RPG Design: No Dice RPG

I figured this was an area I was doing more and more work in, so I might as well make a snazzy new header for RPG Design.  Mostly the work in this space is for my own edification.  I am a part of an active, in-person RPG group that meets weekly.  In addition, the True Crit Gaming Guild also has some active Role-Players in it as well.  

Role-playing is really my roots in Wargaming. I was a role-player before I was a wargamer.  I often find it easier to get into Role-playing groups than it is to find fellow miniature Wargamers.  Therefore, RPGs have always been close to my heart.  As a designer, I am still pretty fascinated by the overlap between the two genres.

I all ready have a Drive Thru RPG account that I publish on.  Therefore, it made sense that I should finally give RPG Design its own space and header on the blog.  If you search the interwebs you will find a lot of people with a lot of opinions on RPG design.  You will find way more than you will ever find on Wargame Design.  I am just a dabbler in this space, and if you want serious thoughts on RPG Design you should really go elsewhere.  

I recently put a new game on my Blood and Spectacles page on Drive Thru RPG.  

Over COVID, I became interested in Play-by-Post games on forums and other Social Media.  Often times, these games used an existing, Paper-and-Pencil system with a dice system built into the resolution.  I found this experience sub-optimal when playing in a primarily isolated, text-based environment.  It was clear that the systems were not designed to function in the medium and the GMs and players were just trying to replicate the tabletop experience.  Such systems did not excel in the emergent narrative form of Play-by-Post games.  

Therefore, I set about to create a system that could be player in-person, but was really designed for playing in a Text-based medium where the focus was on cooperative, compelling, emergent narrative more than accomplishing tasks.  The goal was to create a system that used no dice, and instead leaned into words as the way to solve challenges.  The game was focused on narrative and using Keywords to drive the resolution mechanics in order to create collaborative stories.  

Here's how it works.  Players make Characters that are built using Keywords focusing on their past, present, interests, drives, ties, and tools.  There are no numbers when building a character and all the details are Keywords.  Character creation was intended to build fast, interesting characters that allowed a Player to lean into the role-playing quickly and easily.  

The game is led by the Narrator.  They act as the Gamemaster who run the non-player characters, set the scenes, and determine how the scene reacts to Character actions.  They also place challenges in front of the Characters.  

Challenges can be overcome by Characters who narrate solutions to the challenges using their Keywords.  Players are encouraged to team-up and build on other people's Narration with their own Keywords.  Link enough Keywords together and you can bypass the challenges.  If you can't the story goes a different direction and those Keywords are exhausted for further use.  This keeps the game moving quickly without a single dice needing to be rolled.  

This Keyword based system is very loose and open to Player and Narrator cooperation.  The Narrator decides the Genre and Time Period of the game.  The Keywords allow almost any trope or character type to be pulled into the game. You can have a gritty crime drama, a violent war story, a silly cartoon show, or a rollicking dungeon adventure using the system.  The focus is not on genre, but leaning into the story that your group is telling together. 

This is a Rules-Lite system with a lot of Narrator autonomy to make judgements.  The focus in on story-telling and collaboration.  The focus is on telling compelling stories, having good character interactions, and having fun.  It can be used for stand-alone One-Shots or Short Campaigns easily.  

Content for Legend of the 5 Rings

I have always wanted to run a Legend of the 5 Rings campaign, and this year I was able to do that!  I ran a mini-campaign called One Year in Rokugan.  It was intended to by played by 4-6 characters from various clans and schools and focused on a relatively isolated portion of the L5R world.  I ran the game using 3rd Edition rules.  

The campaign was 4 sets of adventures focused on the four seasons.  Once complete, the Characters would have lived in Rokugan for 1 year.  Each adventure was designed to introduce new elements of Rokugan culture and motifs for an L5R game.  As the players went along, they learned more about Bushido, the justice system, the Shadowlands, Honor, and more.  It was often interwoven into the adventures and built as the campaign went.  When I ran the game, we completed it in about 12 sessions, so 3 months.      

Thankfully, I wrote the adventures down.  That means, I was able to bundle them all together and release the One Year in Rokugan campaign to the Blood and Spectacles Drive Thru RPG Page.  It is a free campaign, so feel free to check it out and give it a shot.  It includes sample 3rd Edition characters, but is mostly Edition agnostic and no stat blocks are used.  

Let me know what you think.  

