The Party, a 1-Page RPG with 1 paragraph of crunch

An RPG that can be recycled to power other RPGs where character gen gets bogged down by people being obsessed with builds and making the most emo twee gnome bard. Just roll your damn character and get back in there!


The Party was inspired by my acquirement of The Clandestinauts. It's well worth a read, and the print version has even more content. Think I read that Holmes ran RPGs with a resolution system kinda like the one outlined in the last paragraph. You can find a version of this RPG in that folder that is linked somewhere to the top left on this blog. Don't forget that PrintFriendly is a thing too.

The Party by Claytonian

If you are the first person to generate a character, you roll a d12 and note what you are. Once your character is decided upon, the GM may change the class of that result and the dependent clause of it too for future rollers. The next person will roll a bigger die size. The die does not reset when characters expire.

My character is a

1. Human warrior who has a hound trained to bite crotches.
2. Human warrior who cuts a scar into their self for each kill.
3. Human warrior who can cast spells by consuming monster hearts.
4. Human warrior who is damned to hell if they can’t amass 1,000,000 gold.
5. Amazonian warrior who is searching for the dragon that razed her village.
6. Dwarven warrior who keeps their enemies alive but insists on crucifying them.
7. Human thief who is unaware that they are royalty.
8. Human thief who is hounded by the furries for stealing the wrong statuette.
9. Human thief who poses as a blind masseuse.
10. Hobbit thief who is addicted to beholder butter.
11. Human wizard who can transfer their mind to any bound humanoid over the course of a day and a night.
12. Human cleric who can smell stolen items.
13. Elvish duelist who is a flawed clone of one of the campaign’s big bad evil guys.
14. Dwarven thief who grows stronger each time their friends die at others’ hands.
15. Dwarven rune-priest who sinks into the earth each time they sleep.
16. Chthonic elf who unflinchingly kills for the slightest offense, should they not be dissuaded by their companions.
17. Automaton warrior who claims to be the finest creation of one of the campaign’s big bad evil guys.
18. Human warlock who promised their soul to the hell-slugs of venus.
19. Slugman warrior who finds rhymes painful to hear.
20. Cambion wizard who wishes to find a way to cheat their self into heaven.
21. Zombie warrior who always regenerates 4 hours after dying.
22. Human door-mage who is queen of the ants.
23. Leprechaun eye-mage who has 3 lives.
24. Crow-man thief who has a musket with a magical bullet that can kill anyone.
25. Catman slaver who has 3 gnomes do everything for them.
26. Mutant barbarian who bathes in blood to survive.
27. Elven vampire who can enter the dreams of others.
28. Reformed mindflayer who only eats the brains of those they have read and deemed to be sinful enough.
29. Demigod javelinist who can ride their own javelins up to 7 leagues.
30. Duo-cynocephaloid monk who can identify whom bodily fluids belong to by smelling both fluid and subject within a fortnight.

To do things, roll a d20 and the GM will roll one too. If it seems to be something you would be better at than other classes would be—exempli gratia, a warrior rolling to hit—you can roll a d30 instead. If you roll higher, you do the thing. If the GM's die rolls close to yours though, maybe you didn’t do the thing so smoothly. If you failed, there is some bad thing that happens now and makes sense for the danger you have blundered your way into.

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Share good posts with good goblins. Claytonian at the gmails.

Roll Under? Nah, Brah. Roll Uber!

But actually still roll under.

The problem: Your face. Sorry. No, the actual problem is that rolling a d20 at/under your ability score to do checks and saves is fine occasionally, but not satisfying as a unified mechanic. Think about it: if your score is even slightly low, you'll suck at everything, and if its too high you'll be bored as you wade through all challenges at a leisurely pace.

One solution is to stick to rulings not rules and have roll under being a last resort or bonus opportunity on top of normal competence. "You examine the drawer. You find a jeweled torque and a bedazzled cutoff denim vest. Roll a Wisdom check for me to see if you notice the assassin creeping up on you while you do that."

But today's post is about your mom. No! Not your sweet, sweet mom. I mean, the other solution. You have a percentage chance to do an action. It starts at 60% and goes up by 1% for each point of ability score you have. Simple. You want more competence? Add your level too.

Old school mutation: Your chance is expressed on a d6. Just like the elves get when they walk by secret doors. I like this one a lot, even though it merely masks the problem that is the central conceit of this blarg post.

• 1/6= Ability score from 3 to 4
• 2/6= Ability score from 5 to 8
• 3/6= Ability score from  9 to 12
• 4/6= Ability score from 13 to 16
• 5/6= Ability score from  17 to 18

You can express even more competence by giving rerolls, and to account for classes, kindred, or careers. I like to give thieves their percentage scores as a last ditch chance to do something when their ability check says they should fail.

Oh, and feel free to flip these numbers to justify the title of this post. Like I flipped your mom last night, Trebek. 
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Share good posts with good goblins. Claytonian at the gmails.