This review is for Jeff Moore's Five by Five RPG. Of the many free RPGs I've downloaded and read through, Five by Five is my favorite one. It's not without its faults, but what it does it does well. And it does so in just sixteen pages.
First off, a word about style. Five by Five is released in PDF format. The text is single column with headers that are huge compared to the actual text. There are only two pieces of black & white art of average quality in the document, though for a free RPG that's not too shabby. If I have one complaint it's that if the headers were reduced in size and the text reformatted to two columns with a smaller margin, you could probably cut the PDF down to 10 or 12 pages. But that's a pretty minor gripe, all things considered. For style, I'd call this average, for a score of 3.
Now on to the meat of the game. The first page is a very brief introduction to RPGs. If you're reading this review then you've probably seen this kind of thing before. I'm not sure this section is warranted. Chances are pretty high that anybody who'd download Five by Five would already know what an RPG is or how they're played. If you're planning on creating a new gamer and want to hand them a copy of these rules as an intro to the hobby, it might be useful.
Characters
Next comes a discussion of characters in Five by Five. All characters are described by Traits. A Trait is described as “something your character is good at doing” and includes things like skills (swordsmanship, acrobatics, haggling), professions (scientist, private eye, musician) or physical/mental aspects (strong, beautiful, brave). Essentially, a trait can be as broad or as narrow as the GM allows. In a high fantasy game, “Wizard” might be too broad of a trait while “Acolyte of the Fire Mages of Zern” might be more appropriate. However, in a low fantasy game, “Wizard” might be a perfectly acceptable Trait. It all depends on the scope of the campaign in which these rules are used and what the GM allows. Characters start with one Weak, one Novice, two Competent, one Expert, and one Master Trait. Characters never list Untrained Traits, because all unlisted Traits are obviously Untrained!
What's really important here is what a specific Trait implies. The more general the Trait, the more general its use. In the above example, a “Wizard” might be able to cast a wide variety of spells, read magical tomes, identify mysterious items, and call upon his vast stores of magical lore. However, the “Acolyte of the Fire Mages of Zern” would have a much more narrow focus: Fire Magic, perhaps contacts within the Acolytes, and very general knowledge about the workings of magic. In a similar vein, “Swordsman” implies a much narrower focus than “Warrior”. Five by Five provides a sample list of Traits to get you started, but this is only a starting point. Creative players and GMs will no doubt dream up dozens of new Traits specific to their games.
Obviously, there is potential for abuse here by both players and GMs. The real trick is to keep the Traits general enough to be useful and narrow enough to keep things from getting out-of-hand. When it comes to character creation, the players and GM will need to work together to define the scope of the Traits used in their games.
Traits are given values called Ranks. The eight ranks in order from worst to best are: Weak (½) , Untrained (0), Novice (2), Competent (4), Skilled (6), Expert (9), Master (12), and Legendary (16). The numbers after the Rank indicate what must be rolled on a 5x5 dice roll to succeed at a task for that Trait. (We'll get to the dice rolls shortly.) No character can have more than one Legendary and two Master ranked Traits. A chart is provided that shows a Trait's chance of succeeding at a task by Rank. A Competent Trait has a 50% chance off succeeding, while a Master has a 90% chance of succeeding at a given task.
Task Rolls
Five by Five use six-sided dice, but counts any six as a zero (0). This unusual configuration is called a d5 and is the basic die used in the game. A “Five by Five” roll (5x5) is rolling two d5s and multiplying the results together. So, if you roll a 2 and a 5, you get 10. If you roll a 3 and a 0, you get 0.
To make a task roll in Five by Five, you must roll equal to or under your Trait Rank value on a 5x5 roll. Untrained tasks succeed on a 0 only, while Weak tasks are entitled to a d5 roll (not 5x5!) only and must roll a 0 to succeed. Thus, a Master Starfighter Pilot needs to roll 12 or less on a 5x5 to succeed at a task relevant to his Starfighter Pilot Trait. A Weak Swimmer must roll a 0 on a d5 to avoid being swept away by a fast-moving current.
