A game I made up to write stories in my mind

The other day I was procrastinating in my bed and made up a game for writing stories. The idea is I put my ocs in a situation and start thinking what happens next. There are scenarios where I don't really know what happens next though, and I made tools for those.

Challenges

A challenge is an event that happens in a single moment, the character can succeed or fail a challenge. It can be jumping a chasm, evading an arrow, persuading another character, etc. Is the equivalent of skill checks and saving throws in dnd 5e.

For a challenge we first ask ourselves this question: "Can the character do this in an environment without distractions nor help?". We can answer this question in 3 ways: "yes", "no" and "some times". Lets assign some values to those answers:

• Yes: +2
• No: -2
• Some times: 0

Now lets say that the character succeeds only on a 1 or higher. However, thinks rarely happen in a vaccum, there are circumnstances that may help us achieve something or may hinder us. For that we have Advantages and Disadvantages.

Advantages and Disadvantages

An advantage is a circumnstance that help characters perform better than normal. For each advantage we add one (+1) to the value we had before. Examples of advantages are: special tools, help from someone and use of abilities and skills.

A disadvantage on the other hand is a circumstance that hinders characters. For each disadvantage we substract one (-1) to the value. Examples of disadvantages are: Lack of stamina, being sick and standing on difficult terrain.

Not all advantages and disadvantages are created equally though. There are circumstances that give an overwhelming advantage or disadvantage to a charcter. We call this Big Advantages and Big Disadvantages and the have a value of 3 instead of 1. Examples are: incredible proficiency in a skill, having a legendary artifact, being restrained or paralyzed.

How to diferenciate them is that advantages and disadvantages tip the scales a little so you may just succeed. Big advantages and disadvantages on the other hand tip the scales by a lot and aren't easily counteracted.

Going back to Challenges

So after you answer the question, enumerate the advantages and disadvantages the character has and add them to the value. If the value is one or higher, then the character succeeds, if is a zero or lower they fail.

Competitions

Sometimes two characters may partake in a competition against each other. This can be a fight, a contest or something else.

When this happens first visualize a 0. Then assign one character the plus (+) sign and the other the minus (-) sign. You then add all advantages and disadvantages multiplied by their sign. If the final value is positive then plus wins, if it's negative then minus wins and if it's zero then it's a tie.

All of this sounds complicated but most of the time there are only 1-3 advantages and disadvantages in play, so don't worry. Just remember that everything that benefits plus is added and everything that benefits minus is substracted from the total.

Progress

Sometimes your character will do activities over longer periods of time than just a moment. You may want to know how much time it takes them to do an activity. Examples of these activities are crafting, building, searching for something, deciphering an old language, or tearing down some piece of furniture.

First ask yourself "How much time would my character take to do this normally?". Then visualize a value of 1, and add advantages and disadvantages as normal.

If the value is 2 the character takes half the time it normally takes them, 3 three times less time and so on, with a max of 5 times less time. If the value is 0 it takes double time, -1 triple, -2 quadruple and -3 an infinite amount of time (no progress can be made).

The idea is that if you have a big disadvantage then you probably won't make any progress on something. You won't be able to decipher old runes with a migraine, and you wont be able to craft something without any tools and materials.

Inspiration

This is my final rule for the game. At the start of each session the player gets "Inspiration". The player can spend this inspiration to add or substract 1 on a challenge or competition.

The player regains this inspiration when the result of a challenge or competition is a 0, provided the player didn't use inspiration on this result. Inspiration is not stackable, you can only have one inspiration at a time.