Dice & Glory vs Ishanekon: World Shapers

Compare Dice & Glory and Ishanekon: World Shapers side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.

	Dice & Glory	Ishanekon: World Shapers
Genre	Fantasy, Universal	Universal
Tags	Crunchy, Toolkit, Character Building, Simulation, Tactical, Freeform Magic, Superpowers	Character Building, Crunchy, Tactical, Toolkit, Hackable, CC-Licensed Rules
Core Mechanic	Dice Check: roll d20 plus a skill modifier (skill rank + attribute + miscellaneous) and meet or beat a difficulty the GM sets. Standard difficulties run from 10 for easy to 35 for impossible. Attack rolls and saving throws use the same d20, though an attack must also beat the target's Agility Class. A natural 20 is a critical success and a natural 1 a critical failure.	Skill Check: roll d10, add your level in the relevant Skill plus half the matching Stat Bonus (a stat's value minus 10), and meet or beat a difficulty from 1 (Very Easy) to 19 (Nearly Impossible). Attacks instead roll d20 plus a weapon's hit bonus against the target's Evasion. Combat runs in rounds where each character spends three Action Points per turn, with an attack costing two and a natural 20 adding bonus damage. The GM awards Narrative Momentum for inventive roleplay, which players spend together with Action Points on Cinematic Actions: freeform stunts resolved at the GM's discretion.
Dice	d20	d4–d20
Complexity	Very High	High
Availability	Paid	Free core rules
Runnability	4 of 5 book tools	Book tools not listed
License	All Rights Reserved	CC BY 4.0
Third-Party Publishing	Not yet researched	Not yet researched
Publisher	Ranger Games Publishing	Blaze Reason
Year	2014	2022
Languages	English	English
Best For	Rules-comfortable groups building a long campaign from scratch, who would rather engineer a spell or a fighting style than choose one from a list.	Groups who want maximal character customization in a free, setting-agnostic system: players who enjoy assembling a bespoke concept from a huge option pool and a GM willing to supply the world the rules deliberately leave blank.
Highlights	Experience points work as a currency rather than a level track, so an attribute increase and an extra attack come off the same price list. The core book contains no spell list, so a spell is built from its method and effect and then developed with money and time. Knockout points absorb nonlethal damage while weapons bypass them for hit points, so beating an opponent unconscious and killing them are different outcomes.	Characters are assembled from ten Archetypes, more than 210 Sub-Archetypes, over a thousand Abilities, plus Paths, Talents, and Traits, giving a single concept many independent axes of mechanical customization. Abilities draw on a Willpower pool, and spending extra Willpower upcasts them on the fly (scaling effects like damage, area, targets, or duration up to a per-tier limit), so one ability flexes to the moment instead of being a fixed effect. Every feature carries a complexity rating from 1 to 4, and Beginner Traits, a Cinematic Rules mode, and thirteen alternative-rule modules let a group run the same engine as a rules-light game or a dense tactical one.
Considerations	Task resolution switches between high-roll d20 checks and roll-under percentile proficiencies, so two scales run side by side. Spells and superhuman powers are built rather than chosen from a list, so two characters of the same level can differ widely in practical capability. Power scale needs policing: fantasy, superheroic, divine, and modern technology all run on one framework.	Character creation draws from over a thousand abilities plus hundreds of talents and traits, so building a character means selecting from a very large catalogue rather than a curated short list. The system is setting-agnostic and ships with no default world, so a group must supply or adapt a setting before the customization options mean anything in play. Skill checks and attacks resolve on separate scales (d10 plus half a Stat Bonus for skills, d20 plus full bonuses against Evasion for attacks), so the two halves of the system use different math players must keep straight.