The Strengths of D6

[Havard]

What things do D6 do very well or even better than other games?

I've come up with this list so far:

* Cinematic, fast paced action
* Chases (Vehicle oriented action)
* Scaling
* Fate Points/Force Points mechanic
* Force-like paranormal abilities
* "Lightsabers"
* Cross-genre phenomenas
* Modifying equipment

Feel free to suggest more things that D6 does well. IMO D6 settings should be built arounds the strengths of the system. I guess that was the plan with Septimus. For instance, how do you get more situations where chasing or modifying equipment into a Fantasy setting? Perhaps Steam tech, mecha or even arcane forms of cyberware exist in the setting? Since you have the scaling system available, large and huge creatures should be widely available. Perhaps Godzilla/King Kong style monsters are commonplace and people build magical mechas to fight them?

Dont bother making "D6 Horror". D6 would rather take the path of the Van Helsing movie where horror monsters exist only to be blown up with your mechanized crossbows. D6 games should be full of craziness!

Any thoughts on this?

Havard

[Lee Torres]

Don't bother making "D6 Horror". D6 would rather take the path of the Van Helsing movie where horror monsters exist only to be blown up with your mechanized crossbows. D6 games should be full of craziness!

Any thoughts on this?



I agree that settings should play to the systems' strengths, but from my own experience, running an X-Files/Delta Green style campaign using the Into The Shadows D6 rules written by Craig Griswold (available at http://members.tripod.com/~into_the_shadows/) I would disagree about D6 not being up to it. I transitioned to Into The Shadows after beginning an X-Files campaign using FUDGE, and the players enjoyed the ITS version much more. It wasn't over the top Van Helsing-style monster hunting, it stayed very true to the inspiration - the thing is, in my experience, that D6 is simple enough that if you need to create a system for handling investigations (like the GUMSHOE System used in Esoterrorists and Trail of Cthulhu) it's dead simple to do. That to me is the greatest strength - some games, like Fuzion, include "dials" to set the grittiness of the game, or the seriousness of it - D6 had that built right in, just based on whether you use one type of combat over another, or what sub-systems the referee utilizes for the game.

I think the ease of use of D6 is its greatest strength. Easy to teach new players, easy to design new rules for - can handle complexity if needed.

[skeloric]

TEMPLATES
And in general, a newbie start up time measured in minutes rather than hours like a certain class & level system that is much better known than it really deserves.

[Grimace]

Years ago I came up with a list of what I felt were the "Good" things and "Bad" things about D6. The goal of it was to work on ways to bridge the gap from Bad to Good My likes and dislikes went a little beyond things like "cinematic", though, and worked more an mechanics.

So I'll list the things that I thought D6 did "Good".

1. Simple Mechanics - Roll the dice and compare against the difficulty. Can't get much easier than that. I'm still a bit taken aback when I'm having people use D6 and when they see 5D (knowing that the D stand for "Dice") and still ask "What do I roll? How much do I add?" D6 is very straight forward. Not a lot of plusses and minuses to deal with....just roll the dice.

2. Low or No charts - This is something that has really turned me off to so many other systems. When a game system devotes dozens and dozens of pages to charts for so many things that need to be referenced when rolling, it's a sure turn-off for me. Basically, for D6 you really only need 1 or 2 small charts. One for the difficulty (which can easily be memorized after a short time) and one for the injuries. That's really all that is needed. And if you use Body Points, you don't even need the chart for injuries.

3. Skill based not Level based - Skill based systems are just so more natural and intrinsic to how things really work. The stready progression of skills climbing works so much better than "wait, wait, wait, wait....WHAP! You're leveled up!"

4. Capable of being tweaked easily - You could say this encompasses the "modifying equipment" you mentioned, but it's more than that. I've created 5 different magic systems, all different from each other and all using the D6 system. That doesn't include the base "Force-like" system and the newer Magic/Metaphysic type of systems. I've tweaked so much stuff over the years that I've really come to appreciate how easy and flexible the D6 system is.

5. Good wounding system - Wound levels are so good! Creating the idea that the more you get hurt, the tougher it is to continue to do amazing things was so refreshing. Wound levels are easy to use and really keep things simple. Not a bunch of adding and subtracting of points to see if the character is still up. Body points are okay, but in some sense they regressed from the goodness that was the wound levels. That's why I tweaked (see #4) the Body Points (before they were even created in D6) and meshed the Wound levels and BPs together.

6. Character Generation - As skeloric mentioned, Templates are a very nice thing. However, beyond templates, making characters in D6 is SOOOO easy and simple that it beats any other system I've played. Making NPCs is so quick and simple it can be done on the fly. Working up a new character to play only takes a few minutes rather than marathon character generation sessions. The fact that it's skill based rather than level based (see #3) really helps in this regard!

