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A Comment on a D6 Criticism that I have heard...
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RedFox
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2005 12:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Firehawk0220 wrote:
I don't think D20 or D6 adjusts anything in the Star Wars universe.


Actually the WEG material was used as reference sources for a lot of EU novels and other derivative works. The short fiction magazine that got its start as a WEG gaming product adventure annual (I think it's Star Wars Insider or Star Wars Adventure Journal or one of those?) likewise became a fiction anthology publication giving starts to a lot of later Star Wars authors, like Timothy Zahn and Kathy Tyers.

Michael Stackpole did WEG stuff and went on to create some of those Guide books for the Star Wars universe, as well as the X-Wing novels, etc. etc.

WEG actually gave Star Wars a defrib and resurrection when the license was floundering in the loooong wake after Jedi when there weren't any more movies planned or anything else really happening with it.
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Hellcat
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2005 1:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Adventure Journal.
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RedFox
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2005 1:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hellcat wrote:
The Adventure Journal.


Thank you. May the taco sauce be with you.
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Hellcat
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2005 1:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Only if it's fire, none of this wimpy mild and hot 8) . Which is funny cause I prefer my salasa mild but I want my taco sauce real hot just so it actually is hot.
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RedFox
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2005 1:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hellcat wrote:
Only if it's fire, none of this wimpy mild and hot 8) . Which is funny cause I prefer my salasa mild but I want my taco sauce real hot just so it actually is hot.


I just had some Taco Bell tonight and put Fire sauce on my taco.

Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

Okay, this is going into tangency territory...
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2005 3:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like the fire the best. It has the best flavor, but I will admit that fire has more heat.
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Vanion
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PostPosted: Sat May 28, 2005 4:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sorry to resurrect an older topic, but I am new here and this thread caught my eye. After reading every post, I felt obligated to throw in my two wooden nickels.

I've played the D6 system on and off for the past 15 years. I have never been a fan of strict rules adherence. The WEG D6 system was my first roleplaying game. My brother and I read about the first 15-20 pages and we dove into a game. We knew just enough how to roll our skills and against what numbers and familiarized ourselves with starship and equipment stats. I have to say that those times were the most fun I have ever had playing any roleplaying game. In just maybe an hour, my brother and I were able to sit down and play, having no experience whatsoever with any roleplaying game or anyone to help explain to us how to play. I think that is one of the strongest points about the D6... it is very easy to learn the basics and fun without getting bogged down WotC style.

I have played D20 (up to 3.5) D&D and I have to say that I loved it much more than AD&D 2nd ed. I spent about three months playing the D20 Star Wars game and there was very little I had good to say afterwards.

75% of my love for the D6 might be because my gamer roots are to be found there, but I think there is more to it than that...

I think there are two parts to this debate... Atmosphere and game mechanics.

Atmosphere: I believe that WEG kicked WotC's arse on setting a great Star Wars atmosphere. The opened-ended character building really promotes custom characters in every sense of the term. You can literally make any template type (character class) anything you can possibly dream up. That is what Star Wars is all about... making the sky the limit... then going beyond. D6 encourages you to think of your character without bounds or strict limitations. Also, as it has been said before, I believe the atmosphere in the D6 is much more grand and epic deeds are by no means beyond that of a fairly new character (using force points and character points to boost your roles at the critical times)... I don't think a level 2 human fringer (as luke is described at the time) could EVER have hit the Death Star's exhaust port... but a fairly new Brash Piolt could have, using a force point, considering he would have had 8D with a force point to hit the death star, and that would have been if your brash piolt had NO improvement whatsoever to his Starship gunnery upon character creation (it's most likely that it would have been about 12D after starting D are placed). WEG's system also does a great job of bringing Star Wars' dizzyingly fast pace along with it. The game itself is fast-paced and free of over complicating the system... you'll often find yourself feeling as if you just stepped off a roller-coaster ride at the end of a session. I think that may PARTIALLY be due to the GM, but I think that same GM owes the ability to make the game so fast-paced on the system itself. Combat in space or on the ground rarely lasts more than 30 minutes... where as in the D20 system (with feats and some special abilities) a simple combat encounter could run well over 30 minutes. Also, the Jedi are SUPPOSED to be powerful and I think WEG did a great job on their Jedi, which was one of my two biggest complaints about the D20 system. The D20 Jedi are a bunch of puds!!! Lastly, the D20 system is very combat-focused and light on skill-oriented (for most classes). 4+Int modifier for skills??? COME ON! If you have no int modifier, you have 4 points to distribute to not only a hefty list of force powers, but also any regular skills? That makes the Jedi Guardian nothing more than a lightsaber Hack N' Slasher with a tiny amount of real Jedi skill.

Game Mechanics: Here is where the ground shakes beneath the D6 game... depending on your personal preference. If you are someone who enjoys complexity in your rule system and a very detailed combat system with a full-on focus toward combat, then the D20 system is for you... but that's hardly Star Wars is it? If you are simply a huge Star Wars fan, or you enjoy a more stream-lined game with a slant towards the skill/roleplaying aspect, then D6 is for you. I once had a bounty hunter character I played for almost 5 years straight... not only was he a bounty hunter, but he was a master tech, starship pilot, and repulsorlift pilot. You could only acomplish that with something akin to a 10th level soldier/ 7th level tech/ 7th level Scoundrel... and I think that is absurd. In the D6 system you can make ANY skill your focus and you don't even need to worry about sitting around waiting for the next level to get a single +1 to your 'to hit' or a single feat, you can make small improvements to your character every session (which is more realistic anyway... when you learn skills in real life do they just come to you overnight or do you learn them a little better every time you use that skill?). My second biggest complaint about the WotC system is that space combat takes FOREVER!!!! In the time I played the D20 system we had two fairly simple space encounters and I was begging the GM to just blow us up because it was taking painfully too long (I'M NOT KIDDING ABOUT THE BEGGING PART!) I have never sat through a Star Wars space battle in any of the movies and prayed for the battle to hurry up and end. I think the whole shield (Hit) point system combined with "Hardness/damage reduction" on top of Hull Hit Points make space combat linger on and on and on and on... Unlike the D6 system where you have Hull+Shield die vs Weapon damage die, very simple and promotes quick space battles.

