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Fenária RPG EN-US 3.9 What is RPG? RPG means role-playing game, it's a game in which you pretend to be a different person, in which you play a role. It's pretty much a "pretend-to-be" thing. Most people played something similar in their childhood, when they pretended to be characters from television shows and the like. Or maybe you were that kind of kid who had a "secret identity" to fight the evil in the world. RPG is different from that because it uses rules. Every game has rules that you either agree with or that are enforced upon you. But let's not touch that subject just yet. A group of friends gather to play this strange thing. They sit around a table, one of them carrying the book containing the rules. One of them is chosen as Referee. The Referee then starts to tell a story. The other players, supposing that they already went through the characterization, control, each, a character inside the story that the Referee is telling. So, whenever it's necessary that said characters make a choice, the Referee asks the other players what their characters will do in that situation. Once they answer, the Referee must continue the story, based on the actions of the player characters... until another decision is needed from them. As you see, RPG is a pretend-to-be thing, but, over anything, is storytelling. It's like a collaborative legend being written. There's the Referee, who have the "script" of the story and there's the other players, who control the heroes of the story. The script of the Referee will be modified by the actions of the other players and the result is a story that can be funny, thrilling, dramatic and written by all the players while they "improvise". However, at some point of the story, the Referee isn't sure if the action that certain character is about to perform is successful or not. That's why we use rules. This file contains a set of rules written by me. There are different sets of rules available either for free or for fee, both on-line and off-line. If you don't like these rules, feel free to acquire a different set or even write your own.

What you need to play. To play RPG, all you need is a Referee and a bunch of people to play the heroes of the story (usually between 3 and 6). But, if you wish to use these rules, get yourself a copy of this rule set, a blank paper sheet for each player, two dices and a pencil, also for each player.

Characterization. While making an imaginary character is easy and you don't need rules for that, you must adequate the character you imagined to the rules, so that the story can flow without fights between the players because of "irregular" characters that are too strong or too dumb. In the following pages, up to the section Tests, you will learn how to make a character that doesn't break the rules. Pick a name and age for the character to start.

Level. If you play the so-called "electronic RPG" genre of video-games, you are probably familiar with the concept of Level. Level is a number that measures how "strong" a character is. All characters start in the 1st Level. When the Referee decides that the group played enough for a day and that they must pause and continue in the next day, he will judge if the players did a good job during the game. It isn't all about defeating monsters and solving riddles during the story, it's also about playing the role. If the player made the character act according to the personality given to him, then the player role-played well and it also counts. If the player did a good job, the Referee should give his character an amount of experience points ranging from 0 to 9, based on how good he played. This amount piles up with the amount of experience given in the following meetings. Whenever a character earns 10 experience points, he rises to the Second Level. To rise to the Third, you need more 10 experience points (to rise to the fourth, you need more 10 experience points and so on).

Attributes. When the characterization is happening, each player receives 10 points to freely distribute between the following characteristics:

Fight (abbreviated as Lt).

Body (abbreviated as Cr).

Ego (abbreviated as Eg).

Luck (abbreviated as Sr). Fight is the general attack and defense skill of the character. If you want a character who is good at fighting, spend a lot of points in Fight. Body controls everything related to health, strength and other physical capabilities. If you want a robust character, spend a lot of points in Body. Ego controls everything related to the mind, logic, willpower and even faith. A smart character is supposed to have a lot of points in Ego. Luck controls everything that isn't covered by the other attributes. Whenever the character rises a level, the player earns more 4 points to freely distribute on these attributes again, to make his character better. Composite Values. Once you decided how many points your character have in each attribute, you must now use some more of your math skills to determine your composite values. These values aren't acquired with points; they depend on the attributes and change whenever your attributes change. If any of these values results in 0, treat it as 1. Attack: the attack value of your character, how good he is in offensive fighting. Your attack value is Lt x 5. Defense: the defense value of your character, how good he is in defensive fighting. Your defense value is Lt x 10. Damage Meter: it always start as 0. Whenever your character gets hurt, tired or has his body harmed somehow, the Damage Meter rises. If it rises too much, the character might die. See more in Damage Meter. Endurance: how much your character can resist to pain and injuries. The Endurance is Cr x 10. Weight-Lifting Capacity: how much weight your character can carry before he starts to feel tired and under pressure. The weight-lifting capacity is Cr x 20 (in kilograms). Movement: how fast the character moves. The movement value is Cr x 4. Extension Limit: how many Extensions the character can have. The Extension limit is Eg / 4, rounded down. Vitality: general resistance to death and fainting (see Damage Meter). The Vitality value is Cr + Eg.

