A onepageRPG where d8s are the only dice

I was imagining a world with the skyline dominated by a Hellraiser II Leviathan type god-thing. 

The cool parts of this RPG:

• The play group gets to decide what five eighths of the ability scores are called.
• Easy target 10 system.
• Tactical choices with the combat action costs.
• HP is called Luck. We all know the term hit points is misleading, and luck begs to be spent.
• Fellow players encouraged to be interested in you to get good mutual feels around the table. If you are the only guy not finding excuses to help your fellow players level up, that’s a bad look.
• No classes, so you choose your own path to booty.

The original google doc is here, and will be updated after play-testing.

D8 Dungeoneering

By d8 Claytonians from killitwithfirerpg

In the beginning of all things, there was the d20. And the d20 was good, but it was usurped by the Dark Octahedron, and forever lost. 

To generate your mods for your Thews, Guile, Wizardry, and five other things the group brainstorms, roll a d8.

1    -2 mod        5-6    +1 mod

2    -1 mod        7    +2 mod

3-4    ±0 mod        8    +3 mod

When you want to do something, the target number is always ten or more on a 2d8 roll, but the roll will be modified by the difficulty you face and advantages you have. For example, climbing a wall might get modified by the relative smoothness of the wall and how fast you want to climb, but also should probably take your Thews into account.

Combat

To melee, roll 2d8+[Thews]+[circumstances, such as allies flanking target]-[Foes armor] and try to get 10 or better. To throw into combat, do the same thing, but the circumstances will be -1 more against you for each ally you have flanking the target. To shoot, use +Guile instead. All hits deal d8 damage to the foe’s Luck.

Combat costs

Each character has Level points to spend each round. Play starts to the DM’s left and goes clockwise, with an NPC going after each player’s move. When no one has enough points to do anything, the round ends.

• To move costs one point per hex. You may also skirmish someone you just attacked successfully or not, moving them one hex per point you are willing to spend.

• To attack costs one point.

• To charge costs point per hex traveled and must end with a (free) melee attack.

• To defend costs one point per desired penalty point to foe’s roll (you can defend out of turn when someone attacks you).

• To take a breather and regain 1d8 Luck costs one, plus one point per adjacent foe.

• To switch hand items costs one point.

• To prepare an interrupt action (I shoot the next guy to come through the door!) costs one point to set up and another to cancel (I don’t shoot my friend who just came through the door!) and fails if you don’t have the points to actually carry through on the action.

• To focus, you spend one point plus one per +1 mod you want on your next roll. 

• To add an extra d8 before you attack or roll damage costs three points.

Starting Level and Luck

Well it sounds like being level one would be Nintendo-hard in combat, so everyone starts with Guile+d8 levels, or at least one. Luck, the game-stuff that keeps you alive, starts at Thews+1d8 or at least one. BTW Luck can be spent on any roll. Luck regenerates at a rate of LVL points per session.

Getting Better

At the beginning of the game and whenever you level up, roll a d8 to see how many Deeds of Renown you have to do before you can level up again. How do we know they are renowned? Because your fellow players will mention them in their session reports. 

When you do level, you gain one more point for combat costs and d8 more Luck.

Dying 

If you get knocked to less than 0 Luck, you will die without magical intervention at the end of ½×d8 rounds.

Crits

Rolling double 8s deals max damage and gives you d8 extra combat cost points to spend this round. If a crit knocks someone to less than 0 Luck, they are dismembered, dead on the spot.

Armor & Encumbrance

All armor mods your foe’s difficulty to hit you and takes up weight slots equal to its modifier. You can carry up to 10+Thews things (any more than that is -1 point to rolls per thing). Armor mods max out at 4, but a shield can take them to 5. 

Weapons

Two-handed weapons deal the better of two damage rolls. One handed weapons give +1 to-hit. Punches have their damage reduced by the foe’s armor rating.

