#scalecat

The basics of the Scalecat system - the dice rolls

The Scalecat system is made to have simple rules, its goal being to be highly adaptable. In this optic it is based on a classic D6 roll system, but with a slight twist.

For every action the player will roll a definite amount of D6, and will only count the number of those that obtained a 5 or a 6. This value is called the score of the roll.

The GM will define a Difficulty Level for the action, which will be substracted from the roll score. This final value is called the result of the roll.

According to the result value, several options are possible : 

if the result is zero or negative, the action is failed

if the result is 1, it is a small success

if the result is 2 or 3, it is a medium success

if the result is 4 or higher, it is a high success

The only exception being the defense (parry or evade), in which case the rule is even simpler : 

if the defense result is negative, the defense fails

if the defense result is zero or positive, the defense succeeds

So far everything seems simple. But there is one more rule, which will change everything. Simultaneously to their roll, the player will use two more D6, which will not count in the score. These are the Critical Dices, which will only affect the action if they both roll a 1 or a 6 ; else they are simply ignored.

if the action succeeds and the Critical Dices both roll a 6, it is a critical success : not only is the action considered a high success, but positive effects can be added. The critical success can grant experience points.

if the action fails and the Critical Dices both roll a 6, it is a salvage : the action is considered a small success despite the failure, but negative effects can be added.

if the action fails and the Critical Dices both roll a 1, it is a critical failure : not only is the action failed, but negative effects will be added.

if the action succeeds and the Critical Dices both roll a 1, it is an overkill : the action is still a success, but negative effects will be added, as if the character overdid it.

Let’s say that a character tries to pick a lock. What would the effects of the Critical Dices be ?

critical success : the character picks the lock in a few seconds, in absolute silence. Moreover they gain a perfect understanding of the lock mechanism, and will have a bonus for picking subsequent similar locks.

salvage : the character needs a lot of time to pick the lock, and when they finally succeed they break their lockpicking tools and won’t be able to use them anymore.

critical failure : the character doesn’t succeed in opening the lock. Worst : they make a bad move and drive their lockpicking tools into their hand, injuring themselves.

overkill : the character succeeds in picking the lock… and goes way beyond that since the whole metallic bolt falls noisily to the ground, alerting the guards.

Let’s be honest, the overkills are the funniest options for the GM, since they’re the occasion to mess with the players while letting them carry on with the scenario !

How to write a remarkable NPC for your campaign ?

Let’s say you’re writing an RPG campaign, or even a one-shot. You absolutely can have a scenario where the PCs are alone in a deserted or abandoned place, or are exploring a dungeon full of non-speaking monsters, then you won't have to ask yourself how to populate it with Non Player Characters. But there are many occasions to create NPCs, and it’s not always easy to give them remarkable personalities. There are many methods to give life to these creatures, and I’m here to suggest a few that I use.

The first thing to do is to determine the importance your NPC has in your scenario. You won’t use the same techniques if they appear for three sentences giving directions or if they’re going to help (or fight) your players for a 80 hour campaign. We’ll divide them in three categories : the Silhouettes, the Utilities and the Actors.

The Silhouettes are NPCs that only appear because you need someone present. They’re just a voice, and you know your PCs won’t meet them again. They’re the easiest to improvise, and you only need to know four things about them : their name (because you can be sure if you haven’t prepared one your players will ask for it), why are they here (no more than one sentence !), what they know (only about your scenario), and two or three adjectives about their tone.

For example : the PCs came to witness a political assembly as simple onlookers, but none among them has a background allowing them to identify the speakers. They’ll then be searching the crowd for « someone who seems to know anything about it ». So here’s the following Silhouette : Charles Abernatty, an aspiring reporter who’s writing an amateur paper about conspiracy theories, who knows the names and affiliations of every politician present, and who is bubbly and speaks fast and miiiiight be stalking some of the senators here on his free time. In a few lines the character is sufficiently developed to be used to move the plot forward.

Then come the Utilities. These NPCs will have more complex interactions with the PCs, and can come back multiple times in the scenario. For those the writing will be a little more complete. You’ll still have to find them a name of course, but also the following éléments : - a physical description - a background (one paragraph might be enough), so you’ll have in advance some elements to use in their dialogues to make them more alive - their role (what they know and what they want) : every character wants something in your scenario (whether it be to simply live a simple life, or to find the lost magic sword of their uncle, or whatever it’s your story guys). This will allow you to know their place in your story, and explain how and why they may have a recurring rôle. - the roleplay, including indications for the voice and the posture (so that you’ll be coherent from one occurrence to another) but also typical reactions (will they be protectors towards an injured PC, or disapprove the use of foul language, etc.)

