Representing the OSR

Next month, Scott, Rowan and Shane are hosting Busan Con 2026, a two-day (maybe three with the Buddha's birthday being a holiday on that Monday) event. Aside from volunteering to help out with whatever needs doing, I'll be running a Star Wars d6 game for sure (This is the May), and probably a Missions & Mayhem game if I can get something together in time. The deadline to sign up to run games in the 19th. 

A guy named Dave, who I've only interacted with online, wants to run a workshop for new GMs. He asked for any experienced GMs to volunteer to be on his panel. It seems like most folks in and around Busan these days run very story-centric games, whether they're using 5E, PF2E, Daggerheart, or any of a myriad of indie games. And most people who'd sign up to share their GMing wisdom would be in that school of gaming. I signed up to be the OSR guy on the panel. 

Unlike some die hard OSR folks, I don't mind the more story-focused gaming crowd. It's not exactly my thing, as I've blogged about before. But at the same time, I see lots of people having fun with a game that prioritizes the PCs' character growth and playing out a storyline. Honestly, my Star Wars game has been fairly story-oriented, although not so much about a PC living out their "story." Missions & Mayhem is also very mission based, obviously, so each session I'm pretty much dropping the players into an ongoing story. I'm not demanding any particular sort of ending for the missions, though. That's up to the players to determine. 

For the workshop, Dave and I chatted a bit yesterday. He said he'd like each GM on the panel to give a 7-8 minute presentation on their DMing style, then he'll have us field some questions from him, then open it up to the audience. And if there's time, maybe one of the GMs can run a quick impromptu game with the folks to show off their style. 

Being an OSR representative, I'll probably be focused on the notion that sandbox play doesn't need tons of prep like many people think. Random tables and stocking procedures can save you a lot of time. And making an open world with situations, rather than story lines. I'll probably also get in a bit about backstory getting in the way of action, and how Gygax is reputed to have said something like "The first three levels of your PC ARE your backstory." 

I should look up to see what Gygax's actual quote was, or if that's even something he said and not just internet apocrypha.  

It should be fun! 

October Means Castlevania

 Last month, I replayed Castlevania Symphony of the Night. I'll probably replay a few more CV games over the course of this month, as we head towards Halloween. And of course, as I've mentioned before, some day I want to create a Castlevania megadungeon and run that campaign. I've made two abortive attempts at it in the past, and way way back, when I finally made my version of The Haunted Keep in Karameikos (BECMI Known World), the dungeon was heavily inspired by Castlevania. But it wasn't a big, sprawling, exploration-focused megadungeon. It was really pretty railroady looking over it these days.

While on my evening walk with my 11yo the other night, we were talking a bit about gaming (computer and table top), and he was asking about my SotN replay. I finished it off last weekend (I took a trip to Istanbul, maybe more on that in a future post). And I mentioned I'd like to run a D&D Castlevania game some day. But he suggested I should run it not with D&D but with d6 System. 

That's something I hadn't considered before. Besides D&D, I have considered RetroPhaze, the OSR game designed to emulate 8-bit and 16-bit JRPGs as the game engine. I think it might make a decent fit for the game. I've also considered modifying d20 Modern/d20 Past for the game. But honestly, I don't need to get back into the headache of running the 3E-era d20 system again. 

d6 System may be easy to run, but as I was saying in my previous post, one thing it (and many other games) lack is a good step-by-step procedural system for managing exploration. Star Wars d6 assumed you'd be running the game almost like an interactive movie, jumping from scene to scene. And while that would work if I wanted to emulate some of the NES CV games (and various remakes), if I want something like SotN, where exploration of the environment leads to hidden treasures and access to new areas, D&D is still the way to go. 

Or port some of those systems into d6, something I could do. I did it with 5E, and more or less it worked. I quit running 5E mostly because it's too focused on the simple core mechanic but with way too many exception-based special abilities. 

If I ever do this, it will still likely be old school D&D based. The monsters, character types, spells, mechanics, etc. are all there. I'd be going through and removing some options from what exists, rather than adding in new stuff that isn't there to begin with. That's always a lot easier to do. 

