I
NTRODUCTION
It wasn't so long ago that life for the average person was marked by ignorance, hunger, suffering, and death. A commoner would toil from dawn to dusk just to produce enough to survive. The few with any kind of wealth and power would use it to oppress their subjects and kill each other. Mages and the Clergy, voices of reason and wisdom, gave support and moral authority to brutal leaders.
Slowly, progress was made. Incremental improvements gradually changed the lives of nobles and commoners alike. Life expectancy, living conditions, and literacy improved, and the rate of progress grew exponentially. New ideas about reason, science, and humanity have emerged. Philosophers are claiming the common people have a nobility of their own, and the commoners are beginning to believe it themselves. Established institutions struggle to maintain their control, but continue see their influence diminish.
Now the world is in turmoil. Several empires have grown in recent times, and they compete with each other in nearly every corner of the globe. You can now die at the hands of someone whose people were unheard of a few generations ago. On the other hand, people have access to a wider array of knowledge and goods. Now more than ever a person's fate is in their own hands.
Age of Enlightenment is a skill based fantasy role playing game. The goal is to provide a set of rules that are flexible and fit the player's needs. There are no classes or artificial restrictions dictating what can or can't be done.
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
The examples presented here tend to illustrate a modern fantasy world, but there's no reason they couldn't be used for medieval settings or other periods. Mostly that is due to the D6 system, which balances complexity and playability better than most systems I've tried. It lends itself well to multi-genre gaming. The D6 rules were created by West End Games and come in a few different varieties. The D6 System and Legend System rules are copyright D6Legend Inc. The D6 System, Legend System, WEG, and West End Games are trademarks of D6Legend Inc.