Basic RPG Game Engines

In my gradual shift from huge roleplaying game tomes to short-and-sweet mechanics I’ve come across a few very basic systems that appeal to me. They might not have the depth of complexity many other games offer – both simple and comprehensive – but they provide a core task resolution system with potential for expansion and an ease of adapting to various settings.

Since the dawn of roleplaying games in the 1970s gamers have tended to take existing systems and modify them to reflect their personal play style and expectations from the mechanics. Initially this came from deficiencies gamers found in the earliest versions of Dungeons & Dragons, classes, monsters, and other rules they felt the original rulebooks lacked (as Jon Peterson documents in Playing at the World). Wargamers had already been “modding” rules for years, creating new scenarios and variants for their favorite titles. The trend continued throughout roleplaying games’ further development. Some variations remained “house rules” among small groups, while others found momentum and support to become original games for publication. While I enjoy playing and house-ruling games to reflect my own expectations for established games, I find intuitive, basic core mechanics engage my urges toward more simplified systems to adapt to appealing settings.

Although the game systems that caught my eye recently have their merits (as outlined below), this trend toward basic mechanics with further adaptability isn’t new. S. John Ross accomplished this in Risus: The Anything RPG way back in the 1990s with its system of die pools assigned to broad (and often humorous) clichés; it remains one of the most elegantly intuitive roleplaying game systems with the potential to expand the core mechanic and ability to adapt to any setting. The system works well in both group and solitaire play, with the free solo adventure Ring of Thieves masterfully demonstrating the solo potential. The basic Fighting Fantasy system from the eponymous solitaire game books also provided a basic framework with its Skill, Stamina, and Luck stats, each working in their own way to determine attacks, absorb damage, and modify rolls. (The Sorcery! series also factored in a basic, memorization-based spell system). The mechanics worked well for the solitaire adventures, though the self-regulated combat often devolved into back-and-forth die-rolling contests between the hero and monsters. An ambitious gamer could easily adapt either system from its original form and modify it for a deeper complexity and specific setting (though Risus remains solid on its own without much system modification and encourages adaptability to any genre).