This is making me reconsider my revision to the first draft of Flying Swordsmen 2E. I've been going through it and streamlining the presentation. Simplifying my wording. Making the martial arts techniques simpler and easier to understand and hopefully implement. I'm nearly through the techniques, having about half of the Ku (black magic) techniques, the final set, left to pare down. I've done the Introduction, How to Play, Character Creation, and Skills sections. Once I get through with Techniques, I have Equipment, then GM focused stuff. As I revise and slim down my verbiage in the GM section, I may be putting in a few procedural systems for running exploration, NPC interactions/relationship building, martial arts training, etc. It's already there for Combat, of course. 

I've got a real good feeling about this revision to the draft. I think it may end up being my best bit of game design. We'll see.  

Gearing Up for a Play Test

 I've got the Flying Swordsmen 2E rules in what I think are playable condition. So, after today's Star Wars d6 game, I asked the guys if they'd be willing to try out these rules next time. They said OK, although Flynn, my older son, still wants to play more Star Wars while he's here for the summer. I can manage both of those things. 

 This evening, I copy/pasted the player facing rules into a new document, and edited it a little. I saved it as a PDF, but now I'm thinking, even though it's just a play test document, maybe I should add some art to it. Not all of my players have a lot of experience watching wuxia movies. Art could help. 

This will be mostly art taken from movies, because this document shouldn't be seen by anyone but my players. When I am closer to ready to publish, I'll have to make the decision to stick with public domain art like in 1E (probably recycle a lot of the art I did use there), or maybe try to run a Kickstarter or IndieGoGo campaign to fund some original art. I suck at self-promotion, so I'll probably save myself the stress and just use the PD art again. But we'll see. 

For now, I'm excited to share these rules with the group, see what sorts of PCs they come up with, and then form some adventures and test the rules in play.  

Progress on Flying Swordsmen 2E

 In the past few days, I've been pretty busy. My older boy is back in Korea for summer vacation. I'm working on my next research paper. I've also been painting some minis in my spare time to relax. Oh, and I've got the first draft of Flying Swordsmen 2E more or less finished. I still need to add some examples (NPCs, making adventures, a sample of how a game plays). But the basic mechanics for creating characters, training/improving characters, running the game, creating campaigns and adventures, setting rewards, and the setting information are all there. 

I will need to decide if I want to license art this time, or stick to PD images...

 

The past two days, I've been going through it with find/replace to make sure I'm consistent with names of the skills, powers, abilities, etc. including which ones are capitalized, in italics, and so on. I also have used some words too often. 

Ability is used for the six main stats of the game (Prowess, Might, Agility, Observation, Presence, Education) but I also have used it indiscriminately to talk about capacities. 

Power is used for the special martial arts stats (Qinggong [lightness], Neigong [internal], Dianxue [acupressure], Suan Ming [divination], Wu [white magic], and Ku [black magic]) that allow for the use of Techniques (martial arts maneuvers, spells, feats). I also talk about creature powers, power as in political or social clout, etc. 

Luckily, I seem to have stuck to using skill mostly for mechanical skills within the game. 

My document is A4, single column, mostly 12 point font. Obviously headers use larger fonts, and some of the tables and some notes I use 10.5 point font. The document is 147 pages long, including 16 pages with character templates (two per page). No art yet, other than my Zhongyang Dalu map from the first edition.

I've got 41 skills, 108 techniques, around 60 monsters, 25 sample magic items (with notes on how to design more), and detailed but hopefully simple rules for combat including actions, reactions, special maneuvers, improvised weaponry, special types of damage (energy, poison, etc.), and so on. I've got a system for training new skills, and one for learning new Powers and Techniques. These are similar, but not exactly the same. Skills are a little easier to learn than a new Power, but if your Power increases you can learn a Technique automatically. 

Once I get done with the terminology consistency passes, I'll make a separate document with just the player facing information and work up an adventure or two to playtest the rules with my group.

Monsters in Flying Swordsmen 2E

I've been writing up the monsters for Flying Swordsmen 2E. I have around 50 of them (monsters and animals, not stock NPCs) total, and around 20 left to stat up. I've been basing a lot of them off of the OGL d6 Fantasy Creatures book, but with some modifications to fit the system I came up with for FS2E. 

