Amar rules 101

Welcome to the Amar Role Playing Game, the world's easiest and most realistic role-playing game.

Unlike other games, which require volumes of data to sift through, the Amar RPG has just one simple book that can fit in your pocket, and requires only one six sided die to play.

This role-playing game uses approximated percentages on a six sided die roll to mimic human events to release a storyline. For example, if you want to jump across a chasm and it's just in your range, you may have a chance of making it but it isn't CERTAIN. So you roll a die to figure out IF you made it and if not how much damage it cost you.

The big idea you need to remember

As you play and learn these rules, you will notice a structure that is used over and over. Once you "get it," you can quickly jump to all the nuances of Combat and Magick quickly in your gaming experience.

You are almost always comparing a roll result or modified roll to a Difficulty Value to see if something failed or succeeded. Whether you are fighting, making an amulet, jumping, climbing, or throwing a fireball, ALL THESE THINGS HAVE A DIFFICULTY RATING TO ACCOMPLISH THEM. Beat THAT with luck, Skills and Attributes, and success is yours!

The majority of these rules all hinge on this prioritizing idea: The idea of overcoming a Difficulty Rating to achieve or not achieve a result.

Once you understand this one prioritizing idea, you can create realistic, imaginary worlds with infinite stories based on choices, odds and outcomes that feels seamless and engaging.

How our die rolls work

In Amar, each player needs only ONE six sided die. There are two ways to roll a six sided dice in Amar depending on your setting.

1. A six sided die. The best choice if available. You roll the die and then figure out what happened by comparing the end result to the Difficulty Rating.

2. Using human hands to replace a six-sided die. This is akin to Rock/Scissors/Paper. In this method, rather than roll a die, each player shakes their fist three times and extend either:

A pointed pinky finger (1) An extended pinky and ring finger (2) An extended pinky, ring and middle finger (3) Four extended fingers (4) Five extended fingers (5) Or a fist (6). THE CLOSED FIST COUNTS AS ONE FINGER WHEN COUNTING FINGERS!

If you are using hands, you ADD the rolling player's hand roll to the opposing player's hand roll counting up until you reach a six. If you reach a six and there are no more fingers to count, you have a value of “6” if you reach 6 and you have more fingers to count, the remaining fingers are the final value.

EXAMPLE:

Bob extends four fingers. Candy Extends one. Four plus one is five. Five is the value.

Candy extends three fingers. Bob extends Three. Three plus three is six. Six is the value.

Candy extends four fingers. Bob extends six in a fist. Candy counts four and Bob opens his fist for one and puts his thumb in his palm for two leaving four fingers. Four is the value.

NOTE: The reason why you use a pinky finger for one is that it is easier when shaking your fist to use your thumb to facilitate the extension of other fingers for one, two, three and four.

How rolling a die works in amar - the world of open rolling

When you roll your dice, you are going to get a base result which you often will modify based on Attributes, Skills and other things, but learning how to get that die result requires a little out of the box thinking compared to most games that use dice.

We call our method “open rolling.” Here is how it works:

IF YOU ROLL A "2," "3," "4," or "5," THAT is your die result.

IF YOU ROLL A "1", you keep rolling your die. If you roll a 1, 2, or 3 you subtract 1 from your roll and roll again. As long as you keep rolling a 1, 2, or 3, you KEEP subtracting 1 from your roll and roll again. But as soon as you roll a 4, 5, or 6 you STOP rolling and keep the value you had before you rolled the 4, 5 or 6.

IF YOU ROLL A “6” you keep rolling your die. If you roll a 4, 5, or 6 you add 1 to your roll and roll again. As long as you keep rolling a 4, 5 or 6, you keep adding 1 to your roll and roll again. But as soon as you roll a 1, 2, or 3 you STOP rolling and keep the value you had before you rolled the 1, 2 or 3.

EXAMPLES:

Tony rolls a 5. His die value is 5.

Jenny rolls a 6! She now his in a positive open roll. She rolls and gets a 4. She adds one to her base value to get 7. She rolls again and gets a 1 ending the roll. Here die value is 7.

Fred rolls a 1. Yikes! He's in a negative open roll! He rolls again and gets a 2. Since this is a 1 ,2 or 3 he subtracts 1 from his die value putting him at 0. He rolls a 3 and has to subtract 1 again putting him at -1. He rolls another 1 and has to subtract 1 again putting him at -2. Finally, he rolls a 4 ending his roll and leaving him a die value of -2.

