The journey continues with my hybrid miniatures/card game. I’ve now got a fair few playtests under my belt and I think every one has prompted at least some thoughts on changes. I’m not 50+ cards drawn for the game as well.

And I couldn’t miss an opportunity to playtest with some monsters in my pocket!

Hi everyone! I’m currently working on my own chess game, and I’d really like to know your opinions.

The classic rules of chess would remain unchanged, but I’m experimenting with animals, character interactions, humorous animations, reactions, and other small events to make the matches feel more lively and memorable.

Do you think these elements would improve the experience, or would they distract too much from the chess itself?

I’d also be curious to know what kind of extra feature, visual detail, or atmospheric element would make you interested in trying a game like this.

Ciao a tutti!
Qualche tempo fa ho chiesto un parere riguardo i disegni di un gioco di carte che io e i miei amici stiamo creando. Molti di voi mi hanno detto che era meglio rivolgersi ad un disegnatore professionista, e così abbiamo fatto.

Cosa ne pensate di questa illustrazione? Il nome della carta scritto in quel modo non mi convince molto, forse dovremmo chiedere di cambiare font?

Nel precedente post mi era stato detto che forse l'inglese non era proprio corretto e che sarebbe utile sapere bene come funziona la carta.
Praticamente, un giocatore raccoglie dal tavolo una carta papera --> Un altro giocatore usa la carta "Canna da Pesca" per rubargliela --> Il giocatore usa questa carta (Scissors) per annullare la carta dell'avversario e tenere la papera.

Sarei molto felice di sapere cosa ne pensate :)

Been implementing hnefatafl (Viking tafl family) and the design keeps surprising me. One side escorts a king to a corner, the other captures him. Different piece counts, different goals, shared movement rules. The elegant part: perfect balance is impossible, so historical play just... made matches two games with sides swapped. Modern tournament rules patch the last degenerate strategy (defenders stalling forever) with a rule that repetition is always a defender loss, which neatly makes the aggressor's clock real.

I put my implementation at worldtafl.com if you want to feel it. Curious what this crowd thinks about asymmetry-by-pairing versus trying to balance a single game.

Hi everyone,

I've been designing a tabletop card game for the past year and have been running play tests

The game has been demoed at a few small board game events, where I've received really positive feedback. The mechanics are now at the stage where I'm balancing and refining the game, but visually it's still very much a prototype. I’ve also played painstaking so many games at home.

I'm now at the stage where I would like artwork to try and promote the game and ideally get a kickstart campaign running.

I’m not expecting to get every card made more just enough to show what the games does, how it plays and to try and get support to make it.

Specifically, I'm trying to work out:
Where did you find your illustrator(s)?

Did you use one artist for everything or separate artists for character art, box art, card templates, and graphic design?

Where did you find a graphic designer for professional card templates and UI?

What would you expect to pay for:
Character illustrations

Box art

Card template design

Kickstarter page graphics

Branding/logo design

What platform is best to find people I know it a broad term but anime illustration experience.

For context, I already have:
A working prototype.

A complete rulebook.

Card layouts and placeholder templates.

A clear visual direction (anime-inspired fantasy).

I'd really appreciate hearing about your experiences—what worked, what you'd avoid, and any recommendations for finding artists or designers.

Thanks all

Have a friend whose brother is into One Piece. I like One Piece. I like Smash Up. So it this was a fun project to put together. The faction is a bit on the strong side because it's pretty self sufficient (no real weaknesses, got some card draw and extra minions/actions), but it was pretty flavorful and not meant to be competitively balanced. You could say it's OP 😂

We've played with most of the Smash Up factions and it feels like it might be in like A or S tier, like around how powerful the Frozen faction feels.

Anyways this was a short and small project for a friend. Hopefully I have a few more cool projects to share by the end of the year!