As you can see, these elements are roughly the same as for a Silhouette, but way more defined.

Finally you have the Actors. These are NPCs with a pivotal role in your scenario, and who have multiple apparitions. They are written the same way as Utilities, but with two more things : - their role will be expanded, not only containing what they want and know, but also their implication at every level of their respective storyline, and may have their opinion on a few subjects - their three motivations : your Actors will have three levels of motivation. The first one is the affirmation, what the NPC will openly tell as their objective. The second is the secret, what the NPC is really after but won’t display. The third is the buried one, what the NPC doesn’t consciously know they desire but is motivated by nevertheless. For example a pirate captain may have as an affirmation to amass a fortune to afford a palace, as a secret to have enough bounty to reclaim the family house taken by an usurer, and as a buried motivation to prove themselves of value in the eyes of their family who disavowed their pirate ways. These three motivations will ease the creation of a coherent character arc for your NPC through the scenario, but also to allow them to reveal themselves to your PCs, through slips or confessions. You can also prepare for your Actors some key scenes with pre-written lines. It is not mandatory at all, and can even be problematic if it is done too often, but it can be useful if you want to use misdirection in your formulations, or if you have an NPC with a complicated way with words or a difficult accent.

With these techniques, you should have deep enough NPC to avoid the syndrome of « wait, who’s this guy again » PC reaction, while still giving your players the information you want. Well, you’ll never be immune to this, but every little bit helps ! I’ll post other tips for RPG writing, so… stay tuned !

What is the Scalecat system ?

The Scalecat System is a TTRPG rules system that I crafted over several years as a framework for the Tales of the Grey games. 

It is a D6 system built around 4 main objectives : 

provide rules that are both simple to master for beginners and offering a lot of freedom for dedicated players

focus on the imagination of the players and the roleplay

give the GM a large adaptability towards the players, but give the players full responsibility over their actions and destiny

decorrelate the rules system from the universe in which the scenario occurs, to be able to use the same system in different worlds.

So, what makes the Scalecat system different from other existing rpg rules systems ?

First of all, it is a system where only players, and not the GM, will throw dices, limiting the number of rolls for each action and making everything faster and more fluid.

It is also a system which offers an original rule for critical rolls, which is more coherent with PC progression (and avoids high level characters just absurdly piling up critical failures) while bringing a touch of malice in the hands of the GM.

Last but not least, the rules system is built in two parts : a “core” part, common to any scenario, and a “universe” part which adapts to the world, the technology, the magic system, etc. for every specific scenario. That makes it the ideal rules system to master TTRPG in original universes and to explore all their possibilities.

Moreover, the Scalecat System will be published with a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA licence, meaning that anyone will be able to use it for their own (non commercial) creations !

How to avoid railroading in your scenario ?

When you guide your players in a roleplaying game, either as an author or as a GM, there are two extremes that harm the experience : to direct them too much, or not enough.

A game that does not direct its players enough will leave them lost, unable to determine where the scenario wants to take them. This will lead to a drop in the energy, or even in your players’ interest, and the GM will be forced into a loop of “well, what do you do now ?”, or even have to use Deus Ex Machinas to move the story forward.

On the other hand, a game that directs its players too much, and does what is called railroading, will be frustrating for its players. No, I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to talk with this NPC. What if I negotiated with the Big Bad instead of attacking them ? You know what, this tavern feels shady, I’ll take a look at its accounting and loot its wine cave.

What will you do then ? Stop them and kill the fun, or let them be and lose control of your scenario ?

The best way to do it is through anticipation, to have a balanced scenario. I’ll give you here some tips I use and that, according to my victims my players, are somehow efficient.

First of all, as seen in the previous article “How to write a TTRPG scenario”, a good first step is to divide your scenario in several scenes, and to identify the “fixed points”, who must have a predetermined resolution, and the “mobile points” where the PCs have more leeway. Then you’ll have to play with the proportion between fixed and mobile points, to let your players breathe between the scenario-heavy scenes, while not divulging which point is which.

Then, always prepare different roads, whether it be in a dungeon map or in the solution of an investigation. This will give a more organic feel to the story progression since choices will be made. And it doesn’t matter if they all reach the same destination. I often feel that three is a good number of roads, to avoid weighing too heavily on the writing and preparation while still avoiding binary choices. And these roads can be drastically different, for example on a model fight/puzzle/social.

