The System universal role playing game was originally designed in late 1985/early 1986 when most games were still genre-specific, and before the first generation universal role playing systems were available on the market. It went unpublished until 2011 until the content of this book was resurrected by the original designer, who did a small polish to the original ruleset, then typeset them with a decidedly retro (1st generation) RPG feel.
Resolution is by rolling under stat on 4d6, or rolling on an "Odds Table". Character creation is open point-based, buying 11 attributes (including Luck) along with various calculated abilities, and 5 skills with subskills. The 34-page core rules are currently available both as a free download directly from the designer and in a POD (print on-demand) form.
From the back of the cover (duplicate of excerpt from the 1985 introduction):
The System is a role-playing game which eliminates the need for a lot of different games. There are so many roleplaying games today that if a person wants to play in more than one type of setting, he has to learn a lot of different rules. By using The System, players can create characters for any time period or setting from medieval to science fiction future to a superhero world. Because there is one set of rules governing all these settings, it eliminates the need of learning several different games. All the rules needed are in this one book. However, supplements may be bought but are not needed to play by The System.
