The Any-System Key describes character skills and task difficulties in terms that easily translate into different game systems. These terms do not link into any one game engine, but serve as general guidelines to give readers an overall sense of how they fit within their own game’s stat and difficulty scale. Any-System Key publications provide settings, characters, adventures, and other source material you can easily adapt to your favorite roleplaying game.

Scroll down to see how the Any-System Key works, or download the free Any-System Key  PDF (146k), complete with sample stats for characters in several genres. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open this PDF file.

Roleplaying game material from Griffon Publishing Studio uses the Any-System Key, making it useful for whatever game system you use. You can test drive the system using a free medieval-era adventure, The Village War, you can download for free (802k PDF).

Adapting Any-System Key stat and difficulty descriptions simply requires some comparison between the descriptions and norms within your favorite game system.

Character Stats
Assume characters have the average rating in most skills, with several rated at the level of a competent professional, a few considered expert in their field, and sometimes one signature skill for which the character is renown.

             Skill Levels

Three character levels further describe their abilities. Henchmen do not possess Signature skills and only have one Expert skill. Bosses have the usual complement of skills. Masterminds boost all their skills by one level; their Competent skills have the same value as Expert skills normally possess, Expert skills have values equivalent to the Signature level, and Signature skills increase by one increment beyond their maximum game value.

             Character Levels

An equipment category defines a character’s possessions (or an animal’s natural weapons) gamers can easily look up for damage, cost, and other stats in their preferred game.

Example:
ORC (Henchman)
Competent Skills: archery, brawl, carouse, climb, intimidate, track
Expert Skill: fight
Equipment: leather armor, sword

             Task Difficulties

Example:
The characters must leap across a chasm to reach safety. Doing so successfully requires a Challenging jump roll; they have a moderate chance of failure, but also a moderate chance of success. If flames leaped out of the chasm, the difficulty might increase to Hard; not only must they jump the chasm, but they must withstand intense heat.

Fits Your Favorite Games
Game character skills have different degrees of competence defined by stats. Simply figure out which stats best represent the levels of Competent, Expert, and Signature skills and use those values when integrating Any-System Key material into your game.

The same applies for difficulties. Just match the Any-System Key difficulty descriptions with the corresponding values for rating tasks in your own game.

   "This is called a Griffin because it is a winged quadruped. This kind of wild animal is born in Hyperborean parts, or in mountains. All its bodily members are like a lion's, but its wings and mask are like an eagle's. It is vehemently hostile to horses. But it will also tear to pieces any human beings which it happens to come across."