Struggle Against the Darkness, the primary project of GuessWork Studios, has  at its heart a generic TTRPG engine. That engine is called the GuessWork Engine, and I'm here to explain it to you and why it's awesome.

The Guesswork Engine
The engine is defined through a few things:

• Attribute Ranks create a d12 dice pool to generate a number of successes
• Resource pools are derived from Attributes
• Wound-based health system affects Attributes
• Action point based combat with active defense
• Skill Ranks either make things less difficult for you(unopposed tests) or more difficult for your enemies(opposed tests)
• Proficiencies in specific tools and actions lower the success number on the d12

My Thoughts Behind It
First of all, I love dice pools, because I love rolling handfuls of my shiny math rocks. Second, I wanted to replicate the effect of various factors IRL on a situation, so I thought a while about what these things do and came to the following conclusions, mostly using my time in martial arts and the military(this is not an 'I'm a badass', this is just the experience I'm drawing on).

Attributes: your raw ability, right? More raw ability creates more chances of success. Look up Hafthor Bjornson grappling some high-level jiujitsu guys. These are 200+ pound blackbelts who would maul me. But, Hafthor is quite literally one of the strongest men on earth, and the biggest. Skill *matters* but at the end of the day if you can only bench 100 pounds and your enemy has a deadlift in the 1000s... You're fucked, even if you're a master of multiple combat styles. So, Attributes add Dice. They add chances.

Skills: but your skill DOES even the playing field. I got this idea from my grappling experience mostly. I am not an explosive athlete. I am slow-twitch dominant. What my skill does allow me to do, though, is neutralize the attributes of athletically superior, but less skilled fighters. Back to the Bjornson videos, the jiujitsu guys neutralize his strength through Skill and leverage. He still has a chance, because, let's face it, he's basically a boss monster, BUT, Skill does matter a LOT. It either makes it easier for you, or more difficult for your opponent.

Proficiencies: and now this is where we get into my favorite part. Skill is a more broadly encompassing thing, usually. A proficiency is your muscle-memory, your familiarity, with a specific movement or action or tool. For instance, I have a Skill in Kickboxing, but I have a very Proficient elbow strike. You might be thinking that this is about to add to Skill, but nope, that's not the conclusion I reached. Your Proficiencies help you when things get weird. For instance, my buddy Kyle is a master of the low-single takedown. No matter how you stuff him on the entry, he always managed to scramble for that ankle and down you go. I felt this was best represented by lowering the number required for Success on the dice. In Guesswork, it's normally a 9. But you train with you favorite longsword enough? Now it's an 8. Then 7. Then 6. You're able to squeeze success out of situations that people who weren't familiar with that action or tool wouldn't be.

Closing

I hope you enjoyed reading. The closed alpha is ongoing now, and will be continuing through the end of October. I'll post regular updates here, so follow GuessWork Games to stay up to date on our shenanigans. Until next time!