Search results

Phoenix Dawn Command is a fully card driven RPG, co-written by Keith Baker of Eberron fame. As characters advance they get to do some deck building, adding and removing cards from their deck.

That is your right, of course. It’s about the right tools for the job. If you have a lesser power which can take out orcs but not dragons and a bigger power that can take out dragons or below then surely you would pick the right tool for the fight with the orcs? It’s not about soft balling...

I don’t see it that way myself. I see this as an efficiency challenge, and that is a completely real-world consideration. For example: I have x fuel in the tank of my car and need to get from A to a vaguely defined B (since the end goal is not precisely known) - how do I balance speed versus...

Interesting, I’ve not read that one previously. There are some similar but opposite systems like ‘mana accumulation’. In the GURPS version of this, a spell needs a certain amount of mana and mana is aspected (think elements but other classifications can be used) and the caster makes skill rolls...

We found this an interesting side effect of the escalation dice in 13th Age. It encouraged you to use your lesser powers at the beginning of a fight then start to escalate to higher risk / reward powers later in the fight once the escalation bonus had started to make a big difference in likely...

How powers work is probably one of the most distinguishing features of systems that include them, and because of this I have a fairly broad tolerance to systems of different kinds. Systems with unified resources (like fatigue in GURPS and Will Power in Dragonbane) can be interesting as a way...

Yes to both. There is a numerical value which grants points which can be spent for enhanced results. But you always count as capable in that skill, even when you points are fully spent.

Maybe check out some of the Gumshoe games? In that system skills are split into ‘investigative skills’ and ‘general skills’. Investigative skills tend to cover all knowledge, perception, and social skills. General skills do everything else. With investigative skills, if a player describes...

Did you bring a whippet?

Last year we visited the Cornish Seal Sanctuary in Gweek. In addition to the seals they had a puffin enclosure where rescued puffins lived (all had past injuries or conditions which meant they wouldn’t have survived in the wild). Very sweet little birds!

Hedgehogs and robins are probably universally loved (or at least, not disliked) so a shoe-in. Badgers and foxes have more mixed press. The others are perhaps a bit more niche in terms of their appeal, though puffins are pretty awesome.

Here’s something to warm the cockles of your heart… hedgehogs! We get lots of them in our garden and have some feeding stations for them. This is a new set up so the camera positioning isn’t the best. It’s eight 1-minute videos from our wildlife camera so there are jump cuts. All hedgies...

Specifically, concessions are the player agreeing to their character being ‘taken out’ of a scene and in return they get some agency on what that means, plus a Fate point. So you need players who are willing to accept any outcome other then ‘victory’ over the opposition. My experience is that...

Draw Steel addresses the ‘what are HP’ question head-on by having Stamina as the thing which gets whittled away. It is explicitly described as your energy and ability to get out of the way of serious injury. So, while an attack may cause you to lose Stamina that is more a case of you becoming...

I like a well implemented meta currency system. They are all over the place these days so that’s fortunate for me, I guess. The implementation of Inspiration in 5e D&D was an example of a poorly implemented meta currency in my opinion, primarily because you had to choose to use it in advance...

Another vote for Savage Worlds as an option for urban fantasy but with some more crunchy combat. The latest version of the Horror Companion (for Savage Worlds Adventure Edition) has a chapter on playing ‘monstrous’ characters such as vampires, werewolves, angels, and more. There isn’t strong...

I seem to recall Hackmaster 5th Editon (no relation to D&D5e) uses this kind of action tracking. Might be worth checking out it you haven’t already?

Concessions in Fate model this, though the players really need to buy-in to the concept for them to work. There is too much ‘carrying my shield or on it’ mentality baked into many players in my experience.