A simple system in a one-shot RPG about gaining superpowers and using them for good or evil. This new three page RPG from LoaLoGa should get you started with no session zero, no character pre-generation and a heap of zany improvisation.
Check out the game page here first, or go straight to the itch.io download (free with optional donation.)
The RPG Fail Upwards was created before our other game, YATH, but I’m releasing it second.
The same basic system powers both games:
- Start with characters who have unknown abilities.
- The first time they try anything, we found out whether the character is bad or good at that thing (50/50 chance).
- From then on, good skills test are easier to pass and bad skill tests are harder to pass.
In YATH, a tabletop skirmish, the skills are limited to what is required to run around and fight off zombies. Relatively mundane skills are explained and limited in effect.
In Fail Upwards, the skills could be anything the player character might do in their normal day – and as the story develops, anything they can do to ward off disaster and supervillains (or cause disaster and carry out a dastardly plan.)
Fail upwards has more depth, provided by Fate Dice, which the game runner can award for good roleplay. Maybe there is space in YATH for fate dice also; where a player gets unlucky and rolls only zombie-fodder-tier skills. Perhaps even the underdog can have their day.
Fail Upwards has such an open space of superpowers that it might not translate to a tabletop battle experience without a more guardrails. There would need to be some limits on power baked into the rules also – on area and scale of effect. There could be a limit on when super skills can be accessed such, points of interest in the play area that correspond to the raw material needed for some powers.
Where next? I like the system and I want to make a tabletop game with more depth than YATH. Perhaps a PvP or partly-competitive game instead of co-operative.