When I'm preparing for a session using any of the D6 System RPGs
(Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, OpenD6, Mini Six (MS1, MS2)
or any of the many others) I like to use the following two charts to
set the difficulties for tasks.
The Universal Standard
Die Code
Average Roll
Description
1D
3.5
Below Human average for an attribute.
2D
7.0
Human average for an attribute and many skills.
3D
10.5
Average level of training for a Human.
4D
14.0
Professional level of training for a Human.
5D
17.5
Above average expertise.
6D
21.0
Considered about the best in a city or geographic
area. 1 in 100,000 people will have training to
this skill level.
7D
24.5
Among the best on the continent. About 1 in
10,000,000 people will have training to this skill
level.
8D
28.0
Among the best on a planet. About 1 in 100,000,000
people will have training to this skill level.
9D
31.5
One of the best of several systems in the immediate
area. About 1 in a billion people have a skill at this
level.
10D
35.0
One of the best in a sector.
11D
38.5
12D
42.0
One of the best in a region.
13D
45.5
14D+
49.0
Among the best in the galaxy.
Note: The wild die adds 0.7 to the average result.
Standard Difficulties
Difficulty
Target #
Description
Very Easy
2−5
Nearly everyone can do it. These checks should
only be made if a success is critical to the
scenario at hand.
Easy
6−10
Player characters will seldom have trouble with
these tasks, but an untrained individual may
find them challenging.
Moderate
11−15
Average Characters have a reasonable chance of
failing at this level. Consistent success
often requires training in the skill or a high
level of natural ability.
Difficult
16−20
Tasks at this level are truly challenging. To
succeed, a character needs to be well skilled
or very lucky.
Very Difficult
21−30
Challenges of this level fall into the domain
of masters in the skill being used; few others
will succeed at them.
Heroic
31+
These challenges are almost impossible. Only
the very lucky or true masters can consistently
succeed at them.
Here is a PDF with a nicely formatted version of these tables (5½×8½
inches, suitable for adding to a booklet, or printing two up on on
8½x11 inch Letter paper) , and the ConTeXtsource. You can always
look at the ReStructuredText source of this page if you want the
table in ReStructuredText format - there should be link named
"Source" at the beginning of this post if you are visiting the article
page (not the index page for the whole blog) what will let you
download it.
I couldn't find anywhere on the net showing the percentage chance of
hitting a target number using the Mini Six Wild Die, which just
explodes on a 6, unlike the OpenD6 Wild Die, which explodes on a 6,
but if a 1 is rolled on the initial roll it instead either removes the
highest die rolled or causes a complication, depending on what the GM
wants.
I much prefer the Mini Six Wild Die.
So I went off to Anydice.com and came up with the following code:
output [explode d6] named "1M"
loop N over {1..11} {
X: N+1
output [explode d6] + Nd6 named "[X]M"
}
If you enter this manually instead of following the “code” link above,
remember to click “At Least” to get the right results!
These are labeled “1M”, “2M”, etc., instead of “1D”, “2D”, etc., to
emphasize these are Mini Six wild dice probabilities.
Anydice defaults to only exploding twice, BTW. You can change that by
adding set "explode depth" to 5 at the beginning of the above code.
(I later found the “Export” view, so I've updated the spreadsheet using
that data.)
The Mini Six Wild Die explodes on a 6; unlike the OpenD6 Wild Die a 1
is NOT special.
The blank cells at Target Numbers 6 and 12 are because you can’t roll
a 6 or a 12, since those explode again. Not sure why 18 isn’t blank,
but if you set “explode depth” to 5 it is blank, along with 24 and 30,
but then 36 isn't blank.
The multiple 100s from 6D onward are, after the first, not actually
100s, but 99.x where x is small enough it rounds up to 100.00 when
shown with two digits of precision.
The 0.00s that appear from 6D onwards are not 0.00, but numbers so
small that they appear as 0.00 when expressed with two digits of
precision.
11D and 12D actually extend down several more rows, but to fit
everything on one page and since they only show up as 0.00 I’ve
omitted that data. (It is in the raw data from Anydice, below.)
