# The Real World: A FU RPG Hack for the Mundane tags: #articles/the-real-world-fu Recently [I was engaged in a conversation on Reddit (I know, pretty unlikely) about how to run what is effectively an isekai game and what kind of mechanics would be useful for it](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1afo571/help_finding_a_system/). > [!quote] [r/rpg](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/) •Posted by [u/Rare_Emergency5349](https://www.reddit.com/user/Rare_Emergency5349/) > > Hello everybody, i need help finding a system to play. To give some context, my friends and i have decided to play a campaign set in the modern day, the idea is that at midnight they are transported to a alternative dimension of the city but full of mosnters, during these time they can also find magical items. My friends want to also have some roleplay in their every day life. > > I was thinking of using gurps but im looking for other options, any suggestions? Well – you know I couldn't pass that up – but in the process of replying, something started turning in the back of my head. Would it be possible to put together a quick hack to cover specifically mundane, everyday interactions with a focus on character connection using a system already at hand? Could I do it? Yes. Obviously. If I were really feeling spicy I would just make it an **[[Ironsworn]]** hack, or more likely a **[[Ironsworn - Starforged|Starforged]]** hack, and call it a day. But I've been looking for an excuse to play with new things anyway and the **[[FU RPG|Free Universal RPG]]** has all the right mechanical bits to make this work, it just needs a little bit of rearrangement. So let's do *that* in an article, explaining what sort of things need to be changed and then possibly putting together an actual text, all neat and pretty? That could happen. It's going to be very stream of consciousness, with ideas flowing as they just happened to flow. Don't worry, when I'm done – if I ever get done – I'll produce a nice simple text that'll be clear and readable. I hope. ## The Changes The place to start, as always, is to figure out exactly what we need before we even set foot in the door. It does you no good to try and design anything before you know where you're going. Lay out the blueprint. Figure out the parts. Then you can start assembling it. ### What Do We Have Here? What's in the box of goodies that we have to work with? If you've read my [[Character Creation Challenge 2024 - Day 27 - Freeform Universal RPG|Character Creation Challenge 2024 entry for FU]], you've already got a pretty good idea of how this system is set up. By default, we have four *Descriptors*, Body, Mind, Edge, and Flaw. They don't have ratings, they either exist or don't exist. *Gear* falls into the same mechanical form with exactly the same mechanical effects, effectively enabling access to the fiction that you might not otherwise have. (If you don't have a wrench or access to a wrench, you're not going to be able to fix that car – though you might be able to find one by making some other test and gaining it as a temporary *Condition*.) *Drives* – not necessarily as important as they could be, so that's something to put a pin into come back to later and think about. I love just drives which are hanging out on the character sheet in order to remind you what you're supposed to be doing but it's nice if they can have a little mechanical reinforcement. Finally, *Relationships* – which I really want to have some serious meat here to match the original idea by the OP. Definitionally, in the original text, Relationships are strictly between the PCs, which is cool… But I think we can expand that out. ### What Do We Need? Part of the ongoing convo here is pivotal: > [!quote] [Rare_Emergency5349](https://www.reddit.com/user/Rare_Emergency5349/) OP1 point·[9 hours ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1afo571/comment/koej3nk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) > > I never thought of it like that but i guess You are right, even though sometimes My players use mechanically simple abilities we always work together to goive it a twist. > > Thank you again for your suggestions, i don't know why a GMless system didn't cross my mind, guess i'm too used to Gaming, and the idea of using two systems is something that i had thought of before but i didn't which systems use. Any suggestions for a slice of life system > > One thing i forgot to say is that i their characters start as normal people, every character has his own problems and the abilities they get are relationed them. For example, one of the players has a kind guy that's kind of a pushover, however, during his time on the other dimension he learns to stand up for himself and becomes a brave knight thanks to his friend (another character. > > I guess what i'm looking for is a flexible system that let my players explore their characters. This is where my gears started turning. Because what we want for the real world situation is not a focus on how to resolve conflicts between physical clashes but a way to track and push the evolution of a relationship, both externally and internally – and that's cool. You can do some stuff with that. In a weird way, this brings me back to thinking about the RPG **[[Bliss Stage]]** and how it specifically reified character relationships into literal weapons and armor for their mecha which is all kinds of good. I don't want to go that