Swords & Six-Siders

[Vanquishing Leviathan]

I'm officially announcing Vanquishing Leviathan's newest project Swords & Six-Siders!

S&SS is basically a 1d6 version of the original fantasy game. It only uses six-sided dice, and most things are resolved with a simple 1d6 without using any combat charts. It will initially be available at NTRPGCon 2013 in a prototype/playtest version, or as I like to call it, the original collector's edition - 25 sets, available for only $10 each!

This boxed set comes with a rulebook for players (32 pages), GMs (36 pages), and the introductory dungeon tutorial Circle of the Yawning Void (28 pages, partially stocked, with tips and advice for filling in the rest of the dungeon). All 3 rulebooks are fully illustrated with art created just for this set. It comes with an ultra-cool casino-style six-sided die, and the bottom of the box is lined with foam rubber and felt, doing double duty as a dice tray.

More info to come later, but for now, back to stapling and printing.

[Finarvyn]

Looks interesting, and quite old school. Any links or boards to read more about this? (Other than the link in your signature, of course, although the web page seems to have roughly the same pictures and information as this thread.)

[kesher]

That looks awesome--perfect late-70s style!

I'll second Fin's question, too--any more info?

[Finarvyn]

The problem I'm having is that all we can see is a cool box and neat covers. While the notion of "a 1d6 version of the original fantasy game" is interesting, we're just lacking details. I suppose the combat system might be similar to the army combat found in Chainmail, but I'm just guessing.

[machpants]

Yeah some more info would be cool, although I'll probably never be able to get my hands on one being in the wrong hemisphere!

Love the Ultima tribute box cover art BTW

[thorswulf]

I'd sure like to hear more about it as well. Neat idea about the box being a die rolling tray!

[Falconer]

IIRC, there is a thread at the S&W forums about this. I'll bet it includes some of Steve's own art.

[Vanquishing Leviathan]

The rulebooks can now be downloaded for free at my company's website: www.vanquishingleviathan.com

It runs much like your favorite game, only instead of using a d20 and a d6, it just uses a d6 for everything.

The biggest differences are due to the 1d6 mechanic, which flattens the power curve. PCs go from levels 1-6, where each level represents roughly two levels. So a 6th level PC in S&SS is the approximate equivalent of a 12th level PC.

For a brief glimpse at the rules specific to this game, see the Core Mechanic p3, the weapons & armor sections on p12-13, and the combat section 16-17 in the player's rulebook, and the Monster Stat p4-5.

I'd never even seen the Ultima art until people pointed out the resemblance at KnK.

I'm not sure, but as Falconer says, I may have mentioned this back in an old thread on the S&W forums. I've had the basics for this game worked out at least since last year, and have previously made a few aborted attempts to put it to paper. It was inspired by two things:

1. Someone had made a 1d6-only version of the world's most popular RPG at DF that I thought was a neat idea, but I wanted to try a different take (their method used a combat matrix). It started out as a mental exercise: "just how far can you take a 1d6-only style game without using combat matrices?" Pretty far, it turns out.

2. I started messing around with the second fantasy RPG, and liked a lot of the ideas the game was built around, but wanted to spin them in a different way. Originally, S&SS was a lot more "trollish": you leveled by increasing your stats, used spell points, had a slightly altered version of ability stats, etc. Those didn't make the cut in this version, but you can still see some influence in the way armor works, and the Monster stat.

[kesher]

Grrr... Dagnabit firewalls...

I'll have to wait until I get home tonight to take a look, but color me even further intrigued...

[machpants]

Added this to my reading list, thanks

[kesher]

Alright, this is a splendid blend of D&D and T&T!

The flaming ant and the lazer ape are also awesome...

[Finarvyn]

Just downloaded and am reading. I like what I see so far. Rules seem pretty fast and lite.

[bdfiscus]

Looks awesome - love the old school look!

[Vanquishing Leviathan]

Thanks guys, I hope y'all enjoy it! Please let me know if you have any criticisms - I like compliments as much as the next guy, but criticism is king, especially from the vets on this forum.

Between gaming, real life interference, and being involved in a minor accident, I didn't get to spend much time at my vendor table at the Con, but the good news is there are still some boxed sets available. There are 14 sets left, but I'll have to figure out the best/cheapest way to ship them.

On the down side, I'll be taking my car to the body shop tomorrow for an estimate, and since mailing packages means trips to the post office, I won't be taking orders until I can get my car finished. I'm guessing around 1-2 weeks.

[gronkthebold]

I've just downloaded the PDF files and so far the game is elegant and the art is brilliantly quirky and old school. I'm really enjoying the read, thanks for sharing this with us!

