Overview of Core Mechanics

Relics of the Moon is the first game to use the Dream Team Game System (DTGS). DTGS occupies a space in the ecosystem of tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) that could be described as “Narrative with Crunch”. It is narratively-driven but adds a rich layer of number manipulation that goes beyond most narrative-first TTRPGs. Its standout feature, however, is how it is built from the top-down as a team experience in a way that is quite different from most TTRPGs. While individual players still play individual characters, their actions contribute to a single and multi-faceted team action which drives the narrative forward. A “team” may be all players, a subset of players, or even a “team of one”.

DTGS is meant to be fast-paced without sacrificing interesting choices for players or GMs. A DTGS game is highly collaborative from the beginning to the end of each session, helping to keep players involved even when the character they are playing may not be. DTGS is also designed to help GMs to create interesting and flexible challenges on the fly using a single system. Exploration, combat, travel, and social challenges all stand on equal footing and are resolved in similar ways. This means that different types of challenges can be mixed into the same event or converted between each other while the action is unfolding.

Beyond Relics of the Moon

Want to create an original game (or hack an existing one) using the game engine you see here? DTGS is intended to be a toolkit to create your own team-first games which may be similar or wildly different than the setting, tone, and traits of Relics of the Moon. A licensing guide and Standard Rules Document (SRD) for the game engine is planned to be released around the same time a v1.0 for Relics of the Moon is released. Throughout this Core Mechanics section, you will learn about DTGS using Relics of the Moon as an example, but realize the system can support any number of games.