Ironsmith
2018-05-29, 03:05 PM
(Note: This system borrows a few elements from Dungeons & Dragons and The Riddle Of Steel, so if you're familiar with those systems, it should be easier to pick up.)
The game is presided over by a Game Master (alternatively referred to as a GM, Judge, or any other term you desire), with one or more other players taking on the roles of various characters in a fictional world, created for the purposes of the game.
Every time you take an action that has a chance of failure, you will be required to "toss" a number of coins. Take this number of coins and drop them from a moderate height (about the length of your forearm should be fine) into a bowl, tray, or other surface where they will collect easily. Count up the number of heads, and add that to the number of coins tossed: this number represents the relative success of the action. This number will be compared to another number representing the difficulty of the task attempted; if your result is equal to this number or higher, you succeed the action. Otherwise, you fail.
Attributes are numeric values that represent the general physical/mental state of your character. They are as follows:
Strength: How physically strong your character is. This attribute determines things like how much weight they can carry, how hard they can swing a weapon, how easily they can break down doors, and so on and so forth.
Reflexes: How quickly and precisely your character can respond to the situation at hand. This attribute determines how well they can dodge, how deftly they can pick someone's pocket, how easily they can adapt to a freerunner's obstacle course, among other such feats.
Endurance: How much physical punishment your character can take before it wears them down. This attribute determines how many times they can be hit, how long they can hold their breath underwater, how long they can run in a marathon, and so on.
Perception: How well your character picks up on new information. This attribute determines how good they are at minute detective work, how easily they can spot small details, and how well they can understand what is (or isn't) being said to them.
Intellect: How well-read and knowledgeable your character is. This attribute determines how easily they could make a medical diagnosis, how easily they can break or make codes, and applies to generally specialized fields.
Influence: How easy it is for your character to get someone else to do what they want. This determines how easily they can make a guard look the other way, whether they can convince an angry mob to back down, and how hard it is for the local tough guy to stare them down.
When you create a character, choose two of these attributes to be Great fields where your character excels, and set their values to 8. Choose two more to be Poor fields where your character struggles to compete or be relevant; set their values to 4. Finally, the remaining two are merely Mediocre, where the character is neither notably good or notably bad, and make those 6.
Alternatively, you may decide to make each of your Attributes the result of a 4-coin toss. Perform said toss 6 times, then assign each result to an Attribute.
Example: Alice is making her character, and starts with picking her attributes. The concept she has in mind is that of a renown sorceress, so Alice decides that she'd have Great Intellect and Influence, while neglecting Strength and Endurance, as neither of these would be particularly helpful for her. She then ends up with:
Strength: 4
Reflexes: 6
Endurance: 4
Perception: 6
Intellect: 8
Influence: 8
Example: Barbarian Bob decides to use the 4-coin method to determine his Attributes. He gets, in order, 7, 5, 6, 5, 4, and 8. He decides Strength is his most important asset, and puts his 8 there. Since Alice already has Influence and Intellect covered, he decides one of these should be his lowest score, and they both should be on the lower end of his abilities. After a few more such decisions, he ends up with the following Attributes:
Strength: 8
Reflexes: 6
Endurance: 7
Perception: 5
Intellect: 4
Influence: 5
Skills are numeric values describing how well your character accomplishes certain tasks; for instance, a high First Aid skill means your character is good at providing immediate medical attention. Additionally, each Skill ties back into a certain Attribute of your character; more on that later.
When you create a character, select one of the skills listed below; this is your Specialty, something your character is particularly good at doing, which they have a unique talent for. Write this skill down as an 8. Next, pick three more skills, which are your Primary skills; things your character does on a day-to-day basis. Put these down as 6, each. Finally, pick five more, to be your Secondary skills; things your character may do incidentally or as a hobby. Put these down as 4, each. Finally, every skill you didn't select is considered a 1.
Strength-based Skills:
Climb
Swim
Lift
Jump
Heavy Weapons
Throw
Grapple
Reflex-based Skills:
Dodge
Acrobatics
Sprint
Light Weapons
Sleight Of Hand
Parry
Mechanics
Performance (type)
Sneak
Endurance-based Skills:
Resist Energy
Resist Injury
Resist Toxin
Concentration
Stamina
Stance
Intellect-based Skills:
Knowledge (field)
Craft (object type)
Profession (field)
Use Rope
Forgery
First Aid
Survival (terrain)
Wizardry (type)
Perception-based Skills:
Spot
Search
Listen
Marksmanship
Composure
Sense Motive
Linguistics (Language)
Influence-based Skills:
Handle Animal
Charm
Intimidate
Taunt
Persuade
Sincerity
Disguise
Sorcery (type)
As you progress through the game, you'll have the opportunity to drive up the scores of both your skills and your attributes.
