By The Intrepid in JARLS — 02 Dec 2025

The JARLS Manifesto: Trust Over Compliance

Prelude: The Age of Manuals

Every field eventually drowns in its own documentation.
Software did it. Government did it. Tabletop role-playing games certainly did it.

By the late 2010s, game shelves and digital libraries were groaning under the weight of 300-page tomes for what were once five-page ideas. A GM couldn’t improvise a street chase without consulting a subreddit, a designer couldn’t release a supplement without an errata spreadsheet. Somewhere between “roll initiative” and “check the forums,” the act of play turned into the performance of compliance.

So we wrote something small.
And then realized we’d accidentally written a manifesto.

What Agile Was to Software, JARLS Is to Play

In 2001, a group of software developers met in the mountains and quietly overturned decades of bureaucratic process with the Agile Manifesto. They didn’t invent collaboration or iteration — they just named the thing everyone was already doing when they stopped pretending the paperwork mattered more than the product.

Two decades later, tabletop designers and players are in a similar place. The hobby’s most interesting games are already light, fast, and human. The rules lawyers are tired. The referees are trusted. The real work happens at the table — not in errata, not in canon, not in the sacred text of “RAW.”

The JARLS Manifesto simply says this out loud.

The Four Values

TRUST over compliance
JUDGMENT over legislation
LOCAL over centralized
HUMANS over systems

That’s it. Four statements. Enough to guide an entire philosophy of play.

1. Trust over Compliance

We play with people, not parsers.
Trust means assuming goodwill and competence at the table — that the GM isn’t your adversary, that players aren’t gaming the rules, that ambiguity isn’t a bug to be patched but a space to explore.

When you have trust, you don’t need 50 pages of contingency clauses. You make a call, you move on, and the fiction keeps breathing.

2. Judgment over Legislation

Every good GM is a judge, not a lawyer. They weigh context, tone, and rhythm more than precedent.
A written rule can’t anticipate a cinematic flourish, or the weird elegance of a clever workaround.

The manifesto doesn’t say “ignore rules.” It says: use them as tools, not commandments.
Write what must exist to start play, and stop before you turn a game into a legal code.

3. Local over Centralized

JARLS belongs to the tables that use it, not to the people who wrote it.
Every campaign is its own jurisdiction. Every GM a circuit court.

We don’t need canon. We need culture.
We don’t need organized play; we need organized trust.
If something doesn’t fit, change it. Don’t ask permission from the internet.

4. Humans over Systems

Systems are scaffolds for stories, not replacements for them.
When the structure starts overshadowing the people using it, the system has become an idol.
RPGs are at their best when they feel like conversation, not software.

The point of JARLS isn’t minimalism for its own sake — it’s to keep the human signal audible through the static of process.

Why Say It Out Loud?

Because it’s already happening.
Tables are hacking their games, trimming their rules, trusting each other again.
They just need a name for what they’re doing — a banner to rally under without guilt.

Agile worked because it described a revolution already in progress.
JARLS does the same: it gives language and legitimacy to an instinct most players already have — to play smarter, faster, and freer.

A Movement, Not a Method

The JARLS Manifesto isn’t a new OSR, FKR, or design school. It’s a convergence point for all of them — a shared shorthand for human-first, judgment-based play.

A designer can say, “My game follows the JARLS principles,” and players will know what that means:
short, sharp rules; trust over compliance; people before procedure.

We’re not declaring independence from systems — we’re declaring independence from system worship.

How to Use It

You don’t have to cite it. You don’t have to believe in it.
Just look at your table and ask:

Do we trust each other more than we trust the book?
Are we making judgment calls instead of citing rulings?
Are we treating the rules as ours, not theirs?
Are we still human in the process?

If yes, congratulations: you’re already playing JARLS.

Postscript: The Grey Ledger Society

Movements don’t start with manifestos; they start with people admitting they’re tired of pretending.

So here’s our admission: we’re tired of pretending we need permission to play.

If that resonates, you’re one of us.
No membership form, no Discord, no canon.
Just a principle: trust the table.

Print this. Fold it into your rulebook. Or don’t.
You already know how to play.

“Light rules. Heavy meaning. Every scar tells a story.”

PERFECT.

EMERGENCY MICRO-SRD INSERT

REAL-WORLD OLYMPIA CHECKS

The JARLS system works for everything. Including this.

Finding dog poop in leaves at night:

Savvy check, Hard (14)
Gear: Flashlight grants +2 (now Standard 12)
Complications on failure: You find it with your shoe (take +1 Stress from the injustice of it all)

Getting dog to poop when it's cold out:

Charm check, Hard (14)
On success: Dog cooperates within reasonable timeframe
On failure: Dog sniffs every blade of grass for 20 minutes, accomplishes nothing, goes inside and immediately asks to go back out

Remembering to bring poop bags:

Savvy check, Standard (12)
Flashback available: "I prepared for this" (spend 1 Stress, you stuffed extras in your coat pocket last week)

Explaining to partner why you forgot poop bags AGAIN:

Charm check, Extreme (16)
On failure: Partner deploys The Look (you know the one)
Heat +1 (domestic oversight has flagged your pattern)

THE DELIA PLAYBOOK

Stats: Strength +1, Agility +2, Savvy -1, Charm +3
Edge: Irresistible Eyes (+2 Charm when begging)
Flaw: Easily Distracted (must investigate every smell)

Special Ability - Selective Hearing:
Once per walk, ignore any command. Automatically succeed at "look innocent about it."

Bond with Human: Starts at 4 (Trusted)

Grants Advantage on "one more treat?" checks
Human will cover for you anywhere, anytime
You manipulate them effortlessly and they're grateful for it

OLYMPIA BUT IT'S JUST PET OWNERSHIP

The Council's Optimization:

"Canine requires 2.3 walks per day for optimal wellness"
"Feeding schedule must align with circadian rhythm"
"Enrichment activities mandatory to prevent behavioral degradation"

Reality:

Dog wants walk at 11 PM
Dog refuses breakfast, demands yours
Dog's enrichment is destroying couch cushion

The Horror:

You love this creature
This creature owns you
The system (dog) has optimized you (human) into servant
You're grateful for it

This is Olympia but the Council is a beagle.

"Every rule remembers what it costs. Including the rule about picking up after your dog."