Looking for the Free Microlite20/7x/8x/2020 Rules Downloads?

There are well over 100 free downloads of rules (and more) for Microlite20, Microlite2020, Microlite7x, Microlite 81, and their many variants in the Game Download Library area below. These files can be downloaded without creating a membership on this site.

 

 

 

Update (19 Jun 23):

As I mentioned many weeks ago, maintaining the seldom used Wordpress side of this site became too much of a bother, especially as parts of Wordpress are constantly updating and some those updates break things -- like access to this forum. I'm finally had time to remove it. The forum should stop disappearing from view now.

As many of you know, my wife has had MS for about 20 years now. It has gotten to the stage where helping her takes a lot more of my time that it used to. This means visits to this board have become few and far between. I'm looking for a couple of members willing to help moderate this board. Note that if your idea of good moderation is anything similar the way boards like RPG.net are moderated, do not bother volunteering. Good moderation isn't about forcing your opinions, ideological positions, or biases on members via your power to gag and ban, it is about being helpful to all members (even those you don't like/disagree with), cleaning up after spammers, and enforcing the rules with the lightest hand possible and only doing so when the rules are actually broken. If you are interested in any message board moderation position on any board because of the supposed "power" it will give you, you are (IMHO) the wrong person for the job. If you are interested, PM me. It may taken quite a while to reply, unfortunately.

m20: Pick-up/One-Off Games, or General Purpose/Campaigns?

Description: Thoughts/experiences on whether m20 is better suited for specific games/purposes, or whether it's suitable for long-term/campaign play.

A place to share your rules-lite RPG ideas and designs.


User avatar
quaffeine
Posts: 81
Joined: Mon Sep 09, 2019 11:53 am
x 23
United States of America

m20: Pick-up/One-Off Games, or General Purpose/Campaigns?

Post by quaffeine »

Ahoy, question for the panel:

I've been reading through the original and continued EN World threads where m20 was originally announced and developed. Yes, all of them. DON'T JUDGE ME!!!

Anyway, there seemed to be a prevailing thought at the time, even by its original author, that m20 was better suited for "one-off" or "pick-up" games, as character creation and refereeing were both quick and easy. On the other hand, if players wanted something with more depth, they should look to a more "full-fledged" system like D&D or Pathfinder.

I'm interested to hear anyones thoughts/experience either way on this. Part of me agrees that Purest Essence alone doesn't lend itself to in-depth/long-term/campaign-style play. On the other hand, there was a time where that's what the rulesets looked like, and I'm sure some of those folks were involved in longer campaigns.

I feel like the compact m20 base, with some judicious additions inspired by newer editions, could still produce a general-use system that provides enough "variety" to be compelling while retaining the compact playability it started with.

1 x


User avatar
randalls
Site Admin
Posts: 383
Joined: Fri Jul 05, 2019 8:58 am
x 47
Gender:
United States of America

Re: m20: Pick-up/One-Off Games, or General Purpose/Campaigns?

Post by randalls »

quaffeine wrote:
Mon Nov 08, 2021 11:30 am

Anyway, there seemed to be a prevailing thought at the time, even by its original author, that m20 was better suited for "one-off" or "pick-up" games, as character creation and refereeing were both quick and easy. On the other hand, if players wanted something with more depth, they should look to a more "full-fledged" system like D&D or Pathfinder.

In my opinion it depends on what your players are looking for. If they want a game where success is measured by how much mechanical (that is "game rules") power their character has, most M20-based games aren't that good for long-time play as their really isn't enough "character-oriented rules gadgets" players can manipulate to keep players looking for them happy. On the other hand, if the players measure success by what their characters "do in the campaign world during play" campaigns can last years. For example, I know of one Microlite74 Standart campaign that has ran in Central Texas for over 10 years of mostly weekly or bi-weekly play.

I feel like the compact m20 base, with some judicious additions inspired by newer editions, could still produce a general-use system that provides enough "variety" to be compelling while retaining the compact playability it started with.

I100% agreement here.

2 x

RandallS
Playing and Gamemastering Tabletop RPGs Since 1975
Designer: Microlite74, Microlite75, Microlite78, Microlite81, Microlite20 OSS, and others
Compiler: The Microlite20 RPG Collection
Administrator: Rules Light RPGs

User avatar
quaffeine
Posts: 81
Joined: Mon Sep 09, 2019 11:53 am
x 23
United States of America

Re: m20: Pick-up/One-Off Games, or General Purpose/Campaigns?

Post by quaffeine »

In my opinion it depends on what your players are looking for. If they want a game where success is measured by how much mechanical (that is "game rules") power their character has, most M20-based games aren't that good for long-time play as their really isn't enough "character-oriented rules gadgets" players can manipulate to keep players looking for them happy.

Gamers these days seem to want/expect some level of "rules gadgets," and even I will certainly cop to a love of 2E *books. I guess this is my real question: is there a niche for something with something that balances the character-diversity options of splatbooks through 5E with Microlite 20 sensibilities.

0 x
User avatar
randalls
Site Admin
Posts: 383
Joined: Fri Jul 05, 2019 8:58 am
x 47
Gender:
United States of America

Re: m20: Pick-up/One-Off Games, or General Purpose/Campaigns?

Post by randalls »

quaffeine wrote:
Fri Nov 19, 2021 10:21 pm

Gamers these days seem to want/expect some level of "rules gadgets," and even I will certainly cop to a love of 2E *books. I guess this is my real question: is there a niche for something with something that balances the character-diversity options of splatbooks through 5E with Microlite 20 sensibilities.

