Introduction

Picture this: it’s game night, you have your gin tonic with frozen raspberries (or whatever other beverage goes with that for you) and tonight you feel like diving into a world of heroic fantasy and crushing some dragon skulls. But there is a problem, your group usually plays gritty cyberpunk. Normally, that would mean you have to convince everyone to learn new system, buy more books, and then invest time and energy into something new. Even worse, the custom creations you’ve crafted for one game often end up gathering dust, locked away in an incompatible system.

Over the years, I’ve faced this struggle over and over again. I’m deeply inspired by the stories I consume. Reading How to Train Your Dragon with my son, I dreamt of a campaign where every player had their own dragon. Garth Nix’s Angel Mage inspired me to add angelic icons to my world, and his Abhorsen cronicles influenced necromancy and riverwalking. Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders made me bring living ships to the table. My setting evolved into a chaotic mix of magic, technology, and genre-spanning ideas that, somehow, work together to occassional delight of my players.

Age of Adventure is my answer to these challenges—and my invitation to you to build something even greater. This system’s modular design allows you to switch genres without learning new rules, seamlessly carrying your favorite elements from one setting to another. Your creations will interact with others in new and interesting ways: when I created an "Echo" feature for creatures it allowed me to immediately have echo knights, wizards, and assassins in a sword-and-sorcery game, but it also means I can have pirate aliens with echo like hologram technology in a space opera game down the road with no additional work.

What makes AoA truly special, though, is its openness. Every aspect of this system is developed transparently and protected by a simple Creative Commons license. No hidden clauses, no fine print, and no corporate interests. The core rules and my own creations are freely available for everyone to use. The system’s code and content are open-source, ensuring there are no rug-pulls or gatekeeping. Best of all, it empowers you to contribute freely while retaining ownership of your work—or sharing it as widely as you like.

I would like to end this welcome with a nod to my players, friends and family that support and contribute to these efforts as inspirations, co-creators and rough first draft playtesters that stand by me even when things do not work so great, providing honest but kind feedback.

Semper tuum, JR.

What is AoA?

License

All the rules, mechanics, and core content of this tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. In short, this means:

• You are free to share: You can copy and redistribute the material or parts of it in any medium or format.
• You are free to adapt: You can remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. You maintain all the rights to your own work and can do with it as you please.

Conditions

Some simple conditions have to apply in order to keep things nice:

• Attribution. You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. Usually just declaring what system you are working on, what license you are using and what parts of whatever it is you are making are your invention completely satisfies this requirement.
• No additional restrictions. You can put whatever restrictions you want on your own creations but cannot put any additional restrictions on the use of this system and its core creations.

What This Means for You

This license allows creators to freely use the core rules, mechanics, and core content in their projects. Whether you want to make a homebrew module, write a supplement, adventure or even design your own spin-off game, you can do so without asking for permission. You can publish your work anywhere you want, openly or under restrictive and commercial licenses. If you manage to make money while doing so, you don't have to pay any licensing fees. We would be happy for you.

For GMs and players, this ensures that the game remains open and accessible, and you can share materials, create new adventures, or tweak the rules to fit your table without worrying about legal issues.

Why This License?

We feel that only this open model truly fosters creative collaboration that makes TTRPGs so great. Every group of players can bring something fun and interesting and unique to the table, if only they are allowed. By embracing this open model it is our hope that we can foster community that is ready to contribute and work towards common good of all, enriching us all in the process.

Community

How to Use This Book

Online Tools

Core Concepts

Roles

Modularity

Material

Game Flow

Session

Skill Checks

Skill Challenges

Combat

Character Creation

Traits

Skills

Skills are a meassure of how good a creature is at certain categories of tasks. Skill can never be negative. A skill is always combined with a trait to make a skill check.

Specialisations

Specialisations are narrow categories of special skills that creature has and can be added to any skill check if it makes sense for the situation.

Category

A creature has one or more categories that influence its traits.

• aberration
• celestial
• demon
• dragon
• fey
• ooze
• swarm
• beast
• construct
• devil
• elemental
• monstrosity
• plant
• undead

Traits

Traits are basic characteristics of a creature and can be both positive and negative in value. If any trait drops to -5 or less the creature is outright killed.

Traits play significant role in all skill checks.

• AGI
• STR
• VIT
• INT
• WIS
• CHA
• LUC (with luck module)

Kin

Specieces / race of the creature.

Size

AoA has 7 size categories:

• minute
• tiny
• small
• medium
• large
• huge
• gargantuan

Culture

Each creature has one culture - one that shaped it most when it grew up.

