The CASTING System Quickstart Guide

What is CASTING?

Most RPG systems treat your stats as numbers on a sheet. CASTING treats them as a portrait of who your character actually is.

Every character is defined by seven attributes — Clever, Aware, Strong, Tough, Influential, Nimble, and Gifted — and every one of them matters in play. Not just in combat. In conversation, in problem-solving, in the moments where the dice land wrong and you have to think your way out anyway.

Stats range from -5 to +5. Zero is average. Negative doesn't mean broken — it means you've made a choice about who this person is and what they've traded away to be good at something else.

The system runs on 2d10 + stat, designed to be immediately intuitive and deeply tactical once you know what you're doing. It's compatible with D&D 5e if you want to bolt it onto something familiar, but it stands completely on its own.

What's In This Quickstart?

Everything you need to run your first session tonight.

The Core Rules Making checks, difficulty classes, contested rolls, advantage and disadvantage, critical results, and Gifted Points — the full resolution system in a single clear reference.

Combat That Feels Like a Fight Players confer before anything is rolled. Then everyone acts simultaneously — players and enemies together. No queue. No waiting. The chaos is the point.

Four Ready-Built Characters

• Mira — The Miller. Resourceful, strong, and knows more about fire and flour than anyone in the room ought to.
• Edric — The Hunter. Patient, precise, and already had eyes on you before you knew he was there.
• Sera — The Healer. She's not here to fight. She's here to make sure everyone else survives the fight.
• Jasper — The Locksmith. Small, quick, and thinking several steps ahead of most situations.

Each character has a Signature Tool, a Utility Item, a starting ability, and two unlockable abilities for after your first session.

The Goblin Tide — A Complete Scenario A warband of goblins has descended on Thornhaven. They came for food and valuables and found nobody to stop them, so now they're having the time of their lives.

The goal isn't to kill them all. There are thirty of them. That fight ends one way.

The goal is to make them leave.

Fear, confusion, chaos, injury, sheer bafflement — whatever works. Goblins are opportunists. Make it look hard enough and they'll find somewhere else.

XP and Progression Characters earn XP by overcoming encounters — not just by fighting. Putting out a fire, calming a frightened villager, outwitting an opponent: all of it counts. Earn 10 XP and level up. Unlock your new ability. Then decide what comes next.

Built From 13 Years of Running Games

I've been running tabletop roleplaying games since before I owned a single rulebook. CASTING is what happens when you spend that long noticing what works and what doesn't.

Stats that mean something in play. Backgrounds that matter mechanically. Combat that feels simultaneous and chaotic rather than a polite queue. And the story always comes first.

— AntonyM the DM, founder of Games N Geekery

What Comes Next?

The full CASTING rulebook is in development through Games N Geekery and includes:

• Complete skill trees for every profession
• Lineage creation: play anything you can imagine
• Spellcasting, equipment, and item rules
• Monster and NPC creation tools
• Setting material for The City of Gate and Star Empire

Join the community and follow development:

• Discord & Facebook: Games N Geekery
• Patreon: patreon.com/cw/gamesngeekery

No matter what role you play, have a good game.