🦉Creating stories and systems

Welcome, adventurer!

We’re back from our trip to Granada, and we couldn’t be happier.

We had the time of our lives among fellow role-players, tapas, and the breathtakingly beautiful scenery of the Alhambra.

We were left wanting to go inside, so I guess that’s the best excuse to come back next year.

As I get ready to take the leap into international events this week, I’m here to share the final part of the Adventurers’ Guild’s recommendations.

So without further ado…

Let’s get started!

FATE

Well, let’s start with one of the most frequently mentioned recommendations in the emails.

Fate is the quintessential generic system.

Why? Because it doesn’t have fixed attributes , instead, you create them based on the story and your characters.

They’re called Aspects, and if you’re playing medieval fantasy, you might have things like “Impulsive Mage” or “Stealthy Thief,” but you could also be playing Two Rats Fighting Over a Churro with Linkin Park in the Background, and your aspects could be “Chipped Teeth” and “Carrier of the Bubonic Plague.”

Add to that FATE Points, which are basically spent on being cool, and you’ll end up with games that are equally original, epic, and ridiculous.

Simple and frenetic

and fun!

That’s the motto of Savage Worlds, Álvaro’s recommendation, and it more than lives up to it.

It’s a hodgepodge of mechanics that, through some arcane engineering, manage to create a kind of chaos that actually works when playing at the table: Exploding dice, poker cards, points to reroll…

This system is also generic, but Álvaro had a surprise in store for us…

Would you like to dive headfirst into Basque mythology?

Well, the game’s director has written a really cool manual that you should definitely read if you’re even remotely interested in Basajauns, Sorginas, or Lamias.

If nothing works for you, create your own system

Last but not least, I want to tell you about Aray’s role-playing game.

Yep, you read that right.

Aray has recommended several games to us, but he’s been talking about Caone. Or, as he prefers to call it, “the Jack Sparrow system.”

As someone who, from age 7 to 13, dressed up as this character exclusively , I can guarantee that this phrase alone had already caught my attention.

Aray told us that before he started playing with existing role-playing systems, he invented his own.

Chaotic and disastrous, just like pirates themselves.

Over the years, he's refined and improved it based on D&D systems.

What do you think? It's certainly piqued my curiosity.

We'll have to convince him to show it to us someday.

One thing that caught my attention is that Aray isn't the first person I've heard say he invented his own role-playing system before he even started playing.

For now, I’ll have to hold off on trying out all the recommendations you’ve sent us, because I’ll actually be out of the loop again this month.

Thanks, past Irene, for scheduling an event in Basel and another in London almost back-to-back.

By the way, Brandon Sanderson will be at the London event, and of course, I couldn’t resist putting together something special.

Ooh, what could it be?

I’ll tell you next week.

Successful quests and better rolls!

🦉Irene the Wizard

🦃Saúl the Bard