Tag: game design

You – through game references or celebrities or the show Stranger Things – of course have heard of Dungeons & Dragons, the tabletop roleplaying game synonymous now with, well, “RPG.”

Yet, this system is complex. Really complex. I often refer to D&D as a great example of simulation play – track every detail possible to simulate as precise of a result as possible.

Regardless of how accurate the simulation, doing all that is… A bit much for a casual game played for enjoyment, especially given the time-strapped lives people lead.

Thus, I have developed the BITS system. Directly inspired by D&D, BITS is fast, modular, genre-less, and emergently complex. Being a descendant of the classic, I found it fitting to convert a BITS of D&D for that streamlined play 🔥

The Core Mechanic

A rolled 20-sided die (d20) plus a modifier or special reroll is D&D‘s resolution mechanic for all dangerous, failure-has-consequence situations. Each situation has its own difficulty, which D&D helpfully suggests as every 5 on the d20 that a roll needs to meet or beat to succeed.

BITS is 2d6, or, roll 2 6-sided dice added together at or above a target with modifiers. I will save you the math comparison between 2d6 and d20 – just know that any D&D roll has a compliment in BITS:

Difficulty	D&D d20 Roll	BITS 2d6 Roll
Very Easy	5	5
Easy	10	7
Moderate	15	9
Hard	20	11
Very Hard	25	13
Godly, Near Impossible	30	15

A quick, casual game needs only Easy, Medium, and Hard results, but discussing that is a tangent –

Further, D&D expects all players and the Game Moderator / Dungeon Master to roll dice. BITS needs only other players to roll on the regular.

Special rules for rolls center around the concept of “Advantage” and “Disadvantage.” Skipping how a roll gets this special rule applied, D&D says to roll 2d20 and take the highest or lowest result, respectively. BITS can do the same, but to reduce rolls, BITS prefers to take the highest or lowest die of the first roll and duplicate it, e.g. a 2-5 becomes a 5-5 when there is Advantage.

Advantage and disadvantage get calculated after critical successes or failures in both D&D and BITS. In D&D a crit success happens when an unmodified / natural roll of 20 happens, a crit fail on a natural 1 roll.

BITS scales criticals with the difficulty – the more difficult the obstacle, the greater chance there is for critical failure, less for success crits, and vice versa. Crits are any natural same-faced roll – 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, 4-4, 5-5, 6-6. Crit successes are pairs above the number expected to be over, crit failures rolling below the number.

An example of BITS criticals would be to roll a 3-3 failure when a 7+ is needed, or that same 3-3 being a success when the only requirement is 5+.

D&D fails to handle criticals gracefully or apply solutions for every occasion. Critical successes for a BITS player means the player’s character can act again, immediately, regardless if they were the one taking or preventing action.

When acting in BITS, critical failure means a player character cannot do the same thing again without some work – whether that is needing to switch to a new quiver of arrows, freeing a stuck sword, or getting out of the puddle of acid from the vial they dropped. When preventing or defending against action, critical failures mean the consequences happen in the extreme, e.g. armor is bypassed or effect doubled.

1) Roll at or above the target number.
2) Check for automatic, critical success or failure.
3) Use Advantage or Disadvantage if present.
4) Add modifiers.

The Stats

D&D has Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intellect, and Charisma as the primary “ability scores,” aka stats, with a raw value and a bonus value (the bonus is added to appropriate rolls).

Why use all 6 when not all are equivalently useful? When fewer will do?

To bring D&D stats to BITS, do the following to convert D&D ability bonuses into BITS’s Body, Insight, and Thought:

• Body – Average Strength and Constitution bonuses.
• Insight – Average Dexterity and Charisma bonuses.
• Thought – Average Wisdom and Intellect bonuses.

No fuss, no muss – what you see is the roll modifier you get in BITS.