[BLBlake]

What a fun, easy system! I downloaded the rules, read them, and ran a small dungeon crawl for my kids, and their friends all in one afternoon. All of us had a blast playing.
The kids ages were from 10-12years old, and most have never played an rpg before. Character generation went by quickly, and smoothly. We used both Option 1, and Option 2 for character generation. In less than 15 minutes their character were up, and running headfirst into the dungeon. The necessary rules were simple, and well explained. In the entire 3 hours of playing there was not one instance of referring to the rulebook. The game was a great success for getting the kids to play. In the past they were turned off by some of my other games, because of the huge tome like rules. They saw how simple the rules to S&SS looked, and they were willing to give it a go. In fact they are wanting to play again this coming weekend. If that doesn't qualify as a resounding success nothing will!

I enjoyed the game so much that I am going to run it for my adult gaming group later this month. Their tastes run similar to mine, so I know they will enjoy it as well. We are all in our 40's & 50's, and our time (and memory) are very limited. S&SS is just the type of game to squeeze into our busy schedules. I'm looking forward to purchasing a box set when they become available.

Thank you for your time, and effort in producing such a fun game! Keep up the good work!

[Vanquishing Leviathan]

Wow, that's all kinds of awesome! That's the first play report I've received. E-mail me your mailing address and I'll try to get a free boxed set in the mail tomorrow (unless you're outside the continental 48, then you're just out of luck ).

steve XATX vanquishingleviathan XDOTX com

[Finarvyn]

I ran a short game of this yesterday. My experience was similar to that of BLBlake. My group was composed of two of my regular gamers and the two sons of one of the guys.

We had characters created in 15-20 minutes or less and the group was ready to play. The adults played a cleric (Milo) and a wizard (Falstaff), while the two boys decided to play dwarven brothers (cleverly named Sam and not-Sam).

The boys wanted to play something like Lord of the Rings and so I gave them a simple quest to enter Moria and find a dwarven axe. The boys really like to fight things and they seemed to like how quickly and smoothly combat ran. They have played a game or two of OD&D with me and always seem to be confused on what dice to roll in which situations, so the all-d6 model worked well for them.

The wizard player was concerned at first about the spell selection of a simple game, but once he had a chance to read over the list he seemed satisfied because all of the base OD&D spells seem to be there. The cleric player mostly fights and heals in OD&D, and he didn’t spend much time looking at the spell list.

Overall, the game runs smooth and fun. It very much has that “old school OD&D” flavor, but also the monster simplicity associated with games like T&T. The gang had a lot of fun and the adventure would have continued except that the Blackhawk game came on TV and this totally derailed the scenario. They are supposed to come over after dinner today to finish the quest.


A couple of feedback thoughts from my end. I was tempted to do a re-layout myself (and may do so for my own use) but didn’t want to duplicate efforts you were doing already and/or sound insulting in some way.

In general, the artwork is awesome. Not “polished and expensive” type awesome, but “quirky and fun” type awesome. The overall layout screams “old school” to me and reminds me a lot of the basic feel of the OD&D brown books, only simplified.

GM’s Guide:

p.4 -- Rules to create monster stats seem simple and well written.

p.5 -- I like the fact that you have worked out some sample numbers, but would have preferred to see this in more of a table format. (Silly layout issue. Feel free to ignore.)

p.6 to p.18 -- Monster information clear and concise.
* I like the fact that the majority of the space used is full of description and not numbers.
* I like the inclusion of androids.
* There are a few instances where your layout isn’t consistent in terms of whether there is an extra line in between the stat line and description (chimera, efreet, ghoul, ochre jelly, vampire) and at least one case where there seems to be an extra line in there for no reason (before gnoll, before kobold, before lycanthrope, in between titan stat block and description). I’m assuming that the intent was to divide these monsters off from other monsters, but my other suggestions of layout might eliminate this issue and look cleaner.
* For sub-categories (dragon, giant, golem) you might indent those parts to set them apart from the text.
* Some monsters (gnoll, hippogriff, invisible stalker, troll) have more than one paragraph; you might eliminate the extra line and indent the second paragraph instead.

p.19 -- Random monster charts are pretty cool.

p.24 (for example) -- your treasure charts are small enough that I don’t see an advantage to dark gray shading of part of the table.

