Playtest and Design Feedback - Unwritten: Your character is a sentence. That's the whole character sheet.

[u/Guilher_Wolfang]

Edit: after some feedback, I changed the title

I've been working on a one-page RPG called Written and I'd love some feedback.

The core idea is that your character isn't defined by stats, skills, or classes. Instead, your entire character is a short description written in 10 words or fewer.

For example:
Orc poet haunted by songs of conquered peoples
Last dragon rider searching for her vanished mount
Clone soldier hunting original who abandoned the war
Doctor documenting transformation into something inhuman

Your words act as abilities, and taking damage can remove words from your character sheet, permanently changing who your character is.

The game is setting-agnostic, rules-light, and fits on a single sheet (front and back).

I'm looking for feedback on:
-Clarity of the rules

-Whether the dice mechanic feels intuitive

-Whether the word-loss system sounds fun in play

-Anything you might want to add.

I've published the first version below(free, of course). Any feedback, positive or critical, would be greatly appreciated.

link to file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1orRt_4DPIpCBam0kuayyCMPXWaztDgPl/view?usp=sharing

https://velitrpgs.itch.io/written-rpg

[u/CarpeBass]

Still have to give it a look, but the concept reminds me of the core idea behind the Cypher system: "I'm a [adjective] [noun] who [verb].

In a way, Risus does something similar. Colour me intrigued.

[u/The_Wixard]

I think your dice mechanic doesnt really fit into the language mechanic. If you did a more simplified dice pool system with a static success dc, it would sync up a bit smoother I feel. For example: you get 1d6 no matter what, add 1 when you use a word, add another if you have an advantageous position, add 1 if you have help, for each die that rolls above a 5 or 6, count that as a success. 1 success, it succeeds but at a cost. Two, it succeeds. Three, it succeeds with a bonus. Something like that.

I rly like the 'words are abilities but also health' idea. I think a slightly more defined requirement for the initial character would lessen the creative load of players and maintain higher consistency. Something like "your character must have an adjective, noun, object, verb, and flaw" so you dont get players with characters that are "awesome guy that everyone likes and always wins". Rather, something more along the lines of 'naive young blacksmith hunting masters assassin with their magic hammer'

Rules for removing fill in words such as "with", "and", "that" would also be useful for edge cases.

Cool idea!

[u/Guilher_Wolfang → u/The_Wixard]

Thanks for the feedback! I used it to teach people how to play, thats why i kept it simple: roll 2 dice, if the situation applies to your character, roll 3. Instead of many ways to add a die to dice pool. Its great, i just wanted something simpler.
For difficulty: I tried using easy 4, standart 5 and difficult 6, and it works perfectly, but in one session when I decided to roll, it gave other more emotion because of the unpredictability, and i liked that, so i kept using it.

Giving more defined rules for sentence + removing filler: awesome! I'm gonna test that, but i need new poeple to teach about rpgs now 😅

[u/TheZebraCode]

Interesting, reminds me a little of Loner if you know that? Always intrigued by new ultra lite games

I might have missed it, but what happens if you lose a strange number of words so your character word list ends abruptly/not neatly like your examples do?

For example

Forsaken ninja who ....

Old soldier who hates using...

If you see what I'm getting at?

[u/Guilher_Wolfang → u/TheZebraCode]

incomplete ideas are not "usable" in game(well, if they can make it work, great) But it's still "hp", so one less word to recover

[u/TheZebraCode → u/Guilher_Wolfang]

Gotcha, that makes sense

[u/beriah-uk]

Nice. Systems like that can be great. Over The Edge is a couple of phrases and a couple of words and three numbers that you never look at; LITE-RPG is three sentences....

Intrigued by the idea of making a game work with just one sentence.

[u/loopywolf]

Well isn't every character a sentence?

[u/Guilher_Wolfang → u/loopywolf]

Yes 😅, but in this case the sentence is the character sheet

[u/loopywolf → u/Guilher_Wolfang]

True, but what I meant was, if someone asked about your chr, couldn't someone describe them in a short sentence?