A rules-light tabletop RPG designed to be fast to play and incredibly easy to expand upon.
Based on the d20 ruleset.
Every rule contained within this system is optional. The GM has the final word on how the game functions and on the consequences of the players' actions. This ruleset is meant to provide suggestions on how a GM might like to structure the foundation of their game.
This system is designed to be used with any type of campaign setting, whether high-fantasy, modern military, sci-fi space cowboy, or eldritch occult. It's also designed to be able to accommodate specific, unusual settings easily due to the simple nature of extending the system with abilities relevant to your setting.
The core rules are designed to be simple enough and generic enough to implement aspects of any other game system into this framework. Many interesting parts of other systems, such as feats, spells, and powers from Dungeons and Dragons will fit into the general framework of "Abilities" in this system. More broad traits and involved mechanics might be adapted into the "Style" or "Talent" framework in this system. GMs should feel comfortable writing homebrew abilities and styles due to the lightweight nature of the system.
Everything contained within this ruleset is a work-in-progress. Some sections contain multiple options for the rules governing particular interactions because the system is currently in development. Everything is subject to change, and all numbers are currently placeholders. This includes task difficulties, inventory points, level-up rewards, skill dice caps, etc.
This system is a variant of the d20 ruleset. That means that you will primarily interact with the game by rolling a 20-sided die. Each attribute and skill has a value associated with it. When you roll to attempt a task or make an attack, you will roll a 20-sided die (called a d20) and if your character has a relevant skill or attribute, you may add the numeric value of the skill or attribute to the result of the roll.
Characters have any number of skills. Skills are more specific than stats, and add bonus dice when attempting an action related to the skill. Skills are subject to GM approval, as they can't be too generic. Doing Things is not an appropriate skill, because it applies to too many potential tasks.
An appropriate skill might be Climbing. Attempting to scale a cliff then would add the value of your climbing skill to any rolls made in an attempt to accomplish a task where Climbing would be useful.
If multiple skills are relevant to a particular situation, you may use the highest of your relevant skills to make the roll, then add half of the bonus given by your secondary skill (rounded down). For example, if your character has 5 points in Horseback Riding and 3 points in Archery, attempting to make a shot while riding on a horse would mean you get a bonus of 6 to the result of your roll (5 + 3/2 rounded down = 5 + 1 = 6).
Attributes are special skills that are used for combat. They are listed separately from other skills because unlike other skills, attributes are finite and predetermined. You do not have to allocate any skill points to attributes when creating your character (for instance, if your character is a pacifist).
There are 4 attributes:
- Melee Offense
- Ranged Offense
- Defense
- Initiative
Have any number of abilities. Abilities are things like casting a spell, buffing an ally, or performing a powerful attack. Abilities generally cost ability points to activate.
When a character rests for a night, they reset their ability point total to 3. After that, they may gain additional ability points via their Style.
A style describes how a character generates their ability points. For example, a "Barbarian Rage" style might give a character an ability point any time an "attack" (physical or verbal) is made against the player, which dissipate when the character is no longer angry as a result of this action. A "Scholar" or "Wizard" style might give a character 8 "focus" points that replenish when the character sleeps for a night. A "rogue" style might give the player 3 points to use any time they make an attack on an enemy that is unaware of their presence, or a single point any time they successfully use sleight of hand to steal or cheat.
Talents are aspects of your character that are passive in nature. For instance, if your character can read many languages, or if they can see perfectly in the dark, those aspects of your character would be considered Talents.
Characters start with 9 points to distribute among attributes, 20 points to distribute among skills, three abilities, three talent points, and a single style. Attribute points may instead be spent to acquire or improve skills. However, you may not use skill points to acquire or improve attributes.
You may place a maximum of 5 points into a particular skill or attribute at level 1.
Characters begin with 5 inventory points and 3 ability points.
Levels are granted at GM discretion, but should be granted any time a large story arc concludes (2-5 sessions depending on pace). Each level represents a large jump in the party's abilities and growth.
Level 1 characters represent competent adventurers, who may face off against a few undead, a small military scouting party, or a small camp of bandits.
Level 2 characters represent experienced adventurers who might take on a small collection of necromancers, a military squadron, or a group of bandits with their leader.
