Simple Freeform Combat: Keywords

I dislike most OSR game combat. This is my attempt to fix that with a simple system that rewards player creativity.

The Basics.

On your turn, you can attack and then do something else, such as move, use an item, or spend a keyword.

Weapons (and other items) have keywords attached to them. These keywords can be used to do cool things based on the word, but after a keyword has been used, it is spent until the party rests in a safe place or a whetstone is used on it.

Example.

Torr, in his conquests of the north, has come face to face with an armored knight as his opponent. Torr is currently using a Longaxe, which has the keywords cleave, sweep, and hack.

On his first turn, Torr attacks and then spends the hack keyword to hack into his opponent, making a second attack.

On his second turn, Torr attacks and then spends the sweep keyword to sweep his axe under his opponent's feet and attempt to trip him.

On his third turn, Torr attacks and spends the cleave keyword to cleave his opponent's shield in half.

On his fourth turn, Torr attacks and kills his opponent.

Ok So How Does it Actually Work?

When you spend a keyword, you can perform an action that would be reasonably described by that word. Attempting to cleave a man in half and attempting to cleave two men with one attack are both reasonable interpretations of the cleave keyword.

This system is inherently a bit cursed by "Mother May I?" syndrome. This is, ultimately, a curse shared by most systems trying to create interesting combat that's simple. You can't provide a pile of rules to make content fun, or it stops being simple, so it becomes the GM's problem. 

I believe there is a simple way to help make this system better: keywords all have an example of a reasonable action. These examples are not the only actions available, but a simple option for new players and GM's to take. For example:

Cleave: Deal damage to a second enemy in weapon range.

Sweep: Enemy saves or is knocked prone.

Hack: Make an additional attack.

Keywords are based on the weapon, with better weapons having access to more keywords. Any given keyword should be equivalent in power to any other keyword, so a weapon with 3 keywords should just be better than one with a single keyword. This makes weapons feel different and does so in a way that is obvious and simple to understand.

Taking It Further

You might be thinking "can we go further?"

Yes. Yes we can.

A mage might have a staff with the keywords fire, smoke, and eruption. These are the mage's spells, and what they do with them is up to them. Now mages and fighters play by the same rules, and quadratic wizard linear fighter isn't an issue.

Maybe a priest gets a gift from their god and gains a keyword rebuke. What does that do? No clue, let them decide. The fighter gets cursed by an obelisk and has horns, gains the keyword horns. Perhaps she can gore someone, or charge with her horns!

The enemies can have keywords! A wolf could have keywords howl and rip, with examples of abilities those could represent for the GM that doesn't want to balance abilities on the fly!

This isn't a fully fledged system, it's an idea that could be made into a fully fledged system. I hope it's somewhere between interesting and inspiring.