ESSER vs The Quick RPG
Compare ESSER and The Quick RPG side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| ESSER | The Quick RPG | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Universal | Universal |
| Tags | Rules-Light, Theater of the Mind, One-Shot Friendly, Short Sessions, Fast-Paced, Low-Prep, Freeform Magic, Cinematic, Classless, Roll to Cast | Rules-Light, Fiction-First, Solo-Friendly, Low-Prep, Improvisation, Random Tables, One-Shot Friendly, Theater of the Mind, Freeform Magic, CC-Licensed Rules |
| Core Mechanic | Roll d20 + skill bonus + attribute bonus. A result of 1–9 fails with a complication, 10–14 succeeds at a cost, 15–19 fully succeeds, and 20+ succeeds with an epic effect. | The referee sets a difficulty from Very Easy (d4) to Very Hard (d12). The player rolls the character's Body, Mind or Will die (d4 to d12) against the difficulty die. Meeting or beating the difficulty die is a full success. Rolling lower is a partial success: the action still works, but the character pays a narrative cost or takes Strain equal to the difficulty's cost of 1 to 3. Gear, role and circumstances move either die up or down a size. Spending a Hero point turns a partial success into a full one. |
| Dice | d20 | d4–d12 |
| Complexity | Very Low | Very Low |
| Availability | Free core rules | Free core rules |
| Runnability | Book tools not listed | Book tools not listed |
| License | Proprietary | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| Third-Party Publishing | No verified route found | Commercial publishing allowed — Open license |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Espen Erlandsen | Squidhead Games |
| Year | 2026 | 2025 |
| Languages | English | English |
| Best For | Groups seeking a two-hour, genre-flexible one-shot where the same d20 engine handles action and conversation. | Groups or solo players who want to start an adventure within minutes and are comfortable making rulings where the rules are silent. |
| Highlights | The same d20 roll handles standard checks and direct contests, making transitions between scene types quick. Interface scales open-ended supernatural or technical effects by skill tier, letting one procedure cover magic and hacking. NPCs need a core bonus, Strikes, and an optional trait, so a GM can prepare threats with few statistics. | Players regain a Hero point by turning a dramatic full success into a partial one. Taking a third point of Strain shrinks one attribute die by a size and resets Strain to zero. The solo oracle keeps the higher of two d6 for likely outcomes and the lower for unlikely ones. |
| Considerations | No default setting is provided, so groups must supply a world for their adventure. Gear grants fictional permission rather than numeric bonuses, limiting equipment-based builds. Strikes reset after each adventure, so the track does not preserve mechanical attrition between adventures. | Advancement only raises attribute dice, one size at a time, to a maximum of d12. The core combat rules have no initiative, turn order or movement procedure: each roll is one exchange of blows. Money is abstracted into Loot: each session or adventure earns every character 1 Loot. |