Quick System Idea

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I ran a one-shot set in the Vietnam war with a friend during a car trip. I want to describe the character creation procedure, and propose a system based on that idea (we didn't use it at the time, but the thought occurred to me).

Why that setting? Don't ask me, he picked it. The one-shot was a condensation of the movie Apocalypse Now. I came up with this one the fly using my Emergency Immersive Gaming guidelines. AKA I ripped it off from the movie. You can read the plot summary to get an idea of what it's about. I'm not looking to do a session report here. Instead, I want to talk about how the play went.

I came up with a format for character stats on the fly. It was really simple: Of the usual six DnD stats (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA), which is your highest ability? We didn't actually use any numbers, we just decided to pick which stat was the highest had we assigned some numbers. He chose Charisma. He also got some hirelings, which he assigned highest abilities as well (STR, and INT? can't quite remember). We also chose gear for the characters.

Resolution was through common sense, given that those abilites were the highest for the respective characters. It worked well! He was on board for the action, agreed on my rulings based on the in-world logic, and had a fun time. But now I want to involve dice!

Why dice? Just because at a literal table, some players find it centering (especially those with crunchy game backgrounds). I probably wouldn't use it myself in every situations, but it might be nice in some.

I like d20 for most things, but definitely for fantasy. A wise Discord user once said, "Sci-fi is 2d6, but fantasy is so d20!" So let's stick with d20s. Here's my thought on a possible diced-up version, based on Knave:

  1. Every character has a highest ability.
  2. If common sense doesn't give a clear outcome, roll 1d20. On a 15 or higher, the character succeeds.
  3. If your highest ability is involved, roll with advantage (take the highest of two rolls). Use the same threshold of 15.

That's it! This gives a 30% chance of success without your ability, and a 51% chance with the ability. If this doesn't fit your idea of how likely an outcome is, adjust the stakes and outcome, or make a ruling that advantage does apply (when it usually wouldn't), or does not (when it usually would). Game on!

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