OneDice Abney Park’s Airship Pirates vs Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies

Compare OneDice Abney Park’s Airship Pirates and Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.

	OneDice Abney Park’s Airship Pirates	Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies
Genre	Post-Apocalyptic, Sci-Fi	Fantasy
Tags	Pirates, Ship-Based, Licensed IP, Skill-Based, Cinematic, Pulp Action, Random Tables	Tag-Based, Fiction-First, Cinematic, Pirates, Ship-Based, Heroic
Core Mechanic	Roll 1d6 plus one relevant ability and an applicable skill if any, then meet or beat the Gamekeeper’s target number. Opposed checks compare totals, while Doubloons can secure non-combat success, turn a hit into a miss, or power swashbuckling stunts.	Roll 2d6 and keep the best two, then add the Modifier of a relevant Forte, a descriptive Quality ranked from Poor (−2) to Master (+6), and compare the total to a Difficulty Rank's Target Number. Players narrate their own successes and failures, and may invoke Techniques to add dice or a flat +1 even after seeing the roll. Combat is resolved as a Duel, with each side splitting a 3d6 pool between attack and defense and the winning margin lowering the loser's Forte Ranks as damage.
Dice	d6	2d6 / 3d6
Complexity	Medium	Medium
Availability	Paid	Paid
Runnability	3 of 5 book tools	4 of 5 book tools
License	All Rights Reserved	Proprietary
Third-Party Publishing	Not yet researched	Not yet researched
Publisher	Cakebread & Walton	Evil Hat Productions
Year	2014	2009
Languages	English	English
Best For	Groups who want fast, cinematic campaigns about a shared airship crew, with boarding actions and procedurally generated Skyloft destinations.	Groups who want a swashbuckling campaign of sky-pirates and musketeers in an original floating-island world, are comfortable with a light narrative meta-currency, and want skyship battles that give four to six players distinct crew roles.
Highlights	Doubloons refresh each session and turn danger into player choices by averting harm or enabling cinematic stunts. Airship combat uses abstract range bands to structure chases and boarding actions for the whole crew. Random Skyloft tables generate aerial settlements with distinct economies and local customs.	Players earn Style Dice by narrating their actions with flair and by leaning into their character's Foibles, then spend them to add dice, recover from damage, or assert new facts, tying mechanical advantage directly to dramatic play. Character abilities are broad descriptive Fortes such as "Colronan Musketeer" or "Sha-Ku Ruqrider," so a single Forte covers every related action at the table instead of a skill list while rooting the character in the setting. Before play the group sets explicit dials for firearm lethality, level of magic, and tone, letting the same setting run as cape-and-sword intrigue or deadly piracy.
Considerations	The Gamekeeper sets target numbers and many situational modifiers, so table consistency depends on shared expectations. Player pirates reduced to zero Health by lethal damage die unless Medicine succeeds within three combat rounds; a Doubloon instead leaves them unconscious. The setting includes authoritarian oppression and slavery.	The Style Dice economy only drives play if the GM actively seeds and awards dice each session, and the genre-reward loop that powers the game stalls when it is left unmanaged. Starting koldun can take all seven Gifts cheaply and the magic stays deliberately open-ended, so it can overshadow other characters unless the GM sets the mysticism level beforehand. Skyship combat layers a multi-step crew sequence and a separate dice pool on top of personal combat, a sharp jump in table overhead from the otherwise light core.