RC 12

Introduction
I made this game because I am approaching 40 and have way too many respon-
sibilities to devote regular long evenings to role playing games. While I love the
5th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons, it takes too much prep time to actually
play when you have a kid, a wife, a house, a dog, and two cats. You can’t exactly
play a pick-up game of D&D. I also want to lean into the narrative play style of
World of Dungeons, Dungeon World, and Freebooters on the Frontier, while
still having some of the trappings and crunch from 5e.

And of course, I need to roll a d20. Clacky-clacky math cubes and all.

In short, I stole every idea I loved from every fantasy RPG I have played in the
last 15 years and smashed them together with reckless abandon. Nothing in
this is original. It’s hopefully all held together by enough grease, duct tape, and
hazardous wiring to make it run. This hack will not cover everything and it
should be edited, changed, chopped, or thrown into the sea. Make it your own.

Fighters Felons and Fantasy requires and assumes some knowledge of Dun-
geon World (especially Moves, and the Gamemaster’s Agenda and Principles)
and Dungeons and Dragons. Without it, you may not fully understand how this
fits together.

Who are you?

In Fighters, Felons, and Fantasy, you are a hero. Your character has kicked off
(or been kicked out of) the shackles of normal peasant life, and seek adventure
wherever you can find it. You are a step above the average person and everyone
knows it. People are going to look to you to solve problems. However, you will
never reach the glorious godhood heights of 5e.

There is no setting, although in my mind, the world isn’t so much dark as it is

grubby. It’s stagnant. Problems aren’t getting solved, and rulers are more inter-
ested in self-enrichment than they are in helping. The kind of world looking for
a plucky band of heroes to jump-start change.

The best you can hope for is making the world a bit better for everyone before
you move on, grab some cash when no one is looking, and maybe just a little
taste of revenge, if time permits. If you get really lucky, you might make a real
mark, retire, and wind up ruling or founding some personal utopia.

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Building a Character
Here are the steps to building a character

1. Roll Ability Scores

Roll 4d6. Total the highest of the three dice. That is your Strength. Repeat the
process for each of your other ability scores. Feel free to swap your scores. If the
total of your rolls are less than 66, reroll your lowest total.

If you don’t want to roll, assign 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 to your six ability scores.

Strength: How hard you can hit, punch, shove. How many treasure chests (or
cursed party members) you can drag from the Pits of Despair. Strength adds to
your attack rolls with melee and thrown weapons. It also determines, in part,
what armor you can wear.

Dexterity: Your ability to dance, catch, dodge, and do intricate work while
splattered with blood. Adds to the attack rolls for ranged weapons.

Constitution: Your ability to swim for a long time (and not die), drink bad wa-
ter (and not die), and take a knife under the ribs (and not die) after a poor
choice of words. Your constitution score determines your hitpoints.

Intelligence: Book smarts. How fast you absorb and process information or at
least pass a multiple-choice test covering it. Your magic skill and is based on
your intelligence.

Wisdom: The ability to perceive traps and suss out lies. The ability to walk into
a kitchen and just know what was made, even if they mostly cleaned up. Cleric
skills are vested in wisdom.

Charisma: Your ability to interact with others and get what you want. To get a
nice room when you only have a few iron coins to spare or convince some other
idiot in the dungeon to walk in front for not enough pay.

Clerics primarily use wisdom and strength

Fighters primarily use strength or dexterity
Rogues primarily use dexterity and Intelligence
Wizards primarily intelligence

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2. Choose a background
What did you do before you adventured, and why did you leave?

Roll 2d6 for a profession. Choose an ability score associated with the profession
and increase it by two. Write down the name of your background, and how its
associated with your ability score (e.g. “I had to be really strong to be a dock-
worker”). Be creative. You roll with advantage when you make checks that in-
volve your background.

d66 1 2 3 4 5 6
1 Painter Hermit Accountant Miner Jeweler Butcher
2 Urchin Sage Dockworker Priest Occultist Miller
3 Criminal Herder Glassblower Paige Tailor Furrier
4 Musician Scullion Bricklayer Brewer Barber Scribe
5 Farmer Soldier Herbalist Poisoner Teamster Bailiff
6 Noble Sailor Woodcutter Gambler Peddler Mason

