Welcome to my repository of ideas and variants for Risus.

Darkworm Colt Risus

DARKWORM COLT RISUS rules are based on Risus: The Anything RPG by S. John Ross, published by Big Dice Games. Darkworm Colt Risus is an independent production by Norbert G. Matausch and is not affiliated with Big Dice Games.

Characters
10 dice distributed among Clichés (1–4 dice each). The first Cliché is the Primary — how the character sees themselves. One Cliché may have one Specialty (a subset covering ~20% of it): roll 2 extra dice, but they don’t soak damage. Can’t use Specialty dice alone if the parent Cliché is at zero. Best practice: Specialty Dice have a different color. You can swap 1 Cliché die for 3 rerolls.

Michael Smithson
Field Agent (4) – Specialty: Expert shooter (6)
Gambler (3)
Womanizer (2)
Poet (1)

Tools & Gear
Tools come free with Clichés but can be lost — lose your tools, roll half your Cliché dice. Bonus-Dice Gear adds extra dice to rolls.

Sidekicks & Teammates
Built the same way as characters, 1:1 basis. Teams roll total dice and take the highest. Losers each lose a die from their Cliché.

Ludwig von Steinhofen
Ace Mecha Pilot (4)
Sidekick: Blitzkrieg Berta, colossus-class battle mech with rocket-powered fists (4)
Chess player (2)

Rolls
Roll dice equal to Cliché rating. Success if at least one die meets or beats the Difficulty: 4 (regular), 5 (challenging), 6 (heroic). Pick the highest die.

Combat
Both sides roll. Compare highest dice; ties go to next-highest, until one side wins or runs out. Loser loses 1 die. If a Cliché hits zero, that character is out — even if other Clichés remain. Players may switch Clichés each round. Winners decide the fate of losers. If several groups on each side fight against each other, roll total dice for each side, and take the highest. Loser groups each lose a die from their Cliché.

Mismatched weapons
half dice or zero (pistol vs. tank = zero; panzerfaust vs. tank = full; knife vs. Chaos Knight (6) = half). No appropriate Cliché: roll one die, only a 6 counts.

Killing Blow (optional for harsher games)
When you win a combat round and your highest die is a 6, you may roll that die again. If the reroll is also a 4 or 5, the loser takes 2 dice of loss instead of 1. If the reroll is a 6, the loser loses three dice of loss instead of 1.

Recovery
Do something Cliché-appropriate to recover lost dice. Kung Fu Kid (1) meditates and shadowboxes — back to Kung Fu Kid (4).

Lucky Shots
Buy at character creation: 3 Lucky Shots per Cliché die spent. Resets between sessions. Spend one Lucky Shot before any roll to add one bonus die to that roll.

Side-Pumping
Borrow dice from another Cliché on a 1:1 basis for a single roll. Those dice are lost from the donor Cliché. Pumping a second Cliché down doesn’t take you out of the contest.

Advancement
At adventure’s end, roll all dice of a challenged Cliché. If at least half (round up) show even, the Cliché advances by 1. Clichés can exceed 6. Spectacular midgame actions may trigger immediate leaps.

Room Clichés
Assign each room a Cliché instead of statting individual monsters. Everything in the room — traps, monsters, hazards — uses that rating. Or assign one Cliché to the entire dungeon. Skeleton-infested Dungeon (7).

No-Pool Risus
Multiply Cliché rating by 2 — that’s your die type. Losing a die steps the die down (d12→d10→d8→d6→d4→d2→0). Grim Swordfighter (4) rolls d8 vs. Angst-ridden Orc (3) rolling d6.

NPCs
Mundane (villagers, skeletons, hired guns): Cliché (3), give them an obvious weakness. Impressive (knights, trolls, commandos): Cliché (6), may have blast damage or spells; critical damage has dangerous consequences. Boss (liches, dragons, your mother-in-law): Cliché (12); critical damage means you’re done.


Gore Die (for grimdark games)
When you roll dice for combat, ONE of your dice should have a different color (preferably red). This is the Gore Die. The higher the result on that die, the messier, bloodier, gorier your hit is (if you hit).
Note that a gory, bloody, bloodspraying, disgusting hit will not kill the opponent if he still has cliché dice left – but it might put some kind of negative modifier on his next roll. Only when someone’s cliché dice are reduced to zero, that character dies. To give you a few rough ideas for Gore Die results:
Gore 1: drop weapons, superficial wounds, hits that knock the wind out of you, stumble, bruises, stuns, knockdowns
Gore 2: dislocations, shattered weapons, numb limbs
Gore 3: incapacitated limbs, deep wounds, smashed teeth, broken bones
Gore 4: severed arteries, internal bleeding, spine injuries, gouged out eyes
Gore 5: half a limb lost, organs ruptured
Gore 6: entire limb lost, body parts hacked in half
Gore 7: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, flying body parts, fuck what a mess
Gore 7? How? This is an optional rule: When a character is down to 1 cliché die, the next hit that takes him to his gods counts as Gore Die +3.

Settings & Adventures

Risusiverse. Where everything Risus can be found.

Warhammer! https://darkwormcolt.wordpress.com/2022/06/09/risus-waaaaaaaaaarhammmmmaaarrrrrr/

The B-Team and the Russian Death Scientists https://darkwormcolt.wordpress.com/2022/08/03/the-b-team-and-the-russian-death-scientists/

Dungeon Crawl Risus: there’s nothing like a “RACE (2), CLASS (4), OTHER (3), Rerolls 3” spread for archetypical oldschool fantasy gaming. Snatch up any old module for that old game with the dungeons and the dragons, and START RIGHT NOW! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TGXU51t1sUNSwwyqsmarZpCy_kQpADoa/edit

Adventure Street Omnibus: If you like pulp adventures, this one will be right up your alley. https://www.risusiverse.com/home/settings/adventure-street-omnibus

Kick Ass for The Lord: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Year is 2XXX AD, and the Lord is pissed off at humanity. He’s so mad he sends messengers to wake up people to beat the Devil out of everyone. These messengers tell you it’s time to kick evil’s ass and chew bubble gum. And you’re fresh out of gum. So go beat up demons, vampires, and ghosts. https://www.risusiverse.com/home/settings/kick-ass-for-the-lord

Hard Roads: If you like Car Wars, but always wanted to have (much, much, much) simpler rules, Hard Roads is for you. https://www.risusiverse.com/home/settings/hard-roads

Space-Time Universal Delivery Service: This setting is the single best excuse to have heroes from wildly varying settings and genres go on adventures together. Huge fun. https://www.risusiverse.com/home/settings/studs
I also recommend The Magic Bullet, by Marc L. Chance. Lee Harvey Oswald, stinkin’ hippies and Inbred Degenerate Cannibals included.