Rules

I think I almost have a handle on the rules. I'm not going to use PDQ or Seven Leagues - they are both fine, but they're still not streamlined enough for me. I've found almost what I want in a neat seven (!) page set of rules called Adventures In Space, by Zak Arntson. (I recommend looking at his website - he seems to have a knack for simple, innovative, quirky rpgs). I'll probably use a variant on these.

The main feature of the rules will be that characters are described with a tag eg "A handsome prince", "A strong woodcutter", "A clever tailor" and a number of additional keywords, which may be positve or negative : eg nimble, brave, swordsman, sharp axe, lazy. Weapons or objects are treated as keywords. There are no numbers attached to keywords. In any situation requiring a dice throw, the player gets a dice for each keyword (and tag) that is relevant to the action or scene. Negative keywords may subtract dice. The player rolls dice, takes the single highest , and consults a d6 chart similar to that in Adventures in Space, which tells the degrees of success of an action.Rolls may be action or scene based - it is up to the GM whether players make one roll to resolve a whole scene, or a number of rolls for a number of actions within a scene. Additionally, players may get bonus dice for convincingly working in classic fairy tale motifs. Players will also have hero points, which allow them to reroll dice, or add additional elements to the story, thereby giving them some narrative control.

Combat is treated like any other conflict - death is possible, but only if that is the previously stated intent of the victor. The GM will ask you what you want to achieve at the start of a scene - saying "defeat the ogre" is different to "kill the ogre". More often losing a combat situation will result in other disadvantages eg imprisoned, and perhaps negative keywords eg "weary", "aching", "blinded".

And thats pretty much it! I need to think it out a bit more, but that the essence. PDQ and Seven Leagues both use keywords but still require math, which though not hard, still detracts from the atmosphere of a fairytale.