Things to Research

This page lists unresolved questions and areas that still need development. Some items have been moved to their own pages or archived if resolved.

Open Topics

Damage System Alternatives

Explore alternatives such as:

Resistance and Vulnerability Shifting Wound Tier

An alternative to halving or doubling the raw damage before comparing to thresholds would be simply reduce or increase the Wound Tier by one. This would be simpler and faster than even dividing or multiplying by 2, but leaves us with two questions:

Is it OK if Resistance shifts a Minor Wound down to No Damage?
What would happen to a Critical Wound with Vulnerability?

Status Effects & Conditions

Develop a standard list of conditions (e.g. frightened, slowed, exhausted)
Clarify how they interact with the damage/stress model
Should conditions stack or escalate?

Itemization & Economy

How modular should weapons and armor be?
Can weapons have thresholds, scaling damage severity?
How can crafting or upgrading work within this modular framework?

Resolved Topics (Now Tracked Elsewhere)

✅ Dice Pool Mechanics (Moved to: rules:dice_pool)

We’ve adopted the d4 pool system instead of a flat d20 system. It:

Encourages more consistent results (bell-curve-ish outcomes)
Makes skill investment matter more than luck
Integrates seamlessly with action economy (spendable d4s)
Replaces Action/Bonus action with diminishing dice per action

See the Rules: Dice Pool page for complete details and current implementation.

Historical note: rationale for this change, including discussion of risk dice, multi-die advantage/disadvantage, and AC subtraction can be found on the archived page: Dice Rationale.

✅ Attribute Aspect Web (Moved to: rules:aspects)

We now use 15 Aspects, derived from attribute pairings, in place of skills and saving throws.

This allows:

Smoother integration across all gameplay types
Granular character differentiation
A consistent mechanic for actions, saves, and concentration checks

See Rules: Aspects for the full table and skill-mapping conversion.

The original reasoning behind ditching traditional skills/saves is preserved at Aspect Web Rationale.

Games & Systems for Reference

Daggerheart
Spheres of Power
Crown and Skull
DCC RPG
GURPS
Knave 2
Monte Cook’s Cypher System
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_systems_in_games

Ideas to Explore Further

Telegraphed Actions / Called Shots

Idea: A character declares their next action at the end of their turn. If they follow through, they gain advantage (or bonus d4). If they change actions, they suffer disadvantage (or penalty).

Could tie into a called shot mechanic for aimed attacks or spell prep
May interact with enemy AI or boss-phase design

Dash Username Integration (Decentralized Curation)

Consider whether Dash usernames could function as identities for decentralized content curation.

Would allow creator attribution for shared rules/modules
Might simplify multiplayer content syncing across local copies
Ties into web-of-trust ideas for curated rule sets

Notes

Archived rationale and deeper design essays are being moved to a new design_archive: namespace.