08 August 2024

#RPGaDay2024 - 6 - RPG that's easy to use

The RPGaDay2024 graphic. Three columns of prompts for discussions about RPGs. You can find a full text list atP https://www.autocratik.com/2024/07/announcing-rpgaday2024-for-august.html
This year's RPGaDay (full text list here)

Q. RPG that's easy to use?

A. TRIPOD.

TRIPOD (formerly Wordplay) is a very simple and easy to use narrative engine which is really simple to use. You have three core attributes (body, mind, soul) and some associated traits. These all have numerical values which represents the number of D6s that you roll. Each D6 gives a failure on a 1-3, one success on 4-5 and two successes on a 6. You win by achieving more successes than your opponent and the margin of success determines the level of negative trait that they suffer in response.

It's a a doddle to use, and really easy to create and convert material from other games as you only have to identify descriptive traits and assign a competency rating to the NPC or opponent to get their dice pool. I talked about this on my post about converting Stormbringer into TRIPOD for LongCon. It works well in play and can either work by abstracting actions at a large scale or going toe-to-toe.

My favourite game engine (I'm biased of course, as I was heavily involved in play testing and also laid out both this edition and the previous one). It's available on DriveThruRPG.

TRIPOD's Cover. Purple with text and images in white. Main image is the silhouette of a woman jumping, arms outstretched. Title at top left ('TRIPOD - a storytelling roleplaying game - Essence Edition'). The bottom left has the author Graham Spearing's name and to the bottom right there are 3 D6, showing 1, 3 and 6.
TRIPOD's wonderful cover by Steph McAlea

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