D6 Digressions: Weird Adventures

My stilled Weird Adventures work has seen new inspiration due to several things: one, the new OGL Wanton Role Playing System and its parent RPG Over The Edge; two, a surprisingly addictive browser game calling itself Fallen London; and three, Naked City -- a contemporary fantasy anthology edited by Ellen Datlow.

Because of WaRP (the acronym for the Wanton Role Playing System), I've decided on a change in game system strategies, because writing and real life do demand more of my time than I'd anticipated. I'll be doing my initial statting out of templates inspired by WaRP and OpenD6 and, of course, Dariel Quiogue's Vivid system for the templates I listed before for Weird Adventures.

Because of Fallen London and Over The Edge, I've begun looking at characters, locales, and signifiers that really evoke the sense of the strange, the feeling that there's another place elsewhere that makes more sense, the gothic, moody, claustrophobic feel you get even out on the beach in a strange land where everyone seems to almost speak a language you don't understand and you have no idea how to get home or find someone you trust -- but have no choice.

Because of Naked City, there's a different sense of something I'd always looked for in what would later be called 'settings' or 'sandboxes' or whatever -- the feeling that no matter what direction you go, the GM has something ready for you and you can't fall off the edge of the world. In Naked City, there are different types of magic, different realities, and most importantly, different types of characters that aren't necessarily easily assessed by a quick scan of the surface and a quick review of their credit rating. Hidden depths and histories.