Editing Ghostbusters RPG (section)

==System==
Deliciously simple, the ''Ghostbusters RPG'' system used 4 basic Traits: ''Brains'', ''Muscles'', ''Moves'', and ''Cool''.  To create a character, simply spread 12 points over those four Traits, putting at least one in each.  For normal characters, five is the highest any Trait can be at character creation, but that's not a hard limit, and isn't imposed on [[NPC|NPCs]] or the pregenerated characters (see ''Setting'').

To perform an action, a player rolls as many [[D6|six-siders]] as the character has in the relevant Trait and tries to beat a number set depending on the difficulty of the task.  Woah, hold on there.  One of those dice has to be the Ghost Die, which doesn't have a 6, it has a nifty ghost symbol.  If that side comes up, the player is screwed; it's a Bad Thing, and whether the roll makes it or not, Shit Happens.  Conversely, when a [[Gamemaster|GM]] rolls a ghost, it works in the favour of the ghosts.  Raw deal, players.

Each of the four Traits gets a Talent, like a skill that's associated with the Trait.  If it's relevant to the roll (like if Venkman is making a Moves roll to trick some [[Hot Chicks|hottie]] into bed with him, his Seduce Talent is absolutely relevant) then 3 more dice get thrown in the [[Dice pool|pool]].

Even more dice can be added to the pool with the expenditure of Brownie Points, which were a very early showing of hero points.  They also acted as experience points ‒ spending 30 bought a new point in a Trait, whereas a Trait could be sold off by a desperate character for 20 Brownie Points.  In the original game, they also acted as [[HP|hit points]], but that was later replaced by a slightly saner system in ''Ghostbusters International'' that just imposed penalties to Traits as characters got progressively beaten up.

Another surprisingly insightful feature was the inclusion of Goals for characters, which encouraged roleplay ‒ remember, [[Old School Roleplaying|this was published in the 80s]].