A story-driven RPG system

Boundless

Rules

Boundless is a story-first role-playing system. The rules are light by design, so your table spends its time on characters, choices, and consequences instead of the rulebook. It shines in one-shots and short campaigns.

Rolling Dice

When you use a skill, make an attack, or defend yourself, the GM may ask for a check. Roll 3d6, add the skill that best fits what you’re doing, then apply any bonus or penalty. Skills aren’t locked to their obvious uses. If you can explain why one fits, it probably does.

Against an opponent — Both sides roll and the higher number wins. Ties go to the defender.
Against the environment — The GM picks a target from the difficulty table based on the task. Ties go to the player.

Easy

Moderate

12+

Hard

15+

Near Impossible

20+

Bonuses & Penalties

Tipping the scales is encouraged and often necessary to get through an encounter. Bonuses and penalties adjust a check based on your approach.

Small bonus

A slight edge. Something helps, but it won’t carry the moment on its own.

Medium bonus

A clear advantage. You came prepared for this.

Large bonus

Overwhelming odds. Everything is stacked in your favour.

Bonuses and penalties from different sources stack, but the total can never go above +3 or below −3.

Character

Character creation in Boundless is role-play first. Start with a concept you like and its place in the story, then worry about stats and mechanics.

Background

Concept
Who is your character, in a phrase? Think about the role they fill in the group and what sets them apart from everyone else.
History
More than where they’re from. What drove your character before the story began? Come up with one or two memorable moments and a few interests.
Trouble
Every good character has a problem. Give yours a trouble that gets under their skin and pushes them against their better judgment.

Skills & Attributes

Skills are what your character is good at, shaped by natural talent and background. Each point you put in a skill also raises its attribute by one.

When creating your character, put +3 in one skill, +2 in two others, and +1 in two more. Then choose two areas of expertise related to your concept.

Body

Your raw strength and staying power.

Conditioning — Staying fit and enduring hardship, whether through training, natural gifts, or genetic alteration.
Close Quarters — Fighting up close, with a weapon in hand or your bare fists.

Reflexes

Your coordination, flexibility, and agility.

Piloting — Operating things that go fast, from cars and boats to aircraft and starships.
Marksmanship — Hitting from a distance with bows, guns, or heavy artillery.
Infiltration — Getting where you shouldn’t be. Hiding, moving unseen, picking pockets, and wearing disguises.

Technical

Your knack for practical and technological tasks.

Mechanics — Tinkering with and jury-rigging machines. Covers locks, traps, and explosives.
Medicine — Treating wounds, illness, and poison, often with whatever’s on hand.
Systems — Working with anything built on logic and rules: computers, codes, ciphers, and security networks.

Intelligence

How quickly and clearly you think.

Awareness — Noticing things at a glance and piecing together what they mean.
Knowledge — Learning of all kinds, from history and languages to the sciences.
Tactics — Outthinking rivals. Covers politics, law, warfare, and games.
Wilderness — Surviving harsh environments, tracking, and knowing plants and animals.

Composure

Your ability to stand up to stress and keep your cool.

Presence — Swaying how people feel and what they believe, whether by charm, threats, or a convincing lie.
Empathy — Reading what someone feels, wants, or is hiding, from within their frame of reference.
Supernatural — Wielding powers and effects science can’t explain. Covers luck.

Expertise

The subjects your character knows inside and out.

Pick something specific, like shotguns, court etiquette, or starship engines. Whenever it applies, add +2 to your check, whichever skill you’re using.

An expertise in shotguns adds +2 to Marksmanship when firing one and +2 to Mechanics when fixing one.

Other Attributes

These come straight from your attributes, so there’s nothing extra to choose.

Health

10 + Body

Your physical and mental well-being. Once it reaches zero, you’re dead.

Physical Defence

Body + Reflexes

Your toughness, armour, and agility.

Mental Defence

Intelligence + Composure

Your willpower, wits, and spirit.

