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What is a Tabletop Role-Playing Game (TTRPG)?

A Tabletop Role Playing Game or an TTRPG is a game format played usually around a table, however, is not limited to such play. In a Tabletop RPG, there are two main roles, The Game Master, the one who is in control of the campaign and controls the story and everything that the players receive, use and fight against, as well as talk to. And the Players, which are the people who have created character sheets and are expected to wander the world, doing missions that the Game Master has set for them as well as pretending to be the character that they’ve created for that world.

While the Dungeon Master is normally set to about one person hosting, there is many other styles of hosting a tabletop game for your friends. Such styles can be things like group storytelling, where there is no dungeon master and the players slowly create the world around them and what they see. However, this is an advanced technique and is recommended for people who completely understand the system they’re playing.

Character Sheet

Your character sheet is the most important thing for a player as it tells every detail of what the character has on them, everything is located here. It is recommended that you simplify the terms used in this rulebook to have only the necessary details when creating your character

Filling Out Your Sheet

  • Name – This is the name of your character! Choose a name wisely. You will be using it for a long time.
  • Occupation – This is just a random title for your character, what they would refer to themselves as
  • Level – This is your total level as a character.
  • Morals – See Morals
  • Race – Your race, this is what makes up your character
  • Age – See Age
  • Height – See Height and Weight
  • Weight – See Height and Weight
  • Size – How big you are and how much squares you take up. This is shown on the race you selected.
  • Hair – What colour your hair is and how it looks (if any)

  • Eyes – What colour your eyes are and how they look (if any)

  • Campaign Name – The name of the campaign you’re playing
  • Time Period/Setting – The general theme of the campaign e.g. Science Fantasy, Medieval Fantasy
  • Player Name – The name of the player that controls the character
  • Character Pronouns – What others should refer to the character as

  • Languages Known – The amount of languages you speak, this is located on the race you selected.

  • Backstory – This is where you tell the origin story of how the character got to where they are now.
  • Physical Description – This is how your character physically looks
  • Notes – A blank section for you to fill in. It’s recommended to put your racial abilities and any traits here.

  • Appearance – This is a section for a photo of your character

  • Ability Statistics – This shows your various player ability scores, the Total % is how much Ability % you started with, with each time you’re given more ability points to distribute, this number increases
  • Damage Reduction – See Damage Reduction
  • Block Damage Threshold – See Damage Threshold
  • Dodge Chance – Calculated based on your Agility + Dodge Modifier
  • Time Points – Everyone starts with 5 TP, this is your maximum until you gain more every 10th level

  • Movement Speed – This is how fast you move. This is shown on your race, but increases with various modifiers and factors

  • Attacks – Put your weapon statistics and damages here.
  • Perks – Put all the perks here!
  • Powers – Put all the powers here!

  • Feats – Put all the feats here!

  • Currency – How much money is currently on you
  • Treasures – Various gemstones and priceless artefacts go here, also where animals go
  • Reputation – This is how you’re perceived by the rest of the world.
  • Inventory – This is everything currently owned by your person
  • Carry Weight – This is how much you can carry in the game. See Carrying Capacity

Making a Character Sheet

Making a Character can be a long and arduous process for a newer player of Tabletop RPGs, Character Sheets contain all the information about your character, including their backstory, their inventory, their ability scores and their abilities. Character Sheets are the insight to how to play your character and your play-style in general, as well as showing how to roleplay the character. There’s a general technique that helps with making a Character Sheet, it’s a simple process in the end that once you have it down, you’ll understand how to make one fairly quickly once you have an idea of what you want your character to be.

The steps to making a Character Sheet are:

  1. Think of what kind of character you’d like to play as, would you like to play as a sneaky rogue, or a magical glass cannon?
  2. Choose a Race that compliments this character.
  3. Assign your Ability Scores for the character you’re playing. Add racial bonuses and penalties here.
  4. Create a backstory for your character. Examples are, being an orphan or an inter-dimensional mercenary.
  5. Add your necessary level bonuses for your character, such as your Hit Points, Magic Points or Stamina Points total (determined by your Race) and your Perks, Powers and Feats
  6. Add any Traits, Drawbacks or other afflictions that would help bring your character to life.
  7. Decide a name for your character.
  8. Buy your starting Equipment with the amount of currency given by the Game Master.

Once these steps are done, you’ve created a character successfully. Now you’re ready to pursue the world or galaxy as your characters.