far with this design, though it would certainly be possible. Hell, I might just suggest he look into Bliss Stage, anyway because I think everyone should. It seems to me that the most important thing about these characters in the real world is what do they think of themselves, what do they think other people think of them, what they think their biggest strength is, what they think their biggest flaw is, and what kind of relationships do they have with not just the other characters at the table (though those are vital) but any significant relationship with a character in the story. Here is where I struggle with lifting the idea of Bond tracks from **Ironsworn**. Conceptually, they fit right in. Practically it's not a mechanic you find in **FU** so I'm reluctant to actually make it part. Again, like **Bliss Stage**, something to keep in mind. ### Summus We take the core resolution mechanic because it's simple, straightforward, and makes complete sense. The improv influence is going to serve us very well here. That is one of our core elements. ![[FU RPG Resolution.png]] If that's not a summary of the majority of my social life and relationships, I don't know what is. #### Descriptors Let's reify exactly what it is that we want. We don't need the original Descriptor classifications. Instead, let's rephrase them to answer the questions we actually have. That will be more explicit about the intention of what we want to model and give players a much clearer idea of how they are supposed to be thinking about their character. Instead of the current Descriptors: - *What do other people first notice about you?* - *What do you first think of about yourself?* - *What do you think is your biggest strength?* - *What do you think is your biggest flaw?* These might end up being the same sort of things that would be answered in the base game – but they might not. There's a good reason for the repeated "what do you think"; it's to put the focus on what the character thinks of themselves, not what the player thinks of the character. Upfront, we start directing people inward. That's also why the phrasing "what do other people" is in place. In fact, let's change that one to fit the pattern in order to provide something that's truly coherent. - *What do you think other people first notice about you?* - *What do you first think of about yourself?* - *What do you think is your biggest strength?* - *What do you think is your biggest flaw?* Now there is a consistent through line. All of the Descriptors are phrased in a way which reflect what the character thinks about themselves. We want to invoke that consideration. We want to make that the shared center of the character with Relationships. #### Concepts I have to stop myself right here, however, because I have just engaged in something which I advise other people who are designing RPGs never to do, and while I could edit this article to be less stream-of-consciousness, that would be cheating in my mind. You learn best by seeing other people's mistakes before you make them. Here's my mistake: I completely skipped over talking about Concept, which is sheer foolishness. Figuring out your concept is how you decide what sort of things go into the rest of your character in a game whose mechanical system is specifically geared away from randomness and toward player selection. I want to retain that player-choice theme that FU establishes itself. The core game touches on Concept very lightly, going with a two or three word descriptor as just enough. For something like this, however, with a focus on relatively normal characters with relatively normal concerns, I think we need a little bit more because who they are and what they are isn't as immediately obvious. *"High-stakes gambler"* immediately directs you toward the kind of Descriptors you should be sporting. How do you do that for someone who is close to being a normal guy on the street? I think we have to start with their name. Normal characters are really, really established once you have a name to start from. It provides you a little bit of information on their background, possibly their ethnicity or culture, and provides a solid hook to begin envisioning the character. So in contrary to quite a lot of the systems I've used in the last month, I'm going to say that we need to specify the character's name first and foremost. After that, I think we need a brief description. Not a three-page character history, or a page full of details about what they look like and how they like to dress or how they take their pizza, but nothing quite so short as three words, either. Just enough to get an idea of who they are, what they do, and give the GM and other players some things to react to when they are engaging. Something like the following would be perfectly fine, off the top of my head: > *Elizabeth Shannon-Jones stands an uncomfortable 5'10" tall in her beat up Uggs even though she's trying to slump to be less noticeable. She has fashionably ripped jeans and an unbuttoned flannel shirt over a Warhammer-branded tank. Her lank black hair is pulled back in a simple tail.