Misfortune TRPG

For Starters Frail

Misfortune is a setting-independent game Frailty is the measure of the character’s physical
about characters in relatively realistic settings, capability and toughness.
although this is not a requirement. Misfortune
emphasizes on the negative aspects of the cha- Clumsy
racter to bring tragedy, comedy and triumph to Clumsiness is the measure of the character’s
everyday or not so everyday events. physical precision and agility.

Meek
The game requires a Game Master (GM) and at
Meekness is the measure of the character’s bold-
least one player, 2 six-sided dice (2d6), character
ness and determination.
cards and a pen.
Awkward
What is the setting? Awkwardness is the measure of the character’s
Misfortune is a setting-agnostic system, it can social aptitude and smoothness.
theoretically be played on any setting imaginab-
le. Of course, some settings might be more sui- Dull
table for the style of play of Misfortune, but I’m Dullness is the measure of the character’s intelle-
not the judge for that. ct and perception.

The setting you play in defines whether the Or- Naive

dinary stat (and thus, powers) are used. Naivete is the measure of the character’s cun-
ning and vigilance.
Creating Characters
When you create a character, first give them a Ordinary
name. Then you divide 40 or 35 points between Ordinary is the measure of the character’s super-
the seven weaknesses, depending on whether natural aptitude and strength. It is never rolled
Ordinariness is used in the setting. against directly, but is an additional bit of any
applicable roll (See Ordinariness and Powers).
At base every character has 1 problem, 1 perso-
nal item and 2 saving grace and 0 secrets. If the Problems
character’s Ordinary is under 10, the character Your character has a problem, such as an unre-
also has 1 power by default. quited crush, injury, disability, financial troubles
or social anxiety. If a problem comes up in the
If a character has no power in a supernatural set- context, +2 is added to the difficulty of the roll.
ting, they can take an additional saving grace.
Problems and rolls
If you take additional problems, you can lower
If a character’s problem comes up in a meaning-
a weakness by one or take additional saving
ful way, the GM should by all means make that
graces or powers, once per problem.
player roll against an appropriate weakness.
Taking additional problems should be limited to
Saving graces
3 (total 4), to keep characters statistically stabile.
Saving graces are like problems, in reverse. They
are things that empower the character, positives
Although characters have no secrets at base, any
that one can harness into strengths. They can be
or all problems, saving graces or powers can be
anything from items character finds important,
defined as secrets.
being rich, attractive, being in possession of an
important item etc. If a saving grace is relevant
Weaknesses
to a roll, -2 is subtracted from the difficulty.
Your character is made of 5 weaknesses, and the
higher any weakness is, the harder it is to overco-
me it and easier it is to succumb to it. Weaknes-
ses are rated 1-10.
 Powers Comparison
Not all settings have powers, but in those that The basic way of using the dice roll is to com-
do, powers are the character’s supernatural abi- pare the resulting dice total against another
lities. Powers give -4 to Difficulty on success. number. There are four main things to compa-
re a single roll against, depending on the roll:
Secrets difficulty, despair, ordinary and strain. This is
Secrets can be any problems, saving graces or called comparing in this game’s terms. Compa-
powers that only the player and the GM know at ring is always done against the DICE, meaning
the beginning of the game. Even the base f any boosts the roll gains are never accounted for
when comparing.
Playing the game
As per other role-playing games, most of the Difficulty and Despair are compared against
time the GM describes scenes and players and every time you roll the dice. Every roll has a dif-
GM interact with the scene and with each other, ficulty, and despair is passively checked against
player’s describing their characters’ actions and for every roll.
the GM describing the results of their actions
and controlling the NPCs. If a conflict comes or If Ordinary is in the game (the game has super-
a character does something significant enough natural elements are in possession of characters),
to warrant a roll (either something dangerous when Powers are used, Ordinary and Strain are
or daring), that player rolls. If a conflict strikes compared against, in addition to Difficulty and
between two characters, they roll conflict rolls to Despair.
resolve the conflict.
Determining difficulty
Temporary Problems or Saving Graces A singular roll’s difficulty is defined by two fac-
During the game, a character can gain tempo- tors, the character’s condition and whether the
rary problems, such as being afraid, spraining task at hand is epic. The end result of the diffi-
an ankle or something to that effect. Temporary culty can be negative. That doesn’t mean a roll is
Problems fade away at or when treated. not necessary, however. Miserable Failures and
Miracle Successes can still happen.
In the same vein, temporary Saving Graces can
be gained, such as enhancements that come from Character’s Condition
magic spells or potions, or gaining sudden out- Every roll is mostly defined by the character that
burst of courage. the player is playing. The appropriate weakness,
which one of the six best fits to the situation, is
Rolls taken as the base difficulty of the roll.
When a situation calls for a roll, the difficulty of
the roll is determined and the dice (2d6) are rol- Then, all problems, saving graces and personal
led by the player. items’ modifiers are counted on top of it. This is
usually the final difficulty of the roll.
Always scale the necessity of the roll to the na-
If a player describes the action in an entertaining
ture of the setting. If characters can lift boulders,
carrying some heavy boxes is not a roll-worthy way, the conditional weakness can be changed.
check. Such as, if a ranger is smarter than they are ac-
curate, using their bow to cut a rope (in case that
Although, sometimes the scale of the setting can doing this is a smart thing to do), the GM can
change mid-game. For example, when there is a give that player the benefit of using their lesser
normal world and a magical world, the scale of weakness to the roll as a reward for cleverness.
feats in these worlds can be different.
Epic tasks
If the character is trying something extreme (in
Every time you roll, the same dice roll is used to
the context of the setting), the difficulty of a roll
in multitude of ways.
can be raised by +2 or +4 at GM’s whim.
Note that due to differences in settings, things Getting hurt
that could be straight-up impossible in one could If a character is in direct danger to get hurt (e.g.
be run-of-the-mill in another. Falling from high, losing a fight), they roll against
Frailty whether they do. Succumbing in this si-
Automatic Success tuation means they get a new problem (such as
If a character has sufficient time to complete a cracked bone or a sprained ankle, depending on
task without hurry, the player can simply say how bad the final result was, and how serious
that they go for automatic success. This is to the situation is).
reduce redundant dice rolling and to avoid Mi-
serable Failures. Conflict rolls
Sometimes there is direct competition or conflict
Non-conflict (Regular) rolls between characters, be it just between player
When not in conflict, each roll can have two dis- characters or with NPCs in the mix. In this case,
tinct results: Overcoming the weakness, or Suc- the players (and /or the GM) roll the dice, and
cumbing to it. instead of trying to roll over the difficulty, the
difficulty is subtracted from the roll, and this
You overcome weakness when you beat the Dif- number is counted as the final result of the roll.
ficulty of the roll, i.e. your roll exceeds it. This The final result can be affected with Pushing
means you succeed in whatever you’re trying to and Powers. The one who has higher final result
do. wins.

