This whole idea started because my brother is having a hard time finding his dream RPG.
Sure, he’s had fun with Dungeons and Dragons, 13th Age, Monster of the Week, Blades in the Dark, the Cypher System, Index Card RPG and others, but it seems like nothing is quite what he’s looking for.
It’s not that he hates math, but he doesn’t like dealing with a lot of high modifiers to dice rolls. He wants a +1 to be a big deal. He wants something improvisational but tactical, with simple monster stat blocks he can create as he goes. The Cypher System, which he’s running in our current campaign, ticks some of those boxes but he doesn’t love the abstract mechanics of how players use their abilities to lower the target number for checks.
So, I wondered, would it be possible to design an RPG with no math at all other than tracking hit points, but which still offered fun combat and meaningful character building options?
I started writing down some ideas, and then over the past week I discovered I had in fact written an entire rule set — with no math other than tracking hit points. I’ve named it Ceres, to go along with a setting guide I’m beavering away at. (Ceres, of course, is a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt and the site of a major space station in The Expanse.)
While I’m not a huge fan of the Old School Renaissance style of games — which aim to be the spiritual successors of the first edition of Dungeons and Dragons and feature few rules, a focus on player creativity rather than complex character abilities, certain death around every corner, a lust for treasure and a disregard of epic plots and rich character backgrounds — I did end up incorporating some of those principles.
The core mechanic is a dice pool system. In Ceres, every action has a target number of 1 (easy) through 6 (deadly) and you roll a d6 to see if you reach it. Leveling up and other bonuses don’t add to your roll — instead you get more dice, increasing your chance of success. When you hit in combat, you do damage equal to the highest attack die you rolled.
The GM assigns each creature and environment a target number, which becomes the basis for its attack rolls, health and the number of special abilities or traits it has.
I won’t waste space reprinting the whole game here (you can view and download the pdf below) but the key takeaway is that a level 1 character, for his first action of a campaign and without any special training, has a 1 in 6 chance of hitting a dragon for 6 points of damage, which in this game is a huge chunk of health. Now, odds are the dragon will rip that poor soul to shreds on its turn, but it’s closer to a fair fight than most other fantasy games. We haven’t taken it for a spin quite yet, but it certainly seems that combat will be fast and deadly.
So have a look and try it out if Ceres sounds like your cup of tea. I’ll update the version posted here as I make changes.
Have fun!
Into the Fray 