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Wednesday, January 18, 2012

A Look at Jaws of the Six Serpents (PDQ System)

This isn't going to be a true review, some I'm not titling it as such (but will tag it as one, 'cause it's close enough).  I just got my softcover copy of Jaws of the Six Serpents - Silver Branch Games was offering a discount to those that had purchased the PDF copy of the game, and that certainly included me.

The PDQ System (which I first came across in Questers of the Middle Realms) one of those, dare I say it, Indie Game Systems.  PDQ - Prose Descriptive Qualities.  In this case it's almost like a structure red freeform type system - you define your characters standout traits and qualities (good and bad) using the included rules and distributing points and "Wallah!" you have a character.  It's pretty open and flexible.  Which means I'm sure it can be gamed by Munchkins, but then again, so can most systems out there.  All you need are a handful of D6, so it should be an easy enough system to grass if you can get past your D&D roots.  That shit always holds me back ;)

Anyhow, I really like the Swords & Sorcery feel of Jaws of the Six Serpents.  It does a great job in a relatively small amount of space (the entire book is about 130 pages).  I suspect it runs pretty quickly and painlessly with a GM that is conversant with the rules, which would make it a decent choice to run via a Virtual Table Top or Google+ Hangouts, as I've noticed, at least with VTTs, the games tend to run slower.  With voice or without, the pace slows from a face to face game.  With a system that runs fairly fast in the first place, that might be less of an issue.

You can check out the Core PDQ Rules for free here.

1 comment:

  1. If you liked it, have a look at On Mighty Thews. It's even more rules light, and IMO superior in many aspects.

    ReplyDelete

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