Rapture (Quick Play Ruleset)

We are launching September 15, 2023, with an amazing-looking rulebook and some sweet referee and player resources. Those who have previously downloaded and/or bought the game will be able to access this finalized edition of the Big Red Ugly Edition of Rapture!

Welcome to Rapture, the next step for a Breathless-inspired roleplaying engine for tabletop roleplaying games!

Why Rapture?

Rapture offers depth and crunch for those who love playing Breathless roleplaying games. Rapture also offers plenty of wiggle room for groups that want to hack, homebrew, and make something of their own. While the system is genre-agnostic, it was designed to support our games, i.e., those games produced and published by Free Radicals Press (G. Michael Rapp) and Softcore Anarchy (Tyler McAlister).

Other What?

Technically speaking, Rapture was originally designed to power games developed by Free Radicals Press and Softcore Anarchy. We've decided to take a new approach: Combine the different mechanics comprising our games, such as Dragontown, No One Owns the Sky, and the planned Adventurers' Guide to Belleruta standalone game, into a singular core rulebook. The games mentioned above are going to be released as official settings and campaign sourcebooks for Rapture.

Where It All Began…

The Rapture Roleplay System, or Rapture for short, began as a failed attempt to hack the d% system originally found in TSR’s Star Frontiers roleplaying game. About three years later, and a timely introduction to the Breathless roleplaying game, got me thinking about Rapture in a different light. I saw a break away from some of the popular legacy roleplaying games, with an emphasis on streamlined mechanics and quick-n-dirty rulebooks that snagged players’ collective interests from the get-go.

Before you is a Breathless-inspired roleplaying game, known to me and a few others as (simply) Rapture. Some of the baseline mechanics for Rapture first came to me when I designed a Breathless-inspired tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) for the Breathless Jam on Itch.io back in April 2022. The game was Bella Ciao! Then, after a few more months of working, I developed a second game, Dragontown: City of a Billion Souls, but I wasn’t satisfied with the initial results. I went back to the drawing board, if you will, and put together a smaller, rules-light TTRPG named No One Owns the Sky, which broke a mental dam for me and allowed me to see the beginnings of a truly independent roleplaying system, something I’d call Rapture. In November and December 2022, Tyler McAlister and I released a more finalized version of Dragontown. It was during this last release that I began to think of codifying the Rapture system, so that it, too, could become a community project, much like Breathless.

The version before you is the third rendition of the Rapture core rules and gaming guidelines. This rendition of the core rules and guidelines will serve as a stable foundation for our sourcebooks (formerly independent games themselves), which include, but aren’t limited to, The Adventurer’s Guide to Belleruta, Danger Zone, Bella Ciao!, Dragontown, Landing Days, and No One Owns the Sky.

If you enjoy Rapture, consider sharing with friends, family members, work colleagues, or even social media acquaintances. If you love Rapture, consider joining our online discussions, make mods, build adventures, and spread the word about this wonderful roleplaying system. If you hate this system, or despise certain aspects of it, consider rewriting it and making it your own.