Brave Old World
Introduction
Brave Old World is an open-source role-playing game (RPG) where 2 or more players create a story by having a structured conversation. It is a traditional RPG played with a couple of dice and your imagination.
Brave Old World is a game about asking questions. Who is your adventurer? Why are they with the party? Where is the dragon's secret lair? Is the mayor's daughter really planning to burn down the town mill?
This game ruleset was written by me, emsenn, and is released for the benefit of the public under the terms included in the "License" supplement. It was made possible with financial contributions from humans like you. Please direct comments to my public inbox or, if necessary, my personal email.
Brave Old World
Requirements
- A six-sided die. It is better to have two, and best to have two per person.
- A writing utensil and a sheet of paper. It is best to have a pencil and a few pieces of paper for each person.
- Two players. More is better. Four to six is best.
- One to four hours. Two is normal.
How to Play
In Brave Old World, one player is the narrator while the others are adventurers. The narrator facilitates the story while the adventurers, working as a party, explore strange places and have grand adventures.
Gameplay works like a conversation. The narrator says where the party is and what is happening around them. The adventurers say what it is they'd like to do. When an adventurer takes a risk, they roll two six-sided dice and add the results. /(If the adventurer is particularly good at the thing they're doing, they may be able to add to that result.)/
- If they roll a 10 or more (10+), they succeed at what they attempted.
- If they roll a 7 through 9 (7-9), they succeed… but with a cost or consequence.
- If they roll a 6 or less (6-), they fail, and something is going to happen.
You can play Brave Old World with only this rule, if your primary interest is telling a fun little story with a group of friends. The [Supplementary Rules](#supplementary-rules) add more depth to the gameplay, providing rules for adventurer skills, equipment, health, and so on.
Supplementary Rules
Skills
Skillfullness
When an adventurer takes a risk, their personal skills may be able to influence the results of their roll.
There are a lot of ways to describe a person's skill, but mechanically they all work out to either -2, -1, +1, or +2 to the result of a roll.
-2
-1
+1
Familiar, knack
+2
Knowledgeable, adept, exceptional
List of Skills
- acrobatics
- investigation
- magic
- covert
- swimming
- dancing
Equipment
Adventurers either have a lot of supplies, some supplies, a few supplies, or basically no supplies.
With a lot of supplies, adventurers can roll and if successful, find the item they were searching for in their inventory.
With some supplies, adventurers need to subtract one from their roll, and with a few supplies, they need to subtract two.
If the adventurer has basically no supplies, the adventurer can roll with no modifier, but any success leads to an item similar to what they want, but (at narrator's discretion) unsuited for the purpose for which it was intended.
Consequences
Agitation
Angst
Exhaustion
Nerves
Panic
Health
Coming soon.
Conflict Resolution
Whether you're using all the rules or just the roll, eventually the group of players is going to disagree about something.
Conflict resolution in Brave Old World relies on consensus: all the people playing must agree that something is valid. This most often comes into play when a player is claiming a new skill or equipment, and not all of the players agree that it's reasonable.
Gameplay Example
Just the Roll
Coming soon.
All the Rules
Coming soon.
Supplements
Contribute
This document was made possible with contributions from humans like you. Thank you! I currently accept contributions through the following platforms:
If there is another service through which you'd like to contribute, please send an email. Please note that in accordance with my personal directives #003 and #018, I release all useful information I create for free, so financial contributions do not entitle you to access to any "exclusive content."
License
Copyright 2019 emsenn
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this document and associated media files (the "Document"), to deal in the Doftware without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Doftware, and to permit persons to whom the Doftware is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
The Document is provided "as is," without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or noninfringement. In no event shall the authors or copyright holders be liable for any claim, damages or other liability, whether in an action of contract, tort, or otherwise, arising from, out of or in connection with the Document or the use or other dealings in the Document.