Cairn 1st Edition vs Twilight: 2000
Compare Cairn 1st Edition and Twilight: 2000 side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Cairn 1st Edition | Twilight: 2000 | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Post-Apocalyptic, Modern |
| Tags | Rules-Light, Classless, Deadly, Attacks Always Hit, Random Character Creation, Inventory Management, Dark Fantasy, Fiction-First, Gritty, CC-Licensed Rules | Gritty, Survival, Combat-Heavy, Hexcrawl, Base-Building, Deadly, Inventory Management, Random Character Creation |
| Core Mechanic | Roll a d20 equal to or under STR, DEX, or WIL to pass a save; 1 always succeeds and 20 always fails. Attacks deal rolled damage directly, reduced by Armor and then Hit Protection (HP). Damage beyond HP reduces STR and requires a STR save to avoid critical damage. | Roll one attribute die and one skill die, each rated as a step die (d6, d8, d10, or d12). A result of 6+ on either die is a success; 10+ counts as two successes. Rolls can be pushed for extra dice at the cost of damage or stress. Ammo dice track ammunition expenditure during firefights, degrading with use. |
| Dice | d20 | d6–d12 |
| Complexity | Very Low | High |
| Availability | Free core rules | Paid |
| Runnability | 4 of 5 book tools | Book tools not listed |
| License | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Year Zero Engine FTL |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Open license | Not yet researched |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Cairn Press | Free League Publishing |
| Year | 2020 | 2021 |
| Languages | English, Catalan, Chinese, Danish, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Scottish Gaelic, Spanish, Toki Pona, Turkish, Ukrainian, Belarusian | English, Swedish, German, Polish, Italian |
| Best For | Groups who want dangerous woodland expeditions where equipment defines characters and creative problem-solving matters more than character builds. | Groups who want a gritty military survival sandbox where managing ammunition, fuel, food, and shelter matters as much as combat, set against a Cold War-gone-hot alternate history. |
| Highlights | Equipment and spellcasting Fatigue share ten inventory slots, making magical power compete with carrying useful gear. Scars from attacks that reduce HP to exactly zero can increase attributes or maximum HP, tying mechanical growth to surviving danger. Characters can gain new abilities through training and experiences in the fiction rather than following classes or levels. | Hex-based travel and exploration system with structured daily tasks (march, forage, scrounge, rest), detailed but playable firearms and vehicle rules with real-world military equipment, ammo dice mechanic abstracts ammunition management without individual round tracking, base-building rules for establishing and upgrading a home settlement |
| Considerations | Attacks require no to-hit roll, making avoiding or controlling a fight more important than relying on a missed attack. Spellbooks cannot be copied or manufactured, leaving new spell acquisition dependent on discoveries in the world. The core leaves exploration timing to the Warden rather than providing a dungeon-turn or wilderness-travel procedure. | Combat lethality can frustrate players attached to their characters, large core set with multiple booklets and maps to manage, narrow post-apocalyptic military premise limits campaign variety, step dice mechanic produces a flat probability curve with high variance on individual rolls |