WHAT IS PASSKEY?

The Passkey System can be used to create cooperative, solo and guided table-top role-playing games , for any genre or setting. Like the item it is named after, Passkey is designed to open as many creative doors as possible for Players, GMs and TTRPG designers. It does so by focusing on Player agency, customisation, and narrative role-play.

PLAYER AGENCY

With Passkey's core rule mechanic, Players can choose when they want their Character to put in the effort to succeed, or leave it up to chance. Whenever a Character wishes to perform an Action - something that would have important consequences - the Player has two options: 

spend a number of points in exchange for varying degrees of success,
or test their luck by rolling 1 six-sided die.

CUSTOMISATION

The Passkey System also provides tools to afford a large amount of customisation, be it during character creation, world-building, or game mechanic design. The SRD contains plenty of prompts, suggestions, examples and roll tables to help you create the right Passkey System game for you.

NARRATIVE ROLE-PLAY

The Passkey System is intended for role-play and narrative centric games.  As such, it is designed to prioritise engaging shared story-telling over rules crunch.
There is little math involved in a Passkey System game, and the only dice required are the classic six-sided ones (d6). While combat can be a part of a Passkey System game, the rules are not built around it, nor do they present it as the go-to solution for in-game conflict, allowing for greater flexibility and creative thinking.

The Passkey System aims to be a compact, easy-to-understand and adapt rule-set, for creating a wide variety of TTRPGs.

LICENSE & DISCLAIMER

The Passkey System is a modified and streamlined version of the Four Points System (also by Penflower Ink), and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CCBY 4.0) License. That means you can create games, expansions and hacks based on the Passkey System, for both personal and commercial use, so long as you include proper attribution:

“This work is based on the Passkey System, created by Penflower Ink (www.penflowerink.com) and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).”

You may NOT create games based on the Passkey System if you also intend it to promote any forms of bigotry, including discrimination based on colour, appearance, disability, species, faith, sex or gender.
The SRD also contains a section with advice on playing safely, along with a link to a curated list of safety tools.

CONTENTS OVERVIEW

Passkey SRD: a traditionally hand-illustrated PDF, with page hyperlinks, bookmarks and table of contents, colourblind friendly (black & white).

Passkey SRD (Text Only): a printer and colourblind friendly text only version of the SRD, with page hyperlinks, bookmarks and tagged for screen-readers.

Unlocked with Passkey Logos: some transparent PNG logos for you to include in your Passkey System TTRPGs.

UNLOCKED WITH PASSKEY

Stravagante! - pocket-sized whimsical fantasy.
Greenjackers! - solarpunk rebels in a cyberpunk dystopia.