In short... I'm not so sure that it's a matter of "what can you do in the D6 that you can't do in D20". I think it's a matter of HOW it's done. I think D6 simply does it all better. It's not your destination, but the journey that's much more enjoyable. (D20 pays off when you level up, D6 pays off at the end of EVERY session)

On a final note, regarding force powers. Someone made the comment that they might want to focus on certain force powers. It's not in the rules, but a natural extension of the rules could be this... D6 has a great skill specialization system. You don't have to be good at every blaster, you can "specialize" in one blaster type and be able to advance that skill much faster than the basic blaster skill. You could expand that system to include the Jedi Skills... after all, I think they ARE considered skills and not attributes. Instead of building up your Alter jedi skill, you could "Specialize" Telekinesis. Some rule tweaking would need to be done though, since some powers use multiple Jedi skills... but in the end, what does it really matter? I think it's a little goofy that some Jedi may be better at using telekinesis than other Jedi... I think it should be based on how strong or in tune you are in the force and not how well you've tuned certain gifts of the force.
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Stule
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 12:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Great Post Vanion!

And welcome to the Pit!


Peace.

Stule
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Vanion
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 12, 2005 9:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks, Stule.
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Volar the Healer
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 14, 2005 9:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Vanion, You are "On Target!" 8)
Great post!
Welcome to the Rebellion, brother.
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Argamoth
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 06, 2005 11:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My experience is mostly with 3ed D&D, and I haven't yet played a d6 StarWars campaign...but I plan on changing that soon.

Anyway, from what I've seen the d6 method can let you make up just about anything pretty easily. Just about any special ability from D&D, I can emulate in d6. Sneak attacks, berzerker rage, 2-weapon combat, just pay enough cp and you can work out the details.

So yeah. I like d6. And hi everybody, I'm Argamoth.
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KageRyu
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 07, 2005 7:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just glancing over the thread, and after examining it found most of what I was going to say has been said one way or another. I especially have to complement Vanion on his post a few posts above me, it is well said, and covers it pretty well. It's kind of wierd, the other night one of my old gamers and I were talking, and he has been trying to sell me on the idea of the new D20 star wars (ain't gonna happen). I have spent so many years distancing myself from d20 for so long. The conversation we had turned to skill based games with after-session improvement (such as WEG D6, Mekton II, and Chaosium) versus D20 "level up" style games. In the end his argument was that essentially, people seem to gravitate to the level up because they can see ready rewards and a succession for their character, as they gain bonuses by level up, so they plan and plot to reach the next level (yeah, lots of planning, "Ok, I kill 1000 more goblins at 5exp each and I'm level 5! Woohoo! + 1 to hit and saving throws baby!"). Where as, with individual award/skill improvement games, you get "points" (or a skill check) at the end of a session to improve your skills right there, but there is no real "award" as it's just a little easier to use the skill. I like how he phrased it...no real award? It came down to linear progression and game, versus creativity and open endedness. I guess people are just more comfortable being dictated to?
I see other D20 related games as useful for beginner players who need to be limited by a character class and aligment. Eventually though, as they gain more experience they chafe at the limits imposed by linear level ups, and begin pestering GMs to make house rules (seen it first hand), and clinging to the D20 system at this point is just stubborness on their part. I have converted many from D20 to other, more efficient systems, more dramatic systems. Inf fact, as funds become available I intend to pick up the 3 core rulebooks for the new incarnation of D6 by West End Games, just wish they weren't so pricy.
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Hellcat
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I just saw someone over in the TF.N lit forum trashing WEG's system rather heavily, making it clear he doesn't care for it even though there were several folks bringing up stuff that he couldn't well argue against succesfully.
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ZepDek
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 09, 2005 5:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A few things I wish to comment is that in WEG it is EXTREMLY easy to create characters you see in tv/movies/manga/ect, in WOTC you have to carefully balance it out with levels and such "Let see is Overfiend a 13th level fighter with the demon template or does he have wizard levels?". I really do like WOTC ability to help you to gaudge power levels of players and opponents. Thats my two cents.
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Hellcat
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 10, 2005 1:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's easy to gauge "power levels" in the WEG format as they provided us a lovely little chart for that. It's their skill level system, based on how many die a PC or NPC has in any given skill or attribute. Simply saying "I'm a 12th level Jedi Master" or whatever is rather meaningless because even very high level folks can specialize in one particular thing or any number of things and it's far better to know who skilled they are in those things they specialize in. In the second edition, revised and expanded, corebook, WEG's chart looks like such:
Quote:

  • 1D Below human average.
  • 2D Human average.
  • 3D Average level of training for a human.
  • 4D Professional level of training for a human.
  • 5D Above average expertise.
  • 6D Considered best in a city or geographic area. About 1 in 100,000 have this level of training.
  • 7D Among the best on a continent. About 1 in 10,000,000 have this level of training.
  • 8D Among the best on a planet. About 1 in 100,000,000 have this level of training.
  • 9D One of the best for several systems. About 1 in 100,000,000 have this level of training.
  • 10D One of the best in a sector.
  • 11D One of the best in a region.
  • 12D+ Among the best in the galaxy.




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