Design Goals
Style of Play
- Player Agency: Players should be able to make informed decisions. Challenges should be overcome by player ability in critical thinking and problem solving, not limited by character skills or special features.
- Points of Light: The farther away from civilization — or deeper into a dungeon — you go the more wild, fantastical, and dangerous the world becomes.
- Cooperative Play: Players should be encouraged to work together towards a shared goal or objective. Lone wolves are usually not compelling in groups.
- Emergent Narrative: Characters make their own story but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the actions of the past.
- Anthropocentrism: Player characters are expected to be humans. While elves, dwarves, and other fantasy creatures may exist they are completely alien to the human experience and shuold not be playable characters.
- Low Magic: Magic is real but it is neither common nor safe to use for humans.
- Against “Capitalist Realism”: The implicit world design aims to simulate one that is foreign to ours. It is not a world of merchants, industry, and banks but one of communities and kings similar to a palatial economy.
- Mortality: The world may severely wound or even kill a character if they make foolish choices. Players should treat the world like it can do this with ease. This does not mean the referee should try to kill the characters.
Mechanics
- Simple Mechanics: Everything where uncertainty is involved can be done using a single standard six sided die. Rules are made to facilitate play and stay out of the way. You may need to roll the die more than once if you only have one but that’s still all you need. Of course, rolling more dice at once is fun.
- Materialist: Characters are defined more by the equipment they choose to carry as opposed to fixed roles and set abilities. Some characters may accomplish specific feats to be better at certain actions but anyone can attempt anything as long as they have the right tools.
- Diegetic Growth: Characters may gain new strengths through the course of play by participating in in-world events or acquiring new gear.
- Rule of Reasonable: Players should engage with the fictional universe and positioning their characters are in to determine what actions are possible. If it makes sense, it can happen with reasonable outcomes.
- Rules as Framework / Modularity: The rules and procedures presented here are guidelines and are designed to be hacked, changed, dropped, replaced, etc as needed for the needs of each group.
- Character Ability: Characters can be competent in most of their attempts at exploration given enough time to research and/or prepare.