3. Calculate Modifiers
Use the chart below to calculate convert your raw score to modifiers.

Ability Score to modifiers

3 -4 12-13 +1
4-5 -3 14-15 +2
6-7 -2 16-17 +3
8-9 -1 18-19 +4
10-11 +0 20 +5

4. Starting information
You are level one.
 Your character is able to use all weapons and light armor without penalty
 Your initial hit points are your Constitution score -4
 Your training bonus is +2

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5. Choose a Class
Choose a class below, add the training bonus to your appropriate statistic, gain
your main class ability, and choose two additional traits of the class.

Cleric: Gain Lay on Hands. Add your training bonus to your wisdom or
strength rolls and choose two additional traits. Decide what god you serve,
and why.
 Lay on hands: with a touch you can heal up to your wisdom score in hp
once per day. For 15hp you can remove a disease, poison, or curse.
 Second Skin: Ignore disadvantage when using armor
 Vampire Hunter: double damage to undead
 Bless: with holy water you empower weapons to smite your god’s ene-
mies (generally undead, but could be fey, fiends, or all of the above). Roll
with advantage when attacking for a short time.
 Turn: you can attempt to hold your god’s enemies at bay with the power
of your faith and a holy symbol.
 Vision: drink holy water to commune with your deity for divine guidance

Fighter: Gain Weapon Master. Add training bonus to your strength or dex-
terity rolls and choose two additional traits.
 Weapon Master: Choose the melee weapon that you have mastered, and
choose a trait below that comes from that mastery. Every 20 kills you can
choose another. Track your kills on the back of your sheet.
o Add a tag. Add precise, thrown, piercing 1, forceful, or versatile to
your weapon. This can be chosen multiple times.
o Brutal. Add +1d4 damage (can be chosen again to do +1d6, etc.)
o Special Maneuver. Work out a cool move with the GM
 Second Skin: Ignore disadvantage when using armor
 Toughness: + 6 to hit points
 Toughness II: an additional + 6 hit points
 Vengeance: Reroll damage dice once per attack
 Shattered Shield: Destroy your shield to block all incoming damage

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Rogue: Gain Schemer. Add your training bonus to your dexterity or intelli-
gence rolls and choose two additional
 Schemer: Gain Scoundrel dice up to your intelligence total (modifier +
training bonus, min 1). Scoundrel dice are d6s that can be used to add or
subtract to any roll targeting or rolled by the rogue that don’t involve cast-
ing a spell. They recharge during a meal.
 Backstab: Attacking an unaware target grants double damage
 Schemer II: Gain +2 scoundrel dice.
 Reflexive: You always go first and can react when suddenly surprised
 Tinker: You can attempt to quickly disarm a trap or pick a lock
 I know a guy: In a city or town, you can find someone who could help.

Wizard: Gain Spells. Add your training bonus to your intelligence rolls
 Spells: know two magic spells (decide/roll what they are)
 One with magic. Roll d8s instead of d6s for magical damage.
 Scholar: With enough time and a big enough library, you can find the an-
swer to almost any question
 Blood Sacrifice: Before you roll d20 involving magic, you can burn a point
of constitution to roll with advantage.
 Counterspell: You can attempt to disrupt a magical effect (such as a spell)
without any special equipment.
 I meant to do that: Once per day, when casting a spell, you can turn a
partial success into a full success

Custom: (Advanced) choose a stat to add your training bonus to, then choose 3
traits from other classes.

6. Armor, Weapons, and Gear

You start with
 140 gold
 A Basic pack, common clothes, 10 torches, and 10 rations
 A debt of 1d6x100 gold. Who do you owe it to?

7. Spin a story
You know what your character was like when you were born (your ability
scores), what they did when you grew up (your background), and what they
eventually decided to do (your class). What story does that tell?

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Additional Levels
Each time you level up, you gain a trait from any class. You can also increase an
ability score by 1.