Money. If the setting of the story uses some sort of monetary currency, maybe you will need this rule. Of course, we aren't talking about real life money. The character usually starts with an amount of money (in $) of Eg + Sr.

Extensions. Extensions are things that make your character different of the others. Fighting skill, good health, wits, luck, those things a lot of people have. Extensions are parameters that make your character even more different from the others in the story. An Extension can be:

A talent that your character born with, such as good memory, good resistance to illnesses.

Knowledge over something, such Psychology or Philosophy. In essence, an Extension is something that the character can do that most people can not. A character can acquire a new Extension every time it rises a level and when it's created, but it can't have a number of Extensions that goes past it's Extension Limit (see Composite Values). The Extension Limit is Eg / 4, rounded down, but it can't be lower than 1 (if you get a value lower than one, treat it as 1).

How to make Extensions. Unlike other systems, Fenária RPG doesn't come with a list of Extensions. It would be more efficient to teach the Referee to make his own Extensions and leave them available for the players to choose. It's as easy as filling a form.

Name: the name of the Extension. Dependencies: Some Extensions can't be acquired by everyone, but just members of certain schools or maybe it requires a special training. Specify if the Extension can be acquired by everyone or if it demands training, for example.

Superficial description: describe how the Extension works from the character's point of view.

Rulings: describe how the Extension works in terms of rules. Here's an example of Extension: Philosophy: knowledge over metaphysics, logic, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics. Whenever the character needs to perform an Ego test (see Tests) where knowledge about philosophic tradition is needed, treat your Ego as if it was 10 points higher than what it actually is. Is useful whenever knowledge over philosophic tradition is demanded. Can't be learned if not studied previously.

Appearance and Species. Maybe your character simply isn't human. Describe how your character looks and what is his species. Like Extensions, different species must be approved by the Referee. The player can propose a new species to Referee's approval or the Referee can come up with a list of available species for the players. Also like Extensions, Fenária RPG doesn't come with a list of available "races", so it's, again, up to the Referee to make them up by filling a form.

Name of the species. For example, the "cat-people". General description. Using the "cat-people" example, let's say they are mostly cats, with some human attributes, able to walk on two feet, to talk and to think, they are covered in fluffy fur and have long tails, a pair of triangular ears on the top of their heads, they have muzzle with whiskers and even purr when happy. Advantages. Let's say that most "cat-people", due to their life style and light build are naturally better at climbing and jumping, compared to the other species, so they earn, for free, the Extensions Climbing and Jumping, even when these Extensions doesn't fit in the Extension Limit. Flaws. Let's say that most of the "cat-people" tend to be lazy and pragmatic due to cultural environment, which affects their personality to the point where, unless it's extremely necessary, they will always make the choice that demands less effort when faced with a hard decision... not to mention they act weird when exposed to catnip.

Character's Biography. It isn't extremely necessary, but attributing a life story to the character could make it more vivid and fun to play as. Plus, it can give ideas to the Referee if he decides to make a story based on past events in the character's life, from before he started going into adventures.

Temperament. The temperament is a "role-play" guide for you. It describes the character's behavior and personality and it will help you to play it's role well. There are four temperament archetypes based on Hippocrates' theory of humors. To decide your character's temperament, pick two archetypes and combine them as you please, to make an unique personality for your character. Of course, this is optional and you could make an entirely new temperament from scratch or the Referee could make his own archetypes for the players to combine.

