Are there any good simple fantasy RPGs that AREN'T a clone of OD&D...

Are you.. are you actually shitting me? This game has skills and hit dice and classes and the stats are randomly generated with six-sided die. The magic is a break from D&D, that's it.

I'll give Barbarians of Lemuria another look but at 200+ pages of all brand new and fairly detailed rules it didn't seem like it was going to be very simple for me to learn, teach to players, and use to adapt a magic system I wrote into it.

Also there's more to "fantasy" than the medieval-tomb-raiding-wargame genre.

To clarify: when I say "simple", I'm meaning something like Old School Hack or Warrior, Rogue, & Mage--where you can learn the rules in about 20 minutes.

Alright, user. Let me take a crack at it.

docs.google.com/document/d/1yqAbRnIvl4VnwdnlzIF9brfWO72uVZ4WiL3WJeIdrw0/edit?usp=sharing

I've been working on this for a while, the total rules are 6 pages long, not including GMing advice, reference sheet, and character sheet. I could have made it shorter, probably down to 3-4 page, but I felt examples and explanations helped explain some concepts.

It has:
>5 stats, none of which have the same attribute names as DnD. They are assigned from a point pool rather than rolled.
>NO vancian casting.
>NO skills.
>Absolutely NO classes.
>NO hit dice

>Levels technically, but all they do is tell you how many rerolls you get a session. You could rename it "hero points" if you just hate the word level. I chose "level" because the rerolls are used to convey an increase in compotency or plot armor, i.e. you are more protagonist-y, and since most games, tabletop and vidya, convey that with levels, it seemed like an easy shorthandto get the idea across.

>Alignment in fluff only. Easily removed, as it has no mechanical basis and is mostly there just to help players give their character a personality, same as titles.

Sweet, I'll give it a read.

>Adventure Quest: An Unofficial Generalization Hack for Kingdom of Ooo, an Unofficial Hack of World of Dungeons, an OSR adaptation of Dungeon World, a Fantasy Reinterpretation of Apocalypse World
Well now. That's an auspicious start.

You literally can't eat too many fats.
You shit out the excess, undigested.

I suppose that would malnourished you, but the brain would be the last part to suffer from that. Especially if you aren't lacking dietary fats.

>EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. is minor variations to the same fucking ruleset.
What exactly are you looking for?

Take a page from and just play freeform with a referee.
Build rules bottom-up as needs arise.

the first edition of BoL is about 50 pages, available for free: 1km1kt.net/rpg/barbarians-of-lemuria

Thanks for the link. It's a cool system. It's not quite what I'm looking for, especially with the Traits, but I appreciate you showing it to me all the same.

>out of curiosity, why wouldn't your powergamer/munchkin just put "I can [instantly defeat any obstacle or enemy] because I [am a god]"?

You swat them in the gobs and tell them not to be a cunt.
If they can't not be a cunt, don't play with them.

>Butterdogs

That sounds absolutely horrifying.

It's almost as disgusting as Chip Butties.

Since you asked...

I'm looking for a game that I can adapt for survival-exploration-adventure gameplay in a custom setting, where the game is meant to evoke a different feel than the standard D&D setting.

Specifically, the setting's magic is very different from what you normally see in an RPG, because I tried to make it very fairy-tale-esque instead of flashy comic book stuff. The whole setting is animist--everything is alive. Magic is various skills that anybody can learn, like how to speak the language of fire and convince it not to burn you, or tie knots so well that you can make ones that will untie when you whistle a tune, or make bonds with spirits, and so on. There aren't spells to cast or special people to cast them, you just do things if you know how.

It's going to be run for one player, and I want to make it a simple deal. Something akin to playing A Link to the Past, or Secret of Evermore, or one of those old point and click games from the 90s.

I thought Fate would work for it, but aspects and fate points feel too gamey--and are tied too deeply into the mechanics to remove--and anyway the ruleset is just too long for one we've never used before. I don't want to be looking up rules all the time.

That's what I'm looking for, exactly.

