Quick Start Guide

Quick Start Guide #

Aspiring Legends is a tabletop RPG where you, along with your fellow players, embark on epic adventures, using a unique dice mechanic to shape your narrative.

Creating Your Character #

  1. Choose Your Abilities: These represent your character’s innate talents. There are six ability scores: Might, Agility, Mind, Spirit, Stamina, and Charm.
  2. Select Your Skills: Skills represent specific areas of expertise. They connect with your ability scores. For instance, Athletics could connect with Might. You start the game with 5 skills of your choice.

Gameplay Mechanics #

Action Targets #

When trying to perform an action that requires a dice roll (GM decides), the GM will give you an Action Target. Some of the actions are so common that you will save them on your character sheet or plan them out with the party and GM ahead of time. This means that your skills will grow during the game as you find new uses and situations when you want to apply your skills.

Action Dice #

When attempting a task, roll a number of six-sided dice (d6) determined by your character’s abilities and skills. Your goal is to hit a target number of 6’s, set by the GM based on task difficulty. Hopefully you have a skill related to the action that you are trying to accomplish, but if not then you will just use your Ability Score to decide how many dice to roll. The minimum dice is always 1d6.

Partial Success #

If you can’t hit the target with only 6’s, you can include any 5’s that you rolled to achieve a partial success. However, you must accept a consequence for this. In fact, on a partial success, you will be the one picking the consequence that you and the party will face.

Damage Dice #

In combat, once you successfully hit your target with the Action Dice, you’ll roll a number of d6 Damage Dice associated with the attack. The number of Damage Dice that you roll will have been agreed on during the Action Target decision.

Lucky/Unlucky Dice #

These are modifiers to standard dice rolls that will be applied by both the players and NPCs to a Action Roll.

  • Lucky Dice: Can be re-rolled once, offering a second chance.
  • Unlucky Dice: If you roll a 5 or 6, you must re-roll, increasing the risk of failure.

Initiative Roll #

Turns in Aspiring Legends are determined by each player’s Agility score. At the start of a scene, each player rolls an Action Dice roll based on their character’s Agility score. The GM does the same for the NPC with the highest Agility level.

Turn order is then set from highest to lowest based on the results of these rolls. The character (player or NPC) with the highest roll goes first, then the one with the next highest, and so on. In case of ties, the character with the higher Agility score goes first. If there is still a tie, players go before NPCs.

Since Initiative Roll is rolled for each scene (even non-combat ones), the GM will look to the player who is up next to give them a chance to perform an action or talk to an NPC. This could result in a barbarian getting to introduce the party to a king, but that is part of the fun. Players can also skip their turn if they feel it would make sense for their character to do so.

Quick Example #

Tom, playing Thud, a half-orc barbarian, wants to rip a tree out of the ground to attack a forest troll. The GM sets the target at 2. Tom rolls his Action Dice (6d6; 3 from Might, 3 from Athletics), resulting in 1, 2, 2, 5, 6, 6. Success! He pulls out the tree and is ready for his attack.

Remember, this is a collaborative storytelling game. Work together, be creative, and have fun!