Tabletop roleplaying game rulebook zines with pulp storytelling, tactical combat, and classic fantasy art in English and Japanese.
Master of the Rogue Spire is a new RPG system with simple rules, lots of customization, and an old-school feel. Instead of trying to recreate the rules of the first tabletop role-playing games, we took all the polyhedral dice that we love and crafted a new system that captures the free-wheeling adventure of playing classic fantasy RPGs in the '80s. What we add to the mix is a tactical core mechanic where players must weigh the risk of every action.
We've played a lot of different RPGs at our table - from rules-light systems like FATE and Dungeon World to rules-heavy systems like Pathfinder and GURPS. We love an approachable game, but it won't hold our interest if there's no meaningful character progression. On the flip side, an over-complicated system gets in the way of having fun at the table.
Master of the Rogue Spire is based on a simple mechanic that drives the players to make impactful choices. It is easy to pick up but has enough variety to keep the game evolving during a long campaign. You won't find 3 pages of grapple rules or complex calculations for fall damage, but every piece of equipment, monster, and talent has its own unique composition. The goal is to make a character in 15 minutes and then be able to role-play and advance that same character for dozens of sessions.
The philosophy of Master of the Rogue Spire is simple:
Generate interesting choices with the core mechanic
Keep rules quick to learn and easily extendable
No classes! Let players mix and match traits and talents
Help Spire Masters generate their world
Roll the dice we all love
In Master of the Rogue Spire, your character is made up of three major pieces: traits, talents, and dice. Traits define what a character can do well. It can be training in their background, their culture, or innate ability. Talents are attached to traits - they are special tricks that characters learn as they level; they are what makes each character unique. Dice are the most important part of your character sheet. You use dice to overcome obstacles in and out of combat, but they are also your defense against other character’s mental or physical attacks.
Each die can only be rolled once during a round before being exhausted. Exhausted dice can be bypassed or easily injured by enemy attacks. Dice are also your character's lifeblood; once all dice are injured, the character is on death's door. The strategy behind using or saving dice forms the core of Master of the Rogue Spire, and it will change the way you think about tabletop RPG combat.
Instead of mindlessly attacking every round, players need to decide:
Do you spend all of your dice on offense, but leave your defenses down?
Do you save your best dice for defense, but have a less effective offense?
Do you stay in danger even though you are exhausted?
Do you take a rest to regain your energy?
Do you attack an enemy that has your friend cornered to weaken its defenses?
This is the crux of the core mechanic: there are no rote decisions. Taking down enemies requires coordination, survival requires teamwork, and going "all in" requires leaving yourself open. Other systems - like wealth, carrying capacity, personality, and experience - are streamlined for ease of play while still presenting interesting choices for the player.
All backers at any price point will have access during the campaign to our Quickstart Guide, 5 pre-made characters, and an exclusive one-off adventure so you can test it out for yourself. You can play in person or use our custom Tabletop Simulator assets to get started. We will also put together a package of monster and hero assets for use in your digital games or social media.
The complete rules will be printed in three digest-sized, black and white illustrated zines - easy to carry with you and pass around the table. Each zine will be a hefty 64 pages long, full of custom rules and awesome old-school art. They will be printed on matte paper by Mixam printing and shipped to backers with help from Backerkit. The custom cards and status tokens will be printed through The Game Crafter and shipped together with other physical rewards. You will be able to choose between Japanese and English versions of the game in our Backerkit survey before fulfillment.
What you get
Volume 1: Rules for Players: Volume 1 contains all the rules needed to play the game. If your Spire Master is willing to put in the extra time creating a world, this is the only book a player needs to play.
Volume 2: Rules for the Master: Volume 2 contains more information to help Spire Masters create and populate their worlds. It will provide more information on each mechanic, touch on the base rules, and provide answers to common questions that may arise during play.
Volume 3: Monster Cyclopedia: Volume 3 is a big book of monsters to fight (or parley with) in your adventures. It contains stats, ideas about how to use them in your game, and classic fantasy artwork for each entry.
Mock-up of the 3 volume set - design may vary in the final product.
Dice Status Tokens: Double-sided, laser-cut cardboard chits for keeping track of your character's dice statuses: Rested, Exhausted, Strained, and Wounded.
Mock-up of the status tokens on a character sheet - design may vary in final product.
Spire Master's Deck: A custom deck of cards that can be used by the Spire Master to randomize traits, encounters, and plot developments.
Mock-up of Spire Master's deck - design may vary in the final product.
Mike DeCarlo is a veteran comic and animation artist. Starting in the ’80s inking for Teen Titans and Batman, he has since worked on titles for Marvel, DC, Disney, the Simpsons, and Archie. We wanted someone with that real 80's fantasy vibe, so we went back to the source! He drew all of the portraits for our different background traits back when we first started working on this project in 2016.
Original Art by Mike DeCarlo: We still have a few of Mike's original character portraits in storage. Be a super backer and one could be yours. Each is unique, so pledge early - they will be awarded in the order pledged.
Original pencil & inks characters by Mike DeCarlo
Kickstarter campaign ends: Wed, March 13 2019 5:35 PM UTC +00:00
Website: Samuraifight
