On Converting Your FRP Rules System

One of the intriguing sections of the old Iron Crown Enterprises modules for Middle-earth using MERP or Rolemaster (MERP/RM) was the section that sometimes appeared in the introduction: "Guidelines for Using Your FRP System with this Module: Conversion Notes". Not the snappiest title, but the table for converting between d100, d20, 3d6 stats, and even 2d6, contained the suggestion, even if impractical, that the mechanical bones of the module could in some way be translated and adapted between game system, providing a way into ICE's resources for Middle-earth without their cumbersome house system,

The best of ICE's modules were packed with detail and context, including excellent maps and locations, but they were often thin on actual scenarios. These materials were more like a campaign overview or a sandbox setting that assumed there would be a great deal of GM design and adaptation to draw out playable adventures from the details. If you could adapt to a simpler system, how much easier would it be to leverage to module content?

Of course, Basic Roleplaying, now in the new Universal Game Engine edition, would be an excellent solution and provide for extended campaign play. But what about a simple, universal, free-form system like XD20? Could this allow you to dive into the ICE Modules – and even capture the tone and style of MERP/RM – without the overhead of a point-by-point mapping to BRP.

Here's some tinkering with the idea.

Running ICE Middle-earth Modules with XD20 2ed

MERP Characters in XD20

XD20 characters have far fewer stats that MERP or Rolemaster, so the key is to approximate not to calculate equivalence.

For the key XD20 stats:

• TAC: record as ST (Strength/Toughness) – this is the prime characteristic for a warrior or ranger
• PSYCH: record as IT (Intelligence/Intuition/Initiative) – this is treated as the prime for scout/bard
• WAH: record as PR (Presence/Resolve) – prime characteristic for mage/animist

Although the standard roll for STATS is d8 (1–8), I prefer to roll "first-level" stats on a d6 (1–6) so there's still a maximum stat to work towards (although stat raises are very, very rare in XD20).

Animist is an odd profession for Middle-earth, but conceptually is something more like a seer, loremaster, natural magician, or healer, than the cleric of a established religion, which are thin on the ground in Middle-earth.

Other characteristics

Hits (concussion hits): 10 base hits plus the lowest two of ST, IT, PR

It's a nice balancing factor that your hits in XD20 are circumscribed by your weakest stats. You might be strong, but too slow to dodge incoming strikes. (This is actually a little lower than Health in the XD20 book, but critical hits always counted more in MERP/RM.)

Level: corresponds loosely with MERP/RM levels, mainly as a way of estimating the challenge comparatively.

In XD20, levels don't confer much mechanical benefit but explicitly indicate greater skill, experience, and power.

Profession: use the MERP/RM professions in place of XD20 Character Type. Since there are no explicit skills in XD20, profession stands in for the skills and knowledge the character can most likely apply.

Background: Use the MERP/Middle-earth backgrounds to fill in the XD20 Story and Backstory.

Additional details

These are fun to add, especially if you want your character sheet to capture more of the feel of the old school systems with their abbreviations and numbers.

• AT: Armor Type, not strictly necessary in XD20, but the RM system had a neat chart converting armor worn to a 1–20 value that could stand as a handy to-hit target number.
• Melee OB: the close combat to-hit modifier (offensive bonus) – use ST
• Ranged OB: the ranged combat bonus –  use IN
• Spells OB: the "directed spells" bonus – use PR

Roll on

The old MERP/RM descriptive modifiers, from Routine to Light to Medium to Hard/V.Hard, and my favorites Sheer Folly and Absurd, would suggest a difficulty scale for XD20. But my aim is not to get the systems to scale each other, but to leverage the rich content of the classic modules for interesting gaming. If you roll it out, and it works, let us know in the comments.

Rise of the meta-GM

If you find yourself flicking through one RPG system, like Imperium Maledictum, and thinking to yourself that it could be played with XD20 or Basic Roleplaying (BRP), then you might be a meta-GM.

