This is book two of the D6xD6 Dungeons Kickstarter, a setting that proved the D6xD6 experience system is campaign-able. (You can purchase the Bauner Coast setting on DriveThruRPG.)
I had sort of assumed the D6xD6 RPG was best for one-shots or mini-campaigns of a few sessions. But 6 months of play with a group of fans on Facebook demonstrated that the game holds up well for longer term with recurring characters. In terms of character growth, playing long-term felt a lot like the one- and two-year TFT campaigns we played back in the early ‘80s.
With this FB Bauner Coast campaign, we spent most of the time in Mautram, “City of Wonder!” a Machiavellian trading capital that’s home to the Scholarly Institute of Conjuring and Sorcery, the School of Mystic Illusions, and the secretive Black House of necromancers. It’s a truly beautiful city, with wide, clean streets, ornately decorated buildings, and well-dressed citizens—the very embodiment of the truism that appearances can be deceiving. It’s no accident that Mautram hosts the School of Mystic Illusions.
But Mautram is only one locale on the Coast. One player’s character was a second son of a minor noble house in knightly Byasse, to the south, and had trained as an elementalist in rough-and-tumble Hov’s Bend, far to the north. Another player invented a tribal hunter from jungle south of the map’s edge. The mission was to investigate abduction of a pair of half elves from the wilds of ‘Tweenland; half elves being a rare sight, wandering loners.
A third book in the series, a random dungeon crawl system, may well see the light of day this year. Everything’s written except for fleshing out what wealth gains you. It’s a tricky issue in a game with no shopping list. You know the type: Don’t go into a dungeon without a hooded lantern (7 s.p.), a 10’ pole (3 c.p.), a 50’ rope (4 s.p.), a week’s worth of standard rations (3 g.p.), and on and on.
Conan spent his earnings on binges in taverns. I have the bones of a system for renown, social climbing, or charity, but it needs some work.
Originally all three zine editions were intended as one 8 ½” x 11” volume, something that I’d been writing for a couple of years, but you know the story about clawing my way out of a three-month depression via a January “PC a day” challenge, and the happy February discovery of a Kickstarter “Zinequest” promotion. Splitting the big project into three sections untangled the pieces, making them manageable. And honestly, I’m happier with the more convenient zine format.
P.S. I’d also assumed the Bookmark HP RPG was uncampaignable, but having discovered my D6xD6 assumption was wrong, I decided to give its bookmark sibling a chance, and our two-player cyberpunk campaign is now 8 months old, with no sign of stopping.