#deathwatch rpg

[nobylu]

It's been a while since I last drew a space marine for myself. It feels nice. All it took was an evening of crafting a Deathwatch character. Lyseri Salos's my Blood Drinkers Sanguinary Priest who may or may not be rather gullible, believe in in-universe conspiracy theories, and has the mental profile of "stressed airhead". BTW if you've got any in-universe conspiracy theories that a space marine might believe, give them to me.

[two-reflections]

[oldschoolfrp]

The bayou conceals numerous unspeakable terrors behind its veil of mists. Also several species of small nonvenomous snakes. (Jerry Eaton cover for Chill adventure Deathwatch on the Bayou by Gali Sanchez, Pacesetter, 1985)

[thegodemperorsmycopilot]

The Geese Stars.

Located along the southeastern periphery of the Imperium, it is home to the human diaspora that travel this collection of systems aboard a myriad of migratory fleets, farming cosmic resources for survival and trade from the asteroid belts, gas giants, and even surfaces of great stars.

Occasionally, they will attempt to mine or reclaim resources from planetary bodies, but the wide range of dangers and xenos threats often make these resource expeditions prone to failure.

Planets of note:

1) Kanossian-VII is an active Forge World that has suffered a Tyranid invasion and is struggling to rebuild. It is the only other currently inhabited planet in the Geese Stars.

2) Eucliktus-Omega is an abandoned Forge World due to an unknown disaster, and has descended into a feral state. It is a prime destination for expeditions to recover tech and supplies.

3) Anser Prime and its artificial moon, Cygnoides, was the Geese Stars' unofficial capital and were the victims of a catastrophe that laid waste to the planet and its orbiting moons. The rings that surrounded Anser are the remains of several moons reduced to rubble and asteroids kept in orbit around the planet. Cygnoides is a torn and seemingly hollowed out wreck, originally constructed as a naval base and network of shipyards.

Both these celestial bodies are covetted by salvage and reclamation expeditions.

4) The Astartes moon of Skein, in orbit around the gas giant Cinju Gigant, is presently under a quarantine order of unknown provenance. The Astartes Chapter whose fortress and base of operations rests upon this harsh moon, the Mist Hawks, are not very inviting.

Very little is known about the Mist Hawks and their Founding, but they have been observed to have black & yellow striping upon vambraces and greaves, winged blade heraldry and avian skulls decorating their power armour.

(Inspired by @woahspacewizards)

NOTE: May be used as a setting for Crucible 7's Wrath & Glory or Imperium Maledictum, any FFG Warhammer 40000 RPG, and your own tales of the Grim Dark.

[a-wa-c]

I mean this was a real threat.

In the Deathwatch RPG by Fantasy Flight, uncontrolled falls dealt Impact damage equal to a rolled d10 plus one for each metre you fell. Fall 5 metres? Take 1d10+5 damage. Fall 50 instead, 1d10+50!

Pretty simple an elegant way to do it, with a small variable for a bad fall and some guaranteed hurt.

However...

It's ANY UNCONTROLLED FALL. Take a straight drop off a xenos base? Fall damage. Alternatively, fall down a flight of human-sized stairs in a hive city? Fall damage.

This damage also bypasses armour, so on dice average you only need the highly-skilled and venerable Deathwatch Marine to fall down a flight of stairs that was 22 metres long to kill him.

Consequences of ignoring the sacred litanies of Osha

[circeius-invidioso]

I am so unbelievably fucking tired of people on reddit being like...

Why square bases? They aren't allowed in the wargame.

You can't play competitive with square bases!

Square bases are against the rules, you can't have them! You need to remove them and put them on round ones!

Square bases are for display only!

And 20 more variations to that.

Firstly

no

Secondly

There are more ways to play games in the 40k setting besides competitive and the latest ruleset of the wargame.

A small and not complete list is.

1) Narrative play, where the rules are loose and the victory is not as important as the "just having a beer with the buds while having fun"

2) Space Hulk, where its more important where the mini is pointed than the shape of the base.