Meta-gaming, from the player's point of view, is when a player uses their personal, real-life knowledge of the game rules or setting to guide their in-game character's actions. Sometimes this is useful, or at least tolerable, and sometimes this can disrupt or short-circuit a scenario. 

Meta-gamesmastering, the domain of the meta-GM, by extension, is when the GM or referee uses their personal, real-life knowledge of the patterns of RPG mechanics and game design to guide their in-game practice, improvising, interpreting, anticipating, or modifying the procedures of the game system in use at the table.

The phrase came to me because I'm in the situation of GMing for friends and players new to gaming and perforce using their preferred system—Dungeons & Dragons 5e. D&D has its faults, but for new players it's a smooth and engaging introduction to fantasy RPGs. All the same, D&D's exception-based structure and parade of feats and special cases has the tinkerer looking at how others adapt the core rules, which led me to the Dungeon Craft channel and this hugely informative take on the core mechanics of the D20 system: You Don't Need Apps to Play D&D. 

This really means that you don't need the D&D app, loaded with sourcebooks and rules links (or even, in fact, the rule book) to make a determination at the table about success or failure, especially within a statistically "balanced" system. The Professor DM has often referenced XD20 and, in particular, the insight that there are only 20 numbers on a d20—so however complex the decision tree around chances of success or failure, the end product is only ever a roll of a d20 with 20 possible outcomes, and for any given roll a few points either side of the target are rarely significant. 

Which, in meta-gaming terms, leads us to a table like this (with apologies to Dungeon Craft):

Roll a D20 —Did the character succeed?
20 — Yes! A 20 always succeeds and the roll is taken as a critical success
15+ —Yes — a high roll succeeds
10+ —Yes, perhaps. The character usually succeeds, if proceeding with skill OR an advantage (situational bonus, weaker enemy)
6+ — Maybe, but only with skill AND situational advantage, otherwise, mostly no; the GM decides.
2+ — No (there's always a change of failure from 1-5)
1 — Fail! The worst possible roll is always a failure or a fumble

You might notice, as a meta-GM, that this table itself only has six rows, which, with a glance at And Play, can be further abstracted thus:

Roll a D6 —Did the character succeed?

6 — Yes! A 6 always succeeds and this is often the best possible result
5+ —Yes — a high roll succeeds (unless the task is desperate or foolhardy)
4+ —Yes, probably. The character usually succeeds, all things being equal, unless the task is notably difficult or the character is challenged or unprepared)
3+ — Maybe, but only with skill OR situational advantage; the GM decides
2+ — No, unless the task is easy and the character is fully prepared; the GM decides
1 — Fail! The worst possible roll is always a failure or a fumble (always a chance of failure)

So, if the GM (or DM) is playing as a referee, mediating between the rules and the players but working within the general structure of the system, which includes adapting the given procedures for situations that aren't specifically anticipated, such as calling for an ability check when no specific rule applies, then the meta-GM is applying their knowledge of the rules and the general processes and trends to emulate the experience without strict reference or fidelity to the rulebook.

This might be the trick to FKR style play: you're still running a game, not proceeding by GM fiat, but the meta-GM has tools that generate the same experience with fewer intervening processes.

This isn't necessarily the best or easiest way to play. With a balanced, grounded system like BRP and engaged players, running encounters within the frame of the published rules can make for great sessions. Adjust the meta/in-system balance to your taste (and keep the d6 handy).

But, as I suggested earlier, if you wanted to pick up the concept of a game but not the overhead of the system itself, then the path of the meta-GM beckons. The premise of Imperium Maledictum, playing the agents of a powerful yet flawed patron against the grim background of intrigue and violence of the Warhammer 40K setting, is intriguing. Perhaps it would also work well as a gritty medieval fantasy, restaged in the mazy courts and alleyways of a city on the borderlands? Can the meta-GM then run everything with a handful of gothic-looking d6s?