Module for Flashlight: Tales of Terror

I have had a module for my rules-lite horror RPG Flashlight: Tales of Terror for some time written.  I had even run it twice.  However, I finally got it formatted all nice and made-up for proper presentation.  The module is called, Insanity at Snowden Manor and has a bit of old-haunted house Gothic Horror, some mystery, all mixed in with some more sinister Monster and Body Horror.  

I think this module requires about 4-8 hours to play, and can easily be broken up into two sessions.  I have run it with 1 Game Master and up to 6 players.  I think it works best with 4 players though.  There is not much discussion of "mechanics" as it is designed to be system agnostic for the most part.  You could run this in any horror-style rpg such as Call of Cthulhu. 

Final Thoughts

Well, the first published items for 2024 and they weren't even Wargames!  I still have other plans for RPG content coming up.  

• Starter Campaign for G.I. Joe: The Role-Playing Game
• A full Space Mecha Theatre Role-playing Game
• A second Episode for Princes of the Universe

Therefore, keep your eyes open for this RPG Design header in 2024.  I don't think this is the last content you will see for RPGs this year! 

Become a Patron and get access to all the cool stuff, a peak behind the curtain of Blood and Spectacles, and early-access to playtest games!  

Blood and Spectacles Patreon! 

You can follow Blood and Spectacles Facebook page or Instagram for more fun! 

Check out the latest publications and contact me at our Blood and Spectacles website

Or purchase all out games at the Blood and Spectacles Publishing Wargames Vault Page!       

  

RPG Design: Princes of the Universe- An Immortal Themed RPG

 Greetings gentle readers.  

Most of you that have followed the blog know that I like to dabble in all sorts of game designs, and not just Wargames.  I have designed board games, card games, and wargames for myself and others.  However, today I want to delve into the world of Role-playing Games a bit.  

I actually started my RPG journey before my wargame journey.  I learned how to play "Red Box" D&D from a friend's dad; a Lutheran pastor.  I picked up all the boxed sets from a little bookstore in the local strip mall, the only strip mall within a day's bike ride!  From there, I managed to scrap and scrape together the basic AD&D books, the Buck Rogers RPG, and the TSR Marvel Super Heroes game.  As a teen, I played a lot of West End Games D6 Star Wars and Shadowrun.  Many of the books have been lost to time, and I still lament the loss of my Masters edition boxed set.  Shortly there after, an ad in Dragon magazine sucked me into the world of Warhammer and I have managed to juggle my two RPG and Wargame hobbies every since.  

Now that I am older, having regular RPG nights and/or Wargame nights is much easier.  I was able to get into a local RPG session much easier than I was able to get into the wargaming community!  The wargaming scene had a number of starts and stops.  Meanwhile, I have had a long running RPG group with a dedicated weekly game night, that was only interrupted by COVID, but has since re-grouped after vaccines became widely available.  

The re-engagement with this group has rekindled my interest in RPGs.  Thanks to this group I have been able to play and run a few more modern games such as Dune, Lasers and Feelings, Monster of the Week, Those Dark Places, and more.  The group is primarily a Dungeons and Dragons 5e group, but we are not averse to spreading our wings a bit!  Thankfully, we have several people who are capable of being game masters as well as players too!  

All of this regular activity has led me to be interested in designing and playing RPGs.  However, today I wanted to share a game called Princes of the Universe.  This is a free game that I am making available to the public at no cost, as I do not own any of the copyrights for the source material.  

Way back in 1995, I used to huddle up to my dial operated, 13 inch color television on Sunday night.  There, I would watch a variety of syndicated television shows late into the night.  Shows like Cleopatra 2099, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess, Jack of All Trades, and others.  However, they all capped off by my favorite show Highlander: The Series!  With the advent of streaming services, I was able to revisit this series again in 2021 and 2022.  

I recall vaguely thinking back in 1995, that I would play the heck out of a Highlander themed RPG.  However, that was about as far as I had gotten.  Fast forward to 2021, and I finally got to put it all together and play several sessions of Princes of the Universe, my own take on a Highlander RPG.  

How Does the Game Work?

