About Razorweave
The Project
Razorweave is a fiction-first tabletop RPG designed to enable story-rich play that engages the themes and topics you want to explore—with a game system that doesn't get in your way. New player friendly but with enough depth for experienced players.
The Problem
I love Dungeons & Dragons, Baldur's Gate, and watching Critical Role. But I wanted a system that was storytelling-heavy and offered true freedom in character creation—without the number-heavy combat and the swinginess of natural 1s and 20s. Sometimes a nat 1 or 20 is great for the story, but other times they add nonsensical hurdles to what a character should be able to do.
I also wanted players to create the character they envisioned without min-maxing every decision. I enjoy making optimized builds and exploiting mechanics (I'm an avid @DnDDeepDive watcher), but I wanted my game to be more accessible than that.
The Spark
The idea for Razorweave came from adapting Vampire: The Masquerade for solo play using AI. I started designing a tiny TTRPG system to test various AI agents, and as I explored, I found myself building a full game based on the type of gameplay I was missing from other systems.
What Makes It Unique
For me, "fiction-first" means the fiction and mechanics are one and the same. If you want to play a very unique character, you aren't limited by canon skills or proficiencies. The whole system is basically homebrew character creation—but the mechanics prevent anything from getting wild. It's about saying "yes, and" more than "no."
I'm particularly proud of the clock system. It offers tremendous flexibility for maintaining tension in gameplay. One of the hard parts of narrative-heavy play is keeping things from devolving into a series of low-risk conversations. Clocks give carrot-and-stick motivation to keep things moving forward. I especially like them for combat—HP-based combat just didn't feel fun outside of video games. Clocks allow for prescriptive combat: whether you hit matters more than rolling for damage.
Razorweave is a universal system. There are plenty of systems to fill just about any itch, but my hope is to provide a solid foundation for people to make their own worlds in any genre. I want to create source material and campaigns for different genres, but until then, I'm offering a flexible core.
The Designer
Panda Edwards
The Origin Story
My first real roleplay wasn't at a table—it was on a playground. My friend Ben and I both spent one day a week at a different school for gifted education. Our recess was walking the track and roleplaying stories. Sometimes I was Tom Bombadil and he was Gandalf from Lord of the Rings. Sometimes I was a multidimensional space emperor and he was a friendly advisor. Those walks around an unfamiliar school with one of the first friends I made are where I learned what storytelling could be.
My official first RPG session was at one of Ben's birthdays in elementary school, where we played the original Dungeons & Dragons. Or at least we tried—we got caught up in character creation. But those recess walks were my real introduction to collaborative storytelling.
Growing Up Gaming
I played some D&D in the 90s, but I was primarily a Magic: The Gathering fan through high school. Magic and D&D were things suburban evangelicals were against, and I got in trouble for "indoctrinating the youth" at after-school care with the YWCA. I was heavy into Magic through high school and even wrote online at Londes.com (I once had a kerfuffle where I submitted and got published for the same article at multiple Magic sites at once).
I really got into Vampire: The Masquerade in college. Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines was the gateway, but realizing how much it influenced the Blade movies and Underworld got me to dive deep. I read all the books and novels. Another fandom I fell into was Legend of the Five Rings—I never played the TCG, but I read the clan lore books. Years later I discovered it had an RPG, an LCG (I have the full set), and more novels. Still haven't played the TTRPG, but if you're running one and need a Phoenix Clan character, hit me up.
Beyond TTRPGs
Professionally, I'm a software developer. I've been working on custom GPTs for solo Vampire: The Masquerade play using my owned PDFs, and a friend is building a more in-depth AI system for solo play.
I've done a lot of writing and poetry over the years. For a long time, I've been working on my own fictional universe and novels—there's a library and a half of reference materials but only half a book so far. I also enjoy painting, mostly large-canvas abstract acrylics. I like exploring techniques more than making finished pieces.
Design Philosophy
My approach to game design has been solo playtesting with Claude 4.5 Sonnet, which has been invaluable for testing the system's solo play capabilities. I'm influenced by "choices matter" gaming and freedom. Civilization II was the first game that really grabbed me growing up, and I've been a strategy gamer ever since (you can assume I've paid for several Paradox top management vacations with my DLC buys). Games like Zelda: Wind Waker, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Street Fighter, Baldur's Gate, and Vampire: The Masquerade have shaped how I think about player agency and storytelling.
When it comes to RPG stories, I'm a sucker for grand epics with inter-country conflicts. Equally, I'm a Redwall diehard fan, so a traditional hero arc with cozy interludes is right in my comfort zone.
Why "Panda"?
I've been obsessed with pandas for a long time and have a lot of panda tattoos. I took on the nickname after being a supporter of Shadic in the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate community and being a frequent donor. I created some Discord communities around that and got used to people calling me Panda. Now everyone from my dentist to my coworkers knows me as Panda.
Contact
Legal Inquiries: For copyright claims, terms of service questions, or other legal matters, please use our Legal Contact Form.
General Support: For questions, bug reports, or feature requests, please visit our GitHub repository issues page.
Credits & Acknowledgements
The People Who Made This Possible
Ben Freeman – For elementary school larping and teaching me what collaborative storytelling could be.
Tony McAboy – For playing pretend, dress-up, and Magic: The Gathering.
Dillon Hicks – Lifelong friend and player of the greatest character of all time, Baron Kalineas.
Joel Pfannenstiel – For running the best game shop of all time, Astrokitty.
Claude 4.5 Sonnet – My tireless playtesting partner for solo play development.
Inspirations
Razorweave draws inspiration from the broader tradition of tabletop roleplaying games while implementing its own unique systems and setting. Games like Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, and Fate influenced our thinking around fiction-first design, graduated success mechanics, and streamlined resolution systems.
While inspired by modern RPG design philosophy, Razorweave has its own identity through original mechanics (4d6 margin-based resolution, Edge/Burden system, Risk/Impact framework), original attributes (Might, Agility, Presence, Reason), and flexible skill system. All text, examples, and specific implementations are original work.
For a comprehensive acknowledgment of influences and our commitment to originality, see Chapter 30: Inspirations and Acknowledgments in the core rulebook.
A big thanks to the authors who created all the lore books for nerd culture before everyone but Warhammer 40K abandoned them. Those books were formative.
What's Next
Once the core rulebook is ready to publish, I'll immediately be working on source books and campaigns. Expect content inspired by Redwall, Vampire: The Masquerade, isekai anime, Legend of the Five Rings, epic fantasy, Studio Ghibli, One Piece, Berserk, Lovecraftian horror... you get the idea. Universal system means I can play whatever I want—and so can you.
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