Short Fantasy Heartbreakers rpg Project

This game uses d6s for all dice rolling.

You have four Attributes: Body, Heart, Mind, & Spirit.

Body is used for all things physical. Heart is for all things social. Mind is for all mental
tasks. Spirit is for intangible, magical and spiritual tasks.

They start at 0. If you want to have a weakness in one, lower it to -1. If you want to be
stronger, +1; sum to 0.

Similar to Risus, you have 10 points to distribute amongst your Archetypes, which are
like clichs; these are things like character class, race, calling, or power type. Therefore,
you could put 4 points in Swordsman, 3 points in Elf, 2 points into Undead Slayer, and 1
point in Flame Mage, or whatever you want to build. 4, 3, 2, 1 is the standard
breakdown.

For each rank in the Archetype, write down one thing you are explicitly allowed to do
without needing to roll, unless it includes some kind of attack. If it is an attack, or at the
very least is an opposed check, it modifies the roll. For example, if your Swordsman can
perform a sweeping attack on three combatants, he makes one roll and compares it to
the defense of all the foes he attacks. If the Flame Mage can throw a fireball, it could hit
a large area, similar to the swordsmans attack, or it could set a foe on fire, applying his
ranks in flame mage as damage every round until the foe takes an action to put the fire
out. All effects of an archetype are based on its rating.

You have access to twelve skills. Those skills are:

Arts, Athletics, Awareness, Combat, Gadgeteering, Interaction, Medicine, Metaphysics,

Navigation, Scholarship, Subterfuge and Survival

Skills are rated 1-5. You have 15 points to divide between them as befits your character
concept. You also receive 1 free point per archetype to go in the single most relevant
skill.

You are considered to have all the relevant equipment necessary to perform the tasks
you must perform. However, you may take 3 points worth of special equipment, like a
sword rated +1, and a suit of armor rated +2, or a wand +1, a tome of spells +1, and
robe of protection +1, along with a short description of what the bonus aids in, if it is not
obvious. For example, a crystal sphere +1 might add to scrying, or might add its bonus
to Air magics.

When you need to see if you can perform a task, the GM will ask you to roll a number of
dice equal to your archetype. Each 6 you roll is considered a hit. Each rank in a
relevant skill subtracts 1 from the number needed to succeed, so if you have a skill rated
at 3, you only need to roll a 3 or better to score a hit. If all your dice come up 1s, you
fumble. At a rank of 5 in a skill, you no longer fumble, but a roll of all 1s is still a failure.
Some tasks are more difficult than others and require more hits to succeed. However,
most tasks only require one hit; extra hits may be used to reduce the time to perform a
task, or to boost its effectiveness. For example, in combat more hits general are used for
more damage. Bonuses from equipment or Attributes add additional hits, but you must
generate at least one hit on the dice to earn these bonus hits.

Opposed rolls are simple; highest number of hits wins. Any hits above your opponents
determine total effectiveness. Combat is simply a series of opposed rolls.

In a conflict, you roll initiative; this is a task roll based on your most appropriate
archetype for that conflict. Each hit on this roll is an action in combat. Highest roll goes
first; ties go simultaneously. Simultaneous actions resolve clockwise from the GM.

The active character picks a foe and spends an action die; this is a roll of appropriate
archetype modified by the appropriate skill: combat, subterfuge, or metaphysics
depending on the archetype and action being undertaken, opposed by the defenders
appropriate archetype and modified by the appropriate skill combo as described in his
defense.

For example, a Lancer may describe attacking a mage by leaping into the air and using
gravity, momentum, and his weight to try to drive his spear into a necromancer, who
may defend by describing drawing up a shield of bones and dead bodies, including the
lancers dead friend. The Lancer would attack using Lancer 4 and modifying his roll with
his Combat skill 3 with a +2 total bonus (from +1 Body Attribute & +1 spear), while the
dark wizard defends with Necromancer 4 modified by Metaphysics 4 and a +1 bonus
from his Skin-Covered Tome.

The Lancer scores three hits on the dice, for a total of 5; the Necromancer score 4 hits
for a total of five. Having cancelled all of the Lancers hits, he remains safe for now. The
necromancer laughs as the lancers resolve fails him when faced with the slack face of
his dead companion.

The following round, the Lancer manages to score 5 hits again, and the necromancer
fails to marshal an adequate defense, scoring only 3 hits. The Lancer scores 2 hits over
the necromancers defense, inflicting 2 wounds.

Each player begins the game with 10 wounds, broken down into four categories of
wounds, just like Archetypes: 4, 3, 2, 1. Between 1-4 wounds, you are fine, mostly
unhurt. On reaching the fifth wound, you begin taking a -1 hit penalty to your actions.
This penalty means nothing if you score no hits, so you cannot be penalized for scoring
no hits any more than you already would be. Upon receiving your eighth wound, you
start taking a 2 hit penalty on all rolls. When you take your 10th wound, you pass out and
begin dying. If you lose any more wounds, you perish.

An appropriate archetype (Healer, Cleric, Chirurgeon, etc.) can return wounds to you, but
at great difficulty. By rolling their archetype modified by their medicine or metaphysics
in an opposed test vs the number of wounds you have suffered, with the wound category
modifying as a skill (unconscious and dying counts as a skill of 4). They may reduce
your wounds by their excess hits; failure results in no change; fumbles cause you to
worsen by 1 wound. However, healing in the form of an explicit ability can automatically
reduce your wounds by their rank in the archetype once per day, which may be followed
up by the efforts described above to return more wounds.

Character development is handled like an opposed test, with the opposing roll being
made by the GM using the ability you wish to increase. There are no modifiers to this
roll; only 6s count. Each ability may only be raised by one; a failure or fumble has no
effect on this roll. Attributes may be increased by treating the improvement as moving
from a 1 to a 2 if moving from -1 to 0, and handled normally otherwise, up to +5.
Equipment with bonuses may be built by using up an ability improvement. GMs may
award between 1-3 ability improvement rolls per game session, with a minimum of one
for an average session, and a maximum of three for the end of an epic earthshaking
game where everyone had fun and shook the pillars of the game world.