Off the Shelf: EZD6

EZD6 was sitting in a storage box in the garage, and I thought about it, and went to find it, and there it was. The smaller games, like Old School Essentials, Index Card RPG, Shadowdark, and all the other A5-sized games are special. The design and fun that goes into these far outweighs games 100 times their size, the six shelves of 5E books I have are a waste of time and money.

All of that can be done with a few A5-sized books packed with fun.

Old School Essentials? Great game, iconic.

Index Card RPG? Amazing game, classic. Any setting, any world, grab and go.

Shadowdark? Better than all of 5E, this is D&D.

EZD6? Instant classic. Pick up and play fun.

I have a few A5 games that are hard to follow and don't have that "discipline of ideas" that many designers force themselves to have. Size does not mean greatness. But size forces designers into greatness, and those who lack design talent will fail spectacularly and be shown clear as day.

An 8.5x11" book can hide tons of sins and poor design.

An A5 book will shine a light on a horrible design. 

What is special about EZD6 is that I could put this in my pocket with a few dice, head down to the bar, and play it with complete strangers. This is so easy to teach and play, you don't even need 5 minutes, just start playing, tell people what to roll, and then run the game in a 30-second start window. This is the ultimate "pick up game" to play at a convention or a casual social situation.

Shadowdark is not even this easy. There is prep needed, like a premade character and a bit of explanation. EZD6 is the way to go with people you just met, or have the hesitation about gaming or "getting involved" with anything. You throw down dice, ask people to pick an archetype, and get started. Even magic is "say what it does" and allows for ultimate creativity at the table, and there are no "spell lists" for people to sift through.

Magic "just is" and it is a wonderful thing. Let people summon a "swarm of cannibal hamsters" of they want. Or fill the hallway with pink balloons to slow the goblins down. Let people use their imagination! It is magic, not paid-by-the-word contractor filler text meant to beat down your imagination and drain wonder from your soul. EZD6 gets magic and that sense of wonder where most other OSR games stumble over themselves to endlessly repeat 50-year-old spell lists.

Magic should be magical.

Not a well-known list meant to limit your creativity.

These small games have more thought and design put into them than the 1,000-page games. They do more, have more options, and are far better experiences. What they don't have room for forces them to only include the best options, eliminate filler, and deliver the "best of the best."

I only want the best ideas in my games.

I don't want page after page of garbage. 

Again, if I am playing with people I just met, who know nothing about the game, who never opened the book, do I want to tell them "make crazy and fun something up" or "here, read this book, all these first-level spells, and find something to cast?" It is a no-brainier most games do not have the brains to even think of.

At that bar with people I just met and never know?

EZD6 will be the game we will play.

EZD6 vs. Index Card RPG

What a comparison. Two great games, but which one do I prefer for my rules-light game of choice?

To be honest, these two have wiped out almost every other rules-light game in my collection, including FATE. Savage Worlds is like a rules-moderate game since there are a lot of book-reference and special case rules to make that game engine work.

EZD6 is designed from the top down; what is fun at the table? Index Card feels designed from the bottom up; great mechanics create fun at the table.

ICRPG uses a complete set of polyhedral dice and keeps the incredibly fun d20 as the center of all the action: d20 for success, the rest of the dice for effort. EZD6 is six-sided dice only, and I was stuck in a hotel or airport where all I could get my hands on at a gift shop were a set of Yahtzee dice; EZD6 would be my go-to game. 

EZD6 is, by default, a fantasy game; I would love to see this go multi-genre in a second edition. The game feels easy enough to use for anything, but the default classes and lingo are more for fantasy than any genre. ICRPG is truly any genre, and it goes to town in the rulebook with examples of fantasy, sci-fi, weird west, superhero, and barbaric worlds and game support.

ICRPG is more gear-based and uses a concept of "gear as progression." EZD6 is gear-light, with gear baked into the classes, such as armor.

EZD6's magic is to make it up as you go along. ICRPG is more list-based, with spells as loot, with defined spells you find and select for your mage. This is one of the enormous differences between the games! If you like to make up what your magic does in a given situation, EZD6 is your game. If you like spell lists, collecting spells, and lists of named spells, then ICRPG is your game.

ICRPG has more robust progression with mile-stone abilities and masteries. EZD6 uses story elements as progression and does not track experience.

EZD6 is almost a stat-less game, whereas ICRPG feels more traditional regarding stats and character abilities.

Both of them are revolutionary games.

EZD6 has this "what works at the table" design philosophy, and I think many games could benefit from this design style - especially OSR games. We tend to keep a lot of cruft "because it existed back in 198X" when it might not have been the best rule or way to do things at the table, but we keep it because of nostalgia. Some of those rules were half-thought-through and mistakes back then, not the most fun way to handle something at a table. EZD6 jettisons most tabletop RPG "best guidelines" and goes with what works at a table of excited and engaged players.

EZD6 is like the ultimate party RPG.

Index Card feels born from frustration and disappointment; even the cover has this twisted ball of intense and confusing feelings. ICRPG feels like "every RPG I bought let me down," and the game is a reaction born of mechanics. These solid mechanics will change the way you play other games if you adopt parts of them that rethink every RPG trope into answering the question, "What is the most fun to play with these dice?" Everything is turned into a challenge, gear is essential, and the flow of a game becomes a mechanic. Better yet, game mechanics and player choice are preserved and celebrated - for those who like rules and choices, these are here and beg to be used in games and character designs.

Index Card RPG is like the ultimate role-playing game RPG.

For me, ICRPG hits a lot of my mechanical preferences - especially when playing solo. EZD6 can be played solo, but like a massive stack of pizzas and a table full of soda bottles, it is better shared with friends.

Good Video: EZD6 Magik

I could not figure out the magik system of EZD6 until I watched this. Good stuff.