skeloric
10-27-2008, 01:19 AM
A long time ago now, maybe almost 5 years ago, I had a hand in building some of the least involved D6 rules EVER.
Rules that fit on a 3x5 note card and were almost too simple.
But they had an excellent advantage: they could be adapted to anything and required almost no "rules lawyering".
The Dice were all D6 and only whole values, 1D6, 2D6, 3D6 up to the limit of 5D6.
Followed by modifiers of +0 to +6
We begin:
The Attributes were all made in pairs, attack and defense.
Fight Attack/ Fight Defense
Stealth (Attack)/ Perception (Defense)
Social Attack/Social Defense
The attributes were based upon the whole values and could not have pips.
End the Attributes.
The additional value was Health and ran from 1 point to 5 points. We will return to health.
Skills were rare and had to be such that they could not default to any attribute above no matter how tangentially.
Ride, Pilot, Spells.
Now to modifiers:
+0 = nothing. Neither weapon nor minimal armor
+1 = stick [melee], thrown rock [ranged], ordinary clothes
+2 = minimally worked stick (very basic spear) or knife[melee], sling[ranged], reinforced clothing/leather
+3 = basic (short) sword[melee], hunting bow[ranged], chain mail/shield
+4 = long sword, long bow[ranged], scale mail.
+5 = ancestral blade or any other exceptional weapon[melee or ranged], plate mail(noble quality, built for the wearer)
+6 = any magic weapon or armor.
Note: all weapons do 1 damage, thus it takes 5 successes to defeat an individual of extraordinary [5] health.
Anyone with a clear superiority can "go for broke" and wage an all or nothing attack where they must make in a single round as many successful attack rolls against the opponent's rolled defense as the opponent has health.
All successes is an instant kill, any failure results in no damage.
Since these modifiers are a clear progression, moving from game setting to game setting offers no trouble.
We played Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Modern, Napoleonic, plus a few others we came up with on the fly.
Magic was iffy and often meant nothing more than:
Being able to talk to any creature. (Omni-linguist)
Healing (Can heal up health of others at expense to one's own, can bring people back from the brink of death but restoring last lost point -- from 0[dying] back to 1 -- would cost 3 of the Healer's)
Prophecy (Essentially hints or assist from the GM)
Far seeing (Magically see scenes offered by the GM)
One could also be an Alchemist but it was never chose and never sufficiently ironed out.
Character creation.
Too damn simple.
Choose an arbitrary number for the characters, say 15.
Each whole die/attribute would cost one except the 5th which cost double
Health also cost 1 point each except again the last costing double.
Each skill cost a point per die, since they constituted an "awkward attribute". 1 point was minimal skill, 2 points was often considered proficient and went up to 5D like any other attribute, but did not cost double for the 5th.
Skills had to be such that they could not be linked to an attribute.
Some later variations allowed for skills that replaced an attribute to create a much more limited fighter.
Rules were never sufficiently ironed out to reward such limiting and thus it was seen as an NPC option moreso.
Having Attack of 2 but Sword of 5 meant that you were reasonably dangerous with any weapon but instead of the 2d attack you could pick up a sword and be one the greatest in the kingdom.
Again, NPCs specialized while the PC was allowed to be a much superior generalist.
This was the WHOLE system plus a few aspects explored a bit more in depth after over a year away from it.
Yeah, it was a little weak at times as each progression in skill was like a doubling: 2d6 could beat 1d6 almost constantly and 3d6 to 1d6 as insane.
5D6 to 1D6 was just horrifying and easily represented a "glorious knight" beating a defenseless peasant to death so that the knight could get his jollies.
Add on weapon and equipment bonuses and it all got even more sick, just like the unfairness of real life.
The strength of this system is that it can be trotted out and taught in seconds.
It also works nicely for a beer and pretzel game night.
To a certain degree it can mimic some form of mass combat as well.
It is so adaptable and so mutable that it was easily the only system we used for nearly 4 years.
The co-author and player thought the system quite sublime and eagerly sought to test its limits.
