A Fantasy Role Playing Game
From the back of the book:
On Saturday mornings so long ago we delved deep in underground vaults in search of the jewelled treasures of forgotten kings. Foes we found there in the dark, fell bestial creatures, and rough battles were fought until the numbers of the slain could not be easily counted. Although we had gone in search of glory and gold as we carried our hard won treasures from the dark mines we discovered ourselves made glorious heroes for the minions of an Evil Sorcerer had been vanquished.
Such is the rich reward of playing a game not unlike this one which seeks only to provide a few hours of pleasant diversion in the company of friends. This game is of course my own diversion and sets out my approach to role playing in the fantasy genre. I remember well the beginning of my own days in the gaming hobby. At that particular point in time the idea of Role Playing with miniatures had just made the leap from table top miniature battles between armies. The idea of taking the table top battle underground is really a stroke of genius, necessarily scaling the battles down to a man to man scale.
Fenris 2d6 is written entirely from the perspective of re–capturing some of that transitional period. Granted, one cannot entirely put the genie back into the bottle, nor perhaps should I want to, for to indelibly make my own stamp I must perforce give such an idea an interpretation. I humbly submit this is a worthy set of rules deserving of consideration on its own merit.
Fenris 2d6 rolls back the clock and takes a White–Box–Ish approach in its interpretation of the SRD. Rather than simply imitate the mechanics of an old game Fenris 2d6 is a somewhat different vision which is, if you liken it to a feature film, a remake of an old favourite. The resulting game is familiar, yet different, and the reader may well find much enjoyment in the result.
Fenris 2d6 is very much an homage to the White–Box, its authors, and the many friends and family with whom I have played the game through the years.
The White–Box's authors encouraged those who played the game to consider the rules as guides, to re–imagine the rules for themselves. The authors of the White–Box never claimed it was perfect, or that the rules couldn't be changed. The Open Games License (OGL) has empowered many people to set down their own interpretations. This idea of authorship from within the Old School Revival (OSR) itself has really been happening quietly all along and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Like other OSR games Fenris 2d6 encourages the reader to find new meaning in an old game.
Of course Fenris 2d6 is my own vision of what the White–Box could be, or could have been, and as an author I would hope that the result is different and inventive. I have attempted to think outside the box a little and propose some alternate ideas about the game. Of course this is somewhat difficult to do within the scope of the SRD while still keeping things somewhat compatible with the White–Box so I won't make any claims to stunning originality. However, I hope there are a few pearls between the covers of Fenris 2d6 and with certainty I have addressed many aspects of the game which plagued me personally.
Fenris 2d6 departs from the usual funny–dice interpretations and returns the role playing game to the six sided die as the basis of all rolls of chance. Fenris 2d6 main setting is that of a pre–medieval fantasy vaguely set in the Common Era (CE) but it also has a post–renaissance variant with appropriate armour and firearms within these pages.
So, I commend you to the untold adventures which lie before you, go boldly forth!