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Overview

It's much easier to make one than you think. The building blocks for most of the complicated things are already laid out, so you can hopefully focus in on the worldbuilding and neat gameplay ideas.

This website contains an optional balancing guide for difficulty. If you want to use it, select a difficulty for your datapack. Note the number of the difficulty, because that's what is used in the balancen'ing formulas. If you art using the balancing guide, difficulty is optional and merely adds flavor.

Difficulty

1. Story
2. Guided
3. Casual
4. Easy
5. Normal
6. Hard
7. Expert
8. Brutal
9. Nightmare
10. Hell
11. Abyss I
12. Abyss II
13. Abyss III
14. Abyss IV
15. Abyss V
16. Abyss VI
17. Abyss VII
18. Abyss VIII
19. Abyss IX
20. Abyss X

Formatting a TTE Datapack

Keep formatting readable and brief. As with everything else having to do with TTE, creativity is encouraged. So, you can do what you want with the formatting. Here's the standard format:

• Introduction
  • Name
  • Description
  • Tone
  • Genre
  • Difficulty (Name and 1-20)
• Species
• Backgrounds
• Classes
• Items
• Features
• Tags / Properties (If necessary)
• Skills (If necessary)
• Player Conditions (If necessary)

Species, Background, Class

Though they share the same core attributes, they do not serve the same functions. They have different roles both in the story, and in gameplay.

• Background: where you come from, what you were doing before the game began
• Species: what kind of creature you are
• Class: what you can do and your role as a player

These are the core attributes that origin elements share:

• Name
  • What the origin element is known as in-universe
  • Keep it short
• Description (optional)
• HP
  • Classes: ~3-5
  • Species: ~0-1
  • Background: ~0-1
• Stat Boost Options
• Stats you can choose to gain +1 in
• EX: STR, DEX, CON
• Skill Boost Options
• Skills you can choose to gain +1 in
• EX: Acrobatics, Endurance, History
• Speed
  • An amount of additional tiles you can move per round of combat
  • Typically reserved for species
  • Classes: ~0-1
  • Species: ~6
  • Background: ~0-1
• Features
  • Class features should focus on radically changing how this character does what they do, and they should scale with the player's level in that class. For example, if you're making an engineer class, give them a feature that lets them make "a number of sentries equal to their engineer level."
  • Species features should alter approaches to situations, but shouldn't solve every problem. For example, if you grant a species the ability to fly, install guardrails to prevent it from being overused or from easily outperforming everyone else.
  • Background features should be broadly applicable to anyone of any species or class. For example, grant a small boost to health, speed, or a basic utility ability.

Items

GMs have the most freedom with designing items. The following is a guide to the information needed to create a usable item in game.

Name

• What the item is known as in-universe

Description (optional)

• A description of the appearance, lore, or additional functions of the item.

Level (optional)

• Level is used by the TTE balancing formulas. If you aren't using them, this is optional.
• This represents level this item should be acquired at (ranges from 1-20)

Rarity (optional)

• Rarity is used by the TTE balancing formulas. If you aren't using them, this is optional.
• This represents how rare the item is (ranges from 1-10)
1. Awful
2. Common
3. Uncommon
4. Rare
5. Very Rare
6. Epic
7. Legendary
8. Mythical
9. Relic
10. Eternal

Value

There are two approaches to assigning value to items in TTE: Standard, and Absolute. Absolute is more complicated but is very helpful if you plan on doing a lot of bartering, currency conversions, or otherwise complex currencies. Standard is recommended in general, but definitely for beginners.

STANDARD VALUE

• Each item is assigned a value in a set common currency, such as gold or dollars.
• One currency item is created that has a value of 1
• Currency conversion is not likely, and currencies have no special properties beyond being valuable.