Every time you use a skill, check the number of coins used against the difficulty of the act performed. If the difficulty is greater than the number of coins used, but not more than twice that amount, put a slash ("/") next to the skill, or change a slash there into an X. If you succeeded at using the skill, put down another slash in this fashion. When the number of Xs you have is equal to the current rank of the skill, erase them and add 1 to the skill.
Example:
Alice has a Climb skill of 2, and a Strength of 4, and finds herself scaling up the side of a cliff during her adventure. The difficulty level for this is 13... too high for Alice to climb, even if she got lucky, so attempting to do so would not help her advance her skills.
Her friend, Barbarian Bob, is already at the top of the cliff. He has a Climb skill of 5, and a Strength of 8... climbing the cliff was too easy for him, so he does not advance his skill. However, once at the top, he tries to tie a rope to aid Alice's ascension. The difficulty for this task is 6, and Bob only has a 4 for his Intellect and does not know how to tie a rope (rank 1). He manages to tie the rope anyway, and in doing so, earns an X next to his Use Rope skill. This puts him at one X, which at rank 1, is high enough to advance the skill to 2.
Alice then attempts to scale the cliff again, with the aid of Bob's rope. The difficulty is only slightly easier now, at 12, but that's within reach for Alice. Her first attempt fails, earning her only a slash next to her Climb skill, but Bob's rope provides her with a lifeline that keeps her from falling to her death. Her second attempt succeeds, earning her two slashes; one to fill out the current one to an X, and the other to stand on its own. If Alice makes another attempt at Climbing and survives, she'll be able to advance the skill (since she would need two Xs to do so).
Every time one of your skills increases, put an X next to the attribute associated with it. If the number of Xs is equal to its current value, erase all the Xs and increase the value of the attribute by 1.
Example:
Bob's use of the rope was enough to advance his Use Rope skill, which results in an X next to his Intellect. Meanwhile, Alice had a Strength of 4, with three Xs next to it... after making another Climb, which advances her Climb skill, she has a fourth X and gains a Strength of 5.
There are two kinds of tasks in the game world: one that's evaluated against the environment, and one that's evaluated against other characters (either player-controlled or NPCs). The Difficulty of the former is determined at the GM's discretion, using the guidelines printed below. The latter is based on competing results for skill usage, with the higher value ultimately succeeding. If one or the other is not attempting to actively use their skills, the person making an active attempt makes a check against the lowest potential value of said skill to determine success.
Example: Barbarian Bob is arm-wrestling a friend, Nonak, in a bar. The two of them make opposed uses of the Grapple skill: Bob comes out at 15, Nonak gets a 12, so Bob wins the arm-wrestle.
Meanwhile, a thief has snuck up on Bob and is attempting to pick his pocket. Bob does not know he is there, or that he should be looking out for pickpockets in a crowded bar, so the thief only needs to get a Sneak result better than Bob's worst possible Spot (around 8, with 5 Perception and Spot rank 3) in order to sneak up on him.
Difficulty vs Environment
These are the checks against things that don't properly "resist" a character's actions, but still have relative difficulty to them... for example, climbing a cliff or forging a weapon. Use the value on the table below that correlates with the relative difficulty of the task at hand.
Difficulty
Description
Examples
5
Trivial; you wouldn't even bother calling it a challenge unless you're heavily impaired.
Eating, sleeping, breathing, getting dressed in the morning
10
Easy for the most part, but may trip up people who aren't suited for it.
Climbing a rough cliff (Climb), playing an instrument (Perform)
15
Challenging; the sort of work that's "best left to the professionals".
Creating a functional weapon/device (Craft), setting a broken bone (First Aid)
20
Difficult; even if you know what you're doing, you can still screw it up.
Creating a high quality weapon/device (Craft), picking the lock on a prison cell (Open Lock)
25
Very difficult; even a professional would balk at the idea.
Learn lore that no-one else has (Knowledge), catch yourself on the way down a cliff (Climb)
30
Supernatural; barring the use of magic, you wouldn't believe it possible.