Happy: likes to socialize, is often upbeat and cheerful, is usually careless and irresponsible, tends to speak too much.

Angry: likes to be in charge, is the one who speaks in name of the group, tends to be too demanding, could become arrogant.

Sad: is sensitive to the problems of the others, likes to study and to create, is too self-absorbed, can be easily hurt emotionally.

Neutral: doesn't have a lot of mood swings, reflects before acting, is often apathetic, could be also lazy.

Items and Belongings.

Lastly, no less important, maybe there are weapons available for the characters. Again, there's no ready-to-use list of weapons in Fenária RPG. It's, yet again, up to the Referee to make them up by, again, filling a form.

Name the weapon, of course. It can be a simple name that describes it's nature, such as "sword" or "AK-47" or it can be a meaningful name that refers to it's story, like those weapons named after people who used them or the place where they were forged. Describe the effect of the weapon, in terms of rules. Usually, the only effect of the weapons is to rise the Attack value or Defense value (see Composite Values) of the character who is using it. It's going to give him advantages when he is fighting (see Combat). But some weapons may have different effects, such as rising another value or inflicting special statuses on the target or user. Notice, however, that a character can only have right to use these bonuses if it has an Extension that allows him to (meaning that it knows how to use that weapon).

Describe how much the weapon weights.

Describe how much it costs or if can even be bought.

Remember, if the character carries too much weight, he might be in trouble. If a character carries more weight than his Weight-Lifting Capacity, his Damage Meter will rise, per second, in an amount equal to the difference between the weight it's trying to carry and the Weight-Lifting Capacity. For example:

I'm trying to carry 110kg while my Weight-Lifting Capacity is 100kg. My Damage Meter will rise 10 points per second (in game time, not in real life time). Plus, in such condition, the Movement of the character becomes 0 (he can still move, but very slowly).

The Characters of the Referee. Now you learned how the players are supposed to build their characters. However, while each player controls only one character, the Referee controls all other characters in the story: the secondary characters and the villains. The Referee isn't bound to these rules to make the characters that aren't controlled by the players and can build characters in a completely arbitrary way. However, he must still be fair to the players. The "final boss" of the story may be very strong and powerful, but it doesn't mean that he must be invincible. Also, keep in mind that the heroes are the characters of the players. It's extremely tempting, I know by experience, to make a character that is so powerful that takes away the focus from the actual heroes of the story, even if it's there just to be a helper, but try to not fall in such temptation. Also, the purpose there is to write a story, so the Referee play with the players, but not against the players, even if he is in charge of making up villains that can even kill the characters of the players. It's a matter of being fair.

Level Grinding. After the characters are ready, the Referee can start the storytelling and the players can start the role-playing. Once the playtime is over, the Referee judges if the players did a good job or not. If yes, their characters will receive an amount of experience ranging from 0 to 9 and maybe rise a level (see Level), earning more 4 points to distribute in the attributes and a new Extension, if possible. If not... no experience!

Tests. So, the Referee is telling his story. There's a point in the story where the character of one of the players must jump over a cliff and decide to try it, in spite of possible consequences. Now, the Referee isn't sure if that character really can do that, so he can't say bluntly if the character was successful or not. Whenever the Referee isn't sure if the action is succeed or not, a test is necessary. That's why we need dices to play. First, the Referee attributes a number to the difficulty of the task. It can be any number, ranging from 0 to infinite. Then, the player of the character must roll two dices. The result is the "dice roll" or R. Once you get the R, add to it the value that is relevant to the situation. If you are attacking, then it's an Attack Roll (see Combat). If you are trying a physical task (swimming, jumping, running, enduring weather or pain or another task that demand physical effort), it's a Body Test, so you add your Cr value (see Attributes) to the R. If you are trying a mental task (studying something hard, hearing a very subtle noise, resisting to hypnosis, casting a magic or another task that demand mental effort), it's an Ego Test, so you add your Eg value to the R. If what you are trying isn't something that depend on your body or mind, but rather depends on pure luck, it's a Luck Test, obviously, so you add your Sr value to the R. If your character's Damage Meter rise too much, then you might need to perform a Vitality Test (see Damage Meter).

