h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Writing a Role Playing Game(RPG) is one of the most interesting experiences that I have ever had. It is also one of the more difficult.
When you are writing an RPG, you have to make sure that it is completely original in all respects. If you borrow from another game system, you have to make sure that you completely rewrite it so that there is absolutely no chance of being sued for plagiarism.
I began working on AENAR shortly after I graduated high school in 1993. I began with a system, Solnis, that was written and given to me by a friend.
I had been working on Solnis/AENAR for about two weeks and actually had the system playable when I experienced my first setback, my hard drive crashed and I did not have a back-up. I spent another 3 weeks rewriting the system with additional changes and with several back-up copies at my disposal.

Game Basics

The world is one of fantasy and the general society is that of Post Nuclear Holocaust Medieval. Monarchies have been revived as have the concepts of a monarchy: knights, pages, etc. Magic is prominent throughout the world and technology has been discontinued in most areas.

The game is based off of an opposed test system. An opposed test is a skill check that is based on the strength of the opposition.

I.E.: A brick wall has a certain strength level which is represented by a number, we'll say 6. To break this wall you would roll a predetermined number of dice, the more 6s you roll the more damage you do to the wall.

The game uses many of the dice that are not commonly used mainly 4 and 8 sided. I do not use 6 sided dice, I think that they are overused.

Character Classes

AENAR has many different character classes available, unfortunately, I could not be original in this, there are only so many careers that are interesting in a fantasy RPG. Some of the classes available are: Assassin, Legionaire, and Mage. You can multi-class and you can also set up "twins". A twin is when two players set up mutually exclusive characters, i.e Mage/Legionaire. The character have to be of opposing classes but can share similar skills like cooking, hunting, etc. When the characters are together they have exceptional abilities. On the flip side, when they are apart, they can only achieve 70% of their potential.

Skills

There are many skills available to a character, anything from cooking to highland dancing to hunting. If a person is capable of doing it, it is available as a skill, the list is all but endless.

Races

Your character can be any of several races: Louki (human), Chwen (a Chow dog), Mujina (kind of like a dark elf), Saot (a mutated gerbil), Naga, (lizard/amphibian), and Avian (bird). There are also sub-races available for some of these.

Magic

The system has two types of magic: Inner magic is kind of like Psionics in other game systems. Outer magic uses outside elements like earth, air, fire, and water in the casting of spells. Inner magic is vastly more powerful but is also much harder to recover from.

Religion

An RPG would not be complete with out religion and all of the religions I have included have some basis in reality, there are several types to choose from. You can have monotheistism, polytheistism, druidism and almost anything you can think of as your religion.

Technology

There is some technology available in the game. What is available comes from the present time. There are airplanes and cars in extremely limited supply. Most of what is available from today are pistols and rifles. Most technology is shunned.

I am continually working on AENAR, I have many supplements that I have planned to write. It is a very time consuming process. When I first started, I was writing 10 to 12 hours a day. But I have enjoyed almost every minute of it.