Am I an idiot for not understanding d6?

My first Role Playing experience was on these boards and while I have since ventured off into other role playing games.

However, I read d6 explanations and rules, but they just don't seem to make sense and, according to the games I've seen, not all d6 games run the same way.

I need a very simple explanation of d6, more specifically the character creation and combat part, because I am seriously missing out.

-B-


Xan Edit: Moved from Role Playing Resource; it's better suited to this forum.

I never played d6 or d20 games. I always wanted to try but don't know anyone who is around to play.

On the boards I do tend to shy away since I don't know anything about it.

Okay, it´s pretty simple. You got an attribute and a skill. Attribute is Dexterity, for example. Reflexes, agility call it what you want. d6 calls it Dexterity or short DEX.


BASIC MECHANICS 1: Fight

We will play this through for your character Bluey. Human.

A "D" is always a six sided dice in d6. That´s where the names comes from. To do this at home you therefore need a single six-sided dice.

Your character is human, means he got DEX between 2D (well, not a very recise guy) and 4D (catlike). Bluey is average with 3D.

Now he got a skill. That is a representation of how good you can do it. Let´s take blaster. +1 would be little knowledge. +2 would be a bit better. THERE IS NO +3. That´s a full dice then.
Bluey has +1 on Blaster. You would get a +1 to your 3D. Means you got 3D+1 to shot your blaster.

Roll three dices and add 1 to it. Lets say you roll 4, 3, 1. That´s EIGHT +1 is NINE.

So you shot with a NINE. I, the GM, knows how good you need to shot to hit or miss. If I say you need 13 to hit the target, you miss. If I say you need 6 to hit, you hit it.

You got it?

3D Attribute Dexterity.
+1 Skill
Rolled together as 3D+1

Result against the difficulty of the task.


Step two: The enemy. Not a standing target, but a living breathing guy who doesn´t wanna get shot.

You shot a guy called Fin. And he doesn´t wanna get shot. He dodges.

Fin got 3D Dexterity, too. And he got 1D on dodge. Makes it 4D together.

He rolls. 5, 3, 2, 5 = 15.

Bluey shoot with 3D+1 Blaster on him and rolled a 9. He jumped away, dodging and rolled a 15. He dodged your shot. You missed him.

Got it so far? Then I´ll explain the next step. If not ask.

/>

There is a gaming group all pretty much board based at www.starwarsclub.org

They have a wiki and have some good stuff for people getting into the game.

I learnt the system without any sourcebooks whatsoever with help from these pages.

This one is primarily about the basics, it includes what Fin layed out above but goes on to cover other topics too (so don't let it overwhelm you!) http://www.starwarsclub.org/wiki/index.php?title=Role-Playing_Basics

The reason it may be confusing is that D6 is the "Down and Dirty" quick rules system. Some times the rules don't cover something, or it's covered somewhere and you have to dig to find it. The game is designed for the GM to fudge, make a temporary ruling, or a new House Rule.

I will freely admit that the system I use is a hybrid of First and Second edition D6 rules, which may make it difficult to follow if you're looking at one of the official books.

The simple version of character creation is that you have 18D to divide among 6 attributes. For humans, you must have at least 2D in each, but a maximum of 4D. Other races have different limits (Depending which book you look at, Wookies can have up to either 6D or 7D of Strength) When dividing your 18D, you can break 1D down into 3 +1's(or pips) or a +1 & a +2. Thus, a human combat beast might have these stats:
DEX: 4D, Kno: 2D, Mec: 3D, Per: 3D, STR: 4D, Tech 2D
or
DEX: 4D, Kno: 2D+1, Mec: 2D+2, Per: 3D, STR: 4D, Tech 2D
All I did was move one pip from Mec to Kno.

A technical specialist, however, might have stats like the following:
DEX: 3D, Kno: 3D, Mec: 3D, Per: 2D+1, STR: 2D+2, Tech 4D

Or a weenie wussy computer hacker/slicer might have:
DEX: 2D+1, Kno: 4D, Mec: 2D+1, Per: 3D, STR: 2D+1, Tech 4D

To simplify, there are templates for most character types that assign attributes and equipment, leaving you to customize with skill dice, name, heigh/weight, age, personality, etc.
Stock rules: after you assign attibutes, you get to customize with 7 skill dice. You can add up to 2 dice to any single skill. (Darwin note: add 2D to dodge--you'll be doing that a lot!)
For example, if the combat beast has 4D of dex, you might want to add 2D to blaster and 2D to Dodge, making both scores 6D. Maybe combat beast is also a pilot. add 1D to Starship Piloting,making that skill4D. Lots of soldiers pass the time gampling. Ad 1D to that skill (Perception) for 4D And if he likes to blow things up, He might take Demolitions (Tech) so ad a1D to that for 3D. That's that. When using any of thos skills, you roll the individual skill. If you need to use a skill that you didn't spend points in (like say Computer ProgramRepair (tech) or Alien Races (Knowledge) you roll the base attribute.