Then, once you have added the relevant value to the R, you get a final number that is compared to the difficulty number imposed by the Referee. If the result is higher than the difficulty number, the character was successful in his task. If not, the character failed. If it's a tie, the Referee will decide if the character is successful or not.

Remember that tests are only necessary if the success or failure is not certain. Tests are not needed when the success or failure is obvious.

Automatic Success and Automatic Failure.

When you roll a test and get 6 and 6 (R = 12) in the dices, the character is automatically successful, no matter how high the difficulty is or how small is the value that he was supposed to add to the R. On the other hand, when you roll a test and get 1 and 1 (R = 2) in the dices, then it's an instant failure and the character failed at it's task, no matter how easy it was or how good he is at said task.

Combat.

Now, the combat rules, that should be applied whenever characters fight. In games of epic nature, combats are a big part of it, the clash between the heroes and the villains, the heroes and the everyday foes or even between the heroes themselves for whatever reason. To explain how combat works, I'll describe the "turn". When a fight is about to happen, the Referee must check the Movement value (see Composite Values) of every character that would be involved. The turn structure is then built from the one who has the highest Movement value to the one with the lowest. For example, there are three characters who are about to fight, one of them with Movement 6, the other with Movement 3 and the last one with Movement 12. The one with Movement 12 will have the first turn to act, the one with Movement 6 will have the second turn and the one with Movement 3 will be the last one to act. Thankfully, we don't need to explain this in all it's details and provide examples with long descriptions, because Game Industry has provided great examples of this in turn-based games. Just in case of you not being too attached to video-games, let's say it's like a board game in which every character will have their turn to act, the one with highest Movement (the "fastest") will act first, followed by the one with second highest Movement and so on, until the one with lowest Movement acts. Let's suppose it's your turn. In your turn, you will follow these steps:

Choose what your character will do in it's turn. It can attack, it can use or prepare an item, it can focus to use some spell... It has to do something. Once decided, the Referee tells what happened and decides if the turn ends there and then. But, if the character is going to attack another character, then you follow to the second step. If the character is going to attack another character, then perform an Attack Roll (see Tests), but the difficulty number is determined by the Defense value (see Composite Values) of the character that is being attacked. You roll two dices and add the Attack value of your character to the R. So, if your character attacks another character with Defense 20, you must have a resulting Attack Roll (that is, R+Attack) higher than 20 to make your character hit the other character. If you pass, the character hits the other, dealing damage. If not, the target either dodged or blocked the attack, depending on the description the Referee makes up. If an automatic success (see Automatic Success and Automatic Failure) happens during an Attack Roll, the Defense of the targeted character is ignored. If the attack hit and dealt damage, follow to the next step. Time to calculate how much damage the other character took. The damage is the difference between the resulting Attack Roll and the Defense of the targeted character. So, an Attack Roll that resulted in 19 against a Defense of 8 deals 11 damage points that are added to the targeted character's Damage Meter (see Damage Meter). If the Attack Roll was an automatic success, then the Defense of the targeted character is ignored, so the damage dealt is equal to the resulting Attack Roll, as if the attacking character hit a target with Defense 0.

If the attack hit, the character can attack again, up to a number of times that doesn't exceed Movement / 10 (rounded down). So, a character with Movement 20 can attack up to 2 times. If the character attacks again, re-do the steps from the first (except that the next action must be an attack, so you can't attack and use the additional action to run or to focus or to use an item, for example). Even if the Movement of the character is 50, it can't attack five times: the number of attacks in a turn can never exceed four, even if the Movement could allow so. Once the character is done attacking, it's turn ends. Also, if it does something in it's turn that isn't an attack, it can't attack in that turn.

Now, it's the turn of the next character, whose player will do these same steps. When all characters have their turns, the cycle starts again from the first character until the battle ends.

