Samsara:Main Page

This is the future home of SAMSARA, a rules-light game mechanic. The design goal is to produce a mechanic that is

• unified, without any dedicated subsystems required; but
• with modular applications to tweak the rules to support your style of play; and
• plays well with others

I’ll be engaged in the laborious process of translating my stack of notes and examples over in the next few days.

Introduction

SAMSARA is a role-playing game rules-set; a system of mechanics. It is not an RPG in itself. You will find no setting materials herein, although there are some broad, setting applications and the rules are more generally applicable to roughly human-levels of power. There is no theme or premise, although SAMSARA’s mechanics tend to support play which rests upon social interactions and internal struggles at least as much as combat, which is correspondingly downplayed. It is, however, not a “generic” system, since I’m not sure that there can be any such beast.

SAMSARA is based upon the resolution of contests, rather than of actions, and is a rules-light, abstract engine of play.

There are also no inviolate rules. The game belongs to whoever is playing it and they can do what they want to change or modify it. To that end, you will find a number of rules implementations which are marked as Variations. They are possible modifications which can change the nature of play and so be more aptly suited to your own preferred game. For example, if you don’t care much about specifying character’s attributes, the default number of attributes, which is twelve, can be easily reduced to six or three or even one. If you don’t care to differentiate between weapons and tactics, then the rules for Effect rating can be simply ignored. If you prefer a less flat probability distribution, the default twelve-side die can be replaced by two six-sided. Or use three six-sided, so as to increase the curve, but also increase the potential dynamic range of outcomes.

These are merely suggestions. Please do what you will most enjoy. Again, it is your game.

Introducing the Fundamental Mechanical Concepts

There are three, fundamental and interconnected mechanical concepts used in SAMSARA: contests, checks, and modifiers. The entire system is an elaboration and implementation of these ideas.

Contests

The basic concept used in SAMSARA is that of the contest. A contest occurs whenever some actor attempts to do something at which he might fail. Or, to put it another way, whenever reality resists an actor’s intentions. This is implemented by that old, RPG stand-by: rolling a die. SAMSARA uses one twelve-sided die (d12) as the method to simulate randomness, the will of the gods, or whatever it that causes an actor to sometimes succeed and sometimes fail. Rolling high is good; rolling low is bad (see The Contest Roll).

For reference purposes, every contest has two actors: a protagonist and an antagonist, although these may be individuals, armies, or abstract ideas. In the broad sense mentioned above, reality is always the antagonist, variously manifested. But don’t be confused by that; the examples below will clarify. These two roles will also shift during the course of a contest.

The prototypical contest in most games is a fight, whether that is a duel between bladesmen or a shoot-out. Those are contests alright, but there are many more types of contests. A few examples of contests:

• A cutpurse attempting to remove a drunken lord’s wallet without being noticed.
• A courtier at the court of Louis XIV attempting to belittle a rival in public by delicate witticisms.
• A horse-breaker attempting to tame a wild stallion.
• An artist attempting to produce a masterwork.
• A scholar attempting to decipher an unknown language.
• One army attempting to force a second army to surrender.
• A person wrestling with their own worst impulses.

Every actor in a contest has a goal, or victory condition. If that actor wins the contest, his goal has been accomplished. If it is a swordfight, the goal might be to disarm and render the opponent defenseless. Or it might just be to kill him. The artist mentioned above has the goal of producing a masterwork.

But who is this artist’s antagonist? The masterwork is his antagonist and its goal is to avoid being created. Yes, that’s not a misprint. So if the masterwork wins the contest, the artist is left with a blank canvas or perhaps a load of rubbish. This abstraction might be a bit odd compared to the usual run of RPG opponents, but it is a basic, building block of SAMSARA. To repeat the confusing statement from earlier: reality is always the antagonist in the ultimate sense and the burden of action is always upon the protagonist.

Thus, SAMSARA has no “combat system” as such, nor “skill system”, nor “magic system”. All of these activities are subsumed into the category of contests and all function in the same way.

