This article originally appeared in the November/December 2020 issue of Freelance Traveller, and as such is written from a Traveller perspective.

The Pip System is designed to be simple enough to use to introduce children to role-playing games, but with the ability to “scale up” for adults. In this, it succeeds well; the basic rules are easy to understand and you can get started quickly. Pip System games will tend to focus on role-playing, not mechanics, and there isn’t a lot of “crunchy” detail to worry about – much that would be detailed differences in many other systems is left as cosmetic information that doesn’t actually affect play.

The fundamental mechanic of the Pip System is, for all intents and purposes, an “opposed d2” task system (even though d6 are used): The Game Guide (Pip’s term for the Referee) defines the relevant skills and qualities that the player-character would need to succeed at the task, and a “challenge rating” for such opposing factors as armor, environment, opponents, and so on. The player then rolls a number of “white” dice for the skills and qualities, and a number of “black” dice for the challenge rating. A roll of 4+ on a die is a “success”; the player-character succeeds at the task if the number of “white” successes is equal to or greater than the number of “black” successes.

Characters are created and advanced using a point-buy system; you start with an Archetype (which defines your Hits and basic skills) and purchase Skills and Qualities using Build Points. You can later advance your character by spending Progress Points, awarded by the Game Guide after each session.

The standard game rules specify a grand total of fourteen Skills, each with three Qualities, but these are generic enough to handle most situations in most game genres. (A Quality is like a specialization of a Skill. If a Skill is useful for a task, it gives the player “white” dice to the skill level; if a particular Quality is useful, it can add “white” dice to a maximum of the Quality level.) There is a section of the book that discusses creating your own Archetypes, Skills, and Qualities; while a particular genre/setting might suggest different Archetypes from those listed in this volume, it’s unlikely that you’ll really need to add or change Skills or Qualities.

As with the character, so too with the ‘gear’ – gear is Stuff That Makes A Difference, and it, too, has Qualities that can affect the number and color of dice you – or an opponent – roll. You don’t worry about the differences between pistols and rifles, or between calibers in a weapon; it’s simply a Ranged Weapon with qualities such as Powerful or Accurate (to go with Skills like “Aim” and Qualities like “Sharpshooter”).

The result is a game that can move quickly, without the need for repeatedly consulting tables – the Game Guide assigns ratings to the various components of a task, you roll, you count successes. If the roll indicates a marginal success, or an epic success or failure, it’s up to the Game Guide to narrate the results on the fly, to fit the situation.

No, it doesn’t seem like you should need 145 pages for that, does it? Well, you get plenty of examples, elaboration, explanation, and additional rules, plus general explanation of what roleplaying is, what the Game Guide does, how you can introduce children to roleplaying and the Pip System (and some behaviors to watch out for), and even some rules to simplify the system even more. It’s all relatively light reading, as RPGs go, and it really won’t take that long to get enough of a handle on the system to start playing. While saying that one could easily do a Traveller “conversion” wouldn’t be quite accurate, it probably wouldn’t be difficult to come up with a Traveller-esque setting and develop appropriate Archetypes.

Perhaps the Pip System isn’t a replacement for a Traveller ruleset, and there really isn’t much that could be grafted on, but there is certainly some potential for using it for quick ‘pick-up’ games, or perhaps low-prep fill-ins at a convention.

Ring Side Report-RPG Review of Pip System Corebook

Originally posted at www.throatpunchgames.com, a new idea every day!

Product- Pip System Corebook System- Pip System Producer- Third Eye Games Price- $14.99 here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/216645/Pip-System-Coreboo?affiliate_id=658618 TL; DR- The Cypher system and Shadowrun had a baby! 93%

Basics- What do you want to play? The Pip system book is a generic system book that focuses on the mechanics of the pip system and all the different worlds you can play in. Let’s dig in.

Basics-This is SOLIDLY a skill based system. Everything you do is based on how many skill dice you have and EVERYTHING is a d6. Basically you take however many ranks you have in a skill plus your quality ranks (think specializations that may count for some activities) and roll that many six sided dice, counting 4s, 5s, and 6s as successes. These are called your white dice. Then you or the GG (game guide, the GM for this system) roll a number of dice equal to the challenge rating of whatever you're up against and counts 4s, 5s, and 6s. These are the black dice If you get more white successes than black, you succeed.

Combat, AC, and the rest- We don’t really do that here. You have hit points, but as a skill system you basically tell the GM how it goes down. You just dodge the hit, then you roll athletics to dodge, but you might say I roll stealth to hide and avoid or survive to get out of the way into cover. You succeed on the dodge, you don’t take the hit. You attack with different traits as well,and damage is just difference in hits if you succeed on the attack.

Gear and Character Building- Character building is quick too. You choose a basic archetype that gives you some mental and physical hit points, basic starting skills, an ability, and a hindrance to roleplay. Then you spend build points buying skills, quality ranks (specializations in a part of a skill), and advanced qualities (feats you have to meet prerequisites for). Gear is the same way. You spend other build points buying different gear. It’s all generic to help you build a character for any setting that you might want to pay.

