Game Mechanics and Resource Management in RPGs

Back ⁠Dice Exploder season 4 on Backerkit⁠ now!

Transcript

Welcome to the D&D miniseries! I wanted to kick this off with a look into the mechanical heart of D&D, but I didn't really know what that meant. So I asked my friend Tristan! Designer of the award winning game Shanty Hunters and author of the Molten Sulfur blog, Tristan now spends his time as a designer on Nations & Cannons, a hack of D&D set in the American Revolutionary War.

Tristan brought on a mechanized design principle underpinning D&D, the Adventuring Day, which says the game should be balanced for parties to go through 6-8 combat encounters between each long rest. It’s an interesting idea... even though absolutely no one in the known universe actually plays D&D like that. So where’d it come from? And how do you approach it as a designer?

Further Reading:

From the Dice Exploder blog: D&D Is A Comedy Game

Molten Sulfur Blog

Shanty Hunters

7th Sea

Mork Borg

Errant

Nations & Cannons

Socials

Tristan on Bluesky.

Sam on Bluesky and itch.

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