Player Handbook

Aubaine is a tabletop roleplaying game. One person describes a world, the others each play a character inside it, and everyone finds out together what happens. There is no screen, no compulsory board, and no winner.

If you have never played one, this chapter is enough to sit down at a table. If you have, it tells you what Aubaine does differently.

What happens at a table

A session is a conversation with dice in it.

The GM describes a situation. You say what your character does. The GM says what comes of it, and if the outcome is uncertain a RollRule wordRoll2d12 + one Characteristic + one Aptitude, measured against a DC, an AC or an Opposed Roll. settles it. Then the situation has changed, and round it goes again.

That loop is the whole game. It runs the same on searching a cupboard as on a duel.

Who does what

The GM

The game master. They describe the world, play everything that is not a player character, settle what the rules leave open, and set the difficulty of what you attempt. They are not playing against you.

The players

Each holds one character, decides what they do and speaks for them. You decide your character’s actions, never their results.

The table

All of you. It is the table that decides the tone, and what belongs in the fiction and what does not. Those conversations happen outside the game, and they matter more than any rule.

What you need

• A character sheet.
• Dice: d12s above all, plus a d4 and a few others for damage.
• Something to write with, because the sheet changes in play.
• Your two Trees, your Archetype’s and your Domain’s.

Nothing else. No miniatures and no grid: distances are counted in metres and said out loud.

What Aubaine does its own way

One Roll

Everything resolves on 2d12 + one Characteristic + one Aptitude. There is no separate attack roll and no separate saving throw. One formula, everywhere.

No fixed pairs

No AptitudeRule wordAptitudeA field of know-how. It makes up half of every Roll. belongs to a CharacteristicRule wordCharacteristicOne of a character's six core scores. It makes up half of every Roll.. The way you act decides the pair, so a character stays useful outside their speciality.

No levels

A character does not go up a step and drag everything else with them. Three separate currencies buy three separate things.

Equipment is made

You find materials, follow a recipe, make the Rolls. Buying over a counter exists, but it does not cover much.

MemoryRule wordMemoryThe number of Skills you can have Memorised at the same time. limits you

You know many Skills and memoriseRule wordMemorisedSaid of a Skill you carry and can play. You can change yours during a rest. only a few at a time. What you carry is a choice, and it is replayed at every rest.

A game that moves

Aubaine is free and open. Its rules, Skills, Trees and equipment live in a public repository, and the site you are reading renders it directly.

That has a practical consequence. There is no edition, no supplement to buy, nothing behind a paywall. A Skill adjustment, a new Tree or a new piece of equipment arrives without anything becoming obsolete, and every plate downloads and prints at home.

It also has a consequence for this book. It explains mechanics, not catalogues. When you need to know which Trees exist today, or exactly what a piece grants, the entry’s own page is the reference: it is current, and this book talks about the system.

How to read this book

The next chapter explains the Roll, and it is the only one you need for a first session. The rest can wait until it is useful.

A coloured word in this book is a rule term. Hover it, or give it focus with the keyboard, and its definition appears. State and Skill names lead straight to their entries.

Numbers that belong to a piece of equipment or a Skill are printed on it, not here. This book explains the mechanics; the entries carry the values.