Mini Six Odds of Hitting a Target Number
1D
2D
3D
4D
5D
6D
7D
8D
9D
10D
11D
12D
1
100.00
2
83.33
100.00
3
66.67
97.22
100.00
4
50.00
91.67
99.54
100.00
5
33.33
83.33
98.15
99.92
100.00
6
72.22
95.37
99.61
99.99
100.00
7
16.67
58.33
90.74
98.84
99.92
100.00
100.00
8
13.89
44.44
83.80
97.30
99.73
99.98
100.00
100.00
9
11.11
32.87
74.54
94.60
99.28
99.94
100.00
100.00
100.00
10
8.33
23.61
63.81
90.35
98.38
99.82
99.99
100.00
100.00
100.00
11
5.56
16.67
52.47
84.40
96.77
99.55
99.96
100.00
100.00
100.00
100.00
12
12.04
41.36
76.79
94.19
99.01
99.88
99.99
100.00
100.00
100.00
100.00
13
2.78
9.72
31.33
67.79
90.38
98.04
99.72
99.97
100.00
100.00
100.00
100.00
14
2.31
7.41
23.23
57.88
85.20
96.45
99.39
99.92
99.99
100.00
100.00
100.00
15
1.85
5.48
17.05
47.79
78.64
94.03
98.80
99.82
99.98
100.00
100.00
100.00
16
1.39
3.94
12.49
38.21
70.83
90.59
97.82
99.62
99.95
100.00
100.00
100.00
17
0.93
2.78
9.21
29.65
62.14
86.00
96.28
99.26
99.89
99.99
100.00
100.00
18
0.46
2.01
6.89
22.44
53.02
80.23
94.02
98.65
99.77
99.97
100.00
100.00
19
1.62
5.22
16.70
43.96
73.37
90.89
97.67
99.54
99.93
99.99
100.00
20
1.16
3.87
12.35
35.45
65.63
86.78
96.20
99.16
99.85
99.98
100.00
21
0.77
2.83
9.12
27.86
57.34
81.64
94.10
98.54
99.71
99.96
99.99
22
0.46
2.04
6.75
21.41
48.88
75.53
91.24
97.58
99.47
99.91
99.99
23
0.23
1.47
5.01
16.17
40.64
68.57
87.52
96.19
99.08
99.82
99.97
24
0.08
1.04
3.72
12.06
32.98
61.01
82.91
94.23
98.46
99.67
99.94
25
0.72
2.75
8.94
26.15
53.14
77.41
91.61
97.54
99.42
99.89
26
0.45
2.00
6.62
20.31
45.27
71.11
88.23
96.22
99.02
99.79
27
0.26
1.43
4.89
15.51
37.72
64.19
84.05
94.40
98.41
99.63
28
0.13
1.00
3.61
11.68
30.74
56.87
79.06
91.98
97.53
99.38
29
0.05
0.68
2.65
8.71
24.55
49.41
73.34
88.89
96.28
98.98
30
0.01
0.44
1.93
6.46
19.22
42.07
66.98
85.09
94.58
98.39
31
0.27
1.38
4.77
14.81
35.11
60.18
80.55
92.35
97.54
32
0.15
0.97
3.51
11.24
28.72
53.13
75.31
89.52
96.36
33
0.08
0.66
2.57
8.44
23.05
46.06
69.46
86.04
94.78
34
0.03
0.44
1.87
6.29
18.17
39.20
63.13
81.88
92.72
35
0.01
0.27
1.34
4.65
14.09
32.75
56.48
77.07
90.11
36
0.00
0.16
0.94
3.42
10.78
26.87
49.72
71.67
86.91
37
0.09
0.65
2.50
8.14
21.65
43.03
65.77
83.09
38
0.05
0.43
1.81
6.09
17.16
36.61
59.52
78.66
39
0.02
0.28
1.30
4.52
13.39
30.62
53.07
73.66
40
0.01
0.17
0.92
3.33
10.30
25.17
46.60
68.16
41
0.00
0.10
0.63
2.43
7.82
20.35
40.27
62.28
42
0.00
0.05
0.43
1.76
5.88
16.20
34.25
56.15
43
0.03
0.28
1.26
4.38
12.70
28.66
49.91
44
0.01
0.18
0.89
3.23
9.82
23.61
43.73
45
0.01
0.11
0.62
2.37
7.50
19.14
37.74
46
0.00
0.06
0.42
1.72
5.66
15.29
32.09
47
0.00
0.03
0.28
1.23
4.23
12.04
26.87
48
0.00
0.02
0.18
0.88
3.14
9.35
22.16
49
0.01
0.11
0.61
2.30
7.18
18.02
50
0.00
0.07
0.42
1.67
5.44
14.43
51
0.00
0.04
0.28
1.20
4.08
11.41
52
0.00
0.02
0.18
0.86
3.03
8.90
53
0.00
0.01
0.12
0.60
2.23
6.85
54
0.00
0.00
0.07
0.41
1.63
5.22
55
0.00
0.04
0.28
1.18
3.93
56
0.00
0.02
0.19
0.84
2.93
57
0.00
0.01
0.12
0.59
2.17
58
0.00
0.01
0.08
0.41
