Original post: https://piefed.ca/c/rpg@ttrpg.network/p/775900/rules-light-ttrpg-for-8-12-players-including-gm

5 months ago I asked around the internet in a few places for a rules-light TTRPG that would be serviceable for a oneshot for 8-12 players, including GM. I thought I’d share an update of how it went.

After a butt load of suggestions from around the web, I read a little bit of a lot of different systems. The one I ended up settling on was Tiny Dungeon* (kinda… more on that in a bit).

The reasons for my selection were:

  • Fantasy based, which was our preferred genre. This wasn’t a requirement for the system but it was a big plus and gave it a head start.
  • Extremely simple resolution method. Only D6s for everything, and never more than 3 at a time. Conflicts were also very simple, with only a few special rules for combat, and damage intentionally kept very simple.
  • Still had just enough mechanical character customization to be tantalizing.
  • Not a ton of campaign/progression-based rules, so not too much was left on the cutting room floor by using it for only a oneshot.

Our group ended up being 9 players (including GM). To maximize play time, players were asked to create their character ahead of game day. We reserved 6 hours of table time at a game store. As is what feels like mandatory for a TTRPG group of adults, we did not get to start on time, and we also took a bathroom and snack break halfway through, so we got about 5 hours of actual play time.

The streamline the oneshot, the premise involved the players already being an established friend-group. The hook, of course: owing a lot of money and needing to find a way to pay it off. Lo and behold, a golden opportunity to pay off their debt falls into their lap, and kicks off the plot of the oneshot. They were presented with a few different ways of approaching the opportunity, but most of my prep revolved around preparing the setting around them so that I could react to whatever they did.

The first half of the game involved some character introductions, banter roleplay, chasing leads, and tackling challenges. A combat capped off the first half so we got to try that out in this system. After break, we had a surprise 5 year time skip forward and another plot hook, and the players quickly realized that this was going to tie into our multi-year main campaign. The second half involved a harder overall challenge, and they completely steered the direction as they attempted to tackle it. The system made it very easy to resolve challenges to inform the story. Everyone’s characters had features that ended up being helpful at one point or another, thanks to the system’s broadly defined abilities. I’d say largely everyone got nearly equal “screen time”. The second half led to inevitable chaos and, of course, setting fire to make a distraction. I had a plan to run one more “big boss” combat towards the end, but realized with the lost play time that there wouldn’t be time. The system made it easy to adapt to challenge rolls instead of an initiative-based combat on the fly, so we still had a bombastic ending.

At the end of it, everyone was so excited to finally get to play in person and took home their physical character sheets as mementos. We mulled around the game shop for a little bit afterwards and picked up a few souvenirs to commemorate the event. I enjoyed the system enough that I will keep it in my back pocket for future oneshots, and have even considered trying to use it for a text-based game.

So, about that * up there, the system… I said Tiny Dungeon but that’s only about three-fourths true. Tiny Dungeon did serve as the basis and by far the largest influence for the system we used, but I ended up kitbashing a few things together. I replaced some elements of Tiny Dungeon with its sister game, Advanced Tiny Dungeon, but not all of it. Really picked out some things that I thought would specifically go over well with my group, without adding too much crunch or complexity for the sake of our 6 hour oneshot scenario. I also implemented a few elements from other games I have experience with, such as Flashbacks from Blades in the Dark for filling out inventory on the go to not bog down the pace of the game, as well as GM Scenes from Fabula Ultima for stirring up some drama when necessary. I also homebrewed all of the ancestries to fit in to my homebrew world, and added some additional homebrew feats on top of the ones originally offered in Tiny Dungeon and Advanced Tiny Dungeon. We ended up calling the kitbashed system “Tiny Aedelor,” based on the name of the homebrew world.

TL;DR I recommend Tiny Dungeon for a fantasy-based one-shot, and it held up really well to a large player group.