Tiny Dungeon vs Wushu
Compare Tiny Dungeon and Wushu side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Tiny Dungeon | Wushu | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Universal |
| Tags | Rules-Light, Beginner-Friendly, One-Shot Friendly, Low-Prep, Fast-Paced, Dungeon Crawl, Theater of the Mind, Heroic, Tag-Based | Cinematic, Rules-Light, Narrative, Collaborative, Tag-Based, High-Power, One-Shot Friendly, Low-Prep, Theater of the Mind, CC-Licensed Rules |
| 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. | Players narrate actions in the present tense, and the details happen as described. Only the winner of a conflict may narrate victory. Each narrated detail earns one d6, up to a per-player limit the Director sets for the scene (usually 4–10). Players split their dice into Yang for offense and Yin for defense before everyone rolls at once. Each die at or under the most relevant Trait (rated 1–5, default 2) is a hit. Yang hits remove chips from a Threat or are cancelled one for one by an opponent's Yin hits. Hits that get past Yin are paid with Chi tokens. A hit that a character cannot cover with Yin or Chi defeats them. If a hero and a Nemesis are both defeated in the same round, the one with more uncovered hits loses, and ties go to the hero. |
| Dice | 2d6 | d6 dice pool |
| Complexity | Very Low | Very Low |
| Availability | Free quickstart | Free core rules |
| Runnability | 2 of 5 book tools | 3 of 5 book tools |
| License | Proprietary (TinyD6) | Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | Commercial publishing allowed — Open license |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Gallant Knight Games | Daniel Bayn |
| Year | 2018 | 2015 |
| 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 improvised, movie-style fight scenes in which the players describe the stunts themselves, played as one-shots or loose episodes with little preparation. |
| 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 | Dice pools are built from narrated details up to the scene's limit, so players are rewarded for elaborating their action rather than for their stats. Nameless mooks are a single stack of poker chips the heroes wear down, which lets players describe as many enemies falling as they like. A four-step zero-prep procedure aims to produce heroes, nemeses and a plot outline in thirty minutes or less. |
| 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 | Characters do not gain experience or levels, and any mechanical change to a hero comes from optional Trait rules such as milestone Traits. Weapons and positioning carry no mechanical modifiers, so tactical choices count only as narrated details that earn dice. How a description is split into details, and whether it fits the agreed tone, rests on the Director's count and the table's judgment. |