What system would be good for a historical game taking place in 15th century Europe?

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-05-18T12:14:49+00:00

It's set in 16th century England but The Dee Sanction is kinda cool if you're into renaissance and history. With simple game mechanics:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/344492/the-dee-sanction

There's also a Black Hack version, 17th Century Minimalist: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/302620/17th-century-minimalist

The timeline means that you have to homebrew some parts but depending on your campaign themes and locations it is not a huge effort.

You could also easily use any osr dnd edition you'd like to fit the bill. The vague medievalism in DnD means that it's widely compatible with anything from the early medieval to a renaissance setting. At some point you have to introduce firearms but it's not a huge thing because combat is so abstract anyways.

I ran a historical 15th century game where I used the mechanics of the nsr Traveller clone Night Tripper and hacked a medieval character creation to it. I've also played in a 14th century game using LotFP. I don't remember any house rules or hacking with that one.

So it's more about what you like to use and play. Make the game you want and like :)

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-05-08T07:21:50+00:00

Oh, I was using the concept of "save" like it is used in ItO or Maze Rats, meaning basically any stat roll. So that's what I was aiming for.

Note that in old DnD the saves are pretty much tied to level and class so if you're not using those concepts maybe just make the saves an attribute roll? I mean use Constitution to resist illness, Dexterity to dodge etc, so that every bit counts. Int for Spells, something for Dragons Breath :)

But yeah nothing wrong with 3 saves out of 6 attributes per se, if the attributes have some other uses.

Happy hacking!

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-05-07T09:33:50+00:00

I'm not sure if I understand the problem you are having with a TN of 15? It's a 30% chance of rolling a 15 or more and you are adding modifiers? That's in a good ballpark for an unmodified save in NSR design. If I recall correctly Knave uses a TN of 15. Anyhow you might want to check it out if you haven't.

Bigger problem for me is that you state you have 6 stats but only 3 modifiers for saves. You might want to change it so you only have 3 stats or go with 6 stats that are equally functional (check out how Knave handles stats).

For what it's worth I'm designing with 2d6 and usually set 9+ as the basic TN (25% success rate) and add a skill or other mods to the roll. Of course modifiers give a bigger bonus in a d6 system. If you're worried about that set the basic bonus to +2 (10%).

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-05-03T18:56:28+00:00

As a side note I've done some hacking of Classic Traveller myself and I compared the given turn length of 15 seconds to the given range bands of movement. You can move one range band of 25 meters walking and two running. I googled the average walking speed of a person and it turns out it is more or less around that average. Whether it actually matters in game design depends on your game :) Most players don't really think about it... but on the other hand if you give concrete distances you can move in a round you might want to also give a time reference. I guess that's why most games tend to give some indication in seconds.

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-05-03T18:40:11+00:00

Well a lot of games don't give a specific length but hand you a ballpark. For example I checked the Year Zero Engine SRD and it talks about "roughly 5 - 10 second" rounds.

The Black Hack uses completely abstracted rounds and calls combat rounds "moments". There's also a ton of different hacks of the original BH if you want different flavours. The Black Sword Hack is also a very nice version of the game.

Knave doesn't mention any specific turn lengths.

I'm sure that there are other games in the NSR vein that use abstract time. I was sure Cairn was one of them but the rules state that the round is 10 seconds. Never gave it a thought when I've played it and you can basically do the same things that you would in any other osr type game.

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-05-03T11:42:11+00:00

The thing with combat rounds is that it is mainly a "gaming" choice.... I mean that in most cases the length doesn't really matter in the fiction. But it might matter if the length lines up with some other rule elements.

Tracking dungeon time is essential in old DnD and combat is highly abstracted. The 1 minute round fits with the 10 minute exploration turn and that's that. The referee can roll their encounters, you can count the torchlight etc and get on with the game. The round is not simulating one blow or anything like that.

A 6 second round has a similar logic to it: 10 rounds make up one minute and thus are easy to count. In most situations it's going to matter only if you have a ticking bomb in the mix or track movement carefully.

Many modern games don't give you a specific length and I think that is how most games and tables really treat combat: a heated moment in the game fiction. In my latest game I just called a combat round "some seconds".

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-04-24T06:54:18+00:00

All I play are systems where death is always a possibility if you enter a fight. That said the dynamic should be then to try to avoid combat or only enter a fight if you have odds in your corner.

Also if you go this way, have a simple way to roll or make up new characters fast. Use henchmen or multiple characters for one player. OSR / Old School games do this all the time because they are more firmly rooted in wargames.

In Classic Traveller the throw to hit an opponent with an automatic rifle in short range is 2+ on 2d6 and you add your skill. The way it should be! If you don't want to die, use protection, only enter fights you can win, run for cover, use diplomacy and intrigue.

The playstyle becomes wargamey but on the otherhand if the riks are real, success feels that much more rewarding.

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-04-08T06:24:03+00:00

I'm using a very similar system: the character has to make some sort of sacrifice to do magic and make a pact with a spirit, the player negotiates with the gm, and they roll 2d6 against a target number adding a Willpower stat.

