The Gritty Confidence of Perils & Princesses’ Design

Three small things that set P&P apart

Apr 08, 2026

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By Brian Flaherty, My First Dungeon

Perils & Princesses does the little things right.

It does the big things right too—a cohesive vibe, clear and concise layout, nostalgic and inspirational illustrations—but the game excels in the ever-crowded OSR category by making a litany of small, clean mechanical choices that make gameplay both seamless and satisfying. For example…

Heart Dice

Heart Dice in P&P turn a boring, under-utilized mechanic into a collaborative and interactive boon. Heart Dice are the cooler cousin of Hit Dice in D&D 5e. In 5e, the Hit Dice are d6s that are gained with each level, replenish after every long rest, and are exclusively used (except in some supplemental classes) to regain hit points during a short rest. In my own D&D 5e campaigns they were used rarely and, honestly, felt kind of boring. Even when they were rolled between battles for some extra health they appeared overly mechanical and removed from the fiction of the game. Heart Dice in P&P have none of these shortcomings.

In Perils & Princesses, Heart Dice are d4s that are gained with each level, replenished after every long rest, and can be used to recover hit points during short rests (adorably labelled “picnics” in P&P). Sound familiar? Well here’s the difference. Players can also roll their Heart Dice to augment the result of an ally’s Virtue test or attack roll. Rather than function as inconvenient health potions that you can only use on yourself like Hit Dice, Heart Dice allow every player to help their friends, interact on other player’s turns, and collaborate on epic combo moves that turn failures into successes. That’s awesome!

In our campaign of Perils & Princesses, the players were always using their Heart Dice to find creative ways to advance the story and turn failure into success. It was a resource they were invested in and excited to spend. And when they ran out, each roll became even more impactful because they knew they could no longer alter their fate.

The greatest sin any TTRPG can commit is to include mechanics that simply aren’t fun. If hit dice feel like homework you don’t want to do, then Heart Dice feel like the recess you can’t wait to enjoy.

Crit Success on Initiative

This is the smallest mechanical innovation I want to discuss in this article and it is one that is often solved with house rules from dissatisfied DMs, but is rarely accounted for in rules as written.

Rolling a critical success—a “Nat 20” in D&D, a “Nat 1” in P&P—on your initiative roll is often considered the worst time to “crit” because all you get to do is act first rather than do an obscene amount of damage or trigger some cool ability. It’s not bad, per se, just unsatisfying. Perils & Princesses satiates the desire for a critical prize with one simple line: “Rolling a 1 is a critical, you may perform two actions on your first turn.” Two actions in a system with very limited opportunities to act outside of the standard trifecta of action, reaction, and movement feels HUGE without becoming gamebreaking. Simply put, it fucking rules.

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Again, the genius of this mechanic isn’t that it’s particularly inventive or original—lots of tables homebrew similar boons to critical successes on initiative rolls—it’s that the designer acknowledged an extremely common pain point and addressed it in the core rules of the game. Elegance through simplicity, something every designer should strive towards.

Gift Dice

The genius of Gift Dice is that they add the tension of push-your-luck gambling games to every ability a player uses. Originally developed as “Magic Dice” in the OSR game The Goblin Laws of Gaming (or GLOG) designed by the blogger Goblin Punch, Gift Dice are d6s that are used to activate character abilities. Players gain one additional Gift Dice per level and they are an expendable resource that replenishes after each long rest. For each ability a player will choose how many of their gift dice to roll and the outcome of the ability will be determined by both the sum of the dice and the number of dice rolled. For instance, the spell “Animate” reads, “[DICE] nearby objects come to life and obey your commands as best they can for [SUM] minutes.”

On its own, that system for spell casting and abilities is mildly interesting. The real juice comes from how gift dice are exhausted. From P&P, “On a result of 1-2-3 GD (Gift Dice) return. On a 4-5-6 they’re used up and return after a rest.” The beauty of this is that each use of your ability might be your last. Every player will have to weigh the risk and fight the cognitive dissonance between two competing thoughts: “I want to roll bigger numbers for a greater effect” and “I want to roll smaller numbers so I can use my abilities more.”It adds exciting and positive tension to every ability roll. And there is rarely a negative experience because losing all your GD means having a huge impact on your turn, while having a small impact simply means getting to do more cool things.

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Gift Dice also have one additional bit of narrative tension: Mishaps. When rolling gift dice, if you roll doubles you also experience a Mishap, a generally negative or comedic outcome in addition to your ability’s effect. Some Mishaps from spells include: Magic Burn: Take d4 damage; Curse: Suffer a random Curse in addition to the spell’s effect; or Intoxicating Power: You become Woozy until you Rest. These Mishaps are detrimental, yes, but more importantly they’re interesting. They add obstacles for the characters to overcome and are even flavored to fit each playbook. They also serve as a control valve and additional consideration for the push-your-luck mechanics of the Gift Dice, since rolling more GD at once means a higher chance of a Mishap.

There is so much to love about Gift Dice, but the most important thing is how they make failure and complications “feel” to the players. If a player has a Mishap after pushing their luck too many times it feels like it was always in their control. Something they did rather than something that was done to them. And the growing joy of beating the odds on successive risky rolls simply “feels” great. The “feel” of a game is nearly as ineffable as its “vibe,” but just like the over-cited quip about pornography: You know it when you see it.

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Recently I was in a conversation with an illustrator who was complimenting the work of another artist by saying he really admired her “lines.” He commented that the lines she made with her pen were bold and confident and efficient. Not being an artist myself, I’d never heard a compliment like this, but he was essentially remarking on the strength of her fundamentals and how they translated into a remarkable finished work. I could say the same about Perils & Princesses. It is a game that understands that mechanics that are clear and evocative will add up create a game that is easy to understand and a joy to play. Every line of text is efficient, inventive, and culminates in a game that achieves a self-assured confidence that lets the players and GM know they are in good hands.