GrimBlade RPG
A downloadable game
GrimBlade is a light and fast-paced roleplaying game of adventures and stories set within an implied Grim fantasy world. Contained in these pages are the bones of a roleplaying game. The reasoning for this is that it is YOUR game. It is expected that readers and Game Masters will add, remove, create and hack the game that best fits any gaming group.
GrimBlade is a small zine with only 12 interior pages.
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Will try it with a solo engine.
Hi, I was wondering if you were okay with people publishing hacks of your game? I love the engine and the style so much!
Have at it!
Grim Blade is a rules-lite fantasy adventure game designed to be hacked and customized by the user.
It's 12 pages, with a bunch of great, creative art packed in---plus good visual organization that makes for an extremely clean, easy to read layout.
The core dice roll is d6 + modifier vs a die of choice for the GM. So if you want a game that tends towards success, the GM gets a d4. If you want a game that tends towards failure, the GM gets a d10. The GM can still apply modifiers too, so for a perfectly balanced experience you can just set the GM die to a d6, but right out of the gate, the option is there to just freely change the underlying dice math, and that's neat.
Combat in Grim Blade is simple, with damage dealt equal to the difference between rolls. This *does* mean that at higher GM dice levels, enemies will hit more often and harder, but to counter this PCs gain more experience per successful action the higher the difficulty is. Essentially, there's a real feeling of progress when the world's out to get you and you're still surviving. And there's a nice feeling of safety when it isn't.
For character creation, character elements are randomized and flavorful, and everything feels useful. Because the system only cares if you can come up with a way to apply a skill to a situation, Staff and Sneak and Skin Swap are just as useful as anything else, as long as you're creative with them.
For GMs, a basic bestiary is provided (with some nice, grisly creatures,) plus solid advice on how to run the system with or without hacking it.
Overall, I think Grim Blade feels like a solid, lightweight engine that's perfect for running an off-the-cuff game. It has a lot of clever flourishes that set it apart from other lightweight adventure games, and it has an engine that feels extremely open to hacking, modding, and content generation. If you're looking to run an old-school game or mess with doing some old-school designs, I'd recommend picking this up.
Minor Issues:
-Page 3, BL capitalized in the title
-Page 4, for d6, the text says Grim Twilight and the example says Grim Dawn
Page 7, B, do you mean increase one skill by +1 and another by +2? The text isn't completely clear about this.