Pegasus Gaming Engine
This was my first attempt at designing an RPG from the ground up, originally conceived and put together in 1996-1997. It was a gaming system that met my needs and desires as a player. It was meant to be the engine for my abandoned “Oblivion” campaign setting (which, I might add, I don’t even recall! It may be that I was referring to what became the equally-abandoned-but-more-memorable “Twilight” setting), as well as applicable to any other genre a player could imagine.
At the time, I had never seen the idea of allowing the group to define the character traits and skills that would be important to and central in the game, so I’m pretty proud of having arrived at that innovation/realization on my own, though today I find my actual implementation of the idea lacking. I was very much struggling with traditional “this is how gaming systems must look” ideas while trying to fit the idea “the mechanics of the game guide what the game is about in creating what actions are central to play” I hadn’t yet quite made concrete in my own mind into it.
I haven’t looked at the system in years, and I am surprised at how relevant the design direction I took back then is to where I am now in terms of my gaming preferences and styles, and in the changing face of game design as typified by the Forge. I was apparently ahead of my time!
Perhaps I should have kept trying to work the kinks out of the system, but I have the feeling the obstacles that prevented me from doing so then have only passed away because of the exposure to different styles and exploration of design ideas that came about during discussions at the Forge in later years.
The game as it stands is incomplete, but likely not unplayable with some work added to what is already there (the original idea was, after all, for groups to use the system as a design platform for their own games!). The core ideas, at least, are worth revisiting. Here, then, is the (in)complete and unrevised text from ~1999.
Welcome to the PEGASUS Gaming Engine!
If this is the first role-playing game you have ever encountered and are scratching your head, asking “What’s a gaming engine?”, don’t worry about it…you don’t need to know how to play RPGs, or even have heard of them before, to be able to use the PGE. The PGE is simple enough that the beginner can learn to play right along with the veteran. Furthermore, the PGE was designed to be used with any type of role-playing genre, from horror to fantasy to sci-fi, and to allow easy conversion between all. So whatever tickles your fancy, be it playing the part of a heroic knight in medieval times or that of a daring space explorer in the far flung future, the PGE can be used as the base upon which your story will unfold.
The Khan lifted his sword high above his head and gave out a great shout as he thundered forth into battle. Kicking his powerful steed into full charge, he split the ranks of the enemy, scattering them to the four winds with powerful and deadly sword strokes.
Far away from the edge of the battle, Kao-lin the Seer watched with interest and recorded the glorious deeds of his master for future generations. With his privileged position upon a hilltop, and gift of mystical sight, he was the first to see the shadow fall across his master’s whirling form. Sighing, he signed the last few letters to the parchment he wrote upon, then wrapped up his quill and turned away to seek a new master. The dread Shouin of Ma-Cho-Kane had achieved victory again.
Behind him, the massive serpentine form of an aged Dragon erupted from the Earth, showering death upon both fleeing armies, and leaving not a man standing upon the battlefield by the time it had finished.
The Khan opened his eyes and shoved the heavy corpse of another man off his form, then stood to view the devastation caused by the Shouin’s beast. Though the Shouin had won the battle, the Khan knew he would triumph in the end and free his land from shadow, for he had now gained all he needed to defeat the Shouin’s foul sorceries, the scale of a Dragon.
Yet to complete his victory, he knew he must first find the aged ones in the mountains, who could mix its essence into a magic-defeating elixir that might be applied to his armor. The first thing he had to do though was find his man-servant Kao-lin, whose mystic sight would guide him safely to that destination.
WHAT IS ROLE-PLAYING?
Long before we had television or radio, or even the written word, our ancestors sat around their campfires and told each other stories of heroes and villains, of men and spirits, of daring deeds and foolish ones. Like the plays, novels, and television shows of today, their purpose was to entertain, allow socialization, and pass their culture down to their children.
RPGs are storytelling games in this fashion, but they take this entertainment one step further, they INVOLVE you. You are not passively entertained, you do not sit back and watch a story as it unfolds, you TAKE PART in the story, you and your friends CREATE the story. In essence, you tell each other stories; you interact together in the same story.
Remember when you used to play “Cops & Robbers” or “Cowboys & Indians” when you were younger? You imagined yourself as the good guy cop, or the sneaky bank robber; the John Wayne-like sheriff, or the wily Indian? During that time you weren’t little Joey Anderson, during that time you pretended to be someone entirely different for a while, having a grand adventure. Once mom called you for dinner, you could jump up and head home (even if you were “shot dead”), and play again tomorrow (maybe you’d even get to be the Sheriff this time…).