Background

Each creature comes with a background, reflexing its life prior to the story.

Whenever you are creating a character, select the background that bests reflex your story (or create a new one).

Background consists of 4 points total of specialisations, movement speeds and languages (one language counting as 1 point) and 3 times 2 in skills.

Features

When a creature levels up it gains features.

HP Calculation

HP (health points) are a resource that gets depleated as the creature takes damage. Droping to 0 brings creature to the brink of death - unless healed it soon dies.

Defenses

Each creature has 2 scores defining its defensive capabilities, Block Class (BC) and Dodge Class (DgC).

Dodge class is a measure of how hard the creature is to hit. To hit attacks below DgC miss the targets and deal no damage.

DgC = 10 + Dodge + AGI

Block class signifies resilience to damage. Attacks and effects that hit a creature can be greatly reduced (but not completely negated) by armour and other padding around the creature.If to hit roll is more than dodge class but less than block class the target is hit but only takes half of the damage. Damage from effects that require skill checks to resist is also halved if the check DC is less than creature's Block Class.

BC = 10 + Block + STR

All creatures have BC and DgC, but special items, effects and features could also grant three other defensive numbers: Shielding, Damage Treshold and Damage Reduction.

Shilding is a pool of HP on top of creature's regular HP that is always used first whenever creature takes damage. If a creature takes more damage than the amount of shielding it has left, the rest of the damage affects its normal HP.

Some creatures and items are impervious to small amounts of damage. Those creatures and items have Damage Treshold score. Whenever a target receives amount of damage less than its damage treshold from a single source it takes no damage. Wheneve such creature or item takes damage equal or more than its damage treshold it takes damage normally, without any reducions, as if damage treshold didn't exist.

Rare creatures and object have damage reduction. This reduction applies to every single source of damage, reducing the amount of damage by the number specified. If a creature or an item with a damage reduction would receive less damage than its damage reduction, it receives no damage instead.

Carrying Capacity

Carrying Capacity = 10 + Stamina + STR

Game Rules

Standard Actions

Conditions

System Stress

For GMs

Genre Guidance

Balance

Genre Transitions

For Creators

Creature Components

Category

Between -2 and +2 in each trait.

Type

• +2, +1 and -1 in 3 different traits
• +1 in 5 different skills
• 1 ability, action or reaction
• movement speeds, all between 4 and 8 m.
• optionally senses

Kin

• +1 in 5 different skills
• 1 ability, action or reaction
• optionally new movement or bonus to existing movement.
• optionally senses

Culture

• 4 points in specialisations or movement bonuses. Alternatively 1 or more points can be replaced by language.
• +2 in 3 different skills

Background

• 4 points in specialisations or movement bonuses. Alternatively 1 or more points can be replaced by language.
• +2 in 3 different skills

Features

Most feature trees are designed to have 4 levels. While exceptions may exist (e.g., Legendary, Potent Casting, or Potent Psionics trees), it is highly recommended that designers stick to the 4-level structure for consistency and balance.

Skill and Trait Progression

• Levels 1, 2, and 3 each grant +1 to three different skills.
  • The same skill cannot be improved on two consecutive levels but may be revisited on non-consecutive levels (e.g., Levels 1 and 3).
• Level 4 grants +1 to one trait instead of skill bonuses, representing a more significant improvement and incentivizing players to complete the tree.

Specialisations and Alternatives

• When appropriate, levels within a feature tree may also grant +1 to a specialisation related to the tree.
  • A specialisation cannot be improved on two consecutive levels.
  • While it is common for these bonuses to appear on Levels 1 and 3, they may be assigned to other levels (e.g., 2 and 4) based on the tree’s design needs.
  • Alternatively, designers may substitute this bonus for another benefit, such as a +1 movement speed increase or the acquisition of a new sense, depending on the theme and function of the feature.

Abilities, Actions, and Reactions

• Each level can introduce new actions, reactions, or abilities, or enhance existing ones. There is no limit to the number of new mechanics a level can grant, but designers should be mindful of balance.

Hit Die Scaling

Each level also grants an additional hit die, with its type determined by the tree’s focus:

• d6 for casting- or psionic-focused trees.
• d8 for utility/general-purpose trees.
• d10 for aggressive, damage-oriented trees.
• d12 for defensive, tank-oriented trees.

Note: d4 and d20 are not used for hit dice in feature trees. If a tree spans multiple categories (e.g., aggressive and utility), the designer should determine the most appropriate die size.