I had a few games for inspiration as I went into this one, but in order to capture the vast world and mythos of Highlander the game was going to need to be Rules-Lite.  In addition, I needed it to be able to ape the episodic nature of the show and movies.  The game had to use a narrative structure for its sessions.  There were two main existing games that I looked at for inspiration: The Modiphius 2d20 system, and the Powered by the Apocalypse system.  I had used the first in the Dune: The Role-Playing Game and the second in games of Monster of the Week and really enjoyed them for the way they used abstraction and decision making to drive the game.  

I had also seen a lot of games making use of Meta-currency in their rules.  I was initially skeptical of this mechanic, as I am a huge believer in GM Fiat as a driver of RPGs.  Therefore, putting restrictions via Meta-currency seemed counter-productive to me.  However, in this game the Meta-currency allowed the GM to avoid opposed dice rolls, and still impact the game and make decisions to control the flow of the game.  

So, now that you know the inspirations of the game, let's talk a bit about how it works on the table.  A character is made up of 5 Attributes 1-5, and 5 Values 1-5.  When the player needs to make a test, the Watcher (The GM) will assign them an Attribute and the Player chooses a value related to the action.  The two added together are the target number of a d12 test.  If you roll a d12 and score under the target number, that is a success.  

In addition to an attribute, the Watcher will also assign a difficulty between 1-5 and that is the number of Successes a player needs to roll to succeed a test.  Something that is very difficult may require more than 1 d12 roll to succeed.  Players can earn these extra dice with Focus or other unique attributes of the character.  However, the most common way is by accessing the groups Quickening pool.  

A Quickening Pool is a set of dice that the players can access through-out the game.  This pool number varies based on previous success, and how often it is used.  Therefore, tough challenges will require them to access the pool.  If the Pool is empty, the players can access more Quickening from the Watcher as well.  However, by doing this the Watcher then earns Quickening dice that they can use to add complications to the players.  There are other actions, like failed rolls that also generate Quickening for the Watcher to spend.  It is this interplay of Quickening usage that is the heart of the game.    

How does it capture the feel of Highlander? 

The system itself is very character and player driven.  Players can prioritize the Attributes of a character, but also their Values.  Since Highlander: The Series is a morality play with swords these details allow the player to quickly and easily flesh out what the character values, and it applies to their successes and failures.  

In addition, the system uses a method I call Drive, Ties, and Burdens that flesh out a character but also drive advantages that the Player can leverage later in the game.  Taking Drives, Ties, and Burdens quickly fleshes out the character while also giving them access to Focuses (skills), equipment, and fighting techniques.  

Finally, there is the Quickening itself.  Yes, it is a dice pool that can be accesses, but it is also an attribute too.  This can be used to trigger flashbacks, create connections, heal injury, and avoid getting your head cut-off!  This is determined by an immortals age. 

Finally, you do not have to be an Immortal!  Some of the best characters on Highlander: The Series were mortals.  These characters can not access the Quickening pool, they can only take it from the Watcher.  However, in exchange the Watcher can not spend Quickening to directly impact a Mortal character.  Therefore, Mortals can be a vital part of the game.  Plus, Mortals are not subject to the rules of the Immortal head-hunting "Game".   

Darius and Duncan play Chess

What is playing a game like?  

There is a sample of game play in the rules.  However, playing the game is a very different experience.  First off, the narrative is very "player driven".  The Watcher is there to ask questions to drive the game, more than determine results or dictate the rules.  The players themselves are the ones who create the story lines and the relationships.  

For example, the Watcher may start an adventure like this:

You see a news report featuring the death of a man that you recognize.  Who is he?  Why do you care about his death?  How do you react to seeing the news?     

How the players respond is what drives the game forward more than anything the Watcher does.  In the example above, the man may have been part of their past; and trigger a flashback about their time together in post-war Japan.  Or they may decide that they did not know this man, but instead they know his sister.  They could also decide that they do not know this man, and he means nothing but what is interesting is that he was on the team the uncovered the Golden Cross of Coronado, which they had hid away nearly 200 years ago!  Now what?    

In addition, the Watcher asks the players to determine the results of actions and success.  

"Your characters were trying to sneak onboard the yacht in the slip, but they failed their checks by 1 success.  What happens?

The Watcher has final say, but the players dictate the general direction and flow of the game.  They might say that their failure caught the attention of a security guard, they were captured on camera sneaking in, or that the boat slipped its moorings and began to sail away with them on it!   

