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Usurper - Claim to power: A game of lords, rogues and adventurers

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Welcome to Usurper, a fantasy role playing game of adventure and storytelling.

Usurper is a fantasy adventure game of quick, light hearted adventure. Using a simple table to resolve actions on, the game allows for various degrees of success, random events and unexpected outcomes without any complicated math.

Characters are described in plain English terms rather than lists of numbers and modifiers and can be created to taste in a matter of minutes with a notepad or through a random generation system if the player prefers to use that.

Usurper is meant to scale from street-level to epic campaigns deciding the fate of kingdoms. 

Emphasis is on providing as many tools as possible to generate worlds, cities and adventure ideas, allowing pick-up games with as little preparation work as possible.

The rules cover the following aspects:

*Resolving actions with no math.

*Two character creation systems, one driven by the player and a random system.

*Narrative combat system.

*A game system that will result in your characters changing unpredictably as they adventure. The person that comes back to their home town is never going to be the same person that left.

*Tables covering ill fortunes such as physical injuries, gruesome deaths, mental trauma and sanity loss.

*Follower and henchmen rules, including loyalty, morale, recruitment.

*NPC's and monsters will fit on an index card.

*Random NPC generator, including motivations and relationships.

*World builder with random generators for world history, city factions, quests, terrain and dungeon themes.

*Travel and random encounter tables.

*Tables to conduct a living, unpredictable campaign with random events and outcomes.

*Adventure system that adjudicates the progress of the heroes when fighting to bring down an enemy, overthrow a system or change the world.

*Random monster and magic item tables.

*Narrative magic system.

*Random deities with an active interest in their followers.

*Lead armies into battle, treating each unit as a character in its own right.

*Rule a domain.

*Be eaten by a monster.

* * * * *

The random generators are of value to players of any roleplaying game, even if they do not use the Usurper rules and are made to be as generic as possible, permitting their use in a wide variety of fantasy adventure games.

Likewise, this is well suited for cooperative and solo players due to the wide range of randomly generated content that can be generated.

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Reviews (2)
Discussions (6)
Customer avatar
Marja E July 23, 2021 2:52 am UTC
PURCHASER
How does this compare with Blade & Lockpick?
Reply
Customer avatar
Ivan S July 25, 2021 2:44 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Usurper has a ton of random tables to generate elements, events etc.
B&L is more minimalist and aimed more specifically at solo-playing a party of characters. Its more of a tool box for games.

I hope that makes sense?
Customer avatar
John F November 13, 2020 10:22 am UTC
PURCHASER
This is the good stuff. Any chance we could get a an option for physical copies?
Reply
Customer avatar
Ivan S November 17, 2020 10:32 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Thank you kindly and sorry for the delay.
Once a planned update to a 2nd edition happens (hopefully next year but dont hold me to it) we'll be looking into POD options yes.
Reply
Customer avatar
Frederik S March 17, 2022 8:02 am UTC
PURCHASER
Any updates on a 2nd edition? I would love to get a printed copy.
Reply
Customer avatar
Valdus C April 14, 2024 11:27 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I too would like to have a physical copy in my hands when I go into battle- any updates on that?
Customer avatar
Matthew B September 16, 2019 4:58 am UTC
PURCHASER
Have a question regarding Domains: The rules refer to rolling for a "Domain Event", but I cannot find a Domain Event Table within the Domain rules. Are Regional Events used for this or have I missed something?
Thanks in advance
Matt B.
Reply
Customer avatar
Matthew B September 16, 2019 5:04 am UTC
PURCHASER
That's what I call a quick reply! Thanks for clearing that up and for your excellent customer service.
Regards
Matt B.
Customer avatar
Aee V December 25, 2017 1:15 am UTC
PURCHASER
A little confused at the character creation.
Personality section mentioned the sixth traits but going through the step it only mentioned choose a trait only 4 times (including acquaintance).
Was I supposed to choose 3 traits in Background Events or were the missing 2 traits from Acquaintance and Profession?
Customer avatar
Richard S August 22, 2016 11:58 am UTC
PURCHASER
Having so much fun with this book. But there's one thing I can't find a clear answer to, and others might also like to know, hence my post here:

When you burn traits on a single action, is there a limit to how many can be burnt? Or could I theoretically throw all my traits into a single action (assuming they could all apply to that action), and have no traits to burn for a while going forward?

I would think there's no limit, but when I've run a game under that assumption, I find it difficult to display the power of a single immensely mighty wizard or the like... because when multiple players are involved and a single player has saved all their traits for the climax, that player can basically burn all their traits to get the "boss" down to none very quickly.
Customer avatar
Richard S June 10, 2016 4:40 am UTC
PURCHASER
A quick question: How similar is Usurper to Chevauchee? I'm considering both, but I worry for my concentration if I buy them both at once. I guess a better question would be, how effectively can one play a historical-style medieval setting with Usurper?
Reply
Customer avatar
Richard S June 10, 2016 4:53 am UTC
PURCHASER
Aha, I see! Thanks for the quick reply. I think I'll start with Usurper since it's for a solo project, and miniatures wargames tend to be difficult to manage alone (and not as fun as with other players). However, I expect I'll be looking into Chevauchee in the future. :)
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Product Information
Electrum seller
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Pages
97
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File Last Updated:
January 12, 2016
This title was added to our catalog on December 05, 2014.