This Game is Breathless

This design document is a combination of guidelines and system reference documents (SRDs) that will assist you in designing your own tabletop RPG based on Breathless, a zombie survival horror RPG.

Since the initial publication of Breathless in 2022, over 200 Breathless Games have been published on itch.io and talto.cc (in Japanese), with even more currently in development. The engine that powers the original game has inspired countless individuals, and my goal since the release of the first SRD has been to enable as many creators as possible. This document represents the culmination of that effort.

Breathless in a Nutshell

Breathless is a survival horror role-playing game in which you play as a survivor trying to stay alive in a walled city full of living dead. The game is designed to fit entirely on two sides of a letter-sized sheet of paper, making it easy to learn and highly customizable. The game’s system offers rules-light and survival-based mechanics that create stories with meaningful consequences and highly dramatic narrative threads.

It is well-known for its core mechanic, which creates a continuous tension-and-release gameplay loop.

Basically, when facing a risky situation, you pick one of your skills or items and roll a die that matches its rating, which ranges from a d4 to a d12.

• On a 1-2, you fail, and something goes wrong or you succeed with a major complication.
• On a 3-4, you succeed with a minor complication.
• On a 5+, you greatly succeed. The higher the result, the better the effect.

The twist is that every time you roll a die, that die goes down one step (d12 → d10 → d8 → d6 → d4). The only way for you to reset that die is to catch your breath. But you have to be careful since every time you catch your breath, the GM has to introduce a new complication to the scene.

Most mechanics in Breathless games rely on this format and use it to create a continuous cycle of suspense.

This Creator Kit

Since publishing Breathless, I have released many other Breathless Games under the Fari RPGs banner. Each one expands on the original rule set, tuning the rules to fit a different genre or theme. This design document acts as the ultimate collection of game System Reference Documents (SRDs), guidelines, and resources for designing a game based on Breathless and its siblings.

The design document is divided into three parts. The first covers everything you need to know about the toolbox as a whole and the various resources available to you. The second part contains the content of the original Breathless SRD (enhanced), and the third part contains the SRDs for each sibling game.

A New Kind of System Reference Document

Traditionally, an SRD has been viewed as a set of highly themed rules and mechanics that can be easily copied, pasted, and adapted into your own game. While it can help get you started with a particular game design project, I believe there’s a way to change the medium to make it more accessible.

For me, and in the context of my design documents, an SRD is two things. First, it’s an easy-to-copy and adapt rule set. Coming up with the right words to explain mechanics and systems is hard, especially when English isn’t your first language. Since I’ve already done the job, I don’t see why I shouldn’t make the result of my labor available to others so that they have a strong foundation for making their game. That’s the rules section of my SRDs.

Second, there are the design points. These are more conversational and aim to explain the intent behind a particular part or rule in the game. They try to guide you towards creating a finished product by explaining what makes the game work and by asking leading questions that will steer you into delving deeper into the design process. Within this design document, design points won’t be repeated for mechanics that are used across many games. For example, if the Stunt mechanic is explained in the Breathless SRD, it won’t be covered again in the Nomadic SRD.

Please note that this is a living document. I intend to continue updating it over time as I publish more Breathless Games, and as the community provides more feedback on the sort of guidelines they would like to see here.

Where to Start

First, think about the kind of game you want to design. What does the world look like? What kind of characters will the players be playing as? What kind of themes should the game focus on?

Once you have a basic idea of what you want to build, read the Breathless SRD. From there, create a new document and get to work. It’s important to note that this design document is not meant to be read from start to finish, and the original SRD is enough to get you started.

If you are curious about what other Breathless variants, like Nomadic (solo space exploration) or Stoneburner (solo-friendly demon hunting and community building), bring to the table, go give them a read. But do so only in due time. The reason I’m telling you this is that the other games are bigger, more complex, and take the original rule set in very different directions. Understanding the core of “what makes Breathless Breathless” will go a long way.

Open Licensed

The mechanics and details regarding the setting of all games listed here as well as the design document itself are available under an open license, as outlined below, enabling you to distribute and modify the text within the bounds of the license, which requires you to provide attribution and share your adaptations under similar terms.

You may use this license to create your own game based on the mechanics of this work. You may also design new character backgrounds, adventure frames, NPCs, monsters, tables, setting details, and any other kind of supplements you can imagine.

License

This product is licensed under the ORC License available online at various locations including www.azoralaw.com/orclicense. All warranties are disclaimed as set forth therein. The following elements are owned by the Licensor and would otherwise constitute Reserved Material and are hereby designated as Licensed Material: all the details about the setting, the non-player characters, the rolling tables, and the adventures.

Attribution Text

If you use our Licensed Material in your own published work, please credit us in your product as follows:

This work is based on Breathless and the Breathless Creator Kit, product of Fari RPGs (https://farirpgs.com/), developed and authored by René-Pier Deshaies-Gélinas. This product is licensed under the ORC License available online at various locations including www.azoralaw.com/orclicense. All warranties are disclaimed as set forth therein.

CC BY 4.0 License Option

For those who prefer the Creative Common licenses: Breathless and the Breathless Creator Kit are available for use under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license. If you use our Licensed Material in your own published work, please credit us in your product as follows:

This work is based on Breathless, product of Fari RPGs (https://farirpgs.com), developed and authored by René-Pier Deshaies-Gélinas, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons

Logos

Click on the link below to download the “This Game is Breathless” high resolution images and vector assets to identify your game as a “Breathless Game”.

► Download the Breathless Creator Kit Assets

Fari RPGs’ Breathless Games

Here is the current list of Breathless games which have either been published or are being worked on by the team at Fari RPGs.

• Breathless - A zombie survival horror RPG, and the original game.
• Renegade - A sci-fi space opera RPG set in the used future.
• Nomadic - A solo sci-fi RPG of exploration and survival
• Stoneburner - A solo-friendly sci-fantasy RPG of demon hunting and community building.
• Tales of the Burned Stones - A solo-friendly dark-fantasy RPG of journeying and dungeon delving.