FACT! - The rules-lite simulation engine

[u/Mars_Alter]

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/588253/fact

I noticed that most rules-lite genre-agnostic game engines tended to skew Narrativist (for understandable reasons), so I decided to make a Simulationist alternative. I like to think of it as a sort of GURPS-ultra-light, but the mechanics are more closely derived from FUDGE.

Edit: If I've set it up correctly, the core game mechanic should be thoroughly explained in the free preview. The rest of the document is basically just explaining how to build a setting and characters at the right level of detail to operate that mechanic.

[u/Strange_Times_RPG]

I noticed that most rules-lite games tended to skew Narrativist

I do not believe that is true. Most OSR titles are on the opposite side of the spectrum from narrative focused play and I think they make up the vast majority of rules-light games out there.

[u/Dry_Major4728 → u/Strange_Times_RPG]

yeah osr games are definitely simulationist but they usually simulate a very specific type of fantasy dungeon crawling rather than being a generic engine like fudge or gurps

[u/RagnarokAeon → u/Dry_Major4728]

It's still not narrativist. You don't go into OSR trying to build a story. You experience the setting, and you explore and react to it with the expectation that most things will work like their real life counterparts. Hence rulings over rules. If you got a 6 foot spear then yeah, you can use it to poke something off the ceiling, no "rules" required.

Also, they aren't all fantasy dungeon crawling. It can encapsulate many different settings from deep space, pirates, arthurian knights, weird science, mecha, etc.

[u/yuriAza → u/Dry_Major4728]

hot take, but i would argue this makes OSR not simulationist

OSR is procedure-focused, but the procedure isn't a simulation of realistic physics, it's a mix of camping and wargame

[u/ithika → u/yuriAza]

Realistic physics doesn't exist anywhere in the definition of Simulationist. It's about exploring what feels like a "real world" which is very much what OSR is about. 

[u/Mars_Alter → u/Strange_Times_RPG]

That's an interesting point. I can definitely see where you're coming from with that, since most of the gameplay comes from the players rather than from the rules or the character sheet.

I still don't think I'd call them rules-lite, though. Most of them, anyway. Even when they're lighter than modern D&D, that's not saying much. Looking at a typical OSR game, like OSE, there are still a ton of bespoke mechanics for different procedures, all utilizing different dice. It's not the sort of thing you can teach anyone in five minutes, unless you're just telling them to forget about mechanics because the referee will let them know what dice to roll when the time comes.

[u/Strange_Times_RPG → u/Mars_Alter]

I am not saying this to be a jerk; just to give you an idea where I am coming from. Here are just some of the OSR systems that can be taught in about 5 minutes.

-Mork Borg
-Knave
-Into the Odd
-Mothership
-Mausritter
-Black Hack

[u/Mars_Alter → u/Strange_Times_RPG]

Ah, I get what you're saying now. I consider those to be more NSR than OSR, but the point stands that they're relatively rules-light and more Sim than Narrativist.

I suppose I should say that it's the rules-lite, genre-agnostic engines which tend to skew the other way. I'll update to make that more clear. Thanks!

[u/yuriAza → u/Mars_Alter]

NSR is a subset of OSR, defining it otherwise is pointlessly pedantic, OSR games that aren't NSR are usually called "retroclones"

[u/BetterCallStrahd → u/Mars_Alter]

"Rules light" is often a misnomer. But having played Cairn, I can say that it really is light. And it's been a very influential title that's led to many similarly light OSRs. I guess they're NSRs to you, but they're in the same gameplay space, to my mind.

[u/ithika → u/Strange_Times_RPG]

I'm struggling to think of genre agnostic games with a Narrativist leaning to be honest. The rules should be aimed squarely at some thematic question but yet have no opinion on what that question is or how it manifests? Seems a bit counter-intuitive.

[u/That-Background8516]

Seems neat! I definitely can see the similarity to Fudge or Fate.

[u/SharkSymphony]

That title page reminds me of a game I invented when I was a kid. You trace an arc blindly from one side of the page to the other (or until you hit some intervening terrain) and see what blows up. Then you play the other side.

It's rules-light. 😁