D6 System
Encyclopedia
The D6 System is a role-playing game system
published by West End Games
(WEG) and licensees. While the system is primarily intended for pen-and-paper role-playing game
s, variations of the system have also been used in live action role-playing game
s and miniature battle games. The system is named after the 6-sided
die
, which is used in every roll required by the system.
and skills. Attributes represent the raw ability of a character in a certain area. Most D6 System games utilize anywhere from six to eight attributes, though these can vary greatly in number and name by the game in question. Acumen, Intellect, Knowledge, Perception, Presence and Technical are examples of mental attributes; Agility, Coordination, Mechanical, Physique, Reflexes and Strength are examples of physical ones. Skills are the trained abilities of the character and are associated with a specific attribute (e.g., driving, acrobatics, and climbing might be skills based on the Reflexes attribute). Each attribute and the skills under it are rated in values of Dice and Pips; Dice equal the number of dice rolled and Pips equal a one or two point bonus added to the roll to determine the result. The more dice and pips in the rating the better the character is at that skill or attribute. A character with a Strength rating of 4D+2 is stronger than a character with a Strength rating of 3D+1, for example.
calls for the player to roll the dice for a certain attribute or skill. The value of each die is totalled and the pips are added to the die roll to get a total. This total along with any GM or system imposed modifiers is compared against a target difficulty number. To perform an opposed roll action, the two parties involved (usually the player and a gamemaster controlled character) both roll their appropriate skills dice, total them and any modifiers and compare the results. If the first party's roll is higher than that of the second, he wins the contest and the rest of the result is resolved. If the second party equals or exceeds his opponent's roll, then the second party wins the contest.
.
& Xena
Roleplaying Game and the DC Universe Roleplaying Game
. Other variants, such as those featured in the Star Wars Live Action Adventure Game and the Star Wars Miniatures Battles
game, involve rolling a single six sided die and adding the result to a skill or attribute. This total is then compared to a difficulty number, as with the other variants.
, designed by Chaosium
alumni Sandy Petersen
, Lynn Willis
and Greg Stafford
, which was published by WEG in 1986. The following year, Greg Costikyan
, Curtis Smith and Bill Slavicsek
reworked elements from the Ghostbusters game into Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. For a decade, West End Games published over 120 titles for the Star Wars
Universe including a magazine, The Star Wars Adventure Journal.
. WEG followed the D6 core book with Indiana Jones
Adventures (a reworking of the earlier MasterBook
setting) and the stand alone Men in Black
RPG. Another licensed game, the Hercules & Xena Roleplaying Game was the last title released by the original West End Games before their bankruptcy, as well as the first to use a modified D6 System based resolution engine that would later be known as the Legend System. A half-finished draft of a D6 System based Stargate SG-1
role playing game remained unpublished as a result of the bankruptcy.
graphic novels, they utilized the D6 System to release an RPG based upon that setting. Ron Fricke and former WEG publisher Scott Palter's Psibertroopers, the first licensed third party D6 System product, also saw release during this period. Humanoids began the process of releasing PDF format versions of many of the earlier WEG titles, converting some to the D6 System in the process. Humanoids released a PDF version of the Shatterzone
Universe Guide containing an early version of D6 Space Opera. An initial PDF version of D6 Adventure
was released as a rules lead in for the eventual re-release of Bloodshadows.
shared much in common with the earlier Star Wars line, and detailed space opera and cyberpunk game rules. D6 Fantasy
dealt with sword & sorcery, high fantasy and swashbuckling campaign models. Khepera Publishing's licensed D6 System super hero game Godsend Agenda was released shortly thereafter. In 2007, WEG announced Septimus, a new standalone D6 System game with a setting designed by Bill Coffin
and a rules system paralleling that of Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. Near the end of the year, WEG publisher Eric Gibson tentatively announced that the D6 System would soon be adopting a free license.
At the end of the month of March, 2008, West End Games announced that the "Septimus" product would not be released due to cost issues. In August of 2009, West End Games released most of the 51000 series of D6 book with attached OGL license officially classifying them and the D6 System as Open under the OGL v1.0. This re-release was in anticipation for a formal launch of the OpenD6 website portal and workstation, meant to aid publishers and players alike in creating, archiving, and searching the wealth of D6 rules and variants. Additionally, August 13th 2009, saw the long awaited release of Bill Coffin's Septimus which itself was the first formal release of new material under the OpenD6 label.
Role-playing game system
A role-playing game system is a set of game mechanics used in a role-playing game to determine the outcome of a character's in-game actions...
published by West End Games
West End Games
West End Games was a company that made board, role-playing, and war games. It was founded by Daniel Scott Palter in 1974 in New York, but later moved to Honesdale, Pennsylvania...
