Wednesday, August 28, 2013

The Call of the D6


You know, I just noticed that I made my 400th post a couple days ago.* Funny that it was a post about how I created another blog! Well, I don't intend Ethereal Jaunt to be a replacement for Once More Unto the Breach (OMUtB for short). Rather, I intend to use it as a supplemental blog, one that focuses more on reviews of games, fantasy literature, etc. from my perspective. Meanwhile, OMUtB will continue to be a chronicle of my roleplaying (mis)adventures, musings, and occasional self-pity/whining.
 
ANYway, I'll now get to my point for this, my 401st post: it seems that, lately, I’ve had a strong renewed interest in games that use only six-sided dice. What?! Roleplaying without the sacred twenty-sider involved?! Blasphemy! ;-)

Anyway, the d6 games I'm most interested in include:
 
I felt a strong drive to run a game using the Dragon Age RPG, and held my first session last week.
 
I've owned Paolo Greco's cool and quirky Adventure Fantasy Game for some time now.

I also own the wonderful Heroes & Other Worlds.
 
I have a copy of Jonathan Becker's Five Ancient Kingdoms fantasy adventure game.
 
I've also felt the urge to investigate the Ennie-winning Dungeon World (though this does use some other polyhedrals for damage, I believe...but primarily uses the d6).
 
But before all of the above, I had a long-time interest in Barbarians of Lemuria.

Wow, seeing the list written out sure makes me think my d6 obsession is bigger than I thought! I don't know what it is; there is just something so very cool about gaming with just the d6, if you ask me. It feels like a harkening back to a "simpler" gaming age, before all the "strange" polyhedrals came to dominate. It also strikes me as damned practical: even the most "non-gamer" home will probably have some lying around.

I am going to try to do some reviews of the above systems eventually (hopefully a sooner-rather-than-later eventually). And, of course, those reviews will be posted at Ethereal Jaunt!

So, what d6-based games have YOU come to appreciate?


* Perhaps 400 is not such an impressive number, considering that my blog is over three years old! I'm not the most prolific of bloggers...

4 comments:

  1. The Fantasy Trip and its descendants: Legends of the Ancient World and Heroes and Other Worlds.

    (Also Car Wars and Traveller, of course.)

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    1. Doh! How could I forget Heroes and Other Worlds (which I also own)! Error corrected!

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  2. Heresy, sir! You can pry my polyhedrals from my cold, dead hands.

    Seriously, though, my first encounter with D&D at age 8 or so was a friend's Basic Set, and I remember being enchanted by all the weird dice. So I've preferred polyhedrals in my games ever since. I have to admit that any RPG that uses only d6s is kind of a turnoff for me right out of the gate; it comes across to me as "bland".

    (I've never played the d6 system, though, and I have a feeling I'd be okay with that, because getting to roll lots of d6s at once is a nice trade-off for only having one type of die.)

    One of the things I really like about Dungeon World, actually, is the fact that although the basic mechanic uses 2d6, you still get to roll polyhedrals for damage. Nice compromise.

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  3. I also love six-siders (especially casino and backgammon dice), which is why I wrote Swords & Six-Siders. It can be downloaded for free from my website:

    www.vanquishingleviathan.com

    It is almost exclusively a 1d6 system, although some spells require rolling multiple d6s.

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