I'm normally an OSR guy and enjoy Aventurerer Conquer King, Stars Without Number, etc. However, I've really started to enjoy the idea of running a Sci Fi game using old WEG's D6 system. While I understand the love, I wasn't ever a huge fan of WEG's Star Wars because of how characters always seemed to become super competent at everything. However, with the D6 Space book and the older D6 System toolkit book, it's actually really easy to fix all of my gripes with it.

When it comes to armor as damage reduction, I often find that static values are hard to balance. It usually falls into three situations, too little to matter, invincible characters, or in the middle where all battles are drawn out and end via attrition. Representing armor with a die roll allows for a lucky strike to a weak point in an opponents armor while still providing a sizable advantage. It also still alows for weapons to have large damage with low penetration (shotguns) contrasted with lower damage weapons that ignore a certain amount of armor dice. This is easily applicable to fantasy also (swords vs. war picks.)

The attributes used and skill lists are amazing easy to tailor to exactly the themes you want to target even within genres. You can make them broad or narrow as desired. Honestly, I can see this even doing modern horror better than the White Wolf stuff partly for this reason.

Combat in the D6 Space book could use a little cleaning up, but there are so many options to work with that you can emphasize what you want. Would levels are quick and do death spiral in a way that's less annoying to me that it is in a lot of games and there is also a baked in option for hit points. The book even talks about using both at the same time, which seems a little strange.

What have your experiences been with D6? I'm itching to run a semi-hard sci-fi game, something similar to Traveller or the Expanse and these rules seem like a fun change of pace for that goal.

I only played (lots of) Star Wars with it, but I really enjoyed the system at the time.

The version I like best is Mini 6. It is an excellent minimalist implementation of the d6 system.

Star Wars 1st edition is my all-time favorite RPG. It originates from an era where actual game designers took the time to understand the source material they were trying to emulate and produce a good product vs. filling a 5 pound sack with 10 pounds of shit. Modiphius, I am looking at you...

Once you get beyond the "theorycrafting" and into actual play, the game works extremely well as long as you enjoy space opera. It's not very good for hard( er ) scifi, but we have Traveller for that.

Quote from: swzl on October 11, 2023, 06:01:36 PM
The version I like best is Mini 6. It is an excellent minimalist implementation of the d6 system.

Downloaded it. Good stuff. And free!

I love the WEG/Open D6 system.  I highly recommend it.

Here's a little hack for you to make it run faster when the dice pools get larger.  When you roll, 4-6 are a pass and 1-3 are a fail.  Just count your passes.  The exploding die works as normal.  If you have any pips, you roll an extra die of a third color (or roll a die after you totaled the rest).  If you have a single pip, you need a 6 for a pass and if you have two pips, a 5 or 6 to pass.  As all rolls are contested, there's nothing else you need to change up.

I got this from Unbound D6.  https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/302645/UNBOUND-D6-RolePlaying

D6 System is in my top 5 all time best systems. Virtually no down time, pure action, it's a blast. No one has done Star Wars better. That might've been its downfall, relying on License IP. WEG tried to do their own, but it didn't resonate with a big enough audience.

Quote from: swzl on October 11, 2023, 06:01:36 PM
The version I like best is Mini 6. It is an excellent minimalist implementation of the d6 system.

I've read Mini Six and it's a great little package. I think it would be a super fast way to introduce gaming to someone outside the D&D family tree. I like the option they presented for "fast static combat" but I actually like the idea of the armor rolls. Their way would be genuinely faster, though. It's not perfectly to my tastes, but it's genuinely good stuff. I wish there were more distilled little games like this. Sometimes I want to read a book with an implied setting for entertainment (Stars Without Number is a good example of that.) But for running a game, a little package like Mini Six is superior for reference.

Quote from: BadApple on October 11, 2023, 06:49:47 PM
I love the WEG/Open D6 system.  I highly recommend it.

Here's a little hack for you to make it run faster when the dice pools get larger.  When you roll, 4-6 are a pass and 1-3 are a fail.  Just count your passes.  The exploding die works as normal.  If you have any pips, you roll an extra die of a third color (or roll a die after you totaled the rest).  If you have a single pip, you need a 6 for a pass and if you have two pips, a 5 or 6 to pass.  As all rolls are contested, there's nothing else you need to change up.

I got this from Unbound D6.  https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/302645/UNBOUND-D6-RolePlaying

Tell me a little more about this Unbound D6 thing. I've read that the old Hercules and Xena games used a similar success/fail dice scheme. Is it similar to that?

D6 games are cool, man!!!

Quote from: TheFailedSave on October 12, 2023, 12:06:09 AM

Quote from: BadApple on October 11, 2023, 06:49:47 PM
I love the WEG/Open D6 system.  I highly recommend it.

Here's a little hack for you to make it run faster when the dice pools get larger.  When you roll, 4-6 are a pass and 1-3 are a fail.  Just count your passes.  The exploding die works as normal.  If you have any pips, you roll an extra die of a third color (or roll a die after you totaled the rest).  If you have a single pip, you need a 6 for a pass and if you have two pips, a 5 or 6 to pass.  As all rolls are contested, there's nothing else you need to change up.

I got this from Unbound D6.  https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/302645/UNBOUND-D6-RolePlaying

Tell me a little more about this Unbound D6 thing. I've read that the old Hercules and Xena games used a similar success/fail dice scheme. Is it similar to that?

That's it right there.  Mathematically it has the same odd rates as counting the face values and adding them together but dividing them into pass/fail just means you can get your results faster.  When you have 12 dice being rolled, it's easier to count 7 pass and 5 failed rather than adding them up to 39.  The only complaint my players ever had playing the WEG Star Wars campaigns I did was adding up the dice and Unbound solves it elegantly. 

I never looked at the Hercules system so I don't know.

The exploding die still explodes on a 6.  You still do opposed rolls.  You still get to use pips, just lower the odds of success on a single die.

I recently did a review of Black Star.  Take a look at that game too.  It's not the same but some how it really captures a similar feel.

Thanks for the info, BadApple. You gave me some more things to check out.

The D6 system is classic.

The D6 system is great. The old WEG Star Wars books were great. I wish both got the love in the modern day they deserve, but IP law being what it is, there can't ever be a reprint of the originals.

Quote from: Bruwulf on October 12, 2023, 09:38:09 PM
The D6 system is great. The old WEG Star Wars books were great. I wish both got the love in the modern day they deserve, but IP law being what it is, there can't ever be a reprint of the originals.

There was a literal reprint of the 1st edition not that long ago. Did they discontinue that?