ABSOLUTE VALUE

• Each item is assigned a value that represents the objective, absolute worth of the item.
• Multiple currency items are created with their own absolute values
• To find how much an item is worth in a currency, its absolute value is divided by the currency's absolute value.
• This allows conversion between multiple currencies, fair trading/bartering, and sets a global standard for the economy
• You can convert a standard economy into an absolute economy by assigning the standard currency an absolute value, and then converting each item's value into their absolute counterparts.

Tags

Tags are boolean switches that determine what the item can be used for in game. Under the item, note any tags that it has. Here are the standard tags:

• Is Armor: the item can be equipped as armor
• Is Augment: the item can be equipped as an augment
• Is Currency: the item is a commonly accepted currency beyond just being used in bartering
• Is Consumed: the item is destroyed after being used
• Is Weapon: the item can be used to deal damage as an action beyond being an improvised weapon
• Is Tool: the item can perform a special, pre-defined function as an action
• Is Skill: the item can be mastered. Players can gain skill levels in its use

Damage Equation

Important if: Is Weapon

• An equation of dice, stats, and numbers that shows how much damage the weapon does on hit
• EX: 1d6 + STR + 1

Use Range

Important if: Is Weapon || Is Tool

• An integer representing how many tiles (5ft spaces) the object reaches
• EX: 5

Action Cost

Important if: Is Weapon || Is Tool || Is Consumed || Is Skill

• What type of action is expended to use this item while in combat?
• Action, Bonus Action, Movement, Free Action
• EX: Action

Use Stats

Important if: Is Weapon || Is Tool || Is Consumed || Is Skill

• What core stats are added to skill checks made to use this item
• EX: STR or DEX

Imbued Condition (Optional)

Important if: Is Weapon || Is Tool || Is Consumed || Is Skill

• What condition(s) are applied to a target object if this item is used on them?
• EX: "Poison"

Defense Equation

Important if: Is Armor

• An equation of dice, stats, and numbers that shows how much defense the item grants when equipped
• EX: 6 + DEX + DEX

Slot Cost

Important if: Is Augment

• If this item is equipped as an augment, how many augment slots does it take up?
• EX: 2

Imbedded Features

Important if: Is Augment

• If this item is equipped as an augment, what features does the player receive?
• EX: "Tough", "Sniper"

Custom Tags / Properties

Say you wanted to give multiple items the same shared functionality. That's where custom tags come in (also called properties). You can mark items with these tags, and define their functionality elsewhere.

• Name: what is the tag known as?
• Function: what does the tag do?

Features

Name

• What is the feature known as?

Description

• What abilities are granted by this feature?
• What mechanics do players with this feature now have access to?
• What are their rules?
• What's the lore behind it? (OPTIONAL)
• How does it work in-universe? (OPTIONAL)

Player Accessible

• (yes/no)
• When players level up, can they choose to gain this feature?
• If not, make sure that the feature can be obtained via an augment, or something else.

Requirements to Acquire (OPTIONAL)

• Do you need to be of a certain level in a core stat?
• Do you need to be of a certain level in a skill?
• Do you need to be of a certain speed, HP, or level?
• Do you need a certain amount of an item?
• EX: Requires STR lvl 5, Piano lvl 5, Bowling Ball x5

Custom Skills

Only make custom skills if they'll come up frequently in your game, they are easily differentiated from the other skills, and they apply to something specific and aren't broad catch-all things.

Name

• What is the name of this skill?

Description

• Make sure to include what it does in the name as to not confuse people.
• Think about what triggers the use of this skill in a check.

Use Stats

• When a check is made using this skill, in addition to the player's level in this skill, what core stat is added to the roll?
• What core stat is closest to this skill?
• EX: STR

Player Conditions

Player conditions are temporary states players enter that affect gameplay. They add flavor, but too many can be hard to track.

Name

• What is the condition known as in-universe?

Function

• What effect does this condition have on players afflicted with it?

Trigger

• Generally what triggers this condition?
• Example: If the condition is "drunk", a trigger could be drinking alcohol.