That’s imagination, and it’s the key to role-playing.
Role-playing means that a player (that’s you) takes the role of a character (a powerful knight or wizard such as Arthur or Merlin; a heroic outlaw like Robin Hood; a masked-hero similar to Batman; a crafty investigator akin to Sherlock Holmes; an orphan runaway like Oliver Twist, etc.) out on an adventure. Role-playing is similar to acting, except there are no costumes, no lines to memorize, no stage props. There is no pre-written series of events that must be followed, YOU decide what the character says, does and thinks, YOUR choices affect the events and eventual outcome of the story.
However, as with board games, there’s no running around out in the woods, backyard or on stage; instead, all the action takes place around your kitchen table. UNLIKE board games, there’s no board (NO BOARD!?), as in “Cops & Robbers”, the playing area is imagined. The wide and varied scope an RPG has makes it impossible to have any one set board on which all the action takes place. One game may take place in a castle in medieval France, the next on a farm in England; yet others may span the world of JRR Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, or the many worlds of Gene Roddenberry’s “Star Trek”.
Also unlike a board game, there will not be any one “winner”; just like participating in a play, reading a novel or watching a TV show, everyone “wins” by having fun.
Nor is there ever a set end or set “goal” to the game, it can continue for as long (or short) as the players wish, with said players determining what current goal their characters have in mind (build an empire, save a princess, discover who murdered John Klotsky, etc). Once that goal is reached, that doesn’t have to be the end of it, the players can always decide to set new goals for their characters. Truthfully, the only real set goal of the game is for everyone to have fun.
And all you need are a table, some dice (or a pack of cards), a few friends, and an imagination…pretty good deal, huh?
Well, that’s not ALL you need…A way to determine the outcome of the various situations that your character will encounter is also very helpful, otherwise the players end up arguing over what really happened, ala “Cowboys and Indians”:
Player 1: “I shot you, you’re dead.”
Player 2: “No you didn’t! Am not!”
And this is where the PGE comes in…ENJOY!
WHAT IS HERE?
In the following excerpt from the larger book, one can find the bare-bone mechanics of the PGE, how it does what it does. The following is a discussion of the core of the system itself, detailing the basics of Attributes, Characteristics and Skills, Dicepools, and task-resolution. None of the extras, such as the “Oblivion” campaign setting and the expanded action resolution rules, are included here. This is only to give you a taste of the system.
SMALL GLOSSARY
- #d# : The number of dice of a particular type to roll (1d8 means roll 1 eight-sided die)
- Attribute (ATRB) : One of the building blocks of a character, such as Strength or Intelligence
- Aptitude (APT) : The base number of dice in a character’s Diepool for a particular skill
- Characteristic (CHRC) : The common uses for an Attribute in game, such as Fortitude or Aura
- Diepool (dP) : The dice a character can draw upon to attempt an action
- Skill Rank (SR) : The level of proficiency a character has with a particular skill
- Trait (TR) : Unique uses individuals may put Attributes to in game
RPGs are either character or plot driven games, but regardless of which, without the characters, there is no reason or way to play. Characters are unshaped blobs until their abilities and skills are defined, for it is with these a character interacts with the environment of the story.
To discover what these interaction tools are, there must be guidelines on how to determine what they are and then how well the character can use it. The first of these guidelines is the basic building block of the game, the physical, mental, and/or spiritual representation of the characters.
ATTRIBUTES
Character building blocks represent the basic being of the character–the stuff of their genes, so to speak, and we will call them Attributes. Attributes define the essence of what a character is, the most basic “tools” used to interact with the story.
As such, the Attributes should be tailored to the style of the game to be played. In a game with little combat, and a great deal of politics and intrigue, the Attributes stressed should be those having a direct bearing upon the most common situations. Hence strength and physical toughness would not be emphasized for these characters, and might be listed into a single Attribute; whereas mental quickness, memory, and perception would be very important, and listed separately (or even broken down further into more Attributes). However, when determining Attributes, be careful not to confuse them with Characteristics.
CHARACTERISTICS
If Attributes are the tools of the character, Characteristics are the uses those tools can be put too. For example, though a character may have a Health Attribute, their ability to absorb damage would be determined by a Characteristic.
One of the main differences between Characteristics and Attributes is that Characteristics are often made of multiple Attributes. In the example of the Health Attribute above, Willpower would likely have a bearing upon the ability of the character to take damage and keep going, thus it would be a part of the “Damage” Characteristic (whatever it is actually called in the final scheme).