Trait Ranks can be shifted up or down one level to make tasks easier or more difficult as the GM sees fit. This is especially useful for what the rules call “Borderline Traits.” Borderline Traits are traits that fall into tasks “gray areas”. In other words, these traits might be useful for accomplishing a task in some way, but they're really for something else. As an example, consider two characters: a ranger with an Expert Hunting trait and an archer with an Expert Archery trait. Both are trying to hunt game in an attempt to acquire food. The ranger has the most applicable trait (Hunting) and would therefore have no modifier to his trait's rank for this task. The archer, on the other hand, might be good with a bow, but what does he know of stalking game? The GM could downshift his Archery rank by one level to Skilled (9) for this task to reflect the fact that while Archery is useful for hunting game, it's not the ideal Trait for this task.
Aspects
Moving on from Traits, we find that characters have three Aspects: Experience, Level and Life. Experience is spent to increase existing Trait levels or add new Novice rank Traits. One point of experience is gained for every session a character is played. It costs one point of Experience times the character's level to increase an existing Trait by one level or add a new Novice rank Trait. A character's Level starts at 1 and increases by +1 for each new Trait added or each existing trait advancement. A character's Life (hit points, basically) is equal to 9+Level.
The Experience system is the one place where I feel Five by Five misses the mark. There's nothing to stop you from advancing your Master Trait to Legendary after your first session. Well, nothing except an iron-fisted GM with any common sense. Also, after the first few advances, it will take quite a few sessions to advance your character. Personally, I'm okay with this. However, I think some players will be annoyed by this as character advances become fewer and fewer as a campaign wears on. Crafty GMs can mitigate this with non-advancement rewards but I suspect some players won't be able to let it go.
Combat
Combat in Five by Five is a pretty straightforward affair. Player characters always go first unless the GM says otherwise (they're ambushed, they're magically slowed, etc.). Combat rolls are just task rolls using appropriate traits. A successful task indicates a hit. Once per turn, a character may make a Dodge roll against one attack. This Dodge roll is considered an Untrained task roll, unless the character has some trait that would be applicable to dodging (Combat Dodge, Tumbling, etc.), in which case the relevant trait's Rank is used. Success indicates the hit is evaded/blocked/whatever. This Dodge roll is usable against one attack only, so multiple opponents who gang up on one victim still have an advantage. If you carry a shield or off hand weapon, however, you can pull off a Dodge roll twice per turn.
If an attack is successful, damage is rolled. This is a d5 roll plus the weapon's damage modifier. Damage is open-ended, so if you roll a 5 of that d5 roll, you roll again and add the results until you stop rolling fives. Weapons have modifiers ranging from -1 (fists) to +4 or higher (heavy rifle). This damage is then modified by the target's armor, which can range from 1 to 3 (or higher). Subtract the armor's value from the damage to determine the total damage taken. The final damage is subtracted from the character's current Life points. At 0 to -5 Life, you're unconscious. At -6 Life, you're pushing up daisies.
Healing works the same way as attacking. A successful task roll on a healing Trait generates d5 Life restored. This roll is also open-ended, so if you roll a 5 roll again until you don't and keep adding the results. Poison acts like armor, subtracting from the healing roll. Finally, characters recover one point of Life per day while resting.
The last section deals with Unique traits, which are Traits not available to the average person in the game world. For example, super powers might fall into this category, or magic in a low-fantasy world. To obtain a Unique trait, a character must sacrifice an existing trait. The Unique trait then comes into play at a rank two levels below the sacrificed trait. So, in a low-fantasy campaign, a character might sacrifice his Expert trait to have a Competent Sorcery trait. This is a great way for GMs to keep powerful, game-breaking traits in check.
Conclusion
I like Five by Five. I think it's a great RPG toolkit for the right GM and the right group of players. Gearheads and crunch-lovers won't find anything here, as Five by Five is more of a story-telling system than a simulation. But I must stress that Five by Five is a toolkit. You won't find lists of spells, weapons, monsters, or any of that stuff. You get the foundation and a little framework and the rest of the house is up to you to build. While I have some reservations about the viability of long-term campaigns with this system, I think it'd be great for a one-shot, a pick-up game, or a mini-campaign. For substance, I give Five by Five a solid 4.
Looking for free RPGs? Try these sites:
1KM1KT (One thousand monkeys, one thousand typewriters.)
Chris' Compendium of Free RPGs (No, it's not me.)
