The D6 System: My Go-to, Quick-fix RPG

 

While this blog is primarily focused on old school (A)D&D and its derivatives, these are not the only roleplaying games (RPGs) I’ve played, or will ever play.  One of my other favorite games, which I’ve mentioned before, was West End Game’s (WEG) Star Wars RPG.

I’ve learned recently that I’m part of a sub-generation of late Gen-Xers called “Xennials” which are also apparently called the Star Wars Generation, so I guess it’s no surprise that an RPG based on that beloved, space-fantasy franchise called deeply to my soul.  Younger folks may not get it, and I imagine that over time, with the churning of subpar, commercial sequels, prequels, and spinoffs (which I still consume, to my shame,) the franchise will become (or already is) a joke – one of those stupid “Boomer” things (which is what the kids these days call anything and anyone older than them.  Harrumph!)  Still, that galaxy far, far away is embedded deeply in my aging psyche.

I think one thing that made the game successful (you know, other than the big-name IP) was its unique system.  It used pools of six-sided dice, but rather than working on the number of “successes” each die rolled, it added them together and compared the result to a difficulty number with a descriptor (Easy, Moderate, Hard, etc.; may seem familiar to those that have played d20-based games.)  

Attributes and skills, were noted as the number of dice you could roll, with two “pips” in between each full die in a sequence: 1D, 1D+1, 1D+2, 2D, 2D+1, 2D+2, 3D, etc.  More dice meant a widening bell curve, where harder difficulty numbers become routine to more experienced characters, who tend to succeed more often.  The addition of heroic point mechanics to increase crucial die rolls (called Force Points, and Character Points, respectively,) helped the game simulate the fast-paced, cinematic action in Star Wars pretty easily.  What’s more, the system was simple and very easy to learn; once you got used to the funky die progression, that is.

Unfortunately, WEG made a few mistakes that would make TSR hold its beer.  Among these was using a different system, Masterbook, as its house system for other licensed games instead of the D6 system in the Star Wars RPG.  It seems as they too realized this mistake a little later, since several of the Masterbook sourcebooks had an appendix for converting them to the D6 system.  They eventually released a generic, customizable game based on the D6 system, along with  couple of other D6-based, licensed games in the late 90s.

This short, 79-page book was more of a toolkit than complete game, and it was judged harshly for it, when it was noticed at all.  Still, I loved this little book, and how I could use it for any whacky idea I had for a one-shot or short campaign.  These days, it reminds me of the original D&D game, insofar as its do-it-yourself (DIY) quality.

I wasn’t alone.  At least one fan created several Tripod webpages (remember those?) with homebrew D6 games based on films, TV shows, anime, and video games.  I’m both surprised and happy to see these sites still exist.  As far as I can see, they still work, but may have some dead links and/or annoying ads; clicker beware.

• The Matrix D6
• Buffy D6
• Evil Dead D6
• Neverwhere D6
• Appleseed D6
• Starcraft D6

 Not long after making that generic D6 game, WEG went the way of TSR, albeit without a cash-flush company like Wizards of the Coast (WotC) swooping in to save the D6 game system like they did with D&D.  And so, the D6 System went into a period of obscurity, save in the hearts of a few fans like myself.

Circa 2004, WEG came back under the new ownership of Purgatory Publishing under one Eric Gibson, and they released three games based on the D6 System: D6 Adventure, D6 Space, and D6 Fantasy.  These were individual adaptations of the game system for modern-day, sci-fi, and fantastic or pseudo-historical campaigns respectively.  They also tacked on rules from the Masterbook games, like character advantages/disadvantages and a spell system which originated from WEG's multi-genre game Torg (also the origin of the Mastebook rules, I believe.)

These came out at a time where I was starting to get a little burned out on Third Edition D&D (then in its 3.5 version,) and they were a timely breath of fresh air.  The games rekindled my excitement for simpler, fast-paced, DIY GMing.  I took a break from D&D to run some successful mini-campaigns with themes like modern-day, urban horror, Firefly-esque space heists, and bloody swords and sorcery set in the Hyborian Age of Conan.  My friends and players remarked how much simpler and easier D6 games were to play than 3e D&D, and I agreed.  Alas, this lesson didn’t really stick with me (for D&D, that is) until several years and yet another edition of the game later.

Unfortunately, nu-WEG also went under a mere four years later.  Perhaps it was not having a strong enough IP like Star Wars to buoy the D6 System, or a debacle regarding their D6 Space setting of Septimus by author Bill Coffin (of RIFTS Phase World fame,) or maybe it was just fickle Fortune pooping all over small business as it often does.  Regardless, it was the Final Death of WEG, but not necessarily of the D6 System itself.

As a final and quite charitable act, Mr. Gibson gave Rome back to the people by releasing the D6 System rules and sourcebooks under the Open Game License (OGL) as Open D6, so that others could continue to use the rules in their own games.  This spawned a small, but vibrant community of independent publishers, but these games have sadly not had much time in the limelight without the flash, marketing, or big IPs larger game publishers can bring to bear.  But maybe that’s the way it should be.  Sometimes, a cozy niche is just fine being a cozy niche.

But why am I waxing nostalgic about the D6 System?  Well, I feel another one of those “fevers” coming on after watching the televised rendition of a certain, retro-futuristic, post-apocalyptic video game series which I have enjoyed since the original PC game.  Therefore, I’d like to do a series of posts (concurrently with my other series) to make some quick-and-dirty, homebrew D6 rules for playing in this universe, and then create a little sandbox for using them in (or the official game rules, if one is so inclined, although the core book seems to be sold out at the time of this writing.)  