This collaborative story approach is very different than many RPGs, but it is necessary as the players may want to trigger flashbacks, explore memories, and take action in the past or present.  Since such actions are tied so closely to the characters, it would be impossible for a Watcher to pre-plan some of these elements; therefore the game relies heavily on player input to continue and drive the narrative.  The game uses an abstracted approach to combat, intrigue, dueling, investigations and other task checks to allow players the freedom to craft the story they want to tell.  The Watcher simply places complications in their path in the form of other Immortals, physical obstacles, spiritual obstacles, political obstacles and more.  The idea is to build and follow a Highlander themed story.   

Final Thoughts

Two and a half decades in the making, I finally had the technical and creative skills to create an RPG experience that I have wanted to try since I first watched Duncan spar with Connor, mentor Richie, and romance Tess.  I was ecstatic to actually play these rules with some fellow RPGers who only knew the very basics of Highlander, and most of their experience was with 5e D&D.  It was an RPG experience like none of them have had before.  It was such a pleasure to introduce and lead them through a short campaign of Princes of the Universe.  

Hopefully, you can now take a shot at playing the game for yourself too.  Let me know what you think and how it goes.  

You can find a copy here: Princes of the Universe

Become a Patron and get access to all the cool stuff, a peak behind the curtain of Blood and Spectacles, and early-access to playtest games!  

Blood and Spectacles Patreon! 

You can follow Blood and Spectacles Facebook page or Instagram for more fun! 

Check out the latest publications and contact me at our Blood and Spectacles website

Or purchase all out games at the Blood and Spectacles Publishing Wargames Vault Page!

Role-Playing Game Design - Rules-Light Horror

 

You, my loyal reader, know that I like to dabble in all sorts of game design.  My primary focus has been in wargames, but that is not the only type of games I have worked on.  I have built card games, board games, and other simple games for my own amusement as well.  One area I have commented on previously and actively play is Role-playing Games (RPGs).

I actually started my RPG journey before my wargame journey.  I learned how to play "Red Box" D&D from a friend's dad; a Lutheran pastor.  I picked up all the boxed sets from a little bookstore in the local strip mall, the only strip mall within a day's bike ride!  From there, I managed to scrap and scrape together the basic AD&D books, the Buck Rogers RPG, and the TSR Marvel Super Heroes game.  As a teen, I played a lot of West End Games D6 Star Wars and Shadowrun.  Many of the books have been lost to time, and I still lament the loss of my Masters edition boxed set.  Shortly there after, an ad in Dragon magazine sucked me into the world of Warhammer and I have managed to juggle my two RPG and Wargame hobbies every since.  

Now that I am older, having regular RPG nights and/or Wargame nights is much easier.  I was able to get into a local RPG session much easier than I was able to get into the wargaming community!  The wargaming scene had a number of starts and stops.  Meanwhile, I have had a long running RPG group with a dedicated weekly game night, that was only interrupted by COVID, but has since re-grouped after vaccines became widely available.  

The re-engagement with this group has rekindled my interest in RPGs.  Thanks to this group I have been able to play and run a few more modern games such as Dune, Lasers and Feelings, Monster of the Week, Those Dark Places, and more.  The group is primarily a Dungeons and Dragons 5e group, but we are not averse to spreading our wings a bit!  Thankfully, we have several people who are capable of being game masters as well as players too!  

All of this regular activity has led me to be interested in designing and playing RPGs.  Today, I want to share a simple rules-lite game I built for running a horror themed one-shot.  

Before you begin to play, it is important that you set the appropriate ground rules for your players, this is a horror game after all.  Therefore, some of the themes are vulnerability, insanity, hopelessness, and bad things happening to good people.  Horror could include supernatural, alien, or human behavior that violates normal taboos.  Therefore, before you play make sure that you understand where your players draw the line, and make sure not to go so far as to ruin the fun for any of your players.  That said, they maybe the 'heroes' in the game, but in Horror heroes die, or worse have to pay a terrible cost.   

So, with the appropriate guidelines set for the players, let's take a look at the brief rules of the game. 

 

A Lite Game of Horror   

Key Mechanics

• Roll a d6 and add your character's attribute to it
• 7+ is a partial success, and an 8+ is a success, 12 is a critical success.
• Relevant Occupation is a +2, Hobby is a +1, Weakness is a -1 and Terror is a -2.  The player is encouraged to make a case for why these modifiers apply, but ultimately it is up to the GM when to use these mods. 
• Relevant equipment is +1.  The player is encouraged to make a case for why these modifiers apply, but ultimately it is up to the GM when to use these mods. 
• If one player helps another player, the acting player can roll twice and chose the highest score to apply

A partial success is something that appears successful at first, but all may not be as it seems.  The GM may choose to reverse the success or add a complication based on the success.  For example, you may successfully open a sealed door, but the noise is loud enough to alert someone to your presence. 