* That's probably more than necessary but it's a good ballpark. We know the character is tall, uncomfortable with herself, not dressing with a particular eye to style, and we have an idea of something she might enjoy or see as a hobby or community. From that description, different people would probably focus on different ways to answer what are our new Descriptor Questions, which is exactly what we want. Some people might focus on her physical discomfort, some might focus on the possibility she might be a geek, there are a dozen different directions. That's the sort of thing we want to evoke. #### Gear & Drives I'll say it right now, *Gear* is far too clinical a term for what we want. It's great for fantasy and even modern action heroes because you think of them with particular equipment. For me, it doesn't really fit into the idea of making Relationships of first order portion of the game mechanics and it feels unnecessarily restrictive. Lots of things can be associated with the character that can motivate them or be important to them beyond just objects. My immediate thought is to drop Gear altogether – and Drives as they are defined in the base text. Yes, yes, I know… I was just gushing at length about how cool Drives are. They are. But they don't really have a mechanical impact except by implication. How about we fold Gear and Drives together at least at a mechanical level? In fact, thinking about the sequence of character generation, why don't we move the Drive Questions before determining Descriptors but after the Description? I had an immediate urge to put the Questions before the Description, and while that might work I don't think it gives the player long enough to think about who the character is before they have to jump right into answering some fairly significant questions about who they are. I think it might be better just to have them sketch out the observables and then get into the questions. Plus we need a better term for that. #### Motivation and Relationships I think we will go with *Motivations* to replace the Drive Questions and replace Gear with *Relationships* across the board – which might be with people, or might be with a personal keepsake, a piece of equipment that you are known to have with you all the time (like your cell phone if you're *that* kind of person), or a place that is important to you. This could work out much better across the board. New Motivation questions: - *What do you want in your life?* - *Why can't you have it?* - *What do you think you need to do next to get it?* These are the same questions that I have been seriously pushing along with many other serious writers for newbies who want to make sure the characters in their stories are doing something rather than just being cameras. They are critical to create characters that we want to spend time with, whether it be on a TV show, in a book, or at the gaming table. If you can answer these three questions you have an idea of what you can do at any given moment. Are they static? No, they really shouldn't be. But we'll probably talk about that when we get around to talking about Advancement or whatever we use in its place. For the moment, let's assign Relationships after Descriptors, with Attachments being a particular kind of Relationship.. We might decide to change that up at some point, putting Relationships before Descriptors, but I think it works better to figure out what the character thinks of themselves and then figure out what they feel attached to. How many should there be? One or two seems fine for the moment. I suspect we'll have to run through some character ideas and stacked them up to see if it feels right. #### FU Points As much as I just straight up love the term, "FU points" as a term is probably going to subvert the mood we're going for. As much as I hate to be boring, we need something a little less stand-out. Let's go for straightforward *story points* and call it an afternoon. How many should you start with? Given that this is the real world, definitionally, it's probably best to start with zero story points. You can earn them for doing cool things or, more likely, playing out or playing up your emotional connections, but actually starting with some? That seems a little too easy. I will specifically put in a section which points out that the best way to earn story points is to bring your Relationships into a scene and make them important while not necessarily making that seen all about your Relationship. Sometimes that works but usually it just means that other people are standing around watching you do something, and that can be fine if you're doing it very, very well. If so, you deserve a story point. If not – no. I want a little more focus on Relationships mechanically, so I think I'm also going to posit "if you have a Relationship with another player character, you can give them one of your story points at any time. Just explain how that Relationship inspires you to help them." #### Giving Conditions and Descriptors As I see it, this system is not intended to be the kind in which you track hit points, tick them off, and the monster is dead when it hits zero. It could be designed to do that but I have something more interesting in mind. What if we make the central dynamicism core of the game about applying Conditions and Descriptors to other people/things? Now we have a *lot* of flexibility, especially combined with the idea that every scene needs to have its intended goal/stakes stated up front, which is something I find helps every game. For instance, let's say that your character is lonely, has that as one of their descriptors, and wants to make a friend of one of the NPCs. Set that as the stakes of the scene: "Natasha builds a friendship with Eleanor. If she fails, Eleanor will think she's a weirdo." Until the scene is done, Eleanor can't be friends with Natasha but nor can she think Natasha is a weirdo. Then you play it out, either over multiple rounds if you want the back-and-forth of the conversation, with Natasha attempting to put some temporary Conditions on Eleanor like *"Natasha made me laugh"* or *"we both like Final Fantasy"* and risking getting Conditions like *"awkward snort"* and *"is boring Eleanor"* when the dice don't land her way. Do we need some sort of mechanical track here to "fill up" to some degree as a timer beyond which the scene can't continue but will resolve?