Absolutely one of the favorite systems my group and I picked up in 2022. It's clean, quick, and doesn't present a lot of edge cases, has a mechanic that allows players to alter their rolls, and a relatively open system. Pay ten bucks for it, 'cause it's worth it!

I first downloaded one of these One-Shot RPG booklets some time ago thinking it was a supplement for OpenQuest. Flipping through it a little bit I was intrigued by the concise ruleset and the sheer giddy enthusiasm of some of the supplements that went with it. I decided to show it to my group to see if they would be interested in trying it out for a session.

My pitch didn't go over so well. Although I understood the basic system well enough there was just something about having a base percentile skill and then adding a modifier based on difficulty my group just didn't go for. Really, I think the main issue was that these are a bunch of longtime RuneQuest/Call of Cthulhu/BRP players that simply like having one basic skill number they can look at on a character sheet and immediately know what to roll under, and they just weren't enthused about doing anything differently or newfangled when it came to D100 based game systems. Ah, well, so much for that- it was hardly the first time I was interested in trying something out that just didn't grab the others. And so I moved on.

...Except that I didn't. Days passed. Weeks passed. And somehow my thoughts just kept coming back to these small One Shot RPG booklets. Maybe there was something about those trimmed-down skill lists that made me question "do we REALLY need all those BRP style skills for a game that will probably only last a session or two?" Or maybe it was those outrageously fun adventure covers that made me feel like a kid looking through bargain bin VHS tape covers and finding gems such as Dagon or Beastmaster all over again. Somehow, I just couldn't let go of what I had seen in these OSRPGS games. There was something there that just... Really made me want to play them.

And then, randomly one day on the drive back from work, it hit me; I could "repackage" the way the mechanics are done without actually changing anything. See, by default let's say that you have a fighting skill of 20%. In this game system you would then add a 50% (for a total of 70%) if you were attempting a normal task, or you might add a 30% (for a total of 50%) for a challenging task, etc. For whatever reason it was the idea of adding variable bonuses that was throwing my group off... So what I did instead is just went ahead and pre-calculated the 50% to each skill so that they were all simply listed as what you would need to roll under for a normal task. That way if someone attempted a difficult task they just subtract 30% from what was on the character sheet instead of trying to add various bonuses to the base number.*

In short, I just made the character sheet look more like something more familiar to a longtime BRP player and that was it. Mathematically it was all the exact same thing.

I made a second pitch to the group and this time it went over much better, so now I have a game all lined up to finally try this system out! I'll be running The Covenant of Dagon in a week or so, so I'll post how things went there afterwards.

But you know, whether that game turns out well or not I would still recommend that anyone gives this game a chance. I've been gaming for nearly three decades so I've seen games come and go, and I can spot a work of gaming quality and love. I believe that the One-Shot RPG System has both going for it.

*In case I'm not explaining this well, under the "precalculated" system a new character has one skill at 80%, four at 70%, and eight a 60%. Now you just subtract from those numbers when rolls are more difficult. For whatever reason subtracting penalties (rather than adding bonuses) just felt more 'right' to a bunch of old school "roll under" grognards even though nothing is really mathematically different.

For the last few days, I soloed my way through The Haunter From Beyond. To play this, you will need One-Shot RPG System Rules: Modern & Horror Setting, both are free/pay what you want at DriveThruRPG. I used the Mythic Game Master Emulator as the solo engine. The adventure is in a horror/Lovecraftian/modern setting in Italy. The module contains seven NPC characters. I used Ryu and Iyana as PCs and I rolled up three more characters to use as PCs. So, the party bus is filled with five PCs and four NPCs. In Policoro they visit a club at night and Boris the bodyguard gets kicked out of there. Things really get crazy when they get to the abandoned town of Carcosa. Selma the NPC is the party girl and she promises a fun time here. She is not concerned about the wrecked military-style truck. They do salvage a Beretta BM59 from it and some ammo. In a house they find a tentacle. In the cyclopean cathedral they find a strange altar. Next, Clarine the clairvoyant has a vision of a man in a house. They find the house and search it. The man can not be found, but Jacob the journalist does take the documents about rituals. Jacob is not much fun, but he does pay for the gas, and he is armed with a Samsung Galaxy S10 phone. Later, Selma gets out her Ouija board at the cathedral and things start to get ugly. The group does get a “win”, but Ryu the PC dies and also Selma, Tasia, and Ava (NPCs). The attached image is of Clarine (She can be moody).

Give this a try!

This eleven page document includes six monsters, seven psychic abilities, six NPC categories, but there is no sanity. Instead, they use self-control.