 damage, whereas thrown finesse weapons do 1d4; likewise,  'light' weapons (i.e. suitable for two-weapon fighting) do either 1d4 or 1d6 damage. For all intents and purposes, any other one-handed melee weapons cap out at 1d8; two-handed melee weapons are either 2d6 or 1d12, and polearms (i.e. 'reach' two-handed weapons) are 1d10. The 'simple' versatile weapons are 1d6/1d8, but the 'martial' versatile weapons are 1d8/1d10 (worth mentioning that in 4e, two-handing a versatile weapon simply gave it a +1 damage, rather than a different die.) Most ranged weapons are either 1d6 or 1d8, with the 1d10 option being a heavy crossbow, that really requires feat investments to be worth it, IMO.

What am I getting at with all of this? Well, what if instead of scaling the class dice bonuses back to just 1d4, 1d8, and 1d12, we instead scaled back the weapon dice to 1d4, 1d8, and 1d12? Since d6 and d10 are the de facto "extra damage" mechanic dice in TNP (despite also having class dice bonus mechanics available to them) it seems logical that if you were to "TNP-ify" weapon damage dice, you might exclude d6 and d10, for use with other mechanics.

For example:

1d4: thrown weapons, light weapons

1d8: one-handed melee weapons, ranged weapons

1d12: two-handed melee weapons

So, you're necessarily leaving out some of the more niche weapon properties, but if the idea is to strip things down and abstract them a lot, it makes some sense that this would be the way to go. You could even do something to prop up two-weapon fighting by saying that characters with martial weapon proficiency (or its equivalent) could use 1 light weapon and 1 one-handed weapon to do TWF (1d4/1d8, comparable to the typical 1d6/1d6 loadout of 5e) and have a feat that could bump that to doing TWF with two one-handed weapons (ie. 1d8/1d8, exactly as the 5th Edition feat does.) Another thing is you could keep the 'versatile' property by mixing in the +1 damage mechanic from 4e, and even potentially do something with 2d4 weapons(?)

So what would you do with the d6 and d10? Well, to me, the d6 has always been the go-to "extra damage die" because they are so ubiquitous and also ergonomic; if late-stage 4e was any indication however, the actual go-to was d8, but assumedly that boils down to that game's math. Anyway, I started thinking to myself, does the system really need two extra damage dice, if we're not in a "class dice" paradigm, and any character class can be using any die for their mechanics?

That's when it hit me. 

I'm sure I've said in conversation (when discussing the TNP skill mechanics) that the percentile dice actually make the most sense as a default advantage/disadvantage mechanic. In the new drafts of TNP, when making a skill check (or monster roll, as the DM) you can roll both percentile dice, and the "1s" die is assumed to be the "natural result" whereas the "10s" die is the disadvantage or advantage result (when/if applicable.) So what if we used the percentile dice in this fashion, but applied them as the bonus/penalty to a d20 roll? For example, have the "1s" die be disadvantage, and the "10s" die be advantage; applying this die to a d20 roll, vs. a DC of 10 produces comparable results (within ~5%) of the standard advantage/disadvantage mechanic, with just using a d20 (i.e. roll 2, take the highest/lowest, respectively.)

(The other angle to come at this might be to have the weapon die function as both the damage, and the attack bonus; that way you could potentially free up the d10 for one more weapon die, or switch the roles and have d10 be the "extra damage die" with d6 being the additional weapon die.)

If we're going to do a "generic" TNP (i.e. as a sequel, or follow-up project) and move away from class dice, it makes sense to keep some of the original DNA, by giving each dice these kinds of specific mechanics -- so that every die has a "role" (pardon the pun.) I do think you lose something by shitcanning the 5 class dice bonuses, but sometimes it's a case of addition by subtraction; to be fair, these mechanics have only really existed "in the ether" (something that came into the designs after the relatively-stable 2018 edition) but were meant to be the unique selling feature of TNP, going forward. Whether or not they carry over to a post-2024 TNP is yet to be seen.

I think there's a couple ways to do a proper followup to TNP: 

1) you go more traditional/generic with it, something that's more recognizably "D&D-ish", possibly with full-on ability score mechanics

2) you go back to my previous RPG designs, with (ideally) only two dice forming all of the mechanics, leaning heavily into modifiers, but stripping the classes down to the bare essentials

3) you make 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

I haven't settled on what the followup will be, but in the back of my mind I'm always trying to come up with fresh ideas for how to make a new TTRPG tick.

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Apologies for the delay(s)! If you ever need more updates, remember to check the Discord.
Next post is planned for June 6th; the scheduling pattern may change going forward, but I'll try to keep to the "3x per month" frequency (likely with a makeup post in December.)