Player’s Guide:

p.3 -- Core mechanic simple and easy to understand.

p.4 -- I like the “limited bell curve” provided by what would normally be a linear d6 roll.

p.5 -- Cleric well done overall. Again, your tables aren’t long enough to really need shading on half of the rows. I’d consider tweaking the layout of this.

p.6 -- Fighter fine, but I wondered why some of the information (such as combat bonus) wasn’t put into chart form. Any reason why the Magic-user isn’t d6-1 for HP? (Not a big deal, really, but so many rules sets downgrade MU hit points.) Wizard chart shading issue.

p.8 -- As I read the dwarf, I had the same thought about combat bonus as for the fighter.

p.12 -- Equipment; finally a chart big enough so that gray shading seems worthwhile. :-)

p.14 -- Gray chart. I like the notion that the game could be expanded beyond level 6. After all, while the rules mechanic might emphasize a d6 roll, there really is no reason to put an artificial level cap on the game. Except that eventually the bonuses have to either run out or you would need to switch from a d6 to a d12 or something like that. Hmmm.

p.18 -- This sort of advice is nice for any game, not just an introductory one. Well written.

p.22+ -- spell descriptions short and sweet. This is a definite bonus and allows for some interpretation. You might consider having a chart that lists all of the spells by level in the rules and not just the text descriptions. (Not like there are that many spells, you understand, but a simple chart might be useful to players.)

Well done, and hope the feedback is useful!

[BLBlake]

Finarvyn,

It's funny that you mentioned that the kids wanted something akin to Lord of the Rings. My kids pretty much said the same thing. Their group ended up consisting of 2 Halflings (or should I say Hobbits), 1 Dwarf, 1 Elf, 1 Fighter (Dual sword wielding ala Aragorn). I was surprised no one wanted to play a Wizard. It's interesting that the first thing today's generation thinks of when you mention fantasy is the LOTR movies. When I was their age it was Howard, Leiber, Carter, and of course Tolkien (his books, not the animated shows). It's a shame there are not more fantasy movies on par with LOTR for kids to reference.

I ran them through a simple 2 level dungeon, and was happily surprised at how easily the game is to play on the fly. I noticed that during combat that the combatants seemed to hit about 60% of the time, which actually seems about on par with the regular OD&D games I run for my older players. Out of the 5 players only 1 character, the human fighter would have been considered killed. He got down to 0 hit points which is dead by the rules, but I house ruled that a character could go down to minus their level before they die. That extra 1 HP was the difference between life or death for him. It also helped illustrate as mentioned in the rules, just how deadly combat can be in this game.

I agree with all your points. This game is easy, fast playing, and encourages an old school "less rules, more imagination" style of play. This game is the perfect antidote for those sick of all the rules/chart heavy game systems. Even though it would be considered rules lite, it is still a complete game with plenty of room to tweak to your liking if you so wish.

I hope this game can attract attention, and grow in popularity. It really deserves to be recognized.

Brian

[Vanquishing Leviathan]

Thanks Finarvyn for taking the time to share with me your thoughts. I know that must've taken some time and I assure you it is greatly appreciated.

p.5 -- I like the fact that you have worked out some sample numbers, but would have preferred to see this in more of a table format. (Silly layout issue. Feel free to ignore.)

I can't believe I didn't think about that! It would definitely work better as a chart.

* There are a few instances where your layout isn’t consistent in terms of whether there is an extra line in between the stat line and description (chimera, efreet, ghoul, ochre jelly, vampire) and at least one case where there seems to be an extra line in there for no reason (before gnoll, before kobold, before lycanthrope, in between titan stat block and description). I’m assuming that the intent was to divide these monsters off from other monsters, but my other suggestions of layout might eliminate this issue and look cleaner.

Man, how did that happen?! Just goes to show ya always miss something! Missing the space between stat blocks and descriptions is definitely a mistake. I still can't see how that got past me.

The extra spaces are intentional, as I was trying not to break things up across pages, and I didn't want to leave huge gaps at the page bottoms. The Titan extra space is another mistake.

* For sub-categories (dragon, giant, golem) you might indent those parts to set them apart from the text.
* Some monsters (gnoll, hippogriff, invisible stalker, troll) have more than one paragraph; you might eliminate the extra line and indent the second paragraph instead.

I'm a fan of space between paragraphs, but I'll try this out and see how it looks.

p.24 (for example) -- your treasure charts are small enough that I don’t see an advantage to dark gray shading of part of the table.

Yeah, it's not strictly necessary most of the time and it would look better without it, but I strive for consistency and there are a few charts that need the gray shading. I'll have to think about this.

p.6 -- Fighter fine, but I wondered why some of the information (such as combat bonus) wasn’t put into chart form.

I was striving to keep the page count low, and using traditional class/level charts would take up more space. Maybe, I'm not sure about that now that I take another look. I'll have to try out a chart and see how many lines it takes.

Any reason why the Magic-user isn’t d6-1 for HP? (Not a big deal, really, but so many rules sets downgrade MU hit points.)

I considered doing that, but I didn't think it necessary given how armor, shield, and helmets work in conjunction with the other classes vs. wizards. Wizards & clerics have the same HD, but the use of armor provides a kind of hp bonus not found in other games. I do need to do more playtesting to make sure the classes are balanced, especially at the higher levels.

p.14 -- Gray chart. I like the notion that the game could be expanded beyond level 6. After all, while the rules mechanic might emphasize a d6 roll, there really is no reason to put an artificial level cap on the game. Except that eventually the bonuses have to either run out or you would need to switch from a d6 to a d12 or something like that. Hmmm.

