RPG Nation : Free Traditional Role Playing Games (3d10 system)

Welcome to the Kaevad Rule Set ("KRS"), this section will introduce you to the very basics of how the gaming system works, for a more indepth guide, please refer to the various posts in the forum, or the current game files availiable from the downloads page. We're still working on KRS and currently there is no instruction manual, but this will arrive in due course. Once completed, the KRS will be availiable from our store in both PDF (Free) and hardcopy (Not Free). Enjoy, any questions, just ask!

Please note, that currently the below should be read as a rough article, work in progress kind of thingy, expect mistakes, but hopefully not too many!

Introduction

The KRS is an acronym for The Kaevad Games Rule Set, this being the role-playing rules designed by the person behind RPG Nation, David King aka Kaevad. The KRS has been designed to create an exciting new way of playing role-playing games, where your character is practically unrestricted for achieving anything or going anywhere time and place (explained later).

The new system has also been designed so that it does not copy (intentionally) any other role-playing system in the market today. Yes you'll see influences from some already used methods, but in general the creation of the games and their rules should be original. The KRS games are designed to be played as traditional pen and paper role playing games, but the rule set and mechanics have been designed so that they can easily be converted to also cater for board and computer games.

Once completed the KRS will be both fun and easy to use. The rule set allows for a realistic playing environment to be created (as far as realism can be taken when dealing with orcs and goblins etc anyway). The games can be played at both a fast or strategic pace, dependant on the game you are playing. Would you like to take control of an adventurer and become a hero of legend, or would you like to take control of a vast star cruiser and its entire crew? Both (and more) are possible with the KRS.

Before reading further in this section, RPG Nation would like to leave you with their motto....

The 3D10 System

3D10 median, or to put it easier, roll 3 dice, discard 2 dice rolls, one being the highest and the other being the lowest. You only ever discard 2 dice, if there are two or 3 of the same number then the end number will be one of those. Please see the table below foe some examples of dice rolls

Dice 1

6
4
3
1
5
3
1
10
3

Dice 2

8
4
9
8
5
8
1
5
3

Dice 3

3
9
10
9
5
7
9
10
3

Dice Result

6
4
9
8
5
7
1
10
3

Why is this system used? Well there are several reasons, from an in-game view is shows that what ever your are up against, an average person will score an average result, and those with skills and abilities can push the result so that it works in their favour to get the job done. Also in game it reduces the chance of a complete failure (1) or outstanding success (10) from happening to often, and thus help to eliminate gaming sessions where someone is suffering from lucky/unlucky git syndrome.

The estimated chances of rolling any score are shown below (based on 1000 3d10 median rolls)

3D10 Median Score

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Chance of Happening

0%
2.8%
7.6%
11.2%
13.6%
14.8%
14.8%
13.6%
11.2%
7.6%
2.8%

Total: 100%

Main Attributes

There are six main character attributes:

Knowledge: This attribute represents your intelligence, wisdom, common sense and general knowledge. It also represents your vocabulary skills and understanding of your present situation. In game play knowledge also determines whether you know how to use objects, understand the politics and customs of your surroundings and much more.

Awareness: This attribute is based on your senses, mainly your hearing and sight, but also includes touch, taste, smell and even a sixth sense. Awareness is one of the key attributes linked to combat.

Endurance: Represents how healthy you are, your ability to continue after suffering injuries, and how you quickly you fight off illnesses. Endurance is one of the three attributes which decides how much health your character will have.

Vigour: How strong you are, how much you can lift and comfortably carry. It also determines how much physical damage you can inflict upon another person. Vigour is one of the three attributes which decides how much health your character will have.

Agility: How quickly you can move (including reaction timings), and how supple you are, agility also represents your balance and ability dodge, attcak, climb or fall correctly etc. Agilty is one of the key attributes linked to combat.

Destiny: This is who you are and what you will be in the future. Destiny determines your life and how it will unfold and whether your will succeed or fail. This attribute also includes your luck and charisma. For how people react to you is based not of you attitude but your destiny, what is meant to be is meant to be. Destiny is probably the most important attribute in the game, and also contributes to how healthy your character is.

Attribute Scores

All attributes and skills are ranked 0 to 10, 0 represents absolutely no skill or ability in that area, and a 10 represents a master and devout follower of the item in question. A score of 5 represents Mr. Average, a person who has some skill in the area, but is neither are they an expert or novice. Attributes are no assigned modifiers like most other RPG's as we do not feel that there is a point to this, as the attribute score itself should speak for itself with out the need for such modifications.

Character Classes

One of the main things that have always frustrated us is character classes. We have always felt that they restrict game play and enjoyment. For example in D&D a Mage cannot use a bow and arrow! Anyone, can pick one of these things up and at least try to use it, even if they are not bery good at it.

The KRS allows all players to play the game how they choose, and have thier characters learn to use what ever skills and items they wish. Characters earn experience points which can then be spent on skills and attributes. And with this the player is able to design which ever character he chooses. In some ways they character is desiging thier own character class.

Should a player wish to have thier character as a fighter, then it is up to them to allocate thier experience on the relevant skills. This of course goes for the same for other gerneric classes such as thieves, healers, merchants etc etc.

