GORE (Generic Old-school Role-playing Engine)

GORE Generic Old-school Role-playing Engine

by Daniel Proctor
Goblinoid Games, 2007

It can be purchased from https://www.drivethrurpg.com  This appears to be pdf only and as I have it as a softback book, it was available in this format at some point, as well.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

GORE, written by Dan Proctor, is Goblinoid Games' contribution to the Basic Roleplaying (BRP) world, using OGL 1.0a.  Unlike the BRP "Gold Book", GORE is trim and sexy, weighing in at 52 pages.  This game includes its own license for 3rd parties to use called the GORE License 1.0.  As far as I know, Stuart Marshall's The Secret of the Whispering Wood is the only other GORE product, but I could certainly be mistaken.

If, dear reader, you are familiar with any other BRP game, nothing in GORE will come as a surprise.  For those of you who may not be familiar, all BRP games are percentage-based, where a skill of 40% means that your character has a 40% chance to succeed, barring any modifiers.

GORE uses the standard polyhedral dice.  It is an attribute and skill-based game without the need for classes or levels.  The ability scores are pretty much like every other game from the 1980s.  The two exceptions being Size (character's mass) and Power (force of will, and innate magical ability for setting which use magic.  The other attributes are strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, and charisma.  Scores are figured by rolling 3d6 for each, with an alternate method for higher-powered characters, which uses 2d6+6.  Hit points are figured by averaging constitution and size.

If an ability score needs to be tested, it is multiplied by 5 and the percentile dice need to beat this number.  Sometimes, characters will have to determine if something is successful when being opposed.  This is called Opposition.  The traditional arm-wresting is a good example.  To determine the % chance of success, the character pits his strength against his opponent's strength, looking a chart (the Opposition Table) which will give the actual chance the character will succeed.

Most tests the character will make, however, are based on skills.  Every character has a base % chance to succeed at any skill (5% for art, 35% for climbing, 15% survival as examples).  The Dodge skill defaults to the character's dexterity x 2.  Some skills, computers for instance, have a base % chance based on era.  In a standard fantasy setting, the skill would not exist; in a 70s blacksploitation movie setting, it might default to 5%, whereas a modern spy thriller setting might default to 40%.  Players may want to choose a profession for their character, which can be anything.  The book does have 25 or so professions, covering the most common genres.  The GM and players might need to brainstorm a bit for professions which are not included.  Each profession gives five to seven suggested skills.  Professions are not required, though.  Players can put skill points into any skill available for the setting.  Professions just give the player some things he can focus on for his character.

There are 35-40 skills or so in the rulebook, but not all will be available in all genres.  Some skills, for example Science, may require a specialty.  Characters get 250 points to spend on skills, keeping in mind that all skills have a base %, so if the player drops 20% into a 5% base skill, he now has 25% in that skill.  Make sense?

Improving skills is one of the great thing about GORE, and other BRP games.  Instead of gaining experience points and then at some point, voila! I'm a 3rd level dwarf, each skill is improved separately.  The two methods included are 1) the player gets to pick three skills he wants to improve when the GM says it is allowed, or 2) the player makes note when a skill has been used exceptionally.  In either case, the player rolls d%, and if the result is higher than the current skill level, it goes up by 1d10%.  No skill can be improved beyond 98% though, so there is always a chance for failure.

A roll of 00 results in a fumble.  A roll of 20% of the skill score results in a critical success.  In the case of our 40% score I mentioned in paragraph 2, this means that a roll of 01-08 is a critical success.  I think this complicates the game a bit too much.  Some newer BRP games rule that dice rolls which succeed, and are also doubles (11, 22, 33 for our 40% dude) are considered a critical success.  I prefer this.

 The Game rules chapter follows.  In includes the majority of situations which might arise in any genre.  Acid, drowning, and fire are pretty universal for any setting, but this chapter includes things that you may not consider until the situation arises.  Examples include air pressure, aging, and radiation.  In this chapter is also included fumble charts for weapons, which I believe should be relegated to the combat chapter.  In addition to fumbles, injuries, light blows, and the optional hit locations should also have been in the combat chapter.  Two rules to note here are poison and radiation.  These make use of the Opposition Table, pitting the potency of the poison or radiation against the constitution of the character.  A cool Radiation Exposure Table is included for what happens when a human is dosed with them good ol' rays. This table is for "realistic" game genres, though.  Gaining x-ray vision or learning to shoot eye lasers are not options!