I only worked on the final step. I felt it rude to remove everone elses signatures from the previous iterations.

Easy:
>1. DM (and rest of group) has to confirm traits. Good luck with that, but I could see some situations where you would get away with it, for instance, Aqua of Konosuba and Kid Death of Soul Eater.

>2. That's fine and all but what about things that don't need defeating? What about things that aren't enemies or obstacles? Also lacking is anything specifying your method. Which is good, it makes you versatile, but while you may always get your man, but some methods take much, much longer than others, which is not good for those on tight schedules.

>3. Don't be too hasty to waive the last half of that sentence. Gods have their own worries to contend with. As rulers, they require subjects. They have cosmic responsibilities they are forced to deal with or they lose all those subjects, either through death or resentment. They must heed prayers or risk infidelity out of anger or apathy. They have divine rivals, enemies, and competition. It's not all fun and games, go ask Bender.

>4. Great for you, Munchkin, all it does is let you roll 3d6 and drop the lowest instead of just rolling 2, just like any other trait. Though to be fair you will always be adequately equipped for the task, and will get to spend level tokens to make up facts about things related to that trait, just like any other as well.

That's not a very good answer.

The more reasonable the power is, the more generous you can be in arbitrating it.

If their unique power is over-reaching then you as the gamemaster have to be more stingy, or make trouble for them to balance it out, "That's only a partial success", "it only has a random chance of working", or "you can't do that without drawing the attention of the rival gods and they are the whole reason you're disguising yourself as a mortal".

>"you can't do that without drawing the attention of the rival gods and they are the whole reason you're disguising yourself as a mortal".
I did always like how Exalted handled that. I just wish the rest of the game was decent.

>ctrl f
>0 results for Academagica
What the fuck, Veeky Forums?!

okay, so you don't like his "define your own" traits, but you also don't like classes.

Tell me then, how exactly should one determine what a character is capable of doing?

>72 pages
>learn the rules in about 20 minutes.

that's why, nigga.

JFC! Try Runequest! Early, pre Avallon Hill versions!

Have you seen how big the font is?
Besides, it's only ~55 pages of rules; the rest is super barebones lore.

Skills or traits are two ways I've seen, I know there's more.

I'll take a look at both, thanks.

That's not me (OP), btw, since you seem ticked at him I figure I'd mention it.

I appreciate everyone's help so far. I know it's not the easiest request to fill.

Is there a DMG? This is what I've been looking for.
Not op

that's two pages a minute just to read it all in 20 minute, which is twice the speed of an average reader. And since you have to fairly thoroughly understand a system in order to run it, speed reading is not really an option, and in fact, one might want a little but more time than normal just to doublecheck things and reread for clarity.

So still no.

that pdf is the entire system. What are you looking for in a DMG for it? I might be able to help.

OP here, I did say /about/ 20 minutes, and I am a very fast reader. (That said, as you mention retention is an issue; while I'm good at doing that, the longer the material gets the more exponentially difficult it gets to hold it all without dumping any from memory, especially with more complicated rules.)

>It's not simple if it needs basic reading comprehension or an investment of time
I want this meme to end.

it's not "20 minutes simple" if it needs those.

Alright, how about GURPS Lite or Ultralite then?

Read pages 2-7, then page 44-47. Then, go over the classes you chose in a bit more detail. If you're GMing, also read pages 48-52.

Everything else is just lore and options you haven't taken.

I've run GURPS before and, yeah I'm good to not run it again.

The one you linked is fine for length, but I'll check those sections first.

>it's not "20 minutes simple" if it needs those.
>immediately suggests GURPS
Is this some manner of ruse?

GURPS Lite is a mere 32 pages.
GURPS Ultralite is literally a brochure, pic related.

...

Risus really isn't that good. A higher dicepool will almost always beat a lower one, and due to losing dice as combat progresses, there's really nothing you can do about an opponent with a higher dice pool.

Take a look at Into the Odd.

I'd post it, but despite only having like 8 pages worth of rules, it's 18MB.
Lotta hi-res images in there or something.
It's in the OSR Trove if you want it.

