RetroRoleplaying: The Blog

Back in 1997-1998, I developed a somewhat generic RPG called FAST (Flexible Adventure System, Task-oriented). I released it under a fairly complex license designed to allow others to use the rules, but also protect my rights. This was before the OGL and Creative Commons licenses. I've re-released the game under a standard Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License. This should make it much easier for others to distribute and modify the game. You can download a PDF version of the game from mediafire (about 5 pages and 35K) or just read a copy on the RetroRoleplaying web site.

The game system is fairly simple build your own character/skill-based system. The design goals were simple.

In the early days of commercial role-playing games, game systems were relatively simple. Their rules did not fill multiple 100+ page volumes with rules and fine print. They depended on the gamemaster to interpret the rules in the manner that best fit the style of the group of players and the world he or she had created for those players to play in. Simple gamesystems had another advantage. The gamemaster and players could easily remember and understand the rules. This made it much easier for the gamemaster to modify and add to the rules when needed for the campaign world, without having to worry that the modified rules might interfere with a rule in a footnote in the second column of the 343rd page of the ninth volume of the rules. FAST has been designed to recapture the simplicity of those mid-1970 RPG rules, but with more modern (skill-oriented, build your own character) game systems.

As you can tell from this quote from the introduction, even in 1977 I thought many new RPGs were too complex and and gotten too far away from what made me interested in RPGs in the 1970s. FAST was an attempt to allow old school play with a simple system that used more "modern" rules systems. Enjoy!