3) Rogue Trader, the tabletop rpg. Where the shape of the base is the least of our worries.

4) Dark Heresy, the tabletop rpg again. Where the shape of the base is not very important. Again what are the odds.

5) Deathwatch, another tabletop rpg. I won't repeat myself you get it.

6) Black Crusade, see above. Again.

And the list could go on but I am not that petty...

Well actually I am so let's continue.

7) A Dnd module, because 40k is not only a wargame it's also a setting and what if I want to play a dnd game and my character to be a dazzling space monk in chrome. Who will stop me? The fun police?

8) A wargame with friends, because everyone can indeed be fine with me having square bases and we count distances from the middle of the mini. Why not? Who is going to stop us? The thot police?

9) Wrath and Glory, another tabletop rpg set in the 40k universe.

10) A custom module of Shadow of the Demon Lord, it's weirdly and oddly fitting for grey knights. I don't know, maybe I am just insane but I liked it.

And I could go on.

Because again, 40k is a setting not a ruleset.

You can take the minis you bought and do with them as you please. Paint them, keep them in a cave, even eat them if you have the stomach for it.

I am just exhausted of having to explain my choices time after time.

Not everyone in the community plays the wargame. And that is ok.

We exist. We might be few and far between but we exist dammit.

I don't know what kind of fumes they are huffing in there and are so comfortable popping out of the bushes being like

You can't do that. You will not he allowed in a tournament with those bases.

Maybe I don't give a single flying and swimming duck about competitive, Kyle.

Maybe I play the rpgs, Kyle.

Maybe I am not going on a tournament, Kyle. I didn't ask for advice for tournament rules, Kyle.

I swear if this stick continues for the rest of the year Imma start designing a tabletop game where you can only use square bases for your minis.

Old world style.

Space hulk on speed.

Pen and paper Ultrakill.

Roided out dnd.

The sky is the limit.

God is dead.

🌈And the wargame is not the only option if you want to play a tabletop game in the 40k setting.🌈

[sister-calliope]

I have now volunteered to run an RPG campaign using the Horus Heresy as the setting, and I’m looking for advice on finding adventures I can adapt. Characters will be a mix of Astartes (multi Legion) and human.

For rules, I’m not using the usual adaptation of Deathwatch or Dark Heresy, instead using Troika, which is a much more story based and rules light system.

This is because I don’t care for games that are just wall to wall combat. My favorite system is actually Call of Cthulhu.

What I want to evoke is something like Ollanius and his merry band of misfits trying to get to Terra. Or those fleeing Isstvan in Flight of the Eisenstein. But I can’t adapt scenarios from the actual HH series because the others in the group know the books too.

I’m not terribly experienced at designing my own adventures. Anywhere I could look?

[goodvein]

Othercide

Most tactical RPG's use the exact same terrible combat system Final Fantasy Tactics introduced decades ago. Yes, it helped created the Tactics game genre, but that doesn't mean the gameplay holds up in the slightest. XCOM is the best overall, at least with hindsight. Fallout Tactics used the Fallout gameplay system, for better or worse, (mostly better).

But, the question is always, how do you treat diagonals? Are they 1 square or 2? Fallout dodges the question with the hex grid, which is not the right answer.

Most tactical RPGs, the ones that use the FF Tactics system, treat diagonals as 2, which means you can't melee your corners. 40k: Deathwatch: Tyranid Invasion treats it as 1, which is much, much, much better.

Othercide uses AP. Moving diagonally uses more AP than moving straight, and less AP then moving in a zigzag. The game also has a Burst system. When you go past a certain AP threshold, you take more time. And the game represents this with FFX's Timeline system, which so many more games should use. This is great, because in most RPG's, if you don't have the AP, you don't have the AP.

