A simplified ruleset to help make playing D&D more accessible, in order to encourage new narratives.

Motivation

D&D provides a great framework for imaginative thinking. But its complex rules are intimidating for prospective players and even more so for prospective DMs. Even the Basic Rules have fifteen chapters and four appendices. The unofficial Simple DND is shorter, but still fairly complicated. This is a barrier for people with interesting narrative ideas from expressing those in a game. Complex rules also dramatically slow the pace of gameplay for inexperienced players, implying a greater time commitment.

The goal here is to produce something at the complexity level of a moderate board game. It is focused on one-shot adventures rather than levelling up over time; it is also mainly focused on early characters, but could be extended for higher-level characters. There is an emphasis on encouraging role-playing through allowing DM and players discretion within a general framework, rather than strict enumeration of abilities, items and situations. In particular, the DM should aim to dynamically balance situations by varying difficulties, damage amounts, monster behaviour etc in order to keep the narrative flowing, rather than trying to achieve a perfect mathematical balance beforehand and then killing the characters in practice. Things shouldn’t always be easy, of course.

Player Characters

Players’ ability to create and role-player a character that is fun for them should be paramount.

Abilities

• Characters have four abilities: Strength (STR), Intelligence (INT), Dexterity (DEX), and Charisma (CHA).
• These are expressed purely as a modifier, rather than an underlying value which maps to a modifier. So STR 1 means +1 to all strength checks.
• Borrowing from Simple DND, each ability must be between +3 and -3, with an overall total no higher than +5. (This is before modifications from race, class, or magic items.) So a character may have STR +3, DEX +2, INT +1, CHA -1.

Races

• Race adds +1 to one score and a further +1 to skill checks in a certain area.
• Races are:
  • Human: +1 CHA, Advantage on conversation-related skill checks
  • Dwarf: +1 STR, Advantage on resilience-related skill checks
  • Elf: +1 INT, Advantage on perception-related skill checks
  • Halfling: +1 DEX, Advantage on stealth-related skill checks
• You can modify the races for non-fantasy settings if relevant - e.g. inventing new races or replacing them with something more like ‘backgrounds’ (Human → Noble, Halfling → Urchin, etc).

Classes

• Class adds +1 to one score. Class also provides a dice that is used for hit dice and for weapon damage (see below on equipment).
• Use of class features (magic, feats of strength, etc) is inherent in ability scores: a fighter can try using magic but given likely low INT, will probably fail.
• Classes are:
  • Fighter: +1 STR, d10
  • Wizard: +1 INT, d6
  • Rogue: +1 DEX, d8; may use DEX for melee attacks
  • Adventurer: +1 CHA, d8
• Variant classes are just absorbed into the main classes and role-played differently:
  • Fighter: Paladin, Barbarian, etc
  • Wizard: Cleric, Monk, etc
  • Rogue: Ranger, etc
  • Adventurer: Bard, etc
• Hit points: Initial HP is 2*class dice (i.e. 12 for a wizard or 20 for a fighter) + STR.