POLARISUS: Hybridizing Game Systems

The following is a game system hybridizing the task negotiation system from Polaris with the character creation system from Risus, to create a new game that takes advantage of the best of both.
It is written with the assumption that the reader has some basic knowledge regarding what an RPG is or how to play. The dice pool system was scrapped to improve portability. People are much more likely to have access to 2d6 than 6d6. Luckily, the default numbers, maxing at 6 ranks, means that the best you can get is a +50% success rate as a mod to any die throw.
Perfect.

POLARISUS

The Dungeon Master is the host of the game. They decide the setting and content.

Every participant in the game, including the DM, must make at least 1 character.

Chargen

A character consists of a description; covering their appearance, personality, and background; and a series of cliches which describe them.

Each character has 10 points with which to buy cliches for their character. Players can buy ranks in cliches on a 1:1 ratio, up to a limit of 6th rank.

Each character also gets 1 feature from each rank they have in each cliche. Features include gear, property, titles, pets, subordinates, money, and even super-powers!

The DM must prepare a list of cliches  available for players to build their characters with. Each cliche must come with at least half a page of explanation, followed by at least 12 features for players to choose from. Features must have at least 1 mechanical in-game effect.

In addition to purchasing cliches, players can also take hooks, as prepared by the DM. Hooks are negative cliches which invoke penalties or limit the abilities of a character. By taking a hook, a character gets 1 extra point to buy cliches with.

Play

After the DM sets the scene, players take turns describing what they want their characters to do, and what they expect the outcome of those actions to be. During the player's turn, the DM responds to their attempted actions with either agreement, (Yes) or disagreement, (No). If they agree, the described actions are considered to have taken place, and play proceeds from that point. If the DM disagrees, negotiations begin. During ALL DESCRIPTIONS, even during negotiations, there are 2 rules regarding what you can and can not describe:

1. Nobody can arbitrarily declare the death of any character, not even enemy monsters. There is already a rule system handling conflict and defeat. You can describe the death of your own character, but only if everyone at the table supports it.

2. As with death, players cannot declare any other aspect of the game that is already handled by dedicated rules, especially those made by the DM to support the setting.

3. Nobody can declare a reassignment of metagame roles, such as declaring themselves the new DM.

Negotiation

In the case where the DM agrees with a description, they can agree in one of 3 ways:

1. Yes, yes. Absolute agreement, play continues, and the ball is in the player's court again to provide another description. This is not a negotiation, but rather, a positive end to negotiations. This is the response both players must give in order for a situation to be resolved.
2. Yes, and... Agreement, with additional consequences/results/reactions continuing from where the player left off. This response is especially necessary when NPCs are involved, so the DM can describe and play out their reactions to the players, and to describe the results of things not known by the players, such as the contents of a chest, or the activation of a trap.
3. Yes, but... Partial or conditional agreement. This is an ultimatum. The DM is saying they will allow the player's description IF that player also agrees with their additional description. This is typically used to ramp up the stakes, but can also be used to change the context of a situation, or to introduce new obstacles.

In response to any of the above, the player can then respond with either a full agreement, (Yes, yes.) or further negotiations.

In the case where the DM disagrees with a description, for whatever reason, they again have 3 ways of doing so:

1. No, but... This is a partial disagreement, and is similar to the "yes, but" in that it is conditional. Where a "yes, but" adds on to the end of the previous description, a "no, but" inserts additional description into or before the previous description.
2. No, and... More severe, this is a complete negation of the previous description. The DM describes a completely different line of events from where the previous description began. This should only be necessary when a player's description triggers events that make the rest of their description impossible or irrational. There should be reasonable effort put into the replacement description to include the spirit of the original description but bring it in-line with the situation at hand.
3. No, no. This is a breakdown of negotiations. Basically, this means negotiation has failed, and resolution must pass to the neutral arbitrator: the dice.

In response to any of the above but No,no; the player can respond with further negotiations.

The player can respond to the DM's negotiations with all of the same terms.

(For example, a player could declare an action, followed by the DM saying Yes, and [...], followed by the player rejecting the addition with a No, but [...], followed by the DM declaring yes, but [...], followed by the player saying yes, yes, thereby ending negotiations and resolving the activity without resorting to dice.)

