Tag & Tally

Tag & Tally is a narrative-first tabletop RPG where every thing is defined by two things — a sentence and a level. The sentence tells you what it is; The number tells you how tough they are.

Tag & Tall is designed for solo first, but cooperative or GM-led stories work perfectly well.

The system runs on tags that shape your actions and tallies that track momentum, wounds, and stakes.

You won’t need pages of stats. Just a line that speaks your truth.

What's your line?

What This Game Is About

This game is about pursuing quests that create change.

Play centers on characters acting with intent in uncertain situations. Every meaningful action risks consequences that alter the character, the world, or both. Progress is not measured by accumulation or optimization, but by transformation: new knowledge, altered beliefs, broken alliances, and hard-earned advantages.

The rules exist to apply pressure, force decisions, and ensure that outcomes matter. Success is rarely clean, failure is rarely final, and avoiding risk does not halt the world’s momentum.

If nothing would change as a result of an action, the game does not ask you to roll.

Authority and Responsibility

Authority in play is shared, but clearly scoped.

Players are responsible for:

  • Declaring intent
  • Choosing actions
  • Applying tags they can meaningfully justify

The system is responsible for:

  • Determining difficulty
  • Resolving uncertainty
  • Producing outcomes and consequences

The fiction must always reflect the results of mechanical resolution. Once dice are rolled and outcomes determined, the narrative adapts to those results rather than revising them.

In solo play, the player fulfills both roles by following the procedures as written and allowing the system’s outcomes to stand, even when inconvenient. However, keep in mind if you don't like the direction of the game you are free to change it. It's your game. Play how you want.

Failure, Complication, and Forward Motion

Failure does not halt progress.

When a roll fails or partially succeeds, the scene must still change in a meaningful way. This change may take many forms:

  • A quest advances in an unexpected direction
  • A clue becomes corrupted, incomplete, or dangerous
  • New pressure is introduced
  • The character is altered rather than the situation

Failure should never invalidate intent retroactively. The character tried, acted, and paid a cost. That cost becomes part of the ongoing fiction.

If a failure would only delay play without introducing change, the scene should not be resolved mechanically.

Inaction, Delay, and Refusal

Choosing not to act is still a choice.

If a character avoids risk, withdraws from a situation, or refuses to pursue an intent, active quests continue to advance without them. Pressure escalates offscreen, stakes worsen, and opportunities may close.

Inaction may preserve safety in the short term, but it does not preserve control.

Scenes should only be resolved mechanically when characters engage with uncertainty. Avoidance resolves itself through narrative consequence rather than dice.

Reading the System Correctly

This game rewards:

  • Clear intent
  • Meaningful risk
  • Accepting consequences

This game resists:

  • Grinding
  • Repeated retries without change
  • Optimization detached from fiction

If you ever feel unsure which rule to apply, return to the core question: What will change if this action is resolved?

If the answer is “nothing,” do not roll.