A Critical Success results in the player earning more than what they initially were trying to do.  This could be an additional benefit narrated by the player but approved by the GM.  If it is an attack, all damage is doubled.  For example, a player scores a critical success to open a sealed door, but a critical allows them to open it and then choose to also re-lock it behind them.  

Attributes

·       Class- Social standing, charm, and wit

·       Brains- Perception, speed of thought, and learning

·       Brawn- Physical abilities such as strength, endurance, stamina

·       Reflex- Speed, hand eye coordination, and agility

 o   Brains + Brawn/2 round down = Nerve which is used to resolve Insanity Checks

o   Class = Used for Acquisition tests, also +1 equipment for each point of Class over 1.

o   Reflex = Initiative for actions when timing matters

o   Insanity = Brains Attribute level

o   Wounds = Brawn Attribute level

You have 1, 2, 3, and 4 to allocate across these four areas with no duplicates in an attribute.   

Insanity 

If a player is asked to make a Nerve test, roll a 1d6 and add the character's Nerve.  If failed, they have an episode.  If succeeded, the PC is fine.  Every time you Fail a Nerve test, the PC lose 1 sanity and are subject to an episode.  

In addition, as you lose your grip on sanity, you can ask the GM one close ended question about the situation.  The GM must answer as truthfully as they can.  Example questions could be: 

• Is Mr. X the killer?
• Can this thing be harmed by fire? 
• Is this book related to a cult?  

If a character loses all their sanity, they are catatonic for the rest of the game.  After the game, your character is clinically insane for the rest of their life. 

 ·       Episodes

If an episode occurs due to a failed Nerve check, roll 1d6 and consult the chart below:

1-  Shaking.  You experience uncontrollable shaking, and must re-roll Reflex rolls and choose the worst. 

2-   Fatigue.  You are suddenly very, very tired. All brawn rolls are re-rolled and you must choose the worst outcome. 

3-   Brain Reeling.  You have a hard time focusing.  All Brains tests must be re-rolled with the worst outcome being chosen. 

4-   Rigid.  You are rooted to the spot, unable to take your eyes off what caused the episode until is removed, or you are removed from it.  After the episode, you must re-roll all Class tests and choose the worst outcome. 

5-   Catatonia.  You fall to the floor, unable to move or act for 1d6 minutes.  After you recover, all Nerve tests must be re-rolled and the worse outcome chosen. 

6-   Insane fear and violence.  You must escape the source of the episode at all costs.  You will flee, and fight anyone who stands in your way.  Once away from the source of the episode, you will suffer catatonia as above.  

Combat

If a character loses all their wounds, they go to unconscious and possibly dead. 

At the start of combat, all players make a Reflex roll and tell the GM the number.  Actions take place from highest number to lowest.  Enemies always act at 7, but after players that score a 7.  If there is a tie between players, the players decide who they want to go first.       

-          Melee is d6 + Brawn = success or not

-          Ranged is d6 + Reflex = success or not

These same checks are used when attacked, with success avoiding damage and failure leading to damage.  Failure typically causes 1 wound loss.  

Each hit causes 1 physical wound, with +1 wounds for appropriate equipment.  A critical causes double wounds.  

Enemies have as many wounds as the GM wants, but humans should have between 1-4, and horror based creatures should not have more than the total parties starting Wounds.

          

Design Philosophy

That's all the rules!  As I built these simple rules, I had a few major ideas driving them.  The first, and most important element of the design is that I believe the "only rule that matters" in an RPG is how to determine success and failure for the players.  Everything else is fluff.  Therefore, if you are trying to make a Rules-Lite system, the focus has to be on this core question; how does a player know they have succeeded/failed?  Therefore, the most ink is spilled on this question. 

Typically, the answer is a combination of skills, abilities, and equipment.  I stripped these elements down to the barest of essentials. 

