On this page:
- Intro: What is this stuff?
- No Dice Needed
- The Wild World of Shotgun RPG
- Rules of the Road
- System Basics
- Abilities
- Spread
- Let’s Give it a Shot…
Intro: What is this stuff?
It’s a tabletop RPG (TTRPG), but you don’t need a table… or top… or dice. Just your brain and your voice.
In most TTRPGs, actions taken by players can either succeed or fail based on the rules of the game, and most use dice, a deck of cards, or some other factor to introduce chance and randomization into the game while adding a value that represents their character’s skill to the outcome of the roll.
...But who wants to carry all that crap around?
No dice needed
Shotgun RPG is a diceless system that uses the same method your mom used when you and your brother fought over the last cookie:
MOM: “Pick a number between 1 and 10”
LIL’ BRO: “4!”
BIG BRO: “9”
MOM: “My number was 5! Lil’ Bro wins!”
Lil’ Bro: “Woot! In your faaaace! Wait... Where’s the cookie?”
Big BRO: “I ate it while you were celebrating... Now get back to the rules of the game!”
Shotgun RPG is kind of like this, only you won’t just be fighting over a cookie... You could be fighting to punch a moose, steal a crown, outrun an Olympic-prize-winning chicken, or even for your very lives!
Requirements:
The Shotgun RPG system is designed to be played anywhere, and be used in any fiction universe. All you need is two or more people and your imagination. A smartphone could come in handy, but is not required. But new players are encouraged to start in the Wild West Steam Punk world of Genetically Mutated Animals that is Shotgun RPG at first.
I created it as an easy way to play a TTRPG while on a long road trip with my brother. But I needed one without dice, without constant looking at my phone and getting carsick, and it needed to be so simple that an entire character’s stats and scores could be easily memorized or written on a sticky note.
Thus, Shotgun RPG was born. A truly diceless, cardless, paperless, extra-stuff-less system that’s easy to learn, fun to play, and road safe (mostly).
Wild World of Shotgun RPG
“Dearest Mabel, as I traversed yon hill's crest, my eyes gazed upon a no-good weasel and his bitter buffalo companion. Armed with rifles, it was clear that they sought strife. I was not about to lose another train full of supplies to the likes of them. So with My trusty clockwork pistol in hand, I readied for the impending fray…”
How it happened…
In the late 1700’s, a deadly and unique disease called the “Bipedal Extinction Plague” which only affected humans, swept the globe. Scientists scrambled to try to find a cure, finally landing on one made from a mixture of animal blood. Steam-work engineers worked with chemists to develop a device which could release the cure into the air, and as the cure was distributed, the virus was stunted.
Many were saved, but the celebration was short lived…
Babies had begun being born with animal and human traits. A boy with the head and fur of a moose, a girl with the characteristics of an elephant. Animals also began to be born with human characteristics, producing litters of humanoid creatures. This epidemic became known as”The Great Faunafication.”
As generations began to pass, humans quickly found themselves becoming the rarest breed of humanoid mammal. Fearing extinction, many humans rose up to try to put an end to the subspecies while they were still young and defenseless, which caused war and further division.
The world quickly became dominated by a large variety of animal-humanoid species. Ape-men, wolf-men, bear-men, even fish-men, frog-men and bird-men.
Other animals remained “normal”, and did not transform. These are referred to by the humanoids as “Fauna” or “F”, as in “Fauna-Horses” and “fauna-Dogs”, or “F-Horses” and “F-Dogs”.
Much of the eastern continents were taken control of by apes due to their strong social structures and adaptability.
The western continents were primarily controlled by dogs and wolves due to their sheer numbers and pack-mentalities.
But with no clear boundaries or leadership among the people on either continent, too few lawmen willing to stand up, and increasingly broken systems of government, the Wild West became the Wild World.
Insects were said to not have been affected, but there have been rumors of strange creatures emerging in dark places.
Steam-power and gun-powder became the way of the future, and paved a path for the invention of trains and other steam powered vehicles, as well as clockwork computing devices, steam-powered weaponry, and even steam-powered clockwork prosthetics. This technological uprising became known as the “Brass Revolution”.
Now, as nations struggle to reform, the world is left in a state of turmoil. Animal-humanoids fight for territory, while gunslingers, train robbers and bandits run rampant, humanoid fish pirates rule the open seas, and clockwork-steam technology sweeps the globe.
Where do you fit in?