Character Creation

With a set of rolls, stats get assigned at character creation. D&D has rules for how many dice to roll, extra modifiers, dice that get ignored, point distributions, and a myriad other ways to write numbers on paper. Many times an entire play session (1-4 hours) needs to be dedicated to making a D&D character!

In practice, BITS is 5 minutes and less for bringing creations to the game 👀 But perhaps a made D&D character or other content is going to be moved over to BITS – there are a handful of tables of that!

To roll for stats for BITS, do the following to get the same kinds of bonuses D&D produces:

2d6 Roll	Stat Bonus
2	-4
3	-3
4	-2
5	-1
6 to 8	+0
9	+1
10	+2
11	+3
12	+4

D&D allows the ability to remove a low roll when it come to stats, so to do the same in BITS is to reroll the lowest d6 and keep the higher result.

Next, D&D allows for a “point-buy” system, where stats are assigned from a pool for each character. While not fully explored in BITS, 10 points seem to balance nicely with D&D expectations, allowing a player to spend points on increasingly expensive stats along with wealth (briefly discussed later in this post):

Point Cost	Stat, Skill Number, or Wealth Class
1	1
3	2
6	3
10	4

And if going negative on stats, those buy points back to spend elsewhere!

HP

HP (Hit Points) represent how long a character can prevent seriously bad, sometimes permanent outcomes for itself.

When it comes to HP, D&D is a bit complicated – first a species and class profession needs to be picked, each with a hit die that is rolled, adding the Constitution bonus rolled for previously. This HP grows and grows in a manner that can make higher-level characters able to literally jump off a mountain and survive, making later-game balance an oxymoron.

BITS develops HP in a more straight-forward manner: roll 2d6. That’s it. Average of 7 HP for all players. Roll 2d6 every level-up – higher number than before? Increase HP by 1.

Being modular, BITS HP can also be the absolute (negatives become positives) sum of all Body-Insight-Thought bonuses plus the number of Skills acquired, with a minimum of 1 HP. Example: A B+1 I-3 T+0, 2-Skill character has 1+3+0+2=6 HP.

(Inspiration for B+I+T+S taken from Soulbound, a game with its own post coming later.)

The Classes

Class is a huge part of D&D. It defines what a character can and cannot do, what they own and can own, and how they get better at things.

Stick with me when I say BITS throws a lot of that out.

Instead, the idea of class in BITS revolves around the Skills “S” in BITS. Each skill, profession, calling, what-have-you is an area of expertise the character has developed through training and understanding.

An example would be a Thief or Rogue class in D&D – you can be this one thing, or with extra rules, this class and one other with detriment. In BITS, a person is not exclusively a thief – being good at thieving is but part of their identity.

A skill describes what a character is good at. Should they do anything that in good-faith could be understood to be a part of that skill, that character has advantage in the action.

Back to the thief: A BITS thief would arguably have advantage in burglary, pickpocketing, slinking about, and general footpadedness.

D&D classes come with special abilities too, so at the discretion of the Game Moderator and a player, the character can get one too. E.g. a thief can slip out of being hit or caught once a day, no roll required; or, a thief can pawn their lowest-value item at one more wealth-class than its worth once a transaction.

Magic

D&D class defines what kinds of magic – if any – a character has access to. BITS can roll with that.

However, magic in D&D is typically extremely powerful with little or no consequences. BITS adds in a bit of ‘spice’ to balance magics in the system as a whole.

For BITS, rolls for magic need to roll higher than the magic being cast vs. the difficulty of the target. Magic is expected to be instantaneous at point of origin if successful, so there is no dodging against a blast of fire or wave of cold.

The kicker comes when magic critically fails. On such, the magic does the harmful or opposite intention to the caster. Fireballs target and ignite the mage, healing the sick harms the healer, a monster summoned smites not foes but friends.

The Gear and Wealth

The following about effectiveness really applies to weapons, but armor and other items can follow the same guidelines.

Weapons in D&D have hit dice for how much damage they do, a measure of their effectiveness towards an opponent. Some weapons have special rules or abilities too, adding to their prestige.

