Risus

From 1d4chan

Designed by S. John Ross, it is the lo-fi generic roleplaying system that the snobs at RPGforge use for textbook
examples. A very good choice for people who are too tired to do math, minmaxing, or any kinda simulation
gaming crap. If you aren't turned off by the stick-figure artwork in the rulebook (rules pamphlet?) then you're
good to go.

Contents
1 The Rules
1.1 Characters
1.2 Equipment
1.3 Conflict Resolution
1.3.1 vs. environment
1.3.2 quick vs. dude
1.3.3 ongoing vs. dude
1.4 Character Improvement
1.5 Optional Rules
1.5.1 Unofficial Optional Rules
1.6 More Cliche Examples
2 Links

The Rules
"Die" means d6 unless stated otherwise.

Characters
A character in Risus is, essentially, a collection of clichés. "Viking Barbarian," "Disgruntled Postman,"
"Vampire Wanker," "fa/tg/uy." Each cliché is rated in one or more "dice," which is how many dice you would
roll and add up when the character is doing an activity you'd expect that cliché to be proficient in. Write each
cliché on the character sheet, followed by the number of dice in ( ) brackets.

Cliché examples

Viking Barbarian: swing axe, pillage, drink from mugs made from horns, etc..
Disgruntled Postman: knowing where everybody lives, walking all day, assault rifles, etc..
Vampire Wanker: drinking blood, writing emo poetry, seducing teenage girls, etc..
More examples below

Characters start with 10 dice, which are each allocated to the clichés the character has. 1 die means you can do
it, but you fail more often than not. 2 dice means you can get by day by day, 3 dice for someone who's actually
good at their job, and so on. Characters can't start with more than 4 dice in any one cliché (barring a really good
excuse), and clichés max out at 6 dice.

Equipment
It's assumed that every character has the gear they need to perform day-to-day tasks for each cliché; the "tools
of the trade." Nothing special, but nothing lacking either. If a character loses their gear, they can only roll half
their dice for that cliché. Such a penalty should be temporary, their cliché should make it simple to regain
appropriate gear. It's also possible to get extraordinary equipment for your cliché that would give 1 or more
bonus dice (ie. magic sword, military-grade cyberdeck), but characters cannot start with extraordinary gear.

Conflict Resolution
There's three kinds of conflict: dude vs. environment, quick dude vs. dude and ongoing dude vs. dude.

Aie! I have no cliché I can use!: In any conflict, if there's people who want to get in on the action but don't
have an appropriate cliché by even the thinnest stretch of the imagination, the GM can let them participate by
giving everyone 2 extra dice, *including* people who are using their clichés. (ie. in an origami-crane folding
contest, the dude with "Space Marine (4)" would get 2 dice, and the dude with "Zen Monk (3)" gets (3+2=) 5
dice.)

vs. environment

If the GM thinks it isn't a given that you can accomplish a Difficulty of Effect on the
task, or it would be interesting if you fail, a character may Target
Task story
have to apply one of their clichés to see if they will succeed.
Roll all the dice for the appropriate cliché, and compare the No practical
Any shmoe off
sum to a difficulty number set by the GM, based on either effect, will
the street does it
how hard it would be to do the task, or how disruptive it 0 never be
without
would be to everyone's fun: Remember that losing your tools mentioned
thinking.
of the trade for a cliché means you can only roll half your dice again.
for that cliché. To get extra dice to roll, you'd need to acquire You need to
some sweet gear during the adventure. know how to do Success will
5 it, but only make things fun
quick vs. dude amateurs screw for everybody.
up half the time.
For competitions where it's just one action and pass/fail, or A pro has a
more than one person is trying to achieve the same exclusive Success would
10 50/50 chance of
goal, or you just want it over quickly so it's not a distraction be nifty.
doing it.
from the main event, it's called a non-combat conflict. Each
of the characters involved roll their appropriate cliché dice Success would
and whoever's result is higher wins. Examples: lunging for the 15 A heroic stunt. steal the scene
one gun on the floor, grabbing the last slice of pizza in the for a bit.
fridge, Iron Chef competition in Kitchen Stadium. Success would
Only a master
upstage all the
20 could pull this
ongoing vs. dude off.
other characters
in this scene.
For ongoing conflicts -- where you wear down your
opponents into submission -- it's called a combat conflict. You need to be
The GM aribtrates what clichés are appropriate, although you like an olympic-
can bend the rules a little bit (see below). It's done as a series 25 level to succeed ???
of quick conflicts, and after each exchange the loser drops one just half the
die temporarily from the cliché that was used. If this drops the time.
cliché to zero, then the loser is utterly defeated and the victor
decides their fate (death, humiliation, embarassment, Jegus. Even with
eyebrows singed off, etc..). A cliché reduced to zero doesn't a full 6 dice you Success would
30 have a 2% upset the whole
necessarily mean wounds; it could be loss of morale,
chance of story.
exhaustion, running out of money or hairspray... the cliché
success.
just can't be used until the character does something to
recover.

