Year Zero Engine SRD

https://freeleaguepublishing.com/community-content/free-tabletop-licenses/

The Year Zero Engine SRD is a generous gift to the community and a rules hacker's delight to play with. This includes both the d6 and polyhedral versions of the game, so whatever dice you prefer, the SRD has you covered.

Oddly enough, the only thing missing is an armor table. But Year Zero armor mirrors the AC bonus of B/X: 2 is soft leather, 4 is hardened leather, 6 is chainmail, and 8 is full plate (rolled as a dice pool to subtract damage from attacks). That same scale could be applied to anything from fantasy to sci-fi, and you have workable armor.

With Year Zero, the games they build with this always have these extra systems layered on to cover genre rules, so this is the DNA you build games from, not a complete game in itself. And by 'complete,' I mean the design has the attached special rules, a gear list, and a power list if needed. You could play games with the SRD, but they would be generic. A complete spell list is included here, so you could easily hack a fantasy game out of this.

Think of this SRD like bread. The extra game you layer on top is what makes the sandwich.

Free League does an excellent job of not overloading the basic game but tweaks it ingeniously - and very carefully - to touch those genre notes a setting needs. Other games will waste pages on things better handled with roleplaying, like pages of rules for honor duels - and really?

Roleplay it. I don't need rules for everything, and some games fluff out 400-page book counts with filler. Today's designers learned nothing from the overly complicated games of the 1980s and 1990s, and some of them are arguably worse than Rolemaster - and that game had far fewer pages than today's games.

When you build a genre game, you want the baseline setting support, and then carefully consider genre rules that players will link the players to the setting. If you did a cowboy game with the YZ SRD, you would need a gear list, weapon list, and the prices of items in the 1880s Old West. That gets you in the door.

The next thing you need is rules support for something that takes the SRD and turns it into a complete game; ideally, these are a few genre rules. For a spaghetti western, honor is an integral part of the Old West - either holding it or lacking the same. Where do you add that to the rules? Does it have a mechanical effect? Is it even a good rule to add, or is it just a part of roleplay?

You then brainstorm, add things, test more, tweak things, test, remove things, and test some more.

The art of making these games is not to overload them with junk rules. Free League games should straddle that line between abstract board games and theater-of-the-mind roleplaying games. Any additions should be elegant and simple and serve a purpose. If 'showdowns' are a thing in Westerns, does the game handle that well? Do you need a tweak? Lastly, should you make a new minigame? Only as a last resort should you add a new rule subsystem.

The best Free League games have a minimalist design quality to them.

But that doesn't mean you should ignore fun touches. If you use the polyhedral version of the game, rate horses from A-D and allow them to buy 'horse specialties' - or randomly determine those and let them 'level up' with advancements. That may be a fun addition to the game and make it unique, adding a little bit of detail and complexity in an area where it would make your game unique.

Don't go overboard; the game is supposed to be player-hackable, so you don't need a list of dozens of horse specialties. If players want to expand that area, let them, and just supply the best of the best and most iconic choices.

Minimalist designs mean only shipping the best of the best.

Do you want a detailed reloading system and counting bullets, or do you want to simplify the ammo system? Twilight: 2000 does an excellent job with ammo as a part of the dice and combat system. Some YZ games use stress dice mechanics to determine the out-of-ammo condition. You will make choices like this based on the genre you are targeting.

You are also not trying to simulate everything; the narrower and more focused your inspiration, the better your game will be. Trying to make a "does everything" Wild West game will deliver a bloated system that doesn't do its inspiration justice. You will have dozens of inspirations, and most will conflict and negate each other. It will be a mess that does everything okay but no singular thing great.

Instead, I would deliver a Good, the Bad, and the Ugly game with tense showdowns, bullets flying, and double-crosses rather than a roleplaying game that looks and plays like a history book. Those great experiences will make your game much more memorable in players' minds than a bland do-all game.

Note to the wise: solo play rules help!

I could hack this game into dozens of unique experiences based on movies, books, and TV shows. A game based on a comedy movie would have a stress mechanic called embarrassment. Players could trade jabs, and those embarrassment dice pile up, and the silly things keep happening as they roll a one. Pie in the face! Pants drop and undies with hearts! Step on a rake, boing! Bucket of water on the head!

This hacked core system is Free League's business model, one they recently expanded a little by launching Dragonbane, but this system could be used for decades to ship all sorts of fun games with a common, solid, and fun core engine.

If your game could sit on a bookstore shelf in a beautiful box and straddle that board game and roleplaying game line, deliver a focused YZ experience, and not go overboard and try to do everything - you have a winner.