1.58
59
0.00
0.00
0.05
0.28
1.15
60
0.00
0.00
0.03
0.19
0.82
61
0.00
0.02
0.12
0.58
62
0.00
0.01
0.08
0.40
63
0.00
0.00
0.05
0.28
64
0.00
0.00
0.03
0.19
65
0.00
0.00
0.02
0.12
66
0.00
0.00
0.01
0.08
67
0.00
0.01
0.05
68
0.00
0.00
0.03
69
0.00
0.00
0.02
70
0.00
0.00
0.01
71
0.00
0.00
0.01
72
0.00
0.00
0.00
Here's the Open Office spreadsheet, here's the PDF, and here's the
raw data from Anydice in CSV format. You can always look at the
ReStructuredText source of this page if you want the table in
ReStructuredText format — there should be link named "Source" at the
beginning of this post if you are visiting the article page (not the
index page for the whole blog) what will let you download it.
Perhaps more immediately understandable is this screenshot of the the
results in graph mode:
(Right-clicking the image might give you the option to open the image
in a new tab, where you'll see it at full size.)
I composed a carefully constructed MIME message using Mew, which has
a nice way to build MIME messages, but Gmail doesn’t know that if you
have a multipart MIME message that has a text part, then an image,
then a text part, then an image, then a text part then what you want
is for the image parts to be displayed inline. In messages like that
composed in Gmail, it uses the content type of multipart/related,
which then encloses a multipart/alternative, which has a plain
text version of the message and an HTML version, which refers to the
images with an img tag that has an id that refers to the id in a
Content-IDMIME header in following parts of the multipart-related
MIME part that is the main body of the email.
I don’t know why Gmail doesn’t display the simpler multipart/mixed
messages correctly.
It is very annoying. I don’t mind them using the
multipart/related (which I didn’t even know about before looking
at one of their messages using wl-summary-reedit in Wanderlust,
which pulls it up in the mime-edit-modeMIME composition mode
[1], which revealed all the details), but I wish they’d
get the simpler multipart/mixed version right. Instead, they
don’t display the inline attachments (regardless of whether they are
images or text) and put them all at the end of the display as
attachments, and display the other text parts smushed together.
Interestingly, if a text part it has a Content-Type: Text/PlainMIME header field it is displayed inline in Gmail, unless it has a
MIME header field, and then it doesn’t display it inline,
unlike all the other mail readers I tried: Wanderlust, Mew, Alpine,
Thunderbird (had to have a pure GUI client for comparison), and mutt.
Interestingly, Wanderlust displays Gmail’s multipart/related
messages correctly, which impressed me.
I originally I thought that Mew did not display the
multipart/related message correctly, punting to just displaying
original MIME-encoded text instead, and not displaying the image
parts.
I was wrong about that; I was just confused by its presentation.
First it displays the text version of the enclosed
multipart/alternative, which is what made me think it didn’t
display the image parts; it just hasn't yet! Then if I hit space, it
displays the first of the images, and then if I hit space it displays
the second of the images.
And you can make Mew display the HTML part, but it doesn’t know how
the <img id=“foo”> elements work, so it doesn’t display the
images.
I was pleased to see that the Wanderlust (WGH) and Mew (MGH) github
repositories both have recent commits.
And Wanderlust and Mew are both in MELPA these days, although
Mew’s MELPA package doesn’t include the command line program,
incm, that is used to pull emails from /var/mail
into MH style files under ~/Mail. Wanderlust and Mew both
use MH style files under ~/Mail as their local message store.
MH puts subdirectories there for folders, and in each folder the
messages are named with integers that correspond to the order in which
they were incorporated from whatever mail source you were using
(historically /var/mail). MH used command line programs to
incorporate mail, list mail messages, display mail messages, and file
it into folders. I rather liked it. I used nmh (the New MH, a new
implementation of the original Rand MH commands, which ran on newer
Unixes) and GNU mailutils (which provided MH-compatible command
line programs, if not configured out), sometimes during the same
period of time, for a considerable time. At one time, when I was
getting mail at a server I had online, I was using nmh, GNU
mailutils, Emacs’s built-in interface to MH (MH-E), Wanderlust,
and Mew. (Before that I used ViewMail, and before that I used
RMAIL) They each had features the other lacked.
I tried using Unison to sync that mail between my server online and
my computer at home, but that did not work well, since MH commands
change the names of files when they move them from one folder to
another (remember, each message in a folder gets a name that is an
integer based on the order in which it was incorporated in that
folder, and its folder command provided an option, -pack, that
renamed all the messages in a folder sequentially, used after you’d
deleted messages) so you couldn’t keep track if the message named 32
in one folder on one machine was a new one or just renamed from 976
when you ran folder -pack last. Syncing with Unison just did not
work at all. Hmm. I could have changed the Path option in my
.mh-profile` file on each machine, so that instead of all the
MH mail being under ~/Mail on both machines, on my home
machine it could have been under ~/Mail-home and on
tkb.mpl.com it could have been under ~/Mail-onlineserver, and
then I could have used rsync to copy those from one machine to the
other appropriately so I’d have a backup. Huh. Wish I’d figured that
out back in the day. Of course, to read email in ~/Mail-home
on my online server I’d have had to changed the Path option in my
~/.mh_profile on that machine, and then changed it back when I
wanted to use ~/Mail-onlineserver. It would have worked,
however.
Completion made me go look at the MIME messages I was testing in
MH-E. In the multipart/mixed message MH-E does not show the
PNG files inline, though emacs has the capability to do that now. It
does have keybindings to open an external viewer for you. If you
specify the macOS command open it will open it in whatever
app is the default for macOS; in the case of PNGs that is
Preview.
I do most of my email reading and sending in Gmail these days, alas. I
still use Wanderlust and Mew occasionally, since they support IMAP
very well. Now if only Google didn't make it harder to use them:
Gmail declares IMAP-over-SSL is a “less secure” application, and turns
IMAP access off if you don't use it regularly.
I know Cobol, and have written it for work, but not for a long time,
maybe 30 years? No, I lie, I did some a decade or two ago. It was not
my favorite programming language, but knowing it helped pay the
bills. At my college in the mid-80s it was taught by the Business
department rather than the Computer Science department!
One of my Cobol jobs was porting code from the IBM mainframes to VMS
on a Digital Equipment Corporation mini-computer, the VAX. A more
recent one was fixing bugs and making enhancements to some student
management software at a nearby college.
What little Fortran I've written was in the ratfor (Rational Fortran)
dialect, on VMS, using the Software Tools package written at Lawrence
Berkeley Labs, which ported a lot of Unix tools to VMS (and IBM
mainframes) using ratfor (a dialect that was first invented on Unix to
add modern control structures to Fortran 66, and implemented
as a preprocessor).