You can widen even more the field of possibilities by adding scenes that are completely open-choice, as long as it doesn’t take too much space in your scenario. This could be an obstacle where you don’t write any predetermined solution : you let your players think about it and, if they suggest a solution that seems plausible enough, you let them use it.

You can also give your players a time span in universe where they are exceptionally free of any pressure and they are free to do as they please. For example they might have an appointment the next day with an investigator, but they have nothing planned until then.They can explore side quests, go talk to their favorite NPC, or interact between them.

Something that is always interesting while writing a scenario divided in scenes is to use conditional writing. When the PCs encounter a situation, you may have prepared elements like “if at this previous mobile point the PCs did this, then they encounter option A, else they encounter option B”. This gives the PCs the impression that their choices had more impact, since their past actions have present consequences. Of course, if you want, A and B can only be cosmetic options leading to the same conclusion, but the effect remains.

Finally, I can’t advise enough in favor of the use of recurring NPCs : as described in the previous article “how to write a remarkable NPC in your campaign”, some NPCs should come back at different points in the scenario. Make them remember some specific things from their previous encounters. Create a few NPCs whose character arcs are only made of mobile points, so the PCs can shape them through their interactions. This will give a large freedom to your players on elements that will not derail your scenario.

And while we’re talking about NPCs, this last advice should not be used more than once or twice in a full campaign to avoid becoming a cliché : the Gathering. Juste before a critical moment the PCs meet in a known place (a “recurring place”, following the article “How to write a place for your TTRPG”) with all the NPCs the players bonded with. Emphasis on the “have bonded with” : if the players have bad beef with an NPC, or if they just didn’t interact much, this NPC won’t come. On the other hand if they got particularly close to a specific NPC, this one will have a major role in the Gathering. Moreover, when you’re writing these scenes, you can give some bonus to the PCs according to which NPC came to their Gathering ; this way the players will be comforted in the decision to bond with them.

Magie ouverte VS Magie fermée

Il y a globalement deux approches principales à la magie (et aux pouvoirs en général, qu’ils soient thaumaturgiques, technologiques, psychiques ou autre… pour simplifier on va parler de magie) : la magie ouverte et la magie fermée. De quoi s’agit-il ?

La magie fermée va être par exemple l’approche de Donjons et Dragons : vous avez accès à une liste de sortilèges dont l’effet est parfaitement décrit et sera le même à chaque fois, hors effets cosmétiques ou libertés prises par le MJ. Un autre exemple classique est celui de Harry Potter, où chaque sort est connu et défini.

La magie ouverte va par contre être une boîte à outils donnant des cadres pour la magie mais sans définir clairement ses effets. Un exemple typique de magie ouverte est celle de Avatar : Le dernier maître de l’air, où chaque personnage contrôle un élément, mais a toute liberté pour utiliser cet élément comme elle ou il l’entend.

Il existe bien entendu d’autres approches, qu’elles soient fondamentalement différentes ou qu’elles soient une combinaison des deux, mais celles-ci sont les plus communément répandues.

Elles ont toutes les deux des avantages et des inconvénients. J’ai personnellement tendance à trouver la magie fermée plus contraignante et frustrante, en tant que joueur j’ai déjà été confronté à des situations où je voulais “interpréter” un sortilège, mais n’en avait pas la possibilité. Cela ouvre par ailleurs des questions intéressantes au niveau du lore : pourquoi est-ce que tel sortilège fonctionne et pas un autre ? Par contre la magie ouverte demande d’être plus strict dans la gestion de la partie, et peut mener à des embrouilles entre MJ et PJ pour éviter d’être trop puissante.

Dans la première campagne des Contes du Gris, dont le financement participatif commence début 2026 (plus d’informations à venir), j’ai opté pour un système de magie ouverte basée sur la manipulation des éléments et sur des rituels : le PJ décrit ce qu’il veut faire dans un cadre donné, le MJ lui indique si c’est possible et défini un niveau de difficulté pour l’accomplir. Ceci dit d’autres campagnes de la même série, se déroulant dans d’autres univers, adoptent la magie fermée avec des listes de sortilèges.

J’ai tendance à considérer qu’un système de magie fermée peut être plus utile si vous voulez mettre l’accent sur les règles et les combats stratégiques, et la magie ouverte si vous voulez vous appuyer sur le RP et l’immersion. 

