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Over the last week or so, I have been working on a customisable, generic and simple RPG system, and at this point feel ready to present it to Dakka for feedback, review, and comment. Attached at the bottom of this post is the core rule set, and an appendix with rules for playing in a Star Wars Old Republic setting (simply because that was the first one I wanted to try). First, though, some brief details:

Mission Statement: What am I trying to achieve with this game? Well, as a long-time player of tabletop wargames that has never dipped even a toe into the waters of RPGing, I began to think about why this was the case, and the first thing that came to mind was complexity. I wasn't interested in a game that required pages and pages or rules, tables and charts, and so I set out to create something that was, at it's heart, simple.

Where possible, actions in this game are resolved with a maximum of 2 D20 rolls, one by the player and one by the GM, and often just a single roll is required. Characters have 9 stats, equipment has 4 at most. There are a handful of Skills and classes, but nothing exhaustive. The focus is very much on the story rather than getting bogged down in endless data.

I also wanted something adaptable; something that could let one play anything from a medieval Crusader to a Space Marine, from a cowardly spice-smuggler to a champion swordsman. Any time, any setting, any character. To that end, the core mechanics are kept to the barest minimum, the appendices provide a starting point for various settings (at present there is only 1, but there will be more in time). From Lord of the Rings to Star Trek, any game can be governed by the same rules.

Ultimately, I suppose it's an introduction to RPGs for myself and hopefully my gaming group. A game that tries to bridge the simplicity of tabletop gaming with the depth and narrative of an RPG. Something that a non-gamer could hopefully appreciate and play a session of without having to learn exhaustive tables, stats and rules.

In hindsight, all of that sounds rather grand, but really, this is just a bit of fun. It's my second attempt at designing a game from the ground up (my last was a 1/72 20th Century battle system) and I'm genuinely interested in feedback and criticism on this system if anyone would be willing to provide it. By all means, feel free to try this out for yourself if you like what you see, and let me know how it works.

Thanks in advance, and please be honest with criticism. I have absolutely no idea if I'm on the right lines or not.

10 pages? I think you're on the right track, it can't possibly be too bloated and complicated with only ten

I'll give these a read as I get the chance, curious to see what you've come up with!


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After a quick run-through I'm interested to read it a bit more thoroughly. The way you do things is certainly different from the D&D and d20 stuff I've played before. The experience handling and development looks simple but it would take some testing to see how it works out. Will have to read it some more and maybe roll a few dice.

Cheers for taking a look.

I think 10 pages for the core rules and a whole expansion means I'm on the right path too; I envision this being something I can hand out on a gaming day/evening to the guys and we can be up and running in 30 minutes. With everything based on the same single mechanic and some basic addition, I'm hoping there won't be too much to memorise.

I honestly have no idea how D&D handles this stuff, so I don't know if being different is a good thing or not, but as none of the people I'll be playing with have played D&D before, there shouldn't be anything to 'unlearn' or anything like that. Out of interest, if someone could give me a VERY BASIC run down of how D&D handles combat, I'd be grateful, there may well be some ideas or facets that I've overlooked that I could 'borrow' from it.

The Experience mechanic is the bit I'm least confident with; I'm trying to work out some kind of formula to increase the EXP needed per increase, but without playtesting that will be the hard bit. I'm going to try and run a session with my brother tonight and see how it goes, which might make things a little more obvious where the shortcomings are.

Thanks again.


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An update: I've run a simple session with my brother, in which he managed to get into a fight with every faction in Mos Eisley, get a double critical hit and one-shot a Sith, and start a small riot.

Of the system itself, it seems to work ok, all I'm thinking so far is that the test parameters for Simple tests need to be lowered, given that in most cases, there won't be an item adding a bonus so it's just Stat+D20. Maybe increments of 5 rather than 10. Other than that, it seems to be working so far, and we both had a good laugh.

The experience thing you can figure out and adjust as you go. It may be that you need to figure out some benchmarks for a stat increase is more valuable than before. Without having explored things thoroughly or anything, it seems like being able to just mash +1 to a desirable skill each time you level may allow players to stack stats to the point of being way too tough or hitty. There may be a point where it has to start costing them 2 points for 1 as they go. maybe. Maybe it won't be an issue.

It might be potentially time consuming to level NPCs like that, but I've always felt that NPC stats are in the background and don't 100% have to follow the same system as players, they just need something solid to interact with. IE: arbitrarily pick their stats as necessary to give a proper challenge

Ok, combat for D&D:

Kick in the door, pass a detection style skill check, conversation starts it, whatever. The fight starts so we go to step 1:

Everyone rolls initiative (d20+init mod, which gets a bonus from dexterity and potentially feats)

Players act in initiative order.

Each player gets their choice of a full action, two partial actions, and a free action 5 ft step (for positioning). Can only attack once, but can move twice, or do other sundry actions like swapping/dropping/picking up items and so on.

