From publisher blurb:
This is something we’ve wanted to do for a while: A THOUSAND THOUSAND ISLANDS-specific rules, play-aids, and adventures, designed for various roleplaying-game systems.
Here are some player-facing house rules for exploring the world of A THOUSAND THOUSAND ISLANDS using 5E rules.
Zedeck’s Design Notes — House Rules:
The ATTI zines are system-neutral. When people do ask us about system, “Can I use your zines with D&D?” is the question we get most often. Starting with 5E made sense.
Plus: one of our endgame goals is to create a bespoke tabletop RPG system for ATTI; this will probably be an amalgam of stuff we like from other games. Consider these PDFs as the first step in Mun Kao & Zedeck’s Grand Tour Of RPG Systems We Want To Crib From.
This house rule document reflects my personal preferences vis a vis 5E. I generally dislike doing math; and where math is required I like such abstractions kept simple.
More importantly, it attempts to encourage the “mouthfeel” of ATTI:
Less power, more skill — player characters in ATTI are closer to the human baseline. But what is a hero, but a normal person with art, luck, and allies? Being prepared and having friends will take you further than an ability score increase or a “+4 to initiative”-style feat ever could.
Magic is natural — it is part of the human baseline. There is no distinction between the mystical and material, in ATTI. Magic is art is skill. A wok made with sufficient skill comes alive. A dancer, with enough flair, bends reality. (This facet is further explored in our 5E Character Classes.)
War is art — in real-world silat practice, a sarong can be as deadly as a spear. In ATTI, all weapons do d8 damage. But that’s just abstracted damage. A sarong is not the same as a spear. You can bar a door with a spear; you can smother with a sarong.
Skills matter — they are more than just bonuses to checks. A skill provides a player-character with useful gear (books of religious lore); a history (which monastery did you belong to?); kinship with fellow practitioners and factions (you get along with monks, but a rival order may hunt you).
Gear matters — light, food and drink are essential. Armour is heavy in ATTI’s heat and humidity. Do you have the proper tools and medicines on you? You only have so many shoulders; you’ll need help carting around all your stuff. How will you pay your porters? How will you manage your caravan?
Trade, not currency — there is no easy gp standard in ATTI. Value is attached to trade: to knowing what goods other communities might want. Convince buyers why they need the stuff you have, and why they should pay a high price. Find out what the local currency is!
People matter — ATTI is an interconnected world. Every action (or inaction) has political / economic / ethical ripples. As player-characters advance, they must reckon with the ways their presence affects surrounding communities. (And, in ATTI, most things count as “people”.)
A lot of the above is basically tweaking 5E towards the old-school style of RPG play: open-ended rules and mechanics; emphasis on the materiality of the imagined space; high trust between players. What can I say? I’m an OSR person, at heart.
These house rules are player-facing — they primarily deal with stuff that directly affects player-characters. How we might handle NPCs in ATTI (ie: reaction tables, guidelines for stats and skills, etc) is something we are still figuring out, and will probably come in a separate PDF.