GRIT Fantasy RPG is a rules-light sytem that is perfect for one-shots, short campaigns, and convention games. The core rules are simple and easy to manage so that you can spend your time playing without the need for constant rules-checking. GRIT can be learned in a matter of minutes and is great for players of any level of experience; kids will love playing it too! If you're looking for a solid, streamlined game that you can quickly get to the table with minimal prep and ease of play GRIT Fantasy RPG is for you!
A significant amount of attention has been put into making this game easy to use from the GM's perspective. After all, a happy GM means happy players! Aside from simple rules that allow you to run stress-free games, the book provides tools for setting up sessions without a ton of effort.
What you can expect from GRIT Fantasy RPG:
Core Rules
A single D12 is used as the primary die.
There are two types of rolls: Static and Opposed. A Static roll must beat one of four target numbers selected by the GM. An Opposed roll must beat the roll of the adversary.
Characters have five stats called Aspects. Each time a primary die is rolled an Aspect value is added to it.
Each player has three Focus Dice that are used to boost rolls. Focus Dice are discarded from the game after use.
Combat does not follow a ridgid initiative structure. The players and GM decide together who should act as the round progresses.
During combat each participant gets to take one action or reaction. This combination makes combat move quickly.
Damage is calculated by determining the difference between a roll and a target number (Static) or the opponents roll (Opposed).
Armor and shields simply reduce incoming damage by the total amount of SOAK they have.
There are three distances in the game: melee, short, and long.
Character Creation
There are twelve Lineages to choose from (elf, dwarf, human, etc.). Each Lineage has a special ability.
Aspects are configured by point allocation.
Each character gets one unique item and 4 basic gear items. The maximum number of items a character can have is 10.
Characters have 10 GRIT (hitpoints).
Players must come up with a details relating to their character. Optional tables provided for this.
There is a quick build option that can produce a character in just a few minutes.
Notable Details
Instead of spellcasting there are a ton of magic items called artifacts that have special abilities and powers. All of these items are described in two lines of text or less, making their effects very easy to implement during gameplay.
There is no set advancement system but there are optionsal rules included on how to implement milestones.
The GM section has tools to quickly generate story concepts, encounters, NPC's, and even custom monsters.
There are 52 monsters in the book, many of them are only found in GRIT Fantasy RPG.
The book houses 400 loot items. They are organized into twenty D20 tables for ease of use.
I'm persuaded this is a poorly done game, though physically well made and binded book.
Recommend looking at the preview for the second edition of Knave. It does hit points like basic editions, but each character also has wound slots equal to their slots of for carrying items. When you go below zero HP, you start losing wound slots and you have to drop equipment. Hit points can be recovered with a good night's rest, whereas the wound slots need a safe environment, recovering one slot per safe night's rest. Also everyone is just rolling 1D6 / level, rerolling all d6s each level to help average out HPs.
It's a nice balance of OSR and nu school.