Demon Saga

Custom TTRPG

Project Goal

Demon Saga is a tabletop role-playing game inspired by USR by Scott Malthouse. It also takes heavy inspiration from Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga in setting and mechanics. The core rules were written and stylized using Homebrewery.

The goal was to create a TTRPG system that rewarded players for creating specialist characters who excelled at one or two aspects of the game and to form groups or parties that covered each other's weaknesses.

Ability Dice and Specialists

The player character's stats are determined by the ability rank and a corresponding dice is used for any checks that use said ability.
Players are given limited ability upgrades, which guide the player into becoming a specialist, focusing on getting a single ability to its highest rank and choosing to either dabble in other abilities or choose a second ability to nearly max out.
This in turn creates an environment that wants players to crate different specialists to deal with all possible situations or to create the specialists that they desire and must find alternative ways to deal with the abilities they lack. Every new play group would have a different experiences even if they were to go through the same scenarios.

Diversity of Play

The system mechanics also encourage diversity of play and scenarios for both the player characters and the game masters.
Scenarios in which certain specialists are unavailable to the party can still be engaged with by members whose ability rank is not as high for a chance to succeed with drawbacks.
The two different forms the player can take during play can also affect gameplay and interactions. These can used used as limitations that can challenge the player to think outside the box to solve problems.

Melee Weapon table for Human Form Only

Potential Changes

In the game's first iteration, the challenge values were too high for even players with high ability rank. While the hardest challenge value was meant to be something akin to a miracle, it was still too high a hurdle for specialists to manage.
- The challenge values were lowered to allow specialists to succeed slightly more consistently in the harder challenges, while characters who didn't specialize in a certain ability could still have a chance to pass a medium challenge.
Another change is a threshold was added for the challenge value to allow for variance in ability checks. This threshold is a range from the challenge value that gives more results than simply successes and failures.
- Now there is a chance to critically succeed by rolling beyond the upper threshold value and succeeding with a penalty by rolling between the lower threshold and challenge value.

Level and System Designer