To get a D&D weapon into BITS, take the hit die average, divide it by 2, and round, + or – 1, e.g.:

Weapon Stat	Math	BITS Value
Sling d4	Round 2.5 / 2	1
Sword d6	Round 3.5 / 2	2
Glaive d10	Round 5.5 / 2	3
Greatsword 2d6	Round 7 / 2	4

Each BITS value for a weapon or object is also its wealth tier (with each special ability adding to the tier), i.e. how much wealth is needed to buy the thing. This is further explored in BITS – The Equipment.

Pregen Examples

Above has been making a character. D&D offers various beginning sets of stats and equipment that skip the creation process (pregen characters).

BITS can, in brief, make that happen:

Fighter, B+2 I+0 T+0 HP 7, Battle Axe 3 or Hammer 2 and Shield 1

Mage, B+0 I+1 T+2 HP 3, Sword 2 or Longbow 2

Rogue, B+0 I+2 T+0 HP 3, Sword 2 or Dagger 1

Cleric, B+2 I+0 T+1 HP 6, Mace 2 or Spear 1

The above get some wealth and armor too, but lets keep this post lite.

Everything Outstanding

I am making the choice to skip wealth, ranges, the exactness of how armor behaves, non-player character creation, and other topics because they are either already covered in other blog posts or are modular enough both others and I have provided a robust collection of options to choose from for play.

Dungeons & Dragons is a very complex and a very popular game. There is no arguing that it does a lot of things right. While the game fits a niche for many, BITS fills a niche closer to my own expectations of fun and play, and statistically, yours too!

What did I leave out that should be included? Let me answer your questions or shore-up some of my own answers to make BITS of D&D even more robust.

Cheers to your games! 🎲🎲

If making a roleplaying game, there must be guidelines available to fill the game with gear.

BITS as an RPG system keeps it real with simple, universal rules for equipment. Every paradigm results in the single ‘value’ of equipment that BITS uses for everything from effectiveness to monetary amount to requirements for use in game.

Because BITS also makes for different kinds of games, it also comes with different methods for putting together a design consistent and (fairly) balanced.

Let’s cover what those are:

Kind

What kind of thing is it?

The simplest question with the simplest answer. This category of gear creation is as simple as comparing what is wanted with what is available or similar on charts.

For readability, let me label separate charts for separate things (though every piece of gear could go onto every other list – the tiers remain the same):

Tier	Medieval / Fantasy Weapon Kind
0	Fists, Feet, Darts
1	Knives, Cudgels, Hatchets, Whips, Sticks, Rocks, Slings, Mini Crossbows
2	Swords, Clubs, Maces, Axes, Spears, Short Bows
3	Broadswords, Battle Axes, Flails, Warhammers, Pikes, Lances, Crossbows
4	Claymores, Zweihanders, Great Mauls, Halberds, Long Bows
6	Especially Magical Weapons, Ballistae
10	Siege Machines

Tier	Medieval / Fantasy Armor Kind
0	Clothing
1	Leather, Furs, Round or Square Shield
2	Studded Leather, Mail, Kite or Legionnaire Shield
3	Partial Plate, Wall Shield
4	Full Plate, Wheeled Shield
6	Especially Magical Armor or Shields
10	Stone Wall, Metal Gate

Tier	Modern / Sci Fi Weapon Kind
0	Tasers
1	Pistols
2	SMGs
3	Assault Rifles, Chained Swords
4	LMGs, High Powered Rifles, Shotguns, SAWs, Molecular Blades
6	Rockets, Grenades, Miniguns, Sawn Shotguns, Energy Swords
10	Missiles, Artillery Shells, Vulcan Cannons

Tier	Modern / Sci Fi Armor Kind
0	Clothes
1	Kevlar, Riot Suits
2	Ceramic Plates, Bulletproof Glass
3	Shelled Carapace, Ballistic Shield
4	Bomb Suits, Powered Armor, Light Force Field
6	Mech Armor, Ship Hull, Tank Hull, Force Field
10	Spaceship Hull, Structural Force Field

Make

What is the make-up of this thing?

