Alba: 24XX

Still on the road towards an original ruleset for Legends of Alba, I took a side path into the world of 24XX. For the unfamiliar, 24XX is the SRD created by Jason Tocci to accompany his 2400 series, a collection of modular, rules-light RPGs. They all follow the same 4-page format, designed to be printed double-sided on a single sheet of A4, with a cover page for art, the middle pages for the rules and character creation, then the back page devoted wholly to random tables for creating adventures. I absolutely LOVE these games! Each one is so packed with ideas and the setting comes through so clearly through the wild cover art, character options and adventure tables. It's impressive and inspiring stuff.

I'd already been thinking that it might be worthwhile trying to write up Legends of Alba using a few different SRDs, sort of like trying on a bunch of different hats to see which hat suits you best. Or maybe even just to get an idea of what you actually want in a hat. It can be a hard question to answer if, like me, you're not really a hat person. So over the last couple of weeks I've done a treatment of Legends of Alba using the 24XX SRD, and you can check it out here!

Fingal's Cave, Island of Staffa, Scotland by Thomas Moran (public domain)

I've not play-tested the game (maybe someday?!) but it's at a point where I'm happy to leave it for a bit. It was a lot of fun to write, and a really useful exercise. I wanted to record and share some of the things I learned from it, so here we go:

SCOPE: When you've only got 4 pages, the scope wants to be narrow and specific. Probably more so than what I went with. This will be my D&D background showing, but Legends of Alba is quite a big setting in terms of scope. There's clans, kingdoms, there's the hags, there's The Legends, The Otherworld, there's deities, there's history, there's the land of Alba itself... any one of these could be a 24XX game on its own probably. I'd like to try again and do a 24XX game based around the clans of Alba, where its all about reputation and community; then maybe another separate one on weird and wonderful Otherworld adventures. I think either of those ideas would fit the format well.

TIME: Part of the appeal of 24XX is how small the games are, but I deluded myself a little into thinking I could rattle one off in no time at all. These games are small, yes, but they are dense. The lower word count doesn't necessarily mean less stuff, it just means each word is doing more. Games take time to make.

SKILLS: Most of 24XX games use a wide set of skills (15-20). A lot of these games are set in strange sci-fi settings so I think the skills really help in nailing down some world-building (what sorts of things can people do in this setting?). But even though these are fun and flavourful, I found myself spinning on them when it came to writing character options. With the wide range there's a temptation to try and cover everything. But you're never going to cover everything, so I think embracing that there's going to be some blurred lines and fuzzy edges, and keeping with a narrow set of abilities (3 or 4) is the way to go for me, or certainly for this game.

FIRE: Following on from my last post about a core resolution mechanic, I've been thinking about what else the game needs to start to come alive a bit more. The sort of fire Lucy H Pearce talks about in her book Burning Woman is an idea that's really stuck with me; a righteous inner fire, the burning of which will lead you to yourself. I thought about bolting on a rule for Fire and, though I decided against it to keep in the minimalist spirit of 24XX, I want to write it down here as I might come back to it. Characters would gain Fire by enacting a virtue or ideal that is sacred to them (e.g. their Clan virtue, or something more personal). Fire could then be burned to get help on a skill check, or as defence.

I think that's it for now. Until next time!

The Rules Skeleton

Reading awesome games like Mork Borg, Shadowdark RPG, and the upcoming Mythic Bastionland from Bastionland Press I find it hard not to come away inspired and full of ideas for games of my own.

I’d love to have a rules system to go with my Scottish-mythology-inspired setting, The Legends of Alba. I’m running it in D&D 5E, which is working just fine, but it's the tool that came to hand, not the right one for the job. There are more rules here than I need. A lot more! On the player-facing side alone, the Character Creation rules in the 5E Player’s Handbook run to 162 pages. Troika! handles Character Creation in a tight 38 pages while Into The Odd covers it in just 7 pages! Including art! Wowsers!

Most of the time this isn't a problem but when it is, I feel it. The weight of all those extra words. It's a bit like the feeling when you get to the supermarket checkout with a very full trolley and you can't remember how or when half the stuff got in there. But instead of the supermarket you’re in a dungeon full of skeletons and you have this big trolley full of things and there’s actually so many things in here that surely one of them will be helpful in this situation but you’re looking and you’re looking and what even is this thing and now the skeletons are stabbing you. Ugh. No good.

TFW suddenly there's like 3 skeletons

Thankfully, it doesn't have to be that way. So I’ve been thinking about what I’d want in my own ruleset, coming from 5E but moving towards a mechanically lighter game. 

But where to begin?

Sly Flourish’s One Sheet 5E, which you can get by subscribing to their Newsletter, describes the core loop of the RPG so concisely: “...the DM describes the situation, the player describes what they want their character to do, and the DM adjudicates the results.”

Short enough you could send it via the Sending spell!  But that's really all there is to it.  And the only bit that cries out to me as needing any rules is the last part. So there's my starting point: How does the GM adjudicate the results of character actions?

I'm going for rules-lite, so I'd like just one mechanic for this. No separate Skill Check, Saving Throw, or Attack Roll, thank you. I want one Check that covers everything, one rule to rule them all.

And I’m coming from 5E, so for this master check, let’s stick with D20 + some modifier vs a target number. “If it ain’t broke” etc. Also a D20 is just a nice big fun dice to roll.  It’s the RPG dice!

For the “some modifier” part, this is typically based on the character making the Check. How good are they at doing what they're trying to do? I want a small, broad number of variables here. Abilities rather than Skills. I'm still thinking about how to frame these but for now I like Talents. Who wouldn't want a Talented character?

As for when to make Checks, I like the simplicity of “Roll to avoid risk” but I also like a low-stakes, “let’s see how this goes” sort of Check from time to time. They can help keep players engaged and add to the feeling of an emergent shared narrative, so I want to leave the door open for that.

So here’s my WIP rules for Talent-based Checks for The Legends of Alba.

***

Talents are a Character’s natural and trained abilities.

• [STR] Strength - Brawn, resilience, endurance.
• [SKL] SkiIl - Dexterity, stealth, reflex.
• [SNS] Senses - Awareness, instinct, insight.
• [SLF] Self - Presence, charm, guile.

A Character’s aptitude for each Talent is represented by their Bonus.

Example Character starting Bonusses:

• Warrior: STR+5, SKL+0, SNS-1, SLF+2
• Hunter: STR+0, SKL+5, SNS+2, SLF-1
• Druid: STR+0, SKL-1, SNS+5, SLF+2
• Bard: STR-1, SKL+2, SNS+0, SLF+5

Checks are necessary when a Character takes an action that challenges one of their Talents and the outcome cannot be taken for granted.

The GM determines the most suitable Talent, then sets the Challenge (C) of the Check, e.g.:

• C10: Not easy
• C15: Difficult
• C20: Very difficult

Establish the consequences of success and failure before the Check is made.

The Player rolls a D20 and adds their Bonus. If the total is equal to or greater than the Challenge, the Check succeeds.

***

So there we go, hardly a full ruleset, but maybe the backbone of the skeleton of one.

Till next time!