Requirements

• Feature tree levels may have prerequisites, such as minimum trait scores or the acquisition of other features at a sufficient level.
• Base feature trees (those without prerequisites beyond level 1) should be designed such that Level 3 requires character level 6.
• Advanced feature trees (those requiring another feature at level 1) should follow this formula:
  • If the prerequisite feature requires level 6 or less, the advanced tree’s level 1 should require character level 6 minimum.
  • If the prerequisite feature requires level 6 or higher, the advanced tree’s level 1 should require a character level 3 higher than the prerequisite (e.g., if the prerequisite is level 9, the tree would require level 12).
  • In either case, the Level 3 of an advanced tree should require a character level 3 higher than its Level 1 requirement (e.g., 9 if Level 1 requires 6, or 15 if Level 1 requires 12).

Item Components

Design Philosophy

Creation Guidelines

Contributing

Modules

Age of Adventure is designed around modular design where components can play of each other in endless combinations.

Module Overwiev

The Core module is the foundation of every Age of Adventure game. It includes the basic mechanics needed for gameplay, covering actions, traits, combat, and social interactions. All other modules are optional and can be enabled to expand the system for specific genres, themes, or styles of play.

This modular design ensures that Age of Adventure is highly flexible and genre-agnostic. Whether your story involves mages battling robots, stonepunk societies, or space-faring explorers, you can customize the rules to fit your setting without requiring players to learn new mechanics every time the genre changes.

Magic and Supernatural Modules

These modules add magical, mystical, and supernatural elements to your game.

Spellcasting

Allows creatures and players to cast spells. A core module to many fantasy settings.

Dependency: Requires either Arcane, Divine or Elemental.

Alchemy

Alchemical and chemical crafting, with rules for potions, bombs, and advanced materials.

Arcane

Controlled, learned, almost scientific magic.

Chronomancy

Time travel mechanics, including handling paradoxes and temporal effects.

Divine

Features clergy, cultists, divine magic, and optionally, divine beings such as demons, devils, and angels.

Elemental

Introduces elemental energies, druids, and elemental magic. Optionally includes elementals as creatures.

Hemocraft

Rules for blood magic, vampires, and vampirism.

Necromancy

Focuses on necromancers and undead creatures, including rules for raising the dead.

Outsiders

Cosmic horror elements, featuring eldritch horrors, cultists, and sanity mechanics.

Psionics

Adds mystical mental powers like telepathy, telekinesis, and precognition.

Runecraft

Explores ancient runes, lost languages, and rune-based magic systems.

Shadows

Shadow magic, cloacking, and creatures of the dark.

Technology Modules

These modules introduce advanced technology, vehicles, and futuristic concepts.

Atom

Rules for nuclear technology, radiation weapons, and mutations.

Blades

Features medieval-level weaponry and armor.

Biomancy

Gene editing and chimeras. Enables modified humanoids and creatures when paired with Monsters or Humanoids.

Cyber

Focuses on hacking, cyberspace exploration, and futuristic computers.

Diesel

Diesel-powered machines, vehicles, and weaponry.

Elektrica

Covers electricity-based technology, transportation, and mystical energies.

Gunpowder

Introduces firearms, explosives, and early industrial weaponry.

Mecha

Rules for piloting giant robots, optionally including giant monsters to battle them.

Nano

Advanced nanotechnology, laser weapons and energy-based equipment.

Space

Rules for space travel, rockets, and alien worlds.

Steam

Introduces steampunk technology and clockwork devices, optionally incorporating magical machinery.

Stone

Focuses on stone-age tools and weapons, as well as animal-powered technology. Ideal for primitive or low-tech campaigns.

Synth

Introduces artificial intelligence, androids, and other artificial life forms. Includes rules for creating, interacting with, or even playing as synthetic beings

Species and Creature Modules

These modules expand on character and creature options.

Heroes

Introduces superhuman characters with extraordinary abilities.

Humanoids

Introduces non-human playable species, from aliens to mythological beings.

Monsters

Adds a variety of creatures for use as enemies, allies, or world flavor.

General Modules

These modules enhance the social, political, and economic aspects of your world.

Apocalypse

Covers catastrophic events such as plagues, natural disasters, environmental collapse, and societal ruin.

Bases

Rules for building, upgrading, and maintaining bases, secret lairs, or headquarters. Includes mechanics for fortifications, resource management, and customization.

Crafting

Enables players to create magical or technological items.

Exploration

Focuses on travel mechanics, environmental challenges, and world exploration.

