Our Story So Far…

Radiant Tactics is a community-driven, solo-developed tactics RPG system in active development. Our immediate goal is to build community and iterate together by demoing Radiant’s innovations and Radiant’s unique setting, the World of Phoibos. Our long-term goal is to support an RPG system versatile enough to create games that play like the tactic’s genre’s best, with crossplayable characters and campaigns offering players better value for creativity invested.

Radiant Tactics started as a hobby project in 2015 by its creative director, Michael Vossen, while he was earning a Ph.D in Philosophy. All the rules, scenarios, world design, art, play aids, balance point models, and such, are his designs.

Growing up, Michael played D&D 2nd & 3rd editions, whose systems supported his 12 year old younger self’s efforts at game design and RPG character authorship. He wants his own game system to support such hobbyist player-creators in making their own fun characters & adventures to play with friends.

Michael really enjoys world-building and system design, hobbies from which Radiant Tactics emerged. Your support and feedback help shape Radiant Tactics’ development, iterating towards a better system for RPG hobbyists.

Goals & Values

RPGs are novel media when they expand and redistribute who authors characters and stories. RPGs ask players to imagine what characters with different beliefs, values, and temperament would have reason to believe and do, thus exercising their capacity to understand other people’s points of view. RPGs can ask hobbyist game designers to compose for narrative progression while leaving unfixed what characters do, a novel and challenging form of storytelling.

We believe the full value of RPGs comes from participating in joint creating, as players imagining characters, as hobbyist designers imagining societies & conflicts, as friends together playfully imagining possibilities for life under different circumstances.

Some RPGs are like a great restaurant, offering players polished experiences with superb writing and art, all crafted by professional chefs. Radiant Tactics has a different aspiration, seeking to be more like a Julia Child or James Beard, supporting the home cook in creating heartful food to share with friends and family. Or a Home Depot for RPG story crafting. We’re iterating towards an RPG system more perfect for such joint creating, an RPG suitable for hobbyists of all sorts.