[D6 Legend] Boosting the Wild Die by Mike Lynes

[Lee Torres]

This is the method of adding pips into D6 Legend created by Mike Lynes for his homebrew "The Matrix" and "Appleseed" rules - I've adopted this method into my Legend homebrews...

Boosting the Wild Die: Sometimes a character will have some slight advantage over others. It may because of natural abilities, a piece of technology, or just dumb luck. Whatever the reason, in the long run, the character has an edge over others.

In this game, that edge is represented by Boosts. Boosts give the character an increased chance to reroll the Wild Die. A character with one Boost may reroll the Wild Die when it comes up a 5 or a 6 on his initial roll only. Subsequent rolls of the Wild Die are treated normally.

A character with multiple Boosts in the same area may reroll subsequent Wild Die rolls, once for each Boost. Thus, a character with 2 Boosts in Dexterity can reroll the Wild Die on a 5 or 6 on his initial roll and the second roll of the Wild Die, but not the third (when he may only reroll on a 6, as normal).

Note: Boosts were created by Mike Lynes, added because he felt there were so many things that might give characters advantages. Mr. Lynes didn't want to allow characters to just keep adding dice on top of their attributes, because it would quickly imbalance the game and characters would regularly be accomplishing impossible tasks.

In effect, and what I'm hoping to show with these posts, is that D6 Legend can make use of most any published D6 material, but using the method of tallying successes rather than totaling all the dice makes for incredibly fast resolution of actions - like Classic D6, you can use each part or not as you feel best serves the campaign. For a gritty Noir-style game, I might use wound points instead of levels, where for a Space Opera game I could use wound levels instead. With the amount of options out on the internet, the sky truly is the limit...

To ward off the inevitable discussion, I'm not one of those that dislikes D6 Classic because it takes time to tally up all of the dice - I already know the tricks (grouping by 10s, etc.) to expedite play - but in my experience D6 Legend is faster still, and allows a truly breakneck pace.

[Lee Torres]

Following is an example from one of my homebrews how Boosts may be assigned to Attributes... In character creation, if you choose to break a whole die into Boosts or Pips, you select from the listing below which boosts your character has. If you're boosting strength, for example, you might opt for "Strong legs" in which case any time the character is jumping or kicking down a door, you roll your dice pool plus the boost (say for example you have 3D Strength, +1 Boost for Strong legs), then you roll your three dice, and if you roll a 5 or 6 on the wild die (instead of only a 6), you're allowed to roll again and add any successes to your total.

Attributes & Boosts

Here’s a list of qualities and examples of when they may be used as “Boosts”:

Strength

Strong arms Punches, Bending bars.
Strong legs Jumps, Kicks.
Strong back Lifting, pushing.
Wiry Contest of strength, long term pressure.


Constitution

Enduring Resisting pain, handling physical stress.
Energetic Handling fatigue, resisting sleep (incl. sleep attacks).
Resilient Resisting poisons, drugs and diseases.
Tenacious Resisting giving up, often used with non-constitution-based skills.


Dexterity

Coordinated Hand-eye coordination, doing more than one thing at a time, parries.
Fast When speed is of importance, dodges, initiative rolls, fast reactions.
Nimble Balance, tumbling, acrobatics, sneaking.
Flexible Squirming, picking pockets, escape attempts, reaching.
Steady Vehicle handling, precision work, aimed shots.


Instincts

Sense Bonus when using that sense.
Intuitive Getting ideas and notice things that your subconscious knows.
Insightful Used when trying to understand what you observe.
Observant Noticing hidden things.
Nitpicky When all details need to be noticed and remembered.
Creative Art, creating something new.
Level-headed Keeping cool and collected. Handling stress. Meditation.
Cunning Finding solutions to problems and to get ideas.
Shrewd Understanding situations and people.


Knowledge

Rational When logic is a solution to a problem.
Bookworm When you need to remember some fact.
Discerning When you need to see through something and understand what’s behind.
Practical Good with technology and application of knowledge.
Open minded Good at acquiring new information.


Presence

Devious Lying and conning.
Persuasive Getting people to agree with you.
Witty Being funny and create a good mood.
Domineering Impressing people by manipulating them purposefully.
Slick Avoiding attention or wriggling out of situations.
Eloquent Speaking well, impressing people with intelligent arguments.
Authoritative Leading and controlling people.
Polite Bonus when you act in a nice and friendly manner.
Impressive Bonus when you want attention and get people to ally themselves with you.
Scary When you want to scare people.
Attractive All qualities concerning appearance are simply different ways of using your look to impress people: Alluring, Exotic, Imposing, Luminous, Pleasant, Sensual.


Attribute Boosts were adapted from Nikolaj Lemche’s excellent “Masked Avenger” online RPG variant for White Wolf's Trinity; it was Adventure! before there ever was an Adventure!