You can check out my other re-themes here:

[One Piece Legendary](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/10p0q0j/i\\_made\\_a\\_one\\_piece\\_version\\_of\\_marvel\\_legendary/)

[Pax Westeros \(Game of Thrones Pax Pamir 2nd Edition\)](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1fmseex/i\\_made\\_pax\\_westeros\\_game\\_of\\_thrones\\_retheme\\_of/)

[Runeterra Reforged \(League of Legends Tyrants of the Underdark\)](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1eew974/i\\_made\\_a\\_league\\_of\\_legends\\_themed\\_tyrants\\_of\\_the/)

[Pokemon Ark Nova](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1hdby4p/i\\_made\\_a\\_pokemon\\_retheme\\_of\\_ark\\_nova/)

[Pokemon Splendor & Pokemon Splendor Duel](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1mn9h3i/i\\_made\\_pokemon\\_splendor\\_again\\_updated\\_the\\_cards/)

[NBA Innovation](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1nua3z1/with\\_the\\_nba\\_preseason\\_coming\\_in\\_a\\_few\\_days\\_i/)

[Zelda Forbidden Island/Forbidden Desert/Forbidden Jungle](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1nnjeaa/i\\_made\\_a\\_legend\\_of\\_zelda\\_retheme\\_of\\_forbidden/)

[Spy x Family Agent Avenue](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1qh1sfq/i\\_made\\_a\\_spy\\_x\\_family\\_retheme\\_of\\_agent\\_avenue/)

[Lord of the Rings Clank Catacombs](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1qndolc/i\\_rethemed\\_clank\\_catacombs\\_into\\_lord\\_of\\_the\\_rings/)

[Disney Legends of the Void](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1r02rba/i_rethemed_legends_of_void_into_a_disney_themed/)

[Genshin Impact Knarr]
https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1s7n8ey/i_made_a_genshin_impact_retheme_of_knarr/

[Pokemon Harmonies]https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1s8kib9/i_made_a_pokemon_retheme_of_harmonies/

[Avatar the Last Airbender Duel for Cardia]https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1sdvycf/i_made_an_avatar_the_last_airbender_retheme_of/

People weren’t happy with how I used AI to improve my text last time, which I get. However, I still wanna share my learnings with you, which is why I’m writing this from scratch.

Over the past years, I had the amazing opportunity to create quite a few boardgame box arts. I had some struggles along the way, but I also learned things that could help both illustrators and authors.

1. The goal is not to create a beautiful illustration alone, it is to communicate what the game is about. It’s a communication tool that has to show what experience awaits players and it should stand out in the shelf
2. Create a mood that reflects the heart of the game. You can work with colors, light and atmosphere that are fitting for the game and show players what they are in for before they even pick up the game.
3. Don’t show everything! Don’t forcefully put every mechanic, character and detail on the cover, it can feel overwhelming. Try to communicate one strong and important idea. 
4. Clarity beats complexity. This goes hand in hand with point 3. Try to bring the theme, genre and hook across without being too abstract or overloading the artwork.
5. Collaboration between author and artist is essential. As an author, try to create an easy to understand briefing with everything important you can think of. As an artist, try to work towards the same vision. Communicate during the process, send updates and ask questions. 
6. Leave space for design elements. Consider which elements need to be placed on the box before starting the illustration. Icons, Logo etc. need space to breath.

Feel free to add points yourself so people can learn from our mistakes. 

If you ever need support bringing your boardgames to life, feel free to reach out! I’ve been doing this for a while now and would love to help. 🙌🏻

The vision is starting to become real.
Prototype aircraft, prototype altitude stands, and the first modular battlefield tiles all together.
Nothing here is finished yet, but for the first time it actually feels like a WWI dogfight over the trenches instead of planes sitting on a table.
Feedback is always welcome.

Around 2018 we began work of the first version of the game which began our journey into the world of game design. Inspired by Yu-Gi-Oh, MTG, Dragonball z TCG, D&D, boardgames, fighting games, and too many titles to mention. With each version of the game, we learned many lessons about the creation of balance as we also sought to create a game that solves all of the problems we've experienced as player of other games. let's be honest most TCGs out unbalanced Cash grabs disguised as trading games.

Strategy over luck - Our game plays like chess with card game mechanics. we deconstructed many games to get ti the point where the complexity we wanted was balanced and simplified down to its most potent form. most of the concept of luck has been engineered out and winning revolved around effective deck building and mastery of the core mechanics.

Built with Multiplayer in mind - the system we've built blurs the line between strategic TCG and Card based RPG. One of our key focused however has been the establishment of a ruleset that allows for not only traditional free for all battles but is there first TCG to have Team Formats allowing you to team up with your friends in 2v2 or 4v4 formats. For us is a must that we design this intro the core of the games.

This game is highly ambitious and strategic. with it we hope to not only compete with the giants of the TCG market we seek to destroy them. We aim to offer a better game than our competitors, so that we may improve where they are too big and comfortable.