Deathwatch: Tyranid Invasion gives some characters and wargear the power to generate or borrow AP, but other than that, you have the option of stopping before the space, in the space, but not after the space. This means that next turn, you will have to make a quick move to get across, because if you stand in the space, you'll get shot.

Burst gives you the option of making the long run and attack, because if you do it right, you can kill the target, and not be left vulnerable.

Storywise, you start as a supremely powerful maiden, fightings the Others from beyond the veil of reality into unreality. She is powerful, and can do it physically, but it turns out her enemy was tortured as a child. He's too far gone, now, and too powerful to stop. So, she sends her power back in time to You, the non-entity general. You can use her power to birth Daughters, that do the fighting for you.

Each of the Daughters has a name, and in regular gameplay, they can never be healed. The damage they build up over the game never goes away. The only way to heal them, (outside of Easy mode), is to sacrifice another Daughter of equal or greater level.

Once they die, the memory of them remains, and these memories last through playthroughs. At any time, you can revert time, and try again. Throughout each campaign, you can get a few items that allow you to resurrect a Daughter, and this allows them to be persistent, through playthroughs. You also can gain buffs that are also persistent. This means that every time you play the game, you CAN get more and more powerful. And you will have so many Daughters in your memory, that you have to do the heartbreaking action of Forgetting them.

Because of the persistent health per life, ANY mistake can destroy your playthrough. In order to do this, the game has to be perfect enough to allow you to not make mistakes, and it is.

[regina-bithyniae]

40k Lore and Scale

The Crux Terminatus is a badge of honor worn on the left shoulder of a suit of Terminator armor, said to contain a fragment of the Emperor's own battle armor. Some in the Warhammer community say this is a case of Warhammer's writers having no sense of scale, because given how many Terminator armor suits there must be in the whole Imperium, not all of them could plausibly have a fragment of the Emperor's armor.

Right?

How many Terminator suits?

1000 chapters times 1000 Space Marines gives the rough estimate of 1,000,000 in the entire Imperium. Of these, only a Chapter's 1st Company (paper strength 100) use Terminator armor, and:

We can take 100 suits of Terminator armor per chapter as an extreme upper-level estimate.

Therefore, 100 suits/chapter * 1000 chapters = 100,000 active Terminator suits as of M41. Due to attrition from M31-41, let's multiply by 10, to get 1M Terminator armor suits built since the Emperor's death. This, like 100 suits/chapter, is a trustworthy upper-tier estimate, since the Crux Terminatus could be recovered from a destroyed suit as long as the left shoulder itself was not compromised.

How big was the Emperor's armor?

Contrary to some popular size graphics, The Emperor's phsyical size fluctuates by who is remembering him, and in what memory.

Guilliman did not begrudge the priest his awe. There was great warpcraft in the weapon. When the blade had been presented to Guilliman by the captain-general of the Adeptus Custodes after the Emperor’s fall, it had somehow fitted his primarch’s stature. Guilliman tried to remember how tall the Emperor was, but His living image refused to be caught and examined. In some memories, He was as tall as Guilliman; in others, no bigger than a mortal man.

- Dark Imperium

If the Emperor's armor became a static size at his time of death, we can conclude he's roughly Primarch sized, wearing relatively bulky, if not "primarch-sized Terminator" armor.

We can use the "canonical" weight of Terminator armor given in the Deathwatch RPG rulebook as a rough, very low estimate. Compare with 3000 pounds for a Volkswagen beetle, or 200KG (personal estimate) for my bike whenever I'm carring it up the stairs to my house).

The Most Miniscule of Fragements

But sure. 400,000 grams in the Emperor's armor, divided across 1,000,000 suits of Terminator armor, giving us 0.4 grams per suit assuming it's all used. Even at very low Emperor armor weight and very high Terminator suit count estimates we have a believable number.

If we double the Emperor's armor mass (square cube law would suggest more than that compared to a normal space marine in Terminator armor), half the number of existing terminator suits, and half their attrition rate, we have 800,000 grams divided across 250,000 post-Heresy suits, suggesting a 3.2 gram fragment in each suit.

