RōNIN Quickstart
A downloadable TTRPG
2038 AD
The United States no longer exists.
Within the war-torn former United States lies the last place in the formerly free world that is truly a land of opportunity: Chicago.
Everyone from around the world who seeks to make a name for themselves without the approval of a totalitarian regime or having to keep their head on a swivel in the middle of a war zone has come to this dynamic city-state.
In a city in which various factions and organizations are vying for power, be it megacorps, smaller businesses, aldermen, crime syndicates, street gangs, and even ordinary citizens. There's only one profession that's keeping the entire city from being another battlefield: RōNIN.
You are one of these RōNIN. The ultimate equalizer. It doesn't matter what type of business or social status one has, if they have the chits then they can hire you for any reason be it spying on a spouse suspected of cheating, reclaiming stolen property, putting someone out of existence, or settling issues without having to go to court.
As a RōNIN you have the opportunity of a lifetime in which if you succeed, the city and everything in it will be at your fingertips. If you fail, well...
We hope you set aside enough chits for a burial!
The crowdfunding campaign for RōNIN will be coming soon! Check back here for more updates!
Success by Degrees
RōNIN uses a 2d10 ranked system in which it's not that you succeed in your roll it's to what degree you succeed. If you barely pass, you'll succeed... with a small price, but if you pass your roll by a lot, you will witness your great accomplishment!
An explainer video is coming soon!
A Broken Empire, A New Order
The world of RōNIN circa 2038 has become a very dangerous and chaotic place. With the fall of the United States and the rise of the Federal Union, most people are in a perpetual state of fight or flight. Everywhere you go in the Former United States you could be under the domain of local militia, religious cults, tribals, cities that are constantly attacked by guerillas, or ghost towns that are populated with abominations that were left behind by the Federal Union.
The Federal Union is what's left of the American government. An organization too drunk with power is willing to pervert humanity to achieve what they call a true utopic society... but their utopia is your living nightmare as in reality the Federal Union is nothing more than an open-air prison with the populace being experimented on through, food, medicine, AI manipulation, and other sick experiments daily and because of those experiments the world has to endure genetic abominations such as zombies, vampires, lupines (or werewolves if you prefer) or any other grotesqueries.
These experiments have two purposes for the Federal Union: consolidate power through a cowed populace and reclaim their dominion over the former United States. Especially the independent city-state of Chicago.
Your Kind Of Town
The city-state of Chicago is home to 38 million people who have gathered here as it's the last bastion of pure freedom left in the formerly free world. While some seek to achieve the 'American Dream' which has become a rarity, there are those who have taken advantage of the ultimate opportunity that they would get nowhere else. 12,000 square miles of the city-state from the neon-lit streets of the Loop and the Gold Coast, the trendy enclaves of Lincoln Park and Lakeview, ethnic enclaves like Chinatown, Polish Village, the Japanese in Edgewater and Uptown, the Latin enclave of Little Village, or the Russian-dominated Jefferson Park, the tech boomtown of Oak Brook, the epitome of suburbia in the Northwest Corridor, or the farmlands and the small towns of the outer city-state.
Just keep your wits about you, mind your surroundings, and stay ahead of things. Because in Chicago, if you're not on the way up--
--you're on the way out!
Status | In development |
Category | Physical game |
Rating | Rated 4.0 out of 5 stars (1 total ratings) |
Author | Aaron Alexander |
Tags | 1980s, Alternate History, Cyberpunk, Dice, Futuristic, Indie, Procedural Generation, retrofuturism, Tabletop, Tabletop role-playing game |
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Development log
- Rumors of this game's death... has been greatly exaggerated.71 days ago
- Northlandia is live! Plus a new enemy and equipment guide.Jun 27, 2024
- Northlandia.May 30, 2024
- Beware of the Honey Pot is available for download! Plus a note about future cam...May 10, 2024
- Beware of the Honey Pot coming Thursday and doing something a little different...May 08, 2024
- 'Beware of the Honey Pot' possibly next week!Apr 24, 2024
- 4/4: Update on things. IGG start delayed.Apr 04, 2024
- Springtime for Helen available for download!Mar 09, 2024
Comments
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My thoughts after reading it, in no particular order:
- Setting seems fine, nothing jumps out at me as a "wow super cool i have to play this" that i sometimes feel after reading a rulebook, but there is nothing bad about it.
- Basic mechanics need another pass. I think i understood most of the things, but even after reading it thrice im not super sure about everything. Maybe some things need to be explained in different order, or maybe examples are needed. Things like AP costs, and attribute actions i think i got, but i have the nagging feeling that it could work completely differently than i understood it.
