Conceived in Kāos
A few years ago, I wanted to design a game that would be easy to pick up, quick to get started, and fun to play. Something simple enough for my kids to enjoy yet not so rules-lite that it felt half-baked.
Quick background, my introductions to TTRPGs were the 1981 D&D Basic (Moldvay) and Advanced (Cook) boxed sets, followed a little later by AD&D Second Edition. Skip ahead to much later, I rediscovered D&D via Fifth Edition, and wrote for a few adventure and setting books published on DMsGuild and DriveThruRPG. I currently design adventures and game elements for Level Up Advanced 5e. All this to say, I’m no stranger to the rules-heavy models of game design (e.g. a 200+ page book, or even 3 thick tomes, for a core ruleset).
But in the past 5 years or so, I’ve also been delving deeper into the wide world of TTRPGs outside of D&D. And while massive crunch will probably always feel like home to me (yes, I am a ThAC0 nostalgist and occasionally enjoy an hours-long char-gen session pouring over various details in multiple splat books), I do also love being able to share my passion for tabletop roleplay and start playing an actual adventure in 5 minutes or less.
John Harper’s Lasers and Feelings is a prime example of this. Presented on just one page and with only two stats for a character to worry about, it’s about as pick-up-and-go as you can get! And if your table is familiar with any sci-fi franchise (e.g. Star Trek), you’ve also got a pre-built universe, or one to model after, in which to set your adventures.
I’ve dabbled in even shorter game designs (bookmark format is especially fun), and explored the deeply complex GURPS, spent some time with Blades in the Dark (BitD), and messed about with fudgy fiddlies like Fate (and its lite-er counterpart Fate Accelerated). After a brief dip into hacking about with FitD (BitD’s SRD), I was more than ready to give my own game and game engine a shot.
Inspired by BitD and others, I started with a 3-stat, 12 skill/action model for character generation. For the shiny math rock dice goblin in me, I knew I wanted more than just d6s in play, but I also didn’t want a d20 (or any single die for that matter) to be the core conflict resolution mechanic. I set my sights on a polyhedral dice-pool, and things only got more interesting from there. I grabbed lots of different concepts from lots of different games: time clocks, exploding dice rolls, stress mechanics, tiered injury tracking, dice as stats, movement zones, etc. Some things stuck, others didn’t, and when at last I was at a playtestable state, the Kāos Engine was born, and with it Turbo Shifters (previously KYBERTRION: Legacy), my TTRPG about giant robot aliens that can transform into vehicles.
Jump right into the action.
Capturing the semblance of chaos in a set of rules for tabletop roleplay, the Kāos Engine drives games forward, minimizing setup and maximizing session shenanigans, so you can focus on having a whole lot of fun!
Is it a perfect system? Hardly, and I could probably add, change, or remove bits to improve things here and there (2nd and 3rd editions here I come!). Is it a veritable hodgepodge Frankenstein of a game? I’d say so. It borrows and merges game mechanics from a bunch of games. But does it work? I suppose the jury’s still out on that since I’m the only GM I know who’s run it so far — but I’ve seen firsthand the fun, excitement, and laughter that playing the game elicited from my players (both kids and adults alike), and that counts as a pretty big win in my book.
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