In X-Treme Dungeon Mastery 2E, the Hickmans liken their XD20 system to the custom car engine that the GM has to attach to the transmission to turn the wheels of the game. That’s the meta-GM role: assembling the engine and welding it to the chassis to make the custom vehicle for their game, their adventures. The particular parts you choose—d6, d20, d100—classes, skills, abilities, counters, and stage-dressing, are all up to you.

Roll on the random notes table

 It's been a while: some random notes and impressions.

Roll a d6:

1. Warhammer FRP 4E

The Old World is still as cool, dark, and evocative as ever. This is the one "almost played" game that I've known of for years and never played a session. This edition is massive, detailed, comprehensive, wonderfully illustrated. But there are so many fiddly rules, stats, statuses to manage. XP converted to individual skill percentages! While there are plenty of enhancements to the original system, there are also too many gritty sub-systems.

• The map on the inside cover should be evocative, but the coloring is too green-grey, the detail too fine, to make it engaging, let alone readable.
• Years ago, I converted the classic WHFRP adventure "Night of Blood" to RuneQuest 3, and it was an easy conversion and an excellent adventure in play.
• All the classes and careers would make an excellent sourcebook to convert to Whitehack (see below).
• Even better, convert to BRP using the SRD (see below).

2. Whitehack 3E

A hack of the original "White Box" edition of D&D, Whitehack uses the familiar design elements: the same six ability scores, levels, accumulating hit points and Hit Dice (HD), armor class, saving throws, classes, and XP advancement.

But these original rules have been ingeniously adapted into a flexible, compact system of their own. The profession-like classes, Fighter, Thief, and Wizard, have been converted to true archetypes: the Strong, Deft, and Wise. You then assign your own groups—species, vocations, associations—and abilities to create professions and sub-classes that can be wholly unique. For the Wise, magic "miracles" are a free-form system to duplicate any powers. Sometimes, the slightly awkward generic phrasing—groups, slots, miracles—makes it hard to follow how these choices mesh together to make a character.

Although it's the version of D&D I'd play if I were to play D&D, it still has the same features of the original. Armor makes you harder to hit, but this doesn't scale much with your chance of hitting or your chance of hitting something else, so you gain an abstract reserve of hit points instead. Monsters have HD alone, so their chance to hit you is always proportional to the number of hits they can take. You chase experience points, and at certain points acquire levels that grant instant access to new abilities that you perhaps didn't have or even practice before.

On the other hand, Whitehack has some brilliant subsystems, like bases to represent patrons and other extraordinary adventuring party resources, and it's concise and clear and engaging. And it has some neat random tables that would work for solo play as well as in-game inspiration.

• There are a few intriguing pages in Whitehack about converting ability scores to use those of other systems. This means with relatively little work, you could convert content from almost any ability score and hit points system to run with Whitehack. I looked at the old ICE Middle Earth Role-Playing (MERP) modules and the idea was very tempting (Strength=St, Dexterity=Ag, etc.).

3. The One Ring 2E

I only have the PDF, but this is evidently a beautiful book. But you don't play the book design or the illustrations, you play the system, and the rules, though no doubt strengthened and improved, seem to me to have the same issues as with the first edition. As in my previous review, the rules are evocative, but my concern is that in trying to guide play through a Middle-earth experience the systems tend towards being prescriptive or procedural, with multiple conditions and narrative elements to track for every activity. When journeying, or in encounters with major NPCs, this ends up pushing the players' significant decisions away from their sense of the world and towards a series of dice rolls.

• On the other hand, the descriptions of cultures and locations, the way that Eriador is presented, is exactly how I'd like to play that old corner of Middle-earth. BRP would make a better fit, but also the freedom of XD20.

