d6 the future of d20?

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

I'd like to make a low power fantasy D&D game without rebuilding the system.

The DnD system is built to emulate high magic fantasy. D20 is more flexible, however.

Magic is way to powerfull and clearly unbalanced.

Well, one man's "clearly unbalanced" is another mans "fine" so i wont bother there since you give no reasons. As for magic is way too powerful, the Conan D20 and Midnight D20 fantasy realsm feature weaker or at least less frequent magic systems that might be more to your liking than DnD.

Inflating HP makes character way to tough.

Again, when you look at d20, you will see the wide variety of damage systems. Skull and Bones uses something close to what has become a rather common alternative to straight hit points, a variant where "wounds" go straight to con under certain circumstances. Its also frequently called wounds/vitality in other systems such as spygate where, for instance, criticals go straight to con. Also, just a step outside of d20 in OGL land we have the damage save of MnM, replacing the hit point mechanic entirely and they have a fantasy game coming out later this year which features that mechanic. Finally, as other systems like conan and modern do, you can simply lower the massive save threshold to something that give you the feel. Modern uses your con, conan iirc 25.

Finally, in the Unearthed arcana **dnd** supplement, many of these types of systems were added as alternative damage systems to use even in DnD.

BAB means I pick up a new weapon and I am just as good with it as I am with the weapon I use every day, pure BS. Weapons require trainning.

The basic training a character has in weapons and in which weapons is initially covered by his class choices and later by his feat choices. So, training is covered. A 10th level fighter cannot pick up an urgosh for instance, without taking penalties.

PrC: Instead of making flexible classes they give us Pigeon hole classes.

Some would say "archtypes." In DND all classes are flexible and sections on altering classes are given in the PHB and DMG.

I don't see any way to do it.

I would say that is more due to an apparent lack in your knowledge of the d20 system and whats out there and in it than a real lack in the system.

I will probably buy D6, mostly because D&D was built with one thing in mind:
High Power Fantasy.

OK, certainly DnD is not good for every genre. However, D20 has been used very well for grittier fantasy with less magic etc.

I have read many reviews about modified D20 games and most of them change little details not the big things that I hate.

OK.

 

[Krieg]

I prefer weapon group skills because they make sense. You're good with a broadsword you'll be about as good with a longsword because they are similar. An axe and a longsword use different techniques.

Unearthed Arcana has variant rules that cover this.

For lower magic & "grittier" settings you might also want to take a look at Conan D20, Midnight & DarkLore (.pdf only). All have variant magic systems that are lower powered than generic D20.

As mentioned previously Grim Tales is excellent, although it is more "tool kit" in form than the others that I mentioned.

BTW Massive Damage Saves (as in Call of Cthulhu D20) go a long ways towards negating HP bloat.

 

[MerricB]

I know that the d6 books don't have a level system, but is it so hard for someone to actually put one into their own games...

level one - begin with 5 character points, and when you accumulate a total of 10, you get to level two, and now you can spend them.
level two - begin with 10, and accumulate 10, now level three, spend those points.
level three - begin with 20, and accumulate 10, now level four, spend those points.
and so on and so on and so on...

Although that system gives you an idea of how many points a character has spent, it's not the same thing as a level system.

With a level system, it is assumed that all the abilities of the character progress at the same time, at similar rates.

For example, in D&D, you can make some very good assumptions about what a 10th level fighter can do with his favoured weapon, and ditto with a cleric, and what spells can be cast, and how many hit points they have, etc.

Even skills fall under this idea in D&D. Although it is possible to have a couple of ranks in every skill, in practice PCs and NPCs take maximum ranks in their core skills. A 10th level rogue is likely to have 13 ranks in Search, for instance, and you can design adventures based on that fact.

Conversely, in the non-level systems, you can't make any such assumptions. One character may be a combat master, hugely in front of where the other PCs are. A rogue-type of PC may be great at picking locks, but be unable to find traps!

Whilst D&D's level system may be justifiably described as unrealistic, it makes the art of adventure design so much easier.

Cheers!

 

[The_Universe]

here here!

 

[Garlak]

I'm not saying it can't do it, I'm just saying I don't want compromises.

I know all the alternate HP system and I don't like any of them.
I like HP, I just hate the inflation. I really liked LotR's HP system.
I want characters that survive because they are more skilled not because they are uber tough.

I know about the DMG's rule to modify the classes.
It's still a cookie cutter class. I like flexible classes like HARP and LotR have.
Modifying D&D for flexibility is hard work, buying another system is simpler.

I guess I'm just not the compromising type.

 

[Ranger REG]

Sucks to be you.

 

[woodelf]

I never liked the d6 system. Essentially it is a die pool system. This means that characters with high skills roll buckets of dice. Some people really like it because it is fairly cinematic - all skills default to the attribute upon which they are based (so if you have a high sttribute you can use any skill based on it easily.) However, I found it slow and clunky. Of course, that's my personal bias.

Quick technique for adding up bucket-d6: look for '10's--pair off pairs or trios (or occasionally quartets) of dice that add to 10. You'll usually end up with only a couple dice that can't be part of a 10. We now return you to your regularly-schedule discussion.

 

[woodelf]

Is the d6 system here the same system used for Shadowrun?

Nope. Historically, ShadowRun is a derivative of Star Wars, mechanically. Star Wars, in turn, is a derivative of Ghostbusters. [And Storyteller is a derivative of ShadowRun and Ars Magica, mechanically.]

