RiskTaker SRD

What is this?

This is an SRD, or System Reference Document, for a tabletop RPG system. It's a set of rules and mechanics that comes without a specific setting or genre, and is meant to be used by anyone to run whatever kind of game they want to. Or heck, even make and publish your own. Feel free to adjust the rules to your liking if you do. More details under "Licensing" at the end of this document.

Okay, but what kinda games can/should I run or make with this?

RiskTaker is meant to provide a framework for stories about powerful and/or competent characters who get into chaotic, stressful, larger-than-life situations. It's also about those characters succeeding in overcoming those situations. You know those TV shows where every episode, the characters have to fight some kind of villain, or solve some other kind of problem, and by the end, they always manage to do it? That's the kind of story this system wants to tell. As you will see once we get into the mechanics themselves, characters can't really fail in a RiskTaker game. Any action a character undertakes will do something useful, often multiple useful things at once. But the more useful or powerful an action is, the more risky it will be. So, if you're okay with a story where characters can solve three problems at once while causing five new ones in the process, this might just be the system for you.

If you want something more concrete, superhero games probably work well this system, as do ones emulating tokusatsu properties like Power Rangers, Kamen Rider, and Ultraman. In fact, I wrote an Ultraman-inspired game called "Rubber Beasts & Cardboard Cities" using this system, which you can find on my itch.io page.

So, what do I need?

Let's start with what you don't need: A Game Master.

RiskTaker is designed to be played without a GM. As explained above, any roll can potentially create new issues for the characters to deal with, so you don't necessarily need a GM to facilitate the plot. But of course, this doesn't mean you can't play with a GM.

Anyway, what you will need are:

at least two players
two six-sided dice (2D6), ideally per player
tokens to mark Threat
one character sheet per player
pencils
optional, but recommended: index cards

How do I create a character?

Character creation in a RiskTaker game can be pretty quick. How quick, depends on the kind of game you want to run.

If you want to get into things as quickly as possible, all you need to do is roll 2D6, designating one as the "tens" digit and one as the "ones" digit, and then checking the Risk/Effect table for the corresponding Risk. If you roll doubles, you can choose whichever Risk you want. Mark it on your character sheet as your Signature Risk, and you're done. Well, maybe you should also give your character a name, pronouns, a backstory... but mechanically, this all you need to do.

But doing things this way will result in every character being kind of the same, so if you want, you can have characters start with Skills and/or Powers. Keep in mind that characters will earn Skills throughout the game, and can earn Powers every couple sessions (if you decide to use Powers, that is), and that both Skills and Powers take longer to learn the more a character already has.

But what are Skills and Powers?

Mechanically speaking, a Skill is something that makes it more likely that an action will resolve with little to no Risk, while Powers are a special kind of Trait, which can be used to re-roll a die. From a flavor-standpoint, the difference between a Skill and a Power kind of depends on the kind of game you're playing, and the kind of setting you're playing in. Generally speaking, a Skill is something that any character can just do (having the skill just means the character is good at it), while a Power is something that's unique to the character who has the Power, or if not unique, at least something not available to just everyone. To be a bit more precise, Skills can be actions like Punching, Lockpicking, Lying, Dancing, or Stealth, or they can represent something like a specialization in a specific type of weapon, like Pistols, Rifles, Plasma Cannons, Energy Swords, and so on, while Powers could represent superpowers like Flight, cybernetic implants like Thermal Vision, or even just the ability to Use Magic. But again, if using magic is something every Player Character is able to do, then Using Magic or Spellcasting would fit more as a Skill, while a magical specialization like Cryomancy or Telekinesis would fit better as a Power.

Finally, one thing you could use to differentiate characters are Custom Effects. These are Effects that are only available to the character in question, and should represent their abilities, Powers, personality, and so on. For example, a character with cryomancy (ice magic) could have Custom Effects that deal with freezing things, slowing things down, or making the floor slippery. Each Custom Effect has the mechanical effect of "Add 1 Trait titled [something related to the effect] to the scene." For example, a character with ice powers could have the Custom Effect:

"You freeze a portion of the ground. Add 1 Trait titled [Slippery Floor] the scene."

