LORE and Belief Released

This world is not as it should be. There is no truth. Reality is what we believe it to be. If you think you can fly, then that flight is real to you. Others may see you plummet and die, but you might live on, soaring above the clouds. Anyone can dream, but it takes someone special to make those dreams real.

Here is the release of my May game: LORE, the Lightweight Omnipotent Roleplaying Engine, and its first sourcebook, Belief. Together, they form my first tabletop roleplaying game system.

LORE is an attempt to address some of the common problems with tabletop RPGs. It has an interesting dice system; a quick, easy, and original character creation system; and a system that’s lightweight, because roleplaying happens beyond the rules.

Belief is a game about changing reality, about subjective viewpoints, and about the search for a better world. It owes heavy debts to other sources, but it is its own being.

Download LORE and Belief.

Both of these books are beta releases. They have been playtested, but not enough for me to say they’re finished. Please, read them, play them, and comment with anything you think I did especially right or that I could change for the better. I’ve provided them in bookmarked PDFs slavishly laid out for optimal printing at your local print shop, and they’re released under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0 License.

These are just the initial releases; I wanted to get them out and in people’s minds so that I could start getting feedback. Expect extras like quick reference sheets and maybe an adventure or three in the coming weeks and months.

18 thoughts on “LORE and Belief Released

    1. Because as a professional game designer, I’d like to be able to negotiate any commercial use of my work. Depending on the circumstances, I might not ask much of anything from a commercial project, but I’d want to know the details before profit was made off of my work.

  1. I’ve read it up through the Traits section. Here are my comments so far:
    1) Can multiple traits modify the same dice role? Whatever the answer to this question, it should probably be explicit. (Page 6)
    2) You can re-roll for a quirk and then re-roll for lucky, but can you re-roll for lucky and then re-roll for a quirk? (Page 10)
    3) You might want to add a note that chaining Valuable Allies is to be discouraged. Assuming you don’t want it to turn into Owns a Big Mecha. (Page 11)
    4) Extra (and not so) composed as a mind trait strikes me as a bit strange. Emotional responses seem to me to be more the domain of the Charm trait. (Page 12)
    5) The last sentence of Dependent reads very awkwardly. (Page 16)
    6) Can someone who is Wanted take the Infamous trait as well? If not, it might do to make a statement similar to reiterate the point made regarding Position of Power and Famous.

    1. 1) They can. This would usually happen in more difficult or complex situations, where the bonuses would be tempered by higher penalties.
      2) Yes.
      3) Touché. Hopefully a GM would catch that, though.
      4) Charm is purely a social statistic. Extra/Not So Composed governs keeping one’s cool in all situations, and is a matter of mental discipline. To represent the ability to resist taunts, intimidation, and the like, a character can take the Strong-Willed trait (maybe even in addition to Extra or Not So Composed). I will add a note to this effect.
      5) It is, a bit.
      6) They can. This would represent someone who has, say, appeared on national television as one of the FBI’s Most Wanted. It’s an inconvenient situation to be in.

      Thanks for the comments. I’ll be working them into my next version.

  2. I have not finished reading this yet,
    but I noticed one small inconsistency:
    the rulebook states that Heroic character have 10 skills on page 4,
    the character sheet says the Heroic template gets 15 skills, which is consistent with page 7’s description of Heroic characters.

  3. Another ambiguity, the table on page 35 states that a critical hit on an attack roll adds 1 damage to the attack, while the text on page 37 indicates that it deals double damage

    I really like what I’ve seen so far, and can’t wait to test this system out.
    The slot build system and the initiative system are both very interesting ideas, and I look forward to seeing how they work in actual gameplay.

    1. The text on page 35 is correct. Double damage is too severe with the low number of hit points in the system.

      Thanks for the bug reports and the feedback!

  4. I’ve been waiting for you to release this to the public for some time now. Can’t wait to play it!

  5. Now that I’ve read the rules, a question: A player with a higher initiative can interrupt the turn of a lower initiative player, but can their interruption be interrupted? Like if (in the cop example) Joe’s partner Rob is sick of Joe always hiding from danger and interrupts his duck to push Joe out into the open. In this case the criminal’s shots still miss, but depending on the situation maybe it could cancel the first interrupt.

    And even if it’s not an interrupt of an interrupt, can two people interrupt the same action? Like, while Joe is ducking, Lt. Woof Woof, a highly trained and previously unseen police dog, bites the criminal’s arm and makes him shoot harmlessly off into the distance? would the higher initiative interrupt be the only one to take effect, or just who said it first?

    Also, I gather that a interrupt isn’t just taking a full turn in reaction to someone else’s action, but I’m wondering what the stipulations of interrupt actions are. Like, would I be able to interrupt someone’s shooting me by just shooting them first?

    1. I’ll need to make this more clear. When one player interrupts another, the interrupting character takes their normal, full action (including a possible move). An interrupt can then be interrupted by a character with a higher initiative.

      If two people interrupt the same action, the highest-initiative interrupter decides if he wants to act before or after the other interrupter. He can interrupt the interruption, or wait until the first interruption has finished, and interrupt again himself before the original character acts.

      Obviously, I’ll need to come up with a better way of explaining this. It’ll be in the next version of the book.

  6. Wow, I have spent all day making a character, reading the whole book, and just thinking about it all.

    I ran into some problems with the combat system, nothing bad, but I didn’t “get” it all, I didn’t understand it. I’m not too worried though, I have decided to try to make my own combat system, hopefully much simpler. I will post my Original system on my website(whaleswiththumbs.webs.com) and give a thanks to you, for insperation, cause I’ve always wanted to play a tabletop, but I will be creating it originally, with JUST inspiration(incase you were thinking otherwise). thanks for the good day, you and E3 helped me enjoy it.

    1. Hey! Great to know that it was inspiring! I’d appreciate any tips on what about the combat system gave you the most problems, so that I can smooth out those wrinkles.

      I’ll point out that LORE is released under a Creative Commons license, so there’s no problem with releasing a modified version as long as it’s under a compatible license. Of course, if you’d prefer to start from scratch, that’s cool too. Good luck!

  7. Nice .
    Our country is marginal land.(south korea. no nuke)

    WORLD OF DARKNESS uses difficult English, and D&D are so much contents.

    If there is enough effort, beginners need engine that can use.
    It does not mean effort of translation.
    It means effort of comprehension.
    Is thankful to you about this light and strong engine.

    I am sorry because my English is not mastered.

  8. Wow, awesome, I just started reading the LORE system. I’ve been trying to build my own, as like you I found the d20 and d10dicepool systems not quite up to snuff for me. Along with too much character creation issues. So I gotta say, THANK YOU! :)

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