4. Basic Roleplaying SRD

Chaosium has published the core rules of Basic Roleplaying (BRP) as an SRD, and it's astonishing that there isn't more discussion about this. The BRP system in the SRD is truly basic, in that it's a base, a foundation, for any range of games. It presents only a compact version of the core rules. Sure, it lacks a detailed equipment list, bestiary, or magic system. But if you're a GM building your own campaign from your own sources, these are what you're designing or lifting from other sourcebooks already. 

• Download it, print a copy, decide on your skills list—you could run your game in the Old World or Middle-earth with this. (OK, for WHFRP you'll have to add the Consume Alcohol skill.)

5. XD20 2E

The original XDM: X-treme Dungeon Mastery was insightful, inspiring, and influential, but as I noted in my review, it was also hastily written, oddly organized, and not always adequately edited. So I was keen to join the second edition kickstarter. With the PDF of the page proofs in hand, I've confined myself to checking out the revised in-house system, or XD20, before the printed book arrives. 

It's a promising start. The second edition XD20 is now presented in one version, the simple rules for creating your character makes sense, and the core system—roll a d20, roll high to succeed and then roll again for effect—is elegant and flexible.

I still have no idea what the stat "WAH" means, but I know exactly what all the stats do. It's maddeningly unclear if the combat system means enemies would roll each round exactly like PCs or if it's all combined in the PCs' roll, but it would work either way. It's a system designed to wing it, but now you can wing it with elegance and speed.

• If TAC=Strong, PSYCH=Deft, and WAH=Wise, you basically have the means at hand to play any fantasy setting.

6. Roll a d100 instead

While reading a certain tome mentioned above, a compressed d100 system kept running through my head. For some actual rules tinkering, see below.

The situation:

• Grim 15
• Perilous 30
• Risky 50
• Uncertain 70
• Favorable 85

+/-10 for unusual circumstances

Roll d100 under the situation number to prevail.

Character can use a Quality to reprise a roll (reroll a single die) or change the situation (if feasible).

EXAMPLE: Linz, the boatman, find himself on the river as a possibly magical storm sweeps through. Suddenly, the situation is Perilous! Linz decides to try and run to shore. The first roll is 42! Linz can reroll the 40 die to try and reach safety, or use the next round to steer into the current to find a better course (roll Risky).

Your character has a Station in life (roll situation and read accordingly), a significant Characteristic (Strong, Quick, Smart, etc.) a current Career and two related Qualities.

A character has Toughness (3) points and sometimes armor points (1-3) with which to fend off wounds. Each wound taken then potentially makes their situation worse.

Sword Peddler's Sword & Backpack - mini review

A while back, the Tinkerage attempted an XD20-style hack of the minimalist d20 RPG Sword and Backpack.

The Sword Peddler has, without a doubt, done a much more elegant and concise job.

For the purposes of a review, the Sword Peddler's Sword & Backpack rules can be summarized as:

• To do anything, roll higher than a target number (or your opponent) on a d20.
• If the roll relates directly to your job, add 5 to your roll.
• A PC can take up to 5 "hits" – failed rolls – in combat. NPCs and Monsters can take more or fewer "hits" or "rounds" to be defeated.

There's more color and guidance than this, but that's as minimalist and flexible as an RPG can be, while providing a systematic framework for play. 

A quick conversion - XD20 and Sword & Backpack

Not too long ago, the Tinkerage mentioned the ultra-light Sword & Backpack system. The rules of Sword & Backpack are minimal: roll a d20 and decide what's fair. But with a little tinkering, Sword & Backpack could be adapted to XD20, or my still nameless D20 adventure rules.

Here's how it goes. In Sword & Backpack you can play as either a Warrior, Rogue, or Sorcerer. These are types rather than classes, but we can all guess that the Warrior excels in combat, the Rogue in subterfuge and skill, and the Sorcerer in magic. Hence, we can map these to XD20 stats, or Fighting, Skill, and Magic.

