RINGS & ROGUES by Craig Daniel INTRODUCTION Rings & Rogues is a roleplaying game of urban fantasy and swashbuckling action. In this game, players take on the role of individuals in the city of Skonn and narrate their adventures. One player serves as the Game Master, or GM, and uses the rules to help determine the resolution of conflicts. This avoids the classic problem of childhood cops-and-robbers games, wherein one player screams "Missed me!" and another says "No! You're dead!" Rings & Rogues was written for the 24 Hour RPG challenge, but because of the author's procrastination most of it was written in one hour. I'm sure it shows. This is the reason why it's in .txt format; I didn't have time to port it over to a .pdf. The setting is based on a previous short story of mine, "Nornring", which takes place in a town just outside of Skonn. SETTING Rings & Rogues takes place in the city of Skonn. Skonn is a bustling metropolis and a center of culture for the entire area around it. There is a phenomenal income gap within Skonn; those seen by the "upper crust" as being in abject poverty may still be wealthy enough to employ and exploit servants of their own, while even those servants barely notice the starving beggars in the street. There is a significant criminal underworld; locks are rare, because the sort of people they're designed to keep out know how to open them. Because Skonn is so rife with crime, the city guards are everywhere. Dressed in beautiful red uniforms, they make up nearly 1% of the population. Magic is fairly common. Small slugs of metal which glisten in an unearthly amber color, known as "boons", are passed from person to person regularly; it is well known that if you give a boon to a stranger, win three days something lucky will happen to you. Their effects are unpredictable. Most people receive a boon every few days. Receiving a more significant piece of magic, a Ring, is a rare and momentous event. Rings are jewelry - usually, but not always, finger rings - made of the same enchanting metal as Boons. Each Ring has a specific effect, which will occur without fail when it is given away to someone the giver does not know. Certain rings are legendary, while others are known only to those who have owned them. Their effects range all over the map. The Tricksters' Ring, for instance, makes the one who gives it away seem particularly trustworthy for three days, while the Ring of Healing cures any ailments the giver is suffering from. There are persistent legends, almost certainly false, of a Ring of Death, which causes its owners to die suddenly three days after giving it away. It is, of course, quite plausible that a Ring would have an effect different from what its owners believe... Needless to say, Rings are highly sought after. There are those that make their livings entirely from the effect of a certain Ring, and track down the unlucky souls they have given it to and steal it back, sometimes murderously. CHARACTER CREATION Character creation in Rings & Rogues consists of determining the course of the character's life and the skills he picks up in that time. At age 12, most people who are not extremely wealthy or extremely poor become apprentices for a period of seven years. If you don't know what trade you want to pursue, try rolling two ten-sided dice, in a specific order, to generate a tw0-digit number, reading 00 as 100. Take the number you rolled and look it up in the following table to see what your apprenticeship was in. 1-20 Cobbler 21-32 Tailor 33-41 Barber 42-49 Jeweler 50-56 Restauranteur 57-62 Baker 63-68 Stonemason 69-73 Carpenter 74-78 Weaver 79-82 Chandler 83-86 Mercer 87-90 Cooper 91-94 Hatter 95-97 Physician 98-100 Butcher Take one ranks in the area in which you were apprenticed, though they'll probably never help you. For the rest of character creation, break your character's life after age 19 into three-year blocks. Determine what the character was doing at that time - were they a journeyman baker? Did they run their own inn? Were they serving in the City Guard? Did they turn to a life of crime? Then choose one skill that your character probably learned during this time and one skill that they already had that probably improved. Take a rank in each. Skills include the trades in which one might be apprenticed, as well as anything else the GM deems appropriate. Some suggestions include the following: Lockpicking Stealth Farming Fencing Archery Brawling Acrobatics Ettiquette Diplomacy Leadership Accounting Sleight of Hand Performance Now it's time to choose Attributes. These represent your character's innate ability. The four Attributes are Strength, Agility, Mind, and Charisma. The average rating in each attribute is six. You have twenty-five points to distribute however you choose among these attributes. MECHANICS A few years' experience is sufficient to pick nearly any lock. A practiced archer can hit the target consistently. Unless another character is trying to stop you from doing something, merely having a skill is sufficient to do all but the most difficult tasks. Those that are especially challenging may require two ranks in the skill to succeed. When two characters are struggling with one another, the one with more experience tends to win. Sometimes, however, the underdog gets lucky and defeats his opponent. When two characters are using their skills in opposition to one another, each character should roll a number of ten-sided dice equal to the number of ranks they have in their skill and add their score in their most relevant attribute. The character who rolls the higher number wins. If the winning character in such a test was trying to injure the other, they inflict a number of damage points equal to the amount by which they won, plus an amount appropriate to the weapon they are using. A sword adds three damage points; an arrow adds two. When a character suffers twenty-four damage points, they are unconscious and at the mercy of the victors in the fight. In combat, non-ranged attacks can only be made against those within one meter of the attacker. If the fight is large and hard to keep track of, players should use miniatures to track their characters' locations. MAGIC When a character gives away a boon, they receive a Boon Point. If at some point the characters are stymied, any character may spend a Boon Point to have a stroke of good fortune resolve the situation. Boon Points may also be spent to cancel four Damage Points inflicted on the character spending the Boon, or to add three to any die roll. During combat, Boon Points should be spent liberally; they make it more exciting and swashbuckly. Rings have exactly the effect the GM has determined for them. They work without fail, and have no specific in-game rules.