Introducing the Dungeon Deck with a digital app for online playtests

By Chevas Balloun · Oct 1, 2021 · Game Design · Game Master · Playtesting

Dreamstate is a tabletop role playing board game—you play it in-person, at a table. Since it’s currently in development, we haven’t printed it yet, so most of the game...

6 signficant things we’ve accomplished in the last year

By Chevas Balloun · Aug 12, 2021 · Art · Game Design · News Updates

We’re going to do better about keeping the website updated. 1. The second art set of level tiles (out of 3) have been drawn and processed There are 63...

The Gambit Skillcheck System

By Caleb Hicks · Aug 19, 2020 · Game Design · Skills

The Trouble with d20’s I’ve played a lot of RPG and tabletop games in my life. There are a multitude of skillcheck systems, from the d20 system used in...

Watch How the Rogue faked out the Game Master with Shadows—the Shadow System [Video]

By Chevas Balloun · Jun 23, 2020 · Game Design · Playtesting · Skill School Showcase

Ditching Stealth When we decided to make the Game Master a competitive player, we had to rethink stealth. Stealth as an RPG mechanic works when the GM operates as...

Why we made individual Skills into equippable items

By Chevas Balloun · May 26, 2020 · Game Design · Skills

Skills are special abilities that provide extra damage when attacking, extra mobility, and/or extra utility when players perform actions or engage in combat. Skills are divided into the following...

Skill School Showcase: Ice

By Caleb Hicks · Apr 14, 2020 · Game Design · Skill School Showcase · Skills

Hey all, One of my favorite mechanics in Gambit is equipment management. All gear must be equipped to the character sheet on one or more attributes. Often, the gear...

Using two D6 dice to track character attributes up to 43 and three D6 to track up to 99—without pen and paper

By Chevas Balloun · Apr 7, 2020 · Game Design

If you haven’t discovered this yet, one of the self-enforced design restrictions we’ve adhered to is to build an RPG board game that doesn’t require pen and paper. This...

Iterating to the right solution and aesthetic: Attribute Squares

By Chevas Balloun · Apr 6, 2020 · Art · Game Design

Iteration is one of the most significant tools a designer has to achieve the right design solution. The character sheet has undergone more iterations than any single element in...

The Game Master is out to get you: How the GM equips multiple enemies and items as a competitive player.

By Chevas Balloun · Apr 2, 2020 · Game Design · Game Master

One of the major changes Caleb mentioned in his recent post is that we made the GM a hostile, competitive player. No longer is the GM a grand facilitator,...

Major Updates

By Caleb Hicks · Mar 30, 2020 · Game Design

Hey all, It’s been a while since we last had an update, so we wanted to post something on all the progress we’ve made. In the last year, we’ve...

Initiative flags for the GM screen (Retired Feature)

By Chevas Balloun · Jul 26, 2019 · Art · Game Design

Updated February 20, 2020:: Depreciated. There is now no difference between being in and out of combat now that we have a huge new innovation in the works. There...

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