Nerds! is a rules-light, genre-agnostic role-playing game created by Eli. This document is copyright © 2018.
The first thing you'll do is create a character for yourself.
Your archetype is a one-line, or even one-word summary of who you are. It can be pretty much anything that fits into the game world – independent sailor, carpenter, starship pilot, cat burglar, philosopher and natural historian, sorcerer who draws power from ancient dragons, etc.
For some games, an archetype is all you'll need, but you may have a more satisfying role-playing adventure if you give your character more depth, including a personality and backstory. If you're not sure where to start, try to answer some of these questions:
What do you look like?
Are you tall or short?
Thin or fat?
How old are you? How old do you look?
Any interesting features?
Is there an item you always have with you?
What kind of person are you?
What are three adjectives people would use to describe you?
Do you have a personality trait that sometimes rubs people the wrong way?
What's something people really like about you?
What are you afraid of?
Is there a person or ideal you'd do anything for?
What's your story?
What do you do for a living?
What do you do for fun?
Describe a time when you succeeded when everyone thought you would fail.
Describe an embarrassing failure.
Do you have a family?
Do you have a mentor or role-model?
Do you have friends? A boss? Co-workers?
Typically, this game is played with a Game Master and 2-6 players. You may find it helpful to create your characters as a group, then decide what kind of group you are. Here are some questions which might help:
You may also want to discuss any topics or adventures you would like to be off-limits in the game. Maybe you have a real-life fear that you don't want to engage with, or maybe you hate mystery novels and don't want to play out anything like that.
Your character will have five primary attributes: Strength, Agility, Mind, Presence and Luck. They range from -2 to +2 for normal humans.
When you want to accomplish something, like attacking, climbing up the side of a house, or persuading a crowd to join your noble cause, you may be asked to roll 2d6 (two 6-sided dice), and add one of your attributes. For example, to attack someone, you might roll 2d6 + strength. If this is at least as high as a number determined by the Game Master, you succeed.
There are effects, such as exhaustion, which can temporarily drain a point from one of your attributes.
This is your raw physical strength, as well as your endurance, health and ability to shrug off damage. It affects how good you are at physically strenuous activities, and at using most melee weapons.
This is your acrobatic ability, your speed, and your skill with light weapons and bows. It is used for anything requiring a high degree of dexterity. It is also used to evade attacks, and to attack with light and ranged weapons.
This is your willpower, intellect, knowledge, wisdom and insight. It is useful for understanding people's motivations, and it may let you know something helpful for situations you get yourself into. It is useful for most magic.
This is your force of will, your persuasiveness, and how others perceive your physical appearance and personality. It is useful for magic used to influence people.
This is rolled whenever an action is largely governed by chance – gambling, avoiding be surprised, spotting hidden things, etc. You can permanently lose a point of luck to prevent your character or another player's character from dying.
You (and a select number of special enemies) start each game session with a number of luck points equal to your luck attribute. Luck points can be used to change the current scene to your advantage. For example, you're falling off a cliff, and oh look! A tree is sticking out of the side at just the right angle to catch you! Luck points can also be used to re-roll your dice.
If your Luck score is below zero, you have Bad Luck points! The Game Master can use them to put you in danger, escalate the stakes of your situation, or force you to re-roll your dice. Bad luck cannot kill you outright, but it can make things difficult for you.
Skills are things that you're good at. They can be pretty much anything, from carpentry to navigation to party planning. When you roll for one of your skills, you add 1 to the roll, in addition to what you add from your attribute. For example, if you have the climbing skill, and you want to climb a mountain, you roll 2d6 + Strength + 1 from your skill.
This is your life. When you're injured, you lose HP, and when you rest, you recover them. When you hit 0 HP, roll your Strength. If you get 10 or higher, you manage to stay up with 1 HP instead. If you hit 0 HP anyway, you're unconscious, and you have to roll Luck. If you get 7 or lower, you permanently lose a point of Luck. If this brings you to -3 Luck, you die. If you are attacked when you're down, you have to make this Luck roll again.
If you can use magic, you will have Spell Points, which are used every time you cast a spell. Simple spells use up one point, while more complex spells require more than one. Some spells are so simple that they don't need any points to use, but they do require special training in magic. Spell Points are replenished the next day, or whenever the GM decides there's a big enough scene shift.
