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Era: Lyres - Pocket Rulebook
In Era: Lyres, you are Bards, Rogues and Warriors in the medieval city of Yarnolth. You need to make a living, just like everyone else... but you aren’t dumb enough to go fighting Skeletons and Zombies in crypts, or to tangle with Vampires.
Instead, you stay in the cities (the bars, mostly!), entertaining people with stories of your adventures (which are almost certainly completely untrue!). In return, if you provide them an engaging and entertaining evening, they will reward you with gold and glory – all of the perks of adventuring with none of the risk!
A lot of money and fame can be made by the right group working together in the Yarnolth!
The Pocket Edition of Era. Lyres contains the basic scenario for play, a list of taverns, Quick Start Character Creation, Rules, Equipment and a GM Guide (which includes audience generation).
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This adaptation of our Era d10 ruleset is designed to allow you to tell and scrutinise stories in a way that is as unobtrusive as possible without being misrepresentative - the perfect balance of detail and playability.
Persuasion isn't all that counts here! Being able to talk about a fist fight requires Brawl, describing how you used an anvil and forge to craft a sword from a legendary material requires skill in Blacksmithing, and so on!
Does this sound a little odd? Here's the reasoning behind it: When you're telling a story about your great physical prowess and you're a thin and bony woman with no visible muscle, people might question you. At that moment, you might pick up a chair with a person sitting on it to prove your strength. These rolls, when called for, signify this sort of demonstration without breaking the narrative of the story.
By choosing your skills carefully, your character can describe anything they might want to in a realistic way. Working as a group, the players can tell any story they want and be rewarded for it - they just have to convince the audience (played by the GM)!
The rules could be generally described as "A Success-counting dice pool system where you roll Attribute + Skill in d10s and the difficulty of the task determines which numbers count as Successes. Most rolls are opposed, with whoever gains a greater number of Successes being deemed the winner."
The system is based around multiple dice - the more skilled you are, the more dice you have - and a variable goal based on activity difficulty.
Using an Attribute and Skill system which each define their own areas of influence, you roll your dice depending on what you're attempting - whether Dexterity + Blacksmithing for creating a piece of jewelery, Intelligence + Blacksmithing for assessing the strength of a blade or Luck + Blacksmithing for a complete long shot, you'll be able to adapt to your circumstances and focus on your strengths.
This game uses opposed rolls to assess the likelihood of players' claims. The member of the audience most qualified to dispute your claims rolls their dice against your Attribute + Skill dice and whoever gets more Successes (attaining the required number) wins.
If you win, you have convinced them and can continue your story without difficulty. If they win, anything could happen - from them walking out shouting that they don't believe you to a full-on bar fight!
Instead, you stay in the cities (the bars, mostly!), entertaining people with stories of your adventures (which are almost certainly completely untrue!). In return, if you provide them an engaging and entertaining evening, they will reward you with gold and glory – all of the perks of adventuring with none of the risk!
A lot of money and fame can be made by the right group working together in the Yarnolth!
The Pocket Edition of Era. Lyres contains the basic scenario for play, a list of taverns, Quick Start Character Creation, Rules, Equipment and a GM Guide (which includes audience generation).
------------------------------------
This adaptation of our Era d10 ruleset is designed to allow you to tell and scrutinise stories in a way that is as unobtrusive as possible without being misrepresentative - the perfect balance of detail and playability.
Persuasion isn't all that counts here! Being able to talk about a fist fight requires Brawl, describing how you used an anvil and forge to craft a sword from a legendary material requires skill in Blacksmithing, and so on!
Does this sound a little odd? Here's the reasoning behind it: When you're telling a story about your great physical prowess and you're a thin and bony woman with no visible muscle, people might question you. At that moment, you might pick up a chair with a person sitting on it to prove your strength. These rolls, when called for, signify this sort of demonstration without breaking the narrative of the story.
By choosing your skills carefully, your character can describe anything they might want to in a realistic way. Working as a group, the players can tell any story they want and be rewarded for it - they just have to convince the audience (played by the GM)!
The rules could be generally described as "A Success-counting dice pool system where you roll Attribute + Skill in d10s and the difficulty of the task determines which numbers count as Successes. Most rolls are opposed, with whoever gains a greater number of Successes being deemed the winner."
The system is based around multiple dice - the more skilled you are, the more dice you have - and a variable goal based on activity difficulty.
Using an Attribute and Skill system which each define their own areas of influence, you roll your dice depending on what you're attempting - whether Dexterity + Blacksmithing for creating a piece of jewelery, Intelligence + Blacksmithing for assessing the strength of a blade or Luck + Blacksmithing for a complete long shot, you'll be able to adapt to your circumstances and focus on your strengths.
This game uses opposed rolls to assess the likelihood of players' claims. The member of the audience most qualified to dispute your claims rolls their dice against your Attribute + Skill dice and whoever gets more Successes (attaining the required number) wins.
If you win, you have convinced them and can continue your story without difficulty. If they win, anything could happen - from them walking out shouting that they don't believe you to a full-on bar fight!
26 pages, Paperback
Published April 15, 2016
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 22, 2016
With only 26 pages to this RPG rulebook, there's a lot of things to love; the small format (almost...oh so very close to being able to fit into a pocket), but also quite a few flaws.
After reading the rulebook, I sit around with a feeling of "I'm not quite sure how this game is supposed to plau". It seems more like a primer for the full version.
A bit disappointed, this might end up going to the "give-away" pile.
After reading the rulebook, I sit around with a feeling of "I'm not quite sure how this game is supposed to plau". It seems more like a primer for the full version.
A bit disappointed, this might end up going to the "give-away" pile.
Displaying 1 of 1 review