It’s been 16 months since the HexGen Basic Rules was published and almost two years since the first playtest version was released. We feel that the system works well when it comes to strategic brutal combat and unique characters, but some aspects of the game are a bit too crunchy – especially when playing with physical dice. The dice pool vs. a target number can become exhausting to calculate when the number of dice increases, and the high target numbers remove some of the agency from starting characters since they are impossible to achieve until you have enough dice.
That’s why we are changing EVERYTHING, well not everything. We will keep the hex-based character creation, but everything else will see a complete overhaul. Instead of rolling for a Target Number, you will use the dice pool to roll for successes (rolling a 6 on a D6). The number of successes determines how well you succeed:
- No Successes = Failure
- 1 Success = Partial Success
- 2 Successes = Success
- 3 Successes or more = Critical Success
Another aspect that can be streamlined is the choice of primary and secondary skills. We feel it is more organic to have 6 Life Paths that are the same for every character with a variety of options within each Life Path to choose from. With this system, even a beginning character can make some headway. Choosing a Skill from within a Life Path allows your character to achieve more than Partial Success if you roll enough successes.
With these examples, we get to work. To test this new approach, we will first create a brand new system – HexGen: Fantasy RPG and then remake the HexGen Basic Rules into HexGen: Cyberpunk RPG. We will be developing the game openly and you can follow as we update the new HexGen Database, which will hold all the character options and rules moving forward.
We plan to release HexGen. Fantasy RPG in 2024!