Beyond that, I also wanted a game where GM Decisions were important BUT the GM role never had to make a single dice roll.  All dice rolling was intended to be done by the players, with the GM interpreting results of player declared actions based on the results.  To me, the power of GM is the signature element of a RPG, and is the best feature.  It is not a bug, and the GMs role to make decisions and interpret results should be expansive in an RPG.         

You will also notice, that the game will be shaped by failure as much as success!  The threshold for a partial success is 7+.  You are rolling a d6, so your best attribute will have a range of 5 to 10 while your worst will have a 1 to 7.  This makes using your Hobby, Occupation, and equipment critically important.  In addition, your Terror, weakness, or an episode will make it extremely hard for you to succeed.  The more Episodes you have, the more you will death spiral on attribute tests without careful use of modifiers.    

Finally, this game was designed to have quick build characters.  There are two reasons for this.  The first is that it is a one-shot, so we will likely not use them again.  Speed to build was critical.  Secondly, in a horror game characters tend to die, so quick character creation makes it easy to replace them.  That said, the Occupation/Hobby and Weakness/Terror system and simple attributes will easily give players a quick sense of the character so they can dive in quickly.  This system also rewards Role-playing the character and provides in game support for doing so.  Simple yet deep enough. 

The rules are also time period agnostic, so these games could be modern, set in the past, in a fantasy world, or sci-fi.  The choices is yours!  Our game happened to be set in the Catskill Mountains of New York state in 1890, but they could have been in our D&D world, on a space station, modern day Cuba, etc.  These could also use minis and maps, but works just fine as theatre of the mind.    

Going Beyond the One-Shot 

Finally, the rules above are intended to be played as a One-shot.  If you wanted a campaign, experience rules would be easy to add.  For every wound and insanity you lose, you gain 1 experience..... if you survive the game without going to 0 wounds/insanity.  If you do not survive you make no gains.  If you go to 0 Insanity/Wounds you can survive but at the cost of taking a new weakness/terror or losing equipment.           

You can then use experience to increase an Ability for a new level x4 (i.e. going from Class 1 to Class 2 would cost 8), for every 10 you could buy a single re-roll to use as needed, use 10 to make a new acquisition test for some equipment out of game, or buy a new Hobby/remove a Weakness for 10; with Occupations/Terrors costing 25.     

Conclusion

The Death Spiral was by design!  This is a horror game, and the cost of success is great.  In the one-shot we played, of four characters; 1 died of injury, 2 went insane, and the last one had to flee into the winter wilderness while everything burned down around them!  This was all part of the big finale.  That is how horror games should end.    

That said, the idea behind horror games is that characters are caught up in things they can not truly handle and that is beyond their ability.  Therefore, the rules are designed to reflect ordinary folks going against extra-ordinary circumstances.  In addition, they give the players leeway to role-play for benefits and make decisions and the GM the space to apply complications, determine results and make rulings.  

If you give them a try, let me know what you think! 

  

Become a Patron and get access to all the cool stuff, a peak behind the curtain of Blood and Spectacles, and early-access to playtest games!  

Blood and Spectacles Patreon! 

You can follow Blood and Spectacles Facebook page or Instagram for more fun! 

Check out the latest publications and contact me at our Blood and Spectacles website

Or purchase all out games at the Blood and Spectacles Publishing Wargames Vault Page!

Random: Storytime RPG

Along time ago, I stumbled across these cool little set of dice called Rory's Story Cubes. They are standard 6-sided dice with various pictures and symbols on them. They come in three sets, a standard set, an actions set, and a voyages set. Each has some basic themes on the dice.  Now there are all sorts of themes. 

Since discovering these dice 5-7 years ago I have always wanted to build an RPG game in use with these dice. However, I also hate “Proprietary Dice” with my games so I never got around to it since Rory's Story Cubes are the very definition of Proprietary Dice. Therefore, I never did much more with it.

I have been playing RPGs even longer than I have been playing wargames. I first learned on the good old Red Box Dungeons and Dragons. I was taught at the foot of a Lutheran pastor, and I have never looked back. Since then I have played a variety of systems from Shadowrun, Legend of the Five Rings, FUDGE, D&D of various stripes, Dark Heresy, GURPS, and more. Two notable absences from my list are Call of Cthulu and any of the White Wolf systems. In addition, to these established systems I have played various home-brews and even made up several campaigns on my own on the fly.

