"Dead Simple Fantasy Roleplaying" Topic

"Let me explain, no that would take too long, let me sum up…" Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

Like an growing number of roleplayers over the last two decades I have found the increasing complexity and length of most commercial roleplaying systems overwhelming. I'm sorry everyone, but I like to play RPGs for fun, not as a second life. I like to be carried along by the story, not the dice. I like to spend my playing time finding creative solutions to seemingly intractable problems, not rolling handfuls of dice against skill tables to see if I succeed.

I understand that the commercial authors of rules have mortgages to pay and businesses to run and I applaud the fact that they have found away to do so. However, I do not see why I as a games master have to own several multi-hundred page books, all of the supporting novels, the asssociated figures ranges, the maps and floorplans and a bucket of dice, just to give my friends an evening of fun.

All this complexity is driving the roleplaying out of RPGs. The straw that broke this old camel's back was when Dullards of the Coast decided that D&D had to become a superpowered skirmish game that mimicked World of Wiffwaff.

Already known for my ability to distill a wargame down to a single page (FUBAR) I decided to try and do the same with a classic fantasy RPG. Well folks I failed.. well not entirely. Dead Simple is indeed a single page, but I couldn't help myself and wrote a dozen supplements on such things as creating dungeons, villages, cities and monsters, each a single page long.

So the rules now span a dozen pages, but you still only need the first page to play a game. You can create and develop a character and play it in a game with that single page.

I published this game on my blog a few years ago now, and it has gone from strength to strength. With only a single page to mess about with I found it easy to convert to other genres and before I knew it I had about twenty variants on the books. A few of them became very popular, such as Carbon City – 1930's Superhero Roleplaying.

Well all this has now outgrown my original blog and so I have built a new one to chronicle and support it. You can find this here: deadsimplerpg.wordpress.com

Important Note: All of this is free! Please download anything you like here and bend, fold, staple, mutilate and adapt it to your heart's content. All I ask is that if you publish it on the interweb that you put a link back to where it came from. Also if you have the time let me know how it is going.

Now, wo ist meine kleine goblin-hammer­?

Old school basic D&D – available second hand for peanuts …

Indeed, all for the cost of printing one page of paper :D

You are dead right. My introduction to roleplaying was Warlock of Firetop Mountain back in the early 80's and I've looked askance at anything much more complex than that ever since. People moan about 4e being a tabletop version of an MMO but, IMO, thats what 3e already was – pure munchkinism and an exercise in unlocking power-ups and upgrades.

Now see if you can distill your game to 1/2 a page

If you pull the character creation rules then it is just half a page ;)

I will definitely take a look!
Although it's not free, QUERPS link is a nice, simple RPG. I used it to introduce my wife to pen and paper roleplaying (after D&D was a bust).

Nice looking rules. Now all I have to do is convince the other players this is a good thing.

One word, "Tunnels & Trolls"

Ok, that was three words, but you get the idea.

I look at these rules and you know…

All they need a supplement for fully cooperative dungeon crawl adventures.

You now, like Dead Simple Quests

The skill check in CARBON CITY rules says that a 1 is an automatic success and that a 10 is an automatic failure. Shouldn't that be a 20 is an automatic failure.

Here is a direct link to the actual Dead Simple rules. It was hard to find on that blog!

link

Hi Elmo,

What do you mean by "fully cooperative dungeon crawl adventures"?

Sounds like something I'd be happy to have a go at, but I just want to be sure :)

Hi Tulsatime,

You are correct. 1st edition Dead Simple games used a D10, and I did go through and do the upgreade when we went to a D20. However, I seem to have missed that one.

It shall be corrected shortly – thanks for the heads-up.

Hi Patrick,

The category list on the right hand side of the page has a link directly to the Dead Simple Fantasy page…

Hmm… I shall see if I can do that easier for people.

Hi Tulsatime,

The correction is made.

Cheers,
Craig.

What do you mean by "fully cooperative dungeon crawl adventures"?

Well, the mack daddy in the Genre is the now out of print Warhammer Quest. A recent game like this (not RPG) is Zombicide. Games like Descent and Super Dunegon Explore require an "overlord" and aren't quite fully co-op but in the spirit at least.

At a high level you need the following to get around not having a GM:
1) Random Dungeon Generation. Quest had cards for the corridors and rooms you made a 10 card deck as the dungeon. Folks can easily make their own (turns, intersection, T junction, minor room, goal room, etc)
2) Random Encounter Generation. Monsters would need to operate via some AI mechanism or rules.
3) Random Treasure and traps
4) A list of town locations and misc encounters to separate players from their money.

So, let's say you turn a 3x3 room card, players move in and you roll d6 goblins or something. players defeat the monsters and a random roll reveals a chest. The thief can try find traps, if they fail, the chest trapped on a 3+, etc.
The party then completes the dungeon, has to travel to town for X days, each day they have a chance of meeting bandits, wolves, etc.
In town they spend money to upgrade their character, buy stuff, etc. Each time they do this action the might randomly get pick pocketed, accused of larceny (charm roll or pay fine, etc.)

Now I see what you are getting at.

As it happens I do have some random dungeon tables somewhere – I'll dig them out.

For 'cards' you certainly couldn't do worse than Billiambabble's dungeon geomorphs. I reviewed them here: link
I've being following Bill since he first appeared on the One Monk paper modelling forum. He is a bit of a genius.

Give me a few days Elmo, you've got me all inspired like :)

Just downloaded it – supplements seem to jump from #7 to #10?

And for those who have downloaded all the "bits" a nice title page would go down well and make a tidy booklet of it!

Hi Alex,

That is because Supplement 8 The Wilderlands and Supplement 9 Oh My God! are still in the workshop… :) And now I have got a good reason to finish them.

A title page needs a nice piece of (free) artwork. Any ideas?

Right I've been having a bit of a brain-fart and am halfway through writing up a set of Dead Simple RPG rules for playing young Jedi in Star Wars.

However, I need help. I like Star Wars but, unlike my dear missus, I am not a complete fanboy.

The latest post on the blog ( deadsimplerpg.wordpress.com ) goes into more detail and the rules so far are on the downloads page.

As usual contributors will receive a full credit on the finished rules.