Characters shouldn't start with more than one Custom Effect.

But again, if you want to keep your game quick and simple, you can ignore starting Skills, Powers, and Custom Effects, and just go with a Signature Risk per character.

Next, you will have to determine connections between the Player Characters, which will make defining them, and creating scenes with them easier. Each player rolls 1d6 to determine their character's opinion of the character controlled by the player to their right, then does the same for the player on their left. Keep in mind this only defines the characters' opinions of each other, which can conflict. Character A may see Character B as a Rival, but Character B may see Character A as a friend. It is up to you to interpret these kinds of relationships. Is this a one-sided rivalry? Is it just a friendly rivalry? Your call.

Your character sees the other character as their...

Friend
Rival
Subject of admiration
Mentor
Student
Protector

Next, roll 1D6 only for the character to your right, to see how your characters are connected.

You are connected through...

a place
an object
another person
a shared experience
a common goal
a promise

Once again, talk to the other players to find out what exactly these prompts mean.

Oh, and another thing: If you only have two players, you of course only roll once each to determine your relationship with each other.

Finally, give your character a name, pronouns, and a description, and you're ready to go!

So, how does this work?

RiskTaker is structured very differently from most other TTRPGs. Where in most games, you follow a linear narrative where each scene takes place at some point after the one before it, RiskTaker is built around the idea that the players decide upfront on a particular action set piece - referred to as "The Scene" - during which all the main actions, as well as the rolls, will take place. But players will also do Exposition Scenes, during which the characters will talk to each other and to NPCs, and which will end up creating context for The Scene.

Before starting a session, you will have to come up with what The Scene is. Do some brainstorming. Is it a battle? Against who? Do you have to save people? Who are those people, and how did they get into trouble? And what kind of trouble did they get into? Keep in mind that The Scene should be action-packed and fast-paced, with problems popping up almost as quickly as they're being solved, so your setup should reflect that. RiskTaker isn't meant to emulate stories about stealthy infliltrations, undercover operations, or careful investigations. If you want to tell a story about characters doing that, then The Scene should be what happens when those approaches fail, and the heroes find themselves under a spotlight, with alarm sirens blaring, and the only exit being blocked by armed guards that outnumber them three-to-one, and their boss who can level an entire neighborhood with his left pinky finger.

In order to influence The Scene, you will need to earn Budget, which is done through Exposition Scenes. Your goal in The Scene will be to reduce the Threat to 0, with Threat being represented by Threat Tokens. The Scene starts with a number of Threat Tokens equal to five times the number of players, and each player starts with 0 Budget.

Decide on a player to start. If you can't decide, choose the person who last watched an action movie or TV show. You then take turns, clockwise. Turns are structured like this:

Declaring a Scene:
- Declare whether you want to Influence the Scene or Spout Exposition.
Influencing The Scene:
- Explain what should happen in The Scene and then declare which Effects you want to apply to it. They should represent what you laid out in your basic scene description. You need to choose at least one Effect, and can choose a maximum of 6, and you cannot choose the same Effect twice.
- Spend Budget according to the number of Effects you chose. If you only chose a single Effect, you have to spend 1 Budget. Every additional Effect costs 2 Budget. So, two Effects have a cost of 3, three Effects have a cost of 5, etc.
- Your Risk Chance is one higher than the number of Effects chosen.
- Roll 2D6.
- (Optional Spend a Trait to reroll the lower of the two dice. You may repeat this until there are no more Traits to spend. If you spend a Trait, you have to narrate how it affects the scene.
- If you have a learned Skill that relates to the action you described, subtract the higher result from your Risk Chance. If you do not have a Skill, subtract the lower result from your Risk Chance. The result of this subtraction are your Risk Points (maximum 6, minimum 0)
- Spend as many Risk Points as possible on Risks from the Risk/Effect Table. Each Risk consumes 1 Risk Point, except for your Signature Risk, which consumes 2. You cannot choose the same Risk more than once.
- Narrate the scene in accordance with your chosen Effects and Risks.
Spouting Exposition:
- Choose one or two other players to play a scene with, and describe how the scene starts. Try to play off your characters' established relationships.
- Play out the scene. The active player may only play as their own character, the other players involved in the scene may play as their own characters, or as incidental extras. Even players not explicitly chosen to participate may jump in as extras, but not as their own characters.
- When the scene reaches its end, the active player rolls 1D6 and gains that much Budget.
After a round: After every player has gone once, whoever has the highest Damage rolls 2D6, designating one die as the “tens” and the other as the “ones,” checks the “Signature” column of the Risk/Effect Table and resolves the corresponding Risk. If they roll Doubles, they move Time Tokens equal to their Damage minus the number of Effects they chose this round (minimum 1) to the Threat Pool, and roll again.

