XDM: X-treme Dungeon Mastery

At last year's Gen Con, while wandering the Exhibit Hall, I walked by the Hickmans' booth where XDM was being offered for sale. I had read a little about it, not much, although the impression I had was that it was a book about playing RPGs -- d20/OGL specifically -- in some sort of "extreme" way, with lots of action, stunts, and phat lootz.

Fast forward to last Wednesday, when I was checking the new reviews on rpg.net. One of the day's reviews was this review of XDM, focusing on the rules system. I hadn't thought much about the book or read anything else about it since Gen Con, but I was struck by the tag line for the review: "The best thing to happen to RPGs since the 20 sided die. Seriously." With such a bold statement, I just had to read what it was about.

The book itself does appear to be more about tips and tricks to use with your game. The rules system included, the subject of this particular review, is very simple. The player tells the GM what he or she wants to do, the GM determines a target number based on the difficulty of the action and the character's skill, and the player rolls the dice. It seems to be akin to indie-style rules-light games of high-trust shared narrative control, such as Wushu. The magic system works the same way -- Describe the effect, calculate a target number, and roll.

Seems like a lot of fun, and a style similar to the games our group has been playing lately. I was intrigued by the review, and now I'm curious to read the book itself.