[Paper and Pen RPG] Dice and Paper Quest! (working title)

Welcome to the world of Paper and Dice Quest!

It's an ever changing world, filled with shifting continents, powerful elements, epic quests, hordes of monsters, and heroes in the making!

You are a party of four heroes setting off on a grand adventure! Who know what encounters you'll face or what treasures you'll find. Be certain of one thing: you will need each other to survive!

Game Summary

Create a party of adventurers to explore a vast world that you create as you go.  You’ll dive into dungeons, climbs tall towers, test your experience against terrifying monsters, cast spells, go on quests, and maybe even save the planet.

Dice and Paper Quest looks different every time you play.  Maybe you’ll head out to make peace between warring continents.  Maybe you’ll search to recover lost artifacts that could restore balance to the world.  Maybe you’ll face evil head on.  In every encounter, you’ll need strategy (and a good dose of luck!) to make it through.

What Makes Dice and Paper Different

You control a party of heroes who explore the world around them, but unlike other games, you control your party as a whole, instead of individual units. The heroes that make up your party change how each one feels, but it’s all for one and one for all in this exploration adventure!


New to the print and play concept?

Spoiler for:

The idea is just to print off all required materials (in this case rules and character stats) and have a complete game. Think Dungeons and Dragons off of steroids. For examples Google:

Delve: the dice game
3 dice dungeon
Dungeon Plungin'
Tower hacked
Pocket Dungeon

Enjoy hours of pen and paper fun!

Game Mechanics

Dice Explanation

Spoiler for:

You'll need a lot of 6 sided dice for this game (from here on referred to as d6's)

Successful roll:
A roll that is a success is a dice roll of 4, 5, or 6

Failed roll:
A roll that fails is a roll of 1, 2, or 3.

Any time you are asked to roll a dice you will either be asked to roll a d6 or a d3.

A d6 is rolling a normal dice and taking the value shown.

A d3 is rolling a normal dice and applying it as follows:
1-2 = 1
3-4 = 2
5-6 = 3

Stat Explanation

Spoiler for:

HP - Health.  Points. 
ATK - The stat for how much butt you kick.
DEF - The stat for how resilient you are to damage.
MANA - The stat for how proficient you are at using spells.
WIS - The stat for how much street smarts you have.  (I wanted it to be CUNNING, but abbreviating it just seemed wrong.)

Every stat listed (except for HP) is the amount of dice you get for that particular stat:

3 ATK means you get 3 dice for attacking.
2 DEF means 2 for defense
1 MANA means 1 for mana
1 WISDOM means 1 for wisdom

HP is just how many hits you can take until you run home to your mama (or dad, step-parent, whatever).

All Together - Party Mechanics

Spoiler for:

In Dice and Paper Quest, all actions (save for performing individual spells and skills) happen as a unit.

For example, when attacking your party does not line up and take turns.  Oh no, they get in the middle of everything.  So instead of rolling separate dice for your fighter, then your spell caster, and then your archer, you roll one big pool of dice for your entire party.  The same applies for defending.  Assume your heavy armored knight won't just let your unprotected mage get owned.  He'll be gallant and jump in there to defend.  For this reason, your HP also applies to your party's health, not just individuals.  Do you only have 1 HP left?  Don't fear! All four party members remain alive until the last HP is gone.  But, you know, then they all die.  Rough life.

The same goes for monsters.  They attack in groups.  They defend in groups.  Unlike heroes however, monsters use skills as a collective.  That'll be explained later.

Creating Your Party

Choosing Jobs

Spoiler for:

Your starting party stats are as follows:

HP - 5
ATK - 3
DEF - 2
MANA - 0
WIS - 2

Imagine this to be the stats for four buddies deciding they're going to go out adventuring.  And then, those buddies get JOBS! (Not paying ones obviously.)

Each job adds to your party's stat pool.  For example:

A Barbarian has the following stats:
HP - 4
ATK - 3
DEF - 1
MANA - 0
WIS - 0

So Barbarian's aren't very intelligent, but they bring the fists.