A lot of the descriptions have just been copy/pasted from the original Flying Swordsmen, but there are some places where I've made some changes. One thing I did with the dragons is to make sure they all have some sort of special environmental effects they can create to make fighting them more challenging but also more interesting. 

Having done that, though, it makes me realize just how similar many of the monsters are to each other. Similar dice codes for abilities and skills. There's not really a huge range. Most creatures have attacks and skills at around 4 or 5 dice. 

I have given special abilities to some monsters, and some also get martial arts Powers and Techniques (Powers are sort of like the Force Skills in Star Wars d6, Techniques are a combination of the martial arts maneuvers and spells from 1E Flying Swordsmen, with a few new things thrown in). That helps distinguish some of the monsters. But I think I need to go through and figure out ways to make monsters more interesting. I think human opponents and rivals will be primary antagonists of the game, but there should be interesting monsters to fight when you have to throw in a monster.

It's a Problem of Tone

 I've been reading over some of my draft of Flying Swordsmen 2E, and I'm not happy with it. 

Well, I'm happy with the d6 system, and the mechanics I'm using for the game. I'm not happy with the tone of my writing so far. 

I was hoping for a nice, friendly, guiding hand explaining the game and how to play. Similar to Frank Mentzer's tone in the old Basic Set. But reading it over, there are a lot of places where I'm slipping into "professor" mode and explaining concepts for the advanced referee and player, rather than for the new gamer. I've also got a lot of sections that are too much like 3E D&D's rules lawyery tone. 

Luckily, it's still the first draft, and I've just barely started in the section for the referee on how to create adventures and run the game. 

I feel like I need to go over what I've already written and simplify and clarify my writing. I also need to figure out the best way to explain some of the more detailed mechanics. I want martial arts battles to include strikes, parries & dodges, ripostes and reversals, just like in the wuxia source material. d6 allows for that, easily, but my explanations of the mechanics feel too technical in many areas, and over-explained in others. 

I know that good writing habits are to get that first draft done before going back to revise. But I think in this case, revising what I've already got and trying to give it a consistent tone will make writing the rest of the book much more enjoyable. And hopefully, clear and fun for the players and referees to read as well.

Update on Flying Swordsmen 2E

Progress has been slow, but I am making progress on the game draft. 

I've got the first draft of the character generation guide. It's only two pages, so it's pretty basic. I plan to add a detailed guide to both picking a template and building a character from scratch later, once the actual rules and the combat system are nailed down a bit more.

I've got a list of about two dozen template ideas. Once I've got the rules stuff more or less complete, I plan to show what I've got to my various play groups (TS&R Jade, Star Wars, Call of Cthulhu), and ask them to help me test the system for character creation. Then I can use what they create for some of the templates. It will save me some time, and prevent some of my own character preferences from biasing the sample. (Can you guess I've been more focused on academics than gaming lately?)

I have write-ups for all of the system's basic skills. It's d6 system, so a referee could easily add more skills to the game as they wish. I don't have sample difficulty numbers yet though. I'll be cross referencing Star Wars and d6 Fantasy for that. And then when I finally get around to play-testing, I'll adjust the numbers based on whether certain tasks seem too easy or too difficult. One thing that I did try to do was to make sure that there is at least one skill useful in combat under each Ability. Star Wars has a lot of situations that don't involve combat, so there is room for the know-it-alls and the fix-it-up guys and the get-you-from-here-to-there guys to shine, along with the dedicated blow-you-to-bits guys. Wuxia should have plenty of non-combat stuff, but a lot of it in the source media is more managing relationships rather than testing your learned proficiencies. So combat should probably play a bigger part, and I want room for characters to specialize in evasive or manipulative techniques in combat, not just punchy punchy Street Fighter types. So I'm pretty happy with that. 

I also have suggested Specializations for each of the skills. 