One of my favorite programming books is Software Tools by Brian
Kernighan and P.J. Plauger (I first read the Software Tools in
Pascal version), which showed how to write Unix like tools
in Ratfor (because at the time Fortran was more portable than C!). It
was the inspiration for the LBL Software tools package. I wish I
still had the LBL Software Tools on the VAX I maintain (running on a
software emulator on Intel hardware, at much faster speeds than the
original VAX), but it was deleted to save space long ago in an era of
expensive hard drives, a decision I've long regretted! I can find the
source online, but I can't find a binary distribution, and that VAX
doesn't have a Fortran compiler anymore, alas.
What follows is a lightly edited version (for clarity and relevance)
of the postscripts from an email that I recently wrote, transferred
here for posterity and the general good.
Danger! Danger Will Robinson! Danger! The postscripts and
footnotes are much longer than the main body of the reply! And the
footnotes are longer than the text of the postscripts!
P.S. H., P. (and H. M., if you are interested, though I
admit this combines some of my more geeky interests and thus may be of
less interest to all of you, or for Howard and Paul, for that matter):
I actually figured out how to make ebooks (to a limited degree)
because I wanted to try an ebook I made of an RPG adventure I wrote
for a currently on hiatus[0] fantasy Savage Worlds roleplaying game
campaign for my daughter Lily and my niece and nephews (N1). I originally wrote the
adventure[1] in three typesetting systems which use markup
languages, LaTeX, ConTeXt, and troff[2] (which I usually use in its guise as
GNUgroff, but this time I
used Heirloom troff, part of the Heirloom Documentation
Tools, for its easy access to modern fonts) to compare the markup
languages and their PDF output to decide which one I prefered to
use. Later I converted it to ReStructuredText, a lightweight markup
language[3] that I use, to compare it to the other markup
languages.
I have used ReStructuredText on and off for many years, but the main
drawbacks to it was that (1) the output produced by its original
docutils implementation was
excessively stark and difficult to customize to have a nicer
appearance, and (2) its workflow was somewhat difficult,[4] Some
time ago I discovered Pandoc, a “universal
document converter” which can read many input sources, including
ReStructuredText, and produce output in many output formats, including
PDF (via LaTeX, ConTeXt, or troff; in ways easier
to customize the appearance of) and HTML, and, as it turns and
importantly to this story, EPUB, the most common format for ebooks! I
started using Pandoc because it made it easier to generate PDF from
ReStructuredText with one command (since Pandoc runs all the
intermediate steps and cleans up any temporary files needed). It
turned out that the abilities to read multiple input formats and to
more easily customize the output was important to me as well.
So, having converted the adventure over to ReStructuredTexT for
comparison[5] and at first using PDF through Pandoc's
troff -ms output, I soon decided to take a look at Pandoc's other
output formats. I started with LaTeX and ConTeXt, and decided that the
PDF output via LaTeX was not of much interest to me, but the PDF
output via ConTeXt offered greater control over the appearance of the
final PDF output and the opportunity of adding via writing Lua filters
some features to the resulting documents that lightweight markup
languages normally don't offer, such as indexes and cross references
that are both hyperlinks and include page numbers and section names in
the PDF output, which are features that I didn't need in the adventure
document, but which I expect to need in future documents.
But back to the important point, Pandoc can produce EBUB output for
ebooks! Since I already had the adventure in ReStructuredText, and
Pandoc produces EPUB, and I have an ebook reader, a Kindle, it just
makes sense to figure out how to get it onto my Kindle! First I used
Pandoc to generate the EPUB. That required figuring out how to
generate a reasonably attractive cover. Then wrote a small config file
for Pandoc. Then I generated the EPUB output. Then I figured out how
to convert that over to MOBI, one of the formats that the Kindle can
use.[6] Then I mailed it to my Kindle's email, and it looked
reasonably good![7]
I hope you've enjoyed this twisty maze of passages, all different!
And with a Zork reference I
really must end this email!
P.P.S.Omitted for irrelevance.
P.P.P.S. Sorry, no deeply nested parenthetical expressions this
time!
Here's an addendum with two Apple Messenger messages to P.,
reflecting on converting this from an HTML email into a blog post:
The HTML dialect Google uses in its MIME emails is very odd. It
doesn’t use <p> elements, using instead <div> elements.
Unfortunately, pandoc converts those into containers, and nests
them according to the nesting of the <div> elements. To fix this
I hand edited the HTML to remove the outer <div> elements and
convert the remaining ones into <p>s. Also, for some reason when I
ran the documents through HTML tidy it converted the unicode
characters into incorrect HTML character entities. I see now that it
has a -utf8 switch, which I’ll have to remember for the next time
I do this. (There will inevitably be a next time.)
OMG, now I have have to put that in the blog post! How many saving
throws am I going to fail today anyway?
I just got my Worlds of Wonder box set from Noble Knight. It
was published by Chaosium in 1982, and consists of 4 pamphlets —
Basic Role-Playing, Magic World, Super World, and Future
World, each under 20 pages — and some supporting game aids. It was
very interesting to see Chaosium's house system be stripped down so
much in Basic Role-Playing, and then built up again slightly in each
of the genre specific pamphlets. There are some interesting design
decisions there. I'm not sure that all of those same decisions were
exactly included in the Big Gold Book version of Chaosium's Basic
Roleplaying book published in 2010, which collected rules from most
of Chaosium's games into one generic roleplaying game. I'll have to
compare them to see. I should also compare it to the BRP
Quickstart. I do have Chaosium's 2002 publication of the
Basic Roleplaying pamphlet. It was better typeset but was otherwise
functionally identical to the pamphlet from Worlds of Wonder.
I'd love to see a PDF version of Worlds of Wonder, even if it was
just a scanned version. Even better if it was release as an SRD,
like their BRP SRD.
With the release of Advanced Fighting Fantasy, second edition, by
Arion Games (website, DriveThruRPG) in 2011 it seemed a
renaissance for Advanced Fighting Fantasy had arrived. This has been
born out by Arion Games releasing one or more books for AFF2E every
year since then except 2015, and by their release of bunches more
small products in PDF since then. And most (if not all) of their
larger AFF2E products are available in POD at DriveThruRPG now, as
well as in PDF. They also have a science fiction game that uses the
AFF2E rules, Stellar Adventures, which is good and has several
supplements.
I have enjoyed all the the AFF2E products and playing AFF and have
just gotten two more, Creatures of Mishna and The Warlock Returns
Issue #01, both of which look very good to my cursory glance.
And I also just got Troika! Numinous Edition science fantasy RPG
from the Melsonian Arts Council and oh does it look pretty, both
from a graphical design standpoint and a rules design standpoint! It
has a website devoted to it. It was apparently released in 2019
(though the book says the copyright is 2015–2018), and I really wish I
had gotten it earlier. It uses rules obviously inspired by AFF with
Skill, Stamina, Luck, and Advanced Skills (similar to AFF's Special
Skills), and has a neat and quirky random “backgrounds” system for
character creation that provides you with Skills, Possessions, and
other Special benefits. (One of the backgrounds has a “Small but
vicious dog”, in a neat nod to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.) I've
read it except for the backgrounds, which I've skimmed, and the
bestiary. It is an excellent rules light RPG. My one criticism so
far is that there doesn't seem to be a table or index of all the
backgrounds, so it is hard to find a specific background if you want
to read a particular one, as once rules example in the book requires
to understand completely. There is a free version as well, and it
contains a license allowing you to publish free or commercial material
based on or compatible with with Troika!.
I also got Fronds of Benevolence, which looks good too, on a
more cursory glace. I'm probably going to have to look for more Troika!
products, too; I've seen that there are more out there.
Getting Troika! vaguely reminded me that there was another new RPG
broadly inspired by AFF. Investigating revealed Warlock! from
Fire Ruby Design (some of whose games I've greatly enjoyed -
Exilim, Summerlands 2E, Esoterica, all of which have
supplements I need to get), and that convinced me so I bought it. It
too is obviously inspired by the AFF rules, though it does away with
the all-in-one Skill of AFF in favor of starting the equivalent of
AFF's Special Skills at higher values. It also drops the 2d6 rolls
for d20s, and damage appears to by a simple dice roll, rather than
AFF's 1d6+mod indexing a different table for each type of weapon,
which could have its advantages… It also has Warhammer Fantasy
Roleplay style careers. I haven't read much of it, but I'm
definitely going to. It has several supplements too.
All in all, I think the AFF renaissance is growing!
There is a new book about the literary influences of Dungeons and
Dragons coming out in February 2021: Appendix N. I'm hoping that
it will be better than Jeffro Johnson's book of the same name, which
I briefly commented on here.
Inspiration for all of the fantasy work I have done stems directly
from the love my father showed when I was a tad, for he spent many
hours telling me stories he made up as he went along, tales of cloaked
old me who could grant wishes, of magic rings and enchanted swords, or
wicked sorcerors and dauntless swordsmen. Then too, countless
Hundreds of comic books went down, and the long-gone EC ones certainly
had their effect. Science fiction, fantasy, and horror movies were a
big influence. In fact, all of us tend to get ample helpings of
fantasy when we are very young, from fairy tales such as those written
by the Brothers Grimm and Andrew Lang. This often leads to reading
books of mythology, paging through bestiaries, and consultation of
compilations of the myths of various lands and peoples. Upon such a
base I built my interest in fantasy, being an avid reader of all
science fiction and fantasy literature since 1950. The following
authors were of particular inspiration to me. In some cases I cite
specific works, in others, I simply recommand all their fantasy
writing to you. From such sources, as well as just about any other
imaginative writing or screenplay you will be able to pluck kernels
from which grow the fruits of exciting campaigns. Good reading!
Inspirational Reading:
Anderson, Poul. THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS; THE HIGH CRUSADE; THE BROKEN SWORD
Bellairs, John. THE FACE IN THE FROST
Brackett, Leigh.
Brown, Fredric.
Burroughs, Edgar Rice. “Pellucidar” Series; Mars Series; Venus Series
Carter, Lin: “World's End” Series
de Camp, L. Sprague. LEST DARKNESS FALL; FALLIBLE FIEND; et al.
de Camp & Prat. “Harold Shea” Series; CARNELIAN CUBE
Derleth, August.
Dunsany, Lord.
Farmer, P. J. “The World of the Tiers” Series; et al.
Fox, Gardner. “Kothar” Series; “Kyrik” Series; et al.
Howard, R. E. “Conan” Series.
Lanier, Sterling. HIERO'S JOURNEY
Leiber, Fritz. “Fafhrd & Gray Mouser” Series; et al.
Lovecraft, H. P.
Merrit, A. CREEP, SHADOW, CREEP; MOON POOL; DWELLERS IN THE MIRAGE; et al.
Moorcock, Michael. STORMBRINGER, STEALER OF SOULS, “Hawkmoon” Series (esp. the first three books)
Norton, Andre.
Offutt, Andrew J., editor SWORDS AGAINST DARKNESS III.
Pratt, Fletcher, BLUE STAR; et al.
Saberhagen, Fred. CHANGELING EARTH; et al.
St. Clair, Margaret. THE SHADOW PEOPLE; SIGN OF THE LABRYS
Tolkien, J. R. R. THE HOBBIT; “Ring Trilogy”
Vance, Jack. THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD; THE DYING EARTH; et al.
Weinbaum, Stanley.
Wellman, Manly Wade.
Williamson, Jack.
Zelazny, Roger. JACK OF SHADOWS; “Amber” Series; et al.
The most immediate influences upon AD&D were probably de Camp & Pratt,
REH, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, HPL, and A. Merrit; but all of the
above authors, as well as many not listed, certainly helped to shape
the form of the game. For this reason, and for the hours of reading
enjoyment, I heartily recommend the works of these fine authors to
you.
RuneQuest 2E also had an Appendix N, apparently earlier.
I'm looking at the Mini Six RPG because I’m planing on running a
couple of one shots while my regular online D&D game is on hiatus
between campaigns. I’m going to run a Star Wars one shot and a
Breachworld RPG (post apocalypse with rifts into space and time
with invaders pouring through) one shot, probably using the light
Virtual Table Top Owlbear Rodeo with Discord for voice and text
chat and dice rolling using a dice bot and maybe image sharing, with
character sheets as Google Doc documents.
Here's how the Mini Six rules are organized, with page numbers for
each section. It has 38 pages, counting the front and back covers.
Front Cover (color) — 1 page
Copyright page — 1 page
Table of Contents, Definitions of Common Game Terms, About this
Book — 1 page
Dice Basics, How to Make a Character (including Skills, Perks,
Esoteric Perks, Complications, and Gear) — 2 pages
Game Mechanics (including General (non-combat Challenges), Order
of Actions in a Round, Multiple Actions, Movement, Experience,
Hero Points, Scaling, and Healing) — 1 page
Combat (including two variants of combat — Fast Static Combat vs
Traditional OpenD6 Combat — and Wound Levels and Wound Level
Effects) — 1 page
Vehicles (including vehicle rules and sample vehicles) —
2 pages
The Simple Magic System (including magic rules and about 34
spells, and enchanted items) - 4 pages
Sample Characters by Genre (including All Genres, Modern Stock
Characters, Sci-Fi Stock Characters, Pulp Stock Characters,
Fantasy Stock Characters, and Fantasy Beastiary) — 4 pages
Optional Rules — 2 pages
Making the Game Your Own — 1 page
Campaigning the TV Way and Converting Between Mini Six &
Traditional OpenD6 — 1 page
Sample Settings — 12 pages total
The “Perdition” setting (inspired by series Firefly and the
movie Serenity; 9 archetypes, 1 vehicle) — 2 pages
The “Rust Moon of Castia” setting (inspired by the movie
Willow; 1 map, 4 archetypes, 3 creatures)
— 2 pages
The “Precinct ‘77” setting (Big collars, bitchin’ cars, side
burns, Fog Hat, and Police Detectives; 4 archetypes, 1 vehicle)
— 2 pages
The “Imperium in Revolt” setting (inspired by Star Wars,
harking back to the D6 system's origins in the Star Wars: The
Roleplaying Game of 1987; 11 archetypes, 7 vehicles) —
4 pages
Character Sheet — 1 page
Useful Reference Charts (Difficulty levels, Range Modifiers, How
to Calculate Static Defenses, Scale, Sample Gear List, Skill List, Healing,
Wound Level, Wound Level Effects) — 1 page
Open Game License Version 1.0a — 1 page
Back Cover (color) — 1 page
It really packs a lot into a small package, although it is generally
light on detail.
Thoughts on Mini Six
Mini Six is a stripped down version of the OpenD6 RPG.
I like it for many reasons:
The base mechanics are easy to learn, and only take up a few pages.
It includes enough as is to run Historical, Modern, Sci-Fi, and
Fantasy games, including a simple Magic/Power system.
Attributes, Skills, and Damage are rated by the number of D6s one
rolls to use them, which makes using them easy.
Attributes and Skills are connected. Skills default to the dice
rating of their associated Attribute, so you can always use a
skill, except for a very few exceptions.
Attributes and Skills are used by rolling them against set target
numbers or opposing die rolls.
The rules for multiple actions in a round are particularly easy to
use, suitable for games where the characters are competent.
Since the rules are short and the game mechanics relatively light it
is easy to customize for a particular game or genre.
Since the rules (but not all the settings) are Open Content you can
easily base a new game on it and release it for free or sell it.
There are several Mini Six-based games on DriveThruRPG.com.[4]
There is a royalty-free Mini Six Trademark License that allows
you to indicate that products you make are compatible with Mini
Six, and you can sell those products. There are a few Mini Six
adventures[5] for sale on DriveThruRPG.com.
I think that several of those reason make it idea for one shots and
pickup games.
Last edited: 2021-08-12 19:02:11 EDT
About
Lacking Natural Simplicity is one, not particularly flattering,
definition of sophisticated.
This blog chronicles my journey through our at times too complicated
and sophisticated world.
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