Succumbing to Weakness Miracle Successes cannot be beaten, and they

You succumb to weakness when you fail to beat end the conflict immediately.
the difficulty, i.e. your roll is same or lower than
the difficulty. This means the character succum- If there is something at stake on the conflict, the
bs to the weakness and is unable to complete the loser gains one Despair. Also, depending on the
task. nature of the conflict, the loser may also need to
Roll against getting hurt.
When succumbing to weakness, the player may
themselves describe the character’s action or Conflict rolls can be Miracle Successes and Mi-
inaction that leads them to failure. These descrip- serable Failures, but they cannot succeed auto-
tions should be especially egregious in cases of matically.
Miserable Failures.
Conflict Stacks
If pushing is used to succeed in the roll instead, Sometimes, the foolhardy want to continue
the way the character succeeds should similarly fighting even when beaten down. This is when
be explained. the Conflict starts stacking. Stacking means the
losing side of the conflict roll tries to beat the
Miserable Failure winning side’s previous roll.
If a player rolls double 1s, their character gains
one despair. Miserable Failures cannot be pus- If the previous losing side beats the previous roll,
hed with despair. A miserable failure can actual- that roll becomes the new winning side. (Thus
ly end in a success for the character, but simi- starting a new stack)
larly to Pushing, it will not happen neatly and
cleanly. If the losing side is unable to beat the current
winning side’s roll, the losing side loses the con-
Miracle Success
flict.
If a player rolls double 6s, their character loses
one Despair. Like when Succumbing, Miracle Group Conflicts
Successes may be described in detail by the Often, the ones in conflict are not alone, and so-
player. metimes their friends want to join in.