Checks

Along with the wholesale abandonment of combat systems et. al., SAMSARA also does without “hit points” or “wound levels”. Instead it uses the mechanic of contest checks, which make it harder for an actor to continue a contest. Instead of “doing damage”, actors in SAMSARA deliver checks to each other.

As a contest is mechanically enacted by rolling the die, so checks act as negative modifiers to that die roll. If an actor has received 1 check and then rolls the die, the die result is reduced by 1. 6 checks reduce the roll by 6. Since SAMSARA uses a d12, 6 checks is generally quite severe (depending upon the actor’s Modifiers).

Just as the contest is an abstract idea that must be fleshed out in the action, so checks are an abstract measure of reduced performance which must be interpreted according to the nature of the contest and the actors’ goals. Let’s return to three of the above examples, this time identifying the actors, the goals, and the possible interpretation of checks:

Example #1: The Sea Finch

In a swordfight, Captain Smashing initiates the duel and is the protagonist at the start of the contest. This makes Baron Vile the antagonist. Captain Smashing is a saucy rogue, possibly showing off in front of some nearby damsels. He’s not trying to kill Baron Vile; just make him look silly and deprive him of his weapon. Vile, meanwhile, thinks that Smashing is a jerk who’s been a thorn in his side for far too long; he’d like to jab his sword into Smashing’s throat.

So the two actors have very different goals. Given this, whenever Captain Smashing delivers checks to Vile, the player and the GM must interpret this in light of his goal. If he delivers 1 check, perhaps he made Vile stumble a bit. If he delivered 6 checks, he might have gotten the Baron to thrust his sword into a doorway, gotten it stuck, and then reached over and smacked Vile on the face. If Smashing wins (see Winning the Contest below), then the player and GM will have to interpret how he won and why Baron Vile is out of the contest. Perhaps he lets Vile knock himself unconscious on a low-hanging branch, or perhaps the Baron is so overcome with shame that he just collapses in a heap.

On the other hand, if Baron Vile delivers 1 check, he might have pricked the Captain’s hand with the tip of his sword or even just gotten him off-balance. If he delivers 6 checks, he might well have rammed a length of that steel into some valuable piece of Smashing. If Baron Vile wins, then Captain Smashing is probably dead or dying.

Example #2: You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two

That sly rogue known only as the Cunning Weasel is attempting to pick drunken lord Wobblybottom’s pocket and relieve his lordship of his overly-burdensome wallet. The Cunning Weasel is the protagonist and Wobblybottom the antagonist. The Weasel’s goal is to take the wallet without being noticed. Lord Wobblybottom’s goal is to notice that attempt.

Note that Lord Wobblybottom has a goal even though he is entirely unaware of what is going on. Again, recall that in the broadest possible sense, reality resists the protagonist in every contest. If the GM had decided that there was no chance for the Cunning Weasel to fail (he’s simply too skilled or Wobblybottom is too drunk), then there is no contest.

This contest would play out in much telescoped time. Each roll of the die might represent a few tenths of a second as the devious Weasel eases his hand into the pocket, grasps the wallet, and slips his hand out again. Each check might well be an inch or two of movement in this way. So if the cutpurse delivers 1 check, his hand moves just that much closer to the fat wallet; if he delivers 6 checks, he’s almost home.

Wobblybottom’s checks are even more complex to interpret. If he delivers 1 check, he might have coughed or glanced around or done something else to make discovery that much marginally more likely. A few more checks and perhaps he turns his torso, trapping the Cunning Weasel’s hand still buried in the pocket. If Lord Wobblybottom wins the contest, he made it impossible for the Weasel to get the goods. He might even have noticed what’s going on, which might well begin a new contest (goal: drub that dirty thief).

Example #3: What Does it Say, Indy?

In this contest, a renowned linguist is trying to decipher the weird, characters that he found on a pot-shard. His goal is to be able to understand what the script means. The script’s goal is to remain unintelligible. Again: