Luckless, an RPG without RNG
I just got home from a bit of a trip with my wife and boys, and during the trip I decided to run a quick campaign. I considered breaking out a dice app and making some rough stats, but I thought, what the heck, the boy's 4 and my wife's driving, we'll just play pretend.
It was... alright. I missed the little bit of grounding that mechanics lend to a game, but it got me thinking, how could we make an RPG without dice, or RNG at all?
I've heard tales of such things, but - in the serviceless wastelands we were driving through - I couldn't research them at the time.
So here's an abomination of my own creation.
I call it Luckless.
Luckless works by giving each character a set of spendable Ability scores. If a challenge's DC is less than or equal to your current ability score, you may simply succeed at it. No sweat. However, if a challenge's DC is greater than your ability score, you may spend a point from your current ability score to add your max of that ability to the attempt.
So if I have a max DEX of 3, I can succeed at an attempt with a DC of 5 by burning a point of DEX to add my max DEX to my current of 3, which brings the attempt to 6. However, from then on I can only "Auto-pass" DEX challenges with a DC of 2 or less until I rest to bring my ability score back up.
This kind of tactical game intrigues me. I also think it lends itself to finding solutions that don't require burning your ability score. If the bridge is down, can we find or make another way over the chasm, instead of burning DEX to jump?
Combat works slightly differently. Weapons deal Ability+Number damage, - the target's armor. Whenever you are attacked, you can burn DEX to dodge.
Magic is quite simple (the whole ruleset is 1/2 a page). Magic requires a resource called Mysterum. Mysterum can be spent to deal Myst+CHA damage or healing, ignoring armor. Which means if you have a CHA of 3, you can spend 1 Myst to deal 4 damage, or burn CHA to boost it to 7 damage. Myst can also be used to create mystical effects, to do so, make an attempt with a score of CHA+Myst Spent. While this can't create permanent matter, it can manipulate it. It's... basically just the force. Super original, but hey, it fits.
Anyway, there's rules for everything on the link above. Character creation, Skills, Combat Situations, Leveling, Classes, Items, Exploration, It's all there.
Just need to write a dungeon for it now as an example... Not today. Today I unpack, tuck the kids in, and remember that there's more to life than rolling dice.
Have a wonderful day everyone.
How do you handle damage then? Do you reduce one of the scores?
ReplyDeleteLike most games, you have HP, but instead of rolling, say a d6+STR, you just deal your weapon's damage + your current ability - any armor they're wearing. You can also burn that ability to deal more damage.
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