Jazz 4e EN:About

Jazz officially began in 1997 as a game system called Heroin. However, some parts of Jazz are even older. For example, the concepts of "aspects" originated with a homebrewed game called "Mystery Powers", which we played at Campaign Headquarters in Norfolk, VA in the 1980s.

Heroin was originally intended as a variant of the Fuzion game system published by R. Talsorian and Hero Games. In 1998, the name was changed to Fuzion Jazz. In 2001, the "Fuzion" was dropped, along with what remained of the Fuzion-based game mechanics, leaving only Jazz.

Despite its origins, the current version of Jazz owes far more to games like Amber, Over The Edge, and Risus than it does to games like Fuzion or Champions.

In early 2010, Jazz was converted into a wiki, in the hope that others might like to participate in Jazz's development. To my surprise, one or two did.

Changes

2017-07-06

Jazz 4.0 is a major revision. Nomenclature has changed ("descriptor" is now "aspect", and a "fringe descriptor" is now called a "weird aspect"). Weird aspects (formerly "fringe descriptors") no longer cost twice as much as other aspects. A character's health pool and weird pool are smaller than in previous versions of Jazz, and combat in general has been greatly simplified. How aspects are improved has also been significantly revised. Jazz 4.0 is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 license.

2008-10-03

Jazz 3.0 eliminates set lists of abilities and skills.

2008-04-07

Jazz 2.2 is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license. Significant changes have been made to the core task resolution mechanics.

2004-01-01

Jazz 2.1 is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0 license. The JazzCore module is a reasonably complete game system, while the JazzFurry, JazzPsychic, JazzSorcery, JazzSupers, JazzVoodoo, and JazzWizardry genre modules are still unfinished.

2001-12-16

Jazz 2.0. The JazzCore module is a reasonably complete game system, while the JazzFurry, JazzPsychic, JazzSorcery, JazzSupers, JazzVoodoo, and JazzWizardry genre modules are works in progress (some with more progress than others).

1998-10-30

Fuzion Jazz 1.2.

1998-08-07

Heroin 2.0 is renamed to Fuzion Jazz 1.0.

1997-12-26

Heroin 1.0, originally intended as a variant of the Fuzion game system published by R. Talsorian and Hero Games.