I'm in the middle of writing up the special martial arts/mystical techniques. These are all inspired by the martial arts maneuvers, spells, and special class abilities in Flying Swordsmen. Mechanically, they work somewhat like the SW Force powers, or like 3E D&D feats. Or like special ability trees in a video game. There are six Powers, and getting trained in a Power grants access to its techniques. One die in the Power grants access to the Level 1 Basic technique. Gaining a second die in the power grants access to three to five Level 2 techniques. Gaining the third die grants access to Level 3 techniques, but only those based on the Level 2 techniques you have learned. 

I've drafted text (including difficulties) for the Qinggong (light step), Neigong (body power), Dianxue (acupressure), and Suan Ming (divination) techniques. I'm working on the Wu (white magic) techniques, leaving only Ku (black magic) techniques to get this section of the rules done. 

Some techniques are automatic ("always on") while most need to be used as actions. Some have unlimited use, others with more power are limited to a number of times per day equal to the dice in the governing Power, or just once per 24 hours for some really powerful ones. And some are unlimited in use until you roll a 1 on the Wild Die while activating it, then you need to wait for the cool-down period to finish before using it again.

In addition to all that, I've got a series of questions based on the Virtues of the Xia and general goal advancement which, similar to White Wolf games I've played, would need to be answered by players at the end of a session or adventure to gain Character Points. I've got guidelines for spending CP to improve skills and Powers, and spending them to gain additional techniques and learning new Powers. And, of course, they can also be spent from time to time to improve rolls. And a few high level techniques rely on spending some CP as a balance measure to prevent their abuse. 

I've got weapon lists, but I'm still playing around with them. I need to decide how certain weapon properties will interact with the combat system, especially around making special maneuvers like flips, blocks, holds, disarms, reversals, etc. I've got a basic Combat Resolution guide draft complete, but I need to add more detail, and especially go into those special maneuvers (and their difficulty numbers). 

The Education ability has a skill called Stratagems which in addition to covering battlefield strategy and tactics, allows for special maneuvers like those mentioned above. The difficulties for using a regular combat skill (like Sword Combat) to say disarm an opponent will be higher than for using the Stratagems skill. But certain weapons, like a hook sword, may allow you to attempt disarms at the Stratagems difficulty level. But then that all has to play well with the basic difficulties to hit with certain classes of weapon and with unarmed martial arts. So I've got a lot of number crunching and experimentation in the future, once I get the draft sorted out and a bunch of sample characters made. 

And there is a lot still to write. I've got to make monsters, magical treasures, update the FS 1E campaign world (or make a generic guide for "fantasy China" or maybe both), and write up the guidelines for creating adventures, interesting NPCs and locations, and challenges. 

And once all that's done (or more likely done piecemeal while working on all of the above), I should start working on a guideline for Wuxia. Probably not as extensive as those in Brendan Davis's Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate or Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades (which are both quite impressive!) but useful to players who might approach this game expecting D&D style hack and slash gaming, only to find a game made for martial arts soap operas.

Rise from Your Grave (again)

 Hoo-boy, it's been a minute since I've posted here. Well, I've been pretty busy with non-gaming stuff the past couple of weeks, but also a bit of gaming here and there. 

The big thing is that this morning, I pulled up my design notes for a revised, second edition of Flying Swordsmen, this time powered by the Open D6 system. I read through what I'd written, and made some edits and modifications here and there. In particular, I read through the notes on the 108 Martial Arts Techniques* and made some of them a bit more distinctive. Some were more or less the same mechanical effect with just different flavor text, which is boring.

I'd also done a simple character sheet, but I wasn't happy with it. I gave it a big revision, turning it from one sheet to two, and making more space for characterization, notes on your Sifu (master/teacher) or organization, your goals, your rivals, and the like. It's not just game mechanics and a bit of fluff now. I like it much better. 

Then, I wrote the first draft of a Preface, explaining the creation of Dragon Fist, Flying Swordsmen as a retro-clone of DF, and my dissatisfaction with both games, necessitating this new edition. It needs a bit of work as I can be overly wordy. 

And I just finished with an outline for the chapters in the book, and what each chapter should cover. Of course, this is also still likely to change as I actually get into turning my notes into actual text. And I've got to decide how much to update/edit the Zhongyang Dalu setting, or else just copy/paste that. I could actually get dinged for self-plagiarism if I do the latter, so I'll probably have to rewrite it. 