- Everything needs a bit of polish, some sentences run too long, some explanations gloss over stuff that seems very important. Needs to be proofread by someone with little to no experience with the genre to see what needs more explanation.
- I would need to read a play by play of an example turn or even an entire combat before i would feel qualified to run the quickstart adventure. Something very simple like the hero vs 2 random thugs in an alley, it should be enough that every mechanic could be used once before the fight is over.
- Heat sounds very cool, simple risk-reward systems are my jam, and degrees of success is something i always do in my games, no matter the system, so i like it's baked in. Reflex is iffy because it relies purely on luck, i just see my buddy making a reflex based ronin and just never rolling doubles and being stuck with basic attacks.
- As for the adventure, its fairly non-linear, and i can see the player doing some stuff that will leave them with no further clues or skip half the drama.
I do love non-linear stories, especially whodunnits with multiple plots at once, but it does feel like a bit much for a testrun adventure. If i had to juggle a new ruleset on top of the adventure, i would for sure mess it up. I do like the story and i wouldn't want to simplify it, but i feel like it needs a little rewording to make it flow more intuitively. Maybe the adventure could have some sort of a checklist, a glossary or even a flowchart. Or a cool map of all the areas and what happens in them?
I appreciate the feedback! I'll address a few points:
- With everything going on in the lore of RōNIN it's a slow build. Once we have the funds to commission more art I can show off the setting a lot more. It's one of those that can be shown but not told.
- I noticed you had some concerns about the mechanics and I'll say it is a common concern. In the next few weeks (depending on my assistant's health) I want to put out an explainer video on the mechanics. (In the style of an employee training video BTW) Plus when I launch the crowdfund I'm going to have some information regarding the beta period as the artwork and printing situation is worked on.
- You're the second person mention the heat system positively, I'm glad you like it. As for the reflex system, I knew this was a problem early on that's why I implemented expendable enemies so you have another way of gaining reflex. I'll be thinking up other ways for you to gain reflex as we go.
- As you can probably guess, I like to take the procedural route when it comes to RōNIN. I like the idea of a cliff notes version of the campaign so if you're hosting a campaign you'll have a rough idea of where the story is going to go. I'll heavily consider that because I know a lot of the stories could be hard to follow, especially the map idea.
Really great points, Tourfaint!
I geniunely dont see how this can be an alternative to SR when it lacks the components that make Shadowrun "Shadowrun"
This is fine as a simple Cyberpunk game, but it wont be an alternative to Shadowrun in any fashion.
I'll admit it's not much right now, but I invite you to keep it locked on this page.
It may not be the high-fantasy cyberpunk adventure that Shadowrun is, though I hate to use the old "trust me, bro" excuse; I guarantee you'll be pretty pleased about what I have going forward.
I mean...If you're not planning on using high fantasy its just not SR, period.
While the idea of success increments is fairly intriguing and the heat system is genuinely good, this book largely falls flat. The prose is more than a little weird, which makes it feel stilted to read (Most especially in the opening lore bit, which feels like something from you'd read under an early Deviantart upload). Especially the Hook line at the end of the opening
"Oh... and don’t piss off the wrong people and don’t get yourself killed!"
Actually made me cringe to myself.
Other than prose, there's weird grammatical issues and a limited vocabulary that make it awkward to read and give the impression it never received a second pass. Such as using "but" in the same sentence twice on page 12, made worse because this is a section the GM is supposedly expected to read out to the players. I call this out as an example, but note there's usually one such mistake per page. For example on Page 4 "Each of them has their stat that exists to increase the damage of your attack when using that type." is just a really awkward sentence.
I really recommend, before you take this any further than a proof of concept, you have someone else read through your quickstart rules. Even just reading it to yourself, out loud, will probably help you identify the readability issues that plague it. Overall, this feels like a Microsoft Word document thrown together over night to play at home and not something you expect to show to people as a genuine game.
The adventure that comes with it is rather milquetoast and I doubt it would hook anyone in to long term play.
Outside of the poor readability I think your attributes, skills, and stats need another pass. The system isn't well explained, and if I understand it correctly not all of the sample characters fit the system as described. Such as the Ex-Detective's strength not justifying with his skills.
For a positive, I like the heat system. It reminds me of Momentum in Star Trek Adventures, which is genuinely the best part of that game. However, Reflex feels like the kind of thing that would just frustrate players quickly. I think the Reflex Points would be houseruled before the very first game at my table. So give and take I guess.
I may seem harsh, but you're presenting this as an alternative to Shadowrun of which the primary complaint is often it's poor editing and flow. If you want to compete with them, you need to at least as good as them in that department.
Hey I fixed that issue with some of the premades that you pointed out. The new stats are on the updated quickstart.
Good looking out!
-AA