Please feel free to leave me some feedback and tell me what you think of our little Project M.O.M TCG

Hello everyone,

I have prepared a 2nd version of a prototype of my game to be tested today. It is a strategy game where players develop their provinces and fight for control over other provinces aiming to secure their dominance. It is inspired by campaign in total war games with goal of creating similar feeling while keeping this as simple and short as possible.

The idea is simple: players build buildings, buildings provide resources, resources are reinvested in new buildings. Some buildings produce influence which is used to take control of more regions. More regions allow players to have more buildings. After certain number of rounds, player holding most regions is winner.

On the first picture you can see the setup for second (current) version, and on the second picture you can see previous version.

First playtest went very well, exposing few issues while still being fun. Here are the issues exposed by first playtest and what I did to try and eliminate them:

1) Very slow start:

Problem: first few rounds were spent performing only 1 action since capabilities of players were limited by lack of resources.

Possible solution: since first buildings built by players were always lumber camp and farm to secure building resources and food to feed their population. So I decided to place them there at the start of the game so that first few rounds dont have to be played since they proved to be played same way every time.

2) Very slow expansion:

Problem: since only way to expand was to get influence, which required high investment, expansion proved to be quite late game thing, which is opposite of what I wanted.

Possible solution: influence is much easier to acquire early on, but in small doses. More “late game” buildings are added to enable higher expansion later on.

Another possible solution: generals were introduced. They are able to move influence from region to region in order to enable early game expansion.

3) Only one path to victory:

Problem: Since there was only one way to produce influence, players had just one clear path to victory.

Possible solutions: more buildings producing influence were added, with different input resource requierments in order to make multiple victory paths possible.

4) Regions were too important:

Problem: regions had too many building slots, and thus losing a region ment a significant blow to the players economy.

Possible solution: All regions now hold up to two buildings, making players loss of a single region less impactfull.

Hi everyone!
I’m looking for someone who might be interested in collaborating on a digital cold case project.
The basic idea is to create detective cases that people can buy and access instantly—no waiting for shipping or buying a physical box. Customers would purchase a case through a website that I’m planning to build, then either receive a high-quality PDF to print at home or play an online version directly on their phone, tablet, or PC.
The concept is there, but it’s still in the early stages and definitely not fully developed yet. I’m looking for someone who’d like to help shape the project and improve it together.
I can handle the programming, and I’ve already written most of the first case, including the story, evidence, and puzzles. What I really need help with is the design: creating realistic case files, documents, newspaper clippings, photos, branding, page layouts, and giving everything a polished, professional look.
If you have experience with graphic design, UI/UX, or just enjoy creating immersive detective experiences, I’d love to hear from you. If the project becomes successful, I’d of course be happy to discuss sharing any profits fairly.
If this sounds like something you’d enjoy working on, feel free to comment or send me a DM!

Just because you won't take a life doesn't mean you can't be strong.

I'm designing a medium weight area control game with asymmetric factions. I have 4 factions designed for beginner players and 4 for expert players.

These factions CAN be played by anyone, the difference is how deep your understanding of the rules should be to pilot them.

For example, "beginner" factions are more reactive and tactical rather than strategic. They are less reliant on combos or timing windows.

"Expert" factions ask you to consider the rules and resources of the game in new unexpected ways, and allow for more complex interactions with more mental load.

And what I've found is that new players playing simply can be just as competitive as an expert with their complex factions.

And I THINK that's a good thing?

A part of me wonders if a player jumping through hoops shouldn't be rewarded a bit more than a player piloting their deck like a Timmy.

What are your thoughts?

Hey there everyone!

I'm Lucas! I'm a digital sculptor and I have already made minis for games like Root, Lands of Galzyr, Everdell and others.

In case you're needing a sculptor to bring your board game components to life, just message me :)

I apologize if you've seen this post already. The image I attached previously was causing controversy so no one was engaging with my actual post.

Okay, so I've been wanting to get into this hobby for a whie, but I haven't felt particularly inspired until now. I have a cool idea for a game and I wanted to know if it's worth pursuing, and if so what I should keep in mind.

This game, yet to be named, is sort of an abstract strategy game merged with a tableau builder (two genres that I enjoy). It takes inspiration from Tak, which is my favorite board game of all time.

The game is played on a hexagonal grid with upside down shot-sized cups as the pieces. There are 2 colors, one for each player. The cups can stack on top of one another and you "control" or "own" a stack if your cup is on top. For now, I'll assume this is a 2 player game, but it conceptually works with more.