Here's what I've got so far: 

Introduction

-What is this game? RPG Basics

-What is wuxia? Background and Tropes

-Recommended Wuxia Media

-Getting the Right Feel

Playing the Game

-Abilities, Skills, Powers, Techniques

-Basic Action Resolution

-The Wild Die

-Combat Basics

-The Five Virtues and Advancement

-Example of Play

Character Creation

-Think of a Concept

-Select a Template (Simple) or

-Assign Ability Dice and Powers (Advanced)

-Assign Skill Dice

-Personality, Flaw, Background, Sifu, Relationships

-Example Character Creation

Abilities and Skills

-Ability Basics: Prowess, Might, Agility, Presence, Education, Observation

-Skills and Specializations

-Improving Skills

-Skill List

Powers and Techniques

-Powers Basics: Qinggong (Lightness), Neigong (Internal Power), Dianxue (Acupressure), Suan Ming (divination), Wu (White Magic), Ku (Black Magic)

-Training New Techniques

-Techniques List

Running the Game

-Creating Challenges

-Action Resolution (detailed)

-Combat (detailed)

-Training (detailed)

-Rewards of Play

-Creating NPCs

-Creating the World

-Using NPCs and the World as Challenges

-The Stages of Campaign Development

Monsters and Magic

-Monster List

-Magic Items

-Legendary Items

The Setting

-Using Quasi-Historical China

-Using Zhongyang Dalu

-Using Your Own World

-Zhongyang Dalu Overview

Character Templates

I've Been Away, and d6 Flying Swordsmen Thoughts

Last week, the family took a vacation to Japan. We met up with quite a few old friends, ate a lot of great Japanese food, and brushed up on our Japanese skills. I also found out that I've come to instinctually say thanks to people in Korean, which got a few confused looks and annoyed my wife (who is Korean). 

Unfortunately, my wife caught covid while we were there, and I got it from her after we got home. It's not too bad this second time around. The first time I got it, back in 2021, I was on my ass for a day and a half or so, and it was like a bad flu. This time, it's more like a cold, and not an especially bad one, either. Which is good. Anyway, I'm feeling better today. 

While I haven't been blogging much, I have been tinkering with ideas for a second edition of Flying Swordsmen, using Open d6. I mentioned that before. So far, I think I have the Abilities, basic Skills, and special Martial Arts Powers and Techniques all listed out. I based the Powers and Techniques off of class bonuses, martial arts maneuvers, and spells from the 1st edition, but the list is pretty slimmed down. There are a few new things on the list as well. 

The Powers are modeled on the Force Skills in Star Wars d6. For each full Die in a Power, you get a Technique (or two?). So far, I've got six Powers, each granting a basic Technique with the first die. When additional dice are gained, there are several choices like feat trees that players can choose from. Some techniques are limited by how many dice you have in the power, and by prerequisite lesser Techniques. 

I've been monkeying around with weapon stats, using Star Wars and d6 Fantasy as a basis. The two games have some different assumptions, so I'll end up going my own route with them. For now, though, I'm finding it a bit hard to differentiate some of the weapons. I think I need to sit down and work out the combat system in a bit more detail.

I decided one Ability will be Prowess, which covers melee weapons combat, with skills for different weapon groups. Thrown and Missile weapons are under Agility, while Kung Fu (unarmed strikes) are under Might. There's a Stratagem skill under Intelligence that I want to use for special maneuvers and the like, but certain weapons would allow certain special maneuvers with the base combat skill. So if you want to disarm someone and you're wielding a straight sword or a halberd, you'd need to use Stratagem. But if you have a hook sword or a double-stick (nunchaku), you could use your Sword Combat or Chain Combat skill, depending on your weapon, with a slightly higher Difficulty. 

I need to work out the Kung Fu skill in a bit more detail. It will combine Brawling and the Martial Arts subskill from Star Wars, so you can use it to pummel opponents, but also to try to pull reverses, throws, use your opponent's momentum against them, and all that sort of thing. I need to figure out what the standard Difficulties should be for those sorts of things, and how easy or hard it should be for the opponent to resist/counter the attacks. There's also a Stance skill (under Agility) that allows for dodging or avoiding attacks, and Stratagem could also be used to perform special attacks, as mentioned above.

