We started playtesting Hard Six a couple months ago. I'm lucky to have a group of really smart, design-minded folks helping me playtest (including Josh McCrowell, creator of His Majesty the Worm, my favorite TTRPG) and it became apparent really quickly that my core mechanics just weren't working the way I intended.

I'm a strong believer in "don't reinvent the wheel." The fun in creation, for me, is in making something different (even if only by a narrow margin) from what's already out there, and the system wasn't achieving the level of novelty I wanted. So, I went back to the drawing board for a major overhaul. Here are some of the big changes I've made:

First and foremost, I removed the two-tier aspect/trait system. Instead of 9 numerical scores, gunslingers now just have 6 - the 6 traits. Three of these are offensive and three are defensive, as shown:

Brawn vs Vigor

Finesse vs Reflexes (finesse might get renamed precision, I haven't settled yet)

Wits vs Will

Furthermore, I changed my CORE RESOLUTION MECHANIC. Here's an excerpt from the game text, showing how it works now:

Using Traits: Checks

Performing a difficult, dangerous, or dramatic action requires success on a check. The gunslinger rolls a number of dice equal to their score in the relevant trait. Any dice showing a 6 is a hit. Remaining dice are then sorted into groups which add up to six. Each group is a hit, and no dice may be counted in more than one group. 

For example, this roll can be grouped as shown, for a total of three hits:

Whenever a player can make a group of 2 dice each showing 3, they may declare a Hard Six, automatically succeeding on the task.

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I've also revisited how a gunslinger's abstract resources work. Nerve, which is used to fuel powers and absorb damage, can still be regenerated in Danger, but the regeneration rate now depends heavily on cover. I made this change to further emphasize the western-shootout feel of the game, which should make cover a central mechanic, and to slow nerve regeneration a bit, since it felt too quick in the playtests. 

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Inventory management and healing have been streamlined. I like these kind of systems in games, but ultimately, Hard Six isn't an OSR dungeon crawler, it's a cowboy shootout game. Those systems weren't serving the purpose of the game, so I cut them down and simplified them. I did retain a stripped-down camping system, important for healing the wounds gunslingers take when their nerve is depleted. I think there's a lot to be said for rp-designated play phases, and beans and guitars around a campfire have a place in westerns.

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Magic has changed AGAIN. It's now governed entirely by Wits, and is resisted with Will. The major expenditure limiting magic is still time - whereas all other actions resolve when performed, magic doesn't "go off" until the duration of the action is completed. Magic is relatively cheap in terms of nerve expenditure (1 nerve, no matter what), but the more powerful your magical effect, the longer you have to maintain the spell before the effect happens.  This timing system worked as indented in playtests, and I'm excited about it.

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Speaking of timing, I've designed a table-center clock to track both time of day and beats in danger. It's printable on 8.5x11 and I think it'll help everyone stay on the same page.

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Next, I'll be writing options for two character details I think are very important: horses and hats. Expect an update on those soon, and thanks for reading!