The Unofficial Elder Scrolls RPG (or UESRPG for short) is a fan-made d100 tabletop adaptation of the The Elder Scrolls video games.
The game focuses on providing a solid rules foundation for as many aspects of the setting as possible, with the goal of allowing players to explore almost any part of the universe, or play almost any character. This means that the game includes more than the ten playable races seen in the video games, as well as rules for obscure forms of magic only found in the lore, amongst other things.
The game has three editions, with a fourth currently in the works. Links to various resources for the game, including the Discord and Subreddit, can be found here
.
See also Delvebound, another fan-made attempt at translating the franchise to a tabletop RPG.
The UESRPG contains the following tropes:
- Armor and Magic Don't Mix: Armor imposes a penalty to spellcasting rolls, with heavier armor imposing a more severe penalty. The Eldritch Knight talent can mitigate this, allowing a character skilled in the use of armor to reduce or completely negate the penalty.
- Attack Failure Chance: Like most tabletop RPGs and the old Elder Scrolls games, most difficult actions (including attacks and spellcasting) require a dice roll to perform successfully.
- Born Unlucky: The Star-Cursed negative trait can be taken at character creation for ill-fated characters, and makes the character gain two unlucky numbers as well as making it so that "things simply tend to go horribly wrong in their presence."
- Character Customization
- Skill Scores and Perks: Skills are Skills, Scores are Characteristics, and Perks are Talents.
- Point Build System: Players use Creation Points at character creation, and later XP, to buy skill and Characteristic increases and talents. Creation Points can also be used to buy spells and positive traits for your character, and you can gain more CP by taking negative traits.
- Critical Failure/ Critical Hit: At character creation, you roll to determine your character's lucky and unlucky numbers, with how many of each you have depending on your Luck Stat, and rolling that number on a test will result in a Critical Success or Failure, respectively. Critical Successes grant one additional luck point for the session and allow the character to perform far better than they would otherwise, or do things that would otherwise be impossible; while Critical Failures cause the character to lose one Luck point (or permanently lose one point in their Luck Stat if they have no Luck Points left) and fail miserably, or fail even on tests that would otherwise be a sure thing.
- Loads and Loads of Races: One of the project's stated goals is to allow the players to play as almost anyone within the setting, thus meaning that there are a lot of character options. Aside from the 10 races normally playable in the video games, there are rules for playing as most of the khajiiti furstocks, the Ayleids, the Snow Elves, the Maormer, the Dwemer, and even the Sload. There are also several variant races, such as Ashlanders for the Dunmer and Colovians or Nibenese for the Imperials.
- Luck Stat: A character's Luck characteristic determines the chances for a critical success or failure, as well as the number of Luck Points they have each session. A player can also choose to permanently reduce their Luck in exchange for a few useful bonuses.
- Mage Species: Just like the video games, Altmer and Bretons. In this game, they have a bonus to their maximum magicka and can start the game with Novice rank in one spellcasting skill for free.
- Magic Misfire: As with the Elder Scrolls video games, casting a spell requires a skill test, failing which causes the spell to fizzle out without any effect besides the caster wasting their turn and magicka. Unlike the video games, a critical failure on this test or a failure to cast a powerful or custom-made spell causes a Magical Backlash, which can have effects ranging from merely annoying or embarrassing to having to make a test against instant death, depending on the power of the spell failed.
- The Nondescript: The Unremarkable trait makes it so that the character looks average in a way that lets them easily blend into a crowd and makes it harder for others to recall the specifics of their appearance, for better or for worse.
- Open and Shut: The Open and Lock spells, just like in the video games, can be used to magically lock or unlock doors and containers.
- Photographic Memory: Sload, and any character that takes the Perfect Memory trait at character creation, possess a perfect memory and never need to roll to recall anything they've seen or heard as well as gaining a bonus to Lore tests.
- Telepathy: One of the spells allows the caster to communicate telepathically with those around them, with more powerful versions of the spell allowing for them to communicate larger and more complex messages. Alfiq, being physically indistinguishable from house-cats, have an innate version of this spell that they use instead of speech.
