Introduction

This game is not about mighty heroes or powerful wizards. It is about normal, fragile people who have found themselves entangled in the supernatural. Magic is unstable, chaotic, and mysterious. Injury is gruesome, death is frightening, and nobody knows what comes after. In this game, challenges are not solved through glorious heroism, but are overcome through careful planning and cunning solutions.

This game is played with a group of 3 to 6 friends. All the players play the role of a fictional character, except one; one player instead takes on the role of The World, playing the role of the environment and all other characters that exist within it.

Philosophy

• Less is more.Game mechanics are only useful if they can be explained and remembered. Giving players a small set of potent rules is essential for fluent play.
• Cunning is more interesting than combat.Some problems can be resolved by kicking down the door with swords drawn, but it is rarely the most narratively compelling option. Sabotage, stealth, subterfuge, and other forms of skullduggery are often more interesting solutions than direct violence.

Character Creation

First, choose a background. Your character's background dictates their existing skills and equipment.

Second, select three traits. Your character's traits may be used for both good and ill. It is recommended to choose one trait that describes a physical characteristic, one that describes a personality characteristic, and one that describes an ideal or belief.

Third, author three connections. Connections are people your character knows, and can call upon in a time of need. They may not be friendly. These connections start at +1 proficiency.

Checks

1. Select an appropriate skill to use for the check.
2. Roll the d20. If invoking a trait, roll two d20s and keep the higher or lower result, depending on how the trait was invoked.
3. Add the selected skill's proficiency.
4. Apply penalties from wounds. If you are casting a spell, apply penalties from jinx, and bonuses/penalties from ritual.
5. Determine the outcome of the check: 7 or less is a dire result, 8 to 16 is a messy result, and 17 or more is a stellar result.

The result of the check dictates the narrative tone of the outcome. Something always happens when a check is made—whether that ‘something’ is in the players’ favor or not depends on the result.

A stellar outcome is the best case scenario. This typically translates to success without complication, but depending on context, the best case scenario may not be success at all. Sometimes the best thing that could happen is to fail, and by doing so uncover a better way, or avoid complications later.

A messy outcome is a double-edged sword. It could indicate success at a cost, or it could indicate failure with an unexpected benefit. Messy outcomes should always both help and hinder the players.

A dire outcome is a setback. It does not necessarily have to indicate failure, but it does indicate trouble and complications. While dire outcomes should always hinder the players, it should always be interesting.

Natural 1 & 20

When making a check, if the natural result of the d20 roll is exactly 1, mark an additional experience on the skill used for the check, recover from all jinx, and all of your traits that have already been invoked to hinder regain the ability to do so.

When making a check, if the natural result of the d20 roll is exactly 20, mark an additional experience on the skill used for the check, regain all stamina, and all of your traits that have already been invoked to help regain the ability to do so.

Group Challenges

There are tasks that cannot be completed alone, but require the combined effort of a team. In these situations, a group challenge is appropriate.

Time

Gameplay is divided into rounds and turns in order to keep track of time and grant each player chances to take actions. The length of time a round represents is typically 30 minutes, or during action sequences, reduced to 6 seconds, but this is variable. The World is responsible for adjusting the length of rounds to fit the pace of the narrative.

Each round, each character has three turns. A turn represents time equal to one third of a round. Characters can spend one or more turns to perform actions or activities that occupy that span of time. The World is responsible for making sure each player has had chances to spend their turns before proceeding to the next round.

The number of turns any given action costs should be determined based on the amount of time those turns represent and a reasonable estimate for how much time that action takes.

Skills

Characters can learn new skills and improve skills they already have some proficiency in. Whenever a skill is used as part of a check, if the result of that check is messy, that skill gains one experience. If the result is dire, that skill gains two experience instead. Once a skill has an amount of experience equal to 10 + that skill's current proficiency, reset that skill's experience and increase that skill's proficiency by 1.

Learning a new skill is done in the same way; proficiency starts at +0 and increases to +1 once the required amount of experience has been gained.

Connections

Connections are a special kind of skill that represent relationships and history with people, positive or negative. When making a check as part of interaction with a non-player character, you may choose to apply any amount of experience gained from that check to your connection with that non-player character instead of the skill used for that check. Once a connection has a nonzero proficiency, it may be used in place of a skill when making check regarding that non-player character.

Inventory

Each character has five inventory slots. Each inventory slot represents carrying capacity equivalent to one of that character's hands; a handful of small items together only take up one slot, while large items take up two slots.

Characters may also carry a bag, which has five additional inventory slots. Items stored in a bag take a few moments to retrieve and are not considered to be equipped. The bag itself does not occupy an inventory slot.

Backgrounds

A background provides a list of skills to choose from. Choose one skill to start with +3 proficiency in, one skill to start with +2 proficiency in, and three more skills to start with +1 proficiency in. Backgrounds also provide starting equpiment.

Template Background

Starting Equipment

Skills

• Skills
• go
• here

Traits

Traits describe a character's nature, and can be leveraged for both good and ill during gameplay. Traits can represent aspects of a character's heritage, personality, constitution, or even the lasting corruption of magic.

