FTL Nomad: Winning Me Over

FTL Nomad is slowly winning me over as my science fiction game of choice. It is fast, fun, stays out of the way, has tons of options, and has a universal Xd6 dice mechanic where the only modifier is your skill level. And there are no attributes, just skills. The modifiers are minimal (skill only); this is an advantage/disadvantage multi-die system like 5E, with only one target number of 8+.

This is rules-light 2d6 gaming, but it doesn't feel rules-light.

It is just enough game without going so light that it feels inconsequential or too light to care about. There are a few systems that feel throw-away, like they don't have enough genre support or tooling that, once you start playing, you wish you were playing something else. And that something else is usually so full-featured and heavy that getting started is a massive effort you rarely have time for.

There is a companion book that increases the number of skills to 14 or 20 for more in-depth games, but the basic seven-skill game is good enough for most science fiction. In Star Wars-type pulp science fiction, a vehicle character is good at nearly any vehicle, and the combat specialist excels in both melee and ranged combat. In a universe where "anything goes," a pilot shares proficiencies between speeders and starships, that "vehicle control" skill applies to a wide range of things, and "you just don't worry about it."

Having a specific "Model 301 antigrav speeder" skill in a science fiction setting would lead to having millions of skills and a character sheet as long as a typical 5E character, dozens of pages long. In pulp settings, reduce the skill list and focus on broader proficiency categories.

If you want a difference between melee combat and ranged combat, do the 14 skills. If all you care about is "this is a combat character," then stick with 7 skills, and it does not matter. If you are going to have to buy up your melee skills to the same level as your ranged weapon skills, why not combine them? Also, if you find yourself favoring ranged combat skills, you are denying yourself chances to take advantage of melee attacks.

If the soldier is the "combat guy," then he can shoot, punch, kick, use a knife, wrestle, and fire a starship turret just as well as any other combat task. There is an elegance to one combat skill that many games lose once you are buying separate skills for knives and short swords.

The game has archetypes, so it is not "just skills," and these give you special "class benefits" in an area of activities based on archetype. The referee can also use this to cover a wider range of activities, such as a diplomat interacting with others, having the knowledge diplomats would have, exclusive access, and immunities by treaty and roles in society. You can even use these as unlocks for using weapons and gear, such as a soldier or pilot knowing how to drive a tank, where a diplomat or scholar would not.

There is a talent system that allows even more customization beyond this, ensuring you are not pigeon-holed into a specific role. Some of these support combat, social, technical, piloting, and other activities, so you can specialize within a role and get the benefits of a "5E subclass" with a far easier system.

What is interesting is that the game does away with ability scores. If you are super-strong, that would be more of a talent than a high ability score. The standard rack of ability scores gets min-maxed in OSR and 5R games anyway, and it only exists to be gamed for a single or dual benefit. Why not get rid of ability scores and pick a "charismatic" talent instead of gimping an ability score rack for one high CHR stat? The talent is far more flavorful, can be tailored to cover a specific benefit, and it does not introduce a rack of ability scores to track and manage.

Simplify, archetype, collect, aggregate, and focus on iconic roles.

FTL Nomad is a solid, modern, streamlined game that is an excellent alternative for any 2d6 system.

How Much Game Do You Need?

Recently, I had to flee my home and stay in a hotel for a few days after a minor disaster. So, I had to take a game on the road. I grabbed the first game I could see, one sitting on a shelf the contractors threw there when they had to move my hall shelves. This one was completely a random "grab it off the shelf" moment, since everything was all over the place, and I needed to head out fast.

That game was Sword of Cepheus, Second Edition. This fits in my iPad Mini travel bag. I grabbed a handful of d6 dice and was all set and good to go. This was a whim, and in part, the workers in the house made it for me. They left it face-up, alone, on a shelf shoved in my bedroom; they had to move there to get it out of the way.

So, it is fate that decided this for me, just like the roll of a die. I accepted the result and grabbed the book. This was my choice, one of possibly many, but in a way, the book called to me and said, "Grab the sword and accept the quest which first presents itself."

Whoever put that book there for me made a karmic choice for my future, and since it sounded fun, I went with it. Life is about adventure, and there are moments when you do not understand why something happens or how it happened, but you go with it, take that path, and see where it leads.

My small tote bag doesn't even fit an average 10-inch tablet; it is made for smaller devices and holds a digest-sized book (like Shadowdark) nicely. I could have grabbed Shadowdark, but I like the d6 games better for travel, since who wants to carry around a ton of special dice? Six-siders work; they are easy to replace at any supermarket or pharmacy, and they are the universal die.

As I was sitting in the hotel, the thought occurred to me, if my house burned down and I lost all my games, would I be happy with just this? And then I knew, I would. If I lost it all, this game would be good enough for me, and that is a freedom I never knew I could come to terms with. A liberation from the massive libraries and shelves full of books this hobby foists upon you, constantly screaming, "more is more!" and "you need hundreds of pounds of books to enjoy a game!"

