What is LUMEN?
Lumen
LUMEN is a rules-lite system for making and playing RPGs focused on telling the stories of powerful characters. LUMEN was first developed for the games LIGHT and NOVA, and has been converted to this genre agnostic SRD so that you can use it to make your own games with the same system.
At its core, LUMEN is designed to tell power fantasy stories. The characters played have access to incredible powers, and use those powers relentlessly in pursuit of their objectives. It’s inspiration comes from video game genres such as looter shooters (Destiny), hero shooters (Overwatch), and dungeon crawlers (Diablo).
LUMEN is also combat focused. While it doesn’t require maps or measurement, games made with this system tend to work best if they are about powerful characters fighting their way through missions.
Which leads to the third part of LUMEN. It is driven by a core gameplay loop. Characters go on adventures, missions, quests, whatever you want to call them. They return after they succeed, share a brief downtime, and then get back to work.
Most importantly, LUMEN is quick to design for, and easily modifiable. Because there are not many moving pieces, you have the ability to change things to suit your game and style.