This post heralds the distribution of the first beta draft (version 0.21) of the Garreth pen-and-paper RPG. I’ve been working on this system for three years now, and I think it’s about ready to be enjoyed by a wider audience.

The automatic question in everyone’s minds is… “What is he selling?” The answer is, “Nothing”. Really nothing – not an introductory offer, or a demo, or any such nonsense. What I’m giving away is the first officially completed beta draft of this game. The system is approximately finished, and the rules are stable enough to actually play a few games. I’m going to distribute this draft, and likely several revisions, for free. There are two reasons for this. First, I want to make a good game. I personally feel that the best way to make a good game is to make a game, get a lot of opinions on what would make it great, and then follow the most logical-sounding opinions. Second, I like this game and want to share it. I would be extremely sad if no one but the few people I game with ever got to play Garreth, so I’m giving it to more people.

Some of the rest of this post is repeated in an Author’s Note within the book, but I want to go ahead and say it up front as well.

In return for this, and likely several revised editions in the future, I have a request. Play this game with your friends and tell me what you think. Tell me how your game went, what you like, what you don’t like, what you want, everything that pops into your head concerning the system and world. Garreth will never be the game it can be without your input, and I say that in all seriousness. I consider myself fairly intelligent, but I’m not narcissistic enough to think that I’m smarter than the collective gamers that post on all the forums this is posted on. I can’t promise to incorporate every suggestion, but I’ll do my best to put in stuff that sounds good and seems likely to be fun.

That includes the established canon fluff. Although I probably won’t implement nearly as many suggestions to the world and story, that is in beta or even late alpha as well. Expect some details of the world to change and a lot to be added as I develop the books. The reason I won’t be taking as many suggestions on the story side of things is because I already have massive reams of interconnected canon that haven’t been written down. Contradictions should be pointed out and blaring illogic should be questioned. I won’t claim that my fluff is any more error-free than my crunch. But no one reading the beta books will have anywhere near enough comprehension of eventual canon to make new elements fit. This draft simply doesn’t have anywhere near all of what is already planned to be canon.

I will probably compile everything into a paid version at some point. Sorry about that, but I have a family to support. If at all possible, I’ll keep the beta versions fully available even after the paid version is out. I can’t promise that, though, just in case I sign on with a publisher that wants them taken down. Until that point, though, distribute the beta drafts as far as possible. The one restriction I would add is this: Don’t distribute modified copies. For one thing, it’s illegal. Distributing modified copies of the documents I post constitutes a derivative work, and I hold a copyright on them. For another, I would prefer for everyone using a given version of the system to be on the same page for discussions and errata. Make up all the house rules you like. Suggest house rules to other people. Heck, send me house rules. I may make them official, or list them as popular alternatives. But don’t change the actual documents.

A .rar file containing PDF’s of the Player’s Handbook, Game Master’s Guide, and a selection of basic game aids are available at http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QC1VPNQX. I promise there’s nothing malicious in it, but with Internet credibility being what it is I would appreciate it if people could vouch for its malware-free nature after downloading.

An e-mail address is listed in the back of the book. Feel free to use it for comments and suggestions, although I would prefer PM’s for forum-related or personal business.

I’ve set up a LiveJournal at http://garreth-rpg.livejournal.com. I plan to use that space for official communiqués, rather than reproduce important stuff on multiple forums. If I put something particularly important up there I’ll post here too, but mostly it won’t be that significant. The LiveJournal will be used for errata, FAQ’s, random bits of world texture, design philosophy, and open feedback requests.

That’s the introduction and lawyer-sprech out of the way. If you want a summary of what you’re downloading, read on.

[SIZE=5]What is Garreth?[/SIZE] (in far too many words)

Garreth, as befits the modern era of enlightened gamers, is a completely revolutionary game that totally rewrites the core paradigm of PFFFT HAA HA HA ha ha ha okay, I can’t write that with a straight face.

Garreth is primarily an evolution, and honestly more a synthesis than anything else. “The point-buy system from World of Darkness in modified d20 with really lethal combat” is a fair description of the core mechanics. It’s a little more complex than that, but you get the gist. I’ve tried very hard not to focus on making a TOTALLY NEW PERFECT GAME THAT FIXES EVERYTHING HOLY CRAP GUYS because, honestly, there’s just not that much wrong with existing mainstream games. Alright, I hate D&D 4th Edition, but there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m just not the target market.

Garreth as a system is a combination of a lot of things I like, connected by a few simplifications and conversions, with a handful of genuinely novel mechanics where they fit the world better. Garreth as a world is something else entirely. It’s an examination of tropes, a careful thought experiment, and (I think) a pretty interesting place to explore. It’s a place that seems on its surface to be bog-standard, but that reveals more aberrant details the deeper you dig. For example, take the Madrite religion. On the absolute surface, it’s the same juxtaposition of Benevolent Catholic Christianity that you see in Generic Fantasyworlds #3004-4762. If you dig a bit deeper, you find that some of the benevolence is propaganda and there’s some unpleasant speciesism and bloodthirst there as well (GF’s #4763-9735). Dig a bit deeper than that, though, and you find something of a confused system – a religion that’s gradually evolved from militaristic totem worship into a modern philosophical theology, but one that hasn’t really had time to make the transition smoothly. And then when you peel back another layer… well, I won’t spoil too much.

