Big Dice Games Acquires Risus: The Anything RPG | Hacker News Reader

Big Dice Games Acquires Risus: The Anything RPG

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80 pointsBerislavLopac13 comments

This is weird. I thought this was a super niche tabletop roleplaying topic. I would never have guessed to see this at the top of hacker news.

It doesn't have a super amount of votes yet, not sure how the algo works. Do people see different front pages?

I suspect that different user's upvotes influence the rankings differently.

I also think there is sum amount of fuzzing in the system to try and expand the breadth of things that hit the front page.

I have a hunch that upvotes/minute matters too.

Mods can bump any article they find interesting. I've also seen 0 point articles get to the top and fall like lightning from downvotes, or disappear when flagged.

I could see this being kind of relevant because Risus is probably the most tabula rasa of any other RPG out there, hence the subtitle “The Anything RPG”. You can hack anything you want into the game.

I knew the game was up for sale a week or two ago and it was somewhat controversial. Part of the sale included obligations to fulfill some outstanding Kickstarter stuff, which was sometime in 2012.

A "do anything RPG" that promises to "fit on a single page" doesn't sound great to me. The reason I buy an RPG is for a list of powers, monsters, etc. A really general RPG is just a dice rolling (or other conflict resolution) mechanic.

That's certainly a valid take, though not the only one. Another "hacker's do anything RPG" is GURPS and it certainly doesn't fit on one page.

Yes. GURPS has a billion books covering different things. It's the opposite end of the spectrum.

Heck, I can probably list a dozen "universal" RPGs. Many fit on a page or two. GURPS is the only one that took off, because it's really an underlying system that many blendable RPGs are built on top of (like WoD).

I'd say Fate has taken off too, though it's a much more recent entrant to the genre/medium. This is anecdotal, but most people I know groan when GURPS is mentioned as a solution to play in an undeveloped setting, including folks who usually play crunchier games than I prefer.

> most people I know groan when GURPS is mentioned as a solution to play in an undeveloped setting

Oh, good lord. GURPS is not for an undeveloped setting. GURPS is for choosing one (or more than one and mixing) source books and playing in the world they describe.

But I've heard great things about FATE. But FATE takes more than a single page.

Many "rules-light" RPGs are either free (like Risus), or are available for relatively little money. Often the idea with them is to provide some structure to a collaborative narrative, and the best systems not only handle conflict resolution, but also conflict creation, and typically provide mechanical incentives (often in the form of dice pools or other resources) for initiating dramatic plot beats.

I had an e-mail conversation with S. John Ross once, years ago; he seemed like a great guy. I hope this sale is a good thing.

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