This is a gm-less rpg game made for those quick, fun games people want to have without long character creation sessions. All the players do is decide on a setting, such as modern earth city, gothic romance, or B horror film, for example. Note that the PCs made should have something to do with the setting and the story - whatever it turns out to be - that the Players are telling. In other words, a B horror movie should have all pcs as confused normal people, or one or two players playing the "monster" being hunted while everyone else is normal people and the like. Vampire running around with a stake in her hands, anyone?

Each player then makes up their character, with their name and profession. This can be literally anything they can devise, from "Author of crappy little rpgs" to "questing knight" to "psychopathic killer of small things that go bump in the night." Make something that would be fun for you to play and fun in the story is the only limitation. All your PC can do is based on the profession/job you make for them. So if you're Italian Housekeeper decides to hit someone, you can say: "Marisa has cleaned many windows and raised 4 sons. Her arms are tougher than they look" to explain her belting someone hard enough to knock them to the ground.. Role play is the key to this, as well as doing things out of character, such as mild mannered reporters stopping bullets by catching them.

Each player then goes from left to right or, on IRC, from first to last nick and assigns the next player a weakness/flaw. This continues until everyone has some sort of playable flaw for their PC. If a PC doesn't like their flaw, they can use a vote to make someone else give them their flaw if one given to them is considered overkill. Players have 2 votes to spend during this process only and can negate a chosen flaw on a 1 to 1 basis. You can even negate a flaw given to another player, forcing the player next in line to give them their flaw.

For example. Bob decides that Linda's housekeeper will have a fear of rats. Linda thinks it doesn't make sense for a housekeeper so vetoes it, losing one of her votes. Charlie, the next player in order, gives her a fear of black cats instead, which Linda thinks makes sense. She decides to expand it and make her housekeeper very superstitious.

VOTES

The voting system has each PC begin with 10 votes during the game. These are used during the session to stop actions, such as vetoing another PCs action. Once votes are used, they're lost until the next scene (explained below).

For example:
Bob is trying to break down a door leading to some evil creature - too early in the game for Linda. She doesn't want him want him to, and says she is spending 1 vote to halt it. "The door is too tough."
Bob spends one vote to cancel Linda's, "The door begins to give way."
Linda spends another vote to make sure he doesn't open it "It's giving way turned out to be an optical delusion."
Not wanting to spend more, Bob asks Charlie to spend 1 vote to cancel Linda's (which means he'll owe Charlie. Not paying up on owed votes would likely lead to messy deaths since the other players could get annoyed at you.) Charlie does and says "However, Bob is very determined and the frame gives way around the door."

The key to spending your votes is that it must make sense in the context of the game. The point of the game is to create a fun story, not to keep pcs alive or "win" anything special. Half the fun is bargaining the spending of votes with other players. (Keeping track of what others have left can be good, too.) As PC death just means you make a new PC (See the death section below) hoarding votes to save your PCs life is rather pointless and not in the spirit of the game, which is to have fun.

SCENES

A scene is a section of game time lasting as long as the players agree. Each scene should be at least 5 minutes of real time, but should end when most of the players are out of votes. A scene could be a showdown with the monster, the climax of a game, 3 days in a haunted house or some such. Alternatively, ignore the scene system entirely and have the pcs stuck with just 10 votes for the entire game, however long it lasts.

If scenes are ignored, players can gain extra votes through innovative RP, at a group consensus among the players. This may mean all the players agreeing to it or some majority you've decided on thinking that a player deserves it for some action of theirs.

CHARACTER INTERACTION

Characters interact normally with each other (and NPCs) without votes, most of the time. However, if they do opposing actions, they may use votes to resolve their difference, such as combat or trying to get somewhere the other player doesn't want them to be. Votes only enter combat when the players decide to include them. Most combats, such as a knight attacking a peasant, would have an obvious result and need no votes to realise that the peasant has been slaughtered by the hierarchical system and crushed beneath the evil of the nobility.

This is an example of combat between two pcs, a gardener and a housekeeper. The players have decided to use votes solely because neither of their pcs are good in combat normally.

Bob: "I swing at you with the rake and due to my skills gardening I hit!" (one vote)
Linda: "However, I manage to flick my wrist and draw out my knitting needle and stop the blow from hurting me!" (one vote)
Charlie: "A police officer walks by and sees the gardener and housekeeper duelling. He comes over to see what is going on"
Bob: "I put the rake down and tell him: 'We're preparing in case our home is invaded. You can never be too careful.'"
Linda: "The police officer looks at you in a suspicious way, but decides that you look harmless now and begins deciding if my housekeeper's needle was a concealed weapon or not."

If the players want the police office to ignore their fight, they have to convince him otherwise, as shown above. This is done through RP, and only comes down to votes if the combat really matters to the pcs. Once an NPC is introduced by a PC (like Charlie's police officer) anyone can NPC him, but the player who made the NPC should get first say in what the NPC does.

JOINING THE GAME

People not involved in the game could play vote-less pcs (NPCs, in essence) that the players have introduced into the game for added flavour. Full fledged player characters entering a game late should begin with a number of votes equal to the average of the other players. So if Bob has 7 left, Linda 6 and Charlie 2, the fourth player would begin with 5 votes.

DEATH

As the point of the game is RP, votes are generally only used on things that would detract from the story you're telling or to add some spice to events in the story, (like opening the door to the room where the evil thing awaits). As such, PCs are likely to die due to the effects of the story. No problem! You just make a new one with your remaining votes (if you have none, your new PC has 5 votes) and enter him or her into the story to continue it. As well, a player can just continue via NPCs if they want and use her votes to manipulate events in that manner rather than make a new PC.

ENDING THE GAME

The game ends whenever the players decide it has. It's that simple. As such, games can last for as long as you like or be as short as you like. Long games (over an hour of real time) should use the scene system if the players want.

VERSION HISTORY

0.2 - This is the first version of the game. It gets to be 0.2 because it is spell-checked.

CREDITS

This system has been designed by Alcar and aslhk.

For ideas on improving it and such, e-mail alcar at jmacleod@comnet.ca