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Welcome to the FAQ section! We answer questions about the system and generally everything about us here, if we’ve been asked enough.

If you cannot find an answer to your question here, please feel free to contact us

General Questions

What is Metanoia Engine?

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Metanoia Engine is a d100/d% TTRPG that is designed to be used in any game setting or campaign, being flexible, it's rules are designed to be intuitive, which strengthen the games and themes that it attempts to recreate faithfully.

Designed in mind as a Multiversal-Scale Sandbox system, it is the ultimate form of freedom for both players and GM's to create a system and not be restricted by more traditional means of play. It does not have turns, it does not have an initiative, everything happens in real time, and you can almost always perform an action.

In Metanoia Engine, any build is possible for any player, and themes or genres commonly found in video games and other mediums that cannot be expressed in those mediums translate perfectly with the systems and mechanics in place to replicate them e.g. Racing, Platformers, Fighting Games, Real-Time Strategy, etc.

The system is designed to scale with any dice (e.g. d20, d10, d4, d2), concepts or abstracts in mind to create a sense of scale for actions, and uses the power of the d100 and percentage functions to create a game that can be played absolutely anywhere, with little to no equipment beyond the rules and your mind.

How do you play Metanoia Engine?

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If you're looking for the playtest, click here.

To play the system, You will need the following:

  • Access to the Complete Rulebook
  • A character sheet for each player
  • A set of dice (d2/a two-sided object, d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, d%/additional d10)
  • A Game Master (unless using a variant rule that allows for solo play.)

The only mandatory requirements are the Complete Rulebook and a Game Master, the rest of the list can be substituted for other options or means, as long as they represent the values and you are happy using them.

What can I do in Metanoia Engine?

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Great question! Literally anything.

The game is designed to build and adapt to you. There's over thousands of Perks, Powers and Feats, and 30 races that exist with more being added for both for you to have the ability to do most of (if not your whole build) at level 1. You can build any character you put your mind to.

The best way to build a character is to become familiar with the rulebook. Learning that will allow you to unlock the games full potential. Your GM should be familiar with the rules more than you and should have some pointers. However, this may not be the case. In this instance, we recommend you read the Getting Started and Basics and Ability Scores sections located in the rulebook.

What differentiates Metanoia Engine to other systems and games out there?

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We differentiate heavily from other systems just by the nature of our main gameplay loop. Here's a list of a few differences:

  • We are not a d20 system, but our system can be converted to use a d20 through optional rules.
  • The system functions in Real-Time and is not turn-based
    • We use no turn order or initiative. Every action costs Time Points (TP), You have around 5 TP from levels 1-10. This TP regenerates at the start of every round.
    • Rounds are based on amount of actions performed, and move to the next round once ten actions are performed, or when someone runs out of TP, whichever is sooner.
  • You build your character entirely from the ground up with no classes.
  • the Players roll little dice, the GM rolls most dice.
  • You can do a lot of typically impossible things in other systems in this system.
    • PvP is innately supported by the system.
    • Time Travel in the middle of combat or encounters.
    • Stopping Time quickly and not disrupting others.
    • Performing reality-affecting abilities in the middle of combat to change how the game functions.
  • Combats are quick and lethal, ending in a few minutes rather than spending whole sessions dedicated to fighting.

In summary, our system offers an unprecedented and unparallelled experience that you will seldom find in both Video Game and TTRPG mediums, acting as a true middle-ground for both, with none of the bad things of either.

What can you compare Metanoia Engine to?

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Metanoia Engine is a TTRPG similar to the vein of other systems e.g. Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, etc. in the way that dice are rolled whenever you perform an action, usually requiring a modifier of some kind from your attributes that would be available on your sheet. However, the game changes to more of a deck-building card game e.g. Hearthstone, Magic: The Gathering, etc. when you consider your Perks, Powers and Feats being your main build and what actually matters for your character.

What differentiates Metanoia Engine from other systems is that most of the Dice rolls are performed in secret by the Game Master, and are used to determine your win and fail chance. Players only roll dice when they are using an ability/attacking, or levelling up their character. This allows for the gameplay to be fast paced and focused on your actions and build rather than random chance.

TL;DR: The game masquerades as a TTRPG out of combat, but behaves as a card game like M;tG when in combat.

Why is everything free?

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Short answer: Our goal is to build a community first more than anything. This is a passion project. We want TTRPGs to be accessible and we want people to play TTRPGs differently. Releasing it for free allows more people to get their hands on it, and allows us to show respect to our fans and game that we have dedicated 10 whole years to.

Long answer: We believe the TTRPG community has frequently split and has become secular over the years, with a majority of the market being exclusive to one style of play and not fully exploring other styles of play. This is due to the community and fans that these systems have had. Systems for different styles of play come out quite often, quite expensive and very quickly. They burn bright but not for long, having amazing concepts to start with, but not further expanding upon those concepts. This oversaturates the market and seldom innovates on the groundwork of other TTRPGs. The medium is very accessible to create for, but this is not a bad thing. We should never mock the people that have spent days, months, years or even longer making their systems. It's hard, we know first-hand.