A fragment, but not "the most miniscule".

[gushfield]

Brother Gavrain of the Stygian Watch chapter, Deathwing veteran, member of the Deathwatch, and member of my Death Watch RPG Kill Team

[nobylu]

My class today got cancelled so I hyperfocused on rendering Lyseri's armor. I really wanted to try representing deathwatch armor coloring as hue shifting, with it being red in direct light but black in the shadows. Since black isn't a hue, you can do whatever you want to shade it and it'll probably still read as black. I went a little overboard with the red, but I really like how it looks. It fits a sanguinary priest. I also attempted @moonbtch's skin rendering style. I don't think I quite got it, but I'm happy with the results.

[two-reflections]

What is your take on the best reading order for Salamanders-stuff?

I starteed with the first half of the Heresy, jumped to Vulkan's Primarch-novel after Unremembered Empire, read the "let's bring him back"-arc of the Heresy, Read the 40k Omnibus, returned to the Heresy ... and that was NOT ideal!

So, what would you recommend? And, what aditional 40k-books besides the Omnibus do you think are esential?

TL;DR - I'm not the best person to ask because I'm not a Horus Heresy reader, but imo, if you're not invested in the Horus Heresy, go straight to Nick Kyme's 40k stories. First read the short story The Burden of Angels. Then, pick up the new Lords of Nocturne set that includes my favourite Salamander novel, Rebirth.

Alternatively, if you don't get along with Nick Kyme's style, read Forge Master by David Annandale first and then try the Nick Kyme books. If you are invested in the Horus Heresy already, maybe starting there is better, but I'm not the best person to ask about that.

If you prefer to listen to your books, there is an audiobook for Rebirth and an audiodrama called Fireborn. There are also audiobooks for all the Horus Heresy titles.

Long answer below!

To be honest, I'm not sure I have a good answer for this because any time anyone discusses reading orders, I always think "Whatever order keeps you interested and reading is the best." 😅

Also, I know this is pretty much a crime, but I haven't finished the Salamander-focused Heresy-era books. I... Really struggle with the Heresy, tbh. I fell in love with 40k through a tabletop RPG set in the 41st millennium, and I still tend to think of the Heresy as a quasi-mythical thing that happened in the distant past. Currently, I use the Heresy-era books I have as reference material, but I recognize that not completing them leaves huge gaps in my knowledge. I plan to get through the Salamanders ones (and a few other 30k books, including Josh Reynolds’ ones!) this year.

I read the Tome of Fire series around 2019 and have gone back to various parts since, but I haven't fully reread it. I should do that. I've reread Rebirth a few times, including recently, because it hits juuust right for me. Also, I have a physical copy. 😅

I don't feel super qualified to answer because of all that, but I suppose my recommendation would depend on whether the reader jives with Nick Kyme's writing or not.

After that, a reader has three choices: Dive into the Horus Heresy, go for David Annandale’s Primarch novel and/or his Space Marine Battles Book Forge Master, or follow me into the sad world of scrounging for snippets in codexes and White Dwarf. 😭

If they already like 40k and don't mind Nick Kyme's style, they should read the short story The Burden of Angels.

Then, the available choices are either the 40k Salamanders books or the Horus Heresy. Unless a reader is already invested in the Heresy series, I'd say pick up the Lords of Nocturne collection that's currently (as of July 2024) out as an ebook and will release in print in September 2024, as that will contain the whole of his Salamanders series, several short stories and Rebirth. (Finally! Maybe people will actually read my favourite Salamanders novel now.) Alternatively, the old Salamanders Omnibus has most of the same material, but without Rebirth. But why would you miss out on the best book in the series!

That being said, I honestly think the 8th Edition Codex: Salamanders is worth a look for readers, despite being game-focused. There are lots of fiction snippets in there. Would be fun to see fanfic authors expand some of them... FFG's Deathwatch RPG sourcebook also does a good job at setting the vibe, though it's older and a little out of date. Lastly, the recent First Founding Artbook has some of the most detailed info I've read about Nocturne and Nocturnean culture.

