swords against heaven is a ruleset for esoteric dark fantasy wuxia roleplaying. it does this through a dialectical amalgam of osr world-first ideas and 4e violence mechanics. patrons have first look at this revolutionary 4e-osr-nsr game set in the harrowing and beautiful world of whorl
until all the stars are bleeding.
until all the hells are empty
until violence is attained:
where every peasant is a king.
and every madman is a sage.
let them hold all swords against heaven
for the ultimate emancipation of all sentient beings
across all the sixteen directions
across all the three times.
may the mother of all awakened
bless my words!
from former monk-turned-revolutionary yayan mekisuntad
play as wanderers—wandering swordsmen, merchants, farmers, and so on. commoners all the same. survive the world and cultivate power. or cultivate enlightenment. or cultivate benevolence. or cultivate violence.
the judge must arbitrate with an impartial hand. it must force the players to feel the world in its immersion. the players must change for the world, not the world must change for the players. immersion first, world first gaming.
the ruleset will be familiar to those who have played d&d 4e and disco elysium. its a bit of a mix of both. a 2d6 + attribute + ability + any contextual modifiers. combat is a bit different, its a flat 2d6 vs physical or magick defense. committing violence is touching the real. hard to quantify it. inspired mostly too by final fantasy tactics.
i've gone for a minimalist approach here. a negation of what i've done in all my previous games (its dialectical you see). 4e written by a poet. i hope it will be clear enough, but know that mechanical clarity is not the goal of the game.
i believe in two things for sah's design: negative mechanics and friction. negative mechanics are things that are not written down, but implied. they are the situations where play might get carried to by the actual system. speaking, carousing, debating someone, dealing with factions, adventuring the world, analyzing the feelings of your own character... these are all negative mechanics.
friction is where immersion arises. its the point where the mechanics try to stop you from doing what you want (easily). its where you the player touch the world. its where you remember that you are playing a role.
in another sense, it is 4e written from an OSR perspective. i examined all of d&d 4e's mechanics and thought of ways to diegetize every single one. i think i've succeeded. some examples:
classes are now cultivations. diegetic practices that must be learned to use.
cultivations have "empowerments" when you "embody" them. embodying a cultivation is you prioritizing it in your mind and subtle body.
empowerments come due to initiation into a cultivation. requires a master.
each cultivator has a skillset. for skills to be used they must be embedded inextricably into a cultivator's subtle body. enlightenment dictates how many nodes are open.
this is why, when one uses a branch skill, you cannot use it again until you realign it. its more than just a matter of stamina and energy. its a matter of metaphysics.
powers are known as skills. the special abilities of each cultivation.
at-wills are root skills.
encounters are branch skills, requiring a realignment.
dailies are flower skills, requiring rest (a 24 hour moment).
all skills require masters to learn. you can learn more skills through the world. it doesn't have to be from your cultivation. through this, you can even learn skills from enemy units!)
short rests are called "realignment" where you can "channel spirit" and "recover your branch skills"
healing surges are called spirit. in the world, spirit are the psychic winds (lung/prana/qi) of the world, including sentient beings. spirit is measured either from the strength of your body or the strength of your mind.
"spending healing surges" is called "channeling spirit".
all npcs are built the same way pcs are built. this is one place i diverged from 4e. there is no asymmetry. this is because i also built the combat system to be able to run skirmish wargames separately from the role-playing game).
i'm working on a quick starting scenario for the game, which will be called "where is thy sting?", a four-room temple filled with lore and advancements (you gain "powers" here through playing the game instead of leveling up). the goal is for it to be playable within one session.
the game is not done. in the sense that the majority of its content will be coming from modules, scenarios, temples, dungeons, and other such crawls across the world. the game is minimalist to allow the judge to do things they want or even convert other OSR (and perhaps even 4e!) modules for play with swords against heaven. (i am considering releasing a 4e conversion document)
the playtest document
here is the notion webpage. bookmarked. it is a live document, which means i can easily fix typos and apply "balance patches" during the course of the playtest. and the document will be updated in realtime.
the character keeper
then here is the character keeper. make a copy of it, please.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13Rf4rrAki7_U0y-79BntMolkKcNN2wgVoRSp8zJjv9M/edit?usp=sharing
notes
some tips for playing the game for wanderers: you must flee. there are some things too powerful for you to face. that is the world speaking to you. return in the future. treat everything in the world as if it were real. that is how you roleplay.
yes, this used to be called sundang langit. i changed it for the following reasons
it's easier to translate swords against heaven to other languages.
i wanted to connect immediately with people just with the name. acknowledging that i must use the main tool given to me to conjoin with the world.
i wanted to stop the budding sense that i've started self-orientalizing. i am now writing still with seasians with priority, which means i must use words that they too understand.