Arriving at the City

It’s been a long time coming, but the Warriors & Warlocks game I was GMing is drawing to close, and I’m going to be running a game set in the City. Hopefully, I’m going to have a couple of new players joining as well--two folks whose games I’ve had the pleasure of playing in--who were interested in getting in on a City-based game.

One of the questions has been: What system? I wanted something fairly “rules lite”--I have better things to do than learn and adapt a complicated new system. It also needs to be fairly amenable to tweaking since I wanted some rules elements to reflect the setting.

I was initially thinking of using Labyrinth Lord as my base, but I’ve recently changed my mind. Stuart Robertson’s Weird West has the elements I like in old school systems distilled to their basic elements, and given a little more flexibility, thereby.  

So as I gear up for the game, I’ll be talking about some of my modifications. Honestly, I’m not as much of a rules-fiddler as I was in my youth. This heresy in some circles, no doubt, but "perfection" of rules just just doesn’t interest me that much, now (though I’m glad it interests others, so I can benefit from the fruits of that interest) .

Like I said, I'll make some modifications/additions, though.  I've already thought about some cosmetic changes.  I thnk I'll rename Skill; It seems like the name confuses some people initially as they think of it as representing knowledge, whereas mechanically, it stands in for dexterity and physical skill.  Maybe "knack" or just back to "dexterity?"  Likewise, I may broaden Magic to "knowledge" which more broadly reflects its game use (though I don't find that name as snappy, admittedly).
   
I think magic will be something that gets some attention--not so much to change the basics, but to add some detail in keeping with the diversity of magical practice among Weird Adventures setting spellcasters.  Like I say, I think the basic system is resilient and can handle these additions with little fuss. 

Anyway, more to follow in days to come.   And of course, my choice of system for my game won't affect Weird Adventures--which is designed to be rules lite to begin with, but uses the OGL where it does touch upon rules elements (like monsters).