How to write a location for your TTRPG

An important, and for some people fastidious, part of writing a TTRPG scenario is to fill the universe. Some improvise this part, and I admire them (from afar, they scare me), but others like me need to prepare things. I suggested in a previous article some techniques to write NPCs, let me share here a few others to write places, you never know, it might come handy.

Before even starting to look at individual places, a technique that I really like and that helps a lot for players' immersion, and for giving a coherence to your universe, is the regionalization technique. It consists in dividing your universe in zones (regions, city districts, or even time periods or sociological groups) and give each a few minor characteristics. For example the houses in a given region are built from a local ochre stone, little pale blue flowers grow in another, architects from a given time period always placed the kitchen on the left just after the front door, or people from a given origin use furniture from a recognizable style.

These are purely cosmetic elements, but for one they’ll regroup your places as part of the same world, and then they’ll give you substance to fill your descriptions in a credible and easy way.

Once the regionalization is done, let’s focus on individual places. The first thing to do is to determine what is the function of your place, to place it in one of three categories : the passage location, the quest location and the recurring location.

The passage location is a place that only serves as a background for a one-off scene, for example a shop or a campsite. Your focus point for this type of place is its atmosphere. You must describe it to your players for their immersion’s sake, but mustn't dwell on it lest they might get distracted from the scene. I’ll give you advice that would make a lot of literary professors’ blood boil : use chichés. You want to build an ambiance in a few words ? That’s what stock expressions are for. Why describe a whole waterfront when “Dream beach with coconut trees” exists ? Or “Dusty crypt” ? Or “Cutthroat alley” ? Just sprinkle a bit of regionalization on it, and it will even become a unique place !

I’d tell you not to abuse clichés but… on a larger scale don’t abuse passage places. You’d get a very generic and blank universe if you did.

Now let’s see the quest location. It’s a place where a challenge occurs (puzzle, NPC discussion, battle, even a whole dungeon). While the passage location focused on the ambiance, here you’ll have to prioritize the gameplay. You have to determine what will serve the challenge, and only then will you be able to furnish the environment. Will your NPCs move on walkways over a chasm ? Will there be acid lakes around them ? Are rocks flying in the air ? Those are the main elements of your background.

Once you have your gameplay elements, the trick to avoid pulling your players out of immersion is to make them coherent in your universe. Why is the place built like this ? Is it realistic for the function it carries ? How does it work ? You actually only have to answer one level of precision, it is enough to maintain the immersion. The walkways over the chasm may decay rapidly and be difficult to repair, so their great number may be a redundancy and the players will find them at different degradation states. The acid lakes may be a natural resource and extraction equipment can be spotted since the prices for this specific acid are high on the market. The flying rocks may have a glowing mushroom growing on their underside, giving them their antigravity properties. Not only will this enrich your universe, but it may also give ideas to your PCs to exploit the environment and, in the end, play with your world instead of just going through it. Another pinch of regionalization and you’re good !

One last tip specifically about dungeons : if you don’t use a battlemap covering all of it… then don’t make a map at all ! It will only lengthen the exploration part of your adventure without giving anything to your players. It will be easier to make a logigram, with blocks for every important room and lines to connect them. It would also allow you to make your dungeon modular to adapt it to your players’ choices (and avoid backtracking if they missed something !), after all you want them to have fun, not lose them or waste their time.

Finally, on to the last category : the recurring location. This is a place where PCs might have to come back several times, to meet with important NPCs for example, or because a lot of crucial points of the scenario happen here. The main characteristic of this kind of place is to be recognizable, and to make vivid memories.

Those are the places you’ll have to write with the most care, because they must be remarkable and they will give your universe its identity. The first time your PCs enter such a place, the description must be long and detailed enough that they understand this location is important. Besides the (now traditional) regionalization, it is important that each one of these places has at least one outstanding element. A tavern may be adorned with a dreadfully stuffed deer head. A castle may be carved out of a unique gigantic crystal. A train station may have a monumental clock on its façade. Whatever it is, this element must be well described : this way, every time the PCs come back to this place, you only have to evoke this one characteristic to bring back the whole place.

Moreover, if you’re writing a campaign, some of these recurring places might need to evolve along the scenario. You should consider cosmetic, or even functional elements that may change with the actions and choices of the PCs. A window may be in good condition at the beginning, broken during a certain scene, then hastily fixed with newspapers afterwards. A whole building may be partially destroyed, and the following scenes will happen in its ruins (will the outstanding element be intact or damaged ? Your choice !) The emotional weight of the location will be reinforced by this.