After that, there are more modifiers and adjustments (Getting wounded, taking more than one action, and so on).

At character creation, you get to decide whether or not your character is force sensative. The simpleversion is that you get an 2nd Force Point (which lets you do spiffy stuff), but you have to be a total goody-two-shoes, whether you're a Jedi or not. Every character gets 1 Force point. Every character gets 5 Skill points. These can be used to further adveance your character, but are also handy for saving your backside when the dice are trying to kill you.
Next step it to get your equipment. If you have a template, equipment is assigned. If not, talk to your Gm to find out what is reasonable.

Most of the system is based on rolling a certain number of dice and adding them together, comparing against a fixed difficulty or someone else's pile of dice.

That should be enoughto help you create a character. I'll be happy to supply any additional information or maybe even better examples.

Okay, thanks everyone, I think I got the character creation part down now.

Next thing, do the d6 rules apply for everything you do in the game? Like the probability that you will find a secret document or something like that.

Also, can someone lay out some terminology for me?

-B-

Basically the dices decide whatever the GM asks for. Probabilities are usually, at least with more experienced GMs not part of that. And what is the terminology you are looking for?

Well, that depends where the secret document is. Will you find the item hidden in the room? That would be a Search roll under perception. Will you find the hidden file in the computer termainal? that would be a Computer Programming/Repair roll under Tech. Will you be able to decrypt the file and access the data? That would be Security Systems or Computer Program/Repair--both under Tech, but may have different difficulties, depending on the GM, story, etc. Can you navigate the repulsor lift through the mine field? Well, that's a RepulsorLift Op roll under Mech, with a fixed difficulty. Can you do it faster than the other pilot? Well, that's 2 rolls, one for piloting with the speeder's maneuverability added against a fixed difficulty, and one with the speeder's movement added against the other pilot's roll.
Don't know if you want to get into vehicle stats just now. (especially since they are one of the big differences between 1st & 2nd ed D6)
Can you read Bothan, understand Huttesse, or decipher what the 1meter tall teddybears are saying? That's a Lunguage roll under Know.

Skill points are like Experience points--you can use them to buy up your skills. (The # before the D is how much it costs to improve a skill--low skills advance much more quickly than high skills.) Alternatively, if you roll really low (like you're being shot at by 4 people with blasters and you only rolled a 13, and you know they have 6D of blaster skill which averages 21, You might want to spend a skill point. This will give you a extra 1D to roll after you've seen your total. And if you roll a 6 on that, you roll another 1D until you roll something other than a 6. Suppose your first skill point was a 4, that gives you a 17 on your doddge roll, which means that you'll probablly be hit at least 3 times (if one of them rolls badly to hit you.) You can spend a second Skill point and try your luck again. But that's it.
Well, Suppose you luck out, and only get hit by one shot. The Blaster does 5D of damage, and your strength is 3D+1. And you roll really, really badly. Oh dear. Your total is 6, and you know wthat the average roll of incoming damage is 17--enough to give you a really bad day. You can spend UP TO 5 skill points to add to your Strength roll To Resist Damage Only!

Force Points double all of your dice rolls for one round. So, if your blaster skill is normally 6D, it will be 12 D. If your strength is 3D+1, it will be 6D+2. Your blaster, however, still only does 5D of damage (depending on model), but you can shoot a bunch of different targets a bunch of different times.

There are several types of blaster, but brands are fairly genaric. Hold-out blaster doesn't do much damage, but is really easy to conceal. Sporting blaster (like Princess Leia's nin ANH) doesn't do a lot of damage, but soemtimes is all you can find. Blaster Pistol does 4D of damage. Heavy blaster pistol, blaster riffle, and blaster carbine all do 5D of dammage, but have different ranges.
Melee weapons are based on your strength, with differnt bonusses, depending.

Not sure which multiple-action rules you're using. Most common one is that for every action you take after the foist one, you are at a 1D penalty. Thus, Just Dodging is at full dice. Dodging and shooting (most common combination) is 2 actions, so you roll one fewer dice than your skill. Dodgeing and shooting twice is 3 actions, so you roll two fewer dice for each roll. And so on.
The opposite of Haste is to take extra time. Depending on what you're doing, this can be 1 round to 5 minutes, but has the effect of adding an extra 1D to your action. Aiming a blaster might be 1 round, while picking a lock might go from 6 seconds to 60 seconds, and programming hyperspace might go from 5 roun