Ok, this is kind of inspired by some meme-laden conversations but also because the One Page RPG Jam starts in a week or so. So it’s just a noodle.
I call this TIC (Today I Choose…)
you have five attributes
• VIOLENCE: force, harm, destruction. Fighting. Combat. Breaking things. Last resort of the profane, etc.
• WORDS: persuade, deceive, negotiate. Words could be deadly…and they can make things a lot worse.
• PATIENCE: wait, observe, endure, outlast. think before leaping. wait and see. Resist the urge to act. this can also be a Dodge in combat. you maintain the status quo.
• CHAOS: the unexpected third thing; flip the table, hole the boat, kill the engine mid-air. Create a problem for everyone.
• ABSENCE: leave, evade, refuse the scene. Fleeing to fight another day. run, run, run away….
and you rank them from d4 to d12.
Rolling
Declare your Choice out loud (“Today, I choose Violence”). Roll your die vs. the GM’s Stakes die (d4 trivial → d12 dire). Both roll.
• Beat the Stakes die: Clean success. You get what you wanted. This is a Roll High system.
• Beat the Stakes die with a mximum dice score: Clean Success and a little extra. Because why not.
• Tie: Success with cost. You get it, GM adds a complication tied to your Choice (Violence: injury or witness; Words: a promise you must keep; Patience: time burns, something else moves; Chaos: collateral; Absence: something/someone left behind).
• Lose:Failure. It doesn’t work, Stakes escalate one step.
• Roll a 1:Fumble, regardless of the Stakes result. Your Choice betrays you: Violence turns on an ally, Words become a binding lie, Patience becomes paralysis, Chaos targets you, Absence means you’re now lost/cut off.
Stepping
• Succeed cleanly with your lowest die: step it up one for the rest of the session. Growth through discomfort.
• Choose the same path again: it steps down one (temporarily). You’re predictable; the world adapts.
Assists: .
Matching Choices help — highest die rolls, others each add +1.
Clashing Choices (one picks Violence, one picks Words) — the lower die acts first and sets the scene’s terms.
Total Commitment
Once per session, any character may replace their Choice die with the d20 by saying the full line (“With total commitment, I chose ___”). Fumble range becomes 1–3. Glory or catastrophe: no take-backs, no assists.
The Stakes Die – GM Guidance
The Stakes die measures how much the situation resists the character, not how dangerous it is to their body, but how hard it is to get what they want here. The Stakes dice is always rolled first, in the open.
• d4 Trivial. The world barely pushes back. A drunk guard, a gullible merchant, an unlocked door. Failure here should feel embarrassing.
• d6 Routine. Everyday opposition. A suspicious shopkeeper, a locked gate, a rival who half-expects you. Competent characters usually win these.
• d8 Serious. Real resistance. Trained soldiers, a deadline that actually matters. This is the default for scenes worth rolling.
• d10 Dire. The odds are against you. Outnumbered, out-positioned, or facing someone better than you. Costs and failures should sting.
• d12 Desperate. The world actively wants you to lose. A fortress, a mastermind, a storm at sea. Clean success should feel like a miracle.
Quick rulings
• If unsure, it’s a d8.
• Stakes reflect this Choice in this fiction: Words vs. a mob might be d12 while Violence vs. the same mob is d8 — or the reverse against a duelist.
• Escalation from a failed roll typically steps the Stakes up one for the next attempt in the same scene.
• Never roll d4 Stakes unless failure would still be interesting. If it wouldn’t, just say yes.
• The GM’s Stakes die is rolled openly and rolled first. Players should see the odds they chose to face. This will obviously inform which dice they want to use. If the GM stakes d8 rolls an 8, you need a d8, d10 or d12 to beat it. Depending on where you put your dice, this can lead to interesting choices. You might find that when the guard attacks (Stakes 8), your Violence (d8) may not be enough so you are therefore forced to dodge (Patience d10) or Flee (Absence d12)
Fighting, because it’s always about conflict.
Yiu declare what you’re going for. Are you intending to kill them or defeat them? Drive them off? When you win, you win. That’s it. What happens to the loser is up to the winner. What we are trying to avoid is the endless turn-based slog of combat.
When you Choose Violence and win, you defeat them. Before rolling, declare the defeat you’re going for:
Down: they’re out of the scene (unconscious, pinned, yielding)
Disarmed/Denied: they lose the thing that makes them dangerous
Driven off: they flee; the problem survives, relocated
Broken: step down one of their dice – right down to d4 if you like, permanently until healed. You choose which: cut their sword arm (Violence), scar their face before their court (Words), take their eye (Patience)
Dead: only on offer if you said so before rolling. Killing is a declaration, not a damage threshold.
So,
Clean success: you get the defeat you named.
