1400 Lo-Fi Hi-Fantasy
1400 Lo-Fi Hi-Fantasy is a collection of five rules-lite fantasy micro-games with a shared ruleset. Each game has its own character options and variant rules, which can plug-and-play to tailor the game to the perfect experience for your table. The zine also includes concise player and GM guidance, which is applicable not only to 1400 but most tabletop roleplaying games, and a short starter adventure.
The Games
Quest - Heroic fantasy adventures that tap into the ‘classic’ D&D-esque RPG space. Pick a class and ancestry, grabs some gear, and get exploring,
Below - Dungeon crawl with a darker vibe. Introduces magic (and cursed) items, new rules for harm, and generators for dungeon locations, hazards, and enemies.
Sneak - Shadowy heists and assassinations. Play a vagabond pulling off under-the-table jobs. Introduces gadgets and new spells for players, and rules for running heists.
Mage - High magic spellslinging adventures with expanded rules for spellcasting and sixty spells.
Planes - Explore the multiverse as one of twenty ancestries, including Cambion, Myconid, and Reptite. Tables for the GM to populate an entire universe with adventure.
1400 Lo-Fi Hi-Fantasy uses an easy-to-learn, skill-based system, where players roll a larger numbered polyhedral die the better their skill. Character creation is quick and easy, and the game focuses on narrative-driven gameplay and prioritises player agency and inventiveness. The core system is based on the 24XX SRD by Jason Tocci.
Cover Art by Bogdan Antoci
Purchase
In order to download this zine you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $10 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Comments
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Just clarifying: in ‘Quest’ if you take damage you likely gain an Injury, if you take more damage while injured you likely die. However, in Below there are three levels of Harm, and if you take damage when all three levels are filled by Injury, then you die.
Am I getting that roughly right? Obviously it is what the fiction dictates, but the implication seems to be in Quest it’s Injury > death, but in Below it’s Mild > Moderate > Major > Death
Hey good question. The core rules for harm are 'fiction first'; assign the injury that makes sense within the fiction according to the level of risk, and if it makes sense that one of your injuries would affect a die roll, it is hindered. There's no limit to how many injuries you can have of any severity, and you'll only die from sustaining multiple injuries if it make sense in the fiction. That said, if you're risking outright death and roll 1-2, then you die immediately regardless of how healthy or uninjured you are. The risk of death again depends on the fictional positioning.
1400 Below, on the other hand, has a fixed number of injuries you can have. They hinder in the same way as the core rules and you can still die outright when risking death, but if you sustain a second injury after already taking a minor wound, then it's 'upgraded' to moderate, and the fiction adjusts accordingly. This means that the most number of injuries a character can receive without healing is three (or four if you take the Brute spec.). Overall, this makes characters more likely to die, but gives the players a more concrete idea of their risks/closeness to death.
The intent is that 1400 Below is grittier and darker than the rest of the games (characters are numerically weaker) and characters are more likely to die through just normal play (as opposed to big, life-risking acts).
I bought these before they were a bundle. Worth every penny!
I just finished running a game for two other people with this using the sample dungeon. It was a lot of fun, very easy to tweak on the fly and make interesting situations for. The only issue I ran into was the one with rooms 6 & 7's descriptions being swapped which I see has already been mentioned. I'd give it a solid recommend.
I can't praise this enough; absolutely awesome work in the 24XX space.
Minor correction on page 28, the names and descriptions of rooms 6 and 7 should be swapped.
Oh no! Thanks for the heads up! I'll fix that in the future release.
Oh snap this is a tour de force ...
Will there be any comp copies for previous collectors?
Everyone who has previously bought all 5 games will be able to download this for free. There will also be a bundle to get this and all 5 individual games together for the same price as the digital zine. This should go live in the next day or two.