MEATY BONES

Be a Mighty Warrior, a Masterful Mage... or a Wee Dragon Folk

WELCOME

... to Meaty Bones, a Table Top Role Playing Game (commonly known as a TTRPG) of high adventure and magic. This is a game where players and a Game Master (commonly called a GM) come together either at a table or a virtual table with a group call and a screen share. It will provide a more flexible roleplaying experience than video game RPGs. Here is how Meaty Bones will do that:

VIDEO RPG

MEATY BONES

A Video RPG has only one story to tell. There can be as many variants and even side quests as the creators could think of, but its still one story. You can play it again and again to try new classes or find more variantions you might have missed the first time through but, the story is still basically the same.

Meaty Bones will always have new content. The core of all TTRPGs are the GMs. They take game systems, run printed modules, or they create their own adventures for their players (commonly called Homebrewing). It is they, more than anyone, who keep all TTRPGs never ending .

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You are the main character in control of your hirelings and companions.
If you go around killing innocents, stealing from allies, and getting thrown in jail, you are the only one who has to deal with the fall out.

Your party is made up more than one main character who are your fellow players. Like you, they want the freedom to explore their character, make thier own choices, and have their own moment in the spotlight. All decisions made affects everyone in the party.

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A Video Rpg has saves that you can reload and try again.
Even if you die, you can just reload and try again with the same character.

There are no saves or do overs in Meaty Bones. Failures happen. You have to be prepared for it. You are not going to win all the time. You will fail some rolls. You will lose some combat encounters. There might not be a correct solution to any given encounter. If your character dies and your party doesn't have access to resurection magic, they are dead! You then have to make a new character.

ESSENCE OF THE GAME

Avast ye! Welcome to Meaty Bones, a table-top role-playing game that will take you into the world of Pangorio and about the wilds of the Basquay Sea. Explore islands, ports, and undersea places with monsters, minions, and ne'er-do-wells.

What You Need

For this game you will need a complete set of dice that includes: Four-Sided (D4), Six-Sided (D6), Eight-Sided (D8), Ten-Sided (D10), Percentile (D%), Twelve-Sided (D12), and Twenty-Sided (D20). You will also need pencil, paper, or their digital equivilants.

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Successes and failures are measured by rolling a D20 to reach or exceed a Difficulty Rating (DR). The number 1 and 20 on the D20 are very important numbers and can sway the results. This is how they do that:

• Rolling a 20 and succeeding at the DR: This means success with a Boon

• Making a successful DR roll without a 1 or a 20: This means success without a Boon or a Bane.

• Rolling a 20 and failing at the DR: This means failure with a Boon.

• Making a successful DR roll with a 1: This means success with a Bane.

• Rollin a 1 and failing at the DR: This means a failure with a Bane.

A number of D4s can be added to the D20 when making a DR roll. There can never be a roll smaller than just the D20, and there can never be a roll of more than one D20 with 5 D4s. How many are added is determined by a rank system of:

RANKS

• 0) Nekkid 20: This is a DR roll involving only the D20.

• 1) Novice: Add 1 D4 to the DR roll

• 2) Adept: Add 2 D4 to the DR roll

• 3) Master: Add 3 D4 to the DR roll

• 4) Epic: Add 4 D4 to the DR roll

• 5) Legendary: Add 5 D4 to the DR roll

HOW TO PLAY

Interacting with the world and the creatures leads to encounters. An encounter means everyone and everything involved takes a turn in turn-based combat.
At the start of the encounter, the party chooses who amongst them will roll initiative for the group. This is a Nekkid 20 roll. Once the GM has noted the order in which all groups involved go, the turns begin.
When it is time for the party to take their turns, the players decide in which order they will go amongst themselves. This order can change every round, thus allowing for a greater variety of teamwork and tactics if they wish to do so.
When a player's turn starts, they have Three Trick Points and One Reaction Point. All the possible actions and movements a player can make, these are called TRICKS, have a cost in Trick Points.

When a Trick is chosen, the player then makes a DR roll for that trick. This roll is based on one of the six Stats: Brawn, Nimble, Heartiness, Reasoning, Focus, and Flair. The player can carry out as many tricks as they have points for. When they have carried out all the tricks they intend to do, their turn is over.
The Reaction Point can be used at anytime, whether it is that player's turn or not. There are certain Tricks that only use Reaction Points. These are called Reactions.
Tricks can be used as a reaction IF the player spends a Trick point to convert a trick into a reaction and then spends the tricks points to pay for the Trick to have it ready. Finally, the player awaits the moment to spend the Reaction Point to use the converted Trick.

THE STATS

Your six STATS are everything. Stats advance in potency based on the RANK chart above. All Stats start at zero.
At level 1, each character starts with a STAT POINT they can put into any one of the 6 stats, giving them the rank of Novice with that Stat.
On attaining each of the following levels 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19 the character gets an additional Stat Point.

No Stat can be raised higher than Legendary. No Stat can be lower than Nekkid 20.

• Banes: some things will lower the rank of a Stat. These penalties CANNOT lower a Stat below a Nekkid 20.

• Boons: some things will raise the rank of a Stat. These bonuses CANNOT raise a Stat higher than Legendary.

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Brawn (BRN)

This Stat presents physical strength, the muscular power.