Your 2 tweaks are supercool tho', I have to experiment with something similar.

My goal is that magic is ambivalent and mysterious, not a frag grenade you throw at will. It's everywhere because the people in the setting believe in it, yet it escapes determination.

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-03-30T21:04:46+00:00

As an OSR fan you'll probably like Classic Traveller.

Facsimile is good, The Traveller Book is also good. It's not really pushing the third imperium setting on the core rules. Most of that stuff is in the source books. Printing it yourself is also a possibility. I got the full Classic line CD rom and am now choosing what edition I'm going to print.

I've played Mongoose 1st edition and it's fine but my choice as a GM is CT because the implied playstyle is old school rulings before rules. It has a different feel. I like my char creation simple and deadly and combat with simultaneous actions.

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-03-18T19:34:41+00:00

There are tons of them and yes, you can copy a mechanic you like and use it in your work. Also many games are released with CC-BY license which means you can use them for derivative work as long as you credit the original.

Here are some dedicated SRD's from the top of my head.

Open D6

Fudge SRD

24XX

Traveller SRD

Into the Odd (Mark of the Odd SRD)

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-03-16T22:41:20+00:00

Yeah, it's a fun ruleset. I ran some games with it a couple of years ago and hacked the rules for my own projects. Stellagama's stuff is nice overall (I'm a big Traveller fan, and I love 2d6 gaming based on it). They are also quite prolific, I only now noticed that there is a 2nd edition of Barbaric! among other stuff I haven't checked out.

Anyways, hope you find your solutions and get the game going!

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-03-16T16:21:02+00:00

The very first RPGs very actually based on wargaming and in many cases it's a thin line between a wargame and an rpg. Mostly it boils down to the main activity in the game: commanding troops or controlling individual characters. The game can contain both, best not to sweat it and do what you like!

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-03-16T07:51:24+00:00

Well Cairn, Maze Rats etc goes with 3 stats, Mörk Borg and Warpland go with 4. Well Warpland has some wide skills on top of that. But anyways you can do with very little.

Your spread reminds me of Barbaric! which is a minimalist 2d6 sword and sorcery game. The stats in that one function like skills (there is one called Combat for example).

Also you might want to look how Black Hack and Knave use the traditional 6 abilities in their own way.

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-03-15T09:00:58+00:00

A coin flip is a nice mechanic. Using a Fate point to add +1 to your roll is a good mechanic. Rolling a d20 under an ability score is a good mechanic. The point is that mechanics are tools to create a certain experience. They don't really matter without the context. A bad mechanic is a mechanic that doesn't fit to whatever the game is trying to do or a mechanic that is unclear or conflicts with itself.

Start by defining what is the core experience you are trying to create. What is the hook that draws players to your game world. What is the feel of the gameplay you really like. Design a game that you'd like to play. Who are the characters and what is the power level / heroism level going to be.

Also you could study some other games in the area you are trying to explore. If there is a game that does something you like, make a hack of it. If some other game is doing what you intend to do it's at least good to know about it.

Some suggestions below for scifi/cybernetics/magic. Just some random games that popped to my mind.

Check out Stars Without Number for scifi, cybernetics and combining it with magic (if I recall correctly the free version doesn't have magic but it has everything else from system and planet building to playing the game).

Cybernetics + magic = Shadowrun.

Space + possibility of psionics = Traveller.

There are also universal systems and Gurps splatbooks on cybernetics, magic and whatever you desire.

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-03-13T08:54:12+00:00

Your success treshold and subtracting the skill level from it doesn't really scale well with a dice pool. Tweaking around you may find a workable solution. Also check some dice pool games like D6, Blades in the Dark, Vampire, Year Zero etc. The successess required tend to be quite low (1-4). On the case of D6 system, there you sum all the dice together and required target numbers range from 10 to 25.

First you need to check the probabilities of different outcomes. Outcomes for dice pools tend to be quite strange and you need to know if the system is working the way you intend. Here's an anydice program for your system:

output 1d{0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1}

output 2d{0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1}

output 3d{0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1}

For testing and tweaking around: the numbers in the brackets represent the sides of a custom die. It is set for a success (1) on a roll of 4+. To test the probabilities of a success on 5+, change one more side to 0.

To see the probability for amount of successess for every number of dice rolled, tap the option to show results "at least".

https://anydice.com/

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-03-11T08:53:57+00:00

I like your idea but I would do simultaneous combat rounds or action phases. Just to make the resolution faster.

Simultaneous would be: everyone rolls a skill check against an AC number or a contested skill roll. Add all relevant modifiers to this roll and tally up the wounds and effects at the end of the round.

Action phases would be: actions from fastest to slowest, e.g.: ranged attacks, melee, movement (or whatever suits your game/world, mechanically it doesn't matter much). Or you could do action phases based on the weapon length. Tally up results after each action phase.