[^fill] Maybe. [^fill]: I'm certainly not above stealing directly from **[[Ironsworn]]**. Cowards borrow, the bold **steal.** If we do go with a mechanical track to pace scenes – maybe they should be rephrased as goals and for the price of one story point, someone else can introduce another goal to the same scene, making things more complex. Especially given the limitation "whatever is specified in the Goal can't resolve until the Goal is resolved one way or another," that provides a lot of interesting flexibility and gameplay which isn't found in the original FU RPG.[^capeslift] [^capeslift]: I'm also not above stealing from **[[Capes]]**, especially one of my favorite mechanics from it. The kind of dynamics you can get going when the players know their characters are notionally on the same side but have cross-purposes is wonderful. #### Scenes Let's restate from the top, because that will make things a lot easier. A scene is a place or closely connected series of places where something we as the audience care about happens and changes the story that we are experiencing. If nothing is going to change as a result of what's going on, it's not a scene. It may be a free play period, but it's not a scene. ##### Goals To establish a scene, someone has to slap down a goal. A goal is a game mechanical entity which specifies either an intent (which can happen or can be averted) or a prediction (which is guaranteed to happen – we just don't know how). The GM can introduce goals at any time but should probably only do so as a result of a complication for a PC. The PCs should be initiating most scenes (because they want things) and whoever initiates the scene creates the first goal for it, which defines the stakes. Other players can add goals to the scene by spending a story point. They may do that because their character wants something different to happen or the group needs to spread their effort across multiple things. Sometimes they may do it to sabotage the original goal and specify things which keep it from being able to happen. Regardless, anything currently specified by a goal cannot happen until that goal is resolved. If the goal is "catch the pirates before they escape with the booty," until the goal is resolved the pirates can't escape – but they also can't be caught. That part of the fiction is off-limits to modify. Each goal has six boxes. Boxes are filled by getting successes in beating the odds. Every "yes" lets you fill up one box; you can use an additional "and" to fill in another box if you can describe how it happens. A player can try and resolve the goal before it's completely full by making that their action and rolling a D6 equal to or lower than the number of boxes currently filled. If they do, that player gets to narrate how the goal resolves. If they don't, the GM gets to narrate how the goal resolves. If two players have different outcomes they would like for the same goal, it's a game of chicken to decide how long they can wait before they try to resolve it before the other person can. > [!question] Request For Comment > > It's possible that this entire section is too complicated for the idea I started with and I should just lean into the original FU which is very vague about how and when scenes start and progress. That might be an advantage. Maybe I'm over specifying. > > I'm going to leave this in because I'm going to post this article for public commentary before I do any finalization. That's probably the best decision I can make. > > If you're reading this and you have an opinion one way or the other about this goal system, [[index#Contact|send me a message on Facebook, Mastodon,, or via reply wherever you see this]] and I will take notes and integrate it into the follow-up article. > > We'll let that sit here for now. #### Advancement The **Freeform Universal** text doesn't actually say much about advancement – but the original specification of the problem we are trying to solve gives us an excellent opportunity to be creative. We already know that descriptors can be added to a character in a setting. In fact, that appears to be the intentional way that characters develop, in the absence of specific numbers that can be adjusted. The important thing is that there is a mechanical excuse for the fiction to be interacted with and vice versa. So you can have an argument with your best friend in a scene as part of role-play and it's just an argument. But if you want it to actually change your dynamic as a Condition or Descriptor – you need to succeed on an action to do so. Then you can add "arguing with X" to your Relationships and make use of it mechanically. Likewise, you should be able to remove or modify Relationships by making an active action and succeeding – and risking failure and conditions that you may not want. On top of that, the original poster