What's up with Skill Points?

When you gain a Skill Point, give it to an unlearned Skill that fits your action. If you don't have an unlearned Skill that fits, write down a new one instead. Once an unlearned Skill has Skill Points equal to your learned Skills plus 3, that Skill becomes a learned Skill. Only learned Skills apply to rolls.

Okay, how about Traits, Powers, and Custom Effects?

There are two types of Traits: Scene Traits and Power Traits. Either type of Trait can be spent to reroll the lower of the two dice, but the difference is that Scene Traits can only be spent once, but can be created again, while Power Traits can be used up to three times per session, but cannot be created or refreshed. They only refresh at the beginning of a new session.

Ideally, Scene Traits should be represented by index cards on which they are written down and placed on the table, for everyone to see. Once a Scene Trait is spent, discard the index card.

If you're playing with Powers, then at the end of a session, each character gains 1 Power Point. Once they have gained a number of Power Points equal to their current Power Traits plus 1, their power Points reset to 0, and they gain a new Power Trait. If you're playing with Custom Effects and don't want characters to gain new Powers, then a character gains a new Custom Effect if their Power Points are 1 higher than their current number of Custom Traits. If you're playing with both, the player may decide which they want to take once they reach or exceed the respective threshold.

Example: Lily's character Jamie has three Powers and two Custom Traits. At the end of the session, Jamie gains a Power Point and is now at 3 Power Points. Lily may not decide whether to give Jamie a new Custom Effect and reset their Power Points to 0, or save their Power Points until the end of next session, when she has 4, which will allow her to give Jamie an additional Power.

And what's a Threat Level? And how do we end a session?

Threat is meant as a timer for the session. Whether it represents a single powerful enemy's health, a large group of enemies that need to be defeated, citizens in peril that need to be rescued, or any combination of these (or other) things, once the Threat Level reaches 0, that means the heroes have succeeded in their mission, and the session ends.

Think about what happens then, and after that. Do the bad guys get captured, or do they manage to escape? Was whatever happened just a distraction for a greater evil plan that only now gets revealed? Think about these things. If a hero gained a new Power or Custom Effect, you could easily end the episode with them receiving their new Power and using it to finish the battle. Afterwards, think about an epilogue that wraps up loose plot threads from the episode, and/or teases what's to come in future ones.

You mentioned this Risk/Effect Table. What is it?

Below you'll find the "standard" Risk/Effect table, which should be suitable for most types of games. Feel free to adjust these for your own game. You can even change the context of Effects and Risks based on whatever The Scene in your current session is. E.g., if your session is more focused on saving people than fighting bad guys, just replace the Effects about hurting enemies with Effects about saving civilians.

Risks

Effects

12 / 13 / 14

You hurt someone unintentionally. Physically, emotionally, maybe their reputation. If you hurt another PC, they take 1 damage.

You hurt someone intentionally. Physically, emotionally, maybe their reputation. Remove 1 Threat.

15 / 16 / 21

You damage or destroy an object you did not mean to harm.

You damage or destroy an object you intended to damage or destroy. Remove 1 Threat.

23 / 24 / 25

You look dumb, embarrassing, or morally dubious. Your action makes someone lose respect for you.

Your action impresses someone. They respect, or even admire you. Gain 1 Skill Point.

26 / 31 / 32

Your action draws unwanted attention.

Your action goes unnoticed by whoever you want not to notice it.