Running up walls (Climb), Hitting a stationary target from a mile away (Marksmanship), leaping over a vast chasm (Jump)
The game is presided over by a Game Master (alternatively referred to as a GM, Judge, or any other term you desire), with one or more other players taking on the roles of various characters in a fictional world, created for the purposes of the game.
Every time you take an action that has a chance of failure, you will be required to "toss" a number of coins. Take this number of coins and drop them from a moderate height (about the length of your forearm should be fine) into a bowl, tray, or other surface where they will collect easily. Count up the number of heads, and add that to the number of coins tossed: this number represents the relative success of the action. This number will be compared to another number representing the difficulty of the task attempted; if your result is equal to this number or higher, you succeed the action. Otherwise, you fail.
Attributes are numeric values that represent the general physical/mental state of your character. They are as follows:
Strength: How physically strong your character is. This attribute determines things like how much weight they can carry, how hard they can swing a weapon, how easily they can break down doors, and so on and so forth.
Reflexes: How quickly and precisely your character can respond to the situation at hand. This attribute determines how well they can dodge, how deftly they can pick someone's pocket, how easily they can adapt to a freerunner's obstacle course, among other such feats.
Endurance: How much physical punishment your character can take before it wears them down. This attribute determines how many times they can be hit, how long they can hold their breath underwater, how long they can run in a marathon, and so on.
Perception: How well your character picks up on new information. This attribute determines how good they are at minute detective work, how easily they can spot small details, and how well they can understand what is (or isn't) being said to them.
Intellect: How well-read and knowledgeable your character is. This attribute determines how easily they could make a medical diagnosis, how easily they can break or make codes, and applies to generally specialized fields.
Influence: How easy it is for your character to get someone else to do what they want. This determines how easily they can make a guard look the other way, whether they can convince an angry mob to back down, and how hard it is for the local tough guy to stare them down.
When you create a character, choose two of these attributes to be Great fields where your character excels, and set their values to 8. Choose two more to be Poor fields where your character struggles to compete or be relevant; set their values to 4. Finally, the remaining two are merely Mediocre, where the character is neither notably good or notably bad, and make those 6.
Alternatively, you may decide to make each of your Attributes the result of a 4-coin toss. Perform said toss 6 times, then assign each result to an Attribute.
Example: Alice is making her character, and starts with picking her attributes. The concept she has in mind is that of a renown sorceress, so Alice decides that she'd have Great Intellect and Influence, while neglecting Strength and Endurance, as neither of these would be particularly helpful for her. She then ends up with:
Strength: 4
Reflexes: 6
Endurance: 4
Perception: 6
Intellect: 8
Influence: 8
Example: Barbarian Bob decides to use the 4-coin method to determine his Attributes. He gets, in order, 7, 5, 6, 5, 4, and 8. He decides Strength is his most important asset, and puts his 8 there. Since Alice already has Influence and Intellect covered, he decides one of these should be his lowest score, and they both should be on the lower end of his abilities. After a few more such decisions, he ends up with the following Attributes:
Strength: 8
Reflexes: 6
Endurance: 7
Perception: 5
Intellect: 4
Influence: 5
Skills are numeric values describing how well your character accomplishes certain tasks; for instance, a high First Aid skill means your character is good at providing immediate medical attention. Additionally, each Skill ties back into a certain Attribute of your character; more on that later.
When you create a character, select one of the skills listed below; this is your Specialty, something your character is particularly good at doing, which they have a unique talent for. Write this skill down as an 8. Next, pick three more skills, which are your Primary skills; things your character does on a day-to-day basis. Put these down as 6, each. Finally, pick five more, to be your Secondary skills; things your character may do incidentally or as a hobby. Put these down as 4, each. Finally, every skill you didn't select is considered a 1.
Strength-based Skills:
Climb
Swim
Lift
Jump
Heavy Weapons
Throw
Grapple
Reflex-based Skills:
Dodge
Acrobatics
Sprint
Light Weapons
Sleight Of Hand
Parry
Mechanics
Performance (type)
Sneak
Endurance-based Skills:
Resist Energy
Resist Injury
Resist Toxin
Concentration
Stamina
Stance
Intellect-based Skills:
Knowledge (field)
Craft (object type)
Profession (field)
Use Rope
Forgery
First Aid
Survival (terrain)
Wizardry (type)
Perception-based Skills:
Spot
Search
Listen
Marksmanship
Composure
Sense Motive
Linguistics (Language)
Influence-based Skills:
Handle Animal
Charm
Intimidate
Taunt
Persuade
Sincerity
Disguise
Sorcery (type)
As you progress through the game, you'll have the opportunity to drive up the scores of both your skills and your attributes.