There are also special rules: If the opponent attacked you and managed to roll an automatic failure (R=2), you can counterattack. If you do, your character can have a free attack against the character that attacked. This attack ignores the Defense of the targeted character and deals damage equal to the Attack value (see Composite Values) of the attacking character (there's no dice-roll). You can only counterattack short-range disarmed attacks. Also when deciding what your character will do, you can make it try to grab the opponent. To do so, perform an Attack Roll. If your character beats the Defense value of the opponent, then the opponent was grabbed. The damage of this action is divided by five and rounded down if necessary. If a character is being "hugged", is coiled or has it's movements limited in any way, it's Defense falls accordingly. If it's unable to dodge or to block (either) an attack, then it's Defense and Movement is cut in half (altering it's position in the turn chain). If it's unable to dodge and to block (both), the Defense and Movement falls to 0 (again, altering it's position in the turn chain). Of course, it lasts only while it's movements are limited.

Damage Meter.

Fights, weather, injuries, poisoning... everything that harms a character's body makes it's Damage Meter rise. When the Damage Meter rises too much, the character may face serious risks, such as fainting or even death.

The character has two key values that work with the Damage Meter: the Vitality and the Endurance (see Composite Values). Whenever the Damage Meter goes past the number in the Endurance, you must perform a Vitality Test (see Tests). This test is "automatic", it's difficulty number isn't decided by the Referee. Let's suppose that my character has a Endurance of 20 and took 5 damage points (rising the Damage Meter to 5), then took 10 more (15), then 11 more (rising to 26). The Damage Meter went past my Endurance, that is 20, so I'll perform a test against fainting. In this case, the difficulty of the test is equal to the character's current Damage Meter - my Endurance. In the example I gave, my character's Damage Meter is 26 and my Endurance is 20, the difficulty of the test is 6. If the character passes the test, then it will be fine for now. If not, it faints. However, if the character passed the test, it must repeat it whenever it receives more damage. For example, if my character's Endurance is 20, my Damage Meter rises to 26, I roll the Vitality Test and pass, I'll have to repeat the test whenever my Damage Meter rises more. Let's suppose that my character's Damage Meter rises to 54 after the last attack it received, the difficulty of the test will be 54 - 20 (my Endurance), that is, 34. So, the more damage your character take, the harder it will be for it to stay up. While fainted, the character will die if it receives an obviously mortal hit, since it won't be able to defend itself. Also, if you get an automatic failure (see Automatic Success and Automatic Failure) in the Vitality Test to avoid fainting, you character also dies. Once the Damage Meter goes below the Endurance again, the character has recovered and won't need to do Vitality Tests to avoid fainting until it's Damage Meter goes past the Endurance again. While fainted, the character wakes up once it's Damage Meter lowers back to normal levels (below Endurance).

Notice that, in Fenária RPG, there are no hit points. It means that a character can stay fighting forever if it's player keep getting excellent results in the dices (see Automatic Success and Automatic Failure). But it demands extremely high composite values and an absurd amount of luck.

The Damage Meter goes down with healing measures and resting. After resting for eight hours straight, a character's Damage Meter is divided by the number stated in it's Cr (rounded down). If the Damage Meter of a fainted character goes down in at least one point, it wakes up.

Notice that a character can faint for very silly reasons, if his damage meter goes too high with something like a stab on the leg. It isn't enough to faint someone. So, if it's illogical that a character faints due to the nature of the attack, the Referee can say that it hurt so bad that the character becomes "useless" (rolling on the floor and moaning, for example) until his damage meter goes down in at least one point (meaning that the pain ceased or became bearable).

What if my character dies? You, of course, won't need to die for real nor be banned from the game forever. But will need to build a new character from scratch (see Characterization).

Referee's "instinct". To end this rule set, I'll talk about this thing called "Referee's instinct". What if something happens in the game and there are no rules for that? What if there are no rules for magic, giant robots or some other element that your story needs? The Referee then can make up rules for these things. Made-up rules are welcome, as long the Referee keeps the game fair and funny for the players.

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