METTLE Core vs VRBS

Compare METTLE Core and VRBS side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.

	METTLE Core	VRBS
Genre	Universal, Modern	Universal
Tags	Pulp Action, Toolkit, Hackable, Rules-Light, Classless, Fast-Paced, CC-Licensed Rules	Toolkit, Rules-Light, GM-Less, Solo-Friendly, Hackable, CC-Licensed Rules, Classless, Mission-Based, Collaborative, Family-Friendly
Core Mechanic	Roll a pool of d6s equal to the Attribute being used. Dice showing 1, 2, or 3 are summed as the Score; dice showing 4, 5, or 6 are counted as Edge. The Check succeeds if Score meets or exceeds the Difficulty (Routine 1 to Nigh Impossible 15), and Edge measures how well it went. On a failure with Edge, the player may call for a Twist: accept a complication proposed by the rest of the table, then reroll the Edge dice for a second chance. Initiative passes from the acting character to the target of their Action, who becomes the next to act. Mettle (Motive + Nature) acts as a combined morale and damage track, and characters may Surge by spending Mettle for bonus dice on critical Checks.	To try something interesting, roll 1d6 and add the tally marks (up to 3) on the matching verb, or nothing if your sheet lacks that verb. On 1–4 you get what you want with a complication and the team loses one energy. On 5–6 you get what you want. On 7+ you get what you want and the team gains one energy.
Dice	d6 dice pool	d6
Complexity	Low	Very Low
Availability	Free core rules	Free core rules
Runnability	5 of 5 book tools	1 of 5 book tools
License	CC BY 4.0	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Third-Party Publishing	Not yet researched	Commercial publishing allowed — Open license
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Publisher	Planarian Games	Amalara Game Studio
Year	2021	2022
Languages	English	English
Best For	Groups who want fast pulp action-adventure in the vein of Indiana Jones, James Bond, or Tales of the Gold Monkey, with a hackable toolkit they can bend toward detective stories, wild-west gunfights, post-apocalyptic survival, or grounded science fiction.	Groups who want a tiny, open d6 engine to build their own short GM-less game, or who are happy to invent verbs and mission prompts together at the table.
Highlights	Score-and-Edge dice pool reads two outcomes from the same roll: whether the action succeeds (Score meets Difficulty) and how well it went (count of 4–6 dice). Player-invoked Twists let a failed roll be reframed as a messy success in exchange for a fictional complication chosen by the rest of the table. Six-attribute character sheet (Calling, Culture, Frame, Motive, Nature, Poise) replaces classes and skills with player-written Descriptors that justify which Attribute applies to a given task. Initiative passes from the acting character to the target of their Action, eliminating turn-tracking and tying combat order to who is acting on whom.	The roll sets how much energy an action costs rather than whether it works, so a mission is lost only when the team's shared energy pool runs out. A roll of 1–4 adds a tally to the verb used (up to three) or writes a new verb onto the sheet, so characters improve by attempting what they are bad at. A mission aims for three scenes plus one per player, so the story's length scales with the group.
Considerations	Toolkit framing means the book provides scaffolding (factions, NPC seeds, sample castaway adventure) rather than a fleshed-out setting: groups expecting a defined world will need to build or borrow one. Mettle does triple duty as morale, hit points, and a spendable resource for bonus dice, which can take a session to internalize. Twist resolution depends on the rest of the table proposing complications, which slows play if the group is hesitant to add fiction.	Mission and scene d6 tables are left blank for the group to write, so play needs that content invented beforehand or improvised prompt by prompt. The book has no rules for combat, harm, equipment or opposition beyond the single roll, so the table decides what complications and antagonists do. Rolls have no task-difficulty adjustment, so rolled actions with the same verb bonus use the same outcome odds.