There are some solid short stories out there too. I love The Burden of Angels, as I said, but the two by Graham NcNeill in Shattered Legions are pretty good. (Shattered Legions might be another good way in, hmm.) Artefacts was an interesting read, I really liked Vulkan's voice in it.

For people who struggle with Nick Kyme's style, reading David Annandale’s Vulkan: Lord of Drakes and/or Forge Master might be the best way in. Personally, I found Vulkan: Lord of Drakes a bit strange and didn't finish it, but I really enjoyed Forge Master. It's a shortish read from the PoV of a techmarine boarding an ork ship. The first Chapter contains a description of Nihilan's forces besieging Heliosa, so if someone read Forge Master first and then moved onto the Lords of Nocturne Omnibus, they might be a bit better primed to roll with the story. I think Annandale’s Overfiend also has a Salamander in it, but I haven't read that one yet. Also, his debut The Death of Antagonis was Black Dragons-focused, but I haven't read that one either.

Sorry I couldn't give a better informed answer! Maybe I'll have a more fleshed out opinion later this year. 😊

One more thing a reader could do is find media relevant to conflicts the Salamanders were involved in. For example, there isn't (as far as I'm aware) a Salamanders-focused novel set during the 3rd War for Armageddon or during the Badab war. However, by reading about that conflict in general, a fan would come to understand a bit more of their favourite Chapter's history. (This is why I was asking for material related to the Talledus War recently!)

[weatherman667]

40k is Designed to be Enjoyed on Every Level

Adeptus Astartes:  Noble space knights.  They have the freedom of knights, and the responsibility to die for the God-Emperor.

Astra Militarum:  The average elite infantry of the setting.  They need massive numbers to have any impact, and are average men fighting against the greatest horrors of the galaxy.

Adepta Sororitas:  Space Battle Nuns.  While the Astartes are the independent knights of the independent orders, the Sororitas are the chambre-militant for the church, itself.

Adeptus Mechanicus:  They think the only moral value a Human life has is the knowledge it contains.  This allows them to do deeply unethical things in the pursuit of knowledge

Orks:  Their wars are a basically a giant pub crawl looking for entertainment.  They were designed off of cockney football hooligans, and placed in an advanced warfare setting.

Tyranids:  Unstoppable monsters from beyond the galaxy with an insatiable hunger.

Craftworld Eldar:  Better-than-you Space Elves.

Dark Eldar:  (much) worse-than-you Space Elves.

Exodite Eldar:  Hippie space Elves.

Necrons:  Soulless army of the dead machines.

Tau:  Space weebs.  They have the cool not-Gundams, along with hope, belief in the greater good, and space communism.

And, none of these are wrong.  And that’s just the factions.  The world is also designed to incorporate anything else.  Future gang wars under Necromunda, space naval battles with Battlefleet Gothic, exploration, trade, and negotiation with Rogue Trader, playing a traditional D&D-like RPG with Deathwatch, or the villains with Black Crusade.  It’s designed to be enjoyed in any way you want to.

Want to focus on miniatures?  They literally have armies of miniatures.

Want to focus on lore?  Well, you’ll have a few good years until you catch up.

It’s all perfectly valid, and no one could be faulted for enjoying one aspect over another.

[thegodemperorsmycopilot]

The following is my Warhammer 40000 OC that was created for an FFG Deathwatch RPG campaign that a close friend ran.

I've been a staunch player and fan of the Vlka Fenryka (the Space Wolves) for many years. And I loved the idea of their Iron Priests, due to having been an Army greasemonkey and wrecker, so playing one in the Dearhwatch was a no-brainer.

So, allow me to introduce my Iron Priest Greiarsson Krakenspear of the Iron Wolves Great Company of the Vlka Fenryka, seconded to the vaunted Deathwatch of the Inquisition's Ordo Xenos.

