DABaM vs Tricube Tales
Compare DABaM and Tricube Tales side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| DABaM | Tricube Tales | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Universal | Universal |
| Tags | Rules-Light, Beginner-Friendly, Classless, Skill-Based, Narrative, Toolkit, CC-Licensed Rules, One-Shot Friendly | Rules-Light, Player-Only Rolls, Narrative, Toolkit, Beginner-Friendly, Family-Friendly, CC-Licensed Rules |
| Core Mechanic | When an action calls for a Roll, it resolves on a d20 roll-under. The GM names the two Attributes that best fit the action and adds them for the Limit. If only one Attribute applies, its score is doubled instead. A relevant Background adds its score to the Limit, and situational Modifiers raise or lower it. The roll succeeds when the d20 lands at or under the Limit, and missing by three or less can still succeed at a cost. | Players roll one to three six-sided dice against a difficulty of 4 to 6 and succeed if any single die meets or beats it. The pool comes from the archetype: 3d6 when the character's trait fits the challenge, 2d6 when it does not, and one die fewer when the task falls outside their concept. Succeeding on two or three dice is an exceptional success, and rolling all ones is a critical failure. Players make every roll, including defense, so the GM never rolls dice. Karma tokens lower a difficulty by 1 or fuel a perk, while declaring a quirk raises it by 1 to earn karma back. |
| Dice | d20 | d6 dice pool |
| Complexity | Very Low | Low |
| Availability | Free core rules | Free core rules |
| Runnability | Book tools not listed | 4 of 5 book tools |
| License | CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 | CC BY 3.0 |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | Not yet researched |
| Publisher | La Torre de Dimirag | Zadmar Games |
| Year | 2024 | 2026 |
| Languages | English | English |
| Best For | Groups running convention demos, one-shots, or a first session for players new to tabletop RPGs. It also suits GMs who want a genre-neutral base to adapt to any setting. | Tables that switch settings often and want one ruleset to cover all of them, or groups introducing children and first-time players who need rules with no arithmetic. |
| Highlights | When a check is needed, one d20 roll-under resolves it by summing the two Attributes that best fit the action, so combat, social, and mental tasks share a single path. Backgrounds replace a fixed skill list with freeform descriptors the player defines, each adding its score to the rolls it applies to. The wound track escalates through named statuses from Beaten to Dying, each cutting the Body score used to resist the next injury. | Players roll to attack and to defend while the GM never touches the dice, which keeps the GM focused on describing the world rather than resolving it. Declaring a quirk raises a challenge's difficulty but refunds a karma token, giving players a mechanical reason to drag their own flaws into a scene. Eleven optional genre modules cover magic, superpowers, vehicles, and mass battles, so one ruleset stretches across settings without a second book. |
| Considerations | Special abilities such as magic or superpowers are left entirely to the GM to design, as the core rules provide no framework for them. Advancement has no automatic progression, leaving the GM to decide when and what each character improves. The GM must pick which two Attributes and which Modifiers apply to every roll, placing resolution difficulty on GM judgment rather than fixed rules. | The GM assigns every difficulty and adjudicates what each perk can do, so outcomes rest on one person's consistency rather than on written rules. Characters are built from a single archetype, perk, and quirk, which leaves little mechanical distinction between two PCs who share a trait. Gear grants no bonuses and exists only to justify what a character can attempt, so equipment choices never change the dice. |