Genre Savant RPG

You are an Archivist, someone who draws power from their favorite Genres. Together with fellow members of the Library, you must travel space and time to protect great (and not so great) works of art from those who would corrupt, control, or otherwise mess with ‘em.

Genre Savant is a rules-lite time travel adventure RPG designed for one-shots and short, fun campaigns you get to play between long, soul-crushing campaigns. Created for the One-Page RPG Jam 2024.

Your Favorite Genres Power Your Abilities!

Each Archivist specializes in a two-Genre combination: Action/Horror, Sci-Fi/Western, Drama/Mystery, etc.

Each Genre provides six Tropes, which work like skills in other RPGs. You assign higher dice values to the Tropes you really like to customize your character.

Genres also provide one half of your Ultimate, a phrase of power that unleashes your full potential as an Archivist.

Inspired By Cool Things

Genre Savant is a love-letter to the types of genre fiction that some people try to make you feel bad about enjoying. But you know what? Fooey on them! You enjoy it, and that's all that matters.

The game itself was inspired by.... Episodic time travel adventure shows like Dr. Who and Quantum Leap; novels like The Library at Mount Char; RPGs like Freeform Universal (especially the Paper-Free RPG and Hard City off-shoots), Savage Worlds, 24XX, Risus, and PDQ.

Featuring the Finest Character Sheet Available at Your Local Public Library!

Boring Gameplay Stuff!

In Genre Savant, every roll comes down to answering a Yes/No Dramatic Question.

• Can Siegfried slay the Animated Armor with his Magic Sword?
• Will Amanda calm the deer using only kind words?
• Does Theo know how to dance the Mamushka?

To answer the question, the player rolls a d4. If one of their Tropes would apply, they also roll a single Trope die and keep the higher of the two.

The referee's answer is based on the following results:

1 .... No, and the situation gets even worse!

2 .... No. Just no, sorry.

3 .... No, but there’s a silver lining.

4 .... Yes, but there's a catch.

5 .... Yes. Congratulations! You did it!

6+ .. Yes, and it goes better than expected!

So Get Yours Today!

So download Genre Savant! Run it for your friends! Be gob-smacked when they ask you to turn this one-shot into a campaign! Panic! Pretend you have it covered! Say, no problem! Go home and laugh! Laugh until you cry! Binge Dr. Who for inspiration! There's a Quantum Leap reboot, right? Binge that too! Watch out for The Library at Mount Char, though, that book's gets pretty dark! But hey, who am I to judge? I like dark! This game isn't dark though. It's purposely lite, both in terms of rules and tone. Okay. I'm out of juice. Bye!