Play with these examples with some dice until you get the hang of things around here. Because one you got this, the rest is even easier!

How to do stuff – attribute rolls

As you play a character, he must be able to function as a person in this world. This means she will do things that require awareness, coordination, size, strength, endurance and magical ability just like you and I do.

And those just happen to be the attributes of a character in Amar that appear on the character sheet. Coincidence? I think not …

Here is our hero Fil with all his attribute values. He's just starting in the game so he followed the rules on spending his attribute points on page ((PAGE NUMBER)).

Amar's Character Attributes NAME: Fil, the Raw Meat

Strength 2

Awareness 4

Coordination 4

Size 3

Endurance 2

Magical Aptitude 1

Now, it is common sense that strong person has a better chance of lifting something heavy than a weaker person right? And sometimes a weaker person has to try several times to get the strength to lift something really heavy for him. And sometimes, strength just appears out of nowhere as you may see below...

Amar's formula on how to do something requiring the use of an attribute:

Step 1. You roll your dice and get a result. Step 2. You ADD your roll result to the value of the attribute your character used in the roll. Step 3. If your roll value plus attribute value meets or exceeds the difficulty rating YOU SUCCEEDED!

NOTE: A Difficulty Rating (DR) is the number that your roll result and attribute value has to meet or exceed to complete the task successfully.

EXAMPLE: It takes a 10 Difficulty Rating to lift a rock. Your character, Fil has a strength attribute of 2. So you roll your die and ADD your attribute to your roll to see if it met or exceeded the Difficulty Rating (DR).

So you roll a 6 and you get an ascending open roll! You roll again and get a 4. You add +1 to your roll bringing the result to 7. You roll again and get a 5 so you add another +1 to the roll bringing the result to 8. You roll again and you get a 1 so the rolling stops and your value is 8. 8 (Your die roll result) + 2 (Fil's strength attribute) = 10.

The difficulty rating is 10 so Fil lifts the rock! But it wasn't easy.

“Holy crap that was hard! Sheesh! I could have thrown out my back,” said Fil.

“Why in the world did you have to life the rock in the first place?” said the red headed Viqueen.

“To see what was under it.”

“Well, what was there?”

“My new pet centipede. I named him Fred.”

“Moron.”

You character Fil now wants to climb a wall. Little does Fil know, but there is someone on the other side of the wall with evil intent! He wants all your gold and to imprison you.

Will Fil detect him in time?

The Game Master has Fil roll an awareness roll, for Fil to detect the evil dwarf on the other side of the wall, Fil has to hear a slightly out of place snapping of a twig and NOTICE it with his awareness.

So you roll a six sided die for Fil to see if he detects the dwarf on the other side. You roll a one and hit an open DESCENDING roll and you keep rolling. You roll a 2, then a 3 then a 4. Your final result is a -1.

Your roll result: -1 Your awareness attribute: 4 The difficulty rating: 6

The difficulty rating is 6, the final result was 3 so the dwarf goes unnoticed!

There are more details about attributes that we'll cover later. Right now, it's all about HOW they work in you character's life.

how to do stuff – skill rolls

Sometimes, big biceps and big brains JUST aren't enough. An adventurer has to have some skills in this god-eat-god world...

And the good news is that you already know how to do this. Skill rolls work just like attribute roles, but instead of adding your roll result to an attribute, you add it to a skill your character has learned.

EXAMPLE: Our hero Fil has some skill as a climber and has a Climbing Skill of 4. He chooses to climb a five meter wall. He climbs five meters and stands up on top of the wall!

Here is how Fil did it.

Step 1. When you later read the rules on the climbing skill, you will see it is broken up into 5 meter segments. You must make a successful roll for EACH five meters you climb; and the wall is 5 meters tall. So, Fil climbs his first five meters - easy peasy.

Roll Result: Fil rolled a 5. Fil's Climbing Skill: 4 Difficulty Rating: 8. Comparison: 8 is smaller than 9 (5+4) so Fil climbs the first five meters easily.

We're not going into how all the details about skills now, but we wanted you to get the general idea of how they worked. There are more things to climbing a wall, but these are the core ideas on how to do it.

How to do the attacking, maiming, and defending stuff

Now this is the bare bones rules of combat. There are a lot of nuances to learn to make things more realistic. But for now, let's just stick to the basics – like getting attacked by an Evil Dwarf!

Yikes! Fil IS getting attacked by the Evil Dwarf he didn't notice earlier! The Evil Dwarf ATTACKS WITH A STAFF! Fil DEFENDS but gets smacked by the Dwarf. The Dwarf laughs an evil laugh that is extra cliché just to bother Fil and runs away right after bashing him! Why did he run away? Hmmm ...