Choosing a Barbarian to be in your party would increase your stats as below:

HP - 9
ATK - 6
DEF - 4
MANA - 0
WIS - 0

Got it?  Good.

So, choose four jobs for your adventuring party.  You can even give them names! (Ignore the level business for now)



So then, a balanced party of a Knight, Thief, Wizard, and Cleric would have the following party stats:

HP     -   13
ATK    -    7
DEF    -    4
MANA -    6
WIS   -    5

Great, now you have your party!

Battles: Attacking and Defending

Spoiler for:

Battles go in this order:

1. Hero Skills/Spells
2. Hero Attack
3. Enemy Defend
4. Enemy Attack
5. Enemy Skills (and effects)
6. Hero defend

Repeat

Let's try it without skills and spells for now.

While exploring the dark dungeon of scariness, our party encounters some pretty fierce Gretchins. They have the following stats:

HP - 5
ATK - 3
DEF - 1
MANA - 0
WIS - 1

They aren't too tough, so let's get going!

Our example party has a ATK value of 7, so you would roll 7 d6's.

I got 1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, and 5.

That means four of our attacks did some damage, while three of them did not.  I blame the Cleric.

The Gretchins don't just sit there and take it. Oh no. They're sneaky.  They have a chance to defend.  They're defense stat is a dismal one. So the good news for us is that three of our hits are definitely doing damage!  Roll one d6 and...

I got a 1. 

So all four attacks hit the Gretchins and their HP is now reduced to 1.

Now they fight back with they ATK dice.

1, 3, and 6. 

Guess they're having a bad day.  Only one attack makes contact. Our party has a defense stat of four, so we have a good chance to repel the attack.

1, 1, 3 and 6.  Excellent! Shields and armor and dodginess win again.  Well, almost. One hit made it. We'll be alright. So now our HP is reduced to 12. Bummer.

Rinse and repeat until the Gretchins run home crying! At the beginning of each round, all dice for heroes and enemies are restored to their original values (unless a spell or skill prevents this).

Battle: Skills

Spoiler for:

But that'd be boring if there weren't any bells and whistles!

Each hero chooses one skill to start out with (Wizards and Clerics get one skill, plus one spell, but we'll get there in a moment). For example, if for your knight your chose "Defend," you'll notice it takes one successful DEF dice roll to receive an additional 2 DEF dice.

Every attempt at a skill, reduces the amount of dice from the pool for that round.  If you succeed, you obviously reap the benefits. If you fail, well, you're head will look great on that goblin's wall!

So let's say you wish to chose the Knight's Defend skill at the beginning and wish to use it before these nasty Gretchins attack again. Before making any attack rolls, roll a DEF dice.

I got a 5. This means that when it comes time for us to defend against the little devil's attacks, instead of rolling 4 DEF dice, we'll roll 6 DEF dice ( 4, the original DEF value - 1, the dice used to attempt to perform the skill, + 2, the result of the skill

Battle: Spells

Spoiler for:

So you've brought a spell caster along.  Wonderful! Let's cast some spells.

Clerics and wizards are helpful supporters to a party. First, let's choose the elements these guys will study. Note: Each spell caster can only be assigned one element for the entirety of the game, though more than element may be represented in your party. Think of it like having an area of focus.

For example:

For our Cleric, we want to be able to heal our party.  For our wizard, we want to add as much pain to the enemies as possible. So let's choose the Earth element for the Cleric and the Fire element for the Wizard.

(see attachment for list of spells)

You'll notice that every spell has a power value stated, and that some have two power values.  These are the amount of successful MANA dice rolls you will need to perform a spell.  Clerics can only choose between the Earth and Light elements, whereas a Wizard may choose any element. Because Clerics only have two options, they find that they are more proficient in them, and have a lower power value than a wizard, who probably more enjoys blowing things up.

Now, from your chosen element, choose ONE spell to start with. I'll choose Embrace and Fireball for our Cleric and Wizard respectively.  Why only one?  Because gaining extra spells later will be a challenge in the game! Duh! Also, every spell caster may attempt to cast as many spells as the number of spells they know. If, for example, our Cleric knew all four Light spells, he could attempt any of them four times, even if that meant casting one spell four times in one round!