Level XP Training Bonus Traits

1 0 +2 3
2 500 +2 4
3 1,000 +2 5
4 2,500 +3 6
5 5,000 +3 7
6 10,000 +3 8
7 15,000 +4 9
8 20,000 +4 10
9 25,000 +4 11
10 30,000 +5 12
11 35,000 +5 13

You get 1 xp for each gold piece looted/earned. Defeating monsters can gain
you 25 xp for something easy or 1,000xp for something really difficult.

Additional Traits (advanced)

Below are additional traits available for selection.
 Barbarian: When you are not wearing armor, you can burn wisdom as hit
points.
 Ability score increase: Gain +2 to an ability score, or +1 to two ability
scores
 Advanced Training: Add a training bonus to an ability score that isn’t
trained

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Gear
Tags
Ranged: Target must be within sight
Forceful: Can knock back a target or even knock them prone
Light: Can be wielded in an offhand as a secondary weapon, allowing you to
reroll damage once per attack
Pierce 1: Subtract 1 from the enemy’s armor when you roll damage
Precise: Can use dexterity instead of strength for attacks
Reach: Can attack up to 10ft away
Reload: Item takes time to reload
Thrown: Can be thrown for an attack
Two-Handed: Used with two hands.
Versatile: When used with two hands, increase the dice size by 1 step (to a
maximum of d12)

Weapons
Melee Weapons:
Dmg Cost Tags Examples
d4 2g Light, Precise, thrown dagger, throwing knife,
d6 2g Light, Thrown hatchet, javelin, light hammer
d6 10g Light, Precise Shortsword, scimitar
d8 25g Versatile Axe, sword
d8 25g Forceful Flail, Warhammer
d12 50g Two-handed Great axe, great sword

Ranged weapons:
Dmg Cost Tags Examples
d4 2g Ranged sling
d6 10g Two-handed, Ranged Shortbow
d8 50g Two-handed, Ranged Longbow, Crossbow
d8 75g Two-handed, ranged, reload pierce 1 Heavy Crossbow

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Armor
Armor reduces incoming damage. If a guard hits you for 3 damage, and you are
wearing light armor (1 armor) you would only take 2 damage. Medium and
Heavy armor require training to use. If you wear armor you are not trained in
all rolls are at disadvantage.

Light (25g): 1 Armor, Leather, hides, etc.

Medium (75g): 2 Armor, Requires Strength of 13. Chain, Breastplate, etc.
Heavy (1,500g): 3 Armor, Requires strength of 15. Splint, Plate, etc.
Shield (10gp): +1 Armor

Other Stuff
Consumables (1g each): Generally used and forgotten. Arrows, Ball bearings,
Bandages, Bolts, Caltrops, Iron Spikes (10), Parchment (10), Torches (4), Rope
50ft, Travel Rations (4 uses), Wineskin.

Tools (5g each): Can be used multiple times, if you are lucky. Animal Trap, Col-
lapsible Pole, Crowbar, Fishing Pole, Grappling Hook, Herbalism kit, Lockpicks,
Leatherworker’s tools, Pickaxe, Shovel, Writing Kit,

Alchemist/Ritual Components: (25g each): Probably helpful for magic, divine

or arcane. Acid (vial, one use), Alchemist’s fire (pint, one use), Book on a spe-
cific subject, Blood, (vial, one use), Pouch of Bone Dust, Healing potion, Holy
symbol, Holy Water (vial, one use), Hour Glass, Incense.

Basic Pack (5gp): A backpack containing everything you need to cook food,
start a fire, maintain your weapons and armor, and get a good night’s sleep in
the wilderness (i.e., bedroll, tent, mess kit, canteen, tinder box, whetstone,
etc.).

Room and Board: 1gp a day. Getting drunk: 1gp. Retirement: 10,000gp.

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Rules
When you attempt something risky, roll a d20 and add your attribute total
(modifier plus your training bonus, if trained), based on the action you’re tak-
ing.

A total of 9 or less is a miss; things don’t go well and the risk turns out badly.
A total of 10-19 is a partial success; you do it, but there’s some cost, compro-
mise, retribution, harm, etc.
A total of 20 or more is a full success; you do it without complications.

Rolling a 20 on a d20 is a critical success; you do it perfectly to some extra ben-

efit or advantage, while rolling a 1 on a d20 is always considered a failure.

