0.2. Why Play Kleptonomicon

Any veteran of TTRPGs can tell you that it's better to pick the game that fits how you want to play than to try to force a game to be what it's not.

That brings us to the question: What does The Kleptonomicon do best and what does it not do well?

The Kleptonomicon is best for social intrigue, stealth, and lighter-combat campaigns. The Kleptonomicon gives each Adventurer unique Social Skills and Social Abilities, ensuring that everyone can engage in social situations. Every player will also have a unique set of Covert Skills and Abilities. Players will need to learn to embrace teamwork, much like in a heist movie, to uncover and navigate the magical and non-magical security systems of the world's powerful and wealthy.

What does The Kleptonomicon not do well? If you are looking for hyper-realism or a game that simulates real life, you may want to try games like 'Pathfinder' instead. The Kleptonomicon takes a narrative-first approach and assumes that players can use logic and good storytelling principles to fill in the gaps instead of making rules for more niche situations. That said, The Kleptonomicon is not as light as other narrative-focused games. If you would like an even lighter game that focuses on narrative above all else, check out 'Dungeon World', 'Monster of the Week', or the other 'Powered by the Apocalypse' games.

A More Detailed Look

The Kleptonomicon is heavily inspired by both simulation TTRPGs (like Dungeons and Dragons) and narrative TTRPGs (like Dungeon World) but leans heavily more in the direction of narrative play. Below are some of the main differences found in The Kleptonomicon. You should weigh these motivations to determine if The Kleptonomicon matches what you are looking for in your next game:

• There are three Social Stats, not one.
  • TTRPGs often have a single social stat. The Kleptonomicon opted for three Social Stats that are distinct from the rest of your stats. The Social Stats will have little effect on your choice of Class and ensures that each character has some social strengths.
  • Why? TTRPGs with one social stat trend toward one or two players taking on the role of the 'face' of the group. This can lead to whole scenes or episodes where some players feel they have to sit out, as joining in would lead to certain failure. The unbalanced nature of a single social stat makes social intrigue campaigns difficult to balance. The Kleptonomicon seeks to fix this by making the social side of the game into a system all its own. This also means that players can fill social roles they wish to fill without affecting their effectiveness. Some Social Abilities even give Adventurers the option to play a more passive, knowledge-heavy roles, if they prefer to do less role-playing.
• There are three Covert Skills spread out across the core stats.
  • TTRPGs often have a single stat for Covert Skills. The Kleptonomicon instead divides stealth into three skills, one for each Exploration Stat. This ensures that all players have different strengths when undergoing covert operations.
  • Why? The motivation here is matches that of the Social Stat changes. Games with one stealth stat can lead to whole scenes played by one or two characters, sidelining all others. The design of the The Kleptonomicon ensures stealth is easier to balance in a heist or stealth-heavy campaign. The three Covert Skills combined with simple stealth rules and a system of security-based spells means heist campaigns are easier to design, balance, and enjoy.
• All spell-casting uses a single 'Tuning' stat.
  • All spell-casting stems from the stat called "Tuning". Tuning has more to do with your ability to resonate with magic and less to do with how you got there.
  • Why? This helps simplify spell-casting character creation. Terms like 'Intelligence' and 'Wisdom' also no longer pigeonhole characters based on their Class. You can play as a dumb wizard or a brilliant barbarian without any stat there to hold you back or imply you're breaking rules. That said, there are still Knowledge Skills that you may need to roll to recall more specific areas of knowledge.
• There is little equipment.
  • Equipment in general has been drastically scaled back. You will generally start with one or two weapons (namely a Melee Weapon, Ranged Weapon, and or a Magic Weapon.) Your exact weapon is something you can flavor how you see fit, though Item Upgrades can add capabilities to your weapon. You will have no starting armor items in the game. That said, certain Abilities let you don tougher armor and gain the benefits, but you will not have to worry about picking your armor at the start of the game.
  • Why? During playtesting, we came to realize that basic weapons and armor were... well... not actually adding much to the game. Having lists of equipment to sort through led to a mess of balancing and min-maxing that didn't add to the fun of playing the game. We experimented with stripping away more and more equipment, and never looked back. No one seemed to miss the homework of optimizing their equipment. Rather than you needing to optimize your loadout, we baked it into the leveling up process. The game does the math, so you can stick to the creativity. Do you want to carry a giant broom to hit people with? Go right ahead! Simply grab the Melee Weapon item and give it the Flavor that fit best.
• Wealth Stats replace Money. Players can improvise loot and shop on their own.
  • Wealth Skills represent a niche of financial acuity. Rogues, for example, are masters of Grey Wealth, meaning that they know how to spot, recover, and deal in illicit goods and back-room products. Mages have a knowledge of more Obscure Wealth, allowing them to identify and collect strange ingredients, wands, crystal balls, and so on. No matter what your Wealth Skills are, you can use them to perform the Item Search Ability, looking through your wares for that specific item. Getting a good Score will grant you a better version of that item. Getting a low Score may mean you don't get the item at all or get a flawed version of it.
  • Why? Math and bookkeeping is fun and all, but most players seem to shy away from it. GMs often lose interest in figuring out and handing out small rewards by the end of a game. Adventurers sometimes have to beg for a "shopping episode" to get their gear up to the spec. The Kleptonomicon provides a simplified system that allows players to shop on their own time while providing simple, generic rewards that the GM can hand out. Adventurers can also improvise items at any time using their wealth. Need a hairbrush for the plan to work? Simply spend some of your wealth to retroactively imply that you picked one up in the last room! (But beware: If you want a strange or rare item, you may have to roll higher for it...)
• There is no fixed Turn Order.
  • Instead of a fixed turn order, Adventurers and the GM take turns, with the Adventurers choosing who goes when. The Adventurers and GM can choose to take more than one Turn in a row, but doing so can come with a penalty.
  • Why? A fixed turn order makes it hard to keep a narrative flowing. An Adventurer will rush in and plunge their sword into the dragon's side, but then the "camera" jumps over to a goblin in the corner instead of letting the dragon react to what happened. By setting a call-and-response structure as the starting point, the GM can follow most Adventurer acts with a direct, narrative-driven response. There is still room for the Adventurers and the GM to perform Combos, but they have to pick and choose when it's best to do so.

If you are still here after all that, then allow me to extend a warm welcome to The Kleptonomicon. Unless, of course, you are here to steal from The Kleptonomicon, then may you be torn limb-from-limb, your skin flayed and your bones boiled with the heat of in a thousand suns! Only The Kleptonomicon is allowed to steal from other books! That said, if you're just "borrowing"... well then I would like to once again extend you a warm welcome to The Kleptonomicon (and ask you if I could join your campaign.)

Next Up: 0.3. Guidelines of Fun