Puzzle Dungeon

Don't Worry About It

I find myself gravitating toward the simplest approach for playtesting and for one-shots in general. I don’t want to waste too much time generating characters. I don’t want to worry about numbers or the right roll for the right situation. And I don’t want my players to think about that stuff either. I want them to focus on the world we are playing in.

DWAIt, my FKR-ish rules for one-shots

I start my one-shots and con games all the same way.

  1. I say, “don’t worry about the rules, tell me what you want to do and I’ll tell you if you need to roll anything.”
  2. Everyone gets a pregenerated character with some items and two stats: Skill and Defense.
  3. Players then write down any additional mundane equipment they want to start with that they think they could reasonably carry.
  4. Finally, they name their characters.

Stats

Skill is a number that roughly would relate to a character’s level or monster’s HD. So for an old school 3rd level module, everyone’s character has a skill of 3.

Defense is basically a character’s AC. These can be converted directly from B/X (AC - 10). Leather: 2, Chain: 4, Plate: 6, Shield: +1).

Rolls

I try to avoid die rolls as much as possible and encourage good ideas from players. I always advertise danger and remind players of dice rolls stacked against them. They should be scheming a guaranteed win, not fighting fair. Anything that can’t be resolved through logical discussion is a D20 roll plus either skill or defense. The default target number is 16, so low level characters kind of suck at rolls. A skill of 3 has a 40% chance of succeeding any generic roll.

Generic roll for uncertain action

Want to forage? Bend bars? Pick the lock? The generic roll is a skill roll. D20 + Skill.

Combat

If the roll is to attack or influence a creature in some way, the target number is either the creature’s defense + 10 or the creature’s skill + 10 (whatever is easier to imagine. Knight? Plate + 10. Ghost? Skill + 10, Pixie? Skill + 10).

When a PC is attacked, the player makes a defense roll. D20 + Defense. The target number is the attacking creature’s Skill + 10. So an attack from a HD 3 monster is a target number of 13 on a defense roll.

Slams

This comes straight outta slugblaster. The name "Slams" is used with permission from Mikey Hamm.

A hit in combat means that the enemy or PC takes a slam. Most attacks are one hit/slam. Some do two slams at once, like Giants. PCs can take as many slams as their skill. A skill of 3 (level 3 PC) can take 3 slams before dying. Slams might also be conditions though. You don’t mark slams off. You write them down and erase them as needed. Grappled? Write it down, it’s a slam. It’s cleared when you’re no longer grappled. Arm ripped off? Slam. Clear it when you get that sweet ghoul arm attached. Would a character die from a condition slam? If it made sense. Paralyzed as the last slam? Yup, system shock, baby. Grappled as the last slam? Eh, maybe a countdown as they lose air and suffocate. D4 rounds!

Saves

If a player were making a save, say from a Medusa’s paralysis, it’s a D20 +S kill roll against a target number of 10 + the creature’s skill.

Procedures

Dungeon crawl procedures are straight out of B/X. Random encounter rolls, monster morale, reactions, etc. I make sure players know that I am rolling for wandering encounters pretty much every time I do it. This procedure is the most important because it teaches players that time is a resource through play, not because they read about it in a rule book.

Trust

The group and the GM trust each other and we make it happen. Are your players stressing about rules? "Don’t Worry About It".

Final thoughts

I might put rules on a bookmark some time and stick them in my adventures. That sounds fun. Or maybe I'll just put those four words on it instead.

This text is licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0: You are free to share and adapt this material for any purpose, including commercially, as long as you give attribution.

P.S. Anticipated questions from the community

Q. What is FKR?

A. High trust, light on "player facing" rules. It's make-believe, baby.

Q. Does it support long-term play beyond one-shots?

A. I don't know. I'm pretty sure people have run long-term FKR games and had a good time with it. I don't expect these rules to be a problem.

Q. Will it run Keep on The Borderlands?

A. Yes.

Q. Isn't this just B/X DnD?

A. Maybe?

Changelog

0.2

Reduced skill roll required from needing +11 to-hit to +10. While this causes a 5% incompatibility with to-hit rolls from B/X, less mental math is worth it.

0.1

Initial release

#rules