Enchanted Realms Rulebook
Introduction
This project has evolved and advanced with technology. It is time to announce and admit that Enchanted Realms is no longer a Table-Top Game. The long and short of it is a device is required to play. This means creating a game in Roll20, using the custom character sheets, installing the API are all required to play. It also means that the details of the math and methods is not required to be explained. This may be a little frustrating for players that like to understand the mechanics with specifics.
On the flip side, this allows some expanses of the movement, skills and combat systems to address the original reason for splitting off from other games. The idea of strategy and creative play can reign. Taking down an enemy doesn't have to be depleting a bag of hit points. Instead, combat can be inflicting pain rather than wounds to intimidate the enemy to break the garrison. It might be mentally disabling the opponents rather than bludgeoning each other. It might actually be using specific weapons against the combatant because of how the exploits work. It also means that character growth and goals, along with role-playing, can be the primary focus of the game.
Finally, there is an assumption that anyone playing this system is familiar with fantasy role-playing games and that this is not the first time playing. As such, the definitions of common gaming terms will not be written in these rules, nor will numerous examples to help in the explanations. The next section will discuss the playable characters and assume the reader will understand how to apply attribute modifications and what the species traits mean. To be fair, the definitions and common terms are still included in the glossary at the end.
As stated before, Enchanted Realms was born from the OSR chaos. There were early renditions of it thirty years ago. However, long ago this system quit being a “modified version” or “house rules.” Over time, there are some core truths used in this system and its design:
• Skills of similar type work better together and often have prerequisites
• Using skills are not about a binary success/fail system but rather gradients of success or time
• Pools of dice will be used rather than just a straight roll (however, that dice pool might be just one die)
• All species are balanced in power. Where there is a benefit, there will be an offsetting drawback
• All beings have an aura called a “lifesong” that defines who they are
• Abilities, emotions, thoughts, motivations, magical enhancements are all housed in one’s lifesong
• The lifesong is defined in three parts: Body, Mind, and Spirit
• The need to calculate should be rare, but when it happens, always round-down.
• Monsters have attribute scores, have skills and use the same rules as the players.
It is important to recognize that this game system is more than a set of game rules. Unlike other games, the rules, the religion, the game-world, and even the VTT are all tightly integrated. We recognize this isn't for everyone, but when used as designed, it offers a great fantasy gaming experience.
Chimerics
After many years of trials, the game designers built the mechanics from a unique concept. The idea came from questioning and wondering what a world where magic and deities existed would be like. What were the physics? What was the science of such a world?
The answer is this is a world not of science, and soon after, the word “chimerics” was coined, which meant the workings, the physics of a fantasy world. Soon we realized that scientific explanations simply did not work well for the world envisioned. A closer concept was the idea of shintoism, which is an ancient religion that saw spiritual powers existing in the natural world. Shinto revolves around supernatural entities called the kami (神), who inhabited all things, including forces of nature and prominent landscape locations. As game designers we took this further, having the kami serve the gods -- and therefore, controlled the natural forces. There were weather spirits, agricultural kami, frost beings creating art in the winters, and so on. All of this existed in a hierarchy, each type reporting up the chain, until finally reaching the deity who reigned over the province.
This kept things in a sense of order that seemed like weather patterns and seasons; however, because the greater kami spirits were beings of intellect and volition, one could create events that seemed like a curse, a blessing or even angry vengeance. It explained the orderly patterns of the natural world, but also the miraculous exceptions -- especially when a priest was involved, using the power of divinity to control or influence the kami to act outside the norm. A magical prayer to alter the weather is merely sway the actions of the great spirits who control the clouds and mists.
This idea destroyed Boyle’s gas laws of chemistry, opening up more questions. Why does gravity exist? Is the world round? What are the stars? And then diseases and poisons got brought up. Germs and cellular biology simply didn’t feel to fit in this scene. It was chosen to use the ancient miasmatic model instead.
The point of all this narrative is to explain that the chimerics of the world began to drive the rules, game mechanics and overall system. It would seem most game development works by developing rules and fitting a setting around those. So, we believe that Enchanted Realms is different, perhaps even a bit quirky, in its design. Of course, as things get written down and play-tested, a sense of fairness and game balance start to be exposed. All of this aside, the chimerics seem complex but after a short bit of play, we are confident that one will understand that there is a wondrous consistency that exists, even when things are not fully understood by a scientific explanation.