Coyote & Crow vs Railgun XXVI
Compare Coyote & Crow and Railgun XXVI side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Coyote & Crow | Railgun XXVI | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Scifi, Fantasy | Scifi |
| Tags | Character Building, Character-Driven, Classless, Skill-Based, Tactical, Theater of the Mind, Lore-Heavy, Heroic | Tactical, Player-Only Rolls, Deadly, Gritty, Mission-Based, Random Character Creation, Beginner-Friendly |
| Core Mechanic | Build a d12 pool from Skill Rank, the applicable related Stat, and modifiers. Trained Skills use the higher related Stat, while Rank 0 uses the lower. Each die meeting the Success Number, usually 8, adds one success. Each 1 subtracts a success, while each 12 creates a Critical die. A positive total succeeds, 0 fails, and a negative total is a critical failure. | Roll d20 and add one of four stats (STR, CRD, AGI, or MND) against a standard difficulty of 12. Every roll is player-facing: players roll to attack and also roll to dodge incoming attacks, so the GM never needs to roll dice. Rolling a natural 20 banks an adrenaline point, which buys an extra action on top of the two each character gets per turn. |
| Dice | d12 dice pool | d20 |
| Complexity | High | Low |
| Accessibility | High | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | Low |
| License | All Rights Reserved | MÖRK BORG Third Party License |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | Not yet researched |
| Cost | $$ | Free |
| Publisher | Coyote & Crow Games | Nathan Freeman |
| Year | 2021 | 2026 |
| Best For | Groups that want character-driven exploration and protection in an Indigenous science-fantasy future. It suits tables that prefer consequential choices and tactical conflicts resolved through abstract range bands. | Groups who want short, lethal firefights on a grid and a GM who narrates enemies rather than rolling for them. Suits a few-session campaign or a drop-in mission night more than a long character-driven arc. |
| Highlights | Player-authored Goals turn character ambitions into advancement, keeping campaign development tied to choices made in play. Chosen Initiative makes turn order a recurring tactical decision instead of a one-time roll. The Three Path Concept turns non-linear scenario design into a concrete prep tool, so major obstacles support meaningful alternatives to combat. | Every roll is player-facing, including dodges against incoming attacks, so the GM runs enemies without touching the dice. Dropping to 0 HP forces a critical injury roll that permanently reduces a stat, so downed characters degrade instead of bouncing back up. Several weapons chain into a free attack when they drop an enemy, making target order a tactical decision rather than a formality. |
| Considerations | The unified check is consistent, but character options and interlocking encounter procedures create substantial rules overhead. Success Numbers and critical Story Events depend on Story Guide judgment, so consistent difficulty and consequences require steady table rulings. The setting leaves much of its metaphysics deliberately open, requiring the group to establish what is real before play. | Social scenes have no dedicated stat or subsystem, so persuasion is settled by player argument rather than mechanics. Play assumes a gridded map with movement and line of sight measured in squares, leaving theater-of-the-mind groups to convert those rules themselves. Out-of-combat scenes lean on ad hoc GM rulings and a single falling-forward technique rather than a dedicated exploration or investigation subsystem. |