Geiarsson Krakenspear

Lightning Across The Ice, Young Wolf of the Forge

Space Wolf Iron Priest

Deathwatch Techmarine

Geiarsson, before his elevation to the ranks of the Sky Warriors, was a young, tribeless hunter who wandered the seas of Fenris with his surviving kin, trading half or more of their hunts for shelter and protection of other sympathetic tribes.

While resting under the protection of another tribe, they were set upon by unknown foes while most of its warriors were away. With first bow and arrow, then blade and spear, the young hunter danced along the walls and grounds of the village, carving a bloody furrow through the numerically superior foe. Darting here and there like greased lightning, sweat and blood steaming off his body, protecting kin and ally alike with a song of the hunt and a ghostly grin upon his lips.

Until he was finally surrounded, spent of energy, covered in the bloody gore of the foe and his lifeblood trickling slowly out of over two dozen wounds. Panting heavily, he stood erect with a lopsided grin as a giant in dark crimson stalked across the blood-soaked ground. With a rumbling growl, the giant picked up Geiarsson and corralled his surviving kin, and disappeared into the wintry wastes of Fenris.

That was over two centuries ago. Since then, Geiarsson has been one of the youngest Wolves to be inducted and initiated into the Iron Priesthood, his knack for craft- and forge-work standing him in good stead. He has proven to be a hunter of prodigious skill and fortune, having hunted almost all manner of Fenrisian creatures, from the fabled Wolves of Asaheim to the almost mythic Kraken of the Fenrisian Depths.

He has sailed the Ocean of Stars amongst the retinues Great Companies, setting his own saga in iron and stone amongst the epics of another Great Hunt which set him against many foes of the Imperium, amongst them the Traitor Legions. Now, his saga has brought him to the Watch Fortress of Erioch, to lend his skills and experience to the Deathwatch of the Ordo Xenos.

Description: A giant of a man, wrapped in a leather bodysuit, stands proudly in the middle of his meditation chamber, eyes the colour of a winter storm ringed in gold looking out from a weather-beaten, darkly-tanned face criss-crossed with pale blade scars, his gigantic arms crossed across his immense chest. His scalp half shorn for the trio of electro-grafts implanted behind his ear at the base of his skull, his red mane worn long to fall over the right of his head. He is clean-shaven except for a clean, plaited goatee of red on his chin.

His left eye dons a facial tattoo, a variation of the Iron Wolf totem, its jaws wrapping around his eye socket.

Inscribed around his thick, bullish neck are Fenrisian runes that read, to those who know how, Iron Within, Iron Without, Indomitable Redoubt.

His left arm is a a utilitarian yet artistically wrought work of bionics; the colour of gunmetal, a matte sheen like oil slicked across water. The faint traceries of engravings of the lightning streaked skies, stormy oceans and ice floes of Fenris worked across its surface, the foamy waves worked into the silently howling heads of wolves, can be barely seen under the chamber's luminescent glow-orbs.

A fist-sized pendant of bone lies hung by an adamantine chain fashioned in the shape of prayer beads. Carved exactingly from the tooth of a Fenrisian Kraken into the Cog of the Mechanicus with an Iron Wolf skull at its heart and engraved with minute skulls in sectioned inlays, it glows with a faint bluish cast, projecting a chilly yet calming aura.

A wolf pelt the colour of freshly fallen snow, dusted with granite-like grey, and of unimaginable size girds his waist like large kilt, its legs dangling down and covering his thighs, claws curved downwards across his knees. Its noble head, its eyes still seemingly agleam with life, rests between the legs, teeth bared in a deadly rictus grin.

A ghost of a grin plays across his face, somewhat at odds with his martial bearing, showing off a legacy of his forbears, the elongated canines of the Space Wolf.

A true warrior, an accomplished hunter and a forge-master of Fenris. And, now, a member of the Deathwatch, waiting patiently to prove his mettle and deadly worth yet again.

