As I hinted at previously, my intention at this point is to sell off all of my unused RPG resources. Most have been flicked through a few times over the last few years and I have to admit to a relentless collectors impulse with some of them, so the collection is always, pretty much pointlessly up to date.

I culled most recently a few years ago, looking up an old friend and off loading on him pretty much anything he wanted (lots of Hero System) and some things I said her might as well find a home for if he can. This was fitting, as he was the guy, way back in year 7 high school, who got me started on this journey.

What I kept was telling. All my d% games, some favourite Savage Worlds books, the Warmachine RPG (and miniatures game), 13th Age, Adventures in Middle Earth (for 5e), The One Ring, Mongoose Traveller 1 & 2e some light end supers games and The Mouse Guard RPG. This might seem like a lot, but if I had kept everything over the years, another 200+ D & D, Pathfinder, Traveller, Hero system or Cthulhu books would be added to my book shelves, some as old as 1980’s .

Two years later, or more accurately, 30 years later, where am I?

I have until recently been keeping up with 13th Age, but that has slowed and become less compelling. I also have to face the fact that I truly dislike level and class based games, even in their most palatable incarnation.

AIME and TOR would have been compulsively collected, but they were canned by Cubicle 7, with a new publisher about to pick up the baton using very different art.

MT 2e has been hanging there, feeling incomplete, but M-Space (with Frontier Space also) seems a much more practical way to scratch that itch and MT 1e still has it’s appeal.

Savage Worlds has frustrated with it’s new edition getting basically no solid support for the new edition.

The Warmachine RPG seems dead, as is the wargame locally.

Mouse Guard is safe. I doubt i would ever part with that game or the novels.

Most d% games are in a similar boat, with old systems dropped, only to be revived or replaced but their consistent mechanics always allow for a life line of some sort.

Time to look at what I need in my world to scratch that occasional itch.

My needs are simple.

I would like a foot in most genre camps, mechanics that can be explained to new or occasional players easily and preferably only one system with mechanics that I find logical, realistic. I also lean towards the heavier end of theming, better for deep story telling without the wizz-bang, who’s who of expected to smite monsters. I was once torn between Savage Worlds and d% games for my “one system” backbone role, but Savage Worlds has fallen away. I just do not like the system, nor it’s handling of some genres.

So, apart from some older or well loved games (MT 1e, DC Heroes, Champions 4e, Mouse Guard) that are really not worth selling or do offer a decent alternative occasionally, the only system(s) that fit the bill are the d% series of games.

Percentile (D100) systems cover most genres I am interested in and in the forms I generally like.

• They have games ranging from 40,000 bc to any period Sci Fi.

• They can go hard or soft, pulpy or super gritty.

• They are always bedded in a mechanically realistic system, with rare, but controlled forays into more “abstract” mechanics.

• They are the most hackable of systems, allowing me to do basically any other game with the core d% rules as is. Want Star Wars or Tolkien ported over, no problem.

There are several “threads” to d% games, many, but not all of which, I have at least a sampling of. In the following posts, I will explore the various sub-genres of d% gaming and their most likely uses.