The setting
Basra, under the rule of the magnificent caliph Haroun-Al-Rashid of Baghdad, is the busiest port in the world. Ships and sailors of every nation gather to trade and sell and tell stories of far away lands: of the roc bird, so huge that can lift entire ships and feed the sailors to their young. Of the magnetic mountain, which can pull the nails from the wood and disintegrate the unfortunate vessel which sails too close. Of cities with streets paved with gold, and palaces with roofs inlaid with jewels with so much art that they look like the night sky. Of princesses cursed by ancient dragons, awaiting their rescuer. In a tavern, wine runs free and patrons gather in a thick crowd as the local heroes arrive from their last travel with more astounding tales. Maybe they return defeated and poor, perhaps victorious and rich. In any case, the stories told tonight will be worth remembering.
(As a disclaimer, we’re talking about the Hollywood version of the city, not the historical. You really can be eaten by a roc or a giant octopus and if you travel far enough you may or may not fall of the world’s edge. Above all, I’d like to avoid any religious or cultural discussion)
How to make a character?
Characters stats:
Wisdom is the character’s sum of intelligence and knowledge. You roll wisdom when you want to cast a ritual, decipher scripts written in forgotten languages, or give a lecture about molds, spores and fungi.
Athletics is the character’s strength and physical power. You roll athletics to run, swim, bash down doors, fight and push boulders out of the way.
Cunning is the character’s subtlety and knowledge of underhanded and tricky things, your quick thinking and awareness. You roll cunning to sneak and hide, set up and dismantle traps, steal purses, notice things, contact people of ill repute and find your way in difficult places.
Social is your character’s ability to interact with people. You roll social when you want to persuade, haggle, fast talk, cajole or intimidate someone or a group.
Additionally characters have Experience. You can permanently lose a point of experience to increase one stat by 1 for one roll, and/or use a different stat depending on your class provided you can justify it.
Fighter types can use their Athletics in place of any other stat. Perhaps they impress and intimidate the opponent with his physique or amazing collection of weapons or smash the trap outright without giving it a chance to fire, or kicks down the doors of Moria, leaving Gandalf dumbfounded and wondering forever what the password was.
Mages can use Wisdom in place of any other stat, usually casting a spell for the desired result – Throwing a fireball, charming the recipient so it’s more receptive to his suggestions, levitating the rock out of the way, or summoning an imp to find his target in a crowded city.
Rogue types use their extensive collection of tricks to use Cunning in place of any other stat, fighting with poisoned blades, blackmailing the informant or using various bits of knowledge of forgotten languages to piece together the meaning of that inscription.
Entertainers have met and dealt with enough people that they can talk out of almost any situation. They can use their Social in place of another stat.
To create a character, pick a type or role. You start with a score of 0 in each stat and can add 7 points to them, assigned as you like – except that no one skill may be higher than four. You start with 1 experience point. Beyond that, you’ll need your description, personality, background, and every other data a fully detailed character is supposed to have.
Now that we have those characters…
To use your stat you just roll as many six sided dice as points you have in the stat (perhaps with added experience points), select the highest die and check the following table:
Skill Roll Chart
6: Amazing! Describe the result and gain 2 success points.
5: Good. Describe the result and gain a success point.
4: Fair. Describe the mostly positive result of your action but you must also include a negative or humorous effect.
3: Not Great. The GM decides your fate but you may be given a chance to suggest a single positive (albeit minor) effect.
2: Bad. The GM decides your fate or you may suggest something suitably negative.
1: Terrible! The GM gets to hose you with a truly dire situation resulting from your incompetence.
What’s this? you describe the result of the roll? Yes, this means that a high enough roll means you briefly take control of the narrative. Use it wisely, and by wisely, I mean the way that adds the maximum amount of fun for everyone.
What are those “success points?”
Success points measure when the scene and the adventure ends. Each scene needs a set amount of points, and adventures are composed by a certain amount of scenes, at least one for each group member.
Score of 0 or lower in a stat
A score of 0 means you roll 2 dice and pick the lowest. A -1 rolls 3 dice and pick the lowest, and so on.
I don’t see “wounds” anywhere on the sheet. Also I can’t see the sheet.
When the circumstances warrant it (like in fight scenes, though this is just an example) the GM will call for a number of penalty dice to be rolled. You roll them, pick the lowest and check the following chart:
• 6: Hard as a rock. You gain a point of Experience and suffer no real penalty.
• 5: Blasé. No effects…you just don’t care.
• 4: Annoyed. Suffer a 1-die penalty to your next stat roll (no matter where or
when you perform it).
• 3: Stressed, hurt or demoralized. Lose a die from an appropriate stat.