Not that I'm aware of. However, since I try to avoid games with complex character design options, I'm not the person to ask. However, as no one else has come in on this with suggestions in the past couple of weeks, there just may not be many games like this.

1 x

RandallS
Playing and Gamemastering Tabletop RPGs Since 1975
Designer: Microlite74, Microlite75, Microlite78, Microlite81, Microlite20 OSS, and others
Compiler: The Microlite20 RPG Collection
Administrator: Rules Light RPGs

User avatar
quaffeine
Posts: 81
Joined: Mon Sep 09, 2019 11:53 am
x 23
United States of America

Re: m20: Pick-up/One-Off Games, or General Purpose/Campaigns?

Post by quaffeine »

So to provide a quick update on this topic... we just finished a campaign (or first chapter thereof, we'll see if the group wants to continue) based in a low-fantasy 1790s New Orleans. It started last July (dang!), once weekly for around 2 hours, and saw the party reach 6th level (this probably should have been higher for 9 months, due at least in part to lack of prep on my part).

It used an extended m20 ruleset, particularly where character classes/options were concerned. I did, however, keep these options pretty lean, testing the theory that closer to Purest Essence would be better.

I've come to the conclusion that the base m20 rules provide an excellent base for a ruleset, but pretty much beg to be extended in so.e way. I think the players agreed as, while they seem to have generally enjoyed the campaign, one commented that they "needed to get me on a crunchier system." These are all veteran players with experience going back to (I believe) the B/X and 1E days.

So to answer my own original question, I feel a need to put together something more "advanced" together, while being extremely conservative about what's added and making sure it all has value.

Thank you for attending my m20 TED talk :lol:

1 x
User avatar
squirewaldo
Posts: 114
Joined: Fri Jul 31, 2020 10:15 am
x 11
United States of America

Re: m20: Pick-up/One-Off Games, or General Purpose/Campaigns?

Post by squirewaldo »

I enjoyed the game. It was a great balance of investigation and adventure.

0 x
User avatar
randalls
Site Admin
Posts: 383
Joined: Fri Jul 05, 2019 8:58 am
x 47
Gender:
United States of America

Re: m20: Pick-up/One-Off Games, or General Purpose/Campaigns?

Post by randalls »

quaffeine wrote:
Wed Apr 20, 2022 1:18 pm

I've come to the conclusion that the base m20 rules provide an excellent base for a ruleset, but pretty much beg to be extended in so.e way. I think the players agreed as, while they seem to have generally enjoyed the campaign, one commented that they "needed to get me on a crunchier system." These are all veteran players with experience going back to (I believe) the B/X and 1E days.

So to answer my own original question, I feel a need to put together something more "advanced" together, while being extremely conservative about what's added and making sure it all has value.

It's easy to add stuff/crunch to M20. While this is probably obvious, you probably want to find out exactly where your players would like to see more crunch, that way you can some crunch they want where they want it -- thereby focusing the additions to things that really add value for the players.

0 x

RandallS
Playing and Gamemastering Tabletop RPGs Since 1975
Designer: Microlite74, Microlite75, Microlite78, Microlite81, Microlite20 OSS, and others
Compiler: The Microlite20 RPG Collection
Administrator: Rules Light RPGs

User avatar
quaffeine
Posts: 81
Joined: Mon Sep 09, 2019 11:53 am
x 23
United States of America

Re: m20: Pick-up/One-Off Games, or General Purpose/Campaigns?

Post by quaffeine »

In my on-going research on this subject, I came across a post (on Reddit, of all places) that really nails what I like about m20. To quote:

What makes a good rpg are their dedicated tidbits, the minigames, the "this is what the game is about" rules. Without them, it's just a generic engine just reskinned, and those are usually lacking.

The author seems to use "generic engine" in a derogatory sense, but personally I think that's what's good about it. I don't need to design an entirely new system just to go from fantasy to sci-fi to superhero. Just take the existing chassis, and spend my time designing the "mini-games" that really add flavor.

In fact, I recently did just this when I threw together a sci-fi-based one-shot using a very similar structure to the Gothic New Orleans campaign our group had run not too long ago. Still took some time, obviously, but not having to spin it up from scratch was great.

I recognize that all systems/settings probably do this to an extent, but I like that m20 does so within the span of a few pages.

Anyway, that's just my "deep thought" for the day... :lol:

1 x
User avatar
squirewaldo
Posts: 114
Joined: Fri Jul 31, 2020 10:15 am
x 11
United States of America

Re: m20: Pick-up/One-Off Games, or General Purpose/Campaigns?

Post by squirewaldo »

The stroll through SanFranSicko was very entertaining. I particularly liked the sudden and unexpected, at least by me, change in the game from Predator to Transformers!

0 x
User avatar
quaffeine
Posts: 81
Joined: Mon Sep 09, 2019 11:53 am
x 23
United States of America

Re: m20: Pick-up/One-Off Games, or General Purpose/Campaigns?

Post by quaffeine »

Thanks @squirewaldo, would have been even more frantic and fun if y'all had just rolled better that first night!

It illustrates the point though, I had some basic rules structure already from Crescent City, so all I had to do was come up with the "mini-games" on learning the machines, running them (power points), and some fun things to make them unique. Most of which I "sought inspiration for" (i.e. basically kifed from) the Compendium.

1 x
Post Reply