Mini mam
Mini mam is derived from the Mano a Mano Role-Playing System by Benjamin Galbraith and Seth Galbraith. Like Mano a Mano, mini mam is copyrighted under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. Please use these rules and modify them as you see fit under the terms of that license. The name "mini mam" comes from "Mini Mano a Mano Role-Playing System."
Contents
Players
Usually one player is the "Game Master" who designs an adventure and controls the monsters and dragons while 3 or 4 other players each try to complete the adventure together by controlling a rogue, warrior, wizard or priest character. Other types of games are also possible with this system. For example all of the players could be competing with each other, or teams of players could fight each other instead of working together.
Core Rules
These are the essential rules that at least one player should have more-or-less memorized, so the game can be played without looking at the written rules. Only the most critical and essential rules are included in the Core Rules section.
Characters
Each character has a class from the following list to show what kind of character it is.
| Rogue | a sneaky character |
|---|---|
| Warrior | a physical fighter |
| Wizard | a magic using character |
| Priest | a healer character type |
| Monster | a weaker type of character |
| Dragon | a more powerful character type |
Player's characters should be rogues, warriors, wizards or priests unless the game specifically allows them to play monsters or dragons.
Each character has a level showing how powerful and accomplished they are. A normal hero starts off at Level 1, but nearly harmless characters, like ordinary villagers and unproven adventurers start off at level 0. A character can gain a few levels throughout their life span. To gain each level the character needs years of training, a lot of combat experience, and significantly more powerful and rare magical items to become powerful enough to be on the same level as characters on the next level higher.
| Level | Description |
|---|---|
| 0 | Weak, unproven in combat |
| 1 | Proven capable of self-defense |
| 2 | Can hold his own with most combatants |
| 3 | More powerful than most combatants |
| 4 | Famously powerful (this level is beyond the reach of most characters) |
| 5 | Legendary |
Combat & Rolling
When a character tries to do something that might work but might not, like attacking another character, add his level to a six-sided dice roll for his efforts. Add a difficulty number to another six-sided dice roll for everything that stands in his way of his efforts. If the sum of the character's roll is higher than the sum of the opposing roll, then he is successful.
If the character is trying to do something to another character, that other character is the target of the effort. The target's level is usually the difficulty number. If a character is a warrior or dragon, add 1 to their level and roll when the character attacks. The difficulty of attacking a warrior or dragon is that target's level + 1.
Use the following scale for other difficulty modifiers:
| Difficulty | Description |
|---|---|
| 0 | relatively easy |
| 1 | a little tricky |
| 2 | challenging |
| 3 | very difficult |
| 4 | rarely done before |
| 5 | only theoretically possible |
Each character can do one action each round. The action is usually an attack. The characters have their turns to do actions in the order their players are seated clockwise, starting with the player sitting to the left of the Game Master. The rogues and dragons always have their turns before the other characters, an then the rest of the characters have their turns to act. (If teams of players are battling each other, the players should be seated so that the members of each team are not grouped together.) If the Game Master's characters successfully sneak up on the other characters, then the Game Master's characters go first instead of the player to his left.
Characters have three types of health: healthy, injured, and incapacitated. If a healthy character is successfully attacked he becomes injured, and if an injured character is successfully attacked he becomes incapacitated. If an incapacitated character is healed he becomes injured, and if an injured character is healed he becomes healthy. Injured characters have 1 subtracted from all of their rolls. Incapacitated characters can't do anything at all.
Fireball is a special type of attack that only wizards and dragons can do. A successful fireball attack makes the target incapacitated regardless of their previous health.
Classes can give characters specific advantages in combat:
CLASS - ADVANTAGE Rogue - always go first in combat rounds Warrior - add 1 to attacking and defending rolls Wizard - can use fireball as an action Priest - can heal other characters as an action Monster - has no class advantages Dragon - has all of the class advantages of the other classes
Classes can also give characters advantages outside of combat.
CLASS - ADVANTAGE Rogue - add 1 to rolls involving sneaky, underhanded, or illegal deeds Warrior - add 1 to rolls for combat-related preparations Wizard - add 1 to rolls involving arcane knowledge Priest - add 1 to rolls requiring people skills Monster - has no class advantages Dragon - has all of the class advantages of the other classes
Character Sheet
Most players should not need to have a character sheet. However, for players that have never played an RPG before, or for Game Masters who may have to juggle several characters at once, here is a character sheet that should easily fit on the back of a business card:
Name: _____________________________ Class: Rog. War. Wiz. Pri. Mon. Dra. Level: 0 1 2 3 4 5 Health: Healthy Injured Incapacitated
Extra Rules
Here is a section for adding extra rules besides the absolutely essential "core rules." For example, rules about special one-use items or variations on Fire Ball might go here.
Fire Ball customization
Wizards can call their "Fire Ball" anything they want, as long as it sounds like some incapacitating spell. (In fact, originally "Fire Ball" was "Frog.") For example, it they call it a "freeze", "zap" or "choke" spell.
Dragons can call their "Fire Ball" anything they want, as long as it sounds like some incapacitating breath weapon. Obvious examples include "acidic vomit" or "tear gas."
Original Mano a Mano
If you would like something more advanced than this which allows for more customized characters and combat options, do check out Mano a Mano.
