Rules-Light Systems

What tweaks do you do to risus' cliche combat system to make it more realistic and vivid while keeping it playable? "Sum 3 highest values" was a good suggestion I saw at Veeky Forums. But what I really want is to fuse it somehow with Wushu, incentivize players to desribe detailed action.

> fuse Risus with Wushu
Brotha, they look the same on the surface but they are not actually the same. I know because I once dreamt the same thing and couldn't get it to happen.

That said, I give you the floor to plug Wushu. Criminally underrated, rules-lite game.

Any system can be a rules lite system if you stop caring.

It's how my group plays Aberrant, literally throwing large portions of the rules out the window in the name of fun.

Lately though, I've been starting games with something I've come to call 'you wake up in a dark room'. It's a story telling game/exercise led by a story teller but is ultimately a group told story. Has one rule besides GM wins on decisions (for expediency), everyone has to wake up in a dark room at the onset of the story. Other than that, setting, characters, traits and whatnot come out as you play, sort of a build as you go dealy.

I'm working on making an actual system that has this exercise as a core, but it's pretty much just roleplaying with no rolls. I use it to have a short warm up before a game and it really focuses people, and i've had a game last over the course of a few weeks before because the story was interesting. It's really up to you how it goes.

This is what i use. Homebrew; been running a campaign for 4 years.

Update: Everytime they survive a mission, they get a new skill. Be ruthless, the system is designed to kill half the team on every mission and let them make a new character fast to keep on the session.

Ryuutama is nice.

I want to introduce that booty to my boa, if you catch my drift

Tell us about your campaign and the crazy shit in it. This looks and sounds good.

Risus is my go-to for rules light as well, albeit houseruled into a success-based system.
risusiverse.com/home/optional-rules/evens-up

Fire elixir is the name of the gang. They started as disciples of a Taekwondo sensei (real local hero around my RL town) who, in game, ran a network of opium smuggling from South Korea.
The most important characters currently (By this I mean survivors from the most important quests of the gang) are
1. a parkour/sniper guy; doesn't talk much but is a pretty good tactician.
2 Machete; that guy from the movie, but who is a torture expert and insists on torture everyone, even when he can just ask. Has a whip made out of knives.
3. A samurai girl who recently was turned into a vampire by a rival ganglord NPC (IRL he has a heavy rock pub). Solves all problems by throwing scopolamine into people's face.
4. A Biotechnologist whose head was transplanted into an 8 meter tall metal body. Has a spectacular ability to botch all surgery rolls when implanting cyberparts on others.

They and many others started working for taekwondo guy. Their quests, very very resumed,go like this:

1. finding the boss sister, who was kidnapped by military scientist trying to find an optical camouflage device that could be implanted on the skin. As a fun fact, party was intended to fight a herd of invisible dogs, but somehow they found out and never opened that strange, seemingly empty, great cage.

2. finding a new body for the boss sister, who was now a futurama-style encased head. They almost got one from the major's, who was a robocop style monster thrashing down the poor people's houses. In the end they had to use the body for the biotecnolocgist PC, who was almost dead.

3. In order to fight the Robocop major, they quested to find the longinus spear, buried beneath the city tunnels (That Exist IRL). They had to confront an underground gang called for some reason The Deep Purples.

4. Confront a Vodoo Gang who was selling Bath Salts (google the drug) into our turf. Result: Naked people running through the streets eating other people; they don't go down on a single shot.

5. They made a deal with the yakuzas to kill the Voodoo Gang. In the process they spread the Ebola around the town. They manage to find a cure but not all the gang is saved.

6. Taekwondo guy sets a trap for the PCs as they're very powerful already. PCs find out and kill the guy. Civil war starts, ends with Machete killing a giant robot dog.

7. Gang expands south, find Vampire Gang. Currently in process of befriending/retaliating. Many mexican standoffs but in the end they have learnt to trust each other. Vampire leader can read minds but none of the PCs have found out yet, though I have made a lot of obvious references.

7. Yakuza wants to eliminate turf wars by empowering one of the remaining gang, ours or a Latin King gang. After a supper on Yakuza Skyscraper in which the PCs couldnt keep the guns on their pants, they decide to support the Latin guys. War starts. PCs ally with the russian gang from other town, after helpling them killing some dissident faction among them.
War ends with a holiday fair among Latin guys being burn literally by a gas truck exploding, Russians and PCs killing the survivors on a perfectly choreographed ambush.

8. PCs are kings of town. But for Yakuza and Deep purples who are pretty neutral. Currently there is a faction on Fire Elixir who are conspiring to overthrow the PCs from the throne. Now they are all infected with a petryfiing illness; achieved through the yakuza (who deal in biologic and chemist warfare). They do not know who has poisont them and there is only the Vampire Girl unnafected (vampires can't get sick) and the biotechnology guy (his body is all mechanic from neck to toe, though he can't speak or see very well by now). Last session ended with them all on the Gang's headquarters getting petrified by the minute, and they don't yet know that half of the gang is waiting for the night to slay all of them.

This is a very very resumed plot until now, but i hope you get the tone.

the cypher system can be boiled down to just its single rolld20 table

No Mistborn RPG? Mistborn is a pretty light system. The rulebook is simply fluff about metaphysics and there are only 6 stats of which only 3 are frequently used. It's focus is basically on roleplaying.

> Sell me on your favorite rules-light system.
My homebrew system. Simple, fun and almost universally applicable.

WaRP, It's similar to risus in a lot of ways