This introduction was originally released on my blog diceadventurer.

I hesitated when Space Orange 42 released Sheherazade because it is a short rulebook and the price for the PDF was quite high. However, the setting and the sample characters convinced me to try it and I was not disappointed. Let me show you the selling points.

The world:

Scheherazade, namesake for this game, might be familiar to you. She is the storyteller in Arabian Nights and is the inspiration for the game. Every evening Scheherazade tells the caliph a story with a cliffhanger so she won’t be executed. The caliph, betrayed by his first wife, decided to have a new woman every day and after the night together, she will be killed. Scheherazade achieved to stay alive for 1000 nights and the caliph fell in love with her. The next day should have been their wedding but Scheherazade fell into a deep sleep. Nobody is able to wake her up and the caliph got desperate. Now the country stands still and the sovereign is not able to reign it properly. The players take the role of people who met Scheherazade and she told their stories to the caliph. Every player character had a nightmare the night Scheherazade fell into her sleep and it is up to the players to find a cure and save Scheherazade and the country.

The system:

Scheherazade uses its own system, which is called the Unique System. You start building your character by choosing or creating a concept like Old Ghoulhunter or Nimble Street urchin. This concept starts with a value of one. Then you spend so called marks to raise your attributes. The six attributes are power, precision, courage, caution, passion and reason. As you might notice those attributes form pairs and are opposites. Every full box (later boxes need two or more marks to be filled completely) raises your value by one. You can choose to spend one mark to become gifted and be able to cast magic. You also get to choose your fist two spells. Later in the game, you need to find spells in books, scrolls or learn them with the help of a teacher. Those attribute “boxes” also have different shapes. Each fully marked heart shaped box raises your Life (your HP) and fully marked stars raise your Energy (some kind of mana).

Furthermore, every character gets to start with a unique gift, which defines the character. The formula for creating those gifts is similar to stunts in Fate. You might get a bonus under certain circumstances, use other attributes for checks or you start with a relic, an ally or have a special talent (like talking to animals). I really like the examples and you can use random tables for character creation, if you want to.

You make checks with six sided dice. The GM tells the player which two attributes are used and you pick as many dice as you have in those two attributes (e.g. XXX + YYY for XYZ). If your concept fits, you can add its value to the number of dice. Every 4, 5 or 6 is a success and you have to beat the difficulty. One die should have a different colour or size. If this die shows a “6” the check still has a positive side effect, even if the check is a failure and otherwise a “1” has always some kind of negative aspect. Beside normal checks, you can also have complex tasks. These tasks have a difficulty and a complexity. The GM sets the interval for rolling (e.g. for picking a lock you could have a roll every minute or for a complex research you can roll every 5 hours). Successes reduce the complexity of the task and by reaching zero the task is completed. Generally, the GM does not roll. The players make all actions and reactions.

In a fight, the players roll for initiative and compare it to the level (the difficulty) of the enemies. The battlefield consists of zones. A successful attack results in either doing damage or hindering the enemy. Hindering the enemy lowers its level until its next turn (which is great to enable weaker player characters to do damage). Every success beyond the difficulty can be traded into one point of damage or an effect. Therefore, you need two successes to hit a level 2 bandit. With four successes, you could deal two points of damage and lower its level by 1. Defending works the same, but instead of dealing damage, you can lower the amount taken. Scheherazade is a very heroic game and by default, characters don’t die easily. There are optional rules to make it grittier and more dangerous.

Gear doesn’t have mechanical effects, they are just for the fiction. Some objects are special and have keywords (e.g. tool or two hands). Those who know PbtA-games might feel right at home, but those tags/keywords also have a mechanical effect. The examples and instructions in the book are really good how to use those keywords and with this system players are encouraged to create individualized gear.

A special resource are the Moon-Points. With these points you can reroll or create fictional elements (e.g. a cart in the street to reach the rooftops). You gain those points by being heroic, selfless or finding creative solutions to a problem. You can also tell a tale at a campfire or write a poem or story between sessions. What I really like is that these stories could be rumours or legends and the GM is encouraged to implement those elements into the world. So if a player recites a legend of a flying carpet in a hidden cave, the GM could drop hints in the game where to find it. This is a great way to get the players invested and interested in the world.

The magic system in Scheherazade is very simple and easy to use. A gifted person needs to spend Energy and most of the spells require a simple check. If you want to get more spells after character creation, you have to find them. You get marks after adventures (basically XP) but most of the time the GM should reward the players with other things, like objects, contacts and treasures. The book contains some examples for things like spells and objects, but the GM should come up with his own creations and with the given rules, it is quite easy. Enemies consist mostly of background and description. They have some keywords and which level their attacks and initiative have (some enemies are stronger so their attack lvl is higher). As with objects and spells, it’s really easy to build your own enemies.

The book:

I own the PDF and the hardcover. Both are in English and are full colour. The artwork is beautiful and the art style was the decisive factor in buying the book. The layout is good as well, very clear and good to read. Scheherazade has only 171 pages and the GM and the group has to put in some work. You don’t get much adventure hooks, but you can just take a story of Arabian Nights and you have your adventure. I think the PDF and the hardcover are quite expensive for the amount of pages you get. However, the system is amazing and I already hacked it for a session One Piece. I think the Unique System would fit perfectly for Star Wars, Pulp (like Hollow Earth Expedition, Indiana Jones, etc.) or Harry Potter.

Who might be interested in Scheherazade:

• GMs and players who like to play ruleslite and pulpy/heroic adventures
• People who want to focus on storytelling
• Players who want to bring their ideas to the setting

Who might not be interested in Scheherazade:

• GMs and players who want to have complex and extensive rules
• People who need lots of ready to play material (items, adventures, enemies)
• Players who want to create mechanically detailed characters