Are you a gunslinger? A pirate? A bounty hunter? Or maybe an inventor, trying to create a better way to do sky travel, or a native living off of the land. You could even be an Ape named “Raham Lincoln” who sets out to unite the continent and become the first president of the Wild World.
Whatever your goals are in this Wild, crazy world… Don’t forget to bring your shotgun.
Rules of the road
To play Shotgun RPG you just need two or more people, your imagination, and possibly some leg hair (optional).
Like every TTRPG, you need a game master and at least one player. Shotgun RPG is the same, but instead of a game master and a player, you need a Chucker and a Shooter.
The Shooters:
Other RPGs call this “The Player”, we call it “The Shooter”. You can call them players if you want to, but let it be known that this is much less awesome. You need at least one shooter to play the game.
A Shooter starts by making a character. So pick a race, choose your traits and abilities, and prepare for awesomeness.
The Chucker
Other RPGs call this person the “Game Master” or “GM”. In Trapshooting (the popular sport of shooting clay pigeons with shotguns) the pros call the person who launches the clays “the puller”, some might call them “the clay thrower”, but those of us raised in the backwoods, throwing and shooting whatever junk we have lying around, call it what it is… “the chucker”.
So, in sticking to the “shotgun” theme of the game, the game master of Shotgun RPG is aptly named, “The Chucker”.
(Or you can be lame and just call it the “GM”).
The Chucker - like the GM - tells the story, runs the game, and determines the difficulty for any actions the Shooters wish to make, as well as what abilities to use in order to accomplish those actions.
System Basics
As mentioned previously, Shotgun RPG uses a “Pick a number between 1 and X” method, where X represents a difficulty number (Easy = 10, Medium = 15, Hard = 20). So the harder a task is, the higher X is, and the less likely your chances are of picking the right number.
Characters have abilities which show the strengths and weaknesses of the character by helping them achieve a desired outcome when taking an action.
Keep going and read about Spread, and Give it a Shot to see an example. Then learn more about how the game works under Game Mechanics.
The abilities
- Hit Points: Fight + 1 = HP
- Fight (strength tests, constitution tests, defending, smashing, breaking, pushing, hurting)
- Cunning (thievery, stealth, dexterity or agility tests, speed, acrobatics, hand-eye-coordination)
- Wit (intelligence or wisdom tests, hacking, thinking of something smart, knowing or understanding something, making sense of something)
- Flash (charisma, attractiveness, diplomacy, deception, pizzazz, flair, inspiration)
See more on the Character Creation page.
A character’s ability score adds a component to his called shot, called “spread.”
First, picture your numbers in a circle, like on a clock...
The Chucker will think of a number between 1 and x (where x is determined by the difficulty) and then your job as the Shooter is to guess a number as close to that number as you can, and apply the relevant ability score to your spread. (Just like winning the last cookie)
For example… Say you want your character to kick open a dilapidated door...
You are playing as a Gorilla Bounty Hunter named Mr. Figs, with a Fight score of 2. Since Fight is the ability used to smash down the door, you will add this number to your Spread.
A “Spread of 2” means that you will succeed as long as you are 2 above or below the number that the Chucker picks.
This means that with a Spread of 2, the Shooter will hit ‘9’ if he chooses any of the green numbers below:
Let’s give it a shot...
The Chucker sets the scene:
CHUCKER: There’s a locked door in front of you, and you hear the muffled voices of the bad men who stole your favorite ham on the other side.
SHOOTER: I want to bash this door open.
CHUCKER: The door looks easy to bash open. Take a shot between 1 and 10.
The Chucker thinks of the number 9, but he keeps it quiet.
Remember, the Shooter has a Fight Score that gives him a +2 to his spread, so he only needs to pick a number 2 points higher or 2 points lower than what the Chucker picked, but he won’t know what that number is until he takes his shot.
SHOOTER: I’m gonna take a shot at 10.
CHUCKER: My number was 9, that’s a hit!
The shooter didn’t pick the same number that the Chucker did, but since his shot has a spread of 2, he still hits!
Notice that the shooter would even hit the numbers 1 and 2, because they were in range. That’s the beauty of the circle. The shooter would have hit 10 if he’d picked any of these numbers: 8, 9, 10, 1, or 2.
What if he failed?
If he had picked anything between 3 and 7, he would have missed, failed to bash the door, and made a fool of himself.
However, since the Chucker’s number was 10, and the Shooter picked 9 - with a spread of 2 - the Shooter succeeds!
SHOOTER: Guns at the ready, I smash the door open and say, “Put your hams where I can see em’!”
Credits:
Midjourney AI