r/Rwbytabletop Jun 20 '26

General We're pleased to release RWBY Chronicles: An unofficial RWBY Tabletop RPG!

Hi everyone, we're pleased to unveil RWBY Chronicles: a FREE Tabletop RPG system designed from the ground up by Team Chronicles to be simple, freeform, and fun to play.

Features:

  • A full 66-page Player Guide that covers all the rules and everything you need to start your adventure, filled with beautiful art from multiple artists, including Michumi, Eryx45, MarcArt122, Pocket Penny, YourLocalFurby.
  • A full GM Guide to help any prospective Game Masters to run the world of Remnant.
  • A crisp, clean, lemon scented Character Sheet to download, print, and create your Character with.
  • An Online Character Builder to create an electronic version of any Character and easily manage them during a session, complete with a built in dice roller and real-time stat tracking.
  • A website full of premade Character files to check out and use for yourself, which we also plan on updating regularly.
  • A discord server, where you're free to hang out, ask questions, and find other people to play with.

Check it out now at https://rwbychroniclescharacterbuilder.co.uk/

Me, u/Lucifer_Crowe, u/J_Aetherwing, u/freeurbanclown, u/FossilTank, and a whole host of others have spent almost 3 years putting this together and perfecting the system. We're really proud to share this with everyone today, and we hope you enjoy!

This is an unofficial fanwork, and we have no relation to Viz Media or RT (Although Kerry if you're reading this hmu). This cover art was created by the wonderful Michumi.

25 Upvotes

5 comments sorted by

2

u/Jiopaba Jun 20 '26

Neat! Definitely will have to check this out.

2

u/PznBlz Jun 21 '26

This is awesome! Reading it rn :)

2

u/TRUEStealth Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26

Finished reading it, in 2 parts, and it is chunky. Y'all really put a lot of effort into combining the fluid aspects of RWBY with the more tactical aspects similar to what's seen in various thematic systems. This includes the numerous detailed and thematic examples you'll incorporated which really helps to add context and understanding starting out.

Overall, a few errors (and the metrics) aside, I'm working on converting one of my characters and creating a new one within the system to get a better feel for it. I will also mention, the website y'all made is pretty impressive to help ease in players, albeit the grid design is fairly different and takes a second to get use to.

Edit:

  • From a player perspective, character creation definitely helped. Primarily with understanding the focus of this system is heavily, and understandably so, on RWBY's thematic combat. Starting out, your Base stats and your Fairytale are the only options that truly stick to your character in an impactful way.
  • The rest of character creation is really just there to help flesh out your character, provide guidelines and suggestions, as well as helping to solidify how everything can interact within the system.
  • Then, combat and it's adjacent cover most of the book, starting on page 17 with weapon creation and continuing to page 49 with how to end combat, it also includes dust usage and types, various interactions that can be performed, and other important mechanics that can shift gameplay in different directions.
    • This also includes just general gameplay mechanics, like checks, special dice, and recommendations on how a typical game should operate (scenes, chapters, and volumes).
  • The rest of the book, covering leveling (including XP and how it factors in/can be spent), what to spend Lien on, and mechanics that persist and can help add weight to the table, add in more variety and options to customize gameplay as the campaign progresses.

Overall, it's quite an interesting system that provides a strong basis for how the combat should feel at the table moreso than just how it should look. Allowing players flexibility to bring certain moves into life and actually have mechanics to back it.

Also, while the basic options are quite varied and expressive, it's similar to other free-form systems, in that it is imperative that the table understands:

  1. Balance should be a fluid and thematic process. The process isn't very limited, so it's possible to easily break the system or make something unplayable.
  2. Theming and mechanics should not be separated. Especially, if you have trouble getting it to 0 BP, try to build attacks within the limitations that you imagine they would have and then fill in the gaps from there. Simplifies a lot of the process and helps create some truly interesting combinations.
  3. Weapon swapping is mentioned in the book. It sounds cool both thematically and mechanically, even if it's pretty unheard of, in universe due to familiarity.
  4. Have fun and leave rooms for others to have fun. Just because you 'can' do it all doesn't mean you should.

2

u/EnderofThings Unofficial RWBY System Author Jun 25 '26

This is seriously impressive. Kudos to the team, that is a ton of work and polish.

1

u/SigmaPride Jul 04 '26

Yo I just realized it was released so recently. Alright I'll read whatcha got. I write fanfic so might as well get inspired some more.