This method requires more work but can enable a game designer to create unique-yet balanced equipment.

The formula goes like this:

Tier = SUM(all elements of thing)

An example would be a Large, Automatic, Grenade Thrower. Large is +2, Automatic is +1, and Grenade ammo is +1, making this weapon a Tier 4 weapon.

Same can be done with a Normal Pike. Halberds are Large (+2) but this one is Normal (+0), so the weapon is T2. (This contradicts the previous section, but that is game design – fiddle with the value +/- 1 to get something that “feels right.”)

All elements are either +0, +1, or +2 in value. A small list of those elements as might concern combat equipment:

Thing	+0	+1	+2
Melee Size	Small, Off-Hand	Medium, 1-Hand	Large, 2-Hands
Gun Size	Small, Off-Hand	Medium, 2-Hands	Large, 2-Hands
Melee	Normal	Chained	Powered
Ranged	Bullet, Laser	Explosive	Plasma
Area	Flame	Grenade, Rocket	Bomb, Missile
Magazine	Unchanged	Drum, Extended	Link Fed
Quality	Mundane	Blessed, Master	Ancient, Exotic
Shield	Normal	Plated	Powered

A T1 Laser Pistol, a T2 Chained Sword, a T3 Powered Maul, a T4 Large, Powered Shield, a T10 (!??) Ancient, Large, Link-Fed, Twin Missile Launcher 🚀

Mind, some elements are exclusive (i.e. a thing cannot have two different sizes). Otherwise, the math is simple and easy to follow.

So simple, in fact, an RPG that allows customizing a character can give players an allowance, a number of ‘points’ to buy and make gear of their own.

These elements discussed don’t cover everything, nor does every element fit nicely into a +0, +1, +2 system. Be a designer – adapt! Wiggle the numbers or add rules instead.

Some suggestions of elements that add rules instead of numbers:

• A second weapon (grenade launcher on a rifle, flame thrower built into a shield, a shield or bayonet fitted to a laser gun).
• Scopes that increase range.
• ‘Smart’ seeking ammunition.
• Compact design to make something be a size smaller without losing the bonus (e.g. Moderate +1 size made into a Small +1 carbine).
• Extreme fire rate that does two attacks at once.
• Extreme fire power that does extra over an area or by ignoring armor.

Follow?

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Only these two categories for gear crafting in BITS. That’s it 🤷‍♂️

I have tried other methods of making weapons, armor, and stuff in general and nothing fits as nicely as considering what Kind or Make of a thing there is. Both have applicability depending on how they ‘feel’ with other mechanics and player expectations for customizability.

Oh, again, of course these groupings can be fudged +/- 1 depending on game needs. Heck, in a “modern” game of mine without knights and magic, melee weapons are either T1 or T2 depending on size, all strung weapons are T3, and missiles fit into T6 instead of T10.

Gotta do what you gotta do 😉

Which do you think is the best way to craft equipment? Where have you seen similar or (gasp!) better systems?

Tell me in the comments, send me a dm. Cheers ~

What is there to do when roleplaying game adventurers aren’t slaying dragons and delving dungeons? That in-between time, going from beat to beat?

That downtime activity can lead to great boons for a player’s character, their group, or the fictional world at large. Or, it can let a wounded treasure-seeker lick their wounds to fight another day.

Downtime activity is important. Here is how the TTRPG BITS system implements it:

Core Mechanic

As with everything in BITS, it all comes back to the core mechanic

Roll 2 6-sided dice (2d6) to meet or beat a target number, the challenge representing the effort and sheer luck put into the task 🎲🎲

Downtime does the same with any activity taken, the challenge increase or decreasing inversely with how much time is taken, aid used, and what tools are available.

