Alivity is a streamlined
rules system for collaborative storytelling games
that keeps the focus on creativity, characters, and shared narrative.
Simple rules. Big stories.
The goal of the Alivity system is to let the story shape the character, using rules only to introduce randomness and ensure fairness in encounters.
Characters begin with a set of skill points to distribute across four key areas.
As they adventure, they become more proficient in their chosen specialties.
Magical Skills
Summoning arcane energy to cast spells, imbuing objects with magical properties, channeling divine power to heal the wounded, speaking with or influencing animals, altering weather patterns like storms or fog, creating illusions or magical wards, reading minds, moving objects with mental force, or glimpsing the future.
Social Skills
Winning others over with friendliness, rallying allies with stirring words, lying convincingly or misleading others, subtly manipulating others' perception of events, projecting confidence, nobility, or dominance, settling disputes and calming tensions, or understanding and relating to other people's feelings.
Intellectual Skills
Identifying and using plants for healing, poison, or alchemy, knowledge of past events, rulers, battles, and civilizations, undetsanding a creature's weaknesses, habitats, and traits, figuring out mechanical, magical, or logical puzzles, assessing the authenticity of artifacts, and understanding or deciphering ancient or foreign languages.
Physical Skills
Fighting with swords, axes, or crossbows, scaling walls, leaping across gaps, moving silently, staying hidden, dodging attacks, performing tricks, concealing objects, staying upright on narrow or unstable surfaces, hauling gear or wounded allies, or using tools or brute force to get past obstacles.
Players and narrators roll dice for their characters to duel and apply skill modifiers before comparing results. The higher adjusted roll wins and the narrator desribes the outcome.
It's a duel, so both sides roll dice to determine the outcome. The attacker tests their ability to break through, while the defender rolls to resist or deflect the blow. Each faces the chance of triumph—or of downfall. For player challenges, the narrator rolls for the other side.
Both attacker and defender choose the skill modifier that best fits their character's approach. A seasoned swordsman might rely on physical prowess, while a cunning mage could draw on magical skill to defend. For player challenges, the narrator estimates the difficulty and modifier.
The narrator derives the result based on who won the roll and by how much. A narrow win might mean a glancing blow; a wide margin could mean serious harm. It's up to the narrator to weave it into the story.
Character health is tracked by their alivity.
When characters get hurt, they lose alivity.
When they get healed, they gain alivity.
Each character starts with 3 points in each skill area, plus 5 extra points to assign freely. All characters have 20 alivity at full health. Players then describe their character's backstory, motivations, and unique abilities.
The Alivity system empowers the narrator to create their own unique monsters. Rather than fight a generic troll, for example, players might take on an embermaw troll with veins of smouldering magma running beneath its rocky skin. Narrators can roll a d20 to come up with its skill points or assign them based on the story. Perhaps there is a family of them with different skill levels or the solo embermaw who has long traveled from from fire and is in a weakened state.
