Everything-as-XP (my home game)

My in person game is starting up. I have chosen to avoid a system for a number of reasons:

1. I am given an hour and a half per session.

2. 90% of my players are new to tabletop.

3. My player count varies.

So I have chosen a simple system that they create. One thing I love to leverage is what fantasy does everyone have in their heads. Some have LotR, Harry Potter more lesser known books or movies. There is also video games. Because of this, "fantasy" isn't a singular set of tropes and conventions but multiple. 

 But how?

Characters are simple. Here is the character sheet drawn in Microsoft Paint:

a rough mock up of the character sheet

Path: 

There are only 2 choices. Steel for martial warrior types and Spell for spellcasters. These set how many wounds you can take, whether you get access to magic or deeds. Steels get 2 wounds before getting unconscious, the ability to do mighty deeds of arms if their dice matches. (this is a 2d6+mods system). Spell gets the ability to cast magic (which requires a separate blog post, maybe glogtober related) and can only take one wound. Paths are the passive abilities.

Supply:

These are the dice you roll every time you need to use an item. you also roll these every day for rations and every time you take a break. when you roll your supply dice (starts at 3), if any dice are 4+, you keep the dice. 3 or less and you lose the dice and upgrade the item. This is because shopping in ttrpgs takes the longest amount of time during play so I would like to get rid of it. It also adds less tracking. 

Talents and Augments:

So, the meat of character advancement. Rather than have classes that are pre defined, you get a Talent based on your actions. Want to be a Mud Prophet? Find a mud grove and successfully ponder it you then get Visons of the Marsh. A Ladderist?  Find Lindrey of Lindrey's Ladders and give them hope. These are similar to class features in 3.x games or whole OSR classes. It gives flexibility as ANYTHING could lead to a Talent or Augment. It lets my players play whatever they want. It also allows me to make options tailored for the world without ripping core features out. For example, clerics don't really make sense in my world as there are multiple different faiths with differing tenets and heresies. Clerics are generally similar to monotheists so it wouldn't fit. 

 

From rawpixel, an example of someone gaining a talent

Augments are also things you do. the progression is Talent, Augment, Talent, Augment. Augment are the how to the talent's what. If a Talent gives you a teleport, an Augment would alter it. maybe you can bring a party member like the Oathtaken, or you leave a frog minion like the Frog Dyemists. Again, you need to do an action to fit the augment. 

Conclusion

This is my current iteration of elfgame. I call it Everything as XP as talents can be gained by good experiences (holding BlueBlade to gain Bluescourge) or bad (eat goo to become Goo Eater). Anyways, I will see if it meets my design goals and if not, iterate. Also, is this FKR? Has this been done before as if so, I would love ideas. Also send feedback.