It is all lies.

It is all consumerist garbage.

And it is all designed to part you from as much money as these exploitative gaming companies can manage. In a way, your average pen-and-paper roleplaying game company is no different than a mobile game company, though the model is designed to be a little slower and a lot heavier. If they are selling you a library, they are selling you a lie.

These small, indie, community-focused games? They are closer to the true spirit of the hobby: throw-a-book-in-a-bag games that offer the same "depth" and "expressive options" as a game a hundred times its size and weight. Traveller has sort of lost its way with that massive, three-shelf library, and the digest-sized Cepheus games remain closer to that spirit of freedom and portability.

Why do I need to tie my life down with thousands of pounds of books? I am just burying my decades of roleplaying under a mountain of paper and lies. Giant gaming libraries are the dirt we throw on the coffin of our hobby, and they do nothing for me other than to appease some "collector's bug" I have inside my brain.

Collecting is not playing.

Owning more is not enjoying more; it is often the inverse.

Owning more means being more unhappy and playing less.

If I were to add one more game to this, it would likely be the OGL-free FTL Nomad for science fiction (and anything modern) gaming. I would need a slightly larger bag for this, but it would fit into my mobile life much better. I could do fantasy gaming with FTL Nomad, but SoC2 has so many wonderful tables and a Conan-like feel that I cannot pass it up.

FTL Nomad covers the rest, and while it doesn't do the 2d6 attributes, if I ever wanted a more traditional 2d6 science fiction game, Cepehus Light (my Car Wars RPG) fits in the bag, too, and is digest-sized. FTL Nomad does more genres and has a nice collection of thin expansion books, so I am getting far more with less.

I have a slightly deeper tote on order, with a 5" depth rather than my current bag's 2.5". While I like the slim bag, I will try the deeper one to see if it is a bit more comfortable for gaming on the go, plus my little notebooks, pencils, erasers, dice, and other gaming bits and bobs. The idea of finally freeing myself from a few thousand pounds of worthless gaming fat and overload is extremely appealing to me.

A few dice that give me a touch of randomness, but not so much that I am deciding which die to use. The polyhedral dice are distractions, and very few of them are statistically different enough to matter. The only difference between a d4, d6, d8, d10, and d12 is a one-point average shift between each die, and nothing a one-point modifier could simulate. Maximums and minimums are nothing compared to the average result you expect over a thousand rolls.

I don't need the polyhedral dice, nor the games that use them.

This is an extra requirement, and another chain tying me to an already worthless and bloated library.

There is a certain magic to carrying every world, game, and universe in a small bag and taking it wherever you go. I have the freedom to point to a destination, attraction, or event and say, "Let's go," and take it all with me. Every world, character, campaign, and idea is in a tiny bag that I can toss over my shoulder and travel with.

All I need are a few six-sided dice.

And my imagination.

And I am finally free of a pile of paper that only serves as a weight to bury my dreams and experiences under. Digital is not the answer. PDFs are not the future.

A simple book that works without an Internet connection or electricity.

The basic die that I can find anywhere.

And freedom.

FTL Nomad Thoughts

What a cool game.

FTL Nomad is sort of an evolution of the "2d6 space game," but rules-light, built for speed, and licensed under CC BY 4.0. The entire system forgoes ability scores in favor of a skill-plus-talent system. You also get a character archetype, which is like a class that gives you a special bonus.

The game uses a single target number of 8, and a unique XD6 dicing system, where advantage and disadvantage dice cancel each other out, and if you are in the negative, you roll whatever is left and take the two lowest, and if you are in the positive, you roll whatever is left and take the two highest. Skill level is added to the end result.

For example, a net -2D difficulty on a 2d6 skill roll means you roll 4d6 and take the two lowest dice. A net +3D difficulty means you roll 5d6 dice and take the two highest dice.

Damage can also gain advantage or disadvantage, and while it is capped by the number of damage dice, taking the highest or lowest still counts.

The system is fast, elegant, stays out of the way, and preserves a single target number. Many 2d6 games have a target number for each difficulty level, but here it always stays 8. Difficulty adds or subtracts dice. Some report this is an excellent storytelling and roleplaying system that stays out of the way.

The game has seven skills (but optional rules in the first expansion can expand that list to 14 or 20), but the basic game stays simple and focused.

The game features starship combat, aliens, robots, world creation, encounters, creatures, vehicle combat, and everything else you need in a science-fiction game. The rules for each are simple and straightforward, built for speedy, consistent, rules-light fun.

Where traditional 2d6 games follow the attributes plus skills system, this dares to do something different, and it works incredibly well. It does not get bogged down in attributes that mean little in play or exist only to modify rolls when very high or very low.