Magic users start the game with access to one of the six types of magic. To cast a spell, you describe an idea, and how it's related to your type of magic. Then the GM tells you how many spell points it costs. If it costs more than your total number of Spell Points, the GM may give you a suggestion about how to tone it down.
Once you have access to more than one type of magic, you can combine them to make more complicated effects.
Earth magic deals with the physical world. You can create or manipulate materials, create fires, and alter air flow. Earth can't directly affect living things without mixing in Life magic, but you can, for example, trap someone in quicksand, or throw a heated rock at them.
Life magic deals with the living world. It can be used to encourage plants to grow, communicate with animals, or enhance or detract from living things. It can heal wounds, or cause them.
Calling can be used to bring creatures or objects to you, or send them away. Things that are nearby are easy to call, while exotic or distant creatures or objects are more difficult. Powerful Calling magic can be used to create something from nothing.
A called creature is not bound to help you, though you can make deals with it, or promise to release it after a task is complete. Combined with Thought magic, Calling can force creatures to help you, and Life magic can help you find more willing creatures.
Thought magic can be used to create distractions, read emotions and thoughts, speak telepathically, and control minds. It can manipulate the senses, making people see, hear or feel things that aren't there.
Ether is a special type of magic that connects to mystical worlds. It can detect magical auras, or manipulate existing magic. It can see hidden things, including spirits, fey or shadows, and combined with Calling, make deals with them. It can be used to see things at great distances, and even to see into the past or future.
Alchemists create potions and permanent magical objects. Most alchemy requires material resources as well as spell points. Simple, short-lived items cost the least. Sometimes, you can offset the cost by using more spell points. Alchemy works best when combined with other types of magic.
If you have the right training, you can cast zero-cost spells. Here are some examples:
Equipment may be bought, made or found during the game. You should write down anything important you have, like weapons, alchemical substances, and expensive things. For everything else, you can make a Luck roll to find out if you have the thing you need. The GM will determine the difficulty of the roll.
A weapon can be pretty much anything. Regardless of what it looks like, it deals 1d6 damage in combat, plus your strength or agility score. Strength is used for clubs, heavy swords and other items that do more damage the harder you hit. Agility is used for bows, guns, light weapons like daggers, and other items where finesse is more important than brute strength.
Depending on the game, you may have access to some sort of protection. Whether it's medieval plate mail, a force field, or a swarm of insects, it follows the same rules. There are two types of armor – light and heavy. Light armor reduces your Agility score by 1, and reduces all damage taken by 1. Heavy armor reduces your Agility by 2, and all damage taken by 2.
Sometimes, you'll get into a fight. You usually act in order of your Agility scores, but the GM might mix it up to keep the action flowing. You can do anything you want on your turn, or even do multiple related things, as long as they could all be done in a reasonably short time. A basic guideline is that you should be able to describe all of your actions in a minute or less, but the GM can make exceptions. There are just a few limitations on what you can do in a single turn:
To attack, you roll 2d6 + strength or agility + a combat skill if you have one. Your damage is 1d6 + strength or agility. Magic weapons or advanced technology may do more damage, or have other special properties.
After each game session, one player should volunteer to write a summary of the session in his or her character's voice. If you do this, you will have an extra luck point to use in the next session, or you can remove a bad luck point (your choice).
You have a few choices to make at level 1. If you'd rather not, the GM can build your character for you based on the background you chose.
Start with a zero in each attribute. Add a point to one and remove a point from another, as many times as you want. Your final scores will be between -2 and 2.
You start at level 1, with 6 Hit Points, no Spell Points and no skills. You also have 15 Build Points, which you can spend on the following:
One Build Point gets you one Hit Point. You can have up to 10 + your level.
Two Build Points gives you a skill with a +1 bonus. You can select the same skill up to two times.
These special skills are only available to certain types of characters:
Every once in a while, the GM will tell you that you've gained a level. This will usually happen at the end of an adventure. When you gain a level, your character becomes more powerful. The highest level is 10.
You gain 5 more build points to spend on HP, skills and magic.
At levels 3, 5, 7 and 9, you can raise one of your attributes by one point, to a maximum of +3.
At even-numbered levels, you can choose a special ability from these lists, or you can work out something different with your GM.
These may be selected any number of times:
These may only be selected once:
Advanced abilities (requires level 5 or higher)
Supreme abilities (requires level 10)