Wherein your humble scribe attempts to emulate Echo Bazaar, using Mini Six.

Introduction

Mini Six is a marvelous and imminently hackable little game. Echo Bazaar is a flavorful and engaging browser-based adventure RPG set in a strange subterranean Victorian London of sorts. Two great tastes that go great together? I think so!

This is really just a little thought exercise and not meant to be too detailed – heck, I’m not even going as far as the microsettings included in Mini Six go – so don’t expect too much. And since I’ve just read that some fairly big name indie RPG folks have acquired the license and will be producing a “real” tabletop RPG for the setting I don’t imagine there’ll be much demand for this. But still, it’s my first official foray into hacking Mini Six, so I figured I’d share.

Attributes

Mini Six uses four attributes: Might, Agility, Wit, and Charm. Oddly, Echo Bazaar also uses four attributes: Dangerous, Shadowy, Watchful, and Persuasive. I figure we’ll just map those over in the semi-obvious order and run with it. Oh, and starting at 12 dice for attributes seems reasonable, though one could easily argue for higher or lower numbers.

Skills

For the most part, skills in Mini Six should translate fairly well to the attribute mapping we just made, with one notable exception: combat. In Echo Bazaar all combat is tied to one’s Dangerous attribute, so I’m sliding every combat skill – melee and ranged – under Dangerous for this hack. Yes, this means that Dangerous is a pretty powerful attribute. But if played right, combat should be far from the only activity in Sunken London.

So here’s the skill list I’ve come up with:

Dangerous
Brawling, Melee, Ranged, Dodge, Intimidate, Stamina

Shadowy
Stealth, Hide, Pick Pockets, Pick Locks, Tailing, Sleight of Hand, Streetwise

Watchful
Search, Tracking, Secrets, Sunken London History & Culture, Investigation, Research

Persuasive
Contacts, Diplomacy, Seduction, Rumors, Oratory, Gambling

Perks and Complications

Echo Bazaar is chock full of things that can be used as Perks and Complications, and since my goal is not to delve too deeply into the setting here, I’m not fleshing this section out. Suffice it to say, though, that a relationship with the Brass Embassy could easily be a Perk, a Complication, or both.

Money And Gear

Money and gear are hard to come by in the early stages of Echo Bazaar, so if you aim to emulate the game you should probably keep the players poor and poorly equipped at the outset. Make those blighters earn that rostygold and those moon-pearls.

Optional Rules

Obviously you don’t need to go this route if you like the default wound system in Mini Six (I hate wound systems, myself) or if you prefer the traditional OpenD6 combat. But me, I’m going with Fast Static Combat and Body Points (where Dangerous is the Attribute that contributes to Body Points).

Two Sample Characters

Because nothing works better to show a setting than sample characters…

Malachai Dunbar
A sly and dangerous gentleman
Dangerous 3D Shadowy 2D+2
Watchful 4D Persuasive 2D+1
Skills: Brawling 4D, Dodge 5D, Investigation 6D, Search 5D, Sunken London History & Culture 5D
Perks: none
Gear: none
Static: Dodge 15, Block 12, Parry 9
Body Points: 32
Armor: none

Edgerina Thrombly
A shadowy and persuasive lady
Dangerous 1D+2 Shadowy 3D+1
Watchful 3D Persuasive 4D
Skills: Dodge 2D+2, Stealth 4D+1, Tailing 4D+1, Sleight of Hand 4D+1, Secrets 4D, Seduction 5D, Gambling 5D
Perks:
Gear:
Static: Dodge 8, Block 5, Parry 5
Body Points: 26
Armor: none