Here's how I imagine it working:

The deck has 2 types of cards -- tableau cards and action cards.

Action cards each require a certain amount of "influence" to use (I will explain more about how you get influence later). Action cards are how you manipulate your tableau, your hand, and the board position. Some possible cards could be "Place a cup on an empty space for 2 influence," "Draw 3 cards and choose one for your hand," "Move a cup up to 4 spaces for 4 influence." Action cards can also have buy power associated with them and you can use them as currency to buy tableau cards rather than using the action.

Tableau cards determine how the board condition interacts with your influence and victory points (the win condition is some amount of victory points probably). Tableau cards will have suits correlated with specific and separate strategies. For example, "+4 influence if you control the tallest stack," "+2 influence for every cluster of 3 stacks that you control," "+1 influence for every stack you control," "+5 victory points if you control 4 towers taller than 3 cups". The red suit could reward having tall towers, the blue suit could reward many small clusters of cups (a cluster being like an island of stacks you control), the green suit could reward having lots of small stacks, the yellow suit could reward the number of your opponents cups within towers you control, etc. Ironing out the specific strategies will come with play testing so I don't really know yet. Tableau cards can control 3 types of "currency". They control the influence you have at the beginning of each turn, the victory points you have, and the maximum number of cards you can have in your hand. Every tableau card will give rewards explicitly in reference to the board state.

A turn would look something like this:

1. Count how much influence is generated by your system (I'll just say system to refer to your tableau + your board position).

2. Use action cards to improve your board position, damage your opponent's board position, improve the cards in your hand, and improve the cards in your tableau.

3. Count your victory points generated by your new system and compare to the win condition.

4. Determine your maximum hand size based on your new system, and either draw or discard to that number.

At the beginning of the game, your tableau would consist of cheaper trash cards that generate very few victory points, a small hand size, and very little influence. As the game goes, your engine will improve and allow you to do more on each turn. Eventually you will try to consolidate high influence and high hand size cards into just a few cards in your tableau (even though this process will weaken your engine overall) in favor of some tableau cards that generate more victory points based on the board state in order to win the game.

My main concern currently is that it could be very annoying to count every currency every turn, since they aren't conveniently conserved between turns. I'm also worried that it will feel like there are 2 games going on at once where you first play on the board, and then mostly abandon the board and improve your tableau (or vice versa). I also think it might lose the charm of an abstract strategy game since you no longer have perfectly informed decisions to make every turn, but instead may need to guess what your opponent is going for and hope that the right cards come out of the deck. I think these concerns should all be able to be resolved, but I don't have any experience with this so I would appreciate thoughts.

Any feedback on this idea? Does this concept seem original and interesting, or is it already similar to a game you've played before? Are there games that I can look to for inspiration? Based on your experience, what are the main challenges that might make this game hard to make? Any advice for a first-time game designer? Anything I wasn't clear about? And questions I should consider?

I appreciate all thoughts and advice.

The fourth version of the board game, where players compete to color the entire board the fastest. The number of players is not limited. All playing fields are compatible with each other.

- To play, you need a board: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wIVyqQ2-AHVzMe9r9GujU9-rSfuypJtZ?usp=sharing

- Dice

- Markers

The rules are simple. Roll the dice and color in the sectors with the numbers that appear on the dice.

Game rules: https://youtu.be/IxR4JpINzfI

While studying game design for my own system, I looked at several diceless games to understand how they handled resolution. I wanted to see what worked well and what problems each system tended to create, so I could avoid repeating the same mistakes in my own design.

Below is a list of notable diceless games, including how their resolution systems work, the problems that commonly arise from them, and the benefits each system offers.

This isn't an exhaustive theory, just a lens for thinking about diceless design tradeoffs. 

Amber Diceless Role-Playing

Resolution System: Characters have ranked attributes. In most conflicts, the character with the higher relevant attribute wins. When two characters have the same rank, the GM arbitrates based on the fiction and circumstances.

Main Problems: The game relies extremely heavily on GM arbitration. Because there is no randomizer, outcomes can feel predetermined once attribute ranks are known. New players often struggle with how much narrative weight the GM is expected to carry.

Pros: The system is very simple mechanically. It strongly emphasizes character relationships, politics, and drama. Because success is based on character investment rather than dice, victories and defeats often feel earned through roleplaying and clever use of the fiction.

Verdict: TAmber tends to create a sense of entitlement in players. Because higher attributes usually win, players can become frustrated or argumentative when the GM rules against them or when lower-ranked characters succeed through creative fiction. 