The low level cap is based upon the mechanics specific to this game. Since the game is based on 1d6, the bonuses need to be kept low, or it can get out of hand real fast. Since 1 level in S&SS is roughly equal to 2 levels in other games, 6th (12th) level seems to be a good place to wrap things up. Plus it ties into the 6 part of the 1d6. I'll probably put out at some point a supplement for "epic" levels (7+ ).

p.22+ -- spell descriptions short and sweet. This is a definite bonus and allows for some interpretation. You might consider having a chart that lists all of the spells by level in the rules and not just the text descriptions. (Not like there are that many spells, you understand, but a simple chart might be useful to players.)

The spell lists were cut trying to keep the page count low, and I also have to keep pages to multiples of 4. Plus I was trying to minimize empty space, because that would require more art, and I was running out of time before the Con. The art was done last, and it was really, really rushed. I think at one point I drew around 18 drawings in the span of 3 hours. Whatever popped into my head, I drew it in a matter of minutes and moved on to the next drawing. The art is definitely not my best, but it was the best I could do given the circumstances. When I get around to revising the rulebooks, I'll be able to take my time, so hopefully they will be much improved. Spell lists will probably end up being put back in.

Thanks for your insights, Finarvyn, your criticisms are very helpful.

[Vanquishing Leviathan]

Of the 25 numbered Swords & Six-Siders Original Collector's Edition boxed sets, 13 are still available for sale at $10+S&H (plus sales tax for those in Texas). I'm currently looking into postage, but it will probably be around $10 for the continental US. I'm inexperienced with mailing overseas, but I will consider mailing to anywhere in the world, but the postage will be higher.

Right now I am making a list, and once the list is complete I will contact you for payment. To get on the list, please e-mail me (steve XATX vanquishingleviathan XDOTX com) stating you want on the list, and include your state and/or country.

All of the boxed sets are assembled and ready to go. Due to a recent accident, I will try (but cannot promise) to have everything mailed within 1 week of receiving payment, if not sooner. International mail may take longer to send off, as there will be customs forms to fill out.

At this time, I am only accepting payment through paypal. The OCE boxed sets are limited to 1 per customer. Thank you!

[Vanquishing Leviathan]

The list for boxed sets is currently full, with 1 on the waiting list. If you have e-mailed me about the boxed set, you should receive an e-mail within the next 24 hours. Thanks, everybody!

[jdn2006]

Love the art, idea and content. I've played around with various 1d6 only games and this is one of the best and complete D&D-ish ones I've seen. A single d6 can go a long ways, for anyone just playing for the fun of it.

[BLBlake]

I just received my Swords & Six-Siders Box Set today, and I am very pleased with it. First off the package arrived very quickly, and was well packed, and secure. The game components, and the box are all very nicely done for being a self published game. The entire product from the art, and presentation to the writing radiate a warm old school charm. Even the included introductory adventure took me back to the old days. The scenario also gives advice on how to construct, and populate dungeons which is helpful for new GMs. 
Both the Player's Book, and the Gamemaster's Book are the same as the PDF (Minus the covers) available on Vanquishing Leviathan's website, but the rules in their physical booklet form are much more fun. 

This is a great addition to anyone's gaming library, especially those of us who enjoy the Do It Yourself Old School Gaming Philosophy.

Congratulations Steve, you've done an excellent job! I'm looking forward to your future products.

Here are some photos of my box set:



 

 

 

[Deleted]

How did that axe fit into that box?

[BLBlake]

That's not just any box, that's a +1 box of holding!

[dizzysaxophone]

I also received mine today as well. I read through the players guide and it is a real great piece of work. I definitely plan on playing this with my OD&D group next time we're missing a few people. This should definitely serve well for a quick pick-up game and was done really well. I can't compliment it enough! Shipped quick too

[kesher]

Did you need the axe to open the box?

[Vanquishing Leviathan]

I've been wondering what happened to my battle axe! Please either return it or send me 7gp.

I've been amazed and humbled at the amount of interest Swords & Six-Siders has received - thank you all! I received payment and shipped the last of the 25 boxed sets this morning. Unfortunately, this means there are none left for those on the waiting list (I believe I've contacted everyone, but I'm posting here just in case I've missed someone).

There will be an unlimited, revised boxed set available by late summer or fall, along with additional solitaire and GM adventures later this year. Since it will not be a limited run, there will be no list nor limit per customer.

[BLBlake]

Jun 19, 2013 20:18:00 GMT -6 kesher said:

Did you need the axe to open the box?

Nope, I keep it around to bonk unruly players over the head with.