Minstrel is a story-telling game, which is simply a classic role-playing game with an increased emphasis and focus on strong narrative and character development. Minstrel is designed to be simple, flexible, and as realistic as possible - but tends to focus on combat interactions, leaving the more commonplace aspects of life and adventure - which is to say, movement and feats of knowledge and skill - to reasonable interpretation.
Characters become more talented and knowledgeable just as we do: by being introduced to the skill and practicing diligently, not at a fixed rate every level; abilities are flexible, and there is no need for any two players to use the same skills and class features thanks to the deep, tree-based Powers system.
Currently, Minstrel is in the late stages of design and will soon enter the playtesting stage. Until then, you are free to peruse what is here and offer suggestions.
Mithica is the default campaign setting for the Minstrel game, and will be released at the same time. And for what it's worth - as of this writing the specific rules aren't even available yet. We're working hard to prepare them for release and the instant they're done, they'll be here and available free of charge. Yeah, that's the plan: the entirety of the play mechanics, setting information, and game supplements will be obtainable gratis. As in, without either giving up your hard-earned cash or mucking around in dutch torrent sites.
Rulebooks, character sheets and adventures (or "modules" if you're oldschool) will be distributed via DRM-free PDF, forever. The goal is, of course, to offer a complete and robust roleplaying game at a divide-by-zeroth the cost of the industry's heavyweights - Dungeons & Dragons, for one - while at the same time enhancing playability, immersion and storytelling.
Print editions will be available at a reasonable cost, but these will be exactly what you download online - the PDFs you download will likely be the same PDFs we send to the publisher.
