Fallout: The Roleplaying Game vs When Sky & Sea Were Not Named

Compare Fallout: The Roleplaying Game and When Sky & Sea Were Not Named side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.

	Fallout: The Roleplaying Game	When Sky & Sea Were Not Named
Genre	Post-Apocalyptic	Fantasy
Tags	Tactical, Exploration, Survival, Character Building, Cinematic, Crunchy, Resource Management, Mission-Based, Lore-Heavy, Licensed IP	Tactical, Theater of the Mind, Resource Management, Faction Play, Lore-Heavy, Base-Building, Exploration
Core Mechanic	Roll 2d20 against the sum of an attribute and a skill. Each die at or below that total scores a success. A roll of 1 scores two successes, and tagged skills extend this critical range to the skill rank. Meet the difficulty with your total successes. Extra successes become shared Action Points that can buy more dice or information. A roll of 20 creates a complication even when the test succeeds.	Each hero has four action dice, one for each action type (Attack, Brace, Compel, Maneuver), with the die size set from d4 to d12 by the relevant attributes. To act, roll the matching die and read it against two thresholds. Against an obstacle, the Guide sets a failure threshold and a struggle threshold. Against a foe, the target's attribute is the failure threshold and its defense is the struggle threshold. Beating the higher number is a Success, beating only the lower is a Struggle that costs something, and beating neither is a Failure. Attacks deal damage equal to the roll minus the target's Guard and Armor, so one roll settles both the hit and its severity.
Dice	d20 dice pool	d4–d12
Complexity	High	High
Availability	Free quickstart	Free core rules
Runnability	5 of 5 book tools	3 of 5 book tools
License	All Rights Reserved	All Rights Reserved
Third-Party Publishing	No verified route found	Not yet researched
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Publisher	Modiphius Entertainment	Purple People Games
Year	2021	2023
Languages	English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish	English
Best For	Groups who want Fallout campaigns built around wasteland quests, scavenging, and customizable survivors. Groups who enjoy tactical firefights and turning recovered junk into equipment upgrades.	Groups settling in for a multi-session campaign who want combat built on resource trade-offs, spellcasters that each play differently, and a Guide comfortable improvising rulings. The island-hopping rescue-and-rebuild structure rewards tables that enjoy both tactical fights and settlement-scale stakes.
Highlights	Shared Action Points let the group turn strong rolls into support for later tests. Perks and equipment modifications let survivors develop distinct specialties without classes. Scavenging tables connect dangerous locations to supplies and crafting materials.	Each of the four defenses both resists incoming actions and doubles as the resource a hero spends to power abilities, so every turn weighs guarding against acting. A hero rolls a different die size for each of the four action types, so strengths and weaknesses live in which die they pick up rather than in numeric modifiers. Invoking an Ideal after a roll spends Spirit for an advantage die the Guide sizes to how dramatic the moment is, linking vivid roleplay to a mechanical boost.
Considerations	Attacks can trigger several damage effects alongside armor checks for the struck body part. Ammunition and carried weight require ongoing bookkeeping. The core setting concentrates on the Commonwealth from Fallout 4.	The three spellcasting callings each run a separate resource economy, creating a real skill gap between players who take a magical calling and those who do not. The Shinarian origin locks Agility at 0, which bars the Wanderer calling and leaves those heroes unable to evade, outflank, or hide effectively. Sizing invoked Ideal dice, setting challenge thresholds, and reading the Dreamshape table all rest on Guide judgment rather than fixed numbers, which favors improvisational Guides over those who want firm procedures.