Spells

One can attempt to memorize any spells they come across (found in librams). Each spell takes one hour to memorize and requires a +WIZ roll, modified negatively by spell level,  to enunciate successfully (shot and forgot either way). Retaining spells is draining, reducing the casters available weight slots by one per spell in the brain. For each point of Luck a player is willing to permanently sacrifice at character gen, they can have already found a spell of d8th level.

Foes

Baddies have an 𝓍 in d8 chance of going first each round.

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What if an RPG but only 2d6?

Edit: The version written (not embedded via Google docs) won't change, but after some actual playtesting, I now invoke my duty to update the G-doc rules...

Recently, I've been going through my massive games Claytonian made folder, polishing turds and gilding lilies. Today I found 2d6 RPG and I was digging it. This looks fun and simple! And check out the BUT ACTUALLY SYSTEM. The monster wagers system is also something I want to see in play. In case you are wondering, I think this game is a riff off of Barony, rather than any Powered by the 2dpocalypse game. Barony came first!

I've made so many games I forget what was up with them. I'll embed the google doc at the bottom of the post (it will be the most up to date version), and input the text of the game above that for ease of reading.

 

2d6 Everything

by Claytonian

To dice your way thru life, roll high as you can on 2d6.

Difficulty Number needed (roll this or higher)

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Simple Nae rolls, mate (you succeed)

Tasking Seven

Daunting Nine

Yikes This one goes to eleven

Combat is a bit special. The number you roll is the number of damage you or the foe takes. You have to roll at least seven damage to hit them (if you roll six or lower, you take the damage), unless you are fighting more than one foe, in which case the minimum number to roll goes up by one per additional opponent. Low roll spells hurt you too.

The But Actually System

For each level you gain, you get a Freebie checkbox. When you would take damage, you can instead check off one of these boxes and describe how you evade the hit, at some credible narrative cost. For instance, by saying "Actually it sunders my shield" or "Actually I duck down and get a bit of a haircut."

You can also check off Freebie boxes to add mighty deeds to your successful rolls. For instance, “Actually, I shove my hammer down the dragon’s throat, and it lodges in there, choking her!”

Freebie boxes, once checked off, are gone until you level up.

Char Gen

Each PC gets 2d6 HP. Each time you level up, you reroll this and take the new roll as your new HP if it's higher (this is not accumulative; the max HP any PC will ever have is 12).

Swords and Sorcery

After you roll starting HP, choose if you will be able to use magic or not. If not, you may gain one level straight away.

Shticks

PCs have 2d6 shticks (talents/backgrounds/traits/&c). Make them up as part of character gen. When a shtick applies, a check's difficulty is one step easier.

Dying 

0 HP characters are unconscious and will bleed to death within 2d6 rounds (rolled secretly). It is a daunting task to staunch the wounds.

Healing

You get all HP back at dawn each day. This does not heal narrative wounds though, so if you have a broken leg, it’s going to affect you for six weeks.

Leveling

After a jolly good outing, the Two Dee Master (2DM) will announce a Leveling check. You can roll 2d6 and try to roll over your current level. If you succeed, you level up. 

Remember, when you level up, you gain a Freebie checkbox, uncheck all Freebie boxes you have, and get a chance to have more HP than before.

Inventory

You start with 2d6 items. This is also your Load score. If you would pick up more items than Load, you will have all checks be one step harder. Put something down, maybe?

Rounds

During a round, you can perform one action or move 2d6 hexes (not both unless you use a freebie). Initiative is not really a thing. If you don’t take care of monsters, the DM will have them dispatch you. 

Monsters

Monsters get to do horrible things to you if you roll snake eyes to hit them. For instance, snake eyes against a giant may mean that it pounds you into the ground like a nail. Monsters have 2d6×Awesome HP. An underworld rage corpse probably has Awesome 1. A god may have Awesome 10. 

Quick, while it’s winded!