When a you have advantage on a roll, you can roll two d20s and take the
higher number. When you have disadvantage, you roll two d20s and take the
lower number.

Rests
Meal. Heals a character for 1d6+level HP and one point of ability score damage.
It takes an hour, requires a safe(ish) place, a basic pack, and consumes one ra-
tion per person.

Good night’s rest. Restores all HP, 1d6+level ability score. Requires 8 hours of
rest, a safe place, a fire or heat source, a basic pack, and consumes one ration.
You can only have one good night’s rest every 24 hours.

Ability Damage
As they adventure, characters can take ability damage. Disease, muscle strain,
fatigue, and stress can add up and damage a character’s ability scores. 1 point
ability score damage is minor, 1d4 is significant, 1d6 is serious, and 1d8 is major.

A second chance. For any result besides a natural 1, a character can choose to
push themselves beyond their normal limit and burn their relevant ability
score to reroll a d20 (the GM will tell how big the potential burn). If you rolled
a natural 1, you have no recourse.

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Reaching 0 Hit points
When someone rolls you over, roll a d20 add your CON modifier. If you miss,
you are likely dead. If you partially succeed, you are still alive, although there
are consequences (talk to your GM). If you have a full success you wake up with
1 hp.

Training Bonus
Your training bonus represents your training in a particular area. Any time a
character uses or references on an ability in which they have been trained, they
are add their bonus. For example, with a Rogue’s schemer ability, they gain
scoundrel dice up to their intelligence modifier. If they are trained in intelli-
gence, they would add their training bonus to the base modifier, gaining addi-
tional dice.

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Magic
Magic is random, personal, and dangerous. Descriptions of spells (e.g. in the
tome of forgotten lore, copies of the Player’s Handbook or other such outlawed
material) are under optimal conditions with a perfect copy of the spell. It’s any-
one’s guess what happens when you cast a half-remembered spell while
watching the thing you thought was just a quiet pile of bleach-white bones
stab your friend.

Characters learn spells by finding them while adventuring or taking traits from
the Wizard class. Players only know the name of the spell. Its effects should be
determined through play.

Casting Spells
A character’s spell casting ability is intelligence. A character can cast a spell at
any time for any reason. There are no spell slots. To cast a spell, you need to say
what you want the spell to do based on the name of the spell. The DM chooses
the modifier to the roll based on the player’s description of the effect. For ex-
ample, if a character casts a spell with the intent to do 4d6 damage, (a major ef-
fect), they would add their intelligence modifier (and training bonus if
trained), and then subtract 3 from their roll.
Roll Mod. Effect Range Duration Targets
+5 Cantrip (0) Close Instant Self / 1
+3 Easy (+1/1d6) Near Seconds Self / 1
+0 Normal (+2/2d6) Near 1 min. 1
-3 Major (+3/4d6) Far 10 min. 2
-5 Spectacular (+4/6d6) Far 1d4 hours 3
-8 Historic (+5/8d6) Far 1d6 days 4

Spells can do other things besides damage, example of such effects below. If a
spell is particularly suited to damaging a creature (e.g., a fire spell on a monster
made of snow) add an additional d6 damage.
Effect Other Effect Examples
Cantrip Warm a beverage, fix a cloth, light a room, be loud
Easy Charm, frighten, add disadvantage/advantage to a roll,
Normal Blindness, deafness, sleep
Major Open a lock, Invisibility
Spectacular Polymorph
Historic Make a magical weapon, ????
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Determining spell effects
The title of the spell should inform some aspect of what the spell does. For ex-
ample, fireball should include a ball of fire. Whether it is hurled at enemies, at-
tached to the end of a weapon, used to start a lamp, or is its own sentient self,
named Arthur, is up to the caster.

Initial successes or failures should establish what the spell does. For example, a
character casts Loam Cube for in an attempt to turn a stone creature in to dirt
(and do 4d6 damage) for the first time, and the caster fails the roll. Future cast-
ings of Loam cube in the hands of that caster can’t turn stone creatures to dirt.

It's possible that different characters are able to use the same spell in different
ways.

Magical Mistakes, Partial Successes, and Failures

Every apprentice knows that if they travel down the road of wizardry long
enough, mistakes will happen. Best not to think about it.

