# About Ratbags!
Ratbags! is an adventure game for one facilitator (the Referee) and at least one other player. Players act as weirdo adventurers exploring dark & mysterious dungeons filled with strange folk, hidden treasure, and unspeakable monstrosities.
Ratbags! is a hack of Cairn (opens new window) by Yochai Gal. The full text is licensed under C-BY-SA 4.0 (opens new window). See the repo (opens new window).
Ratbags! was written with the following design philosophies in mind:
# Neutrality
The Referee's role is to portray the rules, situations, NPCs, and narrative clearly, while acting as a neutral arbiter.
# Classless
A character's role or skills are not limited by a single class. Instead, the equipment they carry and their experiences define their specialty.
# Death
Characters may be powerful, but they are also vulnerable to harm in its many forms. Death is always around the corner, but it is never random or without warning.
# Fiction First
Dice do not always reflect an obstacle's difficulty or its outcome. Instead, success and failure are arbitrated by the Referee in dialogue with the players, based on in-world elements.
# Growth
Characters are changed through in-world advancement, gaining new skills and abilities by surviving dangerous events and overcoming obstacles.
# Player Choice
Players should always understand the reasons behind the choices they've made, and information about potential risks should be provided freely and frequently.
# Principles
The Referee and the players each have guidelines that help foster a specific play experience defined by critical thinking, exploration, and an emergent narrative.
# Shared Objectives
Players trust one another to engage with the shared setting, character goals, and party challenges. Therefore, the party is typically working together towards a common goal, as a team.