Some Characteristics may be tricky to tell apart from Attributes, thus if in doubt as to where something belongs, try to figure out if it combines with any other Attributes, or if it is actually modified by another Attribute(s). In the first case, it is an Attribute; in the second, it is a Characteristic.
Telling the difference is not as difficult or complicated as the above makes it sound, and an easier way to visualize them is as free, naturally-existing skills, like Stamina, Aura and so on. Attributes do not do anything directly for your character, whereas Characteristics determine the size of natural diepools (see below for more on this).
TRAITS
Traits are inherent or natural abilities that a character may have, such as Ambidextrousness or Direction Sense. Traits differ from Characteristics in that not all people have them; and from skills, which have a body of knowledge must be learned to be utilized.
SKILLS
Skills are learned knowledge that allow a character to use a combination of their “tools” in a specified manner, such as Carpentry (which requires strength and hand-eye coordination) or Acting (which requires stage presence and a good memory). Characters may occasionally draw upon their Characteristics while utilizing a skill, such as using their presence of personality when speech-making to influence how the listeners react.
The PEGASUS gaming-system follows the philosophy that no matter how much effort one puts into a particular skill, it is your natural aptitude that ultimately determines how good you are and can be. A skill’s Aptitude is based upon the combination of Attributes that are most relevant to the use of that skill. Thus a character’s maximum Skill Rank in a specific skill is limited to a Rank equal to the skill’s associated Attribute(s).
ATTRIBUTE AND SKILL RANKS
To determine the level of ability a character has in an Attribute, Characteristic, Trait, or Skill, a standard representational scale must be constructed. Usually, this scale will be based on the human average, thus some creatures may have a rating higher or lower than what the scale allows. Racial Attribute bonuses and penalties are based upon the difference of the racial average to the human. Though it is possible to write other scales based around non-human averages, giving humans (and other creatures) ATRB penalties and bonuses based around the average differences between the two races. For now, we will explore only the human scale.
PEGASUS, at its most simple, ranks the variations in ability from 1(worst) to 5(best), with 2 being the human average. There is a sixth ranking which represents ability above and beyond even exceptional human ability.
|
Attribute Rank |
Description |
| 0 | does not possess the attribute |
| 1 | possessed of a lesser than average ability in the attribute |
| 2 | average ability in the attribute |
| 3 | greater than average ability in the attribute |
| 4 | possessed of an exceptional ability in the attribute |
| 5 | possessed of maximum ability in this attribute |
| 6 | supernatural ability with this attribute |
…
|
Skill Rank |
Description |
| 0 | skill never studied, never tried before |
| 1 | skill studied to a minor degree, as an occasional hobby |
| 2 | one year of constant experience with skill |
| 3 | four years of constant experience with skill, a college degree |
| 4 | ten years of constant experience with skill, could teach it |
| 5 | a lifetime of experience, one of the best |
| 6 | the master, legends are written about those of this level |
DICEPOOLS
Dicepools form the core mechanic of the Pegasus Gaming Engine. A Diepool is where a character can draw dice from to attempt the completion of a task (ie: the number of dice a player may roll when attempting to perform a skill/action). The nature and size of the diepool is determined by a number of factors, most notably the Ranks of relevant Attributes and Skills.
As the table below shows, the Attribute and Skill Ranks modify the basic resolution mechanics of the system; Attribute Ranks determine a being’s Aptitude with Skills while Skill Ranks determine a being’s training within a Skill.
Dicepools are calculated for Skills by averaging the skill’s associated Attribute(s) to find the character’s Aptitude, then adding the dice for the character’s Skill Rank to this.
| Averaged | Aptitude | Skill | Skill | |
| Attributes | Dice | Rank | Dice | |
| - | None | (n/a) | Unskilled | (1/2) |
| x | Poor | (-1) | Familiar | (0) |
| xx | Average | (0) | Skilled | (+1) |
| xxx | Good | (+1) | Journeyman | (+2) |
| xxxx | Exceptional | (+2) | Adept | (+3) |
| xxxxx | Amazing | (+3) | Master | (+4) |
| xxxxxx | Superhuman | (+4) | Legendary | (+5) |
The Base Diepool is either one or two dice, depending upon whether the skill is considered Uncommon or Common. Uncommon skills are those skills the average person would either not possess or would have a difficult time finding instruction in, while Common skills are those that the average person would likely possess or be able to easily find instruction in.