Warrior (WAR) = TAC/Fighting
Rogue (ROG) = PSYCH/Skill
Sorcerer (SOR) = WAH/Magic

Assign the three scores (WAR, ROG, SOR), takes the best score as the character's primary role, figure out hits and what-not (possibly a simple three-strikes-and-you're-out system), and you're ready to play. Each character type will be able to do a little of what other types can: a sorcerer can engage in light swordplay, a rogue can read a magic scroll.

Once you have your characters, why not try the scenarios in the Lanternport adventure setting, because, really, nothing can beat delving into a vast, magical library guarded by traps and bookwyrms, and patrolled by eerie undead librarians.

Library Revenant - Art by Sam Mameli

Here's a D20 adventure game

Basics and characters

Write down your character name and then a description. Make it concise or detailed. Include some skills or a calling/profession.
Roll 2d6 and add six. These are you Health Points, or HP. Write them in near the top. Hits wear them down. When you have no more HP, you cannot take a hit without serious consequences.

Rolls

Further down, you have three rolls: Fighting, Skill, and Magic. These have a base value of 6+.

For a random character, roll three d6 and assign each die to a roll.

For a bespoke character, distribute 11 points between the rolls, giving at least one point to each roll.

Now sort out what gear you have with your GM.

What would you use those rolls for?

Use that fighting roll in combat, to see if you hit something, or if you can avoid being hit. This also applies to physical challenges.

Use that skill roll to sneak, tamper, fiddle, search, and do anything associated with your craft.

Use that magic roll to cast magic, if that's in your power, resist magic if it comes to that, and otherwise recall fine points of lore.

Running adventures

In most cases, when characters are tested or challenged, choose an appropriate roll. If the character makes the roll, equalling or exceeding their number on a d20, they are successful.
Apply modifiers that fit the situation. Add points to the roll number to increase the difficulty, or deduct points to lower difficulty. A range from +5 to -5 should represent most conditions.

Experience

The system is intended for quick pick-up-and-play gaming, simply adapting any module or adventure or idea the GM has at hand. Hence, characters can begin with any adventure and level of expertise the GM requires.

However, if the game runs into campaign play, you can begin with an experience level of 0: adventurer. This can go up to 5: hero. The difference between a character's level and the challenge of a monster or task can be used as a modifier.

Running combat

Assume that a character's fighting roll represents the sum effect of their skill, weaponry, and armour matched against a middling foe.
Order of attacks and defence in each round of action depends on the tactical situation, so that's for the GM to decide, though generally the characters with better fighting rolls get to go first.
In each round, characters get a chance to attack and hit using their fighting roll.
The GM will decide if the foes they face have a "chance to hit" (a roll based on fighting) or simply hit automatically, as some powerful creatures will.
If a character is hit, then they can use their fighting roll as a save to try and block, parry, or dodge the impact, if their fighting style and the situation allows.

At the end of the round, deal damage to anyone who has been hit:

Light weapons: d4 (knives, staffs)
Skirmishing weapons: d6 (axes, daggers, darts)
War weapons: d8 (swords, arrows, spears)
Heavy weapons: d10 (great sword, pike)
Magical or terrible weapons: d12 (dragon claws, wraith-sword)

If a character has armour that is proof against a particular attack, then the GM can account for this by temporarily dropping the damage category (so a sword (d8) striking mail might do lighter (d6) damage).

Magic

Magic is tricky, so take your time over it. Magic effects each world differently. As a GM, you can't allow magic that would shortcut play, but magicians should be able to use their magic as effectively as other characters. 

Perhaps there's a price for gaining access to magic, such as a permanent reduction in HP or other rolls.

When you have worked out how magic works, assume that characters can effectively cast a handful of basic spells they know using a magic roll. Spells of greater power, or outside of the magician's ken, are progressively more difficult to cast.

Magic should be risky. If a roll fails disastrously, then inflict an interesting twist, side-effect, or even damage on the hapless caster.