There are a few distinctions between how the player uses these terms, as opposed to the DM, however:

The DM can describe the world and the creatures living in that world, as well as their behaviors, and by necessity, how the characters sense/experience/interpret these things. They can not outright decide the emotions, motivations, personality, memories, decisions, reactions, or behavior of a player's character.

The player can describe their character and everything regarding their character, but can not describe any aspect of the world in terms other than how the character interacts with it. (For example, the player cannot declare "yes, but... the trap fails." because they have no authority over the mechanics of trap activation or failure, traps are part of the world, not their character.)

Any time a participant describes an interaction with another character that includes any aspect of their response, they must recieve a "Yes, yes." response from that player, as well as a "Yes, yes." from the DM.

There is one more negotiation response that can be made, that does not fall into the yes/no categories. A player may, at any stage of negotiations, declare Nevermind. Nevermind revokes all negotiations, starting everything over from scratch from the end of the last "Yes, Yes." or the last description from the DM. You can only declare a nevermind during negotiations. If you declare an action and the DM responds "Yes, yes.", that means negotiations have ended without being passed back to you for an opportunity to respond. The action passed, the SIS has been changed, and play has continued from there. This response is most useful for fixing mistakes made due to misunderstanding the SIS, where the referee has failed to explain the situation in terms that are clear to the player. Under these circumstances, the player will likely declare actions which do not make rational sense, often resulting in extreme consequences. The player, faced by the sudden realization of what is actually going on, can then be given the opportunity to revoke that decision and make a more reasonable declaration in its place.

Resolution

The failure of negotiations, (No,no) results in the DM calling a check.

In a check, the DM first declares a Difficulty Class, a number between 1 and 20 representing how difficult the task is. Next, the DM looks over the character's cliches, and considers if any of them apply to what the character is doing or the way the character is doing it. If no cliches are applicable, the player rolls 2d6 and hopes to roll at least as high as the DC. If they do not, the task fails. If they do, the task succeeds. If the DM decides a cliche is applicable, they must then consider whether the cliche is appropriate or inappropriate. An appropriate cliche, such as "Soldier" for the action "Sniping an enemy with a rifle", has its rank value added to the roll. An inappropriate cliche, such as "Engineer" for the action "Using my knowledge of geometry and physics, I plan a flight path for a bullet from my rifle", has half its rank value (rounded down) added to the roll.

DC Benchmarks:
3 Trivial
6 Easy
9 Average
12 Hard
15 Very Hard
18 Nigh Impossible

Conflict

When characters enter a situation where they are in a conflict, (A race, a chase, combat, an argument, a debate, etc.) The normal negotiation system is set aside and the conflict is gambled out via the conflict system.

All characters take turns declaring their input to the situation. The DM then declares applicability and appropriateness of cliches for each character's actions. All characters roll and apply any modifiers determined by the DM. Characters take 1 loss for each opponent who rolled higher than them. Each loss taken by a character acts as a -1 penalty to the cliche they used, if any. If a character has any of their cliches dropped to 0 by penalties, or if they take a loss in a round where they did not use a cliche, they have been defeated and can nolonger contribute to the conflict. The winners of a conflict determine the consequences for the losers of the conflict, but the DM can veto any consequence they find inappropriate. All penalties are erased at the end of a conflict. Any character who is defeated but survives the conflict takes a wound to the cliche they lost with. A wound is a -1 penalty to that cliche, and remains in place until the end of the adventure.

Modified Rolls

During any roll, a player may opt to pump their cliche, representing extra effort put in by the character. A pumped cliche gets +1 to the throw, but takes a penalty of -1 thereafter. A cliche may be pumped multiple times for a single action. Keep in mind that penalties taken outside of conflict are wounds. A player can also pump a roll with no cliche, but will be defeated once done, whether they succeed or fail. (Being defeated out of combat is an additional wound.)

Any roll may also be declared to have advantage or disadvantage by the DM. Advantage simply means something is circumstantially making the task easier, while disadvantage means the opposite. In both cases, the player rolls the check twice. If they have advantage, they take the higher roll. If they have disadvantage, they take the lower roll.

Advancement

At the end of an adventure, each character gains 1 point to buy cliche ranks with. This can be used to improve an existing cliche, up to a limit of 6, or to buy a new cliche.