Time as a Resource

How much time is given to an activity? The answer will drastically affect the probable outcomes.

Given an hour, a downtime activity is likely to fail, needing 11+ to succeed. Only with serious aid and concentration can a positive outcome be better guaranteed.

A day? 9+. There might have been enough time, but the chances of something being missed are not slight.

7+ for a week. >50% of success here. There has been dedicated time to a worthy project. That, and this should be the default downtime in the normal course of a game – a week to prepare for the next adventure.

5+ for a month. Even building a siege engine could be done by one with this time. Should be easy.

A year or more? Patience is rewarded by automatically passing this test, though that assumes some peace and quiet as well.

The higher a target number, the higher too are the chances for breaking or having a dire consequence for the task. When the same value is on both dice but the sum of the dice are less than the target, that critically fails the activity (how is sensitive to the context).

Same for rolling a double pair above the target. A critical success in BITS allows a character to take any of their otherwise allowed actions immediately, giving them a chance at success or failure in the same amount of time.

But what can a character do with their downtime?

Activities

Some ideas for downtime, only one selected for the span of downtime, say, a week:

• • Crafting – Buy resources, improve gear, repair equipment, or make some material possession. A wizard makes their potions, a knight buffs their armor, a Jedi improves their lightsaber, and Sam buys bread for the Fellowship 🧙‍♂️
    • Critical failure ideas: what was bought was faulty, the attempt breaks or degrades the quality of the original item, a personal injury happened.
  • Networking – Socialize, carouse, or spy, a character learns more about others. Relationships can be made or destroyed here 😎
    • Failure ideas: a friend is insulted, a stranger seeks a debt on you, the enemy changes plans because of the spying.
  • Resting – Simply put, regain health. Physical, mental, constitutional; no matter the source, dedicated rest may set bones, treat illness, and settle humors 😴
    • Failure ideas: the condition gets worse, a new illness is contracted.
  • Training – Study, meditation, or physical exertion to gain some experience or improve ability. As the designer, I suggest this be the activity for characters to level-up abilities or gain skills (since abilities cap-out at a value of 4, I suggest capping the benefits of training at 2 for an ability; the road to being the best is by being out and about and doing things!) 💪
    • Failure ideas: a personal injury happens from training so hard, the skill decreases from improper technique, social standing falls as some flub is public and ridiculed.

Now, I do not include traveling here. Traveling I consider to be a separate action all together. Downtime is meant to be what you do staying in one place, though should that place be on a starship or boat piloted by others in the crew vs. on feet or needing one’s direct influence, I see where downtime can be spent on other things 🙂

Above should cover most everything, but if a player wants their character to do more, that is for the player and the GM to negotiate 🤷‍♂️

But let us not forget followers and those under a character’s command! Those NPCs could undertake downtime activities too with the same respects given to consequences.

Final Notes

Even though probability says that doing the same activity day-after-day (i.e. the shortest time possible over and over), these short instances increase the likelihood of critical failures. Those failures could be worse than not trying at all, so taking time to get it right (with the bonus of possibly being able to take on additional activities!) is well advised.

Buying / Going to market may not need to be a ‘roll for it’ activity, but it should include at least a 50/50 (or 7+) roll to see if 1) the items were bought at a fair price (failure), and 2) the items are not fake/rotten/stolen (critical failure).

Time is weird. BITS likes the number 4, so perhaps difficulties could be based on using 1-of-4 parts in a day, 4 days in a week, 4 weeks in a season, 4 seasons in a year… IDK. Time is a construct. Don’t @ me 😂

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And on that speculative note, here exists now downtime activities for all games that adopt BITS as the core system. Fantasy or sci-fi, grimdark or heroic, BITS works with it all 😁

What do you do in your downtime? Render, revel, rest, revamp?

Whatever you and your characters choose to do, cheers to it!

Can’t design tabletop roleplaying games without talking about who can do what when 🙂 BITS needs to address the concept of “initiative” as all other game systems do.

