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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 6011744" data-attributes="member: 2205">First off, I think that E6 is actually much closer to the feel of fantasy as we know it (as opposed to D&D as we know it) which is, of course, one of it's founding conceits in the first place.  So in a way, it doesn't change the world-building aspect too much, because in general collectively, we do a poor job of really thoroughly integrating the higher level elements of D&D into worldbuilding anyway.  It makes huge changes to the feel of the game as it's played, but not necessarily to the setting or the worldbuilding side of the screen, which already operate under a paradigm much closer to that of E6 anyway.Secondly, it dramatically changes the types of challenges that PCs can face.  Thugs, bandits, and other human(oid) challengers never really go away as meaningful challenges.  Even a "high level" group at 6th level and with some bonus feats is going to find a mob a difficult proposition.  Even if any individual combatant is a "mook", the collective effect never becomes trivial.  And NPCs with a few levels in a PC class (or even an NPC class for that matter) can always be a significant threat, especially in numbers.In addition, wild animals never really go away as a threat.  Granted, I've adopted a "Pleistocene North America" fauna baseline (instead of Medieval European), so I've made mine purposefully even more dangerous, by using dire wolves, lions, bears, and a few other animals to represent actual fossil animals that would have been found in, say the La Brea area.  But even if you don't do that, adventure stories and accounts from the European exploration of Africa and elsewhere during the "Scramble for Africa" will certainly indicate that well equiped and experienced adventurers still need to worry about packs of hyenas (or wolves), prides of lions, crocodiles, elephants, and other dangerous wildlife while in a wilderness environment.Also, Undead become more threatening.  Sure, basic skeletons and zombies can still get turned by low level clerics, as they do in low level D&D today, but more potent undead rarely have much to fear from turn checks.Given that NPCs and animals can be sufficiently dangerous, I think there's more of a tendency to use them in an E6 environment.  Monsters, which sadly become kind of routine in D&D, can become actually monstrous again.  And by this, I don't merely mean that they are more rare and more dangerous (although both of those are probably true)--to really work, you also need to showcase your monsters.  The use of one can be almost the whole point of an entire adventure, and with foreshadowing, you can build up a real sense of tension and fear about the prospect of facing down a monster--as opposed to the more dangerous day-to-day of dangerous animals and people.Without easy access to a variety of spells which are assumed to be fairly prevalent in a D&D world, the field is much more open to a variety of different types of games.  I remember being keenly disappointed in some early Monte Cook advice during the 3e era that was posted in an interview, or somewhere, that advised against doing the "murder mystery" for example, since speak with dead takes all of the mystery out of the game.  Because E6 eliminates a lot of the spells that "force" D&D into being its own genre, you can actually run games that emulate story structures from other genres much more easily.  Although, IIRC, speak with dead is a 3rd level cleric spell, so a 6th level cleric could have it, right?  Oh, well.  It'll still be much more rare than it is in D&D itself.  Lack of access to higher level combat spells eliminates the very D&D specific scry/teleport/fireball type of "hit" tactics as well, again, putting the game more firmly in the genre which inspired it in the first place.Personally, I've limited magic even more than simply going E6 by spellcasting more difficult and changing the spellcasting classes somewhat.  Imagine E6 applied to the d20 Modern paradigm where spellcasting classes are Advanced Classes that you can't take without meeting prerequisites first.  Actually, it's not just that paradigm; those are actually my preferred houserules--d20 Modern + d20 Past + E6.  Some higher level magic is occasionally required or desired.  Luckily for us, we don't even have to houserule that or develop much of anything; WotC already gave us the tools to integrate spells higher level than casters can naturally get via the <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/incantations.htm" target="_blank">Incantations</a> rules, which show up in Unearthed Arcana and in even more detail in the d20 Modern book Urban Arcana.I think the value of E6 is basically two-fold.  First, since running the game successfully at high level becomes more difficult (due to the strangeness of the system and its results at higher level, as well as the complexity required to manage the game at that level), E6 allows players and GMs to focus more on other aspects rather than simply "playing the game" successfully--things like developing characters as characters, developing interesting plots and scenarios that can't simply be shortcutted around, etc.  This probably doesn't appeal as much to players of a more gamist bent, but as my approach to the game has always been much more narrativist, it suits me ideally.  Secondly, it allows the game to feel much closer to its literary roots than it normally would.  One complaint I've heard frequently (and made myself many times as well) is that D&D feels like nothing other than itself.  Bringing it back to its literary roots makes it both more comfortable, and oddly more flexible, than it is currently.I'm sure I'll think of more as the thread develops, but those are my immediate thoughts, anyway.</blockquote>

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