Wednesday, February 9, 2011

D6 or not?

D6 from West End Games has always been one of those systems I have known about, toyed around with but never actually played.

DriveThruRPG has the most recent collection of D6 games for free.
I had Hercules & Xena for a while and still have a copy of DC Universe.

I get the basic system (and even better now after talking to Jason Vey).

Is there anything I am missing by not playing/knowing D6?
Is it a system I should investigate further?

I am not a huge fan of dice pool games and I have enough games to keep me busy for the next 10 years to be honest.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

My only experience with D6 was a single (but awesome) adventure of the original Star Wars game. I was very fond of that system and can see how it clearly influenced the development of Risus.

If you are happy with what you are playing, though, I doubt you need to play it unless someone is specifically running something cool with it. [And an original Star Wars game qualifies]

Thanks for the DriveThruRPG tip.

Porky said...

At the minute, I'm thinking the D6 is the magic die for any new game. The relatively many factors - 1, 2, 3 and 6 - are useful, but it's also ubiquitous, familiar and complexity can be added easily. I did a post on it a while back and really only skimmed the surface.

Carter Soles said...

I had a lot of fun playing West End's d6 Star Wars back in college, and I am quasi-fond of dice pool games. But like you, I am so busy with other games (Labyrinth Lord for me) right now that it is hard to imagine taking on anything else. An abundance of riches!

Xyanthon said...

I'd never played a game but I know a lot of folks who speak fondly of D6 Star Wars. At some point I'd like to check it out.

Havard: said...

Still the best Star Wars RPG published. I agree with Eoin that it can be clunky especially with large dice pools.I think Savage Worlds does much of the same thing d6 does, just better these days.

Shane Mangus said...

My first experience with the system (though it was not call the D6 System then) was with Ghost Busters. Wow, we had way too much fun with that game. Then came along D6 Star Wars, which is almost universally praised for being a great game. D6 just seemed so different from any other game we had ever played up to that point. Dice pools are all the rage now, but there is just something about the D6 System that seems so satisfying to me. I can't quite put my finger on it. The rules are loose, but intuitive. There is a lot of freedom to be found in the system, but the rules that are there help make the game feel like it has just enough structure to keep it solid.

Lately, I have been playing quite a lot of D6. Mainly because of the group of players I have right now. They are all very familiar with D6 Star Wars, so to get off the ground running I decided to adapt to their needs and I have been running my game using my own version of D6. I have to say, I find it liberating in a lot of ways. As stated above, it is loose, but has just enough structure to feel complete.

Check out Mini Six if you haven't already:

http://antipaladingames.com/minisix.html

I is freely available and the book is very cheap to buy if you decide to do so. Mini Six seems to boil the D6 System down to its most important elements, and does so without loosing much in the process.

If you are interested, I would suggest taking a quick romp with your boys and run them through a dungeon crawl with some characters they have developed in other games. Stat them out as close as possible with D6, and go with it to see what you think. I have found it to be the easiest game around to teach new players. New players seem to grasp the mechanics quickly, and have a lot of fun playing.

Let me know if you have any questions, and I will try to answer as best I can.

Rhonin84 said...

Played a lot of Star Wars in the late eighties...the only thing that I didn't like was the way it handled the force powers. Though I don't think I've seen a system yet that handles those quite right...but I think that Savage Worlds comes close...

Timothy S. Brannan said...

Thanks for all the responses! I'll look into what I have now and the link Shane included and have a future post.

Havard: said...

@Shane: I have seen MiniSix before, but I took another look after you posted the link. There are some rules in that book, that I would definately use for future D6 games. Their take on static defences and the Wild Die are a great improvement to other versions of the system. Easily integrated into the old Star Wars D6 game too. Thanks for the reminder!

Shane Mangus said...

I like Mini Six a lot. I think they got so many things right when putting it together. Not to mention that it is OGL and the licensing is extremely flexible, which makes it great for third party publishers.