Nothing but the Fable

For the love of dice!

For many tabletop systems, one rarely finds themselves rolling anything other than a d20. Many standard sets have at least 7 different kinds of dice! Share the love!

On another note, the statistics behind just using a d20 are incredibly simplistic. There is technically an equal chance of rolling any one of those sides, which is safe from a game design perspective but also boring. Leveling up just increases a bonus you add to rolls instead of the probability that you will actually roll higher or more consistently. (For those of you who don’t know, rolling 2d10 is not statistically the same as rolling a d20. Don’t believe me? Look it up!)

This ruleset was designed around using multiple kinds of dice frequently.

I want a pamphlet of rules instead of a book!

As much as I love regular tabletop systems, they frequently frustrate players with their long and meticulous rule sets. You practically have to read a whole book (if not multiple) to fully comprehend not just what’s allowed, but also what strategies are actually effective. Additionally, veteran players often use their familiarity to meta-game (even if they try not to), leaving inexperienced players feeling insufficient.

This ruleset is intended to be brief so that both the players and the DM can easily comprehend how to play.

In the name of flexibility!

“You need to be more flexible!” - Elastigirl, The Incredibles (2004)

Oftentimes DMs and players are made to give preferential treatment to the rules instead of the story they all want to tell. Having rules is obviously important to enable rational gameplay that’s fair, engaging, and challenging - but let’s be frank, tabletop RPGs are just a fancy way of saying that you’re playing pretend! If you can’t embrace that then in my opinion you shouldn’t play these sorts of games in the first place.

When rules are too meticulously crafted, it is inevitable that arguments will unfold surrounding their semantics. I believe it is more fun when the rules act more as guidelines, allowing DMs and players to determine the semantics themselves.

The brevity of this ruleset should enable DMs and players to easily adjust content to how they want to play.

A free world-agnostic system

Most systems are designed with a specific world canon in mind. While you don’t have to play in the world that system was designed for, it will take considerable effort for a DM to “reskin” the system entirely for their custom world unless they adjust their world to correlate better with the system.

Games I play with my system will be set in my personal world which I’ve been building since I was a child and as such the rules and mechanics I will enforce as a DM will bend around this world. Nevertheless, my intention is for my system to be world-agnostic. My system should be able to mold to the world of any DM without any required modification.

Tabletop RPGs are best when DMs and players feel free to be creative and play the way they want to.