Star Wars: attributes and skills are expressed explicitly in terms of dice, so you roll an attribute or skill, and add the dice up. So, 3d6+1 generates a result number from 4 to 19, which needs to exceed a target number. There are some additional twists to this, but i don't remember the specifics and don't have my book available (wild die, exploding 6s, something with force points, more than one of the preceeding--i just don't remember), so you could get larger numbers. Ghostbusters, which is very similar in the core mechanic, had a wild die: it adds in like all the rest, but if it's a 6 or 1, spectacular things happen.

ShadowRun: i don't remember how attributes and skills are expressed. And i just discovered (in trying to respond to this thread) that my copy of ShadowRun is AWOL, so i'm going solely on memory of a game i've read but never played. I do know that you have a pool of dice, depending on the action being attempted, and thus the skill/attribute involved, as well as some "general" dice you can allocate as you wish. Multiple actions are accomplished by literally splitting the dice pool--you roll some for one action, some for the other. Each die is compared individually to the target number, and is thus either a success or failure. You determine overall success by counting how many of your dice succeed. 6s explode (roll again and add), so difficulties above 6 are possible.

D6' ("dee six prime"): system used in, among other games, Hercules & Xena. A count successes dice pool, a la ShadowRun and Storyteller: roll a number of dice, and see how many exceed the target number. Like Trinity/Aberrant/Adventure, the target number is fixed, and in fact Herc & Xena came with special dice with no numbers, just two types of symbol appropriately distributed (i believe 2 faces for success, 4 for failure, --equivalent of a 5 difficulty--but i might be misremembering). It also has a wild die, though i forget the exact details of operation (whether it improved the roll in general, or only turned an already-successful roll into something phenomenal, or something else).

 

[woodelf]

the skill system is a prime example, the old star wars game was using a universal "d6 roll + modifier vs DC" just like "d20 roll + modifier vs DC"

Well, with such a broad standard, there'd only be, what, 4 systems out there, total: roll+modifier>diff; roll+mod<diff, low good; roll+mod<diff, high good; and roll+diff<stat. However, D20 System and D6 differ in a very significant point: in D20 System, the roll is always the same, but the modifiers vary significantly (based on level, skill points, attributes, etc.). IOW, the random element, as an absolute range, is constant, though it tends to become smaller in proportion to the modifiers as level increases. In D6, the modifiers remain relatively static, while the roll varies significantly. Not only does the range of randomization vary with power, it actually increases with greater power. But it also becomes less likely to give an extreme result as power goes up, so more-competent characters are also more reliable in their abilities. So while a high-powered D&D3E character is guaranteed to outperform a low-powered one (if the former's mods exceed the latter's mods by 20 or more), the same is not true with Star Wars: it is, while statistically unlikely, possible for a character rolling 10d to get a result of 10, and thus be beaten by the person with 2d. On the flip side, the high-powered D&D3E character is as likely to generate a 30 as a 50, while the high-powered Star Wars character will pretty much always get about a 35.

Mind you, i just bought the D6 adventures hard-back today and i'm not all that impressed. It's a chaotic bit of mish-mash jumbled into the one book.
IMHO if i'd never played D6 previously it would take me a while to work out how to make a PC let alone GM a game.

You should try figuring out D&D3E from the books with all-new players. It's particularly poor for those new to RPing. While i haven't looked at the new D6 books, it'd take some effort for them to be more poorly organized than D&D3E PH. It's just a matter of your background.

 

[Acid_crash]

Although that system gives you an idea of how many points a character has spent, it's not the same thing as a level system.

With a level system, it is assumed that all the abilities of the character progress at the same time, at similar rates.

For example, in D&D, you can make some very good assumptions about what a 10th level fighter can do with his favoured weapon, and ditto with a cleric, and what spells can be cast, and how many hit points they have, etc.

Even skills fall under this idea in D&D. Although it is possible to have a couple of ranks in every skill, in practice PCs and NPCs take maximum ranks in their core skills. A 10th level rogue is likely to have 13 ranks in Search, for instance, and you can design adventures based on that fact.

Conversely, in the non-level systems, you can't make any such assumptions. One character may be a combat master, hugely in front of where the other PCs are. A rogue-type of PC may be great at picking locks, but be unable to find traps!

Whilst D&D's level system may be justifiably described as unrealistic, it makes the art of adventure design so much easier.

Cheers!

Believe me, I know a level system when I see one and I know that what I came up with for d6 doesn't make it a 'level system', it at least alleviates some of the complaints that some have for the system, and also gets rid of the situation in which a person normally would spend some of his own character points during the game and instead splits that pool up into two different pools... one which works for just character advancement, and one that refreshes each session (like Spycraft or Mutants and Masterminds) and doesn't increase beyond the 5 per session.

As for the art of adventure design being so much easier, well, that's a debate in itself. For myself, I can crank out stats and stuff in d6 in a quarter of the time it takes me to do the same type of stuff in Star Wars d20 or DnD simply because of the vast number of classes, levels, feats, skills and ranks, force powers or spells, monsters, and so on and so on... at least in d6, I can begin with a basic template, add in a few pips and dice in certain skills, compare to the overall capacity of the player group, and I'm done.

It's just a matter of what makes sense for the individual, and what we see as a limitation vs. an advantage. I will play d20 but never run it, it's a hassle for me. d20 got ruined for me when I walked into the game store and saw 8 monster manuals, 3 books on just feats, 5 books on just spells, 30 books on just classes alone, and now we are seeing a larger number of variant books being released. Just give me d6 Adventure, Space, and Fantasy and I am good to go and I can recreate anything in all those other 50 d20 books without any problems or any hitches.

And if anybody had problems with the older d