Level 3 characters represent heroic adventurers who can defeat large monsters such as dire wolves and terrifying evils such as vampires.
Level 4 characters represent epic adventurers who could emerge victorious against capable, organized threats such as an invading barbarian tribe or a necromantic cult.
Level 5 characters represent legendary adventurers who are capable of defeating an ancient evil such as a lich or a dragon.
Most challenges in the game can be represented as "tasks". Tasks represent your character attempting to overcome an obstacle by using their skills and attributes.
WORK IN PROGRESS This section will contain a table of a target roll value, and a description of how difficult is s to accomplish the task it represents.
To attempt a task, players roll their 20-sided die and make an argument for any skills they think might apply to the task. Once the appropriate attribute and skill(s) have been chosen, the player rolls their 20-sided die and adds the relevant bonus to the result of their roll. They then compare their total result to the target difficulty of the task. If their total result meets or exceeds the target difficulty, they've succeeded at the task. Otherwise, they've failed.
Tasks in general can only be attempted once per party, not per character. For example, if a lock must be picked, the party should elect to have the character with the greatest dice pool for that particular task roll to attempt to pick the lock. Their success or failure represents the party's entire efforts.
Any skill check can become a minigame where the player makes their best argument to add a particular skill's dice to their roll, and the GM ultimately decides whether or not it makes sense. Many great moments can be had by applying a skill to an unexpected situation. It should be determined with care, however, just because a character is great at tying knots, doesn't mean they're "good with their hands" and can pick locks. A broad generalization like this causes even the most specific skills to end up essentially applying a flat bonus to most tasks.
Combat in this system is deadly. Enemies are felled in a single swipe, and you yourself can similarly be incapacitated in a single attack. This is to help speed up combat and to make the in-game combat feel much more hectic and unpredictable. Even the best warrior can be hit by a lucky attack and be rendered unable to fight.
Initiative is incredibly important when combat is resolved in a single strike. It's not uncommon for combat to be entirely resolved within a single turn! To determine initiative order for players, roll as normal and add the value of the character's Initiative attribute. In the event that two players have an equal initiative, the party should decide among themselves which character will take their turn first.
Enemies have set numbers for their initiatives, and in the event of two enemies with an equal initiative score, they can be arranged in any order the GM desires.
Positioning is done without a table or grid of any kind. Combatants are considered to be in the "melee" range of combat or "far" range. All combatants within the "melee" range of combat are considered to be in melee range of each other, and at far range from combatants in the "far" range. Combatants in the "far" range are considered to be at far range from melee combatants, and at far range from other combatants in the "far" range. In order to make a melee attack against a target in the "far" range, you must first defeat all enemies in the "melee" range. Once only allied combatants remain in the "melee" range, you may choose one target at "far" range to enter melee range. This represents the melee of battle moving to a new location centered around the target that was previously at "far" range, and allows for situations where beefy frontliner enemies can protect their squishy ranged allies.
It's a good idea to try to add some minor flair to the positioning of each battle. Once the melee range enemies are defeated, maybe some of the ranged enemies are situated on a cliff or other high ground. Don't be afraid to make the party roll to attempt to climb the cliff to move the location of the melee, or to allow the enemy a free shot on the party during their climb. The core of combat is simple, but there is always room to add one-off unique mechanics to each battle to better portray the messy and chaotic nature of combat.
During your turn, you get one action. This action may be movement between melee and far range, a basic attack, or using an ability. It may also be something like utilizing an item, or picking up an ally's unconscious body.
Every character has one or more "basic attacks". These represent the way that your character will generally perform combat. A soldier might have a longsword and shield, as well as a dagger. A wilderness ranger might have a shortbow and a shortsword. A mage might cast arcane missiles or bolts of fire. None of these attacks cost any ability points to use or have any special properties beyond being either a melee attack or a ranged attack. They just add flair to your character's playstyle.
When attacking an enemy, you must clear a task of their target difficulty with your relevant combat skill (either melee offense or ranged offense).
Melee attacks can only be used when the character is in melee range, and can only be used against enemies that are also in melee range.
Ranged attacks can be used against any combatant at any range, but every ranged attack is made with a -3 penalty to the roll.
If the character's attack roll exceeds the target defense value of the enemy, the enemy falls in combat.
