Magical Kitties Save the Day vs Tricube Tales
Compare Magical Kitties Save the Day and Tricube Tales side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Magical Kitties Save the Day | Tricube Tales | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Modern, Fantasy | Universal |
| Tags | Beginner-Friendly, Family-Friendly, Rules-Light, Narrative, Character-Driven, Collaborative, Freeform Magic, Player-Only Rolls, Fast-Paced | Rules-Light, Player-Only Rolls, Narrative, Toolkit, Beginner-Friendly, Family-Friendly, CC-Licensed Rules |
| Core Mechanic | Roll d6s equal to your attribute (Cute, Cunning, or Fierce, rated 1–4). Each die meeting or exceeding the GM-set difficulty (3–6) counts as a success. Zero successes is a failure with a complication, one is a partial success, two is a clean success, and three or more grants a bonus. Talents add one die, Magical Powers add two dice once per scene, and Injuries subtract dice. Kitty Treats (earned by playing your Flaw in interesting ways) can reroll dice, prevent injuries, or add story elements. Failed checks award Experience Points, encouraging risk-taking. | 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 | d6 dice pool | d6 dice pool |
| Complexity | Very Low | Low |
| Availability | Paid | Free core rules |
| Runnability | 5 of 5 book tools | 4 of 5 book tools |
| License | Proprietary | CC BY 3.0 |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | Not yet researched |
| Publisher | Atlas Games | Zadmar Games |
| Year | 2020 | 2026 |
| Languages | English | English |
| Best For | Families with kids aged 6 and up, mixed-age groups, and anyone who wants a gentle introduction to RPGs with a cozy premise and mechanically simple but rewarding play. | 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 | Character creation takes about five minutes using three attributes, one Talent, one Flaw, and one Magical Power. Failed rolls award XP, which encourages players to attempt difficult actions. Each kitty has a human with ranked Problems that drive adventures and give the story personal stakes. Kitty Treats earned from Flaws let players reroll dice or add narrative elements to the scene. | 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 | No free quickstart or SRD available: the core rules require purchase. Characters cannot die; they get knocked out and recover between scenes. The premise is specifically tied to playing magical cats, limiting genre flexibility. | 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. |