Everything a player needs to play Wizards & Lizards for an evening, on one handout. This is the whole engine in its short form. Your gamemaster has the other half. You do not need any other book to play.

1 What You Need

Six-sided dice, a fistful for the table. One printed character sheet per player. Something to mark stress with. No grid, no ruler, no miniatures: the gamemaster names a few places in a scene and everyone is in one of them.

2 The Roll

When an outcome is uncertain and failing would cost you, the gamemaster names where you stand, and you roll that many d6 and take the two best (at Desperate you have one die; pair it with a 1). A 5 or 6 is gold.

The neutral, unaided roll is Poor. Your attribute shifts it: a +1 lifts it to Fair, a −1 drops it to Desperate. Then the situation adds or drops dice: the right tool, a good angle, surprise, or a friend helping each add a die; the dark, a wound, the wrong tool, or being outnumbered each drop one. The pool never tops five or falls below one. Arguing your footing up, out loud, before you roll, is the best thing you can do. Do not roll when nothing is at stake; it just works.

3 Your Character

Your sheet has four attributes, Might, Agility, Wits, Will, spread −1, 0, +1, +1 (each a die, as above). A one-line background (what you were; it lets you attempt what that life taught, at your normal footing). A kit. A vice. And a playbook: a calling, an edge (a standing extra die in your one specialty), and a move or two only you can do. There are no hit points, no defense score, no speed number.

4 Stress

You have five stress boxes. Mark one to push your body past its limit, to cast a spell, to fuel a move that names the cost, or when the GM says an effort costs it. At five marked, further strain wounds you instead. A safe night’s sleep clears it all.

5 Harm

You have no hit points, only a condition that worsens one step at a time:

HEALTHY → WOUNDED → INCAPACITATED → DYING → DEAD

Wounded, you roll a die fewer on everything. Incapacitated, two fewer, and you are out of the fight (you can crawl, talk, drink). Dying, the GM draws a four-box clock that fills one box an exchange; when it fills, you are gone. A safe night heals one step.

Worn armor turns aside the first wound you would take each fight (a shield or heavy harness, the first two). That is your only cushion; there is no soaking a blow by breaking gear.

Getting someone back. To stabilize a Dying ally you can reach, mark 2 stress or spend a healing supply: the clock is erased and they rest at Incapacitated.

6 A Fight

No initiative, no turn order. A round is one exchange: everyone who acts rolls once, and the GM narrates it. Your one roll covers everything, there are no damage dice.

• Success: you hurt the foe cleanly and take nothing back.
• Partial: you hurt it, and you pay, take the wound (armor may turn the first aside), or lose your footing, your light, the doorway.
• Failure: you gain nothing, and something bad happens to you.

A foe is a tier (the GM knows its blows-to-finish) plus one true thing about it. A blow is a Success or a Partial; you fell it with enough of them. A lone foe is weak against a whole party; numbers are the threat (outnumbered, drop a die). Fights are quick and bloody, and won before they start, with fire, a doorway, high ground, or the right approach.

7 Talk

Talking is free until you want something from someone. When what you say would sway them and the outcome matters, it is a roll (Will, usually) on the ladder like anything else. The dice sway the GM’s people, never another player’s choices.

Jon Mayo. PUBLIC DOMAIN (CC0-1.0)