Here is how that went down on our hapless hero. As you may expect, it all comes down to comparing two integers to see if one is greater than the other!

The Evil Dwarf has an Offensive Value (OV) he uses when he attacks, and a Defense Value (DV) he uses when he defends. The Evil Dwarf Offensive Value is 5 and his Defensive Value is 6. Now, we'll show you HOW we get those numbers later. But for now, just know that his OV is 5 and DV is 6.

Fil ALSO has an Offensive Value when he attacks and a Defense Value when he defends. His offensive value is 6 and his defensive value is 4.

Let's use an instant replay on that dwarf attacking with a staff and break it down!

The Evil Dwarf attacks Fil with a staff. Fil defends. If the Evil Dwarf's Offensive Values exceeds Fil's Defensive value, Fil takes a hit.

The Dwarf rolls a die. He gets a 5 and adds it to his Offensive Value to get 10. Fil rolls a die and he gets a 2 adding it to his Defensive Value of 6 to get an 8. 10 is greater than 8 so Fil takes a hit!

Now, IF the numbers tied, Fil would take no hit because ties go to the defender.

But they didn't. So Fil is hurting right now as the dwarf runs away laughing …

So, as you can see here are the steps on how attacking and defending works.

Step 1. The attacker rolls a die and adds the result to the OV. Step 2. The defender rolls a die and adds the result to his DV. Step 3. You compare the OV to the DV and see if OV > DV. Step 4. If yes, then a hit occurred.

Damage control

"Am I hurt?” asked Fil.

“Let's see,” said the Viqueen. “ You were HIT so now we need to find out how BAD you got damaged. Now a staff has a -2 damage right?”

“Check the weapon table for the starting staff damage ...” said Fil.

“Got it. Yup. That's correct. So we just get out player who lives outside this Universe to to roll his six sided die to find out how much damage the dwarf did to you.”

“Feels like he lucked out and open-rolled a freaking 9,” said Phil.

“Okay so 9 plus -2 is 7. Do you have any armor? Nope. Of course you don't so we wont factor that in. You're just a yahoo in a fantasy world with a shirt, jacket and boots. Any damage bonus?”

“Huh?”

“You don't know what a damage bonus is? Boy you ARE new. You combine your Strength and Size Attributes into one value. Then you get 1 damage bonus for every 5 you have. Your strength is 2 your size is 3 totaling 5; so that is 1 damage bonus.” You subtract your Damage Bonus BEFORE you take any damage."

“To add it all up, the attack produced 7 damage points minus your damage bonus of 1 which drops the damage to 6. You subtract 6 from your body points.”

“Is that bad?”

“What is your starting Body Point value?”

“Wait! I know this! It's my Size Attribute x 2 plus 1 for every 5 Endurance Attribute points I have. I only have 2 Endurance so that doesn't matter. My Size is 3 times 2 is … 6.”

"6 minus 6 is 0. You're unconscious when your BP is 0.”

“So how are we talking right now?”

“We're not. You're dreaming, you idiot.”

Meanwhile back in reality, the Red-Headed Viqueen shook Fil violently before the Dwarf returned.

“Fil, you awake? FIL? FIL?”

“…” said Fil unconsciously.

How to calculate damage:

1. Get the damage the weapon has listed on the table. 2. Roll a die and add it to the damage from the table. 3. Subtract any modifiers from the current damage from armor, defense bonuses and other factors. 4. Subtract the adjusted Damage from Body Points and change the character accordingly.

How to do magic stuff

In Amar, it takes awhile to do some Magic that has some real power, so our hero Fil is not equipped to properly do magic … yet. Lucky for him his red-headed friend has mad magic skills. Regardless, we are going to opt to use the villain in our story to demonstrate how magic works.

The Evil Dwarf is a magical Bad Ass and he does all three kinds of magic: Spell Magick, Ritual Magick and Alchemy.

Casting spell magic from the amar rulebook

To successfully cast a magic spell, roll the dice adding your Path Lore skill (see Skill section) and the specific Spell Lore value (i.e. to cast a fireball, throw a dice adding your fire lore and fireball lore). The total must exceed the difficulty rating of the spell to take effect. The level of effect is determined by how much you exceed the DR (i.e. if you cast a fireball and the total exceeds the DR by 3, you cast a level 3 fireball).

