Further rules thoughts

Here's a development of my earlier thoughts - its like a combination of the keyword idea from Adventures in Space, with the "incremental actions" of Seven Leagues

Actions are used to resolve conflicts, either against a task or an npc… actions accumulate dice.

The player uses one of his keywords in a logical fashion to describe an action geared towards solving this conflict.. it can be as simple as “I wave my sword”, (if sword is a keyword”) ……… or “I nimbly dodge out of the way” (if nimble is a keyword)

The player then rolls one dice, though maybe if he has used his keyword in an especially creative fashion the GM may allow him to roll two dice:

- on a 2-5 he keeps the dice as his “pool”

- on a 6 he gets an additional dice to his pool (so he now has two dice) and he (or the GM) describes how the action was especially successful (“you wave your sword so wildly it flies out of your hand and hits the troll in the eye”)

- on a 1 he loses the dice and the gm describes why the action was not successful… (“you wave your sword so wildly it flies out of your hand into the pond”).

The GM then describes a suitable action for the NPC or task and rolls a dice similarly to try to create a pool.

Then the player describes a different action , and rolls a dice again ....

Players and GM contiue to alternate back and forth - both sides are trying to accumulate a dice pool to eventually resolve the conflict… when either the player or GM have at least three dice in their pool they may call out "Time!" to resolve the conflict, all sides roll dice, highest wins..

But Players (and GM) don’t have to roll dice as soon as they get three, they may decide to hold off and continue to try to build their pool ..

If a side runs out of ideas for using their keywords, they can still perform actions but they don’t get any dice, in essence, the actions are entertaining but don’t help: Player: “Ummm.. I try to climb a tree”…. GM: “fine, you’re clambering up the tree, the troll uses his strength to uproot the tree from the ground”

The GM could reserve the right to award a dice for something extremely inventive & imaginative, even if the pc doesn’t have the keyword..

Alternatively, there could be keyword actions and non-keyword actions . Non-keyword actions fail on a 1-3, suceed on a 4-6 , and don't get an extra dice on a '6'.

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.