sorta likely useful resource for pretending stuff v0.1

21 Nov, 2025

A Mark of the Odd thingy.¹ Also compatible with the world's most generic roleplaying game.

making a world

Everyone other than DM² goes around in a circle and declares facts about the world that are, in the focalized in-world culture from which PCs³, Common Sense That Most People Believe. Continue until bored. Build off of what others throw out but don't sweat contradictions that much; common sense contains plenty of such things.

DM makes world, under constraint that people could have the commonsense beliefs they do without being complete idiots. Beliefs affirmed by daily experience (people mostly eat maize, the moon is as bright as the sun) are almost certainly true, those otherwise (the ancient magical empire fell a thousand years ago because their queens grew decadent, God made the world after a failed bet with the devil) are likely distorted. Truths are revealed to PCs only as they naturally become more aware.

attributes, skills, antiskills

Attributes and skills are what they sound like. Don't bother adding them or whatever, just roll against whatever makes the most sense.

Antiskills are things most people can do automatically enough, but you can't: socializing sober, keeping it in your pants, focusing on a task, laughing off an insult. Having antiskills is bad (or at least constrains your actions), but given that you have them, higher values are better.

Skills and antiskills are defined as they are acquired. Players have the responsibility to remember when their antiskills are relevant, and to choose which stat is most relevant to any given roll.

making a guy

Everything here is best overwritten by your DM in accordance with their world.

Determine whether you're creating someone's history as the timeline of the secondary world advances, or backfilling the history of someone who is some known age by current world time. I recommend going with the former if you're beginning a campaign; if so, you'll want to begin with whoever ends up playing the eldest person and introduce younger characters later, unless everyone is the same age; you can switch into more zoomed-in play when everybody or a majority wants.

circumstances of birth

Roll 4+1d4 for initial attributes (STR, DEX, ETC⁴.) As anchor, 10 is human average.

Roll [lowest of three d10] - 1d4 for social status[^status-anchor] of your family, if your society is in the "maximally sustainable state of inequality" attractor.⁵ As anchor, -3 are unpersons actively slated for extinction, 9 is heir to emperor of the world, 0 are those teeming masses that toil.

Roll 50/50 for sex assigned at birth, if your society is into that kind of thing.⁶

Player next to you at table makes up an antiskill (10+1d6) that you're naturally bad at.

childhood (0-10)

Draw a Tarot card and use that to interpret external events beyond your control, but still largely local in scope. On Death, die.

Roll 1d6 and add it to attribute of choice.

Roll 10+1d6 and write that down as a skill value in whatever you do most (farmwork, operating industrial machinery, brawling, looking contrite in front of authority figures, whatever.)

Take an appropriate lifepath action.

adolescence (11-20)

Draw a Tarot card and use that to interpret external events beyond your control, but still largely local in scope. On Death, die.

Roll 1d6 and add it to attribute of choice, that you haven't done the same with before.

Roll 10+1d6 and write that down as a skill value in whatever you do most (flirting, being innocuous, scribal arts, brawling, whatever.)

You're d6 with disadvantage on the Kinsey scale.

Take an appropriate lifepath action.

young adulthood (21-30)

Draw a Tarot card and use that to interpret external events beyond your control, but still largely local in scope. On Death, die.

Roll 1d6 and add it to whatever attribute is left.

Roll 10+1d6 and write that down as a skill value in whatever you do most (spearcraft, sailing, accounting, whatever) that most people don't do.

Take an appropriate lifepath action.

Name the three skills (or antiskills) you use or practice most. For those that are antiskills, raise each by 1. For all the others, replace them with the lower value of (current value, 9+1d6) and eliminate if less than 10 (except antiskills, which remain bottomed out at 10.)

each additional decade

Draw a Tarot card and use that to interpret external events beyond your control, but still largely local in scope. On Death, die.

Lower all attributes by one.

Name an attribute that you've focused on. Its new value is the higher of (previous value after dropping down, [10 - x + 1d6]) where x is the number of extra decades you've been around.⁷

Roll 10+1d6 and write that down as a skill value in whatever you do most (spearcraft, sailing, accounting, whatever) that most people don't do.

Take an appropriate lifepath action.

Name the three skills (or antiskills) you use or practice most. Raise those that are antiskills by 1. For all the others, replace them with the lower value of (current value, 9+1d6) and eliminate if less than 10 (except antiskills, which remain bottomed out at 10.)

Roll 1d6. If it's higher than your strength, die.

lifepath actions

Choose one or make it up:

• Claw your way up to a higher social status (+1). Make an enemy.
• Serve an organization. Get a patron and be trained in a skill (10+1d6).
• Acquire a bad habit. Take an antiskill (resisting drink, drugs, gambling) and make 1d6 lowlife friends.
• Find the inner resources to do something important. Gain a skill (10+1d6) and an antiskill (10+1d6, betray your principles).
• Work on yourself. Raise an antiskill by 1d4.
• Strike out on your own. Get a new skill at (10+1d6). Your new social status is lower of (present status, 1d8-4.) If new result is -4, die.

getting hurt

As in Oddlikes, deal damage first to hp, and then to STR. Combat as other oddlikes.

HP is measured in usage dice, rather than directly with points: reset to Ud4 after ten minute rest, Ud6 after hour's rest, Ud8 after a full night's sleep, Ud10 after a full week's rest. If taking one point of damage to hp or exerting yourself⁸, roll usage die and go down a level on 1-2. If taking multiple points of damage, roll current die, reduce damage by the result, and go down a die (unless you beat it by 2+). If any damage is left, apply that to new die size.

everything else

Roll 3d6 under or equal to stat (attribute, skill, or antiskill.) Roll with advantage (4d6 drop lowest) or disadvantage (4d6 drop highest) as appropriate. Triples an unusual coincidence happens. Beat or get beat by your target by 10+, critically succeed or fail by virtue of your own proficiency.