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ORGANIC is a micro tabletop roleplaying game designed to be great for getting started with minimal setup, and letting the world and the characters grow during play. Roll for a random setting, select some random traits for your characters, write up a few aspects, and you're ready to go. Everything you need to play fits on one sheet of paper, and makes a nice little booklet when folded in half.

Created for One-Page RPG Jam 2020. The game is creative common licensed, so feel free to make your own mods, modules, adventures, etc. Artwork by the talented Emma Marie Andersson.

Want to discuss the game? Try Reddit /r/onepagerpgs/

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Click download now to get access to the following files:

Organic One-Page RPG v0.8.pdf 728 kB
Organic One-Page RPG v0.9.pdf 5.1 MB

Development log

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(+2)

I had a chance to run this over the weekend. This has a lot of what I like in a one-page but there are a few things that I don't love and maybe need clarification on.
1. Since all aspects start at 2, characters don't feel like the specialize in anything. I get the inspiration from Roll for Shoes, but over the course of our 3 hour one-shot, no one leveled up. I would probably let players distribute points how they like.

2. Risk dice and offered danger just seem like a bad investment if you're trying to succeed, but I haven't checked the math on these.

3. New aspects start at 1, but the risk dice section says they start at 0.

4. I am not sure what "The goal and the danger are the same, but separate" means for the purpose of play. If you apply a success to the goal of avoiding the danger, it is weird to say that you still need another success to "avoid the danger." I was running this as "yes, but something else unfortunate happens."

5. Love the Babble Lore move! Would like to see a supplement with more standard moves.

6. Regarding Gear vs Items, I imagine that whenever the players need to pull out some gear, it turns into an item. One of my players obtained a sword via plot reasons and made the case that he should get another D8, which felt right, but I reckon that's not the intent of items as designed. How would you represent the increased combat effectiveness of a sword vs being unarmed?

(1 edit)

Thank you for the excellent, detailed feedback!

Some answers...

  1. I might have to tweak the odds of leveling up aspects. My hope was that a rating of 2 was significant enough to feel somewhat skilled, and that since each player has unique skills they'd feel special. Would moving some of the ratings to 3 help? Did players spend XP for the +1 (which should help activate "growth")?
  2. Risk dice are a draw with respect to the odds of success. They just make the roll more "swingy" -- more chance of a rare success or a big failure, but otherwise same odds of success. (Edit: I was wrong about how this works in v0.8, but I made this true with v0.9!) The Danger Offering is definitely not great odds, but is meant as a something to try when you're in dire straits, similar to Blades in the Dark's Devil's Bargain. I suppose both of these could be removed to keep the game more focused. (Edit: Removed Danger Offering in v0.9)
  3. The wording is confusing. New Aspects that you gain will start at 1, but any unknown/un-owned Aspects are treated as a rating of zero (can only be rolled with d6 risk dice).
  4. I need a better way to describe this, but the idea is that defying danger has the same odds as other rolls, and to defy is completely really requires 2 successes. I might change all the language to: 2 success dice = full success, and 1 success dice = partial success.
  5. A supplement would be great. 😃
  6. For items that add effectiveness, I was thinking it would be handled purely narratively by giving out worse conditions ("mangled limb", "deep wound", etc.). If you hit someone with a sword they're more likely to be taken out of combat than if you just hit or pushed them, for instance. Adding an extra die to the roll has the disadvantage of making growth less likely.

I looked over the odds for ratings:

  • Zero = 16.7% chance of 1 success
  • 1 = 37% chance of 1 success
  • 2 = 61% chance of at least 1 success (a "partial"), 14% chance of 2 successes (a "full")
  • 3 = 76% of at least 1, 32% chance of 2
  • 4 = 85%, 48%
  • 5 = 90%, 61%
  • Etc.

If you want characters to feel a bit more like experts at the start, then it would be good to allow them to take one or two aspects at 3, 4, or 5.