It may take a bit of time to work that out, and then to test the system, but I think the flexibility of the d6 system will fit better with a martial arts combat game than the AD&D system that Flying Swordsmen 1E (and Dragon Fist before it) used. 

Oh, and I've got to work up rules for dealing with a Sifu or organization that trained you, rivals, backgrounds, missions and secrets. The real fun of wuxia fiction, which I think 1E FS didn't quite get, is in the character building and interplay. I have some ideas on how to make that a core driver of game play (because fighting monsters and collecting treasure won't work for this game), but it will need some work as well.

My Star Wars d6

The longer I play my side campaign of WEG d6 Star Wars, the more I tinker with the rules. It's a pretty flexible system, after all. Recently, I've been codifying my rules changes for the benefit of my players, especially since there are a few new people in the group. 

When I started the game, I had only the fan-edited Revised, Updated, and Expanded rules document. I've mentioned before what a beast of a PDF this thing is. It's not the most intuitively edited document, but it does cover a lot of material that was never officially in WEG products, which is handy. I've been supplementing that with material from Wookieepedia and sites like RPGGamer.org, and reading what other referees have done with the game. The Star Wars EU Timeline has a treasure trove of WEG sourcebooks, adventures, and whatnot as well.

One of the changes I made early on was to eliminate the "parry" skills and just use the attack skill for both action and reaction. So you only need Melee Combat skill, not Melee Combat and Melee Parry. Not many players were putting dice into Melee or Brawling anyway, so it hasn't been a balance problem. 

I haven't outlawed specializing, but I haven't promoted those rules, either. If a player read about it, and wanted to do that, I'd allow it, but it's a bit easier to just have them put full dice in a general skill. 

That said, the recommended starting 7 skill dice is too paltry. I've doubled it to 14 for starting characters, but still with the limit of no more than 2 dice per skill. And 10 CP on character creation, not 5. No need to be so stingy. My players spend them on rolls all the time!

Since I got the 30th Anniversary reprint of the original rules, I've adopted some of those systems over the ones in the REUP/2nd edition. 

For one, I use abstract ranges (short, medium, long) for starship combat, rather than tracking individual speeds and distances. Much easier. We haven't had a ton of starship combat in my game over the years. It's primarily been planet-side adventure. 

Another thing I've only recently introduced is the 1st edition method of using the Force. Instead of making Jedi characters slowly gain skill dice and slowly add to their power list like selecting feats in 3E D&D, I have a general list of Force power difficulties, and if they try something unusual with the Force, I'll improvise. Right now, there is only one Force-user in the group, my son Steven's PC. And he rarely uses his Force powers, as he's more interested in buying gadgets and droids to help him out (and previous players with Jedi/Force Users drew the attention of Sith Inquisitors...). 

Finally, I've decided that Abilities can't be improved. The rules in 2nd Edition for that are kinda wonky, and are the sort of thing that might lead to player dissatisfaction. I know I wouldn't be happy if I gave up skill improvements or spending CP for a better chance to succeed on rolls to save up for an Ability improvement, then because of poor rolls I waste half of the points I saved and don't get the improvement, I'd be upset. Anyway, it's easier to just keep abilities where they are on the template, and have players improve individual skills. 

I've made some handy reference sheets for my players, and put them in our group Discord server. These are all updated with my most recent additions and changes. 

d6 Basic Rules This covers basic actions and resolution mechanics.

Force Skills Simplified This gives players guidance on how to Use the Force.

Starship Combat Rules Simplified My version of starship combat, trying to make it as simple and easy as possible for the players. 

Star Wars Gear Lists A collection of official and fan-made (some by myself) standard gear to keep from having to scroll through the huge PDF all the time when characters go shopping. Of course, they often ask for things not on this list, so back to the PDF (or to RPGGamer.org) we go...

d6-y Time

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the release of Star Wars (what the kids today know as Episode 4: A New Hope) in theaters back in 1977. And yes, I'm running another session of my Star Wars d6 game. The players from my May the Fourth game are returning, and two more players are showing up. Richard is our Call of Cthulhu Keeper, and recently joined my TS&R Jade game. Randy is a friend who's been interested in getting into RPGs, but had a new baby late last year so hasn't had much time for gaming until recently. 