So…

The Forgotten Realms Gray Box: The Other Swords and Sorcery Setting

Timothy Brannan over at The Other Side blog did an excellent review of the AD&D 1st Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Set, lovingly known as the “Gray Box.”  I have a few thoughts on the ol’ Gray Box as well, but I’m not going to steal his thunder.  Go ahead and read his review, then come back and hearken to my tale…

My first D&D campaign setting wasn’t the Forgotten Realms.  That honor could have gone to the Known World/Mystara, especially after I ran the adventure The Eye of Traldar for my original middle school group of players, but that campaign was short-lived, and I ended up switching over to AD&D 2nd Edition soon after, not going the Rules Cyclopedia route until many years later (I did have some photocopies of Mentzer's Companion and Master sets that I got from a high school senior who saw us playing in the bleachers, but that is a story for another time.)

With some birthday money and my humble paper route earnings, I ordered the 2e Player’s Handbook and Monstrous Compendium binder from TSR's Mail Order Hobby Shop catalog.  I got one of those catalogs in the mail because I sent back the consumer reply card (remember those?) in my 1991 “black box” basic set.   I also managed to pick up the Dungeon Master’s Guide, the Monstrous Compendium Vol 2, and the Ravenloft: Realm of Terror  boxed set at the local comic book shop in the meantime; so much for that college fund!

“I didn’t go to college, and I turned out just fine!”  That’s great, Mr. Murder Hobo, but nobody asked you.

While Ravenloft was pretty nifty, it was a little too much for a beginner DM to grok at the time.  I needed something a little more generic.  I guess I had been drawn to Ravenloft because I enjoyed a certain Nintendo video game series.

Somewhere, in an alternate timeline...or is it?

I was at the local mall’s book store one day, pondering this conundrum (and patiently waiting for the AD&D 2e books in the mail; Amazon has spoiled us) when I saw a certain horseman staring at me.

It seemed as if that horseman on a desolate plain was beckoning me to explore his mysterious and “Forgotten” world.  I had a strange sense of déjà vu.  Did I have some connection to these “Realms?”  (the book does speak of a connection between the Realms and Earth.)  Had I been there before, perhaps in a dream?  It turns out I had just read a couple of DC Comics’ Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Forgotten Realms titles.  That’s where I had seen the name before.  Regardless, I picked up the box and devoured its contents when I got home.

The first thing that struck me was a) how vast the world was and b) the many evocative names on that map like The Great Gray Land of Thar and The Jungles of Chult, with little information about these mysterious lands.  This kind of stuff is like pouring gasoline on the fiery imagination of a young mind.

Left: A size comparison of the Realms vs. the continental U.S. from the Campaign Set.  Right: the Outdoor Survival map (Original D&D wilderness) superimposed over the map from the Campaign Set at the scale of five miles per hex.  In other words: more wilderness than you can ever use!

This then became the setting of my high school years’ campaign.  Despite a couple of side trips into other TSR worlds like the aforementioned Ravenloft, and other, wackier settings like Spelljammer and Dark Sun, the Realms was the main home of the now infamous (at least in our head canon) adventuring company, the Warriors of the Flame.  The Warriors rampaged through much of that vast map; from Raven’s Bluff (still named Ravensgate in my copy,) to the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar and Undermountain in Waterdeep.

The Warriors of the Flame were murder-hobos before it was cool.  They may be wanted in Raven's Bluff in connection with the burning down of a tavern.

Besides the couple of supplements above and the 2nd Edition update, Forgotten Realms Adventures, I never really delved too deeply into additional content and lore for the setting, let alone the novels, so the Realms always felt uniquely mine (which I believe was the intention.)  The common complaints of powerful characters like Elminster, Drizzt, and the Seven Sisters showing up and overshadowing the player characters were never really an issue.  Indeed, tucked right at the beginning of the NPC entries in the DM’s Sourcebook of the Realms is a little random table where the DM could determine whether an NPC was as powerful as their reputation says, even more so, or just all talk.  I’ve a mind to use such a table for my own NPCs.

I never got the feeling that the Forgotten Realms was a high fantasy/high magic setting.  That's not really the vibe the Gray Box had.  However, sometime after high school, I picked up a copy of the revised 2nd edition boxed set.  Despite much more information than the original, nicer maps, and cardstock goodies, the world just didn’t seem the same.  Whereas the original Campaign Set seemed to evoke something like: “In the years between when the sands of Anauroch devoured glittering Netheril, and the rise of the sons of Sembia, there was an age undreamed of…” the later box screamed something along the lines of: “All the characters from the novels you love!  Magic!  Gods!  EXPLOSIONS!” 

Michael Bay's Forgotten Realms

With that and the mountain of supplements available (several which were admittedly very good,) the Realms had become a little too crowded for my tastes.  Even Sembia, which was promised in the Gray Box as an open playground for the DM, had been detailed.  

By the Third Edition years, with the release of Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (which I still bought,) the Realms had lost some of their luster for me.  On the bright side, this prompted me to explore my own creations, as well as another famous setting that appealed to my swords and sorcery predilections.

While I no longer use the Forgotten Realms for my home campaigns, the venerable Gray Box holds a place of honor on my shelf to this day.  I even managed to corner Ed Greenwood at Gen Con and got the old, battered thing signed!  He was in kind of a hurry, but was gracious enough to acquiesce to my request.  It reads something like: “May your Realms adventures be [unintelligible.]” 

But as the saying goes: you never forget your first love, so who knows?  I might pick it back up one day and start a classic campaign with it, employing all the old school lessons I've learned.  Heck!  Maybe even try to get the old band back together for an online game.  What are the Warriors of the Flame up to these days, I wonder?