The Combat chapter is next.  Players will quickly realize that GORE, and most BRP games, are based on RuneQuest, which is a rules-heavy combat-based game.  Place in combat is based on Strike Ranks (initiative).  Both the attacker and the defender roll their weapon skill.  Combatant A has 40% scimitar skill and Combatant B has a 30% hatchet skill.  Depending on how well each combatant rolls, determines the result of the attack.  Combat adds another complication by adding impale as a result, in addition to fumble, failure, success, and critical.  Every blow in combat needs to have a chart consulted to find the result.  If Combatant A is attacking and rolls a 36 (success) and Combatant B is defending and rolls a 02 (critical), then no hit is scored.  The crunchy factor of combat in GORE puts me off running the game.  If I was to run this game, I would disregard the table and find a much more streamlined way of judging combat.

There are a few other rules in the combat chapter for mounted combat, gun malfunctions and reloading, unarmed combat, etc.

Magic comes next.  Magic-using characters know a maximum number of spells equal to their intelligence attribute.  The ability score, power, determines if the character can learn spells, and how many Magic Points he has to power his spells.  By default, a power of 16+ is required to be a spell-caster, but like everything else, this can be adjusted for different genres.  There are nine pages of spells, including many old standbys from D&D or OSR games, such as web, purify food and drink, cure wounds, spider climb, and remove disease.  The more powerful offensive spells such as fireball and lightning bolt are not included.

We are now through page 44.  Page 45 is a one-page distillation of the rules called Lite GORE.  This is my jam!  GORE, excepting the painfully crunchy combat, is a smooth game.  It isn't "rules lite" but it is very close, by default.  Lite GORE tells us to ignore hit locations, serious wounds, and most skills.  It consolidates the 40 or so skills previous into 27, which will be trimmed again, depending on genre.  Initial skill points needs to be cut back for this abbreviated list.  The book recommends a maximum of 200 points for characters.  Unfortunately, the author didn't take this opportunity to take a virtual scythe through the combat mechanics and distill it down into a more simple form.

The next seven pages are equipment lists, broken down by time period.  Four of the lists are all rotated from portrait to landscape, making you flip the book to read.  This is an annoyance but the lists are serviceable.  

The book then ends with the two licenses I mentioned above.

⇒ GRIT:  ★★★★☆ This book includes nearly everything you would need to run a game in many genres.  I think it fails in a couple of regards, however.  It includes realistic rules about radiation but where are the rules for a Gamma World game?  I want my Hoops, dangit!  If you want to play a D&Dish game with both wizards and clerics with varying spell lists, you will need to do some work separating spells and probably adding some more.  I am giving it 4 stars since you will be able to run 90% of common game genres with just this one book.

⇒ VIGOR:  ★★★☆☆  Like the grit score, GORE includes enough, rules-wise, for a long-lived campaign.  Since this is a concise book of mechanics, there is no fluff.  If this game was genre emulation of one genre, the score would be 1 or maybe 2 stars.  Since it is trying to be a universal system, and the advancement mechanic is so very simple, GORE is solidly 3 stars.

⇒ GRACE:  ★★★☆☆ GORE is not a pretty book.  It is certainly competent.  The small amount of art included is decent.  The cover I like quite a bit, with the red on black Cthulhu chilling in the sea.  Most of the included line art appears to be a cat named David Sharrock, and is all Cthuluesque or snakemen.  I enjoy it.  The layout of the book could certainly use some work.  For example, the SCUBA skill is listed on the very bottom of a page, bolded, and the page has to be flipped to see the details.  This happens a couple different times.  The tables changing view is an annoyance.  I think that all tables could have been made readable in portrait mode.  The book is certainly more readable than some of its 1980s forebears, however.