I'm researching rules-light #ttrpg games for novice players. I want something with some vague of crunch -- that is, there should be *some* mechanics, not a pure storytelling game -- but not much crunch at all. Also, not rules intended for comedy wacky games, or rulesets which cost money to look at (I'm only looking for inspiration here, so I'm not buying a game to read once). On the list already are Risus, Freeform Universal, Fate Accelerated, Lasers & Feelings, Fireside; suggestions welcomed!
@sil Daggerheart is looking pretty promising. It’s just hit open beta so you can get it for free.
It is Critical Roll’s house system as they reduce their dependence on Hasbro IP so it focuses on the kind of games they run.
My first impression is that it’s got a lot of the narrative simplicity of a PBTA game like Dungeon World but with a bit more crunch to it. (I’m probably not doing it justice by packing it into one sentence though).
@dorward daggerheart is cool, and I like the idea of it a lot. It's not minimal enough for this particular thing I'm looking at (which needs to be very rules-light) but separately I'm hoping to put together a Daggerheart game at some point because I like most of the ideas!
@josh I have. The stuff I'm looking at is much rules-lighter than DW. It's an interesting looking system (I've never actually _played_ a game using it), though!
@fargate @josh yeah, I’ve been looking at PbtA stuff. https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/simple-world is a nice expression of the core, to the extent that it has a core set of rules :)
@sil Are the "Powered by the Apocalypse" games not in the right sweet spot? What about Blades in the Dark or Kids on Bikes"? Maybe those aren't quite right either, but they don't seem too comedy-focused and (I think) are only somewhat crunchy.
@powersoffour Blades is great and I like it a lot, but waaaay more in-depth than I'm looking at here for this particular project. By "rules-light" here I mean stuff like Risus or Freeform, where character generation is "pick three cool sentences about your character, and we're done", and dice rolls are more like "roll 1d6 and 4-6 is a success" :) Never heard of Kids on Bikes; I'll check that out!
@sil Ohh, rad. I get it now! :)
@sil You might want to add #Wushu to that toolkit. The mechanics are almost entirely geared to managing pacing and determining the impact of the actions that the players take rather than limiting them as to which actions they can take.
It's depicted as go go full-time action over the top all the time – but it works quite well for complicated emotional scenes as long as you are willing to treat them mechanically the same way. It's one of my favorite #TTRPG even though it still maintains a GM role. And it's free!
Normally this would be where I say "have you met my friend #Ironsworn ?" But it might be slightly more crunchy than you're looking for; there are a fair number of resources and bits of structure involved, though in the actual course of play things flow pretty obviously from one thing to another. It is, however, also free.
@sil I think games based on Into the Odd (Electric Bastionland, Mausritter, Cairn, Liminal Horror, etc.) would fit your criteria, especially if you're looking for more traditional games.
A lot of NSR games would also fit your criteria in general IMO.
@Tim_Eagon I’ve not heard of those; I’ll take a look, thank you! What’s NSR?
@sil It stands for New School Renaissance or Revival. Basically, it's an offshoot of the OSR that embraces that ethos but with more modern design elements.
@Tim_Eagon Ah, cool. I assumed it was something like that, but I'd not heard the term before now; thank you!
@sil It's pretty minimal on the mechanics side, but I got *years* of fun out of Warrior, Rogue, and Mage: https://www.stargazergames.eu/warrior-rogue-mage/
@sil it’s not a complete game but a framework that you might find useful: https://hexedpress.itch.io/do-anything-d6
@hexedpress this is useful; thank you!
@sil #Herokids is stripped down to the bones while still being a proper RPG. It's designed for kids, so it may actually be too rule light for you.
Another very #rulelight #ttrpg is #RisusRPG. The basic rules are available for free on itch.
In alternative, what about one page games such as #lasersandfeelings an all of its derivatives?
@muzzle yup, as per the list I know about Lasers & Feelings and Risus, but I've not heard of Herokids; I'll look that one up, thank you! (Is there some way I can get a read of the basic rules without purchasing it? I'm not looking to play it, so I don't really wanna buy it just to read it once.)
@sil check out Quest and ENI rpg. I have had so much fun with these and they are very flexible.
@sil I'm going to suggest Mörk Borg. The rules are on their site for free, and it has a ton of stuff for it. It's pretty simple rules too.
@ronnietucker it is relatively simple as a ruleset, yup; I have that in the list now :)
@sil you can speed things up a lot by using web sites to spit out characters and dungeons for you. I can send over some links if you need them.
@sil @Tim_Eagon It’s vintage now, but the D6 system fits this bill.