Playing the Game

The Game Master sets up and describes events that happen in the game world. The players then react to the event by making their characters do actions that would be considered “in character” for their character. Tabletop RPG’s vary vastly compared to traditional media such as storytelling in books, as the outcome of situations has to be improvised by the Game Master – or the Game Master must plan absolutely anything that could occur in the situation – Most actions require a d% roll and a percentage chance to determine if the roll succeeds or fails. Some characters are better at others at doing things, such as the dashing rogue would be better at sneaking then the armourclad warrior. The difference between Metanoia Engine and other Tabletop Games is that most traditional tabletop games use a d20 system or lesser. Metanoia Engine uses a d% system, which requires the rolls of 2d10’s to estimate the number rolled, the first roll determines the tens position and the second roll determines the ones position. For example, a player rolls 2d10, their first roll is a 4 and their second roll is an 8, this gives them the result of 48, if they had a difficulty check of 50% chance to complete something properly, they would pass this check.

Dice

To play Metanoia Engine, you would atleast need the following:

  • Two Ten Sided Die (d10 or d%)
  • One Twenty Sided Die (d20)
  • One Twelve Sided Die (d12)
  • One Eight Sided Die (d8)
  • One Six Sided Die (d6)
  • One Four Sided Die (d4)
  • A single coin or two sided item (d2)

If available, you could get a Random Number Generator to supplement for the dice, Either on your computer, phone or even buy a device that performs it.

When you’re required to roll a dice, the roll is noted as normally a “d#”, the # being the amount of sides the dice have. If you need to roll multiple dice, the number will appear before the dice required (e.g. 6d8), if this is the case, roll six eight sided dice and calculate the results accordingly. When rolling d% rolls, as mentioned before in this section, roll 2d10’s, choosing which is the tens and which is the ones before rolling, Ten’s count as a zero in both sections, if there is a ten in both, however, the roll equals to 100. Some d10’s are printed with numbers like “10, 20, 30” to make it easier to read d% rolls. Whenever you need to round a number, unless said otherwise, round the number up.

As your character wanders on, the encounter events that can lead to money, fame, special items and experience points. Experience Points are used to level up and get more cool abilities and are awarded for completing major story lines and defeating enemies through either stealth, pacifism or by knocking them out/killing them, while money can buy new items, special items give characters a special edge over others when using the weapon.

Calculating Percentages

Percentages are the main form of how everything is calculated in this game. Often times, you will frequently see something requiring a + Ability Score/Feat %. This is usually never it’s flat number unless specified to say it uses the flat number of your percentage directly.

Most percentages in the game are additive if it uses the same name when referring to something, but become multiplicative onto the percentage if it uses a different name e.g. Damage Reduction isn’t affected by “Damage Taken”. Additive Percentages are usually added together first when calculating the equation itself (this is considered as brackets/parenthesis for BEDMAS sake). Multiplicative Percentages do not need to go by a strict order in this calculation and can go anywhere.

Typically, when calculating the results of an equation in the system, BEDMAS (aka, PEMDAS, BODMAS, etc.) is used for simplicity’s sake. Anything in brackets is calculated before anything that grants an exponent (such as squaring or cubing something), then multiplication/division is done before addition/subtraction. Using a calculator, you can use the equation below to calculate most actions. This percentage will be broken down in the next paragraph to explain.

Result×1.[Percentage (as a flat number)] = total roll

Result – This section is the result of a dice roll or other variable e.g. Base Damage, Level 1 statistics, etc. and is usually the base that’s used. The result may be changed if there are other formulas added before the percentage e.g. multiplication.

1. – Adding a 1 decimal point treats your percentage value as a positive. If you were to have negative modifiers, instead, you subtract the flat number from 100. Add a 0 decimal point to the start of the equation (e.g. -10% would be 90, therefore this value would be x 0.9 instead).

Percentage – This is your percentage given in a flat number.

You may add multiple different decimal point percentages for calculating multiplicative modifiers to this equation by simply adding another multiplication after the first percentage you would like to use e.g. 100×1.25×1.10 = is a valid way of calculating a multiplicative percentage.

If you would like to calculate a subtraction from an amount e.g. Damage Reduction or need to calculate what is added or removed by a percentage, you would follow the equation above, but instead of using a 1., it would be a 0. The calculation would be as follows.

Result×0.[Percentage (as a flat number)] = Amount added/removed by percentage.

For all other kinds of variables where there’s not a clear understanding of what something means directly, it’s up to the person that’s calculating to determine the meaning or placement, or if undecided, whatever the highest possible result you can get with the equation could be.

The Most Important Rule

Rules are intended to breathe life into your characters and the world that has been created, however, many Game Masters may think that the rules don’t suit their campaign and are completely allowed to change the rule or remove it completely to suit their campaign accordingly to make it fun to play. These rules made by the Game Masters are called “House Rules” and are very common among Game Masters. Although the Game Master is the final arbiter of the rules, when in doubt of the rules, do not be afraid to talk to your Game Master about it and think of a different rule to make things better for the game.

Rounding Fractions

When rounding fractions, always round up, even if it’s one half or lower unless specified otherwise. There are a few exceptions to this rule and normally are stated.