From GENRE to FASTER: Forty-Eight Years of Rolling Dice and Refining RulesI have been involved in tabletop role-playing games since 1978. Over nearly five decades at the table, I’ve developed a deep love—and an equally deep frustration—for the mechanics that drive our favorite hobby. I’ve bought into countless gaming systems, marveled at their strengths, winced at their weaknesses, and watched my bookshelves overflow with increasingly expensive rulebooks just to run different styles of games.
Back in 1995, I decided I had seen enough bloat. I started working on a basic, universal RPG system called GENRE. The goal was simple: build a single framework that could handle any genre, any setting, and any power level. It was meant to stop the endless cycle of buying new system after new system every time my group wanted a change of scenery.
To be frank, GENRE was crude. It used a clunky dice pool mechanic, and I never fully finished developing it. It was an experiment, nothing more. Yet somehow, it managed to attract a small following online back in the early days of the web.
Fast forward to a year ago, when I stumbled across a bizarre discovery: those original GENRE pages were still being hosted online, virtually untouched for thirty years. My initial reaction was a mix of genuine surprise and mild embarrassment. Looking back at your rough draft from three decades ago will do that to you.
Over the years, I noticed several commercial game systems using the exact same base elements I had tinkered with in GENRE. One system in particular mirrored my original notes a bit closer than I was entirely comfortable with. But instead of letting that bother me, it lit a fire under me to revisit the idea. I decided to give those old concepts a fresh coat of paint, strip away the clunky math, overhaul the core engine, and build something modern.
That overhaul became FASTER.
The name works on two levels. First, it’s a direct nod to classic game design like Marvel’s old FASERIP system, using an acronym formed by the six core character attributes: Force, Agility, Stamina, Talent, Ego, and Reason. Second, it literally describes the design philosophy: it is faster, lighter, and easier to pick up than the bloated systems sitting on store shelves today.
FASTER is built to be quick and flexible, covering broad ground without burying the game master under mountains of tables. But make no mistake—it isn't a "rules-light" game where mechanics are abandoned entirely in favor of hand-waving.
Tabletop role-playing is about imagination, but without structure and verisimilitude, you aren't playing a game anymore. You’re just a room full of drama majors doing improv. Without rules to define limits, consequences, and chance, games devolve into kids playing cops-and-robbers on the playground, arguing endlessly over who shot who first and why you didn't fall down when someone pointed a finger and shouted "Bang!"
FASTER exists to keep the structure clear, the rulings quick, and the focus where it belongs: on the story moving forward at the table.
Note from Editor: Stay tuned for sneak peeks and other previews about FASTER here on the blog.