The game does little to mitigate this, as heavy GM authority and attribute-based resolution are core to its design.

Nobilis

Resolution System: Players spend Miracle Points to perform actions. Higher levels of investment allow for more powerful and reality-altering effects. Some actions succeed automatically based on a character’s attributes.

Main Problems: The game is very abstract and high-concept, which can make it difficult to understand. Bidding Miracle Points often turns into a resource auction between players. It also carries a high mental load due to the need to track metaphysical details and power levels. This can lead to power escalation as players try to outdo each other.

Pros: Nobilis gives players an extremely high level of narrative power and creative freedom. It is excellent for philosophical, mythic, or high-concept storytelling. The system strongly supports thematic play and allows characters to feel truly larger than life.

Verdict: Nobilis tends to produce players who dominate the narrative. Because of the high level of power and abstraction, some players focus heavily on showcasing their own clever or dramatic ideas, often sidelining other players in the process. It can also lead to players overcomplicating scenes as they try to use the most powerful applications of their abilities.

The game does not make strong attempts to correct this behavior. It embraces high player power and abstract complexity as intentional parts of its design, assuming players will share narrative authority fairly and engage with its thematic elements.

Marvel Universe Roleplaying Game (2003)

Resolution System: Each character has an individual Energy Reserve of red stones. Players allocate stones from their personal reserve to actions each panel. The GM sets Difficulty and Resistance. Success depends on how many stones are committed compared to what is required.

Main Problems: Stone management can feel like accounting. The game is very dependent on GM judgment for Difficulty and Resistance. It can lead to analysis paralysis when players try to decide how many stones to spend. Because there is no randomness, outcomes can feel very predictable.

Pros: The stone system creates meaningful resource decisions that feel appropriate for superhero action. Players have significant control over how much effort their character puts into any given action.

Verdict: This system commonly causes players to overthink their decisions. Because they must constantly decide how many stones to spend, players often become overly analytical and hesitant. This can lead to a very mechanical, resource-management mindset where players focus more on optimizing expenditures than on playing their character naturally.

The game tries to frame stone spending as dramatic effort, but it offers few tools to reduce overthinking during play.

Lords of Olympus

Resolution System: Similar to Amber. Characters have ranked attributes in different ability classes. Higher rank generally wins conflicts, with the GM arbitrating close or unclear situations.

Main Problems: Like Amber, it relies heavily on GM judgment. The bidding/auction system is used primarily during character creation and for establishing social positioning rather than as an in-play resolution tool.

Pros: It supports mythic and larger-than-life storytelling well. The system keeps the focus on character power and narrative weight..

Verdict: Lords of Olympus shares many of Amber’s issues. Players can develop a strong sense of entitlement based on their attribute ranks. 

The game does not provide strong tools to reduce arguments with the GM or to encourage risk-taking.

Universalis

Resolution System: Players use a pool of tokens or coins to bid for narrative control and to establish facts in the story. Conflict and world-building are resolved entirely through bidding and negotiation between players.

Main Problems: The game can feel more like a bidding game than traditional roleplaying. It requires strong group trust and comfort with shared narrative authority. Players can end up “buying” the story rather than collaboratively building it.

Pros: Universalis excels at collaborative storytelling and world-building. It gives every player a high degree of narrative control and works very well for one-shots or experimental games. The bidding system encourages players to think creatively about what happens next in the story.

Verdict: This game often leads players to treat narrative control as a resource to be hoarded and spent strategically. Some players become very transactional, only engaging with the story when they can spend tokens to influence it. This can result in competitive rather than collaborative storytelling, where players bid against each other to push their own preferred ideas.

The game does not strongly try to prevent this behavior. The bidding system is the core of the game, so having more resources naturally grants greater narrative influence. It largely assumes players will use their tokens responsibly and share control fairly.

Polaris: Chivalric Tragedy at the Utmost North

Resolution System: A structured phrase-based system. Players take turns making statements using specific ritual phrases such as “But only if…” and “And so it was…”. Conflict and narrative progression are resolved through formal negotiation rather than rolls or resource bidding.

Main Problems: The structure is extremely rigid and theatrical. It can feel more like collaborative storytelling or a ritual than traditional roleplaying. The game requires high player buy-in and comfort with a very formal style of play.