The d6 system, in its more generic form, was on my mind recently. I actually woke up from a dream yesterday in which I was modifying the system to create a Mabinogion/Irish Myth based fantasy game. I've never played, or even read, the official d6 Fantasy game that came out 20-some years ago, but in my dream I was coming up with a list of skills for magic: enchantments, transmutations, illusions, etc.

Then I come across Tim Brannan talking about Star Wars d20 and mentioning how he prefers those rules to WEG d6, and also Weregrognard talking about WEG d6 Star Wars and the d6 System in general. So it seems to be a bit of a mini-topic these days. 

About 10 years ago or so, when Jeremy Hart and I were gaming together more actively than we are these days, he often talked about wanting to run something with Mini Six, the slimmed down d6 System game. But then he'd run something else, home brewed or Black Hack, or something interesting he'd found and wanted to try. So we never got that Mini Six game going. But at that time, it did get me to download Open d6 and I did really like what I saw in it. 

In fact, I've considered making a 2nd edition of Flying Swordsmen using Open d6! I had fun playing Dragon Fist for a bit when it came out nearly 25 years ago, and had fun with FS for a while, but honestly, it's not the best fit for a long term wuxia style game. With the bell curve results of a totaled die pool, the flexibility to determine what attributes and skills are in the game, and the lesser focus on tactical placement and more on descriptive engagement with encounters, I honestly think it would be a better fit. OSR style mechanics are great for a game where exploration and acquisition, plus combat, are the key drivers of play. Good wuxia stories are about exploring relationships and social norms as much as they are about the martial arts combat. I think d6 would be a better fit, honestly. 

Finally, yesterday this YouTube video on various die rolling methods was recommended by the Almighty Algorithm. Now, before you click on it -- I am not the intended audience, and you, my reader, are most likely not as well. It seems to be pitched towards teens/tweens who are just getting into RPGs, based on the guy's content and his delivery. Why I mention it is that while he mentions the White Wolf style # of successes die pool system, he doesn't mention the WEG d6 die pool vs target number system. There are lots of other die systems he also neglects...like I said, the target audience seems to be kids just getting into gaming, not us old fogies. 

While I didn't learn anything from that video, it did get me thinking about the way that certain systems seem to promote different aspects of play. I'm currently involved in games using d20 for combat (TS&R, although it's got percentages, x/d6, and 2d6 roll mechanics as well, and Gamma World 4E), exclusively d% (Call of Cthulhu), and dice pool (WEG Star Wars) systems. 

The swingy d20 and d% systems are geared around exploration. TS&R (D&D) and Gamma World are about exploration of the setting. CoC is about exploration of mysteries. 

Dice pool systems like WEG (and what little I've played of WW d10 dice pool games) are more focused on telling an interesting story, or at least entertaining the players and allowing them a structure to immerse themselves in their character. I've used some dungeon crawling and wilderness hex-ploration in my Star Wars game from time to time, but for the most part the challenges I set up are situational, with a lot of if/then triggers, rather than site-based. The d6 Star Wars game was designed with this sort of play in mind, and I think it works really well to encourage that. 

Also, the way that the probabilities work out with a dice pool means that characters are a bit more consistent in performance than those using a flat distribution mechanic like d20/d%, although things like the Wild Die, losing dice for multiple actions, and opposed rolls do keep things interesting. 

I'd been thinking that after I finish revising/editing/formatting the TS&R Game Master Guidebook and editing it down to a Rules & Procedures table reference, I'd try my hand at another setting/genre set of players' book/monster book. Middle Eastern/Arabian Nights style gaming, or retro Sci Fi rockets & rayguns, maybe. Now, though, I'm wondering if maybe that Celtic Myth fantasy game or a revision of Flying Swordsmen, both with the Open d6 system, might catch my interest more.