Monsters can wager 2d6 HP to do special moves at the top of a round, like breathe fire. This never kills them. If they are not damaged before the next round, they gain these HP back!

Character Sheet

Name: Level: HP: Shticks: Freebie boxes: ❑❑❑❑❑ ❑❑❑❑❑ ❑❑ Load # ______ Inventory:          Encumbered? Wounds:

Read on google docs here
 

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Thin Veneer of Reality (a 1page RPG)

Sales pitch: Every action is risky, but risk is the only way to get stronger. 

It's hard to describe this one page TRPG. Your party has collective luck for dungeoneering. You have personal luck for surviving danger. If you don't push both, you'll never get anything done. Oh, and it's science fantasy. In fact, I'm hoping for some Wally Wood (NSFW link) shenanigans.

On with the embeddening! Click here if you cannot deal with a g-Doc in a Blogspot post.

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I give this RPG a B+ (1½ page rpg)

The one with all the Bs.

"Yarrr!
I have nothing to do with this RPG actually!
Isn't that scary?"

Elevator pitch: Only ability scores, no separate modifiers (beginner friendly).

Very simple. Lots of fun surprises in character gen.

Your stats are your health, but there is hardly a death spiral. It is a resource that you can manage with cleverness and wisdom.

We have failure=XP like like in Dungeon World to help make bad rolls fun.

 Check it out on Google Docs (where you are honor-bound to point out typos). Or embedded in this post, down below.

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D&D for hobos but hopefully not murder-hobos

Hobos probably have access to pencils, paper, and playing-cards. So that's what we'll play with. Also, the rules are short so you don't need to have them written down.
 

Storytelling is very important to the hobo-tradition. If your characters tell a room full of hushed NPCs of their exploits and then each draw a card higher than their current level, they level up. You start at level 0. No story may be told more than once.(Each player draws separately.)


Chargen: Draw a card for each stat. Royalty count as 10s, and aces count as ones. The stats are murder, defend, breathe, consciousness (awareness), and brilliance.

Tests: When you try to do a thing, draw a card and if the drawn card is equal to or less than your stat, you do it. In this case, the royal cards all count as 11 when drawn, and spell a fumble. Aces mean you do critically well. Jokers mean a success, but something odd is also ad-hoced by the HM for the players to deal with.

Dying: You can take a number of hits equal to your level without much consequence. When you take a hit beyond that limit, you draw a card and apply it to a stat. As long as that card is equal to or less than the stat, you can keep going, but keep the card. If the cards applied to a stat ever exceeds it, you lose access to that stat and fail all rolls with it (failing to breathe is deadly, so only an ace or joker can save you if you lose that stat).

Classes: Choose a class. Each class may have abilities or advantage on draws. Advantage means you draw twice and take the more advantageous card.

• Fighters have advantage to murder, defend, or breathe. They play harmonicas.
• Stabbers have advantage to murder and consciousness. They can sense traps are present without a check. They can play Three-card Monte with the Hobo Master to do legerdemain. They play mouth-harps.
• Wizzers have advantage to brilliance. They may cast spells (or use psionics); they draw a card each morning and have that many spells to use that day. Spells are made up on the spot, but if players wish for the moon they'll get a monkey's paw. They play banjos.
• Hippies have advantage to breathe. They have a faithful mutt with its own stats. Hippies can scrounge up either a day's rations or healing erbs (remove 1 card of damage from someone's stack) each day (player has to choose which). Such food or herbs don't last more than a day. They play cowbells.

Monsters are all unique. When one is generated, the HM draws a card for each stat and keeps it face down until it is tested (not even the HM knows how tough a monster is). However, a monster reveals a new weird ability each time it acts, or uses a previously revealed one. Monster abilities just work, and the players have to deal with them, usually with defense draws.

Initiative is done by drawing cards. Lowest cards go first (aces are ones). Starting with the HM, a player will reveal their initiative card and declare an action. Any player (including the HM) may interrupt another by revealing a lower card; otherwise the action is tested for success or failure, then play proceeds to the left until everyone has done an action. Running about it an action.

