... now with 35% more arrogance!

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Low Wizardry

I've made reference before to a set of Microlite20 mods to transform M20 into an emulation or near-clone of a non-D&D old school RPG, specifically the rules designed by Steve Jackson for Metagaming circa 1980.* I called this set "Lowlite6" or "LL6" to reflect that it is d6-only for damage and resolution and that it's perfect for a low fantasy feel: only two classes (guys who use magic and guys who don't,) but either class can dabble in the forte of the other, and spells are more limited and practical.

Well, that's why I've been quiet. Randall Stukey, who's been putting together PDF releases that include all the versions and mods of Microlite20 that he's aware of, stated that he had forgotten about my mods, but could include them in the next cycle (he's thinking of doing one update a quarter, I think.)

So, I've already had two mods finished, but needed to do the talent-based spell system. It's been kicking my ass with the formatting, until I realized that Google Docs supports tables within tables.

So, here is the Microlite20 Low Wizardry mod, draft version. Also of interest:
Still to come: example talent/spell lists for the Low Talents/Low Wizardry mods and a Lowlite6 core mod that links these three together with miscellaneous rules for the complete pseudo-clone.

*This sentence is vague because, since these are Microlite20 mods, they must be released under the OGL instead of Creative Commons. One of the provisions of the OGL is that you cannot use a trademark without written permission from the trademark owner. This is why things like Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry use circumlocutions for "D&D" instead of just saying "D&D". One could argue that the old school RPG Steve Jackson developed for Metagaming can't possibly be a trademark, even if the game itself is still under copyright, because it's been out of print for 20 years and no company exists to lay claim to the trademark. However, I'll stick to the example Randall set for Microlite74.

2 comments:

  1. Again, my apologies for not including these in the Spring 2010 edition of The Microlite20 RPG Collection. I'm planning on a Spring and a Fall edition, so these should be in the Fall 2010 update.

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  2. No prob. As I said when I first mentioned it, there were some problems with the original LL6 document and it probably wasn't worth including.

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