The Gist of it Who is this game for? Who is this game NOT for? It's OSR, but... What the GM says, goes A Note About the Shorthand

Characters and All That Jazz Races Roll Your Stats The Stats Classes Hit Die Armor Class Starting Money and Equipment Skills Languages Convictions Getting Experience Points Leveling Up Multiclassing

Turns Movement Saving Throws Saving Throw Effort Item Saving Throws Checks Critical Failures and Successes Debilities Money Armor and Shields Swimming in Armor Melee Weapons Ranged Weapons Poison Hirelings Pets Morale Healing

Initiative Attacking Attacking From Behind Cover & Concealment If I Shoot My Ranged Weapon Into a Scuffle Involving a Fellow Player Character and an Opponent, Do I Run the Risk of Hurting the Player Character? Combat Maneuvers Sundering One's Own Shield Damage Being Attacked Reaching 0 HP Black Gates and Last Breath We'll All Be Laughing With You When You Die

Magic Schools of Magic Cantrips Storing Spells Casting a Spell from Memory Casting a Spell from a Written Source Mishaps & Dooms When those Without the Gift Attempt to Cast Magic Witches' Magic Witches vs Wizards The Maiden, the Mother, the Crone Crafts Attentions and Losing One's Grip The Cleric Clerics vs Wizards Faith Dice Cleric Dice Chains and You Apostasy Identifying Magic Items Magic Robes

BCPRPG

Beeks' Cherry-Picked Role Playing Game


Part 1: Characters and All That Jazz



Races

When you are making a character, you first must choose a race. Consult the Big List of Races, or feel free to make your own (please consult the GM first). Each race has an Advantage, a Disadvantage, and a Stat you may reroll.

I am VERY into RPGs that let you have a wide variety of races. I personally often hate playing a humdrum human. If I'm escaping reality and entering a magical fantasy world, why not go all the way and be an anthropomorphic lizard or sentient tree or something?


Roll Your Stats

Characters in BCPRPG are 3d6 in order. As in, roll 3d6 and fill in the blanks in order on your character sheet. You may reroll your races' stat and pick the higher result.

For example, if you picked Orc as your race, you may reroll your Strength stat.

Other than that, you may not swap rolls, reroll low numbers, etc. The dice have chosen, and if they have chosen to be cruel, then so be it!


The Stats

Strength: Used in melee attacks and rolls involving physical power, like bending bars, kicking down doors, etc.

Dexterity: Useful for rolls regarding quick thinking, sneaking around, balancing, etc.

Constitution: Useful for rolls resisting poisons, extreme cold or heat, disease, etc. Your character's Hit Points (HP) are determined by your Constitution.

Intelligence: Useful for identifying magic items, recalling lore, learning languages, etc.

Wisdom: Used in ranged attacks and rolls involving intuition, such as detecting illusions, tracking, and spotting hidden traps.

Charisma: Useful for rolls about social skills, like bluffing, charming, provoking, etc.

Don't forget to add your appropriate bonuses/penalties to your character sheet!

Stat Score Bonus/Penalty
3 -3
4-5 -2
6-8 -1
9-12 0
13-15 +1
16-17 +2
18 +3

Stats cannot go higher than 18, even with magical buffs or items.




Optional Rule: Hopeless Characters

Unkind dice are a part of life in role-playing games, but sometimesthe dice are merciless beyond belief. With your GM's consent, you may reroll a character if you got less than 9 in your first four scores (Strengh, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence). This is a completely optional rule and may be overlooked if the GM/party would like an extra bit of challenge in their game.

I waffled a lot on if I should include a rule like this or not, then I just decided to make it optional. In the playtesting of BCPRPG I've certainly rolled characters with 5s and 6s in their stats, but have ultimately kept them. I know this isn't for everybody, so you do you.


Classes

Once your race and stats have been figured out, you may choose a class. Most races can be any class, but there are a handful of outliers. The Really Good Dog and The Really Angry Goose can only be dogs and geese, respectively.

There are four templates, labeled A through D. You gain these in the listed order. For example, you cannot gain Cleric Template D unless your first have Cleric Template C. You get one template every other level. You cannot have more than four templates. For a list of character classes, please consult the Big List of Classes.

BCPRPG uses GLOG classes, with maybe a small tweak here and there. Consult the GLOG pdf (pg 4) for template clarification. As with races, I like having a lot of class options. Especially the option for more gonzo classes, which GLOG and DW have in spades. This is a touchy subject with many older TTRPG players, many of which prefer your Basic Four: Cleric, Fighter, Magic User, and Thief. Both schools of thought are completely valid, and if you are a GM and only wish to have the Basic Four classes in your game, you have every right to tell your players so.

Hit Die

Unless your class or race states otherwise, everyone's HD is a d6. First level characters begin with a single d6, plus their CON, as their HP. Each time the character levels, roll another hit die and add the Constitution bonus/penalty. Add this amount to the character's max HP. Note that after the 5th level, characters do not gain more hit dice and instead receive a fixed number of HP each level.

When rolling for your new max HP, you cannot go below what you already had. If you roll below, take your old max HP amount and add your CON.