Fortune- Magic cheaty points! Fortune is how you can control your rolls. Everyone wants rerolls, HP, and other things so you can control the action a bit, and Fortune is that thing. Roleplay well, do cool things, and play nice and you get fortune tokens.

Ok, what do I think of all this?

Mechanics or Crunch- For the crunch here, you have to ask yourself one of two very important questions-”Do I like the cypher system, but want a tad more crunch?” or “Do I like Shadowrun but could use a bit more speed?”. If yes, you will love this. It’s a simple system where you make lots of choices and control a lot without having too many rules in the way. That also means that players can have a HORRIBLE time if the GG and they just don’t work well, so it’s got that OSR vibe of the system flexes a lot for fun, but your GM can ruin your experience. Overall, the base mechanic running EVERYTHING is amazing to me. You do need to coordinate with your GG to make sure your awesome character isn’t completely built against what he/she is thinking so your game time won’t be an issue. Solid quick mechanics make this a good system to learn and get into. 4.75/5

Theme or Fluff- It’s always hard to review a generic system without a world. There are some splashes of places to play, but mostly this book is how to play and check out the other stuff we got for specific places to play. It’s got good intros so I like what I see. The book does go a bit more fantasy than modern or future, even though it supports everything. Good intro to a gateway to several new worlds. 4.5/5

Execution- PDF? YEP! Hyperlinked? YES! Solid execution here, but a few issues that hurt it a bit. Text is easy to read. Pictures break up the flow, and I like a lot of the toys on offer. However, I would like a few more examples of actual play. Tell me how numbers happen. That's the big issue here. It's a generic system, so as the GG I need more guidance on what to throw at my players and how my players make the dice pools. Overall, it's decent, but if it were to provide a bit more walkthrough of a game and a combat scene, I would love this more. 4.75/5

Summary- Well, I’m in. This is a fun system that I can get my players running in about 10 minutes after they select pregens or 20 minutes if they have to build people. It's quick, easy, and negotiable. Players have control, but with all negotiable systems, dialogue will be key. Make sure everyone is on the same page, and players will enjoy this game. I like Sci-fi, so I want a bit more of that in the base book. But, what’s here is good. As for the physical build of the book, it’s done well. I still need more examples, but I think I can run my first game well enough. I like what I’ve found in this one. If you want some quick d6 gaming in any universe, this is worth a look. 93%

12/5/2018 Review = PIP core rules. / I purchased this in early 2018

Easy to understand? – The PIP System core rulebook - and the rules themselves - are easy to understand, even with a cursory, initial 30-minute scan of the text. The layout of the book is your standard "this is what it is - this is how to make characters - this is how to roll for actions - these are other elements of the game - this is how to GM" design. The artwork is balanced: not too much design, so as not to overwhelm you, but there was enough detail and color on the pages and in the artwork to hold my interest. I think PIP uses stock art for its decoration, but that is not a bad thing.

Fun to play? – PIP is fun to play, but be aware that it is a multi-dice rolling system. The advantage of such a system is a detailed dice roll, where someone with a vivid imagination can run wild with "what happened" on that roll. Others might be put-off by the sheer amount of dice to roll and may get bogged down in counting the correct number of dice to roll - BUT this game quality is not overbearing and works well with the game mechanics presented. I found a lot of fun in creating the characters for PIP: it has a detailed yet easy-flow system for creating wonderfully colorful characters with unique traits and abilities. You even roll for items and special qualities, which is a mechanic not found in many other RPGs that seek to keep things simple.

Built to last? – As much fun as PIP seems to play, with me and my group, rolling a bunch of dice tends to bog down game action and overall interest. The system holds well in character creation - it is extremely good for that! - however, in my opinion, if you do a lot of dice-rolling in your games, you may be in for a lot of dice counting. This is not a bad thing; it's just something I don't prefer. I find that this particular type of game races quickly out of the box, but it looses steam in the long race (because, we just get tired of counting and rolling dice all the time). Still, this is not a game-breaking issue, not even for me.

One more note: the printed book that I received was printed on an inkjet printer, so not the best print quality... but, not bad, either.

Worth the money? – PIP is worth the money at about $12-$15 (2018). You can also order a hard-copy, which I did (both PDF and HC); that is always a bonus. To me, being able to get a hard copy of the game is always worth an extra +1 star or a few bonus percentage points in the rating column.

Eloy has really caught lightning in the bottle with this amazing fun and versatile role-playing game system. You can easily create nearly almost any type of character. It is not only kid friendly but also adult friendly. You can really run away with this system and build almost any world or genre you can imagine. Character creation is a snap, within only a few minutes you will be creating well rounded and fun characters. The system is light and very easy to learn. Not only great for group play but I think it also plays well for solo play. This is a super fun game system, give it a try, you will not be disappointed.