Important Note

If you're looking for the 2004 edition of ForeSight currently in development, try here.


What is ForeSight?

ForeSight is a general purpose role-playing game. It is intended to be detailed, transparent, flexible, realistic, and highly playable.

By detailed I mean that ForeSight should do a good job of describing game objects, particularly characters, but also culture, artifacts, and technology.

By transparent I mean that ForeSight should not colour the underlying setting. I believe that game systems should not be "grafted onto" settings, requiring GMs to create and players to learn new rules for new settings, but "adaptable to" settings. This means that the game must provide explicit mechanisms to account for likely differences between an imagined setting and what we know of history.

By flexible I mean that ForeSight should allow the gamut of character types and actions to be well-represented, and not just "typical" adventurer types. Thus ForeSight can represent ordinary people as well as outcasts and geniuses. It can represent social intercourse as well as gun play.

By highly playable, I mean that ForeSight should not get in the way of role-play. As much as possible, ForeSight's implied descriptions of the game world should be enough to allow play to be "winged" by the GM rather than "resolved" using specific game mechanics. When game mechanics are used, it should be easy to apply them and the rules should seldom, if ever, need to be consulted.

ForeSight has been described as "the rules you can remember". This edition of ForeSight is a complete rewrite. Since I am lazy, it will hopefully be shorter and even easier to remember.

Why Online?

This is an experiment to find out if people are really interested in "yet another" role-playing system. My guess is that, despite its virtues, ForeSight will not be a runaway success, but if enough people are interested enough to use ForeSight and send me feedback, I will do my best to expand and improve this site.

By online edition I mean a completely rewritten edition of the game designed for use in this form, and not the dumpware version of ForeSight Enhanced previously (and still) available at this site. As such, I am open to comments and criticism of the structure of this version, whether it's complaints about missing hypertext links, or requests that certain modules be republished sooner rather than later.

Like all web sites, this one is incomplete and under construction. I have far less than an infinite amount of time, so I hope you'll bear with me and help me prioritise my work.

The Story so Far

ForeSight is a home-made but, I believe, professional quality role-playing system that has sold perhaps 200 copies to 150 people to date in printed form. I believe that many of these copies are still in use. Over its lifespan it has gone through four distinct versions:

ForeSight is a role-playing game intended for use in relatively realistic settings, and human-scale characters. It centres on detailed character creation, representation, and development systems, and a single versatile resolution system. Understand these and you will have little trouble with any other aspect of ForeSight. This online edition is a stripped down to the bone version of the printed rules.