One more worldbuilder’s wank and I promise to get back to the mechanics. Garreth as a world is a place where sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology, where those mysterious guys with slender forms and pointy ears are citizens like the rest of us, and where guys who run into battle plus swords and sans plans will die horribly. This may sound like a place inimical to adventuring, but in practice it turns out that a lot of players like being the small (very small) catalyst that sets greater forces in motion. And Garreth is good for that. It’s not a place where this kingdom fights that kingdom with big masses of infantry and the PC’s go slaughter a bunch of nameless, faceless gormtroopers with fireballs and magical pointy sticks. There’s some of that, naturally, ‘cause it’s a lot of fun in moderation, but a good chunk of Garreth games will revolve around figuring out who’s really the villain, finding the subtle flaws in their plans, and carefully maneuvering them into a place of weakness. And then killing them with fireballs and magical pointy sticks, because this is a fantasy game and closure is good for the soul.

All right, all right. The system. Let’s start with the character building. It’s point buy, as I mentioned before, in the ‘logical extreme’ way that World of Darkness is. You don’t ever roll dice for character creation or modification, and I like it that way (Try it at least once, you might really like it). But there’s a much more subtle facet to Garreth’s character system that I’d like to see in more games. You build your character in small chunks. You pick a race, and that does a few things. Then you pick a region of origin, and that does a few things too. You choose what profession you’ve grown up with or practiced yourself, and that does a few more things. You pick a Motivation, Vice, and Virtue, and then you buy a few skills. After that you add a few more points to your abilities and move on to buying stuff. The staggered approach helps new players learn the system, but it has another interesting effect. In my experience, it really helps players connect with their characters. By the end of the process, you know where your character came from, what he does (or did, or what his parents did) for a living, what he wants out of life, his biggest good and bad points, what he does in his spare time, and what he’s generally good and bad at. If you can’t put something in the Background box at that point, you’re doing it wrong.

The next point is… well, the core mechanics, I suppose. It’s pretty simple. To do something, you make a skill check (2d10 + Ability + Skill). To climb a wall, you make a Climb check. To shoot a goblin with a bow, you make a Weaponry (Archery) check. To lob a fireball, you conjure magical power with an Arcana check and make it into a spell with a Shaping check. Sometimes your checks are opposed. Weaponry checks are opposed by Dodge checks, for example. That’s pretty much it, other than the few times you use your Ability instead of your Ability + Skill, but those are even simpler. The mechanics are designed to be easily remembered so you can focus on what you want to do. One point, though. Combat is brutal. Learn it quick and learn it well – if you jump into a situation where the greatest fighter in history would end up wearing his spleen as a hat (which is common in most RPG’s), you’re going to bloody die. Garreth uses more of a wargaming damage model than an RPG damage model, if that means anything to you (And if it does, you’re a HUGE NERD like me). The basic upshot is that a successful sword strike that isn’t deflected by armor has a good chance of putting you on the ground bleeding profusely. If you’re a big tough manly man, you might be able to fight for a bit longer, with substantial penalties, but another good hit will probably put you down all the same (and you’ll regret fighting with a sucking chest wound when it’s harder to make your recovery saves).

So what is Garreth? Garreth is a game I always really wanted to play. It’s moderately gritty, as intuitive as I could manage, and set in a deep world. Give it a try; maybe you’ll like it too. The beta’s free, after all. What have you got to lose?

Happy Free RPG Day.

- John Archer

Hi John,

That was a really nice post. I hope we at the Forge can give your game a look. I invite you in turn to stick around for a bit, read some Actual Play posting (the best place to start), and see what we do.

Best, Ron

I dunno whether I'm going to be laughed at for this, but if someone could explain to me how to deal with a rar file, I'd be grateful. I thought I was pretty good for knowing how to zip and unzip (meaning WinZip, you wise-asses).

Best, Ron

Ron-  just downloand WinRar, and you'll be all set.

Thanks for the welcome. I've spent the last week lurking, actually. I picked the Forge and three others from a list of about twenty forums because you guys seem like the folks to go to for good input. From what I've seen on the Actual Play board (and deduced from the mission statement), this should also be a good match for the high content-to-tutorial nature of this early draft.

And I didn't think about the .rar issues. Let me post a .zip too - gimme a second.

Okay, I have to go for a bit (curse the lack of editing). I'll post a .zip when I get back.

Sorry for the triple post. There's a .zip available at http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XKQYZNE7.

Not sure if anyone cares, but version 0.22 is finished and uploaded. The .rar file is available at http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QC1VPNQX and the .zip is available at http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZV8N9ZZH.

0.21 to 0.22 Changelog:

• Added Races table

• Added Independent Races table

• Added Regions table

• Added Professions table

• Added airship construction rules

• Corrected steambow entry

• Corrected Rural template

• Minor grammar corrections

• Adjusted melee weapon weights

• Added screen-friendly core books