My GLOG-hack: 3d6LOG

Intro

Welp, thanks to Oblidisideryptch for giving me the final push to actually start this blog. I figured I'd start with the very very un-playtested version of my GLOG hack.

Wait, what's a GLOG-hack?

Well dear reader, are you sitting down? Because let me introduce you to the GLOG-o-sphere, a conglomeration of online gretchlings within the OSR community who take the mantra "move fast and break things" to a new extreme. For a full explanation on who and what this group is or does look here and for an elegant summary of the essence of the GLOG look no further than it's Tao.

If clicking a link is still too much work for you, here's my best summary. A man named Arnold K once decided he didn't care about established and supported systems and wrote his own fantasy heartbreaker system. Then after people picked it up to run with it he said this - 

- and well the GLOG-o-sphere has been abandoning and building ever since. Now, finally onto my hack. 

The 3d6LOG

The goals of my GLOG hack were as follows. 

• Short and sweet
• Intuitive dice system for the players
• Simple but diverse classes
• A more free-form magic system

A lot of these were driven not only by me but by the players I plan on playing this with. An understated advantage of the GLOG is not only to be able to adapt a game to your tastes, but also to your players. For example, I personally would've liked a more detailed and traditional resource management system based around torches, rations, etc. but my players made it pretty clear they didn't find that kind of problem-solving interesting, so I didn't put it in. 

So with those goals, here's what I came up with (feel free to skip right to the pdf if you want).

Attributes

There are only three. Fortitude, Reflex, and Willpower. Stole these ideas from the old 4E saving throws. Less is more and this removes some of the issues with players trying to use a high Charisma or Intelligence score to simply roll their way out of problems. Stats are 3d6 / 2 (round down). 

Core Mechanic

The system is 3d6 roll high. I like bell-curves as they're more accurate than the flat probability of a d20. Additionally, it allows for mechanics relying on doubles and triples for everyone, not just Wizard's with their Magic Dice. Finally, more dice is just more fun. 

Combat

You don't roll for damage. You just deal one damage for each point you roll above your opponent's defense (Armor Class). You have both Health and Sanity. The players start out a little heartier than most GLOG-lings probably do, but I suspect this combat system may make it feel just as deadly. 

Magic

The core magic dice system from the GLOG is there, but spell descriptions are missing. Instead, there's a rough guide for how powerful a spell is based on the sum rolled. This leaves a lot up to referee interpretation and to player creativity, but I think magic should be weird and chaotic and inconsistent.

Other

I'm pretty proud of the custom character sheets I made as well as the skill system. But, my favorite thing I'm looking forward to playtesting are the minimalist GLOG classes. Many of these were inspired or lifted from elsewhere but almost all were boiled down to their purest essentials. (All 9 classes fit on one and a half pages). 

Version 0.1

LINK

Great Ideas I Stole for 3d6LOG

The magic system was inspired by this blog post from Captain Caveman.

The chase system was invented by The Retired Adventurer here.

Several classes were lifted from the Penny Dreadful Class project here.

The price list was helped by Skerples' awesome project here.

The setting and cover inspired from this interesting article here (I couldn't find the exact artist, unfortunately) 

The credits section in the rules themselves has a much more comprehensive list of people and ideas. But thank you to everyone in the GLOG community for the encouragement and support.