(WEG) and licensees. While the system is primarily intended for pen-and-paper role-playing game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
s, variations of the system have also been used in live action role-playing game
Live action role-playing game
A live action role-playing game is a form of role-playing game where the participants physically act out their characters' actions. The players pursue goals within a fictional setting represented by the real world, while interacting with each other in character. The outcome of player actions may...
s and miniature battle games. The system is named after the 6-sided
Hexahedron
A hexahedron is any polyhedron with six faces, although usually implies the cube as a regular hexahedron with all its faces square, and three squares around each vertex....
die
Dice
A die is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers...
, which is used in every roll required by the system.
Attributes and skills
Characters in the D6 System are defined by attributesAttribute (role-playing games)
An attribute is a piece of data that describes to what extent a fictional character in a role-playing game possesses a specific natural, in-born characteristic common to all characters in the game. That piece of data is usually an abstract number or, in some cases, a set of dice...
and skills. Attributes represent the raw ability of a character in a certain area. Most D6 System games utilize anywhere from six to eight attributes, though these can vary greatly in number and name by the game in question. Acumen, Intellect, Knowledge, Perception, Presence and Technical are examples of mental attributes; Agility, Coordination, Mechanical, Physique, Reflexes and Strength are examples of physical ones. Skills are the trained abilities of the character and are associated with a specific attribute (e.g., driving, acrobatics, and climbing might be skills based on the Reflexes attribute). Each attribute and the skills under it are rated in values of Dice and Pips; Dice equal the number of dice rolled and Pips equal a one or two point bonus added to the roll to determine the result. The more dice and pips in the rating the better the character is at that skill or attribute. A character with a Strength rating of 4D+2 is stronger than a character with a Strength rating of 3D+1, for example.
Actions and resolution
Character actions are resolved by making dice rolls against a difficulty number. There are two types of difficulties, standard and opposed. To perform a standard difficulty action, the gamemasterGamemaster
A gamemaster is a person who acts as an organizer, officiant for questions regarding rules, arbitrator, and moderator for a multiplayer game...
calls for the player to roll the dice for a certain attribute or skill. The value of each die is totalled and the pips are added to the die roll to get a total. This total along with any GM or system imposed modifiers is compared against a target difficulty number. To perform an opposed roll action, the two parties involved (usually the player and a gamemaster controlled character) both roll their appropriate skills dice, total them and any modifiers and compare the results. If the first party's roll is higher than that of the second, he wins the contest and the rest of the result is resolved. If the second party equals or exceeds his opponent's roll, then the second party wins the contest.
The Wild Die
One of the dice rolled for each skill or attribute check or for damage is considered to be the "wild die", and is treated somewhat differently than the other dice. If a six is rolled on the wild die, then the die "explodes" allowing the roll of an additional wild die. The resulting sixes are added to the total, and the roll continues as long as the player continues to roll sixes on the wild die. If a one is rolled on the wild die during the initial roll (not after a six is rolled), and another one is rolled in the second roll, a critical failure or complication occurs, usually with bad results for the character. If a number other than one is rolled after an initial roll of one, then that die, and the one with the highest number are subtracted from the roll's total. Use of the wild die tends to make the game feel more cinematicSwashbuckler
Swashbuckler or swasher is a term that emerged in the 16th century and has been used for rough, noisy and boastful swordsmen ever since. A possible explanation for this term is that it derives from a fighting style using a side-sword with a buckler in the off-hand, which was applied with much...
.
Improving Rolls
In order to increase their characters' effectiveness, players may spend character points and fate points. The exact number of character points that may be spent is limited by the amount possessed by the character, and the situation that they are used in, with two being the typical limit. Each character point spent adds an extra wild die to one skill or attribute roll. A roll of one has no negative effect with wild dice generated from character points. Alternately, a character may spend one fate point on an action. Characters have fewer fate points, but the expenditure of them doubles the amount of dice rolled on an action.Variant resolution systems
Most D6 System game use the resolution system described above, which is sometimes called The D6 Classic System, though some variants exist. In one variant, The Legend System, instead of adding the die totals up, the dice showing 3, 4, 5 or 6 are each counted as a success. Use of a skill requires rolling a certain number of such successes. Pips are not used in the Legend System. This variation of the system was referred to, in jest, as "The D6 variant for the mathematically challenged" on WEG's own discussion forum. The Legend System has been utilized in the HerculesHercules: The Legendary Journeys
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys is a television series, filmed in New Zealand and the United States. It was produced from 1995, and was very loosely based on the tales of the classical Greek culture hero Heracles...