Note: Though I see no reason to make a hard rule here, you will probably find it easier to perform all your skills first, and then perform your spells.

So back to our previous battle:

The Gretchins are weak and scared.  We came out ok.  We already know we get to throw out some extra DEF dice, so let's risk some magic!

Our Cleric (we'll call him Derrick) will attempt to cast Embrace to heal up our party a bit. Now here's the benefit of having a party MANA pool. Even though the Cleric's base MANA stat is 2, he can use as many MANA dice as he pleases to cast his desired spell. Careful though: if you ever make a MANA roll where all dice come up as 3 or lower, your party  suffers a -3 HP hit, with no chance to defend against it. Imagine that so,etching goes horribly wrong with the spell and it backfires. With really neat explosions and such.

So we'll roll 3 dice for Derrick as he attempts to heal our party:

4, 4, and 4! Excellent!

Scratch off that lost HP and someone get Derrick a Snickers!

Now it's our Wizard's turn. For political correctness, we'll make her a girl. And nothing rhymes with wizard so we'll name her Kathy.

We'll also roll 3 MANA dice for this attempt at casting Fireball, simply because it's our last spell this round and that's all that remains in our MANA dice pool!

3, 4, and 6! Man Kathy is one Fire (the jokes get worse from here on out).

So without even needing our extra DEF dice, what remains of the Gretchins lies in a smoldering pile of ash.

Awesome.

Battles: Monster Skills

Spoiler for:

You may notice that some monsters have a skill attached to their profile. If our sneaky little friends had lived past round one, they have had a chance to use their Bicker skill. It might be better that they didn't though...

Monster skills fall into one of two categories: reactive and proactive.

Reactive skills happen when the monster attack or defend and roll enough successes (or in some cases, failures) to trigger a skill.

The Gretchins Bicker skill kicks in if in a round of combat, they roll 3 successful ARK dice. Unfortunately for them, their skill is really just a sneak peak into the in-fighting that goes on amongst Gretchins when they get too cocky... They actually lose a health point!

The trolls' Regrow skill is more worrisome. If, while rolling their DEF dice, they get 3 successful dice then they actually regain 3 HP! Yikes! Troll skin grows back at an alarming rate and, if not chopped into tiny pieces, will grow back just as if no damage was done!

A proactive skill would be a skill that does not happen while rolling ATK or DEF dice.

After the monster attacks, check to see what their skill or skills are. This might be a skill that uses the monsters Wisdom stat, and thus represents them using their wits to outsmart our heroes or a skill that requires MANA dice to be rolled, thus representing a monster learned in some type of magic.

Note: Monsters aren't all that strategic and will always use their proactive skills every round (unless somehow hindered by a hero's skill or spell (and the game wouldn't be much fun if they didn't get to use their individual talents. Monster Rights Now!).  If for some reason a monster has more than one skill (most likely a boss character) then clear instructions will be given on how the monster will choose which skill to use (rolling a d6, a certain amount of monster or hero HP,  etc).

After Monster skills are completed, the heroes are allowed to use any items they have.

Battles: Using Items

Spoiler for:

If the party had any items (we don't), and had a need to use them (we don't again), then now would be the time to bust them out (but we won't).

Items may used at the end of the enemy's turn and in whatever quantity the party has.  After items are used, the round is complete.

So that's how battles are won! Now try out some different combinations of parties or different monster groups. 

Warning: the level two monsters and bosses may be a bit beyond the abilities of our level one heroes...

...if only there were a way to explore a world, gain XP, find treasure, go on quests, and have an epic adventure, so they could level up. Hmmm

Using the rules above, create a party and try exploring a dungeon!

Use the PDF below.

Bumpity bump, try out the dungeon 

Sooooo, here's a long shot.

Does anyone have the file from this game?

I went looking for it today and can't find the thing.

Very sad face.

The one attached here seems corrupt.

Sorry I don't have a copy of the file... somehow I missed this thread. o.o I couldn't get it to work, either.

I like what you've created here, though! We've been making board/paper/dice/card games in one of my game design classes and I have to say the experience really helps when creating digital games, too.