7. Wild Die, Character Points and Force/Fate Points - I think these helped make this system so much different than other systems. It lets the player character do truly heroic things. I'm playing in a game now where the GM doesn't use the Wild Die, and no one ever does any WOW! hits or unbelievable things because they can never get more than 6x the number of dice they roll for a total. Those three things add in the flair, the excitement, the thrill and the "oh no!" moments into the game that really add to the feel of excitement.



That's my list of what I thought were definite plusses for the D6 system.
Also, I'd like the comment on the Horror aspect for D6. Like Lee mentions, I personally think D6 could do horror rather easily. You can still do all of the skills and task resolution, but it also transitions nicely in case you need to have some "zombie killin'" going on in the game. I've played CoC and I've played (and own) Chill, and between those two I think Chill works better. But if I had to include D6 in the mix, I'd MUCH rather use D6 to do a horror game because I can do everything I need in that system that Chill allows, but I can do MORE with D6 when I need to.

I think there are very few settings D6 couldn't do well if tweaked to work in each.

[Crusis]

Very good list, Grimace, the only small disagreement I have is with 1/3 of #7. I think Force/Fate points are silly. As for the wild die, I don't use them on standard checks when the player isn't under duress or has plenty of time to get the job done. I do use them when the player has to work under fire, build a spaceship with a ball of twine and some paper clips, or repair something he's never seen before. Those are situations where heroism means something, and so does failure. Character points are awesome, I think that using them can represent concentration, determination, or willpower.

[skeloric]

6. Character Generation - As skeloric mentioned, Templates are a very nice thing. However, beyond templates, making characters in D6 is SOOOO easy and simple that it beats any other system I've played. Making NPCs is so quick and simple it can be done on the fly. Working up a new character to play only takes a few minutes rather than marathon character generation sessions. The fact that it's skill based rather than level based (see #3) really helps in this regard!

While that is much more clearly stated, I was trying to infer as much as all of that in my post as well.

[The Game Guy]

TEMPLATES
And in general, a newbie start up time measured in minutes rather than hours like a certain class & level system that is much better known than it really deserves.

One thing I like about templates (when it's done) is when they have the skills a character needs to do the job the character is supposed to have.

I hate when people create characters and they don't have the skills for their job class (Like a mechanic with no mechanical skills).

[skeloric]

One thing I like about templates (when it's done) is when they have the skills a character needs to do the job the character is supposed to have.

I hate when people create characters and they don't have the skills for their job class (Like a mechanic with no mechanical skills).
I have had similar experiences in games.
But as I (and my second most recent gaming group) would tend towards fully fleshed out characters, we often would find that a skill just wasn't represent in whatever system we were using and we'd be forced to invent something on the spot, almost as exasperating a situation.
Otherwise, I love templates as a way to skip over minutia and get into the action.
As a TORG fan, I would get a little anxious about the Martyr card until I realized that the person could have a replacement character in under 45 seconds.
Ping, ping, ping, tag of +3 plus 13 more adds placed and on with the show.

[Stormchild]

For me the new D6 was not very attractive as it lacked in the templates department. There where some in the books but by far not enough. Especially when compared to the huge amount of templates in Torg and the still impressive number in Masterbook Shatterzone and Masterbook Bloodshadows.

The boon of templates is, on Cons you can show them around to give the players who often have heard nothing about the background a first impression of the game. New gamers get interested by pictures and descriptions and then ask questions about the template they picked. Though many WEG pictures suck, many descriptions are not newby-friendly, many templates have not the skills they need.

Templates needn't be presented in the ready-to-use format Star Wars introduced (and WEG used for all products since), one or two pages of character sheet, as it takes too much space. In the Storm Knights' Guide, Torg introduced a better format: small entries complete with picture, stats, equipment and some words on background but compressed on fewer space. So, up to 6 templates could be squeezed on one page. This was done with expanded character creation rules that even gave the player more freedom to turn the template into his character (though it is no problem changing skills and attributes on a template)

[Whill]

One thing I like about templates (when it's done) is when they have the skills a character needs to do the job the character is supposed to have.

I hate when people create characters and they don't have the skills for their job class (Like a mechanic with no mechanical skills).

I completely agree with the simplicity of game mechanics and the cinematic design of the system.

I absolutely love templates and the skill-based character system. Templates are great for newer players. And even for more advanced players that want to personalize their character's background and personality, templates serve as a great starting point.

And in my campaigns, the players skill choices have to be relavent to their character's written background. If the character has an unsual skill for that background, the background would have to be expanded to explain it.

[The Game Guy]

I completely agree with the simplicity of game mechanics and the cinematic design of the system.

I absolutely love templates and the skill-based character system. Templates are great for newer players. And even for more advanced players that want to personalize their character's background and personality, templates serve as a great starting point.

And in my campaigns, the players skill choices have to be relavent to their character's written background. If the character has an unsual skill for that background, the background would have to be expanded to explain it.

The templates are great because it also helps make gaming quicker because people can just grab a template and go, instead of taking an hour to get characters created.

Time better spent actually gaming