Daughters & Dragons — Making an easy but awesome tabletop RPG! (Part 2)
Welcome back, or welcome… Welcome!
I wrote my years off in an intro to the 1st part, but here’s a quick one: I’m an old fan of D&D who thinks the game ended up being too bloated, and at the same time too simplified to portray believable stories and characters.
So my quest is to create a game that can tell similar stories, but more believable/grounded, and easier to learn/play, even for pre-scholar kids, through heavy usage of emojis for the rules and game elements.
To achieve this, I started showing in the 1st article that I tweaked the typical ability scores that describe characters, and coupled (some of) them up into 8 aspects that determine what dice you should roll for actions and such, following the principle that two dice is always better than one…
For these first game elements I think I followed a practical/pragmatical approach, so it might surprise you to see that for the next element that will shape this game, I will go for something far more abstract, but that I think kids can naturally grasp: SPIRIT ANIMALS!
A Game (of) 4 Animals
To my knowledge, there is only one RPG game out there that abandoned completely the concept of ability scores or similar descriptors, in favor of something completely abstract, and it’s Legend Of The 5 Rings.
In this game set in a fantasy version of feudal Japan, characters are described by 5 “rings” that correspond to elements: Air, Fire, Water, and Earth, plus one called Void.
The elements draw heavily from Japanese tradition, and it shows: a lot of this classification system gives the impression of hitting some real-world truths, so I wanted to keep its meaningful parts as they are. What I never liked though is that, by itself, it tends to create stereotypes with litte variation.
So my idea was to have a similar element combine with the aspects I described above, to give at least two “approaches” for each of them.
This creates a lot of nuance, but in a way that kids can naturally grasp: how many kids tend to “impersonate” animals while playing? They usually go for cool iconic ones, for good reason: a lot of psychology is involved, because animals are automatically/archetypically associated to demeanors and abstract concepts in our minds, since an early age, giving specific feelings.
Therefore, you can think of these animals as a cross between a “zodiac” and a “psychological/personality profile” for characters, but I’d say it’s actually better described by what it is: spirit animals that characters are “connected” to, making their generic abilities far more specific and thematic, helping players to come closer to the idea of character they had.
I knew I didn’t want 5 of these like in the game above, not only because it would have meant many more combinations, but because the “5th element” called Void is a very Japanese-specific concept, that I could easily distribute to one or more of the 4. It shaped some of them more: a win-win!
So here is my choice, which was also influenced by the availability of emojis, since as I said, I wanna use them for as many things as possible:
- 🦅 Eagle (Air)
- 🦁 Lion (Fire)
- 🦄 Unicorn (Water)
- 🐲 Dragon (Earth)
The Unicorn is the one that makes less sense in relation to the original element, so I toyed with the idea of calling it Seahorse, as in the mythical horse with a fish tail… But in the end, the unicorn emoji is perfect, at least in the Windows palette, and the name is not that important: the icon is!
I’ll try to be brief describing the 4 animal spirits, and how they shape characters, highlighting good and bad sides, since all have both.
The Eagle: elegant and precise, or rapacious and manipulative.
Characters more connected to the Eagle spirit are great at the following:
As you see, the theme is 🧚🏻♀️Control and elegance in everything, and it’s maybe the most tricky one of the four to find a “goody-goody” side to...
It’s the coolest of the block, though, and the one with more active skills (4 out of 5). It’s basically the animal to choose for those wanting to come off as expert and cool, at the expense of being nice and friendly… Its ways are often indirect (like 🔮Interpret or 🦹🏻♀️Manipulate) or difficult (like 🤺Finesse and 🔎Attention), but it’s the price of coolness, and not missing any detail!
The Lion: regal and powerful, or impulsive and destructive.
