Hit Point Press' SHIFT RPG Aims to Reverse Your Understanding of Dice

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Today, we’re talking with the team behind SHIFT RPG, Hit Point Press’ first original system.

Hit Point Press is a well established publisher of third-party supplements for Dungeons and Dragons, whether it is the anthropomorphic Humblewood, the circus-themed Heckna! or the DingoDoodle-inspired Fool’s Gold: Into the Bellowing Wilds campaigns. However, the publisher decided to go out of its way and create its own game, which is not a 5e supplement with SHIFT, a new “All-Ages Collaborative Roleplaying Game” that they’re launching on October 7.

The game is a setting-neutral system that has been testing for several years now, according to designer Jordan Richer.

“The SHIFT RPG uses an elementary building block, a little LEGO brick, that if you can understand that straightforward thing, you can play with anything in the world very easily, but also add new things to the world very easily as well,” Richer told TTRPG Insider.

The Lego brick, in this case, is the trait system and the SHIFTing dice.

All characters have two kinds of traits; Core Traits and Focus Traits. Core Traits are your basic character stats while Focus Traits are things you are specifically good at. It’s a loose game framework. Each is defined by a dice. The best traits have a D4 while the worst traits have a d12. The goal is to roll a 1, 2 or 3. If you roll the highest number, then your character’s trait moves to the next die size. So, a D4 becomes a D6, a D6 becomes a D8, and so on. If you roll a 12 on a D12, then that trait is exhausted and can’t be used until you can SHIFT that trait back to a d12 or better.

It’s a peculiar decision within the TTRPG community, as it feels quite contrary to how I usually play. Bigger dice mean better successes, or at least that’s how my constant rolling of D20s in D&D has trained my brain. And I’m not the only one; Richer noted how that reversal in dice design was the “first, biggest and one of the only hurdles that testers had with the system.” But once players adapted, the game felt pretty easy to play.

Becoming exhausted through Core Traits can lead to death or unconsciousness while Focus Traits will be a weakened item. For example, a laser gun might start useful, but the more you use it, the weaker it becomes.

Players also have Focus Traits, which focus on specialized skills. These traits are defined by keywords and drawbacks, and can change depending on how an item rolls. They also allow for more flexibility in settings and player options.

Players then roll a Core Trait dice, a Focus Trait dice and hope they can get what they need to succeed. It’s a simple learning curve with a lot of potential to add or modify the rules.

The game is built with homebrew in mind, allowing creators to either add or remove mechanics that enable storytellers to capture the unique style of gameplay. People are already coming up with creative ways to tell new and different stories within the SHIFT RPG Discord server, Richer said.

An open gaming license (a document that is required for other people to make content with your game) is also planned, which will enable designers to immediately start creating and adding their own content within the SHIFT ruleset upon release.

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SHIFT’s Origin

SHIFT’s origin as a TTRPG originated in 2020, according to Richer. He and his fellow game designer (Graeme Fotheringham) began experimenting with new systems. Fotheringham came up with the idea of SHIFTing dice and decided to refine the system. They eventually ran it for HPP CEO Ricardo Evangelho, who offered to buy it off of them. The system has been in various forms of beta testing since 2021.

The game seemed like a simple offering for a new crowd, as well as a chance for HPP to create something that was not as reliant on Dungeons and Dragons’ IP.

“It seemed like from year to year, Dungeons and Dragons, WOTC, and Hasbro all had their little scandals that are going on, and they grow and change every year, even before the open gaming license fiasco of a few years back. However, we thought it would be worthwhile to try building something for ourselves,” Richer admitted, pointing to how Free League Publishing and Evil Hat had developed their own systems for their own use.

The TTRPG market is saturated with an assortment of setting-neutral systems, whether we’re talking about Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying Engine, Free League’s Year Zero system or Evil Hat’s Fate system. So what would SHIFT add that other games didn’t? Hit Point Press’ team of designers discussed the decision, and it “came down to us wanting to set that baseline for ourselves so that we have this core rule set that's really flexible and there's also lots of options for us,” Richer said. “That will hopefully allow us to build out the fun stuff for ourselves, which are the settings in our games.”

Fans of HPP’s work shouldn’t expect to see its D&D content go away any time soon, but they can expect it to make more SHIFT content depending on the success of the campaign. Their tests at conventions and online have been successful so far, and the SHIFT RPG server hosts more than 500 people.

We’ll have to see how well the game is received and if it will “SHIFT” the market as much as HPP wants it to.

SHIFT RPG will be available for crowdfunding starting on Oct. 7, 2025.

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