Tiny Dungeon vs TSRPG
Compare Tiny Dungeon and TSRPG side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Tiny Dungeon | TSRPG | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Universal |
| Tags | Rules-Light, Beginner-Friendly, One-Shot Friendly, Low-Prep, Fast-Paced, Dungeon Crawl, Theater of the Mind, Heroic, Tag-Based | Rules-Light, Diceless, Theater of the Mind, Tag-Based, Beginner-Friendly, Fast-Paced, Low-Prep, Solo-Friendly, Freeform Magic, Modular |
| Core Mechanic | Roll 2d6: if any die shows 5 or 6, you succeed. Advantage grants 3d6; Disadvantage drops you to 1d6. No attributes, no skill list: Traits grant situational Advantage, and weapon Mastery/Proficiency determines combat dice. | The storyteller sets a Challenge Rating (CR) and secretly picks a target number from 1 to the CR, by choice or at random. The leading character adds one attribute, every relevant trait and one piece of special equipment. Helpers add their traits and one piece of equipment each, capped in total at the leader's bonus. The target plus or minus the total bonus, wrapping around the range, is the span of success. The lead player then guesses a number. An exact guess is a critical success, and a guess one away is a near critical. A guess on either end of the span is a near miss, which succeeds with a complication. A guess outside the span fails. With a total bonus below +3, the only results are success and failure. Failure can impose penalties on participating characters' traits or attributes, weakening their later attempts. |
| Dice | 2d6 | Diceless |
| Complexity | Very Low | Low |
| Availability | Free quickstart | Free quickstart |
| Runnability | 2 of 5 book tools | 3 of 5 book tools |
| License | Proprietary (TinyD6) | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | No verified route found |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Gallant Knight Games | Skirmisher Publishing |
| Year | 2018 | 2026 |
| Languages | English, Spanish, French, German, Polish | English |
| Best For | Groups wanting fast, minimalist fantasy with almost zero rules overhead: character creation in minutes, core mechanic in one sentence, and tons of optional modules to bolt on. | Groups who want one simple guessing procedure for risky actions, usable across fantasy and other genres without needing dice, maps or stat blocks. |
| Highlights | Entire core rules fit in ~20 pages, character fits on an index card, huge trait list for customization without complexity, 17 included microsettings, extensive optional rules (martial disciplines, magic schools, ship combat) let you dial complexity up | The distance between a player's guess and the hidden target sets up to five outcome grades, so one guess decides both whether and how well a Challenge succeeds. Injuries are penalties on the same traits and attributes that build the bonus, and reducing every one of them to zero kills the character. Sacrificing a durable item or weapon after the guess turns a near miss into a full success and empties that slot until the next session. |
| Considerations | Binary pass/fail with no degrees of success, fantasy-only (other TinyD6 games cover sci-fi), no built-in advancement by default (optional), very light on tactical depth | Adventure opponents are written as Challenge Ratings rather than statistics, so the storyteller judges a rating for each approach to any new fight or obstacle. Fights resolve as one or a few group Challenges rather than individual turns, with fictional positioning in place of a tactical movement system. The storyteller calculates a fresh span of success from the group bonus for each guessed Challenge, and spans can wrap past the ends of the range. |