When a friend joins in, they roll their own con-

flict roll, and then compare the final results first
within the group. The highest final result is ta- Most epic tasks require straining use of power,
ken as the base, and the group bonuses of others and using two or more powers at the same time
are built on top of that. The group can only add is similarly straining.
as many group bonuses as there are opponents.
All-Out Power
(i.e. If a group of five people are against one per- During all-out, a character uses all of their juice
son, they can add only one group bonus on top on a single use of a power.
of the base. If they were fighting a group of four,
they could add all of their group bonuses). To use all-out power, the character must roll
overcome their strain their Ordinary amount of
Any participant in a conflict can choose to wi- times. These rolls cannot be pushed and don’t
thdraw instead of continuing fighting. They count as Miracle Successes or Miserable Failures.
are safe from the negative effects of from losing If the character fails any of these rolls, the usage
the Conflict, but leaving your friends in a pinch is degraded to a regular use of the power, cau-
might hurt otherwise. sing the successful rolls amount of strain (i.e. if
the seventh roll failed, six points of strain is ac-
Group Bonus cumulated).
Group bonus is the dice total of a single partici-
pant. All-Out Power gives -10 to the Difficulty (or
boosts a conflict roll by +10). Using it imme-
Ordinariness and Powers diately ticks the character’s ”J” -box and makes
If a character has Ordinary of 9 or less, they can them gain 5 strain.
harness their powers.
All-Outs are always extreme, and should be
Ordinary works differently than other weaknes- explained in detail, either by GM or player.
ses. It is rarely rolled against as Difficulty (GM’s
discretion if no other weakness really applies to Despair
the roll), instead, it can be used to boost any roll As the characters fail miserably, get hurt or push
the power is relevant to (You can’t use fire magic themselves, they gain despair. Despair is the pri-
to solve a math quiz, exercise logic). mary concern that hurts and might even kill cha-
racters.
If the roll exceeds the character’s Ordinary ra-
ting, the powers can be used effortlessly. Unless The higher the despair, the easier it is to be eje-
the usage of the power is in on itself straining, cted.
the character does not gain Strain from using the
power. Despair heals one point per full rest.

If the roll is the same or lower as the character’s Ejection

Ordinary score, the character cannot use their po- If a character rolls under their despair, some-
wers without straining themselves. If the player thing dramatic happens that forcefully ejects
wills, the character can use their powers, but the that character from the scene (usually before the
character will gain a single point of strain. current action is completed). The higher the Des-
pair, the more violent or otherwise dangerous
Both of these outcomes give -4 to the Difficulty the ejection is.
(or boost a conflict roll by +4).
This can be resisted by taking an additional
Straining use of Power point of despair. This allows for a free reroll of
Sometimes, even using a power a certain way the current roll.
can be straining on its own. This causes the cha-
racter to gain one (or more, GM discretion) strain When ejected, color the box under ”E” next to
regardless of the roll. This strain is counted ad- Despair on the character card. This means the
ditionally if the character failed to exceed their character cannot interact with the scene anymo-
Ordinariness and thus Strains themselves. re, at least in any direct way. White it out when
the scene ends.
 Rest
Lethal Ejection Full rest (A full night’s sleep) removes all Strain
If a character has a Despair score of 7 or more, your character has, and removes a single Des-
the ejection can be lethal. Lethal ejections requi- pair.
re the player to roll a second roll, purely against
Despair. Failing this roll means the character Half rest (a nap, taking a break) removes 2 Strain.
ends up in critical condition. Miserable Failure Whether a space of time can be a half rest is up
means instant death. to the GM.

This almost always prompts an epic roll against Experience

getting hurt. At the end of every game session, give one expe-
rience point for everyone. This experience point
Resisting a Lethal Ejection requires for the se- can be used to get a new saving grace, lower a
cond roll to succeed, in addition of taking the weakness or gain a new power.
additional point of despair.
In-game events
Revival In-game events can have lasting impact on a
It is possible to revive dead people, as long as character. A character who was Lethally Eject-
their death has been somewhat recent. If the re- ed might gain a permanent disability, in-game
viving character succeeds in an Epic roll to revi- events might unlock a character’s supernatural
ve, the character is revived. This roll can be at- powers, new problems can be gained, new sa-
tempted only once. ving graces can be gained. Anything that hap-
pens can make a lasting impact on the character,
Pushing if the player so wills.
If a roll would fail, or a conflict would be lost, There is no roll to see whether this happens, it is
in addition to using special powers with strain, strictly in the hands of the player and the GM.
the character can push themselves to succeed.
This usually means using methods the charac- Lowering Ordinary from 10 with Experience
ter doesn’t want to use, like guilt tripping or Unless a power is gained within gameplay, the
cheating. innate powers of the character must be gained
through experience before lowering Ordinary
There is no condition for pushing, so it can be from 10.
used for any roll. When a character pushes, they
gain one despair, but the Difficulty is reduced by For the GM - Opponents
-10 (or a conflict roll is boosted by +10). Opponents work on three levels: Mooks, Adver-
saries and Nemeses.
Strain
Strain is the measure how much the character Mooks are weak, and do not have Despair, and
can use their powers. thus cannot push. They can use Powers, howe-
ver. Mooks fight in a group, and are beaten if
Running out of Juice they lose a conflict stack once.
If a power-using roll is below the character’s
Strain, the character runs out of juice and is Adversaries are stronger, as strong as a single
unable to use powers until the scene ends. player character. They work exactly like player
characters.
When you run out of juice, color the box under
the ”J” next to Strain. This means they cannot Nemeses are as strong as multiple player cha-
use their powers until the current scene ends or racters combined. They usually have at least one
about 30 minutes has passed. White it out after weakness at 0, and can take more punishment
that. than a single player character.

Nemeses must be Ejected twice before they go

down.
Fighting a nemesis is always an Epic task.