Gee, I Guess I'd Better Mention The Game I've Been Running For 10 Weeks Now.

I don't know why I haven't posted about my bi-weekly D6 Space game.

It's not like the game's not fun; to the contrary, it's a bucket of fun. In fact, it's the place where I'm putting to use a lot of the stuff I've been talking about here, what with all the transcendant, GM-as-conduit-for-whatever-he-does RPG action that this blog is about.

So let me talk about it.

It's the game I mention on this thread at The RPG Site; it's also the one I talked about doing at my Friendly Local Games Store in this post from 2 Nov. 2006, only using D6 instead of d20. By all accounts it's been successful (i.e. the players are having fun), I've been having a blast with it, and one of the dudes has decided to run a D6 Fantasy game, he likesthe system so well. Aces.

I really am doing very little prep for it, and I really am stealing liberally from other sources. Just last night, I named a star system "Wiedlin" after Jane Wiedlin from The Go-Go's; there's an NPC named Nik Kershaw who is the captain of a ship called the Human Racing; The PCs' ship is named "Clear Air Turbulence", after the ship in Iain M. Banks' novel Consider Phlebas (the ship apparently is named after a jazz-fusion album, so it has a larcenous pedigree already); I have a plan to name a ship, somewhere, after a Missing Persons album.

I have turned a pair of hastily-described, inconsequential NPCs into major parts of the narrative, suddenly, and in the middle of play (Mary and Celeste Anglota, sexy twin starship thieves). I have spontaneously described the contents of a star system, thrown game stats together out of thin air, stuck in subtle clues to other adventures based on ideas long since conceived but never used, cribbed names from a list, rolled up NPC personailities on the spot...

...it's amazing how much solid, fun gaming we've done based on almost no preparation at all.

The key: vibe. I have an idea of what kind of game, setting, mood, feel, etc I want. I watch my players interact with it, and in some cases just improvise based on my backlog of influences and concepts.

Apart from having a simple goal for each session, a few notions of obstacles and a notebook in which to write down the crap I come up with...that's it.

That's how I run my game. And I forget to bring the same notebook most of the time.

It's a creative joy. I'm making stuff up, they're making stuff up, we meet in the middle and asses get kicked. Robots, Imperial Space Centurions, neon-lit space stations, a luxury liner defended by a colony of giant bugs and the pheromone that makes them angry, sanitary nanobots used as a weapon...

...my D6 Space game ROCKS.

Hey, mhensley!

Back on April 12th, I wasn't paying attention when mhensley said...

"I would love to read more about what you think of the D6 system. I'm currently digging into D6 Fantasy (again) and its starting to click for me as well."

Glad to answer, my good Hensley. Er. M. Yes.

Right. I'm having a great time with it, frankly. There's not much for ready-to-roll-out magic in there, but it rarely gets used in my games for whatever reason so I have had no issues; combat is pretty smooth and painless (well, except for the characters who are fighting...); the system is pretty easy to adapt to a classic D&D feel, f'r'ex, which is what I'm doing; and also the critical successes and critical failures are, I find, very inspirational.

Last night, f'r'ex, my wife rolled a '1' on her Wild Die while listening at a door. That '1' can have three results:

1. It can remove itself, and the highest-rolling die, from the total;
2. It can indicate that something bad is going to happen; or
3. It can just be added in, too bad so sad.

I opted for the second option, but I was thinking, How can something go horribly bad when you're just listening at a DOOR?! I guess she could've misinterpreted a sound as something different; hear a draft but find, I dunno, a giant winged monster.

Instead I put a poisonous mold on the door, which, when the door was opened, puffed out its spores and WHAMMO! Cough-hack-damage!

Lunch is up. Gotta go. Good times!

Shelzar it is!

The city has been chosen. Furthermore, when we couldn't decide between D6 and Stories System, we rolled a die.

D6 it is. Excellent! I loves me that system, by gum.

What's it gonna be about? *shrug* Hell if I know. I know her character is gonna be runaway nobility who joined the Thieves' Guild (or its local equivalent), and after reading this page right here, I got an idea involving a popular pit-fighter, the potion he secretly imbibes before going into a bout, and a plan to get him to throw a fight without him knowing about it. Heh heh heh.

Come to think, I might not read too much out of the Shelzar book, just in case -- to give myself some wiggle room. In other words, use the book more as inspiration than a kind of weird-ass gospel.

Welp! It's a start.