Determining which skills are Common and which are not is wholly dependant on the setting and location that the character(s) come from. For example, it would be Common for the members of a warrior-based society to have weapon skills, while for desert-bred people, knowing how to swim would be Uncommon.
There are other ways of determining the base die-pool for a skill if basing it upon culture is unpalatable, such as invoking Natural Ability, that is, any skill a character has Natural Ability in has two dice, while all others have only one die.
Two other optional skill categories affect the starting diepool, known as Impossible Skills, which no person of the culture knows or could find instruction in (ex: quantum physics in a Bronze Age culture); and Automatic Skills, which all persons of that culture know and practice from birth (ex : language).
These have the following properties: Impossible are base of 0 dice, and always halve the Diepool. Automatic give two automatic successes to all rolls relying on them.
For example, let us say a character is attempting to pen a letter in the writing style of another character. First, the average of the Attributes necessary for this feat is determined, let us say that three ATRBs are averaged and the result is 3 (”Exceptional”). Let us next say that the character has some experience in the skill of Forgery, a Skill Rank of 2 (”Skilled”).
Forgery, and writing even, is not a skill all people have and is generally reserved for only those with money to spend in order to learn it, thus it is an Uncommon skill, making the base diepool equal to 1. The character’s averaged ATRBs of 3 provides a +1 bonus to the diepool and their SR of 2 provides another +1 for a total Forgery diepool of 3.
ACTION ATTEMPTS
Every action will have a Complexity and Difficulty, measuring how hard the task is to perform. These determine the target number of the action as well as the number of successes (the number of dice that equal or beat the target number) a player needs to roll to perform the action.
COMPLEXITY
…Complexity is ranked from 1 to 5, the higher the number, the harder the task is to perform overall. An action or skill that is relatively easy will have a lower complexity than a task or skill that is extremely difficult. The Complexity of a skill may vary by race and sometimes culture. Complexity is represented as the number or higher that must be rolled on a die in order to complete the task successfully.
| Complexity | Rank | |
| Easy | 1 | (don’t bother rolling, success is automatic) |
| Standard | 2 | (a task heroes don’t think twice about) |
| Challenging | 3 | (heroes find this within their limits) |
| Difficult | 4 | (a task that common men would blanch at) |
| Desperate | 5 | (even heroes think twice before trying this) |
| *Impossible | 6 | (only possible with magic or superhuman skill) |
DIFFICULTY
…Difficulty is defined as how much concentration or how many maneuvers are required to perform the task successfully; it measures how great the obstacles or hindrances to successful performance are, and are caused by pain, the environment (wet, dark, etc.) and other similar factors. Difficulty is represented as the number of dice that must equal or beat the Complexity in order for the maneuver to be successful.
For the vast majority of tasks, the average Difficulty is 1. For example, trying to climb a cliff at night with little light in the middle of a rainstorm would be a Difficulty of 3. The base Difficulty would be 1, darkness adds one Rank to Difficulty, as do the slippery environmental conditions.
RELEVANCY
When a character is confronted with a task, they may choose one other relevant pool from which to draw more dice with which to perform the roll. For example, athletics might be a relevant pool for Climbing, however, pool relevancy is the GM’s call. Note that there should always be at least one diepool from which a character can draw for any action attempt (I call it Karma).
A diepool, when used in this manner, suffers a loss of the number of dice drawn from it until the pool refreshes, either after its next use or until a set amount of time has passed, a day, for example, or after the character has rested for a while. Due to this, players should be careful when and why they use the boost provided by relevant pools, as they could easily run out of dice when they really need them…
GM’s may also rule that players can use up relevant pools after the fact, if their first attempt did not succeed, giving them a “second chance.”
EXAMPLE
A character with a skill in climbing is attempting to climb a broken cliff. This would normally be a fairly easy task, however, he has no equipment but his bare hands, which makes it harder. He doesn’t have time to waste on getting to the top, though he isn’t being hurried…no bonus or penalty either way. The cliff is also high and will require a good deal of exertion. The task is Standard (Rank 2 Complexity), but with the other factors added in, the Difficulty is at Rank 3. Thus, the player of the climber must roll a 2 or higher on 3 dice to succeed.
The climber is skilled (SkillRank 2), but average in Attributes related to climbing; thus the Die Pool for this skill is 3 (base diepool of 2 as it is a common enough skill, no bonus dice due a high Aptitude but a + 1 for skill). Further, the character can opt to draw at least one die from a relevant pool to increase their chance of success in this action.
all text copyright (c)1999 Ravenscrye Grey Daegmorgan