>That's not a very good answer.
There are these really neat social animals called "rats."
As with all social animals, rats are very prone to play.
Which, for rats, usually means play wrestling.
The big rats usually win.

But the little rats pick who they play with.
Big rats that don't throw at least 30% of the games stop getting invited.

What I'm getting at here is
• some people aren't worth playing with
• you are dumber than rats

>I'd post it, but despite only having like 8 pages worth of rules, it's 18MB.
Somebody seriously needs to transcribe that into something a little more Text Document.

>There are these really neat social animals called "rats."
>As with all social animals, rats are very prone to play.
>Which, for rats, usually means play wrestling.
>The big rats usually win.
>But the little rats pick who they play with.
>Big rats that don't throw at least 30% of the games stop getting invited.
Is this actually true? That's really cool to learn about if so, as cool as some of the facts about crow intelligence.

Budding heroes is neat, since it's basically all combat. Which, if you think about it, is all you really NEED to have rules for. Everything else can just be RPd.

It's simple, it just isn't as simple as he wants, and there are plenty of games which really ARE as simple as he wants, so I see no need to be a cuntface about it.

That said, OP, just because you can't read the whole rulebook in 20 minutes doesn't mean that it can't be *taught* in 20 minutes.

Especially if you're , then you already know what kind of system you want to run, and you're just looking for a system that's easy to explain and use. It sounds like you're putting too much thought into it, just pick something and run with it.

>Take a look at Into the Odd.
>I'd post it, but despite only having like 8 pages worth of rules, it's 18MB.
>Lotta hi-res images in there or something.
>It's in the OSR Trove if you want it.
Thanks for the recommendation--though if this is the trove you mean, I'll have to wait for permission from the google doc owner to access it.

>taxidermicowlbear.weebly.com/dd-retroclones.html

If memory serves, this guy studied that:
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Papez
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papez_circuit
You're welcome to dig up his research on your own time.

If that's the wrong guy, I don't know what to tell you.
But the answer is still "Yes, that's true."

Look at actual rules content. 30 pages of three-column 9-point is your go-to for simple, and yet 30 pages of 15-point font is simply TOO MUCH and somehow disqualified from being considered simple.
GURPS is fine. GURPS Lite is fine. But don't expect anybody to buy that load of crap.

>It sounds like you're putting too much thought into it, just pick something and run with it.
You're probably right, but I don't want to screw this up. I'm not going to get a second chance at it.

You can kick out bad players, that goes without saying, and doesn't solve his problem.

And you can also tell them that their first pitch is too weak or too powerful, very easily, and without judgment. You're still left with a system that has no inherent balance and relies on the craftsmanship of the gamemaster to balance it. Some powers are just going to turn out better or worse than others, even if they all look equally good on paper, you're going to see them in play later and realize they aren't.

Also I don't think the kid who wants to play as a god is necessarily a bad player, but that isn't really the point.

Don't post mega URLs straight to Veeky Forums, or bots will send takedown notices.

The kid who refuses to be play anything but a god when you ask the not to is necessarily a bad player.

>It sounds like you're putting too much thought into it, just pick something and run with it.
Honestly, it sounds like he already knows what he wants his system to be he just needs an action resolution system, and ability selection that isn't either a skill/spell list or player-defined traits.

----

I actually have a really nice system a friend of mine and I have been working on that involves choice trees with point costs, and a reference sheet to double check in case you can't figure out what like, adding "tireless" to a movement power would mean with just your common sense.

It is however, quite a ways away from publishing. Right now we're assigning costs. Soon we will be playtesting.

I would suggest it. But, ya know, not finished yet.

Ah, didn't think about that, sorry. Would it help if I deleted the post or is it already too late because of the auto-archives?

Eh, I've never really had too much of a problem with it. If you let munchkins and snowflakes actually experience the consequences of their decisions, they don't keep making them for long. It's like bratty kids that grow up once they hit the real world because mummy isn't there anymore to protect them from themselves.