Demeanor: A man proud of his skills and abilities, undaunted by the universe at large, Geiarsson possesses a calculative, highly analytical mind. Constantly assessing nearly everything around him, his creative mind shuffles and files away details for another time and possible use. Some joke that he is infected by a form of memno-virus, but it is mind that not only helps him hunt but to craft and forge, sorting through all the sensory and mental input plus stimuli to achieve his goals.

Like most Wolves, he is honest to a fault, but is tempered by a sense of tact that usually prevents others from being offended. He also does not possess the typical animosity towards Astartes of the Dark Angels and their ilk. Friendly, talkative and a good listening ear, especially over the odd tankard of Fenrisian ale, Geiarsson is a likable and respectable warrior-priest of the Adeptus Astartes and an unusual representative of the Space Wolves.

Optional: Geiarsson possesses a Data-Slate whose body was carved from the bones of a Kraken and Fenrisian Wolf into the cunning design of a puzzlebox which must be unlocked to view the screen. It's inner workings are interlocked, sophisticated systems of recording, relaying, transmitting and receiving all forms of data, with massive storage banks done in nano-detail, with a large touch-screen that can project flat, 2-D images to full holographic videos. It also posseses a port for electro-graft connections. This Data-Slate, for now known affectionately as the Bonebox, may sometimes be carried into battle under his wolf pelt, chained and maglocked to his armoured belt.

[thegaminggang]

Score Huge Savings with the Warhammer 40,000 Deathwatch and Rogue Trader RPG Bundle - ...

[starfall-frontiers-ttrpg]

Starfall: Frontiers - Core Concepts

Hello and welcome to the first in a line of posts detailing the mechanics of Starfall. A Familiar Foundation

Starfall uses the almighty D20 and, in general, it uses all the standard "RPG Dice". I also added in the D3 but this isn't really a new dice since you can just roll it on a D6.

I used to be a Game Master for a lot of Dark Heresy and Deathwatch games and if you are familiar with those, or really any Fantsy Flight TTRPG system, you will know that it uses D10s as its main dice type with weird dice like the D5 thrown in there. Its a good system, don't get me wrong, but I personally think the familiarity of a D20 system is nicer.

Attributes

Much Like Other TTRPGs, Starfall uses the standard 6 abilities (though I named them attributes): Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma.

Again, this is a situation of wanting to make Starfall familiar and friendly to those moving over from other systems. The real deviation from the norm comes from how Starfall uses these Attributes.

Effort, Ace and Exertion

Numenera is a frankly incredible TTRPG, if you haven't played it, please do, its amazing. The main crux of that game is the concept of Effort. Every task is difficult and you and expend some effort from one of three pools to make it easier. Effort is a resource that refills once per day.

In Starfall, I wanted something similar, so I created the concept of an Effort Test. Each task is given a fixed Difficulty Class from 1 to 10 by the GM. This is how generally difficult the task is. It's rolled on a D20 and instead of the DC being the value you need to reach, each DC specifies a minimum value required on the D20 to pass the Test.

Players can spend Effort from one of their Attributes to lower the DC of the task. They can spend a number of Effort up to their Exertion. This means that a low level character can't put as much Effort into a task as a high level character can.

In addition to Effort, players also have Ace. Ace is a separate Attribute that scales as your character progresses and usually, characters will be an Ace with two Attributes. When a character makes an Effort Test that uses one of those Attributes, they automatically reduce the DC of that Effort Test by their Ace. This reduction also doesn't count towards their Exertion.

Effort Tests are how everything is done in Starfall, from making attacks, to mocking diplomats. While there are other concepts like Advantage and Disadvantage, Resolve, Attribute Bonuses and more, I will cover all of those in future posts (hopefully one post a week if I can remember to do it). Starfall: Frontiers has a discord server, you can join it here: https://discord.gg/eUSJ8zxVnf