When an enemy attacks a player, the player rolls a d20, adding their Defense attribute to the result, and attempts to clear the target difficulty of the enemy's strike. If they fail, the player has been wounded in battle and is unable to contribute to the battle until they recover.
If the player fails to defend an enemy attack, they become Wounded.
Once the player is wounded, the only action they may take on their turn is attempt to recover from their injuries. The player, on their turn, rolls a d20 and adds their Defense attribute score to the result. If the total roll exceeds 12, the character recovers and rejoins the battle. The player must wait until the next round of combat to take another action, however.
If the player is attacked by an enemy while they are in the wounded state, they make a Defense roll as normal. If they fail to defend while wounded, the player has Fallen in combat, and may no longer take any actions on their turn.
Non-player characters do not have the Wounded state. If they are struck in combat, they immediately fall in battle.
At the end of combat, all wounded and fallen player characters recover from their injuries and continue their adventures. Fallen enemies are not necessarily dead, they may be interrogated or captured by the players. The players may instead choose to finish them off. Of course, the GM can always decide that combat was particularly brutal and no enemies survived after the end of combat.
If all players in melee range are Wounded or Fallen, the enemies may advance forward to reach a player in Far range. When the enemies do so, all Wounded or Fallen player characters that were in Melee range instead become part of the Far range.
Utilizing the wounded state can be a good tool for DMs to adjust the combat difficulty of an encounter on-the-fly. If an encounter is too easy, consider making the enemy combatants actively attempt to finish off players to cause them to fall in battle, rather than remain wounded. If an encounter is too difficult, a good option is to have enemies ignore wounded players, instead opting to attack their still-living allies, affording players an opportunity to recover and rejoin combat.
Sometimes the quick, lethal nature of combat doesn't adequately portray the considerable struggle involved in fighting against an archangel or elder god. In this case, you can use special rules for epic combat. In epic combat, the "boss" enemy or enemies have a health pool. Any time the boss would fall in combat as the result of an attack or ability, they instead lose 1 point from their health pool. They are defeated instead when their health pool reaches 0. An appropriate health pool for an epic combat encounter might be 3x the number of players in the party.
When designing boss encounters, it can often be effective to not utilize the epic combat rules. Instead, you might give the boss creature some sort of power that involves defeating multiple targets. For example, in order to defeat a Lich, the party might have to destroy several phylacteries he's hidden across the battlefield. Perhaps an enemy mage has conjured a protective barrier, and the party must destroy several magical crystals fueling the shield. Or even when fighting a pirate captain, the captain might be able to swing on the various ropes and components of their ship, and you must destroy all escape routes before you're able to defeat the captain himself. This will often allow for epic fights without simply making a human opponent unreasonably durable. For fighting a dragon or other large creature, however, the health pool and Epic Combat rules may be more appropriate.
Rarely, players may enter combat with each other. In these circumstances, most rules remain the same, with the exception of attacking and defending rolls. Instead of clearing a target difficulty, every attack and defense roll is made in opposition to your opponent's corresponding roll. If Urgor the Orc attacks Elendia the Elf with his battleaxe, Urgor makes an attack roll using their Melee Offense attribute and Elendia makes a defense roll using her Defense attributeand skill. If the attacker's roll result is higher than the defender's, the attack succeeds and the defender is wounded. Otherwise, the defender successfully defends and suffers no injuries.
When a player fails a skill check or falls in combat, they should suffer some consequences as a result of their failure.
For many tasks and skill checks, the consequences of failure are determined entirely on-the-fly by the GM. For example, if a player character fails to persuade a townsperson to tell them a closely guarded secret, the townsperson may refuse to interact with them further, or even begin to speak angrily of the players to other townsfolk, impacting the party's reputation in that region.
Determining the appropriate penalty for failure can be difficult. A good rule of thumb is that failure should move the narrative forward, just in a less desirable way than a success. If the party is looking for an enemy encampment, and they encounter enemy scouts, they might initiate combat. Upon winning combat, they might learn the location of the enemy encampment from the scouts, and are able to form a plan of attack. On a combat loss, the party might be captured and taken to the enemy encampment and begin the next stage of the story bound together, with no remaining inventory or ability points.