Inappropriate clichés: If you can convince the GM or the entire table that you can use one of your odd clichés
to defend or attack, with a suitably amusing and plausible description of how you'd do it. If you manage to
succeed with an inappropriate cliché, the other dude will lose THREE dice instead of one, for being taken
totally off-guard and humiliated. (Beware a skilled hairdresser backed into a corner.)

Hordes & Mobs: When one of the side in the conflict is "700 Lemmings armed with toothpicks" or a gang of
mooks, just treat them as one single opponent with a single cliche. As they lose dice from that cliche, the mob
disbands, until there's just whimpering stragglers left at 0 dice. When defeated, always make sure some escape
(to plot revenge!) and a significant member of the horde is left behind for the players to berate, browbeat or deal
with in some satisfying manner.

Teaming up: More than one person can help out by working as a team. Whoever in the group has the highest-
ranked appropriate cliché becomes the group's leader. Everyone else can contribute by rolling their own
appropriate cliché, but they can only add one of their dice to the sum rolled by the leader. When a team takes
damage in conflict, either someone on the team can volunteer to take a TWO dice hit (or SIX if an inappropriate
cliché succeeded), or everyone on the team rolls their cliché dice and whoever has the lowest result takes a a
single die hit. If someone volunteered, the leader gets to roll double dice in the next exchange as a 'vengence'
bonus; if nobody volunteered, there is no 'vengence' bonus. If the group disbands, everyone takes a 1-die hit to
their clichés, and members can immediately re-form into a new team. If the group disbands because the old
leader volunteered to take a 2-dice hit, the group can reform immediately and the new leader will gets the
'vengence' bonus on the next exchange.

Character Improvement
At the end of an adventure, roll the dice for each cliché. If all the dice come up even, you can add another die to
that cliché, up to a max of 6. If you want to add a new cliché, you can use the die you would've added to one of
your other clichés to get a new cliché at 1 die. (This is why you roll for your 6-die clichés, even though you
can't increase them.)

Optional Rules
Hooks
If you add a detrimental flaw to your character description, you can add another die to the 10 you start
with for character creation. This flaw has to be something that can be used to disadvantage the character
somehow.
Tales
At the GM's option, you can provide a backstory for your character to add more details the GM can use
during the adventure. If it's entertaining and/or useful to the GM, you can get another die to the 10 you
start with for character creation.

Pumping
When faced with overwhelming odds, you can overextend your cliché for a heroic effort that leaves you
exhausted. For one roll during a vs. environment or onging vs. dude combat, you can roll up to twice as
many dice as you have for the appropriate cliché. Immediately afterwards, that cliché will get hit for as
many extra dice as you added. Don't forget that you also lose dice if you or your team loses, which could
exhaust that cliché completely.
You cannot use this for quick vs. dude 'non-combat' conflicts, because they're over too fast and nobody's
cliché gets worn down.
example: Asuka and Shinji are in a Dance-Dance Revolution competition. Shinji decides to use
"Whiny Emo Kid(3)" and pumps it up by 2 dice, rolling 5. If he succeeds, Asuka will stop dancing
long enough to yell "Shut the hell up you pussy!", but Shiji's cliché takes a 2 dice hit, because he
put so much effort into it that people are getting tired of his emo shit, making it less effective.

Double-Pumping
During character creation, you can spend 2 dice for every 1 die on a cliché to make it a double-pump
cliché. When you pump this cliché, you get TWO extra dice for every 1 die of exhaustion you take after
the exchange. Use [square brackets] around the number after the cliché on your character sheet to mark it
as a double-pump cliché. They're expensive at first, but they advance just like any other cliché, making
them a good investment. Characters can only have one, so make it count.

Funky Dice

Maybe you want Target Example feat of strength Effect on the story
superheroes or demigods in
your Risus game. Then 30 Throwing a motorcycle. (._o)
you'll want bigger dice. 50 Throwing a tank. (o.o)
Character creation is now
based on starting with 60 70 Throwing a loaded train. (0.0)
'points,' and each dice is 85 Throwing a pile of 100s of loaded trains. (>.<)
worth as many points as its
highest number (d6 = 6 100 Kicking the Earth five feet out of orbit. (;_;)
points, d8 = 8 points, d12 =
12 points, etc.) Characters still cannot start with more than a (4) or [4] in any one cliché, but it could be
(4d12) !
When teaming up, the leader is whoever has the most dice in the appropriate cliché, regardless of
the size of dice. (ie.: Clown(4d6) will be leader even if there is a Pie-Archer(3d20) in the team)
Advancing a cliché can now go beyond 6; when advancing beyond 6, drop one die but increase the
die size. (ie.: 6d6 -> 5d8 -> 6d8 -> 5d10 -> ...)
Hooks and Tales are each worth 10% of the starting # of points in character creation.
Double-pump cliches cost double the points that would be used, but still advance normally.