Characters more connected to the Lion spirit are great at the following:
The fire element is felt strongly here, and while it can be a destructive force, I think the Lion much more than the Eagle can have a brightly positive side: a leader, a fighter, or even a creator/craftsman, through the 🔥Invent skill. It’s the best at fighting, with 3 skills/traits giving attacks (👊Rush, 🐅Reaction, 👸🏻Lead), and 1 giving resilience (❤️🔥Temper) so while not the most magical/intellectual or social, it has very direct ways to excel in both, with Invent and Lead, as opposed to the indirect ways of the Eagle.
The Unicorn/Seahorse: charming and magical, or fickle and weak.
Characters more connected to the Unicorn spirit are great at the following:
Here the theme is emotions: it’s the spirit more deeply connected to emotions, both of self (🤩Insight) and others (🥰Charm). It’s great at 🐙Adaptation and understanding, but comes off as weak. It certainly lacks the direct ways of the Lion, or the expertise of the Eagle, but it’s also the only spirit with two Social traits/skills, since Insight doubles up as skill, and can become a “sixth sense”, making a character very hard to surprise, fool, or even hit. It vies with the Eagle for the best at magic, with 3 ways to do it: physical🧜🏻♀️Flow, intellectual 🪄Unravel, and social Charm of course.
The Dragon: resilient and mystical, or passive and slow.
Characters more connected to the Dragon spirit are great at the following:
This is the spirit that got the most from the abandoned “Void” element, since Earth by itself was kind of boring. (Unicorn got some as well.) The theme is mysticism and knowledge, but also a primal connection to life itself, with the all-important ✊Fortitude trait, which is the first source of both health and defensive capabilities. It’s the most unique of the four in terms of capabilities, with 📖Knowledge and 😇Belief being very unique in their game effects. It’s also the most lacking in active skills, making 🤔Calculate its most trusted way of fighting. It’s the skill to land deadly blows though, so it’s nothing to sneeze at, just like 🙏Invoke gives powerful magic.
Ok but what does this all mean in game terms?
It’s very easy. When combining the above in one table, you get the biggest part of the “game-mat/character sheet” I hinted at in the first article.
Everything you may want to roll is described here, and dice you associate to each spirit are just rolled together and their results added on top of the two that are associated to each trait and skill, for a total of 3 dice per action/roll!
This solves issues D&D has with specialized characters like acrobatic rogues that have low 💪Force (Strength): in D&D they’d paradoxically have trouble with the Atheltics skill, but here they can use🖐️Dexterity and 🦅Eagle spirit, since their athletic skill (🧚🏻♀️Control) takes all 3 in account.
They could also favor the 🦄Unicorn, and be just as good, but different!
If you recognized dice symbols next to all spirits, you got it: characters are connected to all four animals. What defines them is how big each connection is, and how this plays with the rest of their abilities/features.
You might notice there’s a lot of icons in the table I didn’t explain, although you might have guessed what the ⚔️swords or the ⭐star mean (magic!)
No worries: the actual rules will come at the end, but basically the idea is that each of these skills/traits has a default/easy way to be used (the icons in gray squares), but also extra ways that can be learned separately, for exotic uses like magic, stealth, extra defense, crafting, knowledge, etc.
If not wanting to wait till the next article, drop a question in the comments.
Till then, happy gaming with whatever RPG you can get your hands on!
Is there more still?
Definitely!! Can’t wait to show what I am cooking up for a unified magic system… It’s bonkers, but very very connected to what I showed till now.
The point is this game is so modular. It *could* work without the typical D&D concepts of character classes, spells, races, backgrounds, and everything, and already produce varied characters through the intersection of spirit animals and abilities. But it can also accommodate for those classic elements for extra depth, and I’m developing my own version of them, so they can feel integrated with this new system.
All is bound to become more colorful and visual than D&D, but also more nuanced, and deep in many cases, while still maintaining a simplicity that can make kids involved. Trust me, I tried with a 3 years old girl! 😊
So until the next time, please be open and direct in the comments: this stuff needs opinions and criticism to really become good.
Happy magicking!