• 2: Frazzled, seriously hurt or depreseed. Lose two dice from an appropriate stat (or one die from two stats)
• 1: Complete and total nuclear meltdown or critical injury. Lose a number of stat dice equal to the number of penalty dice rolled.
At the end of the scene you can remove 1 penalty die, and all are “healed” of them all at the end of the adventure.
So, when does my character kick the bucket?
Penalties to stats also work as “anti-success” dice. If you get too many of them the scene ends and something horrible happens to the party –normally, they lose and the adventure ends… except if one of the characters make a heroic sacrifice. One group member can choose to die to give the rest a chance to escape. This means the group removes penalties to stats as usual, but don’t get additional experience. The dead group member joins the group with a new character.
Game structure
The Veto
You’ll notice that the game places a lot of power into the player’s hands. To make sure everyone’s comfortable with that, there’s one rule we’ll add that’ll be surely unnecessary – the veto. If you really really feel something another player did with the game isn’t appropriate or justified or fun or just doesn’t fit, you just quote the part you don’t agree with a after that you add VETO in a big, red font. If a simple majority agrees with you, that never happened.
The narrator
At the start of the scene one of the players will act as a narrator. He’ll be the one who sets the wheels in motion for the scene.
The player will imagine he’s in a tavern or another situation when he’s telling the tale of what happened to the party, and address them roleplaying as required. During this scene, the Narrator can talk about the other people on the show, shed some light on current events or comment on events which have already happened in the past but you have yet to see.
During the Narration you set two things:
- You add a trait to one character (other than your own) that lasts for the whole scene. You narrate how that character is suddenly flirtatious, or brave, or modest, or developed an annoying cough, or acquired a sudden mistrust for the captain of the guard, or whatever. That character’s player must play his character according to this new trait, and gain an additional experience point at the end of the scene for the trouble.
- You add a plot device. You describe in some vague terms what’s going to happen, and is the work of the whole group, DM included, to fill the blanks.
Example: The narrator of the opening scene writes, in a summarized version:
Though we had our ship ready, things weren’t going to be so easy. The farewell party had Maruf’s favorite drink in abundance, and he’s not a good drinker. Soon things when out of hand and it wasn’t without a lot of effort that we could escape the guard and board the ship.
In the scene that’s going to happen, Maruf’s player must be sure he drinks more than what he can handle, and the whole group must make sure something in the party happens that attracts the militia and get into trouble with them, and somehow escape.
Notice that he could have perfectly Narrated how they got into the ship without problem and sailed directly into a storm. Or how they discovered a homunculus spying on them that belonged to a dreaded mage. Or whatever other possibility he could think of.
Continuing the scene
After the Narrator has set up the scene, the characters can do as they please. In the absence of a roll, the GM will determine their efforts in a fairly neutral manner unless they are very clever. The most direct way to advance the story is to use your stats – these give you successes and allow you to direct the narrative as you please, and the GM may require a roll anyway depending on the characters’ actions.
Fighting
Fighting in close quarters always use Athletics, unless you spend an experience point to use another stat according to your role. After all you’ll need to avoid those swords and claws even if you want to freeze them with a spell. The only exception is if you can set up the situation to your advantage – casting a with Wisdom requires not being directly threatened long enough to carefully make the needed gestures and pronounce the right words, using Cunning probably is only possible from a hiding position and you’ll need some time if you want to fast talk your enemies into giving diplomacy an opportunity.
Ending the scene
The scene ends with the group fulfilling the narrator’s opening scene and amassing the required amount of successes, in which case they win and get experience, or when they accumulate too many dice penalties (in which case Someone Can Die). The party can also vote to give up, if they feel the tale’s going nowhere and want to save on penalties, with the same effect.
After the scene
As previously said, after a scene you remove one die of penalty to your character and the character which had one trait added by the scene’s narrator gains 1 experience point. The group also votes for the best player in the group, and awards his character an additional experience point. If there’s a tie, the GM breaks it.
Treasure
You’re in this for the fabulous riches, of course. The GM can award the party with treasure points, generally at the end of the adventure. This works much like experience points, except everyone can use them. Certain kinds of treasure can be tied to specific stats, like a Potion of Intelligence that briefly enhances Wisdom, or even specific actions, like invoking the powers of a magic sword which you could only conceivably use when fighting or cutting things down. You can also use unspecified treasure points to cancel lost stats – 1 point cancels 1 die.
What’s the GM’s role?
As little as possible.
I’ll provide the initial setting, manage the thread, narrate the results of failed rolls and referee when needed. I’ll nudge the story forward I things get stale, or make sure it doesn’t get too formulaic or repetitive. Also I’ll set the number of successes or penalties that make you win or lose the scene – this probably will need some tweaking as we advance.