Death is of course, optional. Many players are attached to their characters and want to take the same character on adventures in campaigns spanning months or years. However, for a particularly "hardcore dungeon-delve" kind of experience, any time a player character falls in battle, you might rule that they die. Or perhaps they must roll a task check to determine whether or not they die. This can be an interesting alternative way to play the game, causing a real sense of danger and foreboding for players that may be suitable for a darker or more mature campaign setting.
Mundane items are things that most people could procure given a month or so of time to gather materials, find and purchase the item, or craft the item from scratch. A character is assumed to have everything they need to complete their adventure. Rather than preparing in advance and managing an inventory dozens of lines long, each character may list a few (generally no more than 5) regular items they always carry with them. This list could include their weapons (such as a bow with quiver, alongside a shortsword), some tools of the trade (such as lockpicks or an alchemy kit), or sentimental items (such as a locket from an old lover).
For everything else, mundane items are governed by the usage of inventory points.
Each character has a number of inventory points determined by their level. When players want to have access to an item in the field, they must procure it, spending their inventory points to do so. Procuring something simple and common, such as a length of rope, might cost a single inventory point. If a player would like to use something that is difficult to obtain and would be unusual to bring along on a journey, such as a silver teapot, it may cost five or more inventory points to procure it on the spot.
Procuring an item using inventory points represents the character's foresight in bringing the item along. The item's existence applies retroactively, and the character is considered to have held this item since the last time their inventory points were replenished. Once a character procures an item using inventory points, they are also considered to have access to that item until the next time they replenish their inventory points to their maximum (unless as part of their usage of the item, it becomes inaccessible, such as if they gift it to an NPC, or if the player character eats a food item).
Some particularly common items may cost no inventory points to procure, such as a small coin or clothing the character would almost certainly be wearing even if not listed on their character's inventory.
Inventory points are replenished any time the character would have access to a reasonable amount of supplies, such as when visiting a town or resting at a large military encampment.
The cost of an item should be determined not only by its rarity, but also by context. If the players attend a masquerade ball in a large city, they may have thought to keep a mask on them for just such an occasion, and it might cost a single inventory point to acquire. If the players instead stumble across a secret cult meeting deep underneath some ancient ruins, where each cultist is wearing a masquerade mask, to procure the same mask it may cost 3 or more points because it's unlikely the character would have anticipated a need for the mask.
Eating, drinking, sleeping, and other basic maintenance responsibilities are not codified into rules in this system. If lack of food for or other basic necessity becomes a major plot point in your session (for example, because your players are undergoing an arduous journey through a barren wasteland), players should generally complete tasks with skill checks to remain unaffected by hunger and thirst, or to procure food from their surroundings.
Similarly, tracking ranged ammunition for weapons such as guns and bows is just not exciting. If a player wakes up to find much of their equipment stolen, perhaps the GM could rule that they are unable to use their bow until they are able to procure both the bow itself as well as arrows to use as ammunition, but in general play there is no reason to count how many arrows you're firing.
Sometimes the party picks up magic items, or items that are beyond the reach of most people. This includes things like a magic sword that can't harm its owner or its owner's allies, a scrying orb that allows you to view far away places, or even just an incredibly expensive set of mithril armor, these items should be explicitly listed on a player character's character sheet. They should also have clearly defined effects or bonuses. A magic sword might add 1 die to your swordfighting skill, for example. Mithril armor might add a die to any applicable Strength and Dexterity defense rolls. The scrying orb might not confer any mechanical bonuses, but allows players to do something they normally wouldn't be able to (such as look upon distant places or other realms through the scrying orb).
Interesting items with powerful or particularly useful effects might cost either inventory points or ability points to use.
Interesting items can often be easily created on the fly by selecting an ability that no party member currently has, and turning it into an item. Maybe the Invisibility ability could become a Potion of Invisibility with a single use, or a Ring of Invisibility that simply grants the wearer the Invisibility ability, but it might cost inventory points instead of ability points.
When the party overcomes a challenge and receives a reward, those rewards will often be in the form of permanently held interesting items. However, for a smaller or more temporary reward, such as items gained from pickpocketing a townsperson or looting the corpses of dead adventurers, a character may gain one or more inventory points instead.