Will work for food: The world is one in which your characters are misfits and outcasts. But it is the kind of world with monsters and other problems that need to be dealt with. People post jobs, bounties, and commissions to bulletin boards that anyone can peruse. There is competition, so if you pass on a job, it's likely gone forever soon.

Hobomasters: The totality of your game prep should be writing interesting jobs to put on the boards. Each situation should have a number of steps equal to a card you secretly draw and note. If the players have done that many rooms/encounters/traps/&ct, or if they seem bored, wrap it up and get them back to the barrel-fires where they can spin their tales for the other adventure-hoboes.

This post was inspired by another dude's post.
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The Party Actual Play Report

A while back, I made the game The Party, which is basically a list of odd characters and one paragraph of rules. If I do say so myself, it's the ultimate pick up and play TRPG. We've played it a couple times now, and I'm here to tell you how the latest session went.

We played a version of Night of the Walking Wet. Here, have the map I drew for the overland. Then scroll down to the report below it.

To do things, roll a d20 and the GM will roll one too. If it seems to be something you would be better at than other classes would be—exempli gratia, a warrior rolling to hit—you can roll a d30 instead. If you roll higher, you do the thing. If the GM die rolls close to yours though, maybe you didn’t do the thing so smoothly. If you failed, there is some bad thing that happens now and makes sense for the danger you have blundered your way into.

That's pretty much all the rules up there. So we started with a thief that poses as a blind umbrella salesman (we've rolled this result in a past session so I tweeked it, and thru play the PC became more exotic-umbellateer than thief), an Amazon out to find the dragon that razed her village, and an eye-mage (they were a leprechaun, but that didn't come up). I had the players roll d30s on the char-gen table because I felt like having an odd session.

They proceeded south in hopes of selling umbrellas to Thracian goat herders (this map goes all in on Judges Guild stuff), but soon became distracted by the sight of a dragon soaring in the sky. Eye mage decides to try to obscure vision of the dragon. This is definitely an eye-magey thing to do, so I grant them a d30 and roll a d20 for the opposition. We both get natural ones! The mage attracts the dragon's attention, but is hit out of nowhere by a rogue UFO. Maybe I shoulda had more consequence for the mage than that, but oh well.

So the players track down where the dragon crashed and finish it off with an umbrella up the intestines. Too bad, because from the looks of it, that dragon was the brother of the dragon the amazon was looking for. They start harvesting organs, so I ask if they have a clever way to preserve them long enough to get to someone who can actually afford it (Startsville has a poor economy since the lands to the south got full of zombies and odd humanoids about a hundred years back, when the "comet" crashed). Well, I have jars of piss (ammonia) says one player. We roll to see if they are big enough, and they roll high, so yes, yes they do have those jars.

The players also decided to scope out the karst believed to be the dragon's lair. Turns out the roost is like sixty feet down a cliff. Umbrella dude is like, "No prob, just take one umbrella in each hand and float down, friends." Others are like, "After you." Natural 1. Splat!

So that player rolls up a dwarf into rune-priestcraft and is encountered by the other PCs as they are back in town to hawk piss-pickled dragon organs. Okay, long story short, dragon blood is harvested too, magical research (think carousing table) is undertaken, and a little stone dragon familiar joins the priest. Slime missionaries try to convert the party with paper-airplane flyers. Das PCs end the session by fumbling their journey roll and thus cornered on the karsk by a small army of weird humanoid monsters, who they shake off by creating a rune-earthquake and giving lots of pinkeye to.

So yeah, good game and fun system. If you want the character table, go here. The only revision I've really done to the rules is to emphasize that natural 20s can beat higher numbers than 20 on the opposing die.
 
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Round Robin, a 1-page RPG with group-done PC generation.