34 / 35 / 36

You get hurt. Take 1 damage.

Your action affects more than one target, or a large area. Remove 1 Threat.

41 / 42 / 43

Your action creates a new threat you will have to deal with. Add 1 Threat.

You provoke your target into pursuing a specific course of action.

45 / 46 / 51

You, your target, or the effect of your action, ends up somewhere you/they/it shouldn't.

You create a longer-lasting effect. Add 1 Trait to the scene.

52 / 53 / 54

Your action closes something off - physically or metaphorically.

Your action opens up a new way - physically or metaphorically.

56 / 61 / 62

Your action exhausts you. For your next roll, your Risk Chance is 1 point higher.

You notice something new that nobody else has noticed yet. Gain 1 Skill Point.

63 / 64 / 65

Something gets mixed up, or people didn't pay enough attention. The credit for your achievement goes to someone else.

Your action is healing. You or another PC loses 1 damage.

One final thing...

Remember that scenes aren't strictly linear; you can set them in any order. Whenever you describe an action, think about where it fits with the others. While The Scene is mainly meant to describe the final battle or climax of an episode, don't forget that you can set exposition scenes during that final battle as well. Maybe have a scene of the Big Bad suddenly showing up and monologuing in the middle of a massive melee, or have two characters overcome their differences to work together.

Acknowledgments and Licensing

This game was made Oliver "Val" Lucas, and was inspired by the Schema SRD by Levi Kornelsen.

Special thanks to Levi Kornelsen for brainstorming RiskTaker with me.

If you're reading this on my Neocities page or my Tumblr blog, and you wish to support me financially, I encourage you to check out my itch.io page, where you can buy a PDF of this SRD, and my game Rubber Beast & Cardboard Cities, also built using this System. No pressure though.

If you want to make your own games using this rule set, here's what you need to know:

What does that mean in simple terms? Basically, that you can take all the text in this document, put it in your game, adjust, change, and expand on it however you want, and even sell your product for a profit, but you must give me credit for it (a simple "This game is based on RiskTaker by Oliver "Val" Lucas" would be enough, but a link to any of my sites would be great), and you must make your game available under these same terms.

Oh, and if you, for whatever reason, want to use a rule set made by a genderfluid, bisexual leftist to create games that encourage things like racism, xenophobia, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, enbyphobia, misogyny, or any kind of intolerance towards people based on their sexuality, gender identity, religion, ethnicity, nationality, etc, kindly go fuck yourself. TERFs and Nazis can suck my girl-🐓.

	Risks	Effects
12 / 13 / 14	You hurt someone unintentionally. Physically, emotionally, maybe their reputation. If you hurt another PC, they take 1 damage.	You hurt someone intentionally. Physically, emotionally, maybe their reputation. Remove 1 Threat.
15 / 16 / 21	You damage or destroy an object you did not mean to harm.	You damage or destroy an object you intended to damage or destroy. Remove 1 Threat.
23 / 24 / 25	You look dumb, embarrassing, or morally dubious. Your action makes someone lose respect for you.	Your action impresses someone. They respect, or even admire you. Gain 1 Skill Point.
26 / 31 / 32	Your action draws unwanted attention.	Your action goes unnoticed by whoever you want not to notice it.
34 / 35 / 36	You get hurt. Take 1 damage.	Your action affects more than one target, or a large area. Remove 1 Threat.
41 / 42 / 43	Your action creates a new threat you will have to deal with. Add 1 Threat.	You provoke your target into pursuing a specific course of action.
45 / 46 / 51	You, your target, or the effect of your action, ends up somewhere you/they/it shouldn't.	You create a longer-lasting effect. Add 1 Trait to the scene.
52 / 53 / 54	Your action closes something off - physically or metaphorically.	Your action opens up a new way - physically or metaphorically.
56 / 61 / 62	Your action exhausts you. For your next roll, your Risk Chance is 1 point higher.	You notice something new that nobody else has noticed yet. Gain 1 Skill Point.
63 / 64 / 65	Something gets mixed up, or people didn't pay enough attention. The credit for your achievement goes to someone else.	Your action is healing. You or another PC loses 1 damage.