# Running Breathless tags: #game/rpg/running-breathless ![[Running Breathless Cover (Hi Res).png]] Look, if you enjoy the sensation of your lungs burning while inevitable capture breathes down your neck, *Running Breathless* is the tabletop RPG for you. Authored by Alexander Williams (who apparently goes by "SquidLord") and published under the ORC license, this little exercise in stress management places you in the sweaty shoes of a "Runner." You broke out of somewhere awful—a corporate lab, a space station, or a gritty prison—and now heavily armed professionals want you back. You must keep moving, scavenge for scraps, and accumulate enough successes across multiple locations to finally vanish into the ether. It plays out like a miserable, episodic TV show where you rarely catch a break. ## Core Resolution Mechanics The game runs on the *Breathless* engine, which masterfully simulates the feeling of running on empty. You assign polyhedral dice (a d10, a d8, a d6, and several d4s) to six basic skills (Bash, Dash, Sneak, Shoot, Think, Connect) and one unique Power. When you attempt something risky, you roll the relevant die. - **1-2:** You fail and suffer a full complication. - **3-4:** You succeed, but suffer a reduced complication. - **5+:** You succeed cleanly. Here is where the misery truly begins: after every single roll, the die you used immediately "steps down" to the next lowest tier (e.g., a d10 becomes a d8, a d8 becomes a d6). Your skills literally degrade as you exert yourself. The die cannot drop below a d4; if it would, you instead advance your "Heat." You can reset your dice back to their original values by taking a moment to "Catch Your Breath," but doing so advances your Heat track by one step and introduces a new complication. You only avoid this penalty if you manage to "Go to Ground" by begging an NPC for temporary shelter. If your Heat track hits the maximum of 5 and you fail another roll, the Chasers corner you. Your run ends. As the author notes in the text, "Death is perhaps the most boring thing that can happen to a character." Instead of dying, the Chasers drag you back to whatever hellhole you escaped from, though you can choose to make a "Sacrifice Play" to permanently burn your character so your pathetic friends can get away. ## Editions As this document clearly marks itself as Version 1.0.0 (copyright 2026), no prior editions of *Running Breathless* currently exist. However, the game acts as a distinct mechanical fork of the original *Breathless* system created by René-Pier Deshaies-Gélinas. The primary change between the parent framework and this adaptation is the complete removal of the "Harm" mechanic. Williams swapped Harm for "Heat" to ensure that characters do not simply bleed out in an alleyway, but instead face the much more sinister fate of recapture, interrogation, or brainwashing. # References - [The author's official repository for RPG thoughts and games - Grim Tokens](https://grimtokens.garden/ "null") - [The publisher of the original system this game is based on - Fari RPGs](https://farirpgs.com/ "null") - [The core SRD ruleset referenced in the document - Breathless SRD](https://fari.games/en/srd/breathless/srd "null") - [*Running Breathless* for purchase on itch.io](https://squidlord.itch.io/running-breathless)