Shining Sword (WIP)
I've been running The Halls of Arden Vul using something I've been calling Dungeons & Weaselry. It's mostly Primeval 2d6 but with D&D stuff tacked on; so a Champion-level character gets 7 hits and can fight as 7 men, rather than having 7 HD and being able to do a multi attack, or whatever.
I only do this as a concession to the module, as I broadly dislike having levels in my games and chafe against the D&D concepts constantly - see our constant debate on "what does a +1 shield do, exactly" for instance - but I dislike having to convert stuff beforehand more.
Shining Sword, then, is my attempt at shaving away the D&D influences and bringing them closer to something I could run more happily. The actual setting for it is still in progress, but I intend to use much from my previous post on the OD&D lords with small penises, as well as the one on ancestor worship. Note that the specific wording is still very similar to Primeval 2d6. Aside from it, the main inspirations are (in no particular order) Aces & Eights, HârnMaster, Supercondensator: Freeform Traveller Rules, Pyrrhic Weaselry, and Delta Green.
Mechanics
When a conflict is present in the fiction the Referee tells the players what is at Risk.
The Player responds with how they address this conflict, typically triangulating their raw ability with their skill on this matter. The Referee will then inform the Player how much of an impact it seems their actions could have.
If there are significantly more factors on one side the Referee may dictate what happens without a roll. If the outcome is not so clear, the player makes a throw of 2d6, with situational modifiers as appropriate, against the referee.
The side that rolls highest is allowed to dictate the results in context of the risk and impact, per Referee’s discretion. Ties result in a compromise among all sides.
Alternatively, the player may offer a compromise to avoid a roll altogether.
Ex.: Eofor is fighting against a flying monkey. He wants to stab it with his spear, the referee says the risk there is that the monkey will dodge and - unable to land a blow due to his armour - attempt to snag his helmet and throw it away. Eofor, undaunted, says he's fine with sacrificing his helmet if he can land a hit, and so he does.
Otherwise, Eofor's player shrugs, rolls his 2d6 and, if he wins, he lands the blow.
Attributes and Skills
The characters all have attributes and skills. Attributes serve to inform the character's raw ability, while skills serve to limit what the character can or cannot do.
Attributes can be either Below or Above Average1. These are the ones I've decided to go with for my next game, as well as suggested descriptors. At character creation, the player throws 2d6 and, if they get between 6 and 8, their attribute is average. 5 or less means it's below average, and 9 or more means it's above.
Strength - Weak & Strong
Stamina - Sickly & Robust
Dexterity - Awkward & Deft
Agility - Clumsy & Nimble
Comeliness - Plain & Attractive
Eyesight - Dulled & Sharp
Hearing - Dulled & Sharp
Smell - Dulled & Sharp
Voice - Unpleasant & Pleasant
Intelligence - Forgetful & Clever
Aura - Shallow & Deep
Will - Indecisive & Resolute
Morality - This one actually requires a 3d6 roll and has a more defined gradient as such: (3 — 4) Diabolical, (5 — 7) Unscrupulous, (8 — 10) Corruptible, (11 — 13) Dutiful, (14 — 16) Principled, and (17 — 18) Exemplary
Skills, like I said, limit what the character can or cannot do, typically not affecting the throw the character might elect to make. They come in the following gradation:
Unskilled - For those who don't possess the skill at all. Certain skills can still be utilised at this level, but most can't. I.e. a character doesn't need the Guns skill to pull a trigger towards someone, but if they hit, it'll likely be by accident.
Novice - This is the skill of someone who's had almost no training on the matter, or perhaps a hobbyist; someone whose experience is usually counted in weeks. A novice gunman can unreliably hit the centre of mass.
Average or Intermediate - Someone who's been through the basic training and can typically do what is expected of someone whose profession this is the skill of, roughly equivalent to a college minor. The average gunman can reliably hit the centre of mass and unreliably its edges (shoulders and thighs).
Advanced - Someone with years of experience in the field or advanced training, a competent professional, roughly equivalent to a college major. Most people never go beyond this in any skill of theirs. An advanced gunman can reliably hit the centre of mass and its edges, and sometimes the limbs.
Expert - Someone with decades of experience or specialised and rigorous training by very competent masters, roughly equivalent to a graduate degree. An expert gunman hits the centre of mass, its edges, and limbs with ease, and sometimes even the smallest and most moving of targets, such as someone's hands or head.
Master - A lifetime's mastery or someone who's been raised from birth to do only this by competent teachers. The master gunman doesn't struggle to shoot the hat off of someone's head or blast an obsequious finger raised in objection.