When a player makes a check, if their character has a trait that is relevant to that check, they may invoke that trait to either help or hinder themself. That player must describe how the trait is a help or a hinderance in that situation, then apply the following effects to their check, depending on how it was invoked:

• If the trait was invoked to help, roll two d20s and keep the higher result.
• If the trait was invoked to hinder, roll two d20s and keep the lower result, gain one additional experience on the skill used for the check (regardless of the outcome), and regain one stamina.

Each trait can be invoked once to help and invoked once to hinder, and regains the ability to do so after resting.

Damage

Attacking

Actions performed that would cause harm are called attacks. Attacks have a damage source and are generally performed with weapons, but traps, improvised weapons, and unarmed violence are all considered damage sources as well. Rules regarding weapons apply to all of these things.

Attacks are successful by default. If the target of an attack is aware of it, they may spend one or more actions to hinder that attack by dodging, blocking, etc. When this occurs, for each action spent to hinder the attack by the target, the attacker must make a check. On a stellar result, the full weapon damage is dealt. On a messy result, half of the weapon damage is dealt. On a dire result, no damage is dealt at all.

When making multiple checks for a single attack, consider only the lowest result when determining damage dealt.

Weapons

Each weapon specifies the amount of damage it deals and any requirements for its use. Weapons may have range restrictions, measured using far, near, or intimate, take multiple turns to use, or material requirements such as fuel or ammunition.

Each weapon must describe how it inflicts harm. This description is used to determine if armor is applicable.

Armor

Many items can act as armor, protecting a character from otherwise certain harm. Items that provide armor have a durability and a description of what kinds of harm they are effective against.

If a character would suffer damage from a source that matches one of their items' armor description, they may expend one or more of that item's durability in order to reduce the damage by that much.

Once an item reaches zero durability, it is broken and needs repairs before it can be safely used again. The process of repair varies from item to item and will take time and money to complete.

In desperate circumstances, a character may use a broken item as armor to reduce damage by 1 as if it had one remaining durability. Doing so completely destroys the item, making it irreparable.

Stamina

Each character has three stamina. Each stamina can be expended for the following benefits:

• Reduce incoming damage by 1
• Reduce incoming jinx by 1
• Gain a +1 bonus on a check after seeing the result, possibly altering the outcome of the check

Additionally, two stamina can be expended in order to gain an additional turn.

Each character regains one stamina after resting.

Conditions

Harm can take many forms, and not all of it is physical. These adverse effects are represented by conditions. Each condition has a description, such as “broken arm”, “embarrassed”, “existential crisis”, et cetera. Conditions are hand-tailored to their causes.

Each condition specifies what effects it imposes (if any) and how to end the condition. These can be temporal deadlines or specific treatments, such as “panicked until torch is relit: -1 to all checks” or “sick for six hours: inventory capacity reduced by 1”.

Wounds

The most common kind of conditions are caused by damage, and are called wounds. Wounds record the damage that caused them, and inflict a -1 penalty on checks for each point of damage.

Wounds can be healed incrementally through proper care, reducing their tracked damage. Wounds are removed once their damage is reduced to 0, unless otherwise specified.

When the sum damage of all a character's wounds is 10 or more, that character's death is sealed.

Shock

Common Conditions

Hungry

Eat a meal to fully recover, or eat a snack to recover from one damage. The hunger increases by one damage every 48 hours.

You automatically suffer this condition if you go 48 hours without food.

Thirsty

Satiate your thirst with water to fully recover, or with any other beverage to recover from half the damage, rounded up. The thirst doubles in damage every 24 hours.

You automatically suffer this condition if you go 24 hours without water.

Exhausted

Complete a full night’s rest to recover from half the damage, rounded up, or a half night’s rest to recover from one damage. The exhaustion increases by one damage every 24 hours.

You automatically suffer this condition if you go 24 hours without a full night’s rest.

Magic

Spells are a special kind of skill. By default, you cannot cast spells you do not already have proficiency with.

To cast a spell, first choose a spell you have proficiency with. Using that spell's name as both inspiration and a thematic boundary, improvise the effect you would like the spell to have. The World then responds with the potential consequences of a dire miscast.

Knowing the consequences of failure, decide if you wish to proceed. If you do, make a check with that spell. If the result is dire or messy, the spell is miscast.

Jinx

Magic is a volatile power, and casting spells can be taxing. Using this power too often can result in spells with incorrect effects, or magic that spirals out of control. Jinx represents this danger. Whenever a character casts a spell, they receive one jinx. A character suffers -1 for each jinx they have during spellcasting checks. After resting, a character recovers from half their jinx, rounded up.

Ritual

A rushed spell is certain to go awry. Dedicating time to casting a spell helps stabilize it. Spellcasting checks gain an additional bonus or penalty depending on how long is spent to cast the spell:

Links & Resources

Articles

• Meguey Baker — Ritual In Game Design
• pandatheist — Revisiting the NSR
• Ms. Screwhead — give me less
• Phlox — A Delta Directory
• Ruleofthule — The Drawbacks of Conventional Skill Systems
• Ruleofthule — Hierarchy, Contrast, Alignment

Videos

• Ginni Di — The key to better D&D? Roll less.
• Dungeon Craft — Replace Hit Points!
• Matthew Colville — Skill Challenges

Games

• Yochai Gal — Cairn, Second Edition
• Ben Milton — Knave, Second Edition