While it is not the developers fault of these games because a lot of higher concept games such as these are much riskier and harder to sell to others, especially suffering with format issues from copying other, more well-established systems as a point of reference, it becomes quite a timesink for people to develop such large games from the ground up. It does contribute to the mindset of a consumer that systems like these are impossible to come by outside of the majority of the market and requires a large group of people to build from the ground up and copious amounts of monetary investment, shareholders, and other corpo what-have-you's, disregarding even the complexity of such a large system in the first place. We want to change that mindset and show the beauty of TTRPG's at its fullest potential. We want the TTRPG market to not be monopolised by one type of system, so freedom of expression can flow more naturally and others can feel more comfortable to express their ideas and thoughts and make those risks less riskier.

We want TTRPG players and people new to the concept of TTRPGs and roleplaying to feel safe and wanted in a community of likeminded individuals, to be more inclusive and not judged by the system you play and how you play it, to have a developer that is grateful to have you and listens to your ideas on what they can change. To forge a community-driven game to show others that yes, this is possible. We are possible.

To achieve this, we made our whole game, plus one demo module with over hundreds of hours of content free for everyone to play and use for their own Metanoia Engine games. Our current plans is for our complete rulebook after this playtest and once rewritten to be free online for others to access so everyone is on equal grounds and understanding of how the system works, regardless of whether or not they've purchased everything.

Our published rulebooks for this system featuring art made by real artists, official lorebooks and modules, stories and others attached in this system will cost money, but these are because they are not mandatory to play the game, are supplemental to the worlds you create, and do not restrict GM's or players from being limited in knowledge. This is how the creator played and experienced TTRPGs and wouldn't have experienced it otherwise without websites like these.

We have options for people interested in our content to subscribe to our Patreon to keep up-to-date with access to digital copies of all of our releases for this game depending on the tier selected. There are one-time payments for our releases to gain access to that version forever. We do this to fund the artists who draw the artworks, writers who write the lorebooks, and to keep the website up and running as well as pay for any fees required of us to keep operating. We rely solely on this to expand the game further. We do not make any profit from this at all.

Do you use AI for any part of your game?

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No.

Our art is made by real artists and people, and our official writers of the lorebooks do not use AI. We do not support the use of Generative AI in creative fields. We work with both our Artists and Writers to ethically create content for this game.

None of our mechanics or game writing is made or edited with AI. We do this all by hand for you to access because we want to ensure a high quality game for everyone that plays it.

If you suspect something is made from AI, please contact us and we will look into it.

Can I use your art in one of of my projects?

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We appreciate your enjoyment of our art. Please contact us in regards to this and we can assist you a bit further regarding this query.

We typically say no to the use of our artworks if it is used for any of these reasons:

  • For-Profit projects e.g. things you receive payment for.
  • Any projects that contain AI art or feature the usage of AI by any means.
  • If you have a history of not crediting artists or creators.

As a rule of thumb, when using our artworks, please use the version with the artist's signature for your project. Please give credit to the artist who made the work, and give credit to us by linking back to the Metanoia Engine website. We offer high quality versions for printing, projects and such available on our Metanoia Engine Fan Patreon tier.

We may offer access to the files upon request depending on what it is needed for.

Can I review Metanoia Engine?

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Yes. You may review Metanoia Engine. Please do note in your review that:

  • We are still in our playtest stage. Everything is subject to change upon full release.
  • Please credit us by providing a link back to this website in your review.

We love to hear peoples opinions on the game and would love to hear feedback to make this game as best as it can be. If you have any questions about the game, please contact us.

Patreon Questions

I have a Deluxe Tier Patreon Membership, What’s the rules for Commissions?

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Firstly, thank you SO SO much for joining the Patreon and keeping us alive and afloat to keep working on this game. There's a few rules that we have just to make things more easier on our end and not overwhelm our team with commissions.

The rules are as follows:

  • You can commission whatever artwork related to the game (or the artist would be happy to draw) to the artist himself. If you'd like to know who he is, his discord is @arkham.ghost!
  • If you don't use your commission this month, you can save it for later! If you do choose to save it for later, you can get a higher tier commission or more lower tier commissions as you step up and move down. The amounts are as follows:
    • 2 Bust = 1 Full Body, 2 Full Body = 1 Scene/Spread
  • If you ever need to know how many commissions you can commission at any time, feel free to DM @gm_mucho on discord who will tell you the number!
  • Commissions must be submitted by the 10th of every month to the artist, otherwise, it gets moved to next months work.
  • You can submit multiple works to be done but can't submit all of your commissions at once.
  • The artist can deny a commission for whatever reason e.g. not comfortable with doing it, too many commissions submitted (but that doesn't remove your commission! You can submit another at a later time or find something else to commission.)
  • At any time, we can put a pause on commissions. This can be due to a multitude of reasons e.g. Life stuff, Emergencies, Requiring more game focus for marketing/game materials, we'll let everyone know if this does happen.

Please DM arkham.ghost on Discord to use your commissions.