Unofficial Optional Rules

Evens Up
When rolling dice, you only count the dice that come up showing even numbers as "successes." Target
numbers are now 1/2/3/4/5/6 instead of 5/10/15/20/25/30. Dice that show a '6' (if you are using Funky
 Dice, any even number 6 or greater) are counted as a success AND rolled again (aka exploding dice).
This method makes for a smaller gap of successes betweeen smaller and larger clichés. Optional optional
rule: if any die shows a '1' things got more complicated; player must come up with a reason why things
just got harder, and needs one extra 'success' to succeed.

Negative Clichés
To simulate ongoing conditions that persist beyond the usual recovery of depleted clichés, the GM could
assign a temporary cliché that represents something the character must overcome, and opponents can take
advantage of (i.e.: "Shellshocked(1)" or "Sopor Slime Junkie(2)"). This could also be known and difficult
quirks of equipment or situations (i.e. "Glorious Communist Consumer Product(2)", "City Hall
Bureaucracy(1)"). Characters can take 1 or 2 dice in a negative cliche during character generation to get
that many extra dice for other, more positive clichés. When used, an opponent can add the dice for
negative clichés once and only once to a roll of the dice if the negative cliché is narrated as interfering
with the conflict. In combat conflicts, the negative cliché can only be used once during the entire fight,
even if there is more than one opponent trying to make use of it; in non-combat conflicts, there is only
one roll. Temporary negative cliches must be role-played to get rid of, but the GM can assume that during
down-time between adventures, characters can do whatever it takes to drop temporary negative clichés,
like heal-up, relax, repair, see a doctor, consolation by a priest, meet with a financial advisor, etc. At the
end of an adventure, you can use the die you would have added to one of your other clichés to reduce a
pemanent negative cliché by 1 die. A permanent negative cliché can only be reduced by 1 die per
adventure.

More Cliche Examples

TVtropes has all the clichés -- all of them.
Start at their Characters (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwi
ki.php/Main/Characters) page and take one step in any
direction.

Astronaut: Piloting spaceships, not puking in zero-gee

Barbarian: Beating things up, drinking, whoring,
grunting, sweating
Biker: Riding Harley, brawling, being Invisible to other
motorists
Bimbo: Available in both genders. Distracting, teasing,
not teasing...
Computer Geek: Hacking, programming, fumbling over
introductions
Con Artist: Convincing other people to give you money,
evading cops
Cowboy: Ridin', ropin', brandin', spittin', and shootin'
Fighter Pilot: Dogfighting, not blacking out at high-Gs,
bragging
Gadgeteer: Building a radar out of a bent fork and some
gum
Gambler: Betting, cheating, winning, running very fast
Gangster: Shooting, speaking with an accent, intimidation
Geezer: Wheezin', cursin', bitter reminiscin', failin' to
understand kids
Hairdresser: Dressing hair... um, yeah.
Kid: Being a sidekick to heroes, making friends with Giant Monsters
 Knight: Riding, lancing, sword-swinging, heraldry, being chaste
Latin Lover: Seducing, loving, running from irate husbands
Mad Scientist: Raving, trying to play God, defying physics
Martial Artist: Fancy hand-to-hand combat, flying without (visible) wires, out-of-synch speech
Magician: Palming things, sawing ladies in half, public speaking
Sorcerer: Spellcasting, demon-summoning, speaking in gibberish
Novelist: Drinking, brawling, cut-rate world traveling, introspection
Olympic Athlete: Running, swimming, jumping, skiing, javelin-tossing
Outdoorsman: Following tracks, building shelters, finding wild food
Policeman: Eating donuts, writing tickets, shooting badguys
Poltergeist: Being dead, throwing things, scaring people
Soldier: Shooting, hiding, partying, catching venereal diseases
Special Forces: Following orders, looking stern, following orders
Swashbuckler: Stabbing things, swinging from ropes, sailing, romance
Thief: Sneakin' around, gaining access and objects they shouldn't have
Vampire: Charming people, sucking blood, turning into mist or bats
Other Kind of Vampire: Self-pity, erotic blood poetry, wearing black

Links
Archive of S. John's Risus Page (https://web.archive.org/web/20180123064607/http://www222.pair.com/s
john/risus.htm) Archive of The Official Webpage
Risusverse Wiki (http://www.risusiverse.com/) - loads of settings and option rule attempts

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