Nanolite6

[WildWalker]

Monkeying around with trying to make an even lighter system for pickup games using regular 6 sided dice.

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Nanolite6
(modified based on suggestions from Dominowriting)

Character Creation:

• Pick an Occupation: Characters automatically succeed at most actions that a person with that Occupation would know.
• Pick a Name.
• Pick 3 Areas of Expertise

You may replace an AoE for a Special Ability if allowed by the GM.

Conflict Resolution:

• Standard Target Number (TN) is 3.
• Roll 1d6 vs TN for all standard actions that would not automatically succeed.
• Roll 2d6 and pick the HIGHEST when rolling against an action in which you have an AoE. If you roll "Boxcars" you get a Critical Success. A Critical Success in combat does 2 hits.
• Roll 2d6 and pick the LOWEST when rolling against an action in which you have no skill. If you roll "Snakeyes" you get a Critical Failure. A Critical Failure in combat may do a hit to the Character making the roll or may damage their weapon.

Combat:

• Characters can take two hits and then they are Bloodied. Bloodied Characters are -1 to all actions.
• Bloodied Characters can take two hits and then they are Incapacitated.
• Goons only get one hit.
• Certain kinds of creatures may get more hits.

Healing

• After a battle, Characters immediately regain one lost hit. Healer types can make a TN 4 roll to restore a second hit, but can only try once per hero after each battle.

Other Target Numbers

• Easy: TN 2
• Average: TN 3
• Hard: TN 4
• Very Hard: TN 5
• 1 on a roll is always a failure.
• 6 on a roll is always a success.

Weapons and Armor

• Melee Combat, Light Weapon: TN 4
• Melee Combat, Medium Weapon: TN 3
• Melee Combat, Two Handed Weapon: TN 5, Damage 2
• Ranged Combat, Short Range: TN 3
• Ranged Combat, Medium Range: TN 4
• Ranged Combat, Long Range: TN 5
• A Shield adds one to the TN to hit.
• No special armor gives the wearer an Armor Save vs a TN of 6.
• Heavy Clothes gives the wearer an Armor Save vs a TN of 5.
• Light Armor gives the wearer an Armor Save vs a TN of 4.
• Medium Armor gives the wearer an Armor Save vs a TN of 3.
• Heavy Armor gives the wearer an Armor Save vs a TN of 2.
• Special Abilities may give the wearer a higher natural Armor Save.

Advancement:

• Characters can add more Areas of Expertise with the permission of the GM (usually not more than 1 per session), up to a maximum of 7 and can change them if it makes sense (usually not more than one per session).
• Players also get 1 Action Die per game session, and can earn more for saying or doing cool stuff. An Action Die can be awarded by the agreement of two or more other Players as well as the GM.
• Action Die’s can be rolled with any roll to give you more dice to choose from for the roll or can be used to "shrug off" a hit.
• Some equipment or abilities are so powerful that they give the Character extra Action Dice.

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WildWalker

[Luís]

I can see this as a more serious Risus and I mean that in a good way.

This is something that would really work as a pocketmod.

[WildWalker]

Wow... I take that as very high praise... Thank you!

I am planning on Pocketmoding it some time this week.

WildWalker

[weeot]

i like it!

[SethDrebitko]

This is hot. Would you say very powerful items would be AoE's. For example: the iron man suit, or a book of spells?

[WildWalker]

This is hot. Would you say very powerful items would be AoE's. For example: the iron man suit, or a book of spells?

I would using the idea that they provide special abilities that can be described like AoEs. I might also give it extra Action Dice if the item was REALLY powerful.

Example 1: Iron Man's suit might be described something like:
Iron Man Armor is a suit of heavy armor that has the ability to fly and powerful repulsor beams. Perhaps the suit is so powerful that it provides 10 extra Action Dice per gaming session.
I might then rule the armor as +2 armor and the repulsor beams as integrated ranged weapons and we are ready to take on the bad guys!

Example 2: A Spellbook might be described as follows:
Morgrane's Spellbook gives her the ability to fire magic bolts from her fingers, create a choking cloud of smoke from nothingness and create light to brighten any darkness. Then I'd figure out the affects and if there was a cost. Perhaps a cost of 1 Action Die per effect and the book provides 3 extra Action Dice per gaming session that can only be used to cast spells from the book. Poof you have a first level D&D type Magic User!

WildWalker

[The Bane]

May I suggest looking at HiLo Heroes for inspiration on this?

Best,
The Bane

[dominowriting]

How about Capes Lite? I don't know if it's still around, but it used to have these "click together character sheets" with 5 or 6 words or phrases on each side. You picked a job like "grease monkey" and a personality like "psychotic loner" then picked the words you wanted to use for that hero. There's your Areas of Expertise right there.

[Atmo]

Looks a good system to modern games.

