Brightline: modern superheroes on a d20
On the night of 14 October 2006 the whole sky burned white, and by morning one person in ten thousand had woken up Lit. Twenty years later the Lit are licensed, sponsored, livestreamed, feared and needed. Brightline is RollQuest's own superhero game, with its whole rulebook free to read.
Calder Bay, twenty years after the Flare
You play heroes in Calder Bay, the coastal city where the Flare burned gold: Charter-carrying team members in the mirrored towers of the Glasswork, Off-Line vigilantes in the brick streets of Lowmarket, people with impossible gifts trying to do good while the whole city watches and argues about it.
Brightline is bright, hopeful and complicated. Let the heroes win, then make the win cost something in public. One player is the Game Master (GM), who plays the city and everyone in it who isn't a hero.
How a check works
When your hero tries something difficult, you make a check: roll a d20, add the rank that fits what you're doing, and try to meet or beat the Difficulty the GM sets. Ten is easy, 15 a real effort, 20 hard, 25 heroic and 30 near impossible.
A check doesn't only pass or fail. It passes or fails by a number of Steps, one for every 5 points:
| Your total against the Difficulty | Result |
|---|---|
| Beat it by 10 or more | Success (3 Steps): spectacular, and the clip is already trending |
| Beat it by 5 to 9 | Success (2 Steps): clean, with something extra |
| Meet it, or beat it by up to 4 | Success (1 Step): you did it, just |
| Miss it by 1 to 4 | Failure (1 Step): nearly, perhaps at a cost |
| Miss it by 5 or more | Failure (2 to 4 Steps): from "it did not work" to "as badly as it could" |
Attacks work the same way against the target's defence: Brawling up close against 10 plus their Guard, Marksmanship at range against 10 plus their Evade. A natural 20 always hits and raises the hit's rank by 5.
No hit points
Nobody in Brightline has hit points. When a hit lands, the target makes a resistance check: a d20 plus Durability (or Nerve, against a hit to the mind) against 15 plus the hit's rank. Succeed and it glances off. Fail and the Steps you failed by push you down a ladder: Dinged, Rattled, Reeling, Down. Each Dinged makes the next hit harder to shrug off, so a fight builds up.
Shine is a hero's luck, nerve and star quality in one number. You start each session with 1, and earn more when the GM brings one of your Twists into play: a person, a secret, a weakness or an obligation you chose when you made your hero. Spend Shine to reroll a failed check (any 1 to 10 counts as 10 more), shake off Rattled or Reeling, add a detail to the scene or ask the GM for a nudge.
Building a hero
Every hero is built from points, and nothing is random. Before anyone starts, the GM picks the game's Scale: 6 for street-level heroes, 10 for a city team (the default), 14 for heroes who save the world. Scale sets your budget, 15 build points for every point of Scale, and caps your traits so nobody is best at everything.
You spend those points on abilities, defences and skills, on powers built rank by rank with Boosts and Limits, and on Edges. Start from one of ten ready-made archetypes, or build from nothing. Then take one or two Twists.
Brightline in RollQuest
Set the Difficulty on your sheet to the number the GM calls, press an ability or skill, and RollQuest rolls the d20 and names the Steps, such as Success (2 Steps). After a failed check, Spend Shine to reroll appears under the result and takes the Shine off for you.
The character builder walks through Name Your Hero, Choose an Archetype and Spend Build Points, showing the points left as you spend and refusing a spend that breaks a cap. Powers are built on the sheet with Build, which sets a power's rank and its Boosts and Limits and counts what it costs. The sheet's rests are Catch Your Breath, for a pause in the action, and New Session, for the start of the next game.
Links and downloads
The Brightline rulebook (PDF) is the complete game: the world, how to play, making a hero and building powers, the rules, equipment, adversaries, running the game and a quick reference. Version 1.0, 85 pages, free.
RollQuest wrote and publishes Brightline. It's one of three games of our own, with Ashfall and Tidewrack.
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 is the licence on Brightline's rules, so you can use them in a game of your own.
Open rules
The game rules and mechanics in the Brightline rulebook (the checks, results, abilities, skills, powers, conditions, combat, advancement and the procedures that use them) are released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. You may copy, adapt and sell work that uses them, provided you credit: "Based on Brightline by RollQuest, licensed under CC BY 4.0."
Everything else stays © RollQuest, all rights reserved: the setting and its history, all names of people, places, factions and creatures, the stories and examples, the illustrations, the book design and the RollQuest name and logo.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Brightline rulebook free?
Yes. The PDF is free to download and read, and you don't need an account.
What dice do I need?
One d20 per player. It's the only die Brightline uses.
Can I use Brightline's rules in my own game?
Yes. The rules are under CC BY 4.0, so you can adapt and sell work that uses them with the credit line above. The setting, names and art are not part of that licence.
Is Brightline on the free plan?
Yes. Every game system, Brightline included, is on every plan, Free included.
Try it
Create a game on the free plan, choose Brightline under Game System, and build your first hero.