& Xena
Xena
Xena is a fictional character from Robert Tapert's Xena: Warrior Princess franchise. She first appeared in the 1995–1999 television series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, before going on to appear in Xena: Warrior Princess TV show and subsequent comic book of the same name...
Roleplaying Game and the DC Universe Roleplaying Game
DC Universe Roleplaying Game
The DC Universe Roleplaying Game is a Legend System-based role-playing game from West End Games, and set in the DC Comics universe.-History:The game system had several supplementary publications in print during the 1999–2002 timeframe, including:...
. Other variants, such as those featured in the Star Wars Live Action Adventure Game and the Star Wars Miniatures Battles
Star Wars Miniatures Battles
Star Wars Miniatures Battles is a tabletop wargame produced by West End Games in 1989 and republished in a 2nd edition version in 1990. It was winner of the 1991 Origins Award for Best New Miniatures Rules. West End Games lost the license to produce any more "Star Wars" games in 1999, and the...
game, involve rolling a single six sided die and adding the result to a skill or attribute. This total is then compared to a difficulty number, as with the other variants.
West End Games' Early Cinematic RPGs
A precursor to the D6 System first appeared in Ghostbusters: A Frightfully Cheerful Roleplaying GameGhostbusters (role-playing game)
Ghostbusters is a comedy role-playing game designed by Sandy Petersen, Lynn Willis and Greg Stafford and published by West End Games in 1986. It is based on the 1984 film Ghostbusters....
, designed by Chaosium
Chaosium
Chaosium is one of the longer lived publishers of role-playing games still in existence. Founded by Greg Stafford, its first game was actually a wargame, White Bear and Red Moon, which later mutated into Dragon Pass and its sequel, Nomad Gods...
alumni Sandy Petersen
Sandy Petersen
Carl Sanford Joslyn Petersen is a game designer.Petersen was born in St. Louis, Missouri and attended University of California, Berkeley, majoring in zoology....
, Lynn Willis
Lynn Willis
Lynn Willis is a wargame and role-playing game designer who has done work for Metagaming Concepts, Game Designers' Workshop, and Chaosium.Willis began by designing science fiction wargames for Metagaming, starting with the Godsfire in 1976. He also designed the microgames Olympica and Holy War...
and Greg Stafford
Greg Stafford
Francis Gregory Stafford , usually known as Greg Stafford, is an American game designer, publisher and shaman.-Glorantha and gaming:...
, which was published by WEG in 1986. The following year, Greg Costikyan
Greg Costikyan
Greg Costikyan, sometimes known under the pseudonym "Designer X" , is an American game designer and science fiction writer.Costikyan's career spans nearly all extant genres of gaming, including hex-based wargames, role-playing games, boardgames, card games, computer games, online games and mobile...
, Curtis Smith and Bill Slavicsek
Bill Slavicsek
Bill Slavicsek is a game designer who served as the Director of Roleplaying Design and Development at Wizards of the Coast. He previously worked for West End Games and TSR, Inc., and designed products for Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, Alternity, Torg, Paranoia and Ghostbusters.-Biography:Bill...
reworked elements from the Ghostbusters game into Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. For a decade, West End Games published over 120 titles for the Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
Universe including a magazine, The Star Wars Adventure Journal.
The D6 System Standalone Games
In 1996, WEG released The D6 System: The Customizable Roleplaying Game, written by George Strayton, which was the first core D6 System book not tied to a specific licensed property. Allowing a fair degree of variation in attributes and skills between individual games, the D6 System book shared as much in common with the role-playing game toolkit Fudge as it did with other universal systems like GURPSGURPS
The Generic Universal RolePlaying System, or GURPS, is a tabletop role-playing game system designed to allow for play in any game setting...
. WEG followed the D6 core book with Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones
Colonel Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D. is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials...
Adventures (a reworking of the earlier MasterBook
Masterbook
Masterbook is a generic role-playing game that was created by West End Games as a follow-up to the multi-genre role-playing game Torg and the science fiction game Shatterzone, which used a modified version of the Torg system...
setting) and the stand alone Men in Black
Men in Black (film)
Men in Black is a 1997 science fiction comedy film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, starring Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith and Vincent D'Onofrio. The film was based on the Men in Black comic book series by Lowell Cunningham, originally published by Marvel Comics. The film featured the creature effects...