Nimble (NIM)

This Stat represents agility and quickness of actions, but not speed.

Hearty (HTY)

This Stat represents durabiliy and immune system toughness.

Reasoning (RSN)

This Stat represents cognitive abilities and academics.

Focus (FOC)

This Stat represents mental focus, strength of will, and memory.

Flair (FLA)

This Stat represents charisma, their compelling charm.

IMPORTANT FACTORS

Health Points (HP)

Health Points, commonly called HP, represent the amount of physical and mental strain a character can take before taking Injuries.
When a character's total HP is reduced to 0, the character falls Unconscious. If the damage would drop the HP to below 0, the total still rests at 0 and the character takes an Injury.
Each turn a character remains Unconsious from loss of HP, they take another Injury. When a creature take 8 Injuries, they are dead.
Recovering back to Total HP requires 8 hours of Sleep. If a creature Sleeps for at least 4 hours but less than 8, they will recover 1/2 their Total HP.
The Total HP of a character is determined by their species, called Folks, which give the character their Base HP. The Base HP is how many dice have been used to make the Total HP.

The die ranges used vary from D4 to D12.
At level 1, the character takes the maximum on the die type for the Folk chosen and adds it to their Total HP and a 1 with the die type is noted for the Base HP.

• EX: Tria chose to be a bat folk with a HP DICE: D6. She then writes Total HP: 6 and Base HP: 1D6.

Whenever a character gains a new level, they roll 1 of their Base HP die type and adds it to the Total HP. They then add 1 to the Base HP as well.

• EX: Tria made it to level 2! She rolls 1D6 and gets a 3. Her Total HP is now 9 and her Base HP is now 2D6.

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Size Matters

Hitting a target, whether it be an object or a creature, is as easy or difficult as its size. Hitting a fly is much, much harder than hitting a barn. There are 7 categories of size:

• Mini: these are things whose largest dimension is 6 inches (15 cm) or less. BANE: subtract 3 Ranks when trying to hit. However, this does not apply when the target is a CLOUD of minute things

• Tiny: these are things whose largest dimension is 1 Foot (30 cm). BANE: subtract 2 Ranks when trying to hit.

• Small: these are things whose largest dimension is 3 Feet (91 cm). BANE: subtract 1 Rank when trying to hit.

• Medium: these are things whose largest dimension is 8 Feet (243 cm). No BANE or BOON when trying to hit.

• Large: these are things whose largest dimension is 15 Feet (4.5 m). BOON: add 1 Rank when trying to hit.

• Gigantic: these are things whose largest dimension is 30 Feet (9 m). BOON: add 2 Ranks when trying to hit.

• Massive: these are things whose largest dimension is greater than 30 feet (9 m). BOON: add 3 Ranks when trying to hit.

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Moving

Things move in various ways and at various speeds. This is reflected by a grid on a map during gameplay. Rather than say something moves at X feet or X meters, Meaty Bones uses Squares. These are the squares on a grid. This way there is no math needed to determine how many squares your token or mini can move. Even for those who play Theater-of-the-Mind style, it is very easy to imagine distances in grid squares.

SLOTS

What Are Slots?

Slots are used to mark your injuries, hold your equipment, and keep your spells. Pack animals, carts, wagons, etc can hold extra gear and their capacity is measures in Slots as well. All characters have a total of 20 slots available.

When a character chooses their class, the class determines the arrangement of the slots which are Armament Slots, Injury/Gear Slots, and Magic Slots. When a character attains a level, they can choose to swap Slots between the Armaments and Magic.

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Armament Slots

These slots range in number from 3 to 12 and hold the gear you are carrying on your person that will be used the moment they are needed. This gear can be: Weapons and Ammo, Wands, Spell Book, Armor, and Pouch. A pouch can hold up to 20 spells worth of components or 5 small items like potions, flasks, keys, or trinkets.

Magic Slots

These slots range in number from 0 to 9 and are for holding magics. These magics can be a scroll, a spell, a prayer, a rune, or a magical power.

Injury/Gear Slots

There are always 8 of these Slots and the numbers can never be changed. Any injuries taken by the character are marked in these Slots. When the 8th Slot is filled, the character dies.
Recovering Injuries: If a character Sleeps for 8 hours, they will erase one Injury. It takes two Sleeps of 4 to less than 8 hours to erase an Injury.
More Than For Injuries: When there is no injury in it, the slot can carry gear. When an injury is taken, the character choose which Injury Slot to put it in. If all the Injury Slots are filled with gear, the character choose which item to drop to replace with an injury.
This represents the character being weakened and now unable to carry that item. In the case of an item that takes up more than one Slot, if that item is dropped, all the slots it was in are now emptied and ready for injuries.

These Slots can hold:

• Anything that makes up 8 or less slots. In an injury is taken and the slot chosen is one of several needed to carry the item, the item is dropped and the remaining injury slots are now empty.

• 500/500 Coins of any type or even an assortments of types as long as the total is no more than 500

• 10/10 Encounters worth of Spell Components for one type of caster.

• 5/5 Encounters worth of one type of ammunition for a range weapon. No need to keep count of each piece of ammunition

• 5/5 Stack of Small Items. This is things like Potions of the exact same kind, Rations, Scrolls of the same spell, maps (can be varied), etc.

by EmilyArmstrong

Interactive Table Of Contents