Has anyone checked out this Kickstarter?

Its from Graham Bottley/Arion Games, who was behind both Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2e and Maelstrom 2e, and it uses WEG's D6 rule system.

Essentially, each player creates the sorcerers and their household (consisting of 1 major character and 3 minor characters) that exist in a city set in a fantasy analogue of Persia. The sorcerers send out the members of their households to seek out secrets and magical power from ancient ruins and temples buried deep in the in desert sands.

There's some of Ars Magica in the setup, though the rules look less complex and there is less ties to a historical base in the setting.

The KS is for the rulebook, though a setting book is due next year.

The KS already has several rough draft chapters available, as well as one chapter laid out. The book looks straightforward, and the water colour art is beautiful (the poser art in the minor character section is not so good, but it is at least obfuscated to some extent).

The D6 system seems relatively untouched and presented simply:
- magic is free form (Star Wars' Force meets Ars Magica)
- minor characters are quick to make and partially randomly generated
- major characters and sorcerers are made as normal
- lots of exotic powers aside from magic exist like Holy Power, shapechanging etc

Though the concept seems narrow, I can see a lot of potential in the set up. The inbuilt structure in having each player create a sorcerer's household will produce gameplay in the form of intrigue and research. There is also a direct impetus for S&S style dungeon crawls, with a variety of appropriate characters.

Very interesting! Thanks for posting this!

Tell us more how this works with a group of players at the table if everyone is a different, and thus I assume competing, household.

Also, any links to Actual Play?

Quote from: Spinachcat;799504Very interesting! Thanks for posting this!

Tell us more how this works with a group of players at the table if everyone is a different, and thus I assume competing, household.

Also, any links to Actual Play?

The only information I have seen is from the draft documents that you get access to through the KS.

The base rules are pretty much an untouched D6 WEG. It is not clear exactly how it is intended to operate, but there are mentions that the players will choose appropriate PCs to play at different points in time:

QuoteThese characters may be actively played by the character in any scene where they are present, or their actions may simply be decided by their player. If an expedition is mounted, then generally a player will choose only one of his available characters to send. It will usually be a Soldier or Specialist character sent on a journey inside or outside the city, although in some cases a Servant will be a better choice for a particular player.

As such, I think there is some cooperation between Sorcerers intended. Maybe friendly rivalry may be what its aiming for. There are also Factions beyond that of the sorcerers, so there is definitely scope for external threats.

The examples of play are brief but talk about visits to a sorcerer's household and dungeon delving.

On further reading, the sorcerers are assumed to be part of the same household called a Vahnam. That would seem analogous to an Ars Magica Covenant.

This looks pretty interesting to me... its structure sounds similar to what my homebrew setting games have become, with most of the PCs being students or functionaries of a library/university, being sent out into the field to get samples and recover lost knowledge. At this point all the Players have multiple Characters to pull from depending on the assignment.

Also very enticing that it's based on Persian lore... so hopefully there will be Djinn and a lost city of brass.

I liked how the Sorcerer and Major Character are fully detailed, but the three Minor Characters are partially randomly generated. Not only does that make them easier to replace and eases the burden of creating them, but it adds some randomness at the bottom level.

Quote from: Skywalker;799518I liked how the Sorcerer and Major Character are fully detailed, but the three Minor Characters are partially randomly generated. Not only does that make them easier to replace and eases the burden of creating them, but it adds some randomness at the bottom level.

Where'd you see those details? I'm not spotting them.

Quote from: Simlasa;799520Where'd you see those details? I'm not spotting them.

They are in the draft documents. The Minor Characters chapter (7) is fully laid out. Major Characters and Sorcerers chapters (8 and 9) are in rough draft only.

Quote from: Skywalker;799500- magic is free form (Star Wars' Force meets Ars Magica)...

Any more on this? I'm always on the lookout for freeform magic, since I have yet to find a system that is both quick in play and versatile.

Quote from: apparition13;799579Any more on this? I'm always on the lookout for freeform magic, since I have yet to find a system that is both quick in play and versatile.

The draft magic chapter is the roughest of those provided so far, but it gives a good idea of what its like.

Sorcerers get 14D to spread over Magic Skills. There are 3 Controls and 10 Elements:

Controls: Summon, Destroy, Shape

Elements:  Mind, Light, Nature, Spirit, Magic, Body, Fire, Air, Water, Earth

A spell consists of combining a Control and an Element.

TN for the casting is a factor of Range, Duration, Targets, Damage, Resist TN, Boost Stat/Skill/Item, Restore Wound/Fatigue/Sanity, Created Creature Stats.

You get 1 fatigue per TN of 10.

Stumbled across this randomly last week and have been on a D6 kick lately so stumped up for the hardcover. Very confident Graham will deliver something good based on track record, and it looks pretty easy to reskin to a different setting. Also keen to see how the freeform magic works out!

It's good to see d6 get a decent fantasy RPG, finally. I wasn't a big fan of d6 Fantasy.

In my experience free-form magic never really works. I'll be interested to see what he does with it.

Quote from: One Horse Town;799767In my experience free-form magic never really works. I'll be interested to see what he does with it.

I've always liked the idea of free-form magic... it seems closer to how I picture a powerful wizard, a Gandalf, using his powers... vs. the bean counting of 'Vancian' magic.
I keep seeking out games that claim to have it... but yeah, it never quite manages to hit the mark.
Kind of like simultaneous combat in wargames... that I haven't seen work well either.

To be honest, I am not a fan of free from magic either. But Atlantis and Hellas recently turned me around on the idea where the rules are simple, limited in use and easy to implement.

From what I have seen, Sorcerers of Ur-Turuk fits in that camp using what is the free form magic system in Star Wars (where you have 3 open skills but lots of defined uses) and expanding it.