RPG Review: Breachworld (Mini Six)

RIFTS for the Mini Six Setting?

Note: I know I am late to the game, but I’ve had this on my shelf for years and never picked it up, even though I love Mini-Six.

Breachworld is a post-apocalyptic sandbox RPG from Jason Richards Publishing that uses the Mini Six variant of OpenD6. It ships as a complete game, rules plus setting in one book, and leans hard into fast, light mechanics rather than heavy crunch. Its a fun RPG for $1, plus there is a lot of free extras you can grab as well on Drivethrurpg.

At the rules level, everything hangs off a single simple loop. You roll a pool of d6s based on your attribute or skill, add them up, and try to beat a target number set by the GM. Mini Six keeps it tidy with four core attributes, Might, Agility, Wit, and Charm, and skills bolt onto those in a straightforward way. There is no long list of sub-systems hiding in sidebars. If you like “pick up the dice, roll, move on,” this hits that mark.

The flip side is the same thing. Mini Six is very light. You get a clear core mechanic, but you also get gaps that a more detailed game would cover for you. Opponent design, edge-case rulings, and certain specializations will all rest on GM judgement. If you come from medium or heavy crunch, you will notice the missing scaffolding. For a group that enjoys making rulings at the table and filling in details by feel, it works fine. If you want strong mechanical guidance, you may feel underfed in places.

Breachworld’s real hook is the setting. In the “Golden Age,” humanity built a planet-wide teleportation network using Gates. It pushed technology and quality of life up across the board. Then it all failed at once. The Gates went haywire and punched random holes in space-time, leaving permanent rifts known as Breaches. Now Earth is a wild mix of ruined tech, alien ecosystems, and intruders from countless other worlds.

Day-to-day life fits that tone. There is no universal currency. People trade goods and favors, and local communities survive through barter instead of bank accounts. Tech level jumps from place to place. One town might scrape by with scavenged pre-Fall junk and black powder, another might have a handful of salvaged high-tech toys that make them a regional power. It feels like a kitchen-sink post-apocalypse on purpose, and Breaches give you an excuse to plug almost any idea into the world.

Character creation is where the game really sells that “anything through the Breaches” hook. You can pick from thirteen playable races, including humans and a big spread of weird options like tusked bruisers, aquatic river folk, raiders, machine-bodied types, and more. Each race comes with its own attribute limits, movement, skill dice, and built-in perks and complications. The writeups and art push you toward actually wanting to play these species rather than treating them as filler in a long list.

Attributes use a pool of 12 to 14 dice depending on race to build your player character. You spread those dice across the four stats, then fine-tune with pips. Pips are little +1 or +2 bumps that roll over into an extra die when they hit +3. It sounds fussy on paper, but at the table it is simple math and gives you enough room to make two humans feel different without drowning you in point-buy minutiae.

Skills sit on top of that foundation. Different races get different pools of skill dice to assign, and some skills can be specialized. The rules for specialization has always been a little weird to me, so I’ve mostly ignored them and that’s the good thing about Mini Six, it allows you to tinker with it!

Perks and Complications round out the build. Perks give you edges, like sharper senses, better toughness, or meta-currency style bonuses. Complications give you extra Character Points during play when you lean into the drawback. The recommended starting point is two of each, which matches the tone of the setting nicely. You are capable, but you are also a mess in some way, shaped by a broken world and alien intrusion.

Advancement uses Character Points instead of levels. The GM hands out CP at the end of a session, and you spend them where you want: raise an attribute, improve a skill, buy a new perk, and so on. The more developed an ability already is, the more it costs to move it up. It is a flexible, transparent system, and it fits the pick-and-grow style of play that Mini Six leans toward.

For the GM, the core book gives you a solid overview of the world plus three mapped town locations you can use as starting hubs. You also get a section on “Breach Creatures,” a small bestiary of mostly original monsters with full color art. It is useful, for helping you understand how the system works, and gives you tons of inspiration to create your own creatures. I love it.

There is one little problem about Breachworld, is that it advertises a website with more information and freebies on it, but the website is no longer running. In fact Jason’s personal website is gone as well? I guess he moved on.

So who is Breachworld for?

If you like D6 systems, enjoy rules-light play, and want a big post-apoc sandbox where you can mash up aliens, weird tech, and survival stories, this is an easy recommendation. The setting is flexible, character options are fun, and Mini Six keeps things moving.

For me, this game hits the right spot, its basically RIFTS but for Mini Six.. well not exactly, but its inspired by, and even has a thumbs up from Palladium creator Kevin.