The basic gimmick of round-robin is that you and your friends make each character together, passing the sheets around the table. Resource tracking in the form of TP is important, but if you ever run out of gas or choose to not use it, you can use the dice (2d6+bonus, kinda like Dungeon World but without the fail, suck, success track of that game and more something along the lines of the the ghost die from Star Wars d6. Wait.).

Anyways, it's simple and fast in the good ways and slow in the enriching ways. I hope you like it. It's embedded below, but you can also just visit the google docs link to print it.

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Have a dungeon with your 1 page RPG by some human (Mordhearse)

I didn't make this one, but I wish I had. Enjoy Tales of Mordhearse.

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The Party, a 1-Page RPG with 1 paragraph of crunch

An RPG that can be recycled to power other RPGs where character gen gets bogged down by people being obsessed with builds and making the most emo twee gnome bard. Just roll your damn character and get back in there!


The Party was inspired by my acquirement of The Clandestinauts. It's well worth a read, and the print version has even more content. Think I read that Holmes ran RPGs with a resolution system kinda like the one outlined in the last paragraph. You can find a version of this RPG in that folder that is linked somewhere to the top left on this blog. Don't forget that PrintFriendly is a thing too.

The Party by Claytonian

If you are the first person to generate a character, you roll a d12 and note what you are. Once your character is decided upon, the GM may change the class of that result and the dependent clause of it too for future rollers. The next person will roll a bigger die size. The die does not reset when characters expire.

My character is a

1. Human warrior who has a hound trained to bite crotches.
2. Human warrior who cuts a scar into their self for each kill.
3. Human warrior who can cast spells by consuming monster hearts.
4. Human warrior who is damned to hell if they can’t amass 1,000,000 gold.
5. Amazonian warrior who is searching for the dragon that razed her village.
6. Dwarven warrior who keeps their enemies alive but insists on crucifying them.
7. Human thief who is unaware that they are royalty.
8. Human thief who is hounded by the furries for stealing the wrong statuette.
9. Human thief who poses as a blind masseuse.
10. Hobbit thief who is addicted to beholder butter.
11. Human wizard who can transfer their mind to any bound humanoid over the course of a day and a night.
12. Human cleric who can smell stolen items.
13. Elvish duelist who is a flawed clone of one of the campaign’s big bad evil guys.
14. Dwarven thief who grows stronger each time their friends die at others’ hands.
15. Dwarven rune-priest who sinks into the earth each time they sleep.
16. Chthonic elf who unflinchingly kills for the slightest offense, should they not be dissuaded by their companions.
17. Automaton warrior who claims to be the finest creation of one of the campaign’s big bad evil guys.
18. Human warlock who promised their soul to the hell-slugs of venus.
19. Slugman warrior who finds rhymes painful to hear.
20. Cambion wizard who wishes to find a way to cheat their self into heaven.
21. Zombie warrior who always regenerates 4 hours after dying.
22. Human door-mage who is queen of the ants.
23. Leprechaun eye-mage who has 3 lives.
24. Crow-man thief who has a musket with a magical bullet that can kill anyone.
25. Catman slaver who has 3 gnomes do everything for them.
26. Mutant barbarian who bathes in blood to survive.
27. Elven vampire who can enter the dreams of others.
28. Reformed mindflayer who only eats the brains of those they have read and deemed to be sinful enough.
29. Demigod javelinist who can ride their own javelins up to 7 leagues.
30. Duo-cynocephaloid monk who can identify whom bodily fluids belong to by smelling both fluid and subject within a fortnight.

To do things, roll a d20 and the GM will roll one too. If it seems to be something you would be better at than other classes would be—exempli gratia, a warrior rolling to hit—you can roll a d30 instead. If you roll higher, you do the thing. If the GM's die rolls close to yours though, maybe you didn’t do the thing so smoothly. If you failed, there is some bad thing that happens now and makes sense for the danger you have blundered your way into.

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