Every time you use a skill, check the number of coins used against the difficulty of the act performed. If the difficulty is greater than the number of coins used, but not more than twice that amount, put a slash ("/") next to the skill, or change a slash there into an X. If you succeeded at using the skill, put down another slash in this fashion. When the number of Xs you have is equal to the current rank of the skill, erase them and add 1 to the skill.
Example:
Alice has a Climb skill of 2, and a Strength of 4, and finds herself scaling up the side of a cliff during her adventure. The difficulty level for this is 13... too high for Alice to climb, even if she got lucky, so attempting to do so would not help her advance her skills.
Her friend, Barbarian Bob, is already at the top of the cliff. He has a Climb skill of 5, and a Strength of 8... climbing the cliff was too easy for him, so he does not advance his skill. However, once at the top, he tries to tie a rope to aid Alice's ascension. The difficulty for this task is 6, and Bob only has a 4 for his Intellect and does not know how to tie a rope (rank 1). He manages to tie the rope anyway, and in doing so, earns an X next to his Use Rope skill. This puts him at one X, which at rank 1, is high enough to advance the skill to 2.
Alice then attempts to scale the cliff again, with the aid of Bob's rope. The difficulty is only slightly easier now, at 12, but that's within reach for Alice. Her first attempt fails, earning her only a slash next to her Climb skill, but Bob's rope provides her with a lifeline that keeps her from falling to her death. Her second attempt succeeds, earning her two slashes; one to fill out the current one to an X, and the other to stand on its own. If Alice makes another attempt at Climbing and survives, she'll be able to advance the skill (since she would need two Xs to do so).
Every time one of your skills increases, put an X next to the attribute associated with it. If the number of Xs is equal to its current value, erase all the Xs and increase the value of the attribute by 1.
Example:
Bob's use of the rope was enough to advance his Use Rope skill, which results in an X next to his Intellect. Meanwhile, Alice had a Strength of 4, with three Xs next to it... after making another Climb, which advances her Climb skill, she has a fourth X and gains a Strength of 5.
There are two kinds of tasks in the game world: one that's evaluated against the environment, and one that's evaluated against other characters (either player-controlled or NPCs). The Difficulty of the former is determined at the GM's discretion, using the guidelines printed below. The latter is based on competing results for skill usage, with the higher value ultimately succeeding. If one or the other is not attempting to actively use their skills, the person making an active attempt makes a check against the lowest potential value of said skill to determine success.
Example: Barbarian Bob is arm-wrestling a friend, Nonak, in a bar. The two of them make opposed uses of the Grapple skill: Bob comes out at 15, Nonak gets a 12, so Bob wins the arm-wrestle.
Meanwhile, a thief has snuck up on Bob and is attempting to pick his pocket. Bob does not know he is there, or that he should be looking out for pickpockets in a crowded bar, so the thief only needs to get a Sneak result better than Bob's worst possible Spot (around 8, with 5 Perception and Spot rank 3) in order to sneak up on him.
Difficulty vs Environment
These are the checks against things that don't properly "resist" a character's actions, but still have relative difficulty to them... for example, climbing a cliff or forging a weapon. Use the value on the table below that correlates with the relative difficulty of the task at hand.
Difficulty
Description
Examples
5
Trivial; you wouldn't even bother calling it a challenge unless you're heavily impaired.
Eating, sleeping, breathing, getting dressed in the morning
10
Easy for the most part, but may trip up people who aren't suited for it.
Climbing a rough cliff (Climb), playing an instrument (Perform)
15
Challenging; the sort of work that's "best left to the professionals".
Creating a functional weapon/device (Craft), setting a broken bone (First Aid)
20
Difficult; even if you know what you're doing, you can still screw it up.
Creating a high quality weapon/device (Craft), picking the lock on a prison cell (Open Lock)
25
Very difficult; even a professional would balk at the idea.
Learn lore that no-one else has (Knowledge), catch yourself on the way down a cliff (Climb)
30
Supernatural; barring the use of magic, you wouldn't believe it possible.
Running up walls (Climb), Hitting a stationary target from a mile away (Marksmanship), leaping over a vast chasm (Jump)