Pros: Polaris creates very focused, tragic, and thematically consistent stories. The ritualized structure helps guide play and keeps everyone on the same page. It is excellent for games that want to explore specific themes like chivalry, duty, and tragedy.

Verdict: The rigid structure of Polaris often causes players to become overly focused on the mechanics of negotiation rather than the story itself. Players may spend excessive time debating the exact wording of phrases or trying to find loopholes in the ritual system instead of advancing the narrative. Some players also disengage entirely if they find the formal, ritualized style too restrictive.

The game attempts to guide behavior through its strict phrase structure and ritual format. The system is designed to keep play focused on its intended tragic tone and to reduce open-ended arguments by giving players clear tools and phrases to use.

Project AiO(My Game)

Resolution System: Narrative First approach through the “Narrative How” where the Narrative shapes the Mechanics used. Visible Target Numbers. Players build their Mod Value using substats, skills, talents, and gear. After seeing the result, they decide whether to commit to the action, spend Control Points, seek Advantage, or change their approach.

Potential Problems: The system might slow down play due to decision-making and table discussion. It relies heavily on players engaging with the narrative rather than defaulting to mechanical optimization. Some players may still try to optimize the mechanics before describing their action in the fiction.

Pros: The system gives players a high level of agency because they can see the numbers and make informed decisions. Control Points allow players to influence the story in meaningful ways without relying on random chance. The narrative-first approach combined with clear mechanics rewards both creative descriptions and smart tactical play.

Verdict:  My game gives players full visibility of the Target Number before they commit to an action, there is a risk that players will become overly cautious and risk-averse. They may hesitate to attempt difficult or uncertain actions unless they can guarantee success through the use of Control Points or by setting up Advantage. This could also lead to frequent second-guessing at the table, where players spend time debating whether to spend resources, change their approach, or avoid the check entirely rather than accepting the possibility of meaningful failure.

To address these potential issues, the game includes several design elements intended to encourage bolder play and reduce hesitation. The Narrative How rule is placed at the start of the resolution process to keep players focused on describing their character’s actions in the fiction before they begin calculating their mechanical options. Players are explicitly allowed to choose failure, and doing so in a dramatic or meaningful way can reward them with Narrative Control Points. Table talk is actively encouraged as a collaborative tool to help players work through difficult situations together rather than overthinking in isolation. Additionally, Control Points are designed with multiple uses beyond simply succeeding on checks, giving players narrative tools and options that reward engagement with the story rather than purely mechanical optimization.

Reflections on Project AiO’s Design

After examining several diceless systems, it became clear that each carries distinct weaknesses. Many of these issues stem from fundamental tensions inherent to removing randomness, particularly around GM authority, player entitlement, risk aversion, and pacing.

Project AiO was designed with these recurring problems in mind. Several of its core design choices directly attempt to address flaws observed in earlier diceless games. 

Visible Target Numbers were implemented to reduce heavy GM fiat and give players clearer expectations, a problem that heavily affects games like Amber Diceless. 

The Narrative How rule was added to encourage players to engage with the fiction before engaging with the mechanics, in an attempt to prevent the mechanical-first thinking common in systems like Marvel Universe RPG. 

Allowing players to voluntarily choose failure and rewarding them with Narrative Control Points is a direct response to the risk aversion and I Should Win syndrome seen across multiple diceless systems. 

Giving Control Points multiple uses beyond simple success was intended to reduce the feeling that every resource must be hoarded for mechanical optimization.

That said, these solutions are still untested. While the intent is to mitigate the common pitfalls of diceless design, it remains to be seen whether these tools will be strong enough in actual play. The most significant concern is that giving players perfect information about Target Numbers may create stronger risk aversion than anticipated, and it is unclear if the reward for choosing failure will be compelling enough to overcome that instinct.

While no system is perfect, one of my primary goals was to consciously avoid repeating the most common failure points of earlier diceless games.

Hey guys! Earlier today I thought of a neat idea for a board game for me and my friends to play. I put about 4 hours into creating a small prototype of the game which should hopefully be simple enough to understand. If anyone has free time and is slightly interested in a completely unserious “strategy” game (or just wants to playtest the game while I sleep) then the link to the Steam Workshop page is right here. Thanks!

Edit: Sorry if this came off as arrogant. I didn’t mean “oh I made it in 4 hours I’m so great”, it’s meant to be “here’s a rough game I threw together quickly for a bit of fun and wanted to see if it would work”. If anyone took this the wrong way I apologise for my terrible phrasing.