RPG. Another licensed game, the Hercules & Xena Roleplaying Game was the last title released by the original West End Games before their bankruptcy, as well as the first to use a modified D6 System based resolution engine that would later be known as the Legend System. A half-finished draft of a D6 System based Stargate SG-1
Stargate SG-1
Stargate SG-1 is a Canadian-American adventure and military science fiction television series and part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Stargate franchise. The show, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner, is based on the 1994 feature film Stargate by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich...
role playing game remained unpublished as a result of the bankruptcy.
The Humanoids Publishing Era
Following the bankruptcy, WEG was merged with French company Yeti, a subsidiary of Humanoids Publishing. Most of WEG's earlier licenses were terminated at this point, but the reconstituted company acquired another one from DC Comics. This license resulted in a new Legend System game, the DC Universe Roleplaying Game, which released a few titles from 1999 until 2001. As Humanoids Publishing was the publisher of the MetabaronsMetabarons
The Metabarons or The Saga of The Meta-Barons is a science fantasy comic series relating the history of a dynasty of perfect warriors known as the Metabarons. The Metabarons series was written by creator Alejandro Jodorowsky and illustrated by Argentinian artist Juan Gimenez...
graphic novels, they utilized the D6 System to release an RPG based upon that setting. Ron Fricke and former WEG publisher Scott Palter's Psibertroopers, the first licensed third party D6 System product, also saw release during this period. Humanoids began the process of releasing PDF format versions of many of the earlier WEG titles, converting some to the D6 System in the process. Humanoids released a PDF version of the Shatterzone
Shatterzone
Shatterzone is a space opera role-playing game by West End Games. The game went out of print in 1997 after the company went bankrupt. It is now back in print, owned and published by Precis Intermedia....
Universe Guide containing an early version of D6 Space Opera. An initial PDF version of D6 Adventure
D6 Adventure
D6 Adventure is a generic role-playing game system based on the D6 System. D6 Adventure is published as a stand alone rulebook and is supported by its own line of supplements.-Setting:...
was released as a rules lead in for the eventual re-release of Bloodshadows.
The Purgatory Publishing Era
In November 2003, shortly after the PDF release of D6 Adventure, the WEG assets changed hands once again. The new owner, Purgatory Publishing, re-released the game in the form of three hardcover rulebooks. The rulebooks, each written by Nikola Vrtis, were actually three separate games. Each shared the same core mechanics, but utilized different attributes, skill sets, equipment lists and power systems. D6 Adventure, an expanded hardcover release of the earlier PDF, covered wild west, pulp, espionage, low-powered super heroes, and other modern or near modern games. D6 SpaceD6 Space
D6 Space is a generic science fiction role-playing game based on the D6 System. Although derived, in part, from material originally presented in The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, D6 Space is published as a stand alone rulebook and is supported by its own line of supplements.-Setting:Being a...
shared much in common with the earlier Star Wars line, and detailed space opera and cyberpunk game rules. D6 Fantasy
D6 Fantasy
D6 Fantasy is a generic fantasy role-playing game based on the D6 System. D6 Fantasy is published as a stand alone rulebook and is supported by its own line of supplements.-Setting:...
dealt with sword & sorcery, high fantasy and swashbuckling campaign models. Khepera Publishing's licensed D6 System super hero game Godsend Agenda was released shortly thereafter. In 2007, WEG announced Septimus, a new standalone D6 System game with a setting designed by Bill Coffin
Bill Coffin
Bill Coffin is a writer of novels and role-playing games in the fantasy and science fiction genres. Perhaps best known for his work at Palladium Books from July 1998 through May 2002, he made significant contributions to several of Palladium's game series, most notably Palladium Fantasy, but also...
and a rules system paralleling that of Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. Near the end of the year, WEG publisher Eric Gibson tentatively announced that the D6 System would soon be adopting a free license.
At the end of the month of March, 2008, West End Games announced that the "Septimus" product would not be released due to cost issues. In August of 2009, West End Games released most of the 51000 series of D6 book with attached OGL license officially classifying them and the D6 System as Open under the OGL v1.0. This re-release was in anticipation for a formal launch of the OpenD6 website portal and workstation, meant to aid publishers and players alike in creating, archiving, and searching the wealth of D6 rules and variants. Additionally, August 13th 2009, saw the long awaited release of Bill Coffin's Septimus which itself was the first formal release of new material under the OpenD6 label.
See also
- List of D6 System books
- "Wiedźmin - Gra Wyobraźni" - a Polish roleplaying game based on the WitcherThe WitcherThe Witcher, or , by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski is a cult series of fantasy short stories and five novels about the witcher Geralt of Rivia...
books uses a system inspired by WEG's D6 system.
External links
- Khepera Publishing, Licensed publisher of D6 System and Legend System games.
- West End Games Fans Site, forums for the Open D6 rules.