Rules for campaigns in imaginary worlds with paper, pen and miniatures or something like that

04 Apr, 2026

I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned before that when I started playing (GMing, to be more precise), I had never read a ttrpg book before. I had played a couple sessions of a post-apocalyptic game a friend had homebrewed, side-eyed characters sheets from some random D&D edition¹ and GURPS and I think that was it...? Nonetheless, I felt completely ready to run a paranormal investigation game for my friends, heavily based on the Hellboy universe - how and why I'm not sure.

I wanted to share how exactly I ruled it, from what I remember (since there are no notes of the system or anything of the sort). Maybe this will be of interest to, I don't know, someone who really wants to know what a freeform ttrpg was like according to a GM who didn't interact with with any ttrpg discourse and had only vague notions of what the hobby was about, in the 2010s.

Rules for player characters

• Characters were defined by the six D&D ability scores, but I'm pretty sure I called them Attributes. I have no idea how we decided them, but they were all numbers in the 1-20 range.
• Characters had an HP and an MP value. They both would reset back to maximum in between sessions, since each session was a monster-of-the-week sort of deal. Also no idea on how we decided those.
  • MP was used for special abilities and attacks, mostly during combat. It was restored with potions and sacraments of some sort, generally provided by people of spiritual or technological knowledge.
  • HP was pretty standard. You take damage and lose HP, when it reached zero your character was dead. There were no saving throws, I had no idea what that was. I think it was restored via eating and taking breaks.
• Characters had a list of "abilities" or "special moves". These generally had an MP cost, but some were passive, like getting a numerical bonus on specific rolls.
  • The examples that come to mind are a character that had +1 when doing things underwater and another who could spend some MP to cast a fireball.
• Characters had an inventory, defined only by common sense. Weapons generally had a damage dice assigned to them, just like in the world's dragonest dungeon game.
• Finally, characters had a description which was mostly flavor, but was the basis for the "abilities" that I made for each, generally along with the player.

Rules for non-player characters

• Non-player characters also had the 6 attributes in the 1-20 range and these ones I remember that I just made up while prepping. Not a single thought about "encounter balance" besides guessing it seemed fine.
• Most of them only had a name besides the stats and I would adjudicate what they could do based on the fiction.

Procedures...?

• Whenever a player character wanted to do something, anything, they would roll a d20 in a Test of {Attribute}. 10 or less was bad for them, 11 or more was good for them. 20 was great, 1 was awful.
  • I don't really remember how attributes influenced rolls that weren't opposed. I think I just looked at the attribute and considered its relative value when narrating roll results.²
  • I remember quickly discovering the power of "you don't have to roll for that, you can just do it", but a lot of the times my players would still want to roll to see if they fumbled or aced something completely trivial, to the table's enjoyment.
• Whenever a player character wanted to do something opposed by another character or an NPC, both would roll a d20 in a Test of {Attribute}. Whoever had the highest attribute would add +1 to their roll.
  • This one baffles me a little. How's that for bounded accuracy, huh? Even accounting for the special abilities, I don't think anyone ever rolled anything with more than +3 that whole campaign.
  • I generally rolled dice for my NPCs behind a notebook, but I don't remember fudging rolls. It was mostly for the drama.
• Some of my players knew that Perception Checks™ were a thing™ and I didn't really know what that entailed besides asking for a roll and telling them whatever was around. Not completely off, I guess.
• Whenever combat situations started, I would ask for initiative rolls, which were - just like everything else - a flat d20 roll. This would determine your turn order.
  • In your turn, I think you could do two actions. Whatever that meant was completely vibes-based, but always up to debate.

GM section

• Before sessions, I would generally draw a flowchart of possible things that could happen and list NPCs.
  • This meant things often would be a bit railroady, but with a bit of leeway. Stuff like "this session will end in a climatic fight against the possesed butler", but I didn't know exactly how that fight would take place. This was a bit quantum.
  • I often had clues for the paranormal mystery of the week at precise spots. This means that if the PCs never went to, say, the local church, they would never get the clue from the reverend. This was a bit blorby.
• I had a bit of the 5e mentality³ where I planned for stuff to be dangerous, but not necessarily lethal. I don't remember how exactly I managed this, but it was a concern.
  • The final session did end up with half of the party dead, I think... But they were all aware it would be the last one.
• I think it was very clear for everyone involved that the main goal of play was "to have fun rolling dice to represent actions in an imaginary world". I don't recall it ever being spoken out loud, but it meant that I would just create scenarios that I thought would be cool and let players roll dice to find out what happens.

I believe this was most of it? It was a short campaign, but we ended up playing some other stuff following a similar ruleset, also unwritten. I'm pretty sure everyone had a lot fun, some friends still talk about "that first Hellboy campaign" every now and then.

anb

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#dnd #freeform #rules #ttrpg