The rough chances

Recently, the tinkerage has been working on a rules-lite system inspired by XD20 and Fighting Fantasy, and developing elements from And Play. The result has been a core concept (you could hardly call it even a mechanic) that could apply to any of these systems, or even to a rules ultra-light game like Sword and Backpack.

Now Sword and Backpack (S&B) is inspiring, but it's barely a system, more like the description of what would happen in play: you describe situations, propose actions, roll dice to decide. But the thought occurs that if you could table just the rough chances of success and failure, and use them consistently, you would have the basis of an RPG. Although most games use tables and extensive modifiers, what we are usually looking for are probabilities that 'feel right' and provide a satisfying balance of success and failure that's true to the circumstances.

So here's the rough chances table:

Chances	Roll	Consequences
Very Low	17+	Exceptional (Critical Hit)
Low	14+	Enhanced
Close	11+	Medium
High	7+	Light
Very High	4+	Slight
Exceptionally High	1+	Negligible (scratch)

Using the rough chances table:

• In free-form roleplaying, like And Play or S&B, you weight up the options, pick a chance, and there on the row is your roll for success (d20, of course). Add a few points to make things harder, or deduct a few to make things easier.
• In XD20, where the lower a STAT the better, the table tells you roughly what the chances are by looking at the Roll column. So if a character has a STAT of 8, chances are good. Want to make the chances better or worse? Select another row and estimate the STAT or modifier from there (so if your STAT 8 character fights a STAT 9 orc, it seems the chances are close; go for a roll of 11 or 12).
• And, if you roll for effect (higher being better) then use the Consequences column. You can even use this to judge damage.

You can also convert this table for different dice (such as 2d6 for Fighting Fantasy).

The new system, based on the rough chances table, is coming soon... -ish. Still tinkering with it.

XD20: notes and house-rules

In the last post, I looked at the super-light, very flexible, D&D inspired XD20 system. Although the XD20 system is very compact and informal, it still carries a few oddities and ambiguities that could be handled with some of the suggested house-rules below. The beauty of the system, and the concept, is that the GM can choose or adapt whatever works.

Update: for an example of an adaptation of the basic principles of XD20, see this system, presently nameless, designed to run simple dungeon and wilderness fantasy adventures with any source at hand.

Character Creation

XD20 rules recommend deducting a roll from the maximum to generate stats, but there's no reason, since lower stats are better, not to roll and add to the minimum, or experiment with different rolls. Rolling 6 + 1d8 gives a wide spread for stats, but 2d6+3 or 6+1d6 give more focus and control.

TAC, PSYCH, and WAH map roughly to physical, mental, and spiritual (maybe just luck) abilities. Then there’s Health. These are easy to rename or reconfigure for different games. TAC (Toughness and Constitution), INT (Intellect and Training), PWR (Presence, Will, and Resolve), and Stamina for instance.

Health: In XD20 the weaker the character the lower the character's Health stat, since Health is based on a combination of the character's lowest scores. But Health, unlike stats, is better the higher it is. There's a nod in the rules towards game balance, but why should a mighty warrior tend to have worse health than an inept hedge-wizard? Instead, Health should start at zero (or 2 or 4 for constitutionally weaker characters with the Mystic/Magical type). Health would then go up (bad) as hits accumulate, and characters with more than 20 points against Health would be knocked out or killed.

This means that current Health can also be used for rolls if the character's constitution or fatigue is tested.

Combat

XD20 is vague about combat damage, but effects, and hence weapon damage, are decided by a D20 roll. Bear in mind that even a dagger between plates of armour can kill. But to estimate damage, assign about 6 points for a small weapon or a light hit, 8 for a medium hit, and 10 points or more for a big hit. Pull back for adventure games and push for gritty games. Or just adapt the damage dice from the equipment table in any D&D retroclone.

A high success (based on the difference from the target) should nudge up a low effect roll.

To integrate parries, dodges, tricks and other multiple actions and reactions in combat, each additional roll might be allowed with a -4 penalty.