With this freedom there is nothing to stop a player from turning thier character into a deadly assassin by night, book keeper and cook by day. The choice will be yours, infact you will have more chances to develop and mould your characters than you can believe, but you'll have to find out more about that later. (Hint: see Multiverse)

Skills

Each player can learn many skills, each skill ranges like the attributes from 0 – 10. As mentioned for character attributes, modifiers are not used to determin bonues to skills, the score should speak for itself. However, each skill is associated with a core attribute (e.g unarmed combat would be associated with Agility) The reason for this association is important. Whilst testing the system, we initially saw that whilst a character could have a low attribute score, it was possible for a person to train to maximum a skill associated to that attribute. It was decided that this was unrealistic, as for instance in unarmed combat, have a master of the arts, when they do not have any agility to reach this ability. Each skill cannot be at a higher level than the associated attribute. So in or example, you cannot reach a skill level of 10 in unarmed combat until you have a score of 10 in your characters Agility attribute.

When characters are required to make a skill check to see if they haver succeeded at a particular task they simply need to obtain a score of ten or more from thier d10 roll. to provide assistance in making a successful roll, the player adds his relevant skill score to the dice roll. The game master, however, may choose to add bonuses or penalties to this result should they choose, thus increasing or decreasing the rolls difficulty.

There are however, there are two occasions which will guarantee sucess or failure. The roll of a 10 will always succeed, no matter the odds and circumstances stacked against the player at the time. The opposite side to this is that the roll of a 1 will always result in a failure, no matter the odds stacked in the players favour. You could associate these rolls to fate.

For information regarding the d10 dice rolls please review the relevant section above.

Combat

Combat within the KRS can be either brutal and quick or slower paced and tactical, it just depends on how you prefer to play it. Combat is based on the fact that, yes, a bullet to the head will kill almost anything, so it is up to the players to develop characters that can survive the trials before them. The characters are meant to be great hero's capable of completing a large amount of quests, and not to be everyday nobodies.

Combat can be played as strategically as you like, we would recommend that if you have the resources and time to do so, to use miniatures and hex maps to play the battles through as a mini tabletop war game. However this is not a requirement, and game masters can do what they feel is appropriate.

KRS Combat is heavily dependant on the characters attributes and skills, and generally involves an initiative roll before characters begin performing actions around the game area by spending their action points. Combat involves, what you'd expect, people diving for cover, rushing into charges, firing weapons, clanging swords or... running away!

Character skills and attributes determine how well these actions are performed. Taking movement and other actions aside, combat general begins with the 3d10 median dice roll. Added to the result of this roll is the characters attack statistics (a combinations of their reactions and their particular weapon skills). This total is noted as an attack score, it is then determined whether their target has been hit.

From the attack score we deduct the targets reactions, their weapon skill (if in hand to hand) and make allowances for their size and distance away from the attacker. Once these deductions have been made, then any remain score over 10 results is a successful hit.

Once a successful hit has been caused damage is then decide. The damage inflicted is basically the sum of the weapon's damage added to any score over 10 obtained from the recent attack roll (i.e. 11 = 1, so a weapon with a damage of 6 would then score 7 damage).

Once the damage has been determined, it then needs to be seen whether the cover the target was behind has absorbed any damage, followed by the targets armour also absorbing damage, anything remaining then causes harm to the target. Combat of course progress until the appropriate conclusion. There are additional rules to the combat system described, these are shown within the KRS rulebook.

For other examples and a basic working example of the combat methods described, please refer to the combat test spreadsheet located on the downloads page.

Destiny

Every player's character has a destiny, some stronger than others. The destiny attribute assigned to each player is essentially their lifeline in helping them survive Ships Captain

fights, traps and other dangerous things. At anytime should something go wrong for a character or other party members then at the cost of permantly reducing their Destiny attribute by one, they can avert the bad events that have immediately happened (e.g. a killing blow against them). When this happens the bad event has still occurred, but the game has been transported to a parallel universe where the exact setting is the same, and we mean the same, down to the way the wind is blowing and the amount of grains of sand on the floor sand, except that the bad event has not happened. Life is a series of choices, for every choice we make in life, there is always an alternate of what have happened if something else would have been done. See the Multiverse heading to take this a little further. What we've just said we suppose is not srictly true, there is one place, where death mean death, and destiny saves people in stranger ways, but we're not allowed to talk about this, and we'll get into trouble with those who must be obeyed.

Humanity

This characteristic will define how "human" (or what ever race they started out as) they remain to their true to the form they started as. For instance if a person needed a limb replacement, and was given a robotic leg, then they may only be seen as 80% human, and their humanity score will reflect this loss. It is with this attribute and based on the adventures experienced by players that they will be able to evolve, based on everything they have been through.

Another example could be from our forth coming zombie game. Should a player get bitten by a zombie, then their humanity will slowly decrease, until it reaches zero, where they have turned from being human into a zombie (basically game over in this case) However this condition may be controllable with medication and the humanity level will raise a little.

In extremecases and after some wild adventures, you never know, but you may find yourself bumping into a character who is 10% vampire, 30% cyborg, 20% Human, 3% Dog, 5% French etc etc. This can lead some rather interesting role-playing situations.

Multiverse

The multiverse is what will make the KRS stand out from all of the other role-playing games available. The idea thus far is that all of the game settings created by us are connected. Each game universe has somekind secret trapdoor which connect themselves to different realities. But unfortunatly, we're not allowed to discuss this at the moment, as something rather brutal and disgusting will happen to us, and I personally would like to remain in one piece. But Basically it will be possible to take your character from one game setting and use them a different setting. One or two things may be a little different (as certain skills can only be used in certain places) but generally it will be exactly the same person.

Another way of looking at this is to once more think about the infinite different universes out there. If Terry Pratchett can have a land on a disc, sitting on top of elephants on top of a turtle swimming through space, then anything is possible. Player characters are just using an alternate self in a different setting within a different universe. We have found that many people get attached to their characters and this way players can continue to enjoy them and take them even further