House Rules and Running a Beginner's Campign

Nyra, by the standards of many other tabletop games, is relatively rule dense. This can make it difficult to learn at first and therefore there may be some distress that it will be difficult to implement. However, it is not required that Nyra be run with every tiny detail to be both playable and enjoyable. We will lay out some features which must be included for Nyra to function and some others that can be safely excluded while maintaining functionality in the following section.

First, Nyra must be run with d10 roll-under system intact and skill point sheet to calculate the cost of skills. But, for example, the mechanisms for skill point gain could be constrained by the GM to a beginning of each game stipend or arbitrary reward for achieved tasks. Although the generation of skill points from critical successes and critical failures is an integral part of Nyra and one of its unique aspects, it does not have to be included to run the game. Also, even though the skill point yields for each creature slain are listed in 98b. Creatures, it is up to the GM how they wish to divvy these out. Although it is suggested that GMs reward the points listed of all the creatures to each player who entered combat, some GMs may choose to just give the skill points to the player who landed the last hit and still others may choose to split them evenly between the players that affected the creature. Each of these decisions will create certain incentives and disincentives for the players and will therefore encourage and discourage different behaviors because of it.

Similarly, the combat system must be run with competitive rolling and the dodge and defense systems in place in order for combat to not lead to repeated and unnecessary death. But it is not necessary that a GM run the game with traits on player weapons. Nor does the GM have to run the professions in order for the group’s ecosystem to function passably. The services offered by these skills could be parsed out by NPCs if chosen, although this would be far more expensive.

It may be a decent starting place for a new GM to begin with characters who do not have access to skill perks, feats, weapon traits, professions, Mage classes, or even Savants. Each of these exclusions may be reasonable house rules for beginners of the game, given how much complexity they will remove while still maintaining the base rule system. Therefore a GM should take on each as they feel appropriate so that they do not feel burdened. The GM may even find that implementing each feature piece by piece as the characters progress will be a satisfying reward for the players, who now have new material to explore and improve within. Starting players with access to only the vanilla weapons would still be a considerable list to explore and may be sufficient to entertain the players for several games before the GM decides to start introducing professions and traits.

That being said, the game has been extensively balanced with all of these aspects in place. For players to get a complete experience of Nyra, it is highly advised that GMs and players work toward implementing all of the rules included in this guide. Not only will they lead to a more rich and complex world, but also a more enjoyable and robust gaming environment with far higher horizons for player development and GM engagement.

Another aspect that should be mentioned is, especially given the previous note that Nyra contains manifold ethnic and cultural strifes, this aspect may be understandably triggering for certain players. Although Nyra will certainly be a more peculiar world to play without these components in place, GMs should always feel free to alter the lore to fit the desired tone that they wish for their campaign. Nyra has a deeply crafted backstory, but it is first and foremost, a rule system. Play Nyra in the way that brings you and the players the most enjoyment. It is your experience, not ours. We have merely given you a platform to tell your story.