We rarely if ever found any worth dealing with or otherwise altering to ameliorate.
Tomatoes?
Rules that fit on a 3x5 note card and were almost too simple.
But they had an excellent advantage: they could be adapted to anything and required almost no "rules lawyering".
The Dice were all D6 and only whole values, 1D6, 2D6, 3D6 up to the limit of 5D6.
Followed by modifiers of +0 to +6
We begin:
The Attributes were all made in pairs, attack and defense.
Fight Attack/ Fight Defense
Stealth (Attack)/ Perception (Defense)
Social Attack/Social Defense
The attributes were based upon the whole values and could not have pips.
End the Attributes.
The additional value was Health and ran from 1 point to 5 points. We will return to health.
Skills were rare and had to be such that they could not default to any attribute above no matter how tangentially.
Ride, Pilot, Spells.
Now to modifiers:
+0 = nothing. Neither weapon nor minimal armor
+1 = stick [melee], thrown rock [ranged], ordinary clothes
+2 = minimally worked stick (very basic spear) or knife[melee], sling[ranged], reinforced clothing/leather
+3 = basic (short) sword[melee], hunting bow[ranged], chain mail/shield
+4 = long sword, long bow[ranged], scale mail.
+5 = ancestral blade or any other exceptional weapon[melee or ranged], plate mail(noble quality, built for the wearer)
+6 = any magic weapon or armor.
Note: all weapons do 1 damage, thus it takes 5 successes to defeat an individual of extraordinary [5] health.
Anyone with a clear superiority can "go for broke" and wage an all or nothing attack where they must make in a single round as many successful attack rolls against the opponent's rolled defense as the opponent has health.
All successes is an instant kill, any failure results in no damage.
Since these modifiers are a clear progression, moving from game setting to game setting offers no trouble.
We played Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Modern, Napoleonic, plus a few others we came up with on the fly.
Magic was iffy and often meant nothing more than:
Being able to talk to any creature. (Omni-linguist)
Healing (Can heal up health of others at expense to one's own, can bring people back from the brink of death but restoring last lost point -- from 0[dying] back to 1 -- would cost 3 of the Healer's)
Prophecy (Essentially hints or assist from the GM)
Far seeing (Magically see scenes offered by the GM)
One could also be an Alchemist but it was never chose and never sufficiently ironed out.
Character creation.
Too damn simple.
Choose an arbitrary number for the characters, say 15.
Each whole die/attribute would cost one except the 5th which cost double
Health also cost 1 point each except again the last costing double.
Each skill cost a point per die, since they constituted an "awkward attribute". 1 point was minimal skill, 2 points was often considered proficient and went up to 5D like any other attribute, but did not cost double for the 5th.
Skills had to be such that they could not be linked to an attribute.
Some later variations allowed for skills that replaced an attribute to create a much more limited fighter.
Rules were never sufficiently ironed out to reward such limiting and thus it was seen as an NPC option moreso.
Having Attack of 2 but Sword of 5 meant that you were reasonably dangerous with any weapon but instead of the 2d attack you could pick up a sword and be one the greatest in the kingdom.
Again, NPCs specialized while the PC was allowed to be a much superior generalist.
This was the WHOLE system plus a few aspects explored a bit more in depth after over a year away from it.
Yeah, it was a little weak at times as each progression in skill was like a doubling: 2d6 could beat 1d6 almost constantly and 3d6 to 1d6 as insane.
5D6 to 1D6 was just horrifying and easily represented a "glorious knight" beating a defenseless peasant to death so that the knight could get his jollies.
Add on weapon and equipment bonuses and it all got even more sick, just like the unfairness of real life.
The strength of this system is that it can be trotted out and taught in seconds.
It also works nicely for a beer and pretzel game night.
To a certain degree it can mimic some form of mass combat as well.
It is so adaptable and so mutable that it was easily the only system we used for nearly 4 years.
The co-author and player thought the system quite sublime and eagerly sought to test its limits.
We rarely if ever found any worth dealing with or otherwise altering to ameliorate.
Tomatoes?