Wanting to play a god didn't make him a bad player. Not cooperating or listening to his gamemaster is the part that makes him a bad player, and that's the part that you just now added because you are a turd artist.

Here's Fictive Hack, which is Old School Hack, but meant to be run beyond 1-2 sessions. Forgive the thief shell, as the OC Fictive Hack has an absolute trash setting attached.

>you just now added
c Eh? No, you're fine to link *that.*
But don't link any of the things I directed you to.

>EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. is minor variations to the same fucking ruleset.
Well yes. Because, you know, that's the ruleset that gives you that old-school feel.

Yea, I didn't mean to say it was a bad mechanic, it has the strengths and flaws of simple player-generated mechanics, its a little closer to pure improv than what some gamers are used to.

I'm not disagreeing with the part where they don't cooperate and you kick them out, I'm disagreeing with the part where you call them a cunt. A good gamemaster would respond with "no, that's too powerful" or "no, that's not powerful enough".

There's a really bad habit for gamemasters where they don't explain what they want from their players, they just get pissy, they have this cancerous construct in their head that any player whose tastes don't match theirs is a munchkin or a ruleslawyer or thatguy or somesuch.

While by no means Freeform Internet Roleplay rules-lite, it is indeed Smooth, yes.
The Crunchy market seemed to be more than filled, from things scaling all the way from Dungeon World "pickle relish" to GURPS "chewing broken glass."

God forbid he embellish on Veeky Forums.

I appreciate all the help in this thread, anons. Thanks to the guy who showed me the OSR Treasure Trove, I stumbled on one in there called Torchbearer that wasn't suggested--but looks like it'll be close enough to what I'm after that I can happily mod it.

Oh my god this. They're either clones with slightly different mechanic/ setting, or unfinished concept games, or games where the rules don't matter anyway. Don't go to Design General, you will weep, they reinvent the same game again and again and think they can sell it and become rich. Nothing makes me want to put a bullet in my brain more. The hobby is fucking ruined. Want a game driven by investigation rather than dice? Everyone will tell you to play Buttshoe, where you use dice to see if you can investigate. Want a game where you have to solve problems? Everyone will tell you to play T.U.R.D.S., where you use dice to see if you can solve problems. 12 years from now they'll put pretty androids around a table playing games like this with electronic dice and you poofterlennials will spend all day watching them on youtube and arguing about their gender software. It's only by the grace of the almighty that Gary never lived to see this horror. Now I need a drink.

Lamentations of the flame princess?

The core rules are a fairly genetic retro clone desu, but Adventure modules are completely insane and out there.

Rats are also ticklish and have an audible giggle when being tickled.

I think one guy was even breeding especially ticklish rats with loud laughs.

Eh, i'd watch it.

Runequest. Or for something new school, Dragon Age.

Go mow your lawn old man.

Its actually incredibly simple.
You roll 2d6 +mods vs 9 + mods for everything, you have 4 main stats, 4 combat stats and 4 career stats. Careers are basically a summary of your characters skills, e.g. a thief rank of 2 lets you add 2 to whatever thieflike skill you're attempting (sneak, pick lock, etc.). There's not much more to it, the rulebook is mostly fluff and you can summarize the whole thing in max 5 pages. I use it with a different magic system, but the one included is pretty good for standard sword and sorcery. But it really is one of the easiest systems to modify since it's pretty barebones to begin with, just tack on whatever you want. I've started using it for a dying earth setting, but I'd love to use it for wfrp as well since it works with careers. I just need to turn up the lethality a bit, which is easy to do.

Butter on its own is one thing, but that much bread can't be good for you.

>Don't go to Design General, you will weep, they reinvent the same game again and again and think they can sell it and become rich.
RPGs that aren't direct derivatives of D&D don't play like D&D at all.

>Gary never lived to see this horror.
he died only a few years ago.

anyway, this is obviously bait, since nobody could be unironically this retarded, and you got me to reply, so i'll give you 4/10.

ryuutama