[WildWalker]

Played a Superhero game with my sons (age 5 and 3) and their friend (she is also age 5) and had a freaking BLAST!

Characters were:
Batman: Scary, Smart, Utility Belt
Spidergirl: Tough, Smart, Webslinging
Bumblebee: Big, Fast, Car

They went against Joker (2 dice everything, 2 hits to bloodied + 2 hits) and the Riddler (2 dice everything, 3 hits) and a ton of Minions (1 die everything, 1 hit incapacitates, rolling up on a hit will take out extra minions equal to how much you roll over).

5 year olds, so really simple plot, but they found out from Commissioner Gorden that the Joker and Riddler had escaped from Arkam (again!) were up to no good. Both Batman and Spidergirl asked if they could roll Smart to figure it out (my three year old was Bumblebee and he was in and out) and Spidergirl got a 6 so I told them from Riddler's clue they knew it was a museum heist.

From that they went to the museum and ended up losing to an army of minions. They were captured and knocked out and woke up suspended upside down in the animatronic Dinosaur exhibit with a T-Rex (2 Fighting, 3 hits) getting ready to eat them but Batman use a cutter from his Utility Belt to break free, Spidergirl used her Toughness and then Bumblebee crashed through the wall using Fast and the fight with the Dinosaur turned out amazing!

Having dispatched the Dinosaur they used Smart again and Batman got a 6 and they ended up in a final showdown in a warehouse with 10 Minions, another T-Rex and the Joker and Riddler. Spidergirl whittled down the Minions while Batman took on the Joker and the Riddler and Bumblebee fought the second T-Rex. Final outcome was 10 webbed Minions, an broken T-Rex, a captured Joker (Batman whittled him down and then Critted the final hit!) with the Riddler escaping.

About an hour and a half start to finish and everybody wanted to keep going but the Moms called it a night.

All in all I was very happy with the outcome of the play test. It played fast and "pulpy" and there was more than enough "meat" that I think it would not bore older more experienced players.

WildWalker

[WildWalker]

Having reread the "after-action" this morning I realized I want to read this comic book!

WildWalker

[SethDrebitko]

Wild Walker this is so awesome it looks like you had an awesome time with the kids!

[WildWalker]

Couldn't help myself...



WildWalker

[dominowriting]

I can't compete with that artwork, but here's a slightly revised version of Nanolite 6 that answers a few questions I had about the system. The main ones are, I want my barbarian with his big axe (two-handed weapon), and a way to explain equipment aside from the official answer, "add extra Action Dice." Just throwing more ideas for this great game out there.

Character Creation:
Pick a Name
Pick an Occupation and 3 Areas of Expertise (also called cliches - see Risus for more examples)
Your Occupation is an AoE also, and you when attempting an action using your Occupation, add +1 to the die roll. Special equipment may provide an additional +1 or +2.
Note that you can take 4 Hits


Conflict Resolution:
Roll 2d6 vs TN (must have a result greater than or equal to TN) for all standard actions that would not automatically succeed. You and the game master decide if one or more AoEs is useful in the action.
  Roll 2d6 and pick the highest when rolling against an action in which you have an AoE, then add or subtract modifiers.
  Roll 2d6 and pick the lowest when rolling against an action in which you have no AoE, then add or subtract modifiers.
   Easy: TN 2
   Average: TN 3
   Hard: TN 4
   Very Hard: TN 5
1 or less is always a failure. Double 1s is a critical failure.
6 or more is always a success. Double 6s is a critical success.


Combat:
   Melee Combat, Two-Handed Weapon: TN 5 – but it causes 2 hits of damage
   Melee Combat, Standard Weapon: TN 3
   Ranged Combat, Short Range: TN 3
   Ranged Combat, Medium Range: TN 4
   Ranged Combat, Long Range: TN 5
Armor adds 1 to the TN to hit the target.
Heavy Armor adds 2 to the TN to hit the target.
Shields add 1 to the TN to hit the target.

Characters can take two hits and then they are Bloodied (-1 to all actions).
Bloodied Characters can take two (more) hits and then they are Incapacitated.
Mooks only take one hit.
Certain kinds of creatures can take two, four or more hits.

After a battle, Characters immediately regain one lost hit. Healer types can make a TN 4 roll to restore a second hit, but can only try once per hero after each battle.


Advancement:
Characters can add more Areas of Expertise with the permission of the GM (usually not more than one per session), up to a maximum of 7, and can change them if it makes sense (usually not more than one per session). Players also get 1 Action Die per game session, and can earn more for rolling double 6s and saying or doing cool stuff. Action Dice can be rolled with any roll to give you more dice to choose from for the roll.

[WildWalker]

Dominowriting: The sketch is a bit rough but you should have heard my son when I showed it to him... priceless!

I like the thought of two handed weapons being harder to use but doing devastating damage.
I also like the Healer rule that is definately going to be incorporated.

Both are now added to the design!

WildWalker