In the end, cut to the chase for combat: assume that weapons and armour are already integrated into TAC and Level, and only deal out adjustments for major tactical differences or special cases.

XD20: an appreciation (and thoughts for Dungeons and Dragons)

Since this year is the 40th anniversary of the Dungeons and Dragons system, this year's first post takes a quick look at an obscure off-shoot of that famous game, XD20.

XD20 is an extremely free-form, rules-lite system included in XDM: Extreme Dungeon Mastery, a guide to DMing and RPGs by Tracy Hickman and Curtis Hickman. XDM as a book shows signs of hasty development and editing, as well as containing considerable filler in the form of mostly unusable stage-trickery and dice prestidigitation, but at its core there is also a sound and interesting guide to bringing fun, action, humour and interest back into roleplaying games, as a reaction to the slow, overly-cautious, procedural style of dungeon-crawling play that D&D games can slip into.

This review on RPG.net is a pretty good summary of the XD20 system, and interested me enough to buy the e-book version through Kindle.

In brief, the 'advanced' version of XD20 generates characters with three scores or stats: TAC (Toughness and Constitution, the only acronym that is explained), PSYCH (intelligence and skill), and WAH (luck, willpower, and magic specifically). There is also a Health score, based on a combination of the other scores. Characters have a few notes regarding skills and abilities (based on their character Type) a Level, and any equipment the DM deems reasonable at the time.

The three scores combine ability scores, bonuses and saving throws, and so lower numbers are better (except for Health, oddly).

The mechanics are even simpler. The player describes an action, and the DM may ask for a related stat and apply any modifiers that seem relevant or entertaining and sets the target number. The player then rolls greater than or equal to the target number on d20 to succeed. If the success or failure has some effect, like damage or magical strength, then another d20 is rolled and the higher the roll, the better. In essence, the DM estimates the chance of success based on a stat or the situation, and sets the target number accordingly.

Combat rounds are unstructured. The only rule is that everyone gets a chance to act in a single round, and damage is fudged – you can roll, or apply a fixed number, or the DM can make something up.

The mechanics may seem sketchy and rather arbitrary, and in a sense they are. But XD20 captures a deep truth about RPG systems which has influenced my thinking considerably: there are only 20 digits on a d20, and most rules in all their calculations, modifiers and tables are ultimately aimed at proposing a number that seems fair given the situation: so why not just cut to the chase, pick a reasonable target, and roll?

The handling of magic has a similar elegance. A magician describes a spell, the DM sets a target number, the roll is made and the effects decided. The Hickmans point out that magic should be consistent with the rest of the rules of the game and the nature of magic in the game-world, not based on exceptions and special cases. This of course requires inventiveness as well as consistency and a great deal of judgement, but it also pushes players and DMs to treat magic as, well, magic, rather than a sort of special in-game munitions in prepackaged units.

Finally, although characters have a Level, there is no material benefit from gaining a level (which happens whenever the DM thinks it should happen). Instead, characters simply face challenges and opponents consistent with their level and the general difficulty of play remains the same.

XDM is clearly based on playing and revising D&D, with its vast lists of specialist classes, optimal "builds", spells, special abilities and feats, and countless modifiers, options and case-based exceptions. After all, everybody knows what a fighter or a barbarian or a wizard should do, what equipment they carry, what they can face at first level or tenth level. XD20 urges players and DMs to cut away the detritus and focus on the action, puzzles, roleplaying and story. With a few scores on the character sheet for fighting, skill and magic, some health points, a few dice, a few equipment tables to adapt and plenty of imagination and judgement, what could be closer to the original spirit of the first fantasy RPG?

Of course, the XD20 system is not perfect, and even some of its very few rules (in particular, how Health is figured) run against common-sense, which can hamper engagement. But its core ideas present a huge amount of flexibility, and I'll be looking at these options in an upcoming post.