Factions

Adds faction renown, political systems, and power struggles.

Hearts

Personal renown, relationships, followers and pets.

Mercantile

Rules for trading, banking, and investing.

Learning

Rules for learnings and improving during downtime. Grants small bonuses and aids in roleplay and exploration.

Luck

Introduces mechanics for luck as a core trait, allowing players and enemies to influence outcomes with lucky breaks, rerolls, or fate-altering events.

Scavenging

Rules for gathering resources, looting, and crafting with found materials.

War

Adds large-scale battle mechanics and war machines.

Setting-Specific Modules

These modules are designed for specific settings within the Age of Adventure universe. They showcase how multiple modules can combine to create unique, tailored experiences.

Riverwalk

Focuses on navigating the river of life, bringing back souls, and battling necromancers in death.

Dependency: Requires Necromancy.

Teoxal

Introduces Teoxal Warriors—powerful allies who can be stored in Teoxal cubes and summoned for combat.

Dependency: Requires Monsters.

How to Use Modules

When building your game, follow these steps to choose the right modules:

• Start with Core: Always include the Core module.
• Choose Your Genre: Decide the theme or style of your game (e.g., medieval fantasy, sci-fi, post-apocalypse, etc.).
• Enable Relevant Modules: Refer to the "Modules for the Genre" section to see which modules are normally best for your chosen genre.
• Customize: Customise to your liking. Add any general modules you want to include.

Alchemy

Apocalypse

Arcane

Atom

Bases

Biomancy

Blades

Chronomancy

Crafting

Cyber

Diesel

Divine

Elektrica

Elemental

Experience

Factions

Gunpowder

Hearts

Hemocraft

Heroes

Humanoids

Learning Module

This optional module allows characters to improve their Skills and Specialisations beyond standard progression, using structured downtime activities and gameplay milestones.

Overview

Each Skill and Specialisation can be improved by +3 through this module, combining different learning methods. Players may mix and match learning styles, earning their +1 in any order, but no Skill or Specialisation can exceed +3 from this module, +1 per method.

Traits Covered

This system applies to the core six Traits:

• STR, AGI, VIT, INT, WIS, CHA

Note

If using the Luck Module (which adds LUC as a seventh trait), it does not apply to the Learning Module. Learning remains based on the six core traits only. One cannot learn luck.

Skill Advancement

Learning Methods

• Guided Mastery (+1) – Learn from a mentor.
• Scholarly Insight (+1) – Study from media or archives.
• Breakthrough Moment (+1) – Achieve a major success in gameplay.

Guided Skill Mastery

Process

1. 1-hour session focusing on a skill + one trait (e.g., Stealth(AGI)).
2. Both student and mentor roll that combination.
3. If combined total is 30+, mark 1 success for that trait.
4. After marking all 6 traits for the skill, gain +1.

Notes

• Mentor must have a higher bonus in the skill than the student.
• Multiple students can train under the same mentor (same skill + trait). They each make their own check while the teacher only makes one.
• Students may use different mentors for different traits.

Scholarly Insight into Skill

Process

1. Requires appropriate media (manuals, VR sims, archives, etc.).
2. 1-hour session focusing on a skill + one trait.
3. Make a DC 20 check with chosen skill and trait.
4. On success, mark 1 success for that trait.
5. After marking all 6 traits, gain +1.

Notes

• Media quality may grant bonuses (+1, +2).
• Media must be accessible (no language barriers, encryption, etc.).

Breakthrough Moment

Process

• If you roll 40+ on a skill check during gameplay, gain +1 to that skill.

Notes

• Only applies once (first time) per skill.
• No downtime required, this can happen at any point during gameplay.
• This apply even if the character was given help, inspiration or any other bonus.

Specialisation Advancement

Learning Methods

• Guided Proficiency (+1) – Mentorship training.
• Studied Expertise (+1) – Research and diverse practice.
• Field Mastery (+1) – Experience through repeated success.

Guided Specialisation Proficiency

Process

1. Mentor must have a higher bonus in the specialisation.
2. 1-hour session using a Trait + Skill combination.
3. You must use eac trait once (per specialisation) in this process
4. You can only use same skill once (per specialisation) in this process
5. Both mentor and student roll the same combination adding their specialisation to the rol.
6. If combined total is 40+, mark that Trait as completed.
7. After marking all six Traits, gain +1.

Notes

• Multiple mentors may be used.
• Mentors can teach groups (same Trait + Skill combo), same as with a skill.