On a partial success, when casting a spell, the player chooses 1-6 or rolls a d8
on the table below.
d8 … the spell goes off but…
1 you also hit an ally (or yourself) for 1d6 damage
2 You take 1d4 intelligence burn
3 You garner unwelcome attention (the gm will tell you how)
4 You forget the spell until you memorize it again
5 Cannot cast spells for 1d10 minutes
6 The GM gets to choose
7 Something about the world changes. Probably you. Save. Par-
tial success is 1d6 hours. Failure, permanent.
8 … nothing happens…

On a failure, Anything goes. Magic can backfire, cause corruption, and tear
holes in the fabric of reality at the most inopportuine time and location. The
cost of failure should match the power put into the spell.

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GM Advice
Various notes/advice on conversions.

Bestiaries
Monsters can be used from Dungeon World or its various supplements. OSR
monsters can be used, but you will have to convert the AC to armor and dam-
age.

Weapons & Damage

Use the tables below to convert damage of your creatures

Dmg Examples
1d4 Improvised: dagger, sling, club
1d6 Easy to use and throw: Shortswords, scimitars, staff, spear,
Shortbow, Hand axes, Javelins
1d8 Martial: Axe, Longsword, Longbow, Light Crossbow, etc
1d12 Two Handed. Great Axes, Great Swords, Polearms

Size Other
Dmg Description Dmg Description
-2 Smaller than a cat +2 has unrelenting strength
+0 About Human sized +2 Favor of the gods
+1 As big as a cart +2 Arms are vicious and obvious
+2 Much larger than a cart

Known for skill in offense: roll damage twice and take better roll
Known for deft strikes: +1 Piercing
Its armaments can slice or pierce metal: +1 piercing or +3 if it can just tear
metal apart

Armor
Armor Examples
0 Cloth or Flesh
1 Leathers or thick hide
2 Mail or scales
3 Plate or bone
4 Permanent magical protection
+1 (each) For using a shield, a defensive posture, or skill in defense

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Custom Melee Weapon:
You can look for, build, or find a custom weapon. First choose a damage dice,
and from there assign tags to that dice. Cost is based on damage die.

Dmg Tags Notes/Requirements

d4 3
d6 2 Not “Ranged”
d8 1
d10 1
Not “Ranged”, Requires “Two-handed”
d12 0

Influences
This has been influenced by the creative genius of others and pulls a lot of ideas
from a lot of places. These are great places to mine for spells, tips on playing
RPGs, and other material. I highly recommend Freebooters on the Frontier and
Dungeon World as starting places.
 B/X 5e. An article By Necropraxis that heavily influenced this game’s crea-
tion.
 Dungeon Craft. This YouTube channel also heavily influenced this game
(Episodes 13 and 37)
 Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. By Joseph Goodman. Wild
unpredictable magic.
 Dungeons and Dragons 5e. By Wizards of the Coast. Mostly for bounded
accuracy and your basic standard fantasy setting.
 Dungeon World. By Sage LaTorra and Adam Koebel.
 Freebooters on the Frontier. By Jason Lutes. The amazing magic system
and random spell names.
 GLOG (various versions) By Arnold K, Skerples, etc. mostly the philoso-
phy behind these games, although I am tempted by the magic system.
 World of Dungeons. By John Harper. Serves as a base for this game.

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End Notes
Copyright
This draws on and uses the text (and superior wordsmithing of) of Dungeon
World by Sage LaTorra and Adam Koebel (licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 Unported license), World of Dungeons by John Harper and
Chris Mcdowell (licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
license), and Freebooters of the Frontier by Jason Lutes (licensed under a Crea-
tive Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license).

This text is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Un-

ported license.

Fonts
Text is set in Crimson Pro, by Jacques Le Bailly
Sub-headings are in IM Fell English, by Igino Marini
Headings are in Old Cupboard, by Cecil Howe
is in Quinton Caps, by Dieter Steffmann

Special Thanks
Josie Sturgis, Cat Rocketship, Dani Ausen, Ross Grooters, Michael Dinos

A Ten Red Crows Production

August 2022
Des Moines, IA
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