Well, initially I thought I was going to be utilizing Year Zero... to put it frank, I don't think its working very well. Not for the kind of action needed in games like Horizon Zero Dawn or Monster Hunter. So that's been quite frustrating. So now I'm using a modified version of the dice mechanic seen in The One Ring! For each roll, you roll a d10 + a number of d6s equal to your Skill, comparing to a Target Number associated with a Method - Forceful, Analytical, or Empathy. The d10 is also used to determine criticals and the like! In Combat, you have a pool of Endurance Dice, typically 7, which you spend and roll to perform various actions. They, effectively, replace your Skill Dice during Combat. So, you can perform 7 weaker actions, each rolling one dice each, or one mega-powerful action using all seven dice or, of course, something in-between. These Endurance Dice will also act as your Health - as you take damage, you will have less Endurance Dice. In playtest, this seems to really empower the characters. Since they know their TNs - Forceful, Analytical, and Empathy, they have a basis to guesstimate how many dice they need for an action, so when they fail, they don't feel cheated by the dice. They just remember to put in more dice for next time!

The 2nd frustrating part of the project is I feel a little out of the spirit of the jam by not doing as much support and sharing to others working on stuff, because I feel like I need to focus as much as possible to get my own stuff done before February. Working 60 hours a week is lame.