TEXT: Brevity.
  It’s Late, and I Just Want to Game
  This is a simple, elegant, and 
  concise universal role-playing 
  system by Voidspiral Entertainment. 
  Brevity is designed for running games 
  where the story is more important than 
  the statistics.
  •	 Single easy-to-remember 
  resolution mechanic
  •	 Allows you to focus on your plot
  •	 Quickly build complete 
  characters
  •	 Flexible rules adapt to any setting
  •	 Combination-based mechanics 
  encourage creativity
  Brevity is great for when you have an idea 
  for	a	story	and	you	don’t	have	a	specific	
  rules system that matcheswith how you want 
  to tell the story. It’s also great for piloting 
  story ideas, allowing you to focus on the 
  story rather than spending all your time 
  working on creating characters, monsters, 
  challenges, and plans.
  Characters
  Stat Groups
  Characters are divided into three 
  stat groups: Sources, Aptitudes, 
  and Skills. Sources represent where 
  a character’s power comes from. 
  Aptitudes represent what types of 
  activities a character is good at. Skills 
  represent the individual capabilities of 
  a character.
  Sources
  Body: Physical characteristics such 
  as huge size, immense strength, or 
  incredible speed.
  Mind: Mental characteristics, such as 
  wit, knowledge, or cleverness.
  
  © Voidspiral.com
  Brevity, an RPG
  Soul: Emotional and spiritual 
  characteristics, such as 
  willpower, determination, or 
  magic power.
  Tech: External or mechanical 
  characteristics, such as 
  bionic arms, cerebral 
  upgrades, or a 
  neural uplink.
  Aptitudes
  Offense: Aggressive strategies, 
  attacking, damaging, or 
  otherwise causing harm.
  Defense: Defensive strategies, 
  blocking, guarding, or evading 
  harm.
  Support: Cooperative strategies, 
  collaboration, distraction, 
  enhancing,	or	mitigating	effects.
  Subterfuge: Deception strategies, confusing, 
  lying to, or confounding others.
  Speed: Strategies based on initiative and 
  quickness, movement, avoidance, and chasing.
  Health: Durability, hardiness, and survivability.
  Skills
  Awareness: Sensing the surroundings, the 
  environment, or other people.
  Knowledge: Retention, application, and 
  organization of information.
  Magic: Mystical powers that generally rely on 
  spiritual or metaphysical principles.
  Melee: Fighting in close quarters, either with 
  or without weapons.
  Pilot: The ability to direct an animal, cart, 
  wagon, car, truck, tank, boat, ship, or other 
  vehicle.
  Psy: Psychic powers that generally rely 
  on the mind of the user.
  Shooting: Fighting at a distance, using 
  a gun, bow, spear, dagger, launcher, or 
  other ranged weapon.
  Social: Bargaining, negotiation, seduction, 
  performance, and other interactions.
  Stealth: Evading scrutiny, hiding objects, 
  obfuscating operations, and blending in.
  Tactics: Strategy, methods, maneuvers, 
  and manipulation of competitive 
  situations.
  Tech: Operation of machines, robots, 
  computers, and other devices.
  Equipment
  Individual pieces of equipment are handled 
  as an extra dice pool that can be added to an 
  appropriate action. Here are some sample 
  pieces of equipment.
  Class
  Examples
  Bonus
  Value
  Basic
  Enchanted 
  sword or 
  armor
  1d6
  1
  Good
  Flame sword, 
  laser	rifle,	
  ballistic body 
  armor
  2d6
  4
  Advanced
  Invisibility 
  Ring, Kinetic 
  Kill	Rifle,	
  power armor
  3d6
  9
  Powerful
  Psychic null 
  field,	Heavy	
  railgun
  4d6
  16
  Incredible
  Antimatter 
  pistol, tools 
  of the devil, 
  mech
  5d6
  25
  Tremendous
  Space	fighter,	
  divine relic, 
  naval gunship
  6d6
  36
  
  Brevity, an RPG
  © Voidspiral.com
  Character Creation
  Zero Average
  Brevity assumes that an average character 
  has 0 points. Sources and Aptitudes can be 
  negative, providing role-playing interest and 
  extra points. Most heroes will have a number 
  of points ranging from 20 to 80.
  Stat Cost
  Each stat costs its value squared in points. 
  Negative stats cost a negative amount of 
  points,	effectively	giving	the	character	bonus	
  points to spend.
  Stat
  Point Value
  -3
  -9
  -2
  -4
  -1
  -1
  0
  0
  1
  1
  2
  4
  3
  9
  4
  16
  5
  25
  Power Levels
  Brevity is point-based and does not have 
  mechanical levels. Instead, the total number of 
  points indicates a character’s power. Here are 
  some sample power levels.
  Power
  Points
  Green
  20
  Elite
  40
  Veteran
  80
  Hero
  160
  Super Hero
  250
  Demigod
  360
  God
  500
  Rules
  Combinations
  The core idea behind Brevity is combinations. 
  By using a small number of stats that can 
  be	combined	together	in	different	ways,	the	
  players can create immense variety from 
  simple parts. This also makes it so that there 
  are	many	different	ways	to	achieve	an	effect.
  Depending on the situation, the Game Master 
  can choose to enforce one or more stats on 
  an action, such as judging that a mystical ward 
  must be broken by Magic, or that a poison 
  must be survived with Body.
  
