Limitless

Have you ever wanted to make your own TTRPG? It's never been easier thanks to Limitless, a streamlined roleplaying system for your next game. Limitless takes the simple nature of The Black Hack and adds a dice pool mechanic that allows for degrees of success and player facing checks. This makes for a system thats approachable for beginners and deep enough for veterans.

Principles

• Player facing: degrees of success mean players can do all the rolling
  
• No levels:  when you gain XP theres a chance your stats go up. No levels required!
• No math: the mechanics of Limitless define what your dice need to roll over and under so no modifiers are necessary
• Limitless: this system is very open ended and intended to be used. Add it to the next game you design!

Why I Wrote This

I've been playing tabletop games for years, and one thing I never liked was the idea that rolling a 20 or a 1 was just as likely for a low level character as it was for a high level character. In my opinion, higher level characters should crit more and fail less as they level up. Dice pools seemed to solve this problem.

Another issue I've encountered was how much math would slow down our games. You roll a die, add your Stat Modifier, Weapon Bonus,  and on and on. Games like The Black Hack solve this effortlessly with roll-under mechanics. However, there was still the problem of modifiers for powerful opponents, which in my opinion negated the simplicity of the roll0under mechanic. That's why I created the Difficulty mechanic, which sets the lower limit for your roll-under checks. A difficult check requires you to roll under your Stat but over the Difficulty. Simple and no math required!

What About Critical Hits/Fails?

While critical hits were certainly fun and made for some of my favorite gameplay sessions, I really only found them necessary for combat. After all, what would a natural 20 on a check to pick a lock do that another success wouldn't? I created Deadly Weapons to handle critical hits via damage rolls instead.

Critical fails on the other hand were just embarrassing and often felt unrealistic for high level characters to do. I've made this game 3d20 based to avoid having critical hits/fails at all but I may make a 5d20 variant to introduce these for those who prefer them in their games.

Attribution

Use this system in your next game by including the text "A Limitless roleplaying game" somewhere in your doc. Cheers!

The Black Hack was written by David Black and published by Square Hex.