Rambling about Lilliputian

Lilliputian: Adventure on the Open Seas is a naval adventure RPG that has its roots in Mausritter and is compatible with Into the Odd and Cairn. It’s creator, Matthew Morris, expands on these rules-light games by adding 18th century navy and seafaring aesthetics and rules and procedures for exploring the seas, naval combat, upgrading ships, and rules for solo roleplaying. It is currently in crowdfunding for #ZiMo2022 so if that short description sounded interesting to you, consider supporting it!

Let me tell you about the stuff I found interesting about it! In a stream of paragraphs that don’t really flow very smoothly!

If you’re familiar with Into the Odd, Mausritter, Cairn, or any of the many wonderful ItO hacks out there, a lot of what’s in Lilliputian will sound familiar to you. Its game philosophies, principles for wardens and players, the core d20 roll-under system, character creation, advancement, etc. It’s a great, simple, and flexible base for a game. I mean, I’m making one myself.

It has a starter pack table like in Into the Odd, where a character starts with equipment based on their HP and highest attribute. The lower their HP and attribute, the better their starting equipment might be. The higher your HP and attribute, the worse off they are at the start. 

To give you an idea, someone with 6HP and 15 attribute score gets a staff, some notes about an island, and is disfigured. Meanwhile, someone with 1HP and 3-7 attribute score starts with a sword, a pistol, some armor, and has the ability to sense changes in the wind. It makes for a varied and somewhat balanced starting point for characters.

It adds stress mechanics. Whenever characters experience grave danger or bizarre events, they will suffer damage to their WIL attribute. Once their WIL reaches 0, they might get temporarily spooked, permanently traumatized, or even suffer a heart attack. It’s simple, but fits the setting very well.

Magic exists in the setting, but it’s extremely rare and potentially dangerous. All magic is in the form of single-use scrolls and talismans. Talismans are like Arcanum and Relics in Into the Odd and Cairn. They have limited use, but can be recharged.

Casting spells from scrolls is really interesting. Each scroll has an effect, and most will require you to roll a d6. Based on the roll, the one casting the spell might use up one of its limited uses, or even miscast and destroy the scroll completely. Miscasting a spell might have very dangerous and deadly consequences. 

You can choose to roll more d6s, enhancing the effects of the spells but also increasing the chances of a miscast. It has a degree of flexibility I like in magic, but also an element of danger that can make the game spicier.

Travel and exploration works sort of similarly to how I’ve been doing it in my own games, but Lilliputian’s rules are more polished. It abstracts time in a day into a resource called Watches, which is used for travel, resting, and other action that would take a lot of time. It uses exploding encounter dice, which I personally love, and even has an expanded one for open sea travels. It gives me inspiration for my own travel rules (when I get to writing it)

I’m making my own Cairn hack set in Filipino-inspired archipelago, so I was especially interested in Lilliputian’s naval rules. I was pleasantly surprised by how simple and usable it reads! It doesn’t add many new mechanics, it’s more of a recontextualization of the mechanics that are already in Into the Odd. 

Ships now have HP and attribute scores. Losing HP leaves a ship vulnerable, but it is attribute loss that actually disables a ship. Initiative is decided by the speed of ships or surprise. There are different scales to ships, giving bigger ships an advantage over smaller ships. 

It has a great list of ships of different scales, it has a short list for ship upgrades that encourages Game Masters to adjudicate more, it has variable ship weapons. It has a lot of fun ideas for naval gameplay.

The available PDF on its itch page is currently a work-in-progress and only covers the player rules, but Lilliputian has a lot of great ideas for adapting the rules-light core of Into the Odd, Mausritter, and Cairn to a swashbuckling, high seas sort of adventure, without adding unnecessary bulk. I’m really excited for the final product!