All d20 system action are well.. d20s, armor class works differently than what you're using, but basically your stats/feats/gear modify your base number and successful attacks are those which roll over it. On a successful hit you roll separately for damage. Damage is given in the stats of the weapon or spell used. For d20 system games it can be anything from a d3 to a d20, 2d4, 1d4+1, stuff like that. Usually there is a modifier added to the damage from strength or magic weapons etc.

Go through each player/npc/monster taking actions as they desire.

At the last one, start over at the top. It only takes a long time when you have to consider the larger number of potential action a character can take.. Like spells. Also lots of little actions like bull rush, grappling, trips, disarms, defensive spellcasting, and so on. Usually it bogs down for us as people are trying to decide what to do.

Oh there are also some initiative step modifying actions, you can delay to adjust your place in the initiative queue (stays for the rest of combat), and ready actions to intercept certain enemy activities (those get persnickety if you ask me).

So uhh... that wasn't very brief my bad

TLDR

Roll initiative
act in order
each entity gets move+fight, move+move, etc.
move to next
loop after last


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I was thinking you could do wizards and the like pretty easily with your system too. Screw complicated and potentially boring systems like spells per day or mana management... just treat their combat spells like any other weapon.

You might have to do some playtesting but you could potentially work in more extreme and area of effect spells. And of course the stats for a fireball in one game could easily be used as a frag grenade or antipersonnel rocket in another

Would have to do some rolling to figure things out. Don't want AoE doing exponentially more damage for each target hit. There's a trick to balancing that but I haven't got a good suggestion atm.

Thanks for the run down, it gives me an idea of what I'm not doing, and in all honesty, I prefer my system. It lacks a lot of that depth, but I think it keeps things simple with everything being based the same way. The init order is something I've kept in mine, but I just put them in Speed order, rather than adding modifiers. I might play with that, to give a little more chance for slower characters to sometimes act faster than normal if they roll well.

I agree the exp system needs work, and I really wasn't thinking of levelling NPCS to be honest, I just have a list of 'base NPCs' (eg Guard, Guard Captain, Civilian, Vendor, Pirate ect) and use those stats as a base for all encounters. It means I've already got a 'scale' of sorts in place for easier/hard encounters, as I know that 1 Guard is the same as any other Guard, and so I can bring in another Guard and the encounter will be twice as hard.

With Magic/The Force/whatever other supernatural stuff (hell, I'm even thinking of doing a Superhero expansion) I was thinking largely the same thing. You'd simply sub the Strength stat with the Sensitivity stat, pick a 'spell' which has a profile like equipment, and take the test.

I've only looked at it briefly. Looking good so far! Nice and simple, a bit complex, but doesn't look too hard or complex to use this introduce to people new to tabletop RPGs.

I have a billion things happening right now, but I can maybe give it a shot if I have the time later.

Just at a curiosity, how would someone make stats for a new setting? Let's say... Mass Effect? Do we just punch them in how we see fit or do you think there should be a template of some sort?

I haven't read it yet but I assume it is the worst thing in the history and retroactively responsible for the extinction of dinosaurs. This is just a preliminary critique of course, after I have read it maybe things will change.

Thanks for taking a look.

As for making stats, a lot of it comes down to 'feel', and it's all relative. For the initial stats of Player characters, I took 10 as being the 'base line' for humans, less than than means you're below average, more than that means you're better than average at that (this was based on the idea than, with a 10 stat, you'd pass an Easy test 50% of the time). For NPCs, I just did it based on 'should this guy be worse, as good as or better than the various PC stats. So for 'grunt' characters, 7 is around average, for bosses I could see 12+ being a base, as PCs will have levelled by the time they fight them.

So there's no real formula other than making it relative to each other and the setting. I have no knowledge of Mass Effect, but hopefully the above gives some idea of the relative balancing that I've attempted.

It's also worth noting that the GM has a duty to try and keep things balanced, but also to provide varying levels of challenge. So if the player character finds themselves in a situation where they are hopelessly outmatched, other options should be available, such as making a sneak attack to start with (swap Stealth for Strength and Awareness for Defence when rolling damage) or causing a distraction (Intuition test).

As an example, in my playthrough yesterday, my brother's character found himself surrounded by Guards at their base, so chose to take one hostage and blag his way out rather than going straight for the shootout. So there's a need for both the GM and the players to be flexible in how they handle it, but at the same time, the GM shouldn't shy away from hard encounters to encourage alternatives to combat if that fits with the setting/narrative.

There should be an edit incoming tonight (I'll update this post when it's done). I need to fix the difficulty levels for the Simple tests (make them 20-25-30 ect rather than 20-30-40...) and add a little more explanation on some specific Combat actions.


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 Ahtman wrote:
I haven't read it yet but I assume it is the worst thing in the history and retroactively responsible for the extinction of dinosaurs. This is just a preliminary critique of course, after I have read it maybe things will change.

