Mythic D6 is a game from Khepera Publishing, Jerry D. Grayson’s publishing house that also produces ATLANTIS: Second Age, HELLAS, and soon-to-be-kickstarted Godsend Agenda. All of his games are good-looking, action-adventure games, and quite a few of them use the Omni System, a straightforward D20-based resolution. Mythic D6 does not – it uses a dice pool system (of D6, as you’d expect), and comes as a “Multi-Genre” master book (which includes a sample setting) and an expanding series of campaign supplements .

The Fluff

Mythic’s central concept is that it’s a game for playing superheroes. In a snappy forward, it lays out the author’s view that action-adventure roleplaying is really all about telling stories of superheroes – that the PCs stand shoulders above normal men and women by virtue of extraordinary powers. The power level it seems to be pitched at is low/street-level superheroes, and this is relevant – most supers games aim a bit higher for PC power level, and add lower-level heroes as an option, which is usually a less than exciting option since, well, they aren’t as powerful. Mythic makes the default level fairly low, and centres itself solidly around this.

Apart from street-level supers, it’s spawned two supplementary campaign settings so far – Bastion, an afro-centric post-apocalypse sword and sorcery setting, and Terra Oblivion, an eco-activism steampunky pulp adventure (technically it’s probably either ecopunk or, well, fishpunk, but I’m going to resist taking the -punk nomenclature any further).

It also comes with a setting in the book, Project: Mythic, aimed at modern-day low-level supers, that stands out as a great set-up for one-shot play. Otherworldly creatures are invading the normal world through breaches or Shallowings, and PCs as agents of the Institute are dispatched to close these breaches and defeat whatever monsters have leaked forth from them. For a one-shot, it’s a nice tight mission structure, both different and familiar enough from similar genres to make for a good con game or one-shot.

The Crunch

At its heart Mythic is a D6 dice pool system, where you’re counting rolls of 4 and above as successes and hoping to beat a target number. One of your dice is a Wild Die, which can explode on a 6 and give you a critical failure on a 1, and the system is all unified around this dice pool rolling – there’s ‘pips’ that can be used to graduate between whole dice, and auto-successes that can be taken without rolling, but everything hangs around the dice pool. PCs have archetypes that grant them limited-use bonuses (which usually let them double a skill for a roll), and an array of powers from an extensive power list, including separate subsystems for magic and gadgeteering.

As far as complexity goes, the powers are relatively straightforward – they each have a number of options of Enhancements and Limitations that can add or subtract to them. From a cursory read, I’d say that if a player really wanted to make a game-breakingly powerful character, they could – this isn’t an interlocking cogs-and-bolts game, but it tries to model the powers with the minimum of fuss. I’m fine with that – for a one-shot, you’ll be using pregens anyway, and the selection in the book are a great mixture and (crucially) all look straightforward to play.

The rules have all the usual stuff for skills and combat, and two features that I’m becoming more and more attached to in games. The first is an Aggravation Pool, a resource the GM has that can be spent (like the Hero Points players have) to boost enemies and increase the challenge. Like in 2D20 with its Doom Pool, in play I’d have this pile of dice right out in front of me where everyone can see it. The second is rules for Events – non-combat skill challenges that are tackled in stages, like rescuing civilians from a burning building. These are excellently explained and presented, and will be great in one-shots for big, cinematic scenes and interesting use of powers. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking – and blogging– about these recently, and these rules are a great, flexible subsystem.

The One-Shot

There’s a lot to recommend Mythic as a one-shot. A system that’s simple to pick up but with enough depth and complexity to reward players who like to dig into it a bit, and that supports the genre it follows well. Settings that provide automatic hooks and are easy to grasp but with enough interest to hold attention.

In multi-genre books, the included setting is often a bit of an afterthought, but Project: Mythic is engaging, inspiring and deep. As well as an obvious mission structure to get the players involved, it’s got ready-made plot for any one-shot you might need (deal with this Shallowing) that still provides a big range of options for play. Mythic D6 (and Bastion and Terra Oblivion) are certainly going to see some play at cons, face to face or virtual, in the future.