What is “initiative?” Every TTRPG (tabletop roleplaying game) has a means to decide whether players or the non-player characters get to act first, and which of those actors goes first among the first, last among the last.

Deciding who goes when can be quite fiddly, but BITS aims to be anything but.

Order of Operations in BITS

Rolling Group Initiative

BITS relies on a community favorite in the TTRPG community: group initiative.

How that works is that one player (a different player than the last one) rolls a single six-sided die (d6). This roll is for all other players at the table –

Except for the game moderator (GM). The GM rolls a d6 for all the non-player characters.

When compared, whoever has the higher roll has their group (player characters, non-player characters) go first in any order they decide. Ties mean everyone gets to act all at once, the resolutions / consequences not taking effect until everyone has had a go.

All this happens every turn until the conflict needing initiative is resolved.

Declaring Actions

But what is to prevent players or the GM from meta-gaming / cheating? Choosing to optimize their character actions depending on the rolls and such?

To fix meta-gaming, both the GM and the other players declare what each member character of their respective sides is planning on doing and against who or what (if applicable).

For example, if two characters want to smack the same third character, great! But if the first character successfully smacks the third into submission, the second character gets to smack so much thin air.

Even should an action go to waste if successful, characters must still roll for it. Who knows – perhaps their action would have been a critical success and they get an immediate action to use! Or they critically fail, something bad happening for making the attempt, regardless of what came before.

Surprise!

Any character(s) that have the drop on others get a free action before those “others.” Once done, the d6s roll like normal.

Nitpicking Action Orders

If groups are too much for some folks, break down the single take-turns phase into sub-phases.

Since initiative is typically for combat resolution, let me assume violence is the objective of these sub-phases. Since this is BITS, let there only be four sub-phases:

• 1. Range – actions meant to affect something away from the actor and happens relatively instantly.
  2. Melee – actions meant to be within arm’s reach of another. Requires some kind of movement and/or wind-up to do.
  3. Magic – an action requiring a bit of concentration to execute effectively. Can be interrupted if the previous phases succeed against the actor, but that is optional.
  4. Other – all other actions. Moving, getting something out, opening or closing, reviving a friend, saying what needs saying, etc.

These above are in order of execution. With “us vs. them” turn order, no matter which side goes first, each phase is executed for both sides before moving on.

Example: with first group A and second group B, turns would be 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, etc.

Other Kinds of Initiative

Why group and sub-phase initiative matters is because other kinds of initiative can be… less than optimal.

Not to say some are really cool! See real initiative below for Blades in the Dark.

Dungeons & Dragons

Every character rolls a die and adds one of their six attributes. The order changes every time. So much change so often, there are addons to the game to keep track of up to a dozen or more characters in order 🙃

Index Card RPG

Roll a die for group initiative. Players always take their turns to the left of the GM in a round-robin style. The roll determines if the GM goes first or the player to the left goes. Thereby, internal group order is determined by seating at the game’s beginning.

Mork Borg

Roll a die for group initiative. Lower values, non-player characters go first. Higher values, player characters. Order inside the groups is freeform.

Call of Cthulhu

Characters have a dexterity stat. Nothing is rolled, only those with higher dexterity go before lower dex. Predictable, quick, but would be prone to repetition if not for how quickly combat makes characters dead 💀

Powered By the Apocalypse Games (e.g. Blades in the Dark)

No mechanical initiative, but the players with real-world initiative have their characters go first. Think fast for real, act fast narratively. Not participating allows other characters (e.g. the GM) to act indefinitely. True, real, freeform initiative.

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And that is initiative in BITS! It is fairly open for interpretation, but can get into the nitty-gritty weeds if a group of players really wants to go there. Systems can simplify or expand as needed – one of the benefits of BITS 😁

In your games, how do you handle initiative? I am looking for your ideas!

May you go first now that you have read this article – cheers!