At the end of August, I made a post about an idea for a game engine/dice system. We spent quite a bit of the last month doing pretty extensive playtesting to see if it should replace the d100 based system that we have been developing Bloodfall to work for. After several iterations, we’ve concluded that we are going to be sticking with the d100 hybrid system that we had been developing but we learned a couple of interesting things along the way!
Lesson One: Dice Pools are hard to balance!
It turns out that actually dice pools run into some pretty weird to fix problems pretty quickly. First of all, because of the way that adding even one more die changes the probability curve of a roll trying to create the sense of advancement that we want just doesn’t work super well. This also creates a problem where if you have any two opponents who are of differing skill levels to each other it heavily favors the more skilled opponent to a degree that we found to not give the vibe we wanted out of the game.
Lesson two: Legibility Is very important!
While the system initially sounded great to us while we were writing it, trying to run the thing proved very quickly to be unwieldy in a way that just did not work the way we hoped. There were too many things to keep track of with each roll (especially using a VTT!). Which die was the Body Die again? Which one was the Power Die? How many dice? Plus what?
In order to have a system we feel comfortable putting out for people to play games with we want the basics to be graspable within the first five times you use them. Don’t get me wrong we love systems complexity and crunch but it should not get in the way of understanding the core thing that you’re doing.
Since then we’ve been hard at work designing Bloodfall. I also have a few other things coming down the pipeline soon. I’m working on an article on Social Combat that should be finished later this week or early next. In addition to Bloodfall I’m also working on two smaller games: Hauberk! a standalone wargame for old school fantasy roleplaying games and Amulet: Second Age a game based on the 1974 Rules with all of the Supplements with some concepts ported over from Bloodfall. I hope to have Hauberk! ready to release before the end of the year. I’m also working on some party construction supplements that will be usable with any fantasy roleplaying games whether they be old school or modern.
Also, just a reminder that I do have a Patreon that I will be posting these articles on at least twelve hours before they go up here! It would be easier to post more often with more support, so if you want to see more from me drop a few dollars a month there. Also at some point soon I want to start doing streams while I’m worldbuilding or designing.

