stones

stones is a tabletop roleplaying game about hunters in prehistoric times. It uses only four-sided dice (named "stones") for its resolution mechanics.

browse

• The latest (v2-BETA1) of the RPG stones can be found here,
• The 200-word RPG version is still visible if you want to play it.

(pre)history

stones started as a 200-word RPG, written for the 2017 challenge, organised by David Schirduan and Marshall Miller.

Since I was quite satisfied by the version submitted for the contest, I felt I had to try to expand it a bit. This impression was confirmed by the review made by this Australian blogger named Ivan. I quote:

Caveman roleplay with d4s. Though not an exciting system, it’s functional and does its job well. The highlight is the document’s voice, which is utterly primitive whilst still being perfectly capable of explaining everything clearly.
Concept: Good
System: Good
Execution: Excellent
Verdict: Great

This "Great" verdict convinced me to expand stones and see how I could make it more consistent and maybe a better, more complete game.

changes

Between v1 and v2, here are the major changes to the original game:

• Better styles (titles instead of bold text, various emphasis...),
• stonemaster role has been described,
• The group of players is now the tribe and has to tell its name,
• Character (hunter) generation is expanded. added the young subclass. the player may now pick one talent,
• talents are (hopefully) explained in a better way,
• New section: things (equipment),
• Action resolution: taking into account the fact that the character may only have one blood left,
• dangers are boosted (I did the maths, they were too easily defeated),
• boons section to explain how to help others,
• heal section expanded,
• Experience and "levelling up" mechanism added in the grow section,
• New rules: trade and make (craft),
• A whole new section, for stonemasters with advices, tools and story leads:
  • The danger section is moved there,
  • A shaman section to explain how to use shaman powers,
  • Weather generation (sky),
  • Land and dangers section,
  • other tribes section with sort of "reaction roll".

license

As every entry in the 200-word RPG challenge, stones is published under the terms of the CC-BY License, which means that you can use it for whatever you want, republish it, verbatim or modified without having to ask for my permission, as long as you give appropriate credits.

stones is the work of Bruno Bord - 2017-2019.