r/rpg • u/Mars_Alter • 9h ago

Self Promotion FACT! - The rules-lite simulation engine

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.

3 Upvotes

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u/That-Background8516 6h ago

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

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u/Strange_Times_RPG 7h ago

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.

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u/Dry_Major4728 7h ago

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

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u/yuriAza 10m ago

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

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u/Mars_Alter 7h ago

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.

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u/Strange_Times_RPG 6h ago

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

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u/Mars_Alter 6h ago

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!

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u/yuriAza 8m ago

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

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u/BetterCallStrahd 6h ago

"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.

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u/SharkSymphony 4h ago

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. 😁