As a fan of Star Wars, I eagerly jumped into the West End Games D6 system for Star Wars The Roleplaying Game. As with most games based off of intellectual property, the contract ended and West End Games stopped selling their books. But they still had a perfectly good RPG system. So they released The D6 System which is the selection for my Day 10 entry into the Character Creation Challenge. I was able to pick up this book last year in an online auction.
The D6 System is a generic RPG that could be used for any setting or era. So I will be making another spy for UNITY named Paul Reynolds (code named: Cold Crown).
So on page 4 we find the character creation steps. The first real step is to distribute attribute dice between the character’s attributes. These are Coordination, Endurance, Reflexes, Strength, Knowledge, Perception, and Mechanical. When the GM is making their game, they could add or subtract any of these attributes (like magical or psychic, etc.). Since I don’t have a GM, I just kept the ones listed on the character creation template in the back of the book. The book recommends 21 dice to distribute. A die can be broken down into pips (Three +1s or a +1 and a +2) that can be part of the distribution. I wrote down my choices on the creation template. Next there was 7 dice of skills to select and allocate. I decided to take the skills that I thought a spy would need.
On our next step, we write down the character’s name and descriptions. I added these to the regular character sheet. Step 7 has us choosing advantages and disadvantages (which some GMs may see as optional). It is possible to gain or lose extra skill dice. I looked over the list and it was primarily disadvantages. After reading the options I decided that the character had Extraordinary Hearing (+2D) but Always Needed A Backup Plan (-2D) so it evened out. Next was any special abilities (which there wasn’t any since this was an espionage campaign). But I did use this time to note down the character’s fate points (1) and body points (20+ roll of my Endurance score, hey I get to roll something, which resulted in 33). There is a movement score on the sheet and notes about how to use that score in the GMs section, but I did not find out how to determine the character’s starting movement score.
And finally was the starting money and equipment. I determined that UNITY was providing everything he needed for his mission so I selected some standard spy equipment. Here is the character sheet.
Afterthoughts:
Just as I was getting ready to start this blog entry, I realized I had printed out the the character creation template and not the actual sheet. Luckily I was able to find it quickly and print one out.
For a generic system, there is a lot of blank spots listed for the gamemaster to fill in. There are alternate names for the attributes. I guess if the GM thought it would sound better for their game. This almost seemed like it was a book for someone who wanted to generate their own D6 system. This would include making templates for the types of characters the GM would allow. That would have helped.
I do remember the D6 system well from my early playing days. I could easily see myself playing one of these D6 systems in a campaign. I might even homebrew for it, but it’s pretty low on the list of systems that I’d adapt stuff for.
Some… um… interesting art that was selected for use in this book.
Additional Notes:
I had a poster on one of the message boards comment on my Fantasy Craft character. He agreed that the system was too crunchy as well. He had attempted to make a Spycraft character in 2022 and scrapped it because of how complex it was.
Coming Up Next:
XD20 2nd Edition
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