Ex: A gunslinger of average skill runs after her quarry across the prairie. She decides to stop, raise her revolver, and shoot them in the thigh so they won't be able to run very far. This isn't an easy shot for her, so the referee says the risk there is that she'll miss it and the quarry will get a good distance from her in the meantime. Unable to think of a suitable compromise, the gunslinger's player goes for a throw of the dice.
A few years later, this same gunslinger is now an established hunter who can be said to be advanced, she's probably peaked as this is more than enough skill needed for her to make her life shooting deer. She finds herself again in the situation of chasing a person through the prairie and once more goes for the shot on the thigh. The referee knows she won't miss this shot, so the risk is different: she might hit her quarry in the femoral artery and get them killed in under 10 minutes. The gunslinger grimaces, she doesn't want the blood of her good-for-nothing dad on her hands, but 50 dollars is 50 dollars. Her player reaches for the 2d6.
I won't bother you with my full skill list, but what I did was steal most of the ones from Aces & Eights which already come with this exact gradation and "what can you do if you have a skill at this level" texts, and am working on putting it in an automated spreadsheet with XLOOKUP to autofill when the players puts the skill and their rank on it.
For binary matters, the character has a Special Training which is affixed to an attribute or skill. That is, if the character knows how to operate the telegraph and we don't feel like turning that into a whole skill (possibly because we can't think of 5 different levels for it, or think it would be silly to have a skill dedicated to it), then it becomes a Special Training, likely tied to their skill which represents literacy.
Violence
Fighting follows the exact same resolution as above, with a few edge cases:
Hits - Generally speaking, wounds can be minor (such as a cut as long as your finger, or a stab about as deep as half of one), serious (such as a cut the size of a TV remote or a stab as deep as a full finger), or grievous (such as a gash across your chest or a stab that hits organs). The referee adjudicates which blows deals which, typically starting at light injuries and moving forward. This is not a guarantee; I'm making this with guns in mind and a gunshot to the stomach is definitely a mortal wound.
Characters can usually only take one wound of each type.
Armour - Being lightly armoured against a specific kind of damage grants a free hit, being decently armoured grants two. In my setting the traditional armour is made of layered silk, andi t counts as decent protection against cuts, but it’s no good against arrows and not thick enough to do anything to bullets, so most people go without.
Conceding - Any character, including NPCs, can always concede. Conceding means you are defeated but on your own terms, and this is metafictional too. I.e. if you’re in a fight to the death against certain enemies (and this is established at the top of the fight), you can concede and say you are taken prisoner instead, or that falling from a ledge lets you fall on the river and wash ashore a few hours later unconscious but alive, as appropriate to the situation.
Ex: The gunslinger faces down her rival, the man in the iron mask (an NPC), up on his tower overlooking the river Dapple. She springs into the room, gun in hand, and goes for a shot to the chest to kill him right away. The masked man, in response, dives for cover, and is fast enough for that. The gunslinger's player doesn't want to risk missing the shot completely, so she compromises and offers instead that the bullet grazes his foot. The referee finds this acceptable.
They exchange some unkind words from behind cover as the masked man skulks through his room to try and get a clear shot. Unbeknownst to him, the gunslinger sees the light reflecting from his mask on the wall above her, and springs to action when she pins down where he'll be going. What she doesn't know is that the man had picked up a thick, cast iron pan and was holding it up against his chest. The risk is clear: if she isn't fast enough to hit him, he'll shoot her in the chest.
Unable to think of a compromise, the gunslinger agrees to these terms and they both roll, with the gunslinger getting 11 and the masked man getting a measly 4. The distance here is gigantic, so it stands to reason that the gunslinger cunningly dodged and then shot the pan away from his chest.
The masked man turns to her, stiff iron countenance betraying fear only through his eyes. They are facing down one another with nowhere to run. The gunslinger aims down her sights, either she dies right here or he does, her vengeance complete. But then... the masked man concedes. The referee tells of how he throws his gun away and kneels, trying to protect his head in fear. The gunslinger curses the nuns for giving her a conscience, she can't bring herself to murder a man in cold blood and is therefore compelled to bring him as a captive. The referee, who had earlier spied that 'Exemplary Morality' on their notes about the gunslinger, believes this is an acceptable end to the conflict, and the player can't help but agree, though she obviously preferred to have turned the masked man into a corpse.
Long time gamespeople, their brains addicted to power scaling, might wonder at this lack of differentiation and ask themselves what happens when two characters of equal strength arm-wrestle. Putting aside that, in 13 years of refereeing, I have never had to adjudicate such a thing, if we need to figure out who's the strongest between two Strong people in a given contest where that much isn't clear, that is what the roll is for.↩