So, our Evil Dwarf has Fil tied to a chair – helpless, alone and still unconscious from being bashed by a staff. Our Villain decides to throw a fireball at him - just for practice. He'd been working on his Fireball and needed to see how well he mastered it. Fil, being unconscious, doesn't even get to hear a villain's obligatory “My Evil Plan” speech.

The Dwarf chants, takes the time to launch the spell and a giant fireball appears! He flings at Fil turning him immediately into a pile of ashes!

Our Hero Fil is dead AND obliterated!

To achieve this evil deed, the Evil Dwarf first spent a point of his Magical Aptitude dropping it from 15 to 14 as a cost. He then rolled his die and got a 4. Now he adds the Path Lore Skill of 6 and his skill relating to the Spell's Lore of 7 to get a total of 17! The difficulty rating of a fireball is 11 so this is horribly easy for the Evil Dwarf because he beats the difficulty rating mostly by default (but with open rolling, you never know for sure!). In fact, it's very difficult for him to miss!

Spells that have been cast have LEVELS. The level a spell is the difference between the final result of the roll minus the difficulty rating. So this Fil scorching spell is a LEVEL 6!

So, once again, you roll a die, add modifiers and compare it to a difficulty rating to see if you successfully did the act and see how well it turned out. And in this case, a smoldering pile of ashes is all the proof our Evil Dwarf needs that his evil choice worked. Fil isn't toast, he's GONE. But in his gloating evil, the Dwarf didn't make his awareness roll as a Red-Headed Viqueen made good her escape ... and he didn't seem to notice WHY is there a pink elephant in the room ...

Fil's head bashed on the steps of the castle as the Red-Headed Viqueen drug him out by his feet. “Wake up! That spell I cast to make him think he wasted you with a fireball is going to wear off soon!”

“ ...” said Fil unconsciously again as his body flopped down the stairs behind her.''

Ritual magick

In Ritual Magick you use items on a list in a set manner to create a magical effect. You must have the Skill of Ritual Magic Lore (see Skills) to be able to attempt the ritual. If you have a written ritual, the difficulty rating is reduced by 3. Let's check in on our adventurers …

“Huh? What happened?”

“Oh, you finally woke up. You got knocked out and drug to a castle to be a practice dummy. I drug you out and saved you.”

“Thanks.” “Do mention it. A lot actually. I want to hear it every hour of our time together forever.”

“Never mind, kill me already.”

“Nope.”

“It sure look like it is about to get dark," said Fil looking at the sky.

“While I was in the castle saving you, I lifted this magic lighting kit with the label Takeki's Torch on it. Everything was included even a five carat diamond that I'm sure I'll find a use for later, a sunflower, and crushed whale bones – there was even instructions. Lucky for me I already had the Ritual Magic Lore skill.”

“Whoh! That diamond is huge!”

She started on the ritual and soon the diamond radiated light as the night descended...''

How Cassandra Did It.

A. She had everything required and a Ritual Magic Lore value of 3. B. She had written instructions lowering the DR by 3 according to the rules on Ritual Magic.

The Difficulty Rating (DR) for Tekali's torch is 8. Since she has written instructions, 8 is reduced by 3 to get 5. She rolls a 3 and adding her Lore Skill of 3 to reach 6. 6 is satisfies the requirement of being greater than or equal to 5, so the diamond lights up the scene around our friends.

How to do alchemy magic stuff

In Alchemy Magic, you get to MAKE and use magic stuff: Amulets, Potions and more. Here is how you do it.

EXAMPLE: So let's make a Potion of Healing!

First, you gotta get the ingredients for the potion. These can vary depending on your GM. But here is a basic recipe for a Healing Potion that will add 1 to your healing a day until you are well.

INGREDIENTS: Bryony (10 g). Daffodil (10 g). Fresh blood from the type of body (race) intended to heal (1 dl). A poem.

Like every other calculation, you must roll a die, add a skill value and compare it to a difficulty rating. If there are written instructions the DR is reduced by 3.

Difficulty Rating for Potion of Healing: 10.

TO MAKE THE POTION. You have your character mix the ingredients for the time allotted (typically an hour) and then you roll the die and add your value of your skill “Alchemy Lore” to the die result (if you don't have the skill, you can't do Alchemy). If the final result is greater or equal to the DR, your character makes a successful potion.

Cass rolls a 2. Her Alchemy Lore is 5 reaching a 7. The DR for making a potion of healing is 10 but that is reduced by 3 because she has written instructions making the value to hit be 7. She ties the value and successfully makes a potion.