Success with cost: you get it, but take a single level step-down yourself, or the defeat is messier than intended (you wanted Down, you got Dead, now that’s on you).
Failure: they get to name a defeat condition against you when the escalation lands
The idea is that the steps down are applicable across all of the verbs.
Healing
This requires time and/or a Clean Success on Patience.
For Time: The first step of healing takes 1 day, the second takes 2 days and the third takes 3 days.
The GM decides how much time is needed, but Patience rolls are the quicker way (ironically). You’re rolling to stay in bed rather than moving about, to not poke at your wound, or pick your scabs, to patiently apply the poultice or dressings. A clean Success on the Patience roll increases your Injury (the step down) by 1 level. you can try again immediately but remember your Patience roll is also stepped down because you’re repeating the action.
Success with cost means you heal…but you MUST take the rest. No avoiding it.
Today I choose CHAOS
Think of it more like a metaphorical table flip. You do the unexpected.
The duel is about to start. You set the barn on fire. It’s now a different problem.
The duel is about to start. You loudly propose marriage to the rival.
You’re cornered on a rooftop. Absence is jumping off into the canal. Chaos is hitting the tiles so everyone falls off.
Mexican standoff and you don’t think patience or words or violence works? Well, summon your pet goose!
Chaos to me is a player move to change the stakes or up-end the situation. You still have to roll against the GM stakes dice, but the dice may change.
Putting a high dice into Chaos rather than Words is definitely a choice.
Scene: The Villanova Masque
The Villanova Masque is held once a year, on the first spring full moon; the one night, the astrologers insist, when the dead of the old republic cannot see what the living do. Behind gilded masks, cardinals bargain with bankers, assassins dance with their marks, and somewhere below the ballroom, the Villanova family renews the pact that keeps their city unsinking in its drowned lagoon. Everyone is welcome.
Lucrezia della Rosa: Violence d6, Words d10, Patience d8, Chaos d4, Absence d12. A courtier who talks her way through the world and runs when she can’t.
Her goal: persuade Cardinal Bassano to withdraw his patronage of her family’s rival before the announcement at midnight. The Cardinal is old, vain, and has played this game for forty years.
Round 1: “Today, I choose Words.”
Lucrezia corners the Cardinal by the fountain, all fans-a-flutter and flaunting flattery, hinting she knows about his debts to the Genoese banks.
GM sets Stakes at d10: the Cardinal is a serious operator, and they’re in his social territory.
Lucrezia rolls her Words d10: gets a 4. GM rolls Stakes d10: gets a 9.
Failure and the escalation is where it gets ugly. The Cardinal doesn’t just deflect. He raises his voice: “My dear, if you mean to discuss the Genoese, do speak up. Signor Grimaldi is standing right there.” Heads turn. He has taken her leverage and displayed it to the room like a dead bird.
The GM rules this a defeat with Words: the Cardinal names his condition; Lucrezia’s Words step down to d8 for the rest of the night. She has been publicly outmaneuvered; everyone at this ball watched her lose. Her currency here is spent.
Escalation: Stakes in this scene are now d12. And Grimaldi, the rival’s blade-happy nephew, is walking over, smiling.
Round 2: the squeeze
Grimaldi, quietly, over the rim of his cup: “The garden. Now. Or I tell the Duke what you tried.” Lucrezia glances at the exits but Grimaldi’s men are at both doors. Absence isn’t on the table (or rather, the GM offers it at Stakes d12 with a fumble meaning she’s caught fleeing, which is worse). Words just failed publicly; another attempt against Grimaldi at d12 with her wounded d8 is near-hopeless.
The garden, then. Cold air, torchlight, Grimaldi drawing a thin Spanish blade. He was always going to do this, the Cardinal simply made sure it happened where the music covers noise and there will be no eyes.
Round 3: “…Today, I chose Violence.”
The line lands differently when a d6 says it. The table knows what this is: not a power move, a last resort.
Lucrezia declares her defeat before rolling: Disarmed – she wants his blade in the fountain, not his blood on her gown. Killing a nephew of the house at their own ball is a debt she cannot pay.
GM sets Stakes at d8: Grimaldi is a duelist, but he’s arrogant, half-drunk, and expects a courtier to freeze.
Lucrezia rolls d6: gets a 5. GM rolls d8: gets a 5.
Tie, success with cost. She gets her named defeat: a thrown wine cup, a wrenched wrist, his rapier ringing off the flagstones into the dark. Grimaldi is disarmed and gaping. But the cost lands: the GM rules she’s wrenched her shoulder badly doing it. Violence steps down to d4and there was a witness on the balcony. Someone saw the Lady della Rosa fight like a dockhand.
Where she stands at midnight: Words d8 (publicly beaten), Violence d4 (one bad roll from Broken), a witness who owns her secret, and the Cardinal’s announcement still coming. Her best remaining die is Absence d12.