  © Voidspiral.com
  Brevity, an RPG
  Examples
  •	 Military Psychic Espionage = Mind + 
  Subterfuge + Psy
  •	 Security Hacking via Neural Link = Tech + 
  Support + Tech
  •	 Mech	Pilot	Missile	Attack	=	Tech	+	Offense	+	
  Shooting	or	Mind	+	Offense	+	Tech
  •	 Selling Black Market Mage Drugs = Mind + 
  Subterfuge + Social
  •	 Riding a Dragon in a Flying Race = Body + 
  Speed + Pilot
  •	 Cleverly Masterminding a Plan = Mind + 
  Subterfuge + Stealth
  The Basic Mechanic
  Select a Source, Aptitude, and Skill that 
  make sense for an action. Then roll X six-
  sided dice where X is equal to the total 
  the chosen Source, Aptitude, and 
  Skill. Each die that comes up 4 or 
  greater is a success. Count up 
  the successes and that is the 
  total of the roll.
  Criticals
  Brevity uses exploding dice 
  for criticals. For each 6 rolled, 
  roll an extra die and add it to 
  the total if the result is 4 or 
  more. This continues until 
  the result is not 6.
  Turn Structure
  Brevity combat proceeds in rounds divided 
  into one turn per character. Each turn, a 
  character may reposition or retarget, and 
  attempt one action, usually an attack.
  Initiative
  Who	goes	first	in	combat	is	usually	determined	
  by an initiative roll. Characters roll a Source 
  plus Speed and Awareness. The Game Master 
  may	allow	different	Skill	and	Aptitudes	in	some	
  situations.
  Attacking and Defending
  The attacker and defender both choose 
  their combinations. They then roll 
  their dice. If the attack total is 
  higher than the defense total, 
  the defender takes the margin 
  in damage.
  Damage Levels
  Damage is when a character’s 
  current Health is lower than 0.
  
  Brevity, an RPG
  © Voidspiral.com
  Current Health
  Status
  1+
  Hardy
  0
  Healthy
  -1
  Hurt
  -2
  Wounded
  -3
  Critical
  -4
  Dying
  -5
  Dead
  For Game Masters
  Adding New Stats
  Adding new stats is easy. Just add stats to one 
  of the three lists as needed for your game. 
  Don’t	be	too	specific,	because	it	can	lead	to	
  nonsensical combinations of Source, Aptitude, 
  and Skill.
  Removing Stats
  Removing	stats	is	fine,	but	be	aware	that	
  removing Awareness or Health can break 
  the combat system. If you have no need for 
  the basic combat system, feel free to use 
  something else.
  Renaming Stats
  Renaming	stats	is	also	fine,	and	sometimes	
  useful depending on the setting. It might make 
  sense to call “Pilot” “Ride” instead, in a fantasy 
  setting, for example.
  Granting Bonuses
  We encourage Game Masters to grant bonuses 
  to rolls for good role-playing as that keeps the 
  players engaged and in-character. +1 to +3 is 
  usually	a	sufficient	range,	based	on	the	detail	
  of the action.
  Scale
  Personal scale combat is the basic scale of 
  Brevity.	This	covers	sword	fights,	gun	fights,	
  martial arts, special operations, and so on. On 
  occasion, the Game Master may wish to run 
  the	action	at	a	different	scale.
  When	dealing	with	conflicts	on	the	same	scale	
  as each other, simply design “characters” using 
  the normal rules and assign them to a scale 
  class, below.
  When	dealing	with	conflicts	that	cross	scale	
  boundaries, larger actors receive a +3 bonus 
  on power-based actions and smaller actors 
  receive a +3 bonus on speed-based actions per 
  level	of	difference	in	scale	class.
  
  © Voidspiral.com
  Brevity, an RPG
  Scale Class
  Bonus
  Personal
  0
  Vehicular
  +3
  Massive
  +6
  National
  +9
  Planetary
  +12
  Stellar
  +15
  Dice Probabilities
  Difficulty
  Target
  Dice Average
  Easy
  1
  2
  2
  4
  Challenging
  3
  6
  4
  8
  Hard
  5
  10
  6
  12
  Incredible
  7
  14
  8
  16
  Impossible
  9
  18
  10
  20
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Collections/Kid Friendly/3. Rules Lite Collection/Brevity - simple universal role-playing system.pdf