Three weeks of inaction. Not good when you are prone to the Gamers' version of ADD ;)
I'm currently staring at my copy of Jaws of the Six Serpents - a Swords & Sorcery title that uses the PDQ System. Before my full return into active gaming (and fully embracing the OSR), the PDQ System was one of the RPG systems I was giving a good and hard look at. Actually, Questers of the Middle Realms was the game that got me thinking about PDQ, but I would have had to have made the game serious, and not sure how well that conversion would have gone.
I've also got my The Golden Age of Classic Traveller on CD-Rom sitting on my desk. I always come back to Traveller when I think of running a SciFi RPG. At which point I recall that there is no expo gain in Traveller - you will not get better at doing, just what you own - and I put aside such silly thoughts. That being said, my X-plorers Boxed sets are sitting to my left - but that is the opposite of Traveller in terms of crunch, and leaves me unfulfilled. Maybe Stars Without Number...
Never got my Tunnels & Trolls session off the ground last week either.
Now Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is tempting me. Damn it! Maybe I'll just borrow a few rules for some NPCs and such...
Have you looked at Maliszewski's "Thousand Suns"? It might hit the sweet spot you're looking for.
ReplyDelete(Assuming you don't have an irrational hatred of d12s, of course ...)
Good luck with your struggle, my friend. I'm pulling for you and I feel your pain, because I'm a fellow sufferer of Gamer ADD!
ReplyDeleteI've also had to cancel my last three weeks' games -- sucks hey! I used the time to do some prep for a future campaign though, so all was not lost.
ReplyDeleteHopefully playing again tomorrow night :)
I love the PDQ system and I love the S&S genre. Jaws of the Six Seepents ain't bad, but I personally prefer "Barbarians of Lemuria" for pulp Sword & Sorcery. I think the mechanics and default setting capture the atmosphere better.
ReplyDeleteI really love the PDQ system and would love to see some serious attempts at releasing games. JoSS is decent, the PDQ version of Atchung Cthulhu is really, really good...there is serious potential there but until a publisher makes a serious attempt it will never make it mainstream. :(
ReplyDeleteJot6S is my favorite system, period. Had some great S&S times with Jaws... Better than BoL, IMO.
ReplyDeleteMy intro really into RPGs was Classic Traveller in the late 70s/early 80s and so it was always a bit strange playing other RPGs where your experience just kept going up so fast! I have SWN but not played it, it does seem Traveller-like in feel, but with experience thrown it. One day I will try have to try out SWN, just to compare.
ReplyDeleteConsider MegaTraveller. Despite the stupid name and being so closely associated with the second-dumbest idea in Traveller metaplots, it is probably the best edition so far (though T5 is coming - in fact, the first few copies have already shipped - and it might be better). And MT has an experience increase system.
ReplyDeleteMT is my favourite RPG of all time and I'm currently doing a solo MT adventure. The experience system in MT is still slight compared to SWN but you are right - there is one there. I am on the kickstarter for T5 so hoping for my copy soon. But I have the T5 CDROM from a few years ago and am not sure I am ready to move from MT just yet.
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