I found the textbook. It wasn't written as "2d6-4". It was written as "1d6x2-4". And I definitely intended that to be multiplication, not two dice. For so simple a system, this thing is very weird.

Or, well, zero anyway. There WAS a 2d6-4 roll that did negative, though.

Oh, and for the record, the 2d6-2 wasn't a resolution roll. It was a damage roll. It was possible for Rogues to do negative damage.

I think about Ice Spike often.

I also think about abilities with vague descriptors like "If you succeed at the roll, perform an acrobatic feat". No examples or limits were provided with the ability.

Now, there's one thing I always remember from this game. At a certain level, classes would split into two options. One, the Wizard, had a spell called "Ice Spike." The Ice Spike was a spell in which the Wizard could, once per say, roll 1d6. On a 1-5, nothing happened. On a 6, it was an instant kill.

It doesn't need to be detailed. Even just a sentence or two can be enough, both for factions AND directions. It's good fodder for improvisation, and you can adjust it to anything, whether you're working just on a city and it's surrounds, or on a whole continent.

As a follow-up to this, one useful thing you can do for a map of any scale is to plan the cardinal directions. N/S/E/W, up, down. Whether that's vibe or physical space or both, for all those directions. Like knowing "Dark, spooky mountains in the north" is helpful, the same way knowing factions is.

Depends what I'm doing. Generally I just think up something as I go, but sometimes I have RPG tables and things like that. If I need something specific I'll have some planned details or a shape mocked up somewhere (which I will probably veer wildly from in the final version).

Yeah, I was for sure SUPER into Digimon back then, so I imagine there was heavy influence in the back of my brain.