Armor Class

Your Armor Class, or AC, represents how protected your are against your enemy's attacks. It's the roll that your opponent will need to equal or beat to hurt you. Your AC is equal to the following:

10 + your armor bonus + your shield bonus + DEX + any miscellaneous bonuses your race or class might afford you.

So, if you're a human thief with leather armor and a DEX of +3, your AC would be 15, or

10 + 2 (leather armor bonus) + 0 (no shield) + 3 (your DEX) + 0 (no bonuses for humans or thieves) = 15



Starting Money and Equipment

Unless your class sheet says otherwise, you may roll for your starting money. Your character has 3d6 gold.

Everyone starts the game with a blanket (1 inventory slot), a waterskin (1 inventory slot), rations x3 (1 slot for the whole lot), flint and tinder (these take up 0 slots), and one random item from the Big List of Equipment(slot tbd).


Skills

Many classes have skills. These could be professions (carpenter), backgrounds (noble-born), or specific tasks (lockpicking).

Players can ask if a skill applies to something the PCs are examining or doing. The GM can also ask if anyone has a skill related to a topic, and then provide information or call for a roll. On some occasions, the GM may call for a check against a stat, such as Charisma or Intelligence.

Skills are minor, flavorful, and sometimes useful, though typically not in combat.

When rolling a new character, roll a d3 (or just a 1d4-1 if you're going to be a chump about it) to figure out which skill the character has.

The original GLOG has characters levelling up their skills, but that just seems like one more number to make sure you're keeping track of , so I used the Spiked Goblin houserule which nixes it.


Languages

Each character can know a number of languages equal to their WIS. Unless otherwise specified, each character already knows Common, as well as their races' native tongue. When characters wish to start learning a language, they add points to it as if it were on an ability score modifier.

Every time a language you don't know is spoken and you wish to interact with the speaker, roll 2d6+WIS plus your language number.

When you roll a 12+ you add a point to your language number. You can only add 1 point a day. At 5 points, you are fluent.

These rules are about the spoken word, but also apply to written texts.

Hah, remember what I said about skills being one extra number to keep track of? Then I added in THIS nonsense, which is totally one (or maybe even more) numbers to keep track of, so clearly I am full of shit. This is largely Nerdwerd's idea, I just simplified it a little.


Convictions

Convictions are your character's answer to one of these questions:

Not everyone has Convictions, but adventurers do. Each character will have at least two convictions. They might not seem apparent right from session one, so it's okay to leave them blank when you make your character.

Convictions don't have to be grand statements. Something as simple as "help the weak" or "protect someone" or even "holla holla get dolla" are Convictions.

You gain a point of Conviction whenever you follow one of your Convictions. You cannot have more than one point of Conviction at a time.

Note that you only gain a point of Conviction when following your conviction would get you into potential trouble. Or at least, whenever there is not an optimal strategy and you persue it anyway. Convictions are to eschew murderhoboism. If a paladin with a "cure the sick" conviction used a healing spell on a dying NPC, that heal might not be available later when the adventuring party might need it. A murderhobo paladin would not heal the NPC, because the cost is too great. Convictions are about following your character's heart, not your silly role-player's brain!

You spend your Conviction to get a +4 bonus on a d20 roll.

Convictions are often vague, and players should talk to the GM about this before they write down their Convictions.

For example, if your conviction was "seek knowledge", you could only use that when the roll will bring you closer to gaining new knowledge. It wouldn't work if you were trying to kill an alligator in a swamp, because one usually doesn't learn things by killing random alligators in swamps.


Getting Experience Points

Each time a character accumulates 100 XP, they level up. As a guideline, PCs receive 3 XP for failed combat or save rolls, 5 XP for low-risk accomplishments, 10 XP for moderate-risk accomplishments, and 20 XP for high-risk accomplishments.

This is largely Knave's XP system with Dungeon World's XP for botched rolls thrown in. I love the Dungeon World XP system, but also wanted to reward PCs for actually doing things.


Leveling Up

Ding! Congrats, you've leveled up. When your character has some time to rest and reflect on their journey thus far, you can do the following things:



Level Hit Dice Templates Save XP
1 1d6 1 14 100
2 2d6 - 13 200
3 3d6 2 13 300
4 4d6 - 12 400
5 5d6 3 12 500
6 5d6+1 - 11 600
7 5d6+2 4 11 700
8 5d6+3 - 10 800
9 5d6+4 - 10 900
10 5d6+5 - 10 1000

Leveling up here is a combination of GLOG and Basic Fantasy rules. I love GLOG templates, but the idea of maxing out at level 4 isn't for me. I like the 'every other level' of D&D (and also World of Warcraft, let's be honest). Maxing out your character's templates at level 7 may be considered an odd choice, but I kind of like it.


Multiclassing

Upon reaching level 3, you may multiclass. Instead of gaining Template B on your class sheet, you may instead subsitute a Template A from a different class list. You will get access to their template and their starting equipment. You may only start multiclassing while in a town, stronghold, or have a mentor NPC nearby.

Think about it: A Thief can't just level up in a subterranean dungeon miles away from civilization and magically also become skilled in the Necromantic Arts. But if that shifty-looking old man showing the adventurers has been whispering in the Thief's ear the whole time, well...

The same rules apply for reaching 5th and 7th level.