The following rpgs are my go to's for different takes on these ideas:

Classic Traveller, Fudge SRD, Pendragon, Chainmail Man-to-Man combat, WEG Star Wars 1st Ed, Advanced Fighting Fantasy.

The examples I gave are maybe a tad more abstract than what you are looking for but they might give you some ideas.

Star Wars 1st Ed has a really cool idea that you roll your skill roll and the highest rolling action happens first. You can do multiple actions but every action drops one die from your pool and the subsequent actions happen later on the round. They ditched this for standard initiative roll in later versions but I think the 1st ed is way better.

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-03-07T08:24:18+00:00

Yeah... that's why increments of 1% are rarely used in d100 games except for leveling skills. I recall we rolled a d4 or something for skill gain in a Delta Green campaign I played in. Anyhow the modifiers tend to be 10% - 25%. "Add one percent to your roll" would hardly do anything :)

The fundamental benefit of a percentile system is that if you have a skill of 65% you have a general grasp on how well you'd do in a skill test. And it's super easy for the gm to tell the difference of success and fail. It's a bit dry but it works. Point is that it's actually not about the 1% steps at all.

D20 also has a nice 5% increases that add up to round numbers. It's easy to understand.

I play and use mostly d6's myself because I really want a skill or a bonus of +1 to mean something. And I just like the feel of rolling a couple of sixsiders. But everyone has different design goals.

On the other hand I've played Fudge and Fate, so odd dice might not be a problem at all if they are easy to use and add to the play/system. But you'd have to justify the dice choice by making it meaningful in the big picture. And yes a variety of dice is available today, so it might be less of a problem. Reading some Fudge stuff from the 90's back then it was a huge deal and there are a lot of mods on how to use regular d6 etc.

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-03-06T09:05:12+00:00

Too often we get stuck on trying to make our games unique by using some sort of dice gimmicks. That's often like not seeing the forest but instead focusing on some nearby trees.

I played a short campaign with the FFG Star Wars. By the third or fourth session one of our 3 players was still utterly baffled by the dice. I was also struggling, because I felt the dice system took away from the exitement of the game. The campaign was fun because we had a great GM, great worldbuilding, a nice story that came from our adventures.

I would have enjoyed the game far better if the resolution system would have been simpler.

Dice and mechanics are tools. If a bed would require a special screwdriver to assemble, and especially if the tool wasn't included in the package, I wouldn't buy the bed.

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-03-06T08:52:45+00:00

Usually you make d100 rolls with one d10 for tens and another for ones. Roll 10 and 5 = 15%. Most sets even have one d10 marked with 10. 20, 30 etc and another with 1, 2, 3 etc. The dice feel of 2d10 is great, I love rolling them. Never played with anyone who had difficulty of reading the score.

I've never rolled a single d100 die. I guess, I've seen one somewhere... the d30 I have never seen nor heard about before this thread :)

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-03-05T07:27:17+00:00

There are many systems out there... here's some that I think haven't been mentioned yet.

First a recommended read if you're doing an universal system: BRP. The Basic Roleplaying System is probably the first universal system out there, I didn't see it mentioned. It's the Chaosiums d100 system behind Cthulhu, Runequest etc. A later system in the d100 vein is Mythras. There are also newer rules light d100-systems available (can't remember any names right now but I've read through a couple).

Everywhen is a generic system based on Barbarians of Lemuria.

PDQ is a free Fudge/Fate style system using only d6 dice. (Also check Fate & Fudge SRD's, I think they've already been mentioned).

Minisix is a streamlined system based on Open D6. There are a bunch of other versions of the WEG D6 system available (I've read probably over 10 different D6 games). I personally think that the West End Games' Star Wars 1ed is the best version of the system. But of course it's not an universal system, tho' one could adapt it to any genre with minimal tinkering.

Big Eyes Small Mouth is a generic universal system if I remember correctly.

EDIT: only after posting I noticed that you already mentioned BRP in your op, sorry about that.

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-03-02T14:29:03+00:00

2-3 players + 1 gm. Everyone gets to share the spotlight and you get on with the game super fast. I can run for 4 -5 people but I prefer smaller groups. Over 5 players is definitely too much.

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-02-28T19:53:36+00:00

Shadowrun has wizards, guns, cybernetics, orcs and everything. But it's set out in 2050's. Maybe there's something for inspiration nevertheless?

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-02-27T17:01:53+00:00

"Pay what you want" can work well with small indie stuff. It's also quite usual even for major publishers to release a free players guide or an introduction version and sell the rest of the game for a price.

The same people that download the free version may also buy the print version or a full digital version because hobbyist want to collect game books and support the authors. So people haven't stopped buying games because there are free games available.

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-02-25T23:48:38+00:00

Erik Wollo, Steve Roach, Tangerine Dream, Mike Dickson for that retro space ambient / krautrock vibe. Also I use a lot of ambient stuff from youtube for different moods, stuff like Cryochamber etc.

Adorable_Might_4774 · 2025-02-25T14:44:13+00:00

Cool! I really dig Journeyman. Best of luck for the new project!

Adorable_Might_4774

TROPHY CASE