Realis is an RPG by Austin Walker with some additional work by members of Friends at the Table and others. Anyone familiar with the Friends at the Table actual play podcast will already have a good intuition of the sort of RPG this is despite the novelty of the mechanics. Realis is firmly in the story/narrative school of RPGs with an emphasis on player collaboration and improv extending out into world building, while also simultaneously being extremely interested in lore with lots of capital letters. That’s a tight rope to walk, but overall Realis succeeds.

Quick disclaimer before proceeding any further, this is an “ashcan” release of the game. I wasn’t familiar with the term, but it is similar to a video game developer doing an early access release. As such, these are all impressions, and shouldn’t be considered a review as the game is not in its final form. For example, the GM advice section is almost entirely absent.

The Layout

Realis sticks to a layout with a single primary column for the body of text, and some side bars for brief asides and commentary. For an RPG that is so fixated on language, this layout really works. Although this is an early release, the writing and layout are all extremely polished. This is a breeze to read. The art is lovely, and evokes a mood without rigidly defining a place, for better and worse. My only real criticism is that the PDF lacks a table of contents to easily jump to sections. This is a 132 page document, so it is a lot of text to have to scroll through! Hopefully this will be addressed in future releases.

The Mechanics

What immediately stands out about Realis is that it is diceless (ironically though, if you listen to the Friends at the Table episode that introduces the system, there is a scene where a random number is rolled. As ever rules are meant to be broken).

Roleplaying is just a conversation, but a roleplaying game will have a method or methods for resolving situations. Traditionally dice are used, but tarot cards, dexterity games, tokens, magic 8-balls, or any other means could be utilized to resolve uncertainties if desired. Realis leans into the conversational aspect of RPGs, and declares, actually we can stick to sentences to resolve disputes. Not just any sentences though, but Sentences. Sentences are truths about the world, and the characters within it. Because of this truth power, they are absolute. So “I usually arrive fashionable late” is not a Sentence, but “I always arrive fashionably late” is a Sentence. Sentences are a tool of play and belong to an economy. Each character class in the game has four Sentences. There are other types of Sentences like Bonds (group Sentences), Dreams (a powerful once in a lifetime Sentence), and Ephemera (valuable equipment). Sentences may be truths about the world, but truths are not permanent, and they change over the course of play. When a character tries something where the outcome is uncertain, they use a Sentence as a stake for their action. The truth value of the Sentence is what allows a character to accomplish something uncertain. Thus, when trying to navigate out of a firefight, a character might invoke a Sentence like “I always keep my wits about me”. In another context, a character might use that same Sentence to humiliate a rival in a verbal sparring match. Once a character has declared their intentions using a Sentence, another character can try to counteract that Sentence with their own sentence. Thus, in the firefight, a sharpshooter might have a Sentence like, “I always hit my mark”. These two Sentences are now in conflict with each other, only one can be true in this moment of time. Which prevails? Every sentence has a rank or value from 0-3 (called Reality) attached to it. The higher ranked Sentence prevails, with ties going to the character performing the counter maneuver.

What happens next to this unfulfilled Sentence is where Realis shines. The Sentence becomes marked. After three marks, the Sentence is transformed with a qualifier. Thus, “I always keep my wits about me” might turn into “I always keep my wits about me whenever I’m outnumbered”. The qualifier narrows the scope of the Sentence, but it also gains a rank, and thus is more likely to succeed in contest with other Sentences. Realis is a game where the path to growth is through failure. When you are young, you feel invincible, like you can do anything you put your mind to. But in reality you are foolish, and not that accomplished. Over time you become more skilled and talented, but in precise and limiting ways as the world closes its possibilites to you. Eventually, decline sets in. Once a +3 Sentence is marked three times, it becomes Retired. It is transformed into the past tense, and has a value of +0. It still might have some utility in certain circumstances, but not in the way it used to. So “I always arrive fashionably late” becomes “I used to always arrive fashionably late”. Once all four of the character’s sentences are Retired, that character is Retired. It is time for someone else’s story to emerge.

Though there are other details to the rules of Realis, this is the heart of it. The delight of Realis is not just its simplicity, but the way it makes its ruleset comprehensible through ordinary, natural language. It does not get in the way of itself. Where other story/narrative games spent a great deal of time having to explain abstract concepts like Moves or Positioning or Impact, etc. Realis wisely avoids this minutia, and uses concepts in its rules where your ordinary understanding of a thing helps you internalize the rule. For example, Sentences that are used to do something or oppose something are called Means. What are Means? Exactly what means are in everyday usage, that is, something useful to achieve a desired goal.

Another nice feature of the ruleset is the way character progression works. Characters start off as pretty standard archetypes we’re all familiar with from various sources of pulpy fiction, but then they have plenty of room to grow into something entirely different and more unpredictable as the Sentences that define the character transform over time. This is contrast to most story games I’m familiar with where the characters will simply lean further into their archetypes as they pick up more archetype traits over time.

The Setting

Realis takes place in a science-fantasy setting. It is by design light on details. It is fitting that UVG is cited as an inspiration here as you can see the endorsement of Luka Rejec’s Anti-Canon philosophy. A few sentences about the world are provided, some factions are outlined, and those factions have NPC types with Sentences that imply things about the world without spelling it out. I found this to be too light of a touch on detail. The factions in Realis may well be recognizable archetypes, but I’d be hardpressed to say what makes them special or distinct, and I think there could be room to do that while still leaving plenty of room for tables to fill in their own blanks.

Better are the entries for the Atlas, sample moons of Realis. These are full of lively and suggestive details that are easy to run with atg the table without being a history lesson. The full release would be well served by having more entries like these.

What Table Is This For?

Realis asks the players to be invested in the fiction, while providing scant details about said fiction. Thus, it will be most appealing to tables that are interested in their own world building exercises, whereas groups that prefer a more grounded baseline to work with will struggle. That being said it wouldn’t be too hard to use this ruleset in another setting. For example, I kept thinking about how I bet you could have a real cool experience using these rules while playing Reach of the Roach God. And because of that richness of possibility, I hope that more people working in the story narrative game space take a look at Realis, because I think it provides some really useful breaks with how these games typically play out, and carves a path out into something more exciting.