To me, the emphasis in an Role-playing game is the Role-playing, as opposed to Roll-playing. In essence, I feel that Role-Playing Games are a shared story-telling experience where the GM sets the stage and scenario while the Players move the action and plot along with their characters. In essence, the GM and Players need to work together for a good game.

In my limited experience, more mechanics actually can hinder a game and railroad players into trying to accomplish certain objectives instead of helping them tell their stories. Accumulating and building in some sort of imaginary game of Minecraft seems to set in, instead of characters growing and developing. That can be fine, but a bunch of extra rules and splat books don't necessarily make a better game. When it comes to RPGs I am a big fan of K.I.S.S.- Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Core Mechanics of an RPG

The key mechanic in an RPG needs to revolve around resolving opposed actions. There comes a point in any RPG, where it will not be clear how to resolve a situation. An NPC and a Player will have opposing goals, and there needs to be a mechanic that determines who succeeds and who fails. That is the only Core mechanic that matters, and everything else is just details.

I have seen some interesting ways this has been done from various Dice systems, Word Ladders, Jenga Towers, Poker Cards, etc. They all have their own advantages and drawbacks. Ultimately, the method doesn't matter so much as long as the players understand it and agree to buy into using it.

In addition, most RPGs have some basic Statistics to measure a characters ability and skills. The stats are usually innate physical abilities, while skills are learned attributes. This is the basic building blocks of a characters' mechanisms.

Basic Characters in this RPG

The basic character is composed of three stats:

Physical- This is a catch all for physical attributes

Mental- This is abilities related to brainpower

Presence- This is all abilities related to interactions

You can divide 8 points between the three categories, with a maximum of 4 in any one category.

Skills are anything you want. Typically, most games have stuff like hand-to-hand combat, shooting guns, gymnastics, playing guitar, building a fire, pre-world war I diplomatic history, etc, etc. In this game, you can choose any skills you want and place a number after each one up to 4, but you can not have more than 6 points of skills.

Of course, a character needs more than just attributes and skills to be a character. You should make a triangle, and then add one personality characteristic on each side of the triangle. For example, Loyal, Folksy, and Disciplined. Then, you should write 2 quirks, eccentricities or habits such as they likes to use a yo-yo, and is a vegetarian. Finally, you should write down 1 reason why people would want this character to succeed such as they are really nice to old ladies.

You now have a character.

Resolving Actions

Resolving actions in this game is very easy. The GM chooses which Attribute you can roll with, and add any skill dice. Roll them all, the GM will let you know how many dice you can keep based on the difficulty of the action. i.e. If you are going to sweet talk an old woman, you might get to keep up to 3 dice, but if you are sweet talking a gang banger it might be only keep 1 dice.

Before you roll, you grab the dice randomly from a pile of all the Rory's Story Cubes. Roll them, and look at the symbols. Choose the ones you will keep. Use the symbols to explain how you resolved the action and what happened next.

The action is resolved.

If it is an opposed roll, both players roll their dice. You keep as many dice as the GM dictates and it may be different by player. The player that initiated the action starts by telling the story with their 1 dice, then the other player, until all dice are spent.

Combat Resolution

Lets be honest, most RPGs have combat as a key action that needs to be resolved. Again, it is very simple in this game. Weapons add dice to add, and Armor subtract it prior to the roll. Weapons can be any value based on the setting, and armor the same. For example, in a Medieval setting a viking axe might add 2, and plate armor 4 dice. In a modern game, the same plate might offer 0-1 dice removal. It can vary depending on the setting.

Rewards

During play the GM or another player can randomly select a dice out of the pool and give it to another player for doing something particularly awesome. This could be good Role-play, a clever idea, a great story, etc.

This player can hold onto that dice and roll it and keep it for any subsequent action/resolution during that night of play. If you want, you can carry them over from session to session. Just grab a random dice from the pool before play begins at the next session.

If you get to 6 dice you can turn them in for 1 skill dice increase, or 10 dice for 1 Characteristic increase.

Conclusion

So there you go. A quick RPG game for you to go out and use. Sure, I recommend having 3 sets of Rory's Story Cubes, or you could use a deck of Tarot cards, or you could use some other way to randomly generate images/emoji's to trigger story resolutions.

I hope you enjoy it. This has been circling around in my head and concept folder for a long time. Now it is out on the page so you can do with it what you want.  

You can see why I stick to wargames.  In my mind, role-playing games do not need enough structure to make them fun to design.  :) 

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