Readiness

Reflexes + Composure

How fast you spring into action when combat starts.

Combat

Sometimes fighting is the only option, but combat in Boundless is deadly. Gaining the upper hand is critical to surviving.

Turn Order

When a fight breaks out, everyone rolls a Readiness check, rerolling any ties. Highest goes first, then turns go down the line until everyone has had a go. That’s one round; then it starts again from the top.

Movement

You can move 30ft on your turn. If you’re knocked down, getting up takes half your movement. Rough terrain costs double movement and may call for a skill check.

Actions

During your turn, you get one action to change the course of combat.

Attack

Deal damage.

Make a skill check against the opponent’s Physical or Mental Defence, depending on how you attack. The difference between your roll and theirs is the damage they take.
If an attack lands especially hard, the GM can add an affliction on top. A grievous wound deserves to leave a mark.
Marksmanship and Close Quarters are the obvious picks, but your approach decides the skill. Strike an unaware guard from the shadows with Infiltration, overload a security drone with Systems, or rattle someone into breaking with Presence.

Aid

Restore Health or remove an affliction.

Healing takes a skill check and sometimes supplies, like cloth for a bandage. The target regains Health equal to your roll over 10.
To remove an affliction, make a skill check against a target the GM sets from the difficulty table: a deep cut might be Moderate, a spreading poison Hard.

Run

Sometimes you need to go fast. Double your movement this turn.

Prepare

Wait for the perfect opening. Name exactly what you’ll do and what sets it off. If the trigger comes before your next turn, you act right away without using your reaction; otherwise, the moment passes and your action is lost.

Improvise

Use your imagination! Describe what you want to do and the GM picks a skill check. Succeed, and you land a bonus for yourself or an ally, or a penalty or affliction for an opponent.

Reactions

Outside your turn, you get one reaction per round to respond to what happens. It refreshes at the end of your turn, so you won’t have one until after your first.

Dodge

When you’re attacked, throw yourself clear and add a Medium bonus (+2) to your Defence check.

Intercept

When an opponent moves past or breaks away from you, attack, grab, or trip them.

Afflictions

An affliction impairs a character or opponent over time. They come from attacks, improvised actions, or the world itself. Their level sets how long they last and how hard they are to remove.

Mild

Until you act

A momentary setback. You can shake it off yourself by spending part of your turn.

e.g. Knocked down, disarmed, blinded by smoke.

Severe

Until treated

It sticks with you. Removing it takes the Aid action and a skill check, or the right equipment.

e.g. Poisoned, bleeding, a broken arm.

Permanent

Indefinitely

No cure, only adaptation. It changes how your character gets by for good.

e.g. A lost limb, a ruined eye, a lasting curse.

Any lasting effect can be an affliction, so don’t feel boxed in by the examples. GMs, let great rolls bite: when someone really nails it, player or opponent, make the affliction hurt.

Equipment

Most equipment is mundane flavour for your skill checks. Items let you do things, but they don’t make you better at them. At the GM’s discretion, special items can grant bonuses:

Consumable

Can be used a limited number of times. It might give a Large bonus or do something special with a specific skill check.

Tool

Gives a permanent bonus to one kind of check, like a finely made firearm or protective armour.

Your character usually has whatever gear fits their concept. There’s no hard limit on how much you carry: if it fits in your arms, your pockets, or bag, you can carry it.

Game Master

The GM sets the scene, plays everyone the players meet, and keeps the story rolling. Remember that Boundless is story-driven: the rules are there to serve the story, not the other way around.

Be the Arbiter

You have the final word. When the rules are silent, you decide what happens. Make a call that fits the story and keep the game moving; a quick ruling beats a long debate.

Give Them Agency

The players’ choices should drive the story. When they try something you didn’t plan for, find a way to say yes and let the world react.

Let Them Succeed

Challenges can be hard, but success should always be within reach. Reward clever plans and great role-play with a bonus, a breakthrough, or a special item.