was talking about cycling between the alternate world and the real world as a matter of course, and that provides the perfect opportunity for things in the alternate world to have modified how you feel about things in the real world. I would say that every time you return to the real world you can add or modify any single Relationship. If you think your experiences in the other world have significantly impacted any other Relationships, then it should probably be on your to do list to have a scene with whoever you think is affected and play out a conversation – during which you take an action which could successfully modify that Relationship. (Or it could completely blow up in your face! Which is also fun.) I think this really captures the evolution of characters in an interesting way. #### Otherworld This brings us to an interesting understanding. My original suggestion was that the poster could run the real world and the other world using different mechanical systems to emphasize their different universe rules – but nothing says they couldn't use the FU RPG or specifically this variant of it for that as well. You would want entirely separate character sheets, but that's easy. Character generation is fast. You make a character which is influenced by the real world version – but you remain focused on your relationships rather than gear, etc. You can pick up a sword anywhere and it's just a sword. It lets you stab people. You don't need it on your sheet. But if you go through a battle with a sword you just picked up, maybe you go through a little private naming ritual (and use an action) to show that this is an important weapon to you now, and you have a relationship with it. Now it's something that goes on your sheet. I think this could work really well and I'm going to leave it on the table right here. ## Example Chargen Let's try this thing. We probably have enough mechanics on hand to actually put together a character, so let's see what one looks like. --- **Description:** *Elizabeth Shannon-Jones* stands an uncomfortable 5'10" tall in her beat up Uggs even though she's trying to slump to be less noticeable. She has fashionably ripped jeans and an unbuttoned flannel shirt over a Warhammer-branded tank. Her lank black hair is pulled back in a simple tail. | Motivations | | | ---- | ---- | | *What do you want in your life?* | To be loved. | | *Why can't you have it?* | I'm ugly and awkward. | | *What do you think you need to do next to get it?* | Latch onto the next person to pay attention to me. | | Descriptor | | | --- | --- | |*What do you think other people first notice about you?*| I'm really tall. | |*What do you first think of about yourself?*| I'm ugly. | |*What do you think is your biggest strength?*| I see the best in others. | |*What do you think is your biggest flaw?*| I'm used to being alone. | | Relationships | | | ---- | ---- | | Julian Cato | My secret crush who I'd move heaven and earth for | | The Diner on 14th | Where I work and sometimes hang out | | A Candid Photo of Julian | I took it on my cell when he wasn't looking and he doesn't know about it | | "The Wicked Sister" | The game shop I hang out in and play, sometimes | | Felicia Daye (PC) | My bully; I hate her | --- That comes across as pretty dark – but it's a character with room to grow and evolve through her experiences in the other world. Maybe she comes to see herself as attractive or realizes that someone else does and that changes the descriptor of how she first thinks about herself. Maybe the bonds of friendship change her biggest flaw and her relationships expand outwards. Maybe she and Felicia find they have more in common – or she solidifies that hate and decides to take care of it once and for all with a mace in her hand. This is some good meat and I think it could definitely go interesting places. ## On Consistency > [!question] > Yes, I know that I have been all over the place with capitalization in this article. This is what happens when you are thinking on the fly, writing down your thoughts, and analyzing them. [A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of a little mind.](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/353571-a-foolish-consistency-is-the-hobgoblin-of-little-minds-adored) > > At this point, I'm actually leaning toward not having any capitalized terms and just italicizing terms of art as they come up the first time. Is that a good idea? I'm not sure. This is another one of those opportunities for great feedback I would love to see. All right, I think this is headed out the door. It's time to let it get some air. I'm sure I'll catch some typos and fix those later but it's time to put my money where my mouth is. There is an empty character sheet at the bottom of this article. If you would like to try out the system as it stands, please create a character, poke it a few times, share it back with us. Let's see what you've got. I would love to know. I look forward to hearing from all of you. Out! ## Chargen **Description:** | Motivations | | | ---- | ---- | | *What do you want in your life?* | | | *Why can't you have it?* | | | *What do you think you need to do next to get it?* | | | Descriptor | | | --- | --- | |*What do you think other people first notice about you?*| | |*What do you first think of about yourself?*| | |*What do you think is your biggest strength?*| | |*What do you think is your biggest flaw?*| | | Relationships | | | --- | --- | | | |