RPGaDay 2024 Day 6 - RPG that is Easy to Use

Rules-lite RPGs have been a trend for the last decade or so. One of the pain points of RPGs is the cost to get started as a GM, as a player, and as a new character about to play the game. In addition, as companies have learned more about their products and changes to the industry as a whole, even companies with "crunchy" rulesets have begun to streamline their mechanics to make them more approachable.

A favorite story of "hard to use" is a friend of mine who spent over 2 hours creating a new character for a Rolemaster game. In the first encounter, the GM rolled to hit, got a super-critical, and the character died, before he got to take a single action. My friend refused to play any more Rolemaster after that. (Despite this story, I'm happy to say that Rolemaster's creator, Iron Crown Enterprises is still alive and kicking, and just released Rolemaster Unified, which seeks to streamline the system, while keeping its DNA intact)

Such design choices are always a trade-off, because sometimes mechanics inspire certain types of play: Call of Cthulhu would be a lesser system if it didn't have its "sanity" mechanics, and other systems that try to run that style of game end up having to create their own version of sanity to make it work.

So before I pick a product, I'm going to list some products that have really pushed the bar in simplification:

Combat Action Management

There are a lot of improvements in this space, but I have to give credit to Pathfinder 2e for its action point system for a "d20" system. D&D 3.x got really complicated with full round actions, combat vs move actions, swift actions, reactions, free actions, and probably some that I'm forgetting. The Pathfinder system gives you 3 points, and each action costs 1 or 2 points, which you spend freely.

To this point, while 5e D&D improved things significantly, it did take one step backwards. In 3.x, you took an action and a move. You could choose to move as your action, giving you a double move. In 5e, they introduced the same concept as the "dash" action, which effectively means the same thing, but introduced new vocabulary, and created a rules section describing how the new action works.

Initiative

Hands down, the winner here is Shadow of the Demon Lord, by Schwalb Entertainment. 

At the start of each round, each player chooses "fast", or "slow". Fast lets you do limited actions, but sooner. Slow lets you do more complex actions, but you come later. Players go before monsters, and fast goes before slow. That's it...and it works marvelously.

After buying multiple accessories and inventing multiple spreadsheet and index card tools to handle initiative, this is by far the best solution I've ever seen.

Character Creation

There are several games that quality here, as the industry starts to get "one page" RPGs. These games tend to be themed, straightforward and are designed to get people to the table quickly, without a learning curve. And the character sheets for these games tend to have a small, easily understood character sheet that suffices for the game you are about to play.

A Couple of Drakes deserves a special callout, for having created some really innovative games, and Shawn Drake has been especially vocal that if the players can't get to the table in 5 minutes, the character creation system is too complicated for his liking.

Other Mechanics

There are a lot of fun dice mechanics in different RPGs: Exploding dice, roll 4 keep the 2 best, bonus die pools, larger dice for better abilities, roll above X to be a success, and the use of d7's and d14s and d16s the satisfy the most collection-minded dice goblins. And to be fair, these dice systems tend to be straightforward once you understand them. But they add complexity for new players, who are trying to get their heads around the game. For ease of use, I'd give the award to any of the systems that tie their results to simple rolling and a single die type: 2d6, d20, etc.

Another mechanic is "movement on squares" for miniatures. While movement on a diagonal should realistically be more like 1.5 steps, instead of 1, I'm going to give a callout to 4e D&D for finally changing it to "one square is one square". Yes, it means you run faster on the diagonal that you technically should, but it's a lot simpler for new players than counting off "5, 15, 20, 30" or whatever as you move.

Easy to Use

My pick for "Easy to Use RPG" is No Thank You, Evil! (NTYE) by Monte Cook Games. Designed with the same concepts as Cypher System, NTYE is designed to be played by children as young as 5 and more important, run by children as young as 9.

It has all the concepts of a full-blown RPG (because it is one) but they are scaled to be approachable. Character sheets are large and simple. The stories are narrative, not miniature-based. All challenges are resolved by a single (large) six-sided die.

Even though my children were well onto adult RPGs by the time this came out, I kickstarted it, because I wanted to see effectively RPG concepts could be made approachable to children without making the game boring for adults. And I'll say...I was very impressed.