Mike Mearls Games

Damage Types, Yes or No?

If you had a chance to read over the first draft of Odyssey, you can see that I've dropped damage types from the game.

Instead, I'm using a system of tags to describe objects in the game. Wea...

Odyssey Rulebook Draft

Hey everyone! Today I've uploaded the working draft of Odyssey. It has mostly complete rules for characters.

To make a character:

• Determine abilities

• Pick a race<...

  2025-02-04 15:01:37 +0000 UTC View Post

Limitless Casting

Hey all! In doing some tinkering with the math behind 5e and Odyssey last night, I came to a funny discovery.

Odyssey takes the math behind levels 1 to 6 in D&D and stretches it out acros...

A Monstrous Personality

Today we're taking a look at monsters with a sample orc stat block and the core rules for the new action economy for creatures.

I wanted to show off what a monster stat block looks like in Od...

Personality Goes a Long Way

They call them roleplaying games because, like an actor, you play a role. Unlike an actor, you might speak in character, or you might describe what you say or do, or you might speak in the third pe...

Rules and Roleplay

Do you like have hard mechanics for roleplay, softer structures that are more suggestive for players, or no guidance baked into the game at all?

Let me throw out some examples.

A hard r...

Char Gen and Stupid Dice Tricks

Work has been very busy lately. Over at Chaosium, we're pushing our new game over to a closed beta, so it's been keeping me busy this week. But, I had time to put together the basic equipment rules...

Kung Fu Fighting

As I worked on the core four classes, I also wanted to make sure that the core game could support lots of different character types.

I've also been thinking a lot about bonus actions and acti...

Do We Need Saving Throws?

Based on feedback from the spells I posted a week or so back, I wonder if we need saving throws on spells. Removing saves would do two things:

• It would force the design to create spel...

  2025-01-18 13:15:16 +0000 UTC View Post

Elf, Dwarves, Apes, and Humans, Oh My!

Hey all! A few weeks back I shared the design for the mountain dwarf, and paid backers got an early peek at the sylvan ape. Today, those two are back along with the wood elf and human.

This d...

Odyssey Spells Section

Magic in Odyssey is meant to capture the feel of D&D without the rules overheard and crunch. My approach is to lean on the DM to adjudicate corner cases and handle creative spellcasting. This t...

Odyssey Design Pillars

A good game starts with a good vision. If you don't know where you're going, you can never figure out if you are making progress. In game design, this leads to constant redesign, bloated projects, ...

Paid Subscriber Benefits

Hey all!

Looking back over the past year, I worry that I'm not providing enough value to paid subscribers. So, I am thinking about starting a monthly, digital 'zine with TTRPG content. Does t...

Morale in 5e

I've been thinking about a way to incorporate morale into 5e. The B/X system works well enough, but I wanted something with a few more knobs. Two of my current campaigns are set in cities, and it w...

Humans in Fantasy

I've been thinking a lot about humans and their role in fantasy, thanks in part to Eva in the comments. Nailing down humans goes a long way to figuring out races. I also have a science fiction game...

Abilities, Proficiency, and Skills

In D&D 5th edition, abilities and proficiency provide the basic building blocks of a character. They tell you what you are naturally good at and provide a baseline for your competence. Skills t...

Fighter and Dwarf Questions

Hey all!

I had a ton of fun answer Forest Green's questions about the rogue, so I decided to pull the questions from the last two posts and answer them here. I also think that answering quest...

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! To ring in the New Year, here's an early look at the mountain dwarf and the miner background.

Going all the way back to the 1990s, I have this little tradition of doi...

Revised Fighter

I posted a fighter a while back, but I've since revised it to streamline it significantly. The fighter had a mix of actions they could always use and a limited-use, die driven option. The die felt ...

Rogue Questions and Answers

User Forest Green very thoughtfully dropped a bunch of great questions about the rogue in the comments. Since I think a lot of folks will have similar queries, I'm dropping them here as a separate ...

Rogue Squadron

My first long-term D&D character way back in the days of B/X, was a thief. I loved the character's special talents and potential to land deadly sneak attacks. I also liked that the class was a ...

Clerics and Good Bye Bonus Actions

Today, as a Boxing Day treat, I have the first draft of the cleric class. A few notes on it:

• I've recast all of the cleric's spell as effectively bonus actions in 5e terms, but I don'...

  2024-12-27 00:02:55 +0000 UTC View Post

Spell Points

"Spell points add nothing to D&D except more complication, more record keeping, more wasted time, and a precept which is totally foreign to the rest of the game." - Gary Gygax

I love that...

Ape Escape

Winston is one of my favorite Overwatch characters, so let's add apes to D&D.

Here is a preview for paid subscribers of how I am going to treat races and backgrounds in Odyssey (that's th...

Action Types and Stealth

There are two basic schools of thought when it comes to TTRPG system design.

The first approach, embodied by games like GURPS and D&D 3e, believes that a game system is a silent, third pa...

Front End Alignments

I have a goal for my re-tooling of 5e: make all of the alignments sensible choices for players. Here's my hack at it, along with languages that give some sense of where I want to take the implied s...

Dying for Death Saves

I hate exhaustion in D&D 5e. It's a total hack. Let's fix it!

On the other hand, I love the death save mechanic. It's a lot of fun. Let's smash them together and see what happens.

I...

Repetition and Complexity

A good TTRPG rule set is easy to use at the table, meaning that players and DMs don't have to look up many rules in play. The game flows from a limited set of core mechanics that, once learned, are...

Cycling Through Magic Items

The last time my Tuesday group played, the characters went shopping for magic items. The campaign takes place in a big city, and I love rolling on tables, so I allow the players to buy items. The c...

New Fighter Design

You might remember that several months back I posted about the Odyssey engine, a revision to the core 5e rules that aims to streamline the game for DMs while adding some more depth for players. I'd...