Studied Specialisation Expertise

Process

1. Requires appropriate study material.
2. 1-hour session using a Trait + Skill combo.
3. Complete 6 sessions:
   • Each Trait (STR, AGI, VIT, INT, WIS, CHA) used once.
   • Each Skill used must be unique across succesful sessions.
4. Roll Specialisation + Trait + Skill vs DC 25.
5. After six successful sessions, gain +1.

Notes

• Media bonuses may apply depending on quality.

Field Mastery

Process

• Track rolls of 20 that apply the specialisation in active play.
• After logging 6 such rolls, gain +1.

Notes

• Players track this autonomously, no GM arbitration needed.
• Multiple specialisations can benefit on the same roll, if they are all applied.

General Learning Rules

• Maximum of +3 per Skill or Specialisation (one bonus from each method).
• Players may retry failed rolls as often as needed (time is the only cost).
• Players may roleplay learning scenes without requiring GM input.
• GMs may still introduce story consequences or NPC interactions during learning, but this is optional. Some ideas include:
  • A teacher declares them hopeless and stops teaching them
  • A teacher charges by the hour, costing characters more money
  • CD with instructions gets scratched after some number of failed attempts.

Edge Cases & Clarifications

• Do I use Luck (LUC) as the 7th check if that module is active?
  No, Learning remains limited to the six core traits.

• Can I exceed +3 via this module?
  No. Other systems (features, magic items, etc.) must provide further bonuses.

• Can multiple students learn from the same mentor or media?
  Yes, if learning the same combination.

• Can Field Mastery count toward two specialisations?
  Yes, when both are used in a roll.

Luck

Mecha

Mercantile

Monsters

Nano

Necromancy

Outsiders

Psionics

Introduction

Introduction to Psionics

The mind is the ultimate frontier — a realm where untapped potential and raw will converge to shape reality. In Age of Adventure, psionics represents the power that emanates from within, allowing individuals to manifest extraordinary abilities through focus, discipline, and insight but without relying out magic and other outside forces.

In a game where settings and genres are left to the Game Masters, psionics is designed to be as flexible as the narrative demands. A psion could be:

• A Mystic Monk: Living high in a secluded mountain temple, mastering inner peace and the art of transcending physical limits while practicing martial arts
• A Hypnotist: Talk of the glamorous saloons and a member of mistical societies, wandering the shadowy fringes of society, using their mental prowess to sway hearts and bend wills.
• A Galactic Guardian: Wielding laser guns and swords, blending martial prowess of the future with metaphysical insight.
• Corporate Mindbender: In the cutthroat world of corporate espionage, this operative uses subtle mental influence to sway negotiations, uncover secrets, and control the boardroom from the shadows.
• Psychic Detective: Always knowing a little more, piecing together mysteries that leave conventional investigators baffled.
• Druidic Empath: Tapping into the collective consciousness of the natural world—communicating with wildlife, healing the wounded, and invoking the ancient rhythms of the earth.

This open-ended design encourages you and your players to interpret psionics in a way that best suits your campaign's tone and aesthetic.

Psionic Points

Each psion has a pool of PP (psionic points in case but this is compatible with wherever else you see PP such as power points in Hero module). Generally every psionic feature gives psion 2 PP.

Psions regain half of their PP after every short of long rest.

Initially a psion can use 1 PP at the time and they can raise that limit by taking levels in Potent Psionics. Limiting this one feature tree therefor allows GMs to fine tune the presence of psionics in their games from minor effects (no Potent Psionics) to world bending psionic powers that can influence entire areas (all 11 levels of Potent Psionics).

Psionic Abilities

Psionic abilities have two stages, low burn and release. After every short or long rest a psion will generally start one or more abilities on a slow burn that give them small bonuses psions are known for - talking telepathically, moving small objects with the power of mind, seeing a bit more, being a bit faster... At any point the psion can chose to release those low burning abilities for a short but more powerful effect. Psion can also chose to overcharge that release with even more PP for a costlier but more powerful effect. Releasing too many of their low burning abilities will leave psions weak and tired until they can take a rest, regain PP and start new abilities.

Breaching Limits

Psions are known for their ability to go past their limits, risking injury to themselvese to go beyond their normal limits. Psions can spend PP they don't have by rolling on the Psionic Punishment Table for each PP. They can also spend PP above the limit allowed by their Potent Psionics by doing the same.

Psionic Punishment Table

Riverwalk

Runecraft

Scavenging

Shadows

Space

Spellcasting

Steam

Stone

Synth

Teoxal

War

Glossary