Author’s Proof

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Copyright 2024 James LaFond

A Crackpot Book

Lynn Lockhart Publisher

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Dust Cover

Grunt is a combat-oriented role playing game. Each character or team of characters is created by random design and cast by Fate or Fury into an historical, mythic, anarchocivic or science-fiction scenario. The rules are simple, quick and violently realistic, designed for ease of play. In GRUNT there are heroes, beasts and foes—there are no NPCs.

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Inspirational Quote

“That Small and forgotten word, No.”

-Lee Morrison, Stop the World, I Want To Get Off

Dedication

For Ben, who boxed with this old man on his grandfather’s living room floor.

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To the Reader

This past Friday, June 21st of 2024, having negotiated the postmodern NPC Sea, arriving in Joliet, Illinois, my friend Dan, ran a role playing game for his family. I rolled up an old, lame, cook, a former warrior with two pots and a cleaver, who had been kicked out of a mercenary company for failure to cook anything beyond “vapid mediocrity.” His name was Gruel, his lot in life cruel, and he failed his first gut check in service to his new friends. Dan has gone back to role playing basics and uses a die-20, ability check system, which I quite liked.

In GRUNT, it is my simple ambition to finally make a realistic combat system that is also playable. The players will simply need: 6-sided and 20-sided dice, pencil & paper and imagination.

The game rules will be contained in 7 chapters. Chapters 1, 2 and 3 are a guide to character creation through PLAY. You better enjoy this part, because your GRUNT might get trampled, cleaved or run through in a battle a few minutes into the adventure. Just as in real life, when a fighting man goes into mortal combat, the actual adventure will be briefer than the pain and toil leading to it. It can be expected, that the generation of a character and his outfitting, will take longer than the actual battle or adventure he is plunged into.

If he survives this episode, perhaps a campaign has been begun, perhaps he dies in the next episode. The idea is to throw all of life’s dice into that one adventure, to abandon any thought of career, but to go Into the World, perhaps before The God of Battle in war, perhaps before cold Madam Night in a duel, and experience as close as can be done on a table top with pencil, paper and dice, the type of strife that either barred men from fame, or made them loom great in our mind’s eye.

Chapters 4 and 5 describe how rules by which the GRUNT interacts with the world of combat, perhaps in a hunt, in a sniper duel, during the conduct of a military skirmish or a crime, perhaps even in the chaos of a mass battle, or simply in a back street gang fight.

Chapter 6 present a historic episode from the life of Alexander the Great for play and then gives various ideas for developing other episodes in different historical periods or speculative settings, even for depicting your self and your friend’s in a survival situation.

Arrian’s Alexander was a large part of the inspiration for this undertaking. For that great man and his men entered battle and pursued conquest in a very expeditionary fashion as placing themselves before Heaven for judgment. When they crossed the Granicus to fight their way up out of a river in the face of the best men the enemy had to oppose them, they sent up “a shout to the God of Battle.” This was nothing less then placing the risks they were taking and the qualities they undertook this battle with, under the judgment of the Higher Power. This sentiment is represented by the various ways in which the dice in GRUNT are used to determine results.

Chapter 7 provides the game specifics of the equipment and the effects of combat and adventure on a GRUNT. GRUNT, as a game, is here envisioned as a starting point, to be developed by the players. The entire frame of this design is presented for free on the gaming page at jameslafond.com for the enjoyment of and improvement by my unseen fellow gamers.

An 8th Chapter on monsters and manias was added, and there is a relevant article included as an appendix.

GRUNT contains:

-1. Fate, Patrimony & Time

Grunt Role Playing Game Character Creation #1

-2. Arete & Pathos

Grunt Role Playing Game Character Creation #2

-3. Discord, Fear & Rout

Grunt Role Playing Game Character Transformation #3

-4. In The World

Grunt Role Playing Game Character Composition #4

This turned out to be a huge chapter, covering most of the play mechanics.

-5. To The God of Battle

Grunt Role Playing Game Character Expedition #5

-6. Pathos

Grunt Role Playing Game Episode Creation & Play # 6

-7. Grunt Grinder

Weapons, Armor, Effects and Recovery #7

-8. Head Cases and Monsters #8