Index Card RPG is a light but complete D20 roll-over rules system with simple character creation, fast-playing combat, and all the timers, targets, monsters, and miniatures you need to play right away. More interestingly, ICRPG is a toolkit of do-it-yourself techniques to streamline any game. It’s a mentality, a philosophy. You can easily adapt ICRPG’s videogame-style ideas to any other RPG: Hearts ( Zelda-inspired hit points), Effort (a way of pacing a scene), universal Targets (every roll in a given scene is rolled against the same Target number), and “banana movement.” (On your turn, your miniature can move across the playfield the length of a banana and still take another action. Move banana-length-plus, that’s your whole turn.) Designer Hankerin Ferinale outlines key concepts in his May 2018 video “ ICRPG: Core Mechanics” (link starts at 0:25). I started running a science fiction campaign in warp shell rather than designing my own setting, and found it a very difficult setting to use for a space opera more along the lines of traveler. Teleportation, regeneration, self-duplication, and return from Death are all far too readily available in this setting for the kind of stories I was hoping to tell. This game is a surprise in part because the warp show of second edition was not quite the same design. It had a farm more conventional Star warsesque feel to it. This setting has evolved significantly from the second edition. We initially built blood and snow characters, which it said didn't have pluses to effort. The attributes don't give pluses to effort? Daniel Kwan is a storyteller, media professional, and game designer based in Toronto, Canada. He is one of the co-founders of Level Up Gaming, an organization that provides individuals with autism and other disabilities opportunities to develop their social skills through group gaming experiences. His first educational RPG, Zany Zoo, was released in 2018. He is currently working on Ross Rifles, a Powered by the Apocalypse RPG about the lives and experiences of Canadian soldiers stationed on the Western Front during the First World War. Daniel co-hosts the Asians Represent! podcast on the One Shot Network.

Warp Shell is a science fantasy setting inspired by Warhammer 40,000 and, as with Alfheim it has been significantly expanded with new races, classes and abilities. Icrpg has removed some of the complaints that I had of the previous edition. There's no more hunting for buried rules, everything is a lot more clearly stated. Useless vestigium like weapon tags have been removed from the game. Character death is a little easier to achieve.

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Magic is slightly more powerful in Master Edition, using a d10, and guns are granted the d8 position to make them more effective then swords or bows. Tools now Grant a d6 of effort to make using tools better than trying to accomplish a task with one's bare hands, which still does a d4 worth of effort. So, that begs that I had the caveat to this review that I have been gifted a copy of this manual from someone I have a positive relationship with. I don't think that will bias this review, as it very much repeats many of the points of the previous review, which was written long before I ever personally interacted with Hankerin Ferinale. The Review This extends to Dungeon/Game Masters too, by the way. Along with advice for making your life easier, you can also buy a series of very cheap, illustrated Index Cards for printing out. These help you create entire sessions much like a Tarot reading. Want to see the adventure location? Draw a random card. Can't decide on a boss? Draw another card. It's perfect if you're a time-strapped GM and ideal for improvisation - in my test session, we had a blast coming up with explanations for the often-bizarre cards we ended up with. It's a thing of pure imagination, and the results are special. Note:I'm going to start by saying that Hankerin Ferinale delivered on his promises. When he released the new edition of ICRPGthis year, one of the first things he did is release a PDF with the updated version of the rules and added it to the library of anyone who has bought Index Card RPG Core 2E from DrivethruRPG. My first look at his new Master Edition was through this updated product. He has followed through on his promise to future-proof every edition of his game when I saw that he had made a contract with Mödiphius and that they would be responsible for releasing the next iteration of ICRPG, I was concerned that wasn't going to happen. Hats off to you, Hankerin.

A task might be declared particularly Easy or Hard by the GM which applies a plus or minus 3 to the roll. There are also certain conditions under which player characters may be able to reduce the overall Target of an encounter. As before, the system is extremely fast and easy to learn, although the character advancement systems have added a slightly higher level of complexity to the game. What I Loved Speed Major Disclaimer: I wrote a couple of the things in this list (at the bottom), so hell yeah I’m biased. But I’ll try to be objective. Nevertheless, this post is tagged as promotional because that’s what it is. Vigilante City: Here’s my video review of this supplement. This supers supplement also brings some new mechanics to the table, most importantly a point pool that allows you to use any of a number of superpowers. This was some of the most fun I’ve had with any supers RPG play, mostly because it doesn’t try to be anything other than fast superhero action. I written several separate articles on this topic since first running icrpg core to e. Index card RPG owes a lot to video games. In particular, it draws a lot of inspiration from games such as the legend of Zelda and final Fantasy series. This requires a shift in mindset when thinking about how to play. And it is a turnoff for a number of gamers I know. It has made icrpg a bit of a hard sell at times.

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Index Card RPG (ICRPG) represents the accidental, intuitive, inevitable result of countless game sessions and legendary tales. It wasn’t invented so much as discovered. It was hiding right there all along, in sheafs of paper, wobbly drawings, and bags of dice. RuneJammer 2023 welcomes complete newcomers to the RPG hobby as well as gamers of any experience level who want to discover ICRPG’s fast, flexible system, and it features all five adventure settings included in Master Edition—Alfheim, Warp Shell, Ghost Mountain, Blood and Snow, and Vigilante City—offering a wide variety of unique roleplaying adventures presented the Runehammer way.

This has removed the level-less and classless element from the game to some degree. Characters now have abilities innate to them that cannot be lost or taken away. These remain less significant than the abilities one can gain by finding rare epic level Loot. And by making even classes nothing but gear lists, level was not particularly significant. Characters only attained a certain level of power that was highly manageable. Even a one heart monster with few bonuses remained challenging. These products were created by scanning an original printed edition. Most older books are in scanned image format because original digital layout files never existed or were no longer available from the publisher. The Index Card RPG is an innovative take old school Dungeons and Dragons. Simple rules, easy character creation, and more set this role-playing game apart from others. ICRPG MAGIC: Here’s my video review of this book. This is an expansion in the complexity of magic usage in ICRPG. In a nutshell, it divides magic into a number of different disciplines, and makes casting cost HP. The idea was to make magic both punishing and exciting. I had fun with the playtesting on it, but it was controversial because a lot of ICRPG adherents were originally attracted to the core game’s simple mechanics. MAGIC seemed to move away from that.Hankering fur nails art has come along by strides. He retains the original vibrant, energetic comic book style, but his artwork has become far more detailed and evocative. ICRPG is a very fast and light variation on Dungeons & dragons. One can simply grab a monster from an OSR game or early edition of Dungeons & Dragons and run it by granting it the same number of Hearts as it has hit dice, and keeping the Target close to the creatures armor class. ICRPG characters are roughly equivalent to 4th level AD&D characters. Equipment is the most important thing to determining a character in Index Card RPG Core. The character may carry up to 20 items, and gain the benefit from 10 "equipped" ones, while the others are stored on their person in the way that does not benefit them. Some items just add capabilities to the character. For example, having shovel means your character can dig when they might not be able to otherwise. Other items because of quality, magic, etc add bonuses of up to +3 to an ability score roll or type of effort rule, or grant some sort of unique ability like a magic spell or special move. In blood and snow it specifically describes prehistoric women, so you just get a buff if you choose a woman instead of a man? ICRPG Symbaroum Alchemist Compendium (FREE) alchemical weapons and elixirs of wonder; by Magnus Ehnberg