I love the D6 system, and I think that your Christmas War campaign looks grest.

Beyond that,I have little to add, other than saying that I'd use the Wound Level system. It's closer to the original Star Wars system, and in my experience, it gives D6 combat a slkightly grittier feel.

Sounds like its going to be a fun campaign. I ran a short lived criminal campaign useing D6. I used body points as opposed to wound levels. The players characters were part of a crew. They were all kind of specialized. One guy was the driver, another was a safe cracker, and ect. So while people were really good at one or two things. They werent the greatest at others. The players first session they stole a painting from a yacht. The safe cracker and security system guys had no problem breaking into the wall safe. But they had a hell of a time climbing down a rope to the get away boat.

FYI, the West End Games website is currently little more than a crappy PHP Nuke template.  But material from the old site is still available, such as a swag of example characters and character sheets here: http://www.westendgames.com/html/freed6-tplts.html

Yep, I spotted those already, but good to see the links being passed around. The example characters are the templates which are in the books themselves, they're not new material, just the old material in pdf...

What does seem to be new is the page of free stuff, including some nice little pdfs talking about being a GM, and designing and running adventures. Those are good articles with solid advice.

Regarding the Wound Level system, I can see that it'd give a grittier feel - "you take a serious wound," is more evocative than, "you take 12 of 27 Body Points". But the calculations don't slow things down? I'm just oversensitive to that sort of thing, since I've often played GURPS at a very slow pace... by the time I found out if I had won or lost, I wanted to be dead, just so it'd be over... (when I GMed it, it was faster, but still...)

That's funny about cracking the safe being easy, but rope-climbing being hard. That's part of roling dice, I guess

Quote from: JimBobOzWhat the PCs will know...

Timeline of the
Christmas War
December 26th - US Congress in emergency session authorises Pres. to use "all necessary force, including nuclear, to remove the clear and present danger to the United States and freedom of the seas." The "Boxing Day Resolution."[B/] Effectively a declaration of war .........

December 29th - US Congress passes amendment to Boxing Day Resolution, extending President's authority to use force to include China and Russia.


So the campaign will begin January 5th.

 Interesting timeline - my only "quibble" is that the phrase Boxing Day is not really used that often in the USA.  Up north in Canada, you hear it more frequently.
 We might say something like "Late Christmas Surprise"  or "Santa's Bad present".  
 Otherwise a very good prologue to an apocalypse.

- E.W.C.

Quote from: KoltarInteresting timeline - my only "quibble" is that the phrase Boxing Day is not really used that often in the USA.  Up north in Canada, you hear it more frequently.

I knew that. But I'm writing from an Aussie perspective, and that's what we'd call it. Names for things are not universal, they're always from a certain perspective. It may surprise you to know that the Arabs don't call the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war the Yom Kippur War, they call it the Ramadan War; and the Vietnamese don't call the 1965-75 conflict the Vietnam War, they call it the American War.

I'm writing for players living in Australia

Actually, I decided that I hate nuclear apocalypses, they're too total and miserable, plus inflicting radiation sickness on PCs is no fun.

So I'll stick with my original idea, Wasteland.

Nuclear war is miserable, but this...
 

QuoteCities and nations burned, crops failed in drought, and soot blackened the sky. First fire, then darkness, and in the darkness humanity perished. The sea levels rose, and cities were flooded. Disease stalked the land.

...isn't?  
 
Post apocalyptic is a depressing setting which ever way you look at it.

Of course it's miserable. But it's not miderable and poisonous. Being scared to breathe the air or drink the water is just depressing.

Quote from: JimBobOzIt may surprise you to know that the Arabs don't call the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war the Yom Kippur War, they call it the Ramadan War;........

I'm writing for players living in Australia

 That doesn't surprise me at all. Looks like you forgot PMs and e-mail that you  & I exchanged.  I know a veteran of that particular 1973 Middle east conflict.

 How about partial Nuclear ?
 ...and Condi is the temporary president - for all of 17 days.

- E.W.C.

I don't forget such things, but I also don't mention them publicly, it's not my place. I'll gossip about myself and the people I know, but not the people known to the people I know

Perhaps Condi could be, yes. But I didn't bring up such things as the names of US Presidents for three reasons,

• I don't want to date the scenario, or like some other rpg scenarios, it... in a few years will look... dated!
• If you even mention a US President on a site with predominantly US posters, the other 99 things you mentioned get ignored as people blab about that.
  
• It's not relevant to the PCs.

The last point's the most important. On another site, someone commented about the likelihood of the Truman going down to a couple of missiles - I answered that if the PCs made their way to the Persian Gulf and went diving in the wreck, they could investigate it for themselves; otherwise it wouldn't be relevant to the campaign, just a matter of idle speculation. Likewise, who ends up US President.

I am sure a few nukes get lobbed about in that year of drama and misery... but probably no-one would bother with Australia.

Good points all .

 Send me a PM sometime when that group starts up - I'll be interested to see how it plays out.
 I finally caught an episode of "Jericho" over here in the states now that my work schedule changed.
 Very interesting - definitely some fodder for RPG ideas in that show.

- E.W.C.