Hi, I am looking for a rules light universal rpg that is usable for a long term campaign. Some games are a little too freeform for me like risus or pdq. And others are advertised as rules light or very quick, but are more rules medium like Savage Worlds. I came across Onedice and I like it. Now I just want to make a list and quickly compare and settle on something.

Alright, this is what I got in mind for now: Onedice, GenreDiversion, basic roleplaying, WaRP, mini six. I also am aware of the Barbarians of Lemuria system (name?) and Covert Ops/Barebones Fantasy, but those aren't universal.

Is there something missing? Should I cross something of my list, because it's too heavy?

TSRs Marvel Superheroes is asctually a pretty darn good universal set thats fairly rules light.

BoL has enough variants to cover most genres.

Mini-6 is not a bad choice.

You can do anything with FATE or FUDGE.

Dungeon World has a ton of variants, but requires playbooks.

I dunno. TSR's AMAZING ENGINE? :-)

FATE seems to be trending still.

I'm a big fan of Onedice. I think that would make a great choice. Its Cheap too.
I also think Basic Roleplaying and Marvel FASERIP are good choices.
I think 2nd ed BESM would be very good as well. Character creation can be a little heavy. (Depending on point totals, and genre) But nothing like GURPS. Although really with all the switches and knobs turned off, GURPS is really simple. But it does (and deservedly so) carry the rep for being super crunchy. Which may kill the deal through intimidation. (so to speak)

FASERIP can be light, but I generally think of it more in the D6 range of lite-medium crunch. That said, its my favourite generic system,with the few tweaks I've made to divorce it from the Bronze Age default setting.

For really rules light, I can offer the following possibilities (all available free online):

The Window, Fable, The Pool, Cineflex, The Elegant Role-Play System, Scriptor, Fudge, Fate 2nd Edition, Outlaws of the Water Margin, and, yes, The Sheryl Crow RPG (

Of those systems that you mentioned:

OneDice is great but I don't know how it holds up in a long campaign. The numbers range is quite small. But it's definitely worth a try.

Mini 6 is tried-and-tested, and very well suited for a longer, action-packed, campaign, as proven by many Star Wars games.

For me, the WaRP engine has the same "problems" as RISUS - since characters are made up by three freeform traits it seems to work best in games where players are exactly on the same page, setting-wise. Excellent for Star Wars, Indy Jones, GoT, or long-running Shadowrun/Exalted/Forgotten Realms games wishing to switch to a lighter system.

GenreDiversion has one physical stat and four mental ones - if that "imbalance" doesn't bother you the system works like a breeze.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;938371Of those systems that you mentioned:

OneDice is great but I don't know how it holds up in a long campaign. The numbers range is quite small. But it's definitely worth a try.

Mini 6 is tried-and-tested, and very well suited for a longer, action-packed, campaign, as proven by many Star Wars games.

For me, the WaRP engine has the same "problems" as RISUS - since characters are made up by three freeform traits it seems to work best in games where players are exactly on the same page, setting-wise. Excellent for Star Wars, Indy Jones, GoT, or long-running Shadowrun/Exalted/Forgotten Realms games wishing to switch to a lighter system.

GenreDiversion has one physical stat and four mental ones - if that "imbalance" doesn't bother you the system works like a breeze.

Ah, this does help. Well maybe then I should completely ditch the idea of something freeform. That would eliminate WaRP and probably some others.

GenreDiversion does seem focused on investigation, which I love. But my players might want to do something else, like physical and social actions. So that seems a no-go as well.

So let me adjust my intentions.
A rules light to rules medium universal rpg.
Not freeform.
Not too many different skills (I think unisystem has too many skills for example. Cinematic unisystem or Covert Ops is more my taste considering the number of skills).
And the skills have to be a combination between physical, social and mental skills (Savage Worlds has too many physical, GenreDiversion too many mental).
No dicepools (WoD no thanks). Preferably a role over system using one or two d6 or d10 dices. I might consider a percentile system.
No bloat of merits, feats or edges or whatever you might call them.

An oldie but a goodie: CORPS. roll over d10

Heroquest 2e. It can be done as d10 roll over. Set chargen base to 5. From a pool of 10 points allocate to up to 10 attributes that include high concept, some relevant traits, a flaw; Max allocation of 5 to an attribute. A score that 12 is set as 2-Mastery.

For roll-over use target of 11+ to succeed. Add attribute. If you have mastery, bump a result by one level. Results are: natural 1 = fumble; 2-10 = fail; 11+ = success; natural 10 = criticsl success.

One can make RO10-HQ player-facing or use the redults matrix.

I think I am going for a ruleset with only a few broad skills. I like it that some games don't use regular skills, but professions which function as catch-all skills. So that would narrow it down to Covert Ops, BoL and Cinematic Unisystem.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;938560I think I am going for a ruleset with only a few broad skills. I like it that some games don't use regular skills, but professions which function as catch-all skills. So that would narrow it down to Covert Ops, BoL and Cinematic Unisystem.

You might check out ZEFRS/The 80s Conan RPG

Hi!

I think BASH is definitely worth mentioning.

Microlite might be something to consider.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;938371GenreDiversion has one physical stat and four mental ones - if that "imbalance" doesn't bother you the system works like a breeze.

I'm not sure of the statistics of GenreDiversion. At least one version uses 2d6 for a 10 item hit location table, using it as each number being equally likely, rather than the median numbers being more likely, heavily skewing the hit location probabilities.