About Avalaf Publishing
Avalaf Publishing is an independent tabletop game studio based in the UK, dedicated to building immersive worlds using a single system, Primepath, that provides a consistent style of play. Through Primepath we give you the tools needed to create your own worlds within that style of play.
That style of play revolves around quick mechanics that get out of the way at the table but also allow player agency within the context of the moment to affect the developing story.
Complexity sits in the background; there is a depth in the preparation. This allows a level of detail normally reserved for crunchier systems. This creates exciting opportunities to truly differentiate individual characters and worlds from the standard archetypes.
Avalaf Publishing aims to deliver a system that is sympathetic to your settings while preserving the style of play it is created for. Whether you’re telling tales in a haunted glen, a neon-lit city, or a war-torn star system –
“Depth in Preparation, Simplicity in Play”
About Primepath
Primepath is a modular, classless tabletop RPG system. It is built to provide a specific style of gameplay that will appeal to those who like crunch but also speed at the table. The emphasis on degrees of success inside a bounded structure provides opportunities for narrative play within the context of the moment, giving structure to the outcomes. It supports any setting: whether fantasy, sci-fi, historical, or modern and is ideal for both long campaigns and one-shot adventures. Its aims are:
- transparent and consistently applied rules;
- one roll revealing the degree of the outcome;
- player decisions having genuine weight;
- the table interpreting results within the context of the moment;
- substantial depth during character and setting preparation;
- minimal mechanical interruption during actual play.
Why I Created Primepath
Primepath came from a background of trauma, not my trauma – my roleplay group’s. I perhaps need to back that up a bit. My favourite system in all the world was Rolemaster, but I play with a group of 50-somethings who remember table hell; photocopying the weapon tables and critical tables would cost the same as a new MERP module. Before digital, before all the modern technology existed to make a great game bearable at the table.
We had been playing Fantasy AGE (FAGE) for a while among many, many other things and while it’s also a great system, it lacked what I wanted, and to an extent, what my players wanted.
I needed the depth of Rolemaster, with the flexibility of FAGE without the break in verisimilitude at the table, without analysis paralysis. That is what I set out to create and that is what I think I have achieved.
The moral of the story is: “If you refuse to play the game the GM wants to play, he’ll just write the game he wants you to play.”
Ken Laidlaw