A last little bit of advice for all kinds of places : add at the beginning of your notes one to three adjectives to define the atmosphere. You can refer to it for improvisation needs, and to choose the right tone to read your description.

There we go, I hope these techniques will be of use to you, or at least pleasant to read ! I’ll come back later with other articles, so stay tuned !

Comment écrire un scénario de JDR ?

En tant qu’auteur de campagnes de JDR, j’ai passablement galéré pendant des années pour écrire des scénarios qui tiennent la route, qui ne soient pas facilement déraillés par les joueuses et joueurs mais qui ne leur donnent pas non plus l’impression d’avancer sur des rails, et qui leur donnent un sentiment d’immersion. A force de tâtonner, j’ai fini par trouver une méthode relativement efficace, en tous cas pour moi. Je vous propose donc de partager cette astuce. Évidemment ce qui marche pour quelqu’un ne marchera pas forcément pour un autre, mais si vous voulez vous lancer dans l’écriture de scénarios de JDR et que vous ne savez pas par où commencer, sait-on jamais, cela peut vous aider.

La première phase est de se constituer un brouillon. Commencez par jeter en vrac toutes vos idées, sans filtres : personnages, scènes cools, twists scénaristiques, éléments de gameplay… prenez le temps qu’il faut, laissez travailler votre esprit en tâche de fond. Puis organisez-les, voyez qu’est-ce qui marche avec quoi, qu’est-ce qui aurait le plus de sens d’un point de vue chronologique… et comblez les trous entre vos éléments. Cela vous donnera une première ébauche de scénario, qui peut tenir sur une ou deux pages.

A ce stade, les MJ les plus aventureux ont suffisamment d’éléments pour lancer une partie en improvisation. Cela demande un talent spécifique, et beaucoup de mémoire. Vous faites comme vous voulez, mais moi, à ce stade, j’en suis qu’au début de mes préparations.

Si vous voulez continuer à étoffer votre scénario, vous vous retrouvez confronté à deux problèmes : premièrement plus vous ajoutez de la structure, plus vous retirez de la liberté aux PJ parce que vous avez votre “canon” de ce qui est sensé se passer ; et deuxièmement vous risquez de passer à côté de trous dans le scénario que vos joueuses et joueurs ne manqueront pas de pointer du doigt en pleine partie. Et c’est là que vient l’astuce. 

Trouvez qui est l’antagoniste dans votre scénario (que ce soit un maître des ténèbres ou votre rival dans le concours du plus beau jardin, si votre JDR n’est pas un bac à sable il y a un antagoniste). Réécrivez votre scénario, de A à Z, de façon très détaillée… mais DU POINT DE VUE DE L’ANTAGONISTE, comme si les PJ étaient absents et/ou très naïfs et tombaient dans tous les pièges. Pourquoi ? Pour résoudre vos deux problèmes. D’une part vous ne maîtrisez pas les choix de vos joueuses et joueurs, mais vous maîtrisez ceux de vos PNJ, donc vous pouvez tout à fait mettre l’antagoniste sur des rails et le réorienter dès qu’il s’en écarte, sans nuire à la liberté des PJ. Et d’autre part en écrivant en détails le plan machiavélique du méchant vous avez plus de chances d’en voir les failles et de pouvoir les combler.

Une fois cela fait, identifiez les éléments clefs de ce plan, ceux sans lesquels l’antagoniste ne peut pas arriver à ses fins. Ces éléments sont vos “points fixes”. Votre mission, en tant que MJ, est de faire en sorte que ces points fixes se produisent quels que soient les choix des PJ, afin de les guider le long du scénario que vous avez prévu. Le reste du plan constitue les “points mobiles”, où les joueuses et joueurs auront beaucoup plus de liberté. Cela vous donne votre découpage, et vous pouvez compléter votre scénario en insérant l’histoire des PJ dans les points mobiles, de façon non dirigiste.

Il reste une dernière étape pour avoir un scénario complet. Maintenant que vous disposez de toutes les étapes, voire d’un découpage en chapitres en suivant les points fixes, vous pouvez faire trois listes : 

les lieux visités

les PNJ rencontrés

les éléments de lore importants

A l’aide de ces trois listes, vous pouvez réécrire une dernière fois votre scénario complet, en y intégrant le lore et les personnages et les lieux clefs. Vous avez une histoire riche, une force antagoniste bien plus redoutable et donnant plus de fil à retordre, et une liberté de mouvement garantie pour vos joueuses et joueurs.

Vous pouvez lancer votre partie à partir de là, en utilisant vos trois listes comme pense-bête.