Haha, the Dinosaurs had it coming...

Hope you like it when you take a look.


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And, updates. The additions are:

A revision of the difficulty levels as mentioned above.
Details of how to resole Stealth and Magic attacks.

Here's another idea. How about a perk/ flaw system? Each player picks one perk to their character as well as a flaw?
For example, a sergeant still has contacts from his squad (perk), but has very bad aim (flaw)

I like those as incremental rewards too. For saving the salamander kingdoms mega volcano from blowing up the players gain flame-kin granting +5 defense against fire and maybe a limited use 'magic' ranged fire attack. Nothing op but nice and useful

SkavenLord wrote:Here's another idea. How about a perk/ flaw system? Each player picks one perk to their character as well as a flaw?
For example, a sergeant still has contacts from his squad (perk), but has very bad aim (flaw)

Interesting idea, I'll certainly consider it when I expand the exp/perk system, which does need a major rework, I think. Really, I need to try and run a long-ish session soon with my gaming group where characters level a few times to see how best to do that. But I do like the idea that being better at one thing but at the expense of another. For example, a character could get better awareness (boost to Intuition) but take things slower because of that (drop in Speed).

GrimDork wrote:I like those as incremental rewards too. For saving the salamander kingdoms mega volcano from blowing up the players gain flame-kin granting +5 defense against fire and maybe a limited use 'magic' ranged fire attack. Nothing op but nice and useful

This is, again, something I might throw in when running a longer session. Even if it's just something like upgraded weapons at the end of a quest or the like, the idea is that there is progression in this system, and the relative freedom I've given the GM would allow that sort of stuff to be easily put in. The idea is, really, that between the GM and players, you should be able to do anything you can think of. The stats, outside of combat, are really just there to prodvide a framework for doing so.

In the words of a certain pirate captain, 'they're more guidelines, rather than actual rules.'

Heh, quote thee not of the pirate, for he is misrepresented and oversold!



Yeah, basically, the way I've come to look at DM/GMing boils down to keeping everyone at the table having fun. Some people will want complicated rules to explore/exploit, others just want to roll dice, and some just wanna role play. Just gotta figure out what everyone wants. If the players get extra powerful from the goodies/upgrades you've given them, just amp up the badguys until it's a challenge again.

 GrimDork wrote:
If the players get extra powerful from the goodies/upgrades you've given them, just amp up the badguys until it's a challenge again.

Haha, that's the plan. The guys get too good, I start throwing Star Destroyers at them

I might have another look at the exp system today, and add in some more perks/drawbacks. The thing I want to avoid, on the whole, is perks that give a buff to certain rolls, as they then just replace putting levels into that stat instead. So I plan to introduce some drawbacks, and have more varied perks, like better critical chance, negatives to enemy NPC tests ect, to actually make it a choice between levelling a stat or saving for a perk.

 Paradigm wrote:

 GrimDork wrote:
If the players get extra powerful from the goodies/upgrades you've given them, just amp up the badguys until it's a challenge again.

Haha, that's the plan. The guys get too good, I start throwing Star Destroyers at them

I might have another look at the exp system today, and add in some more perks/drawbacks. The thing I want to avoid, on the whole, is perks that give a buff to certain rolls, as they then just replace putting levels into that stat instead. So I plan to introduce some drawbacks, and have more varied perks, like better critical chance, negatives to enemy NPC tests ect, to actually make it a choice between levelling a stat or saving for a perk.

There's another RPG that uses a perk/ flaw system called All Flesh Must Be Eaten. Instead of having the perk improve the related stat, it improves the roll if it's related to the perk.
For example, Kermit the Frog's flaw is alcoholic - 1. (it's a long story) So, whenever he shoots or does something that his alcoholism (that's a word right?) might interfere with, he takes - 1 to the roll.

I see. That makes sense, so it's a trait that can affect multiple actions/stats rather than just a solid stat boost/debuff. I like the idea. Thanks.

Probably take a note from fallout new Vegas for the initial trait perks. Give an option of somewhere like 0-2 or 0-3, none if you want to be plain/average without any debilitating drawbacks... but a limited cap so as to curtail extensive minmaxing.

I should also think perks gained from leveling or as quest rewards needn't 'necessarily' have drawbacks. Some might.. gaining the wisdom of the ages lowers your speed as you become more cautious, but maybe getting a medical implant just gives you bonus HP and no weakness. I think the charg gen traits use negatives to balance starter characters, but sometimes they can just earn a reward or get stronger without taking steps back.

Yeah, I certainly wasn't thinking of a drawback on all stats, just some to create a difference between perks and just levelling a skill normally.

Good idea about the initial stats too, it would be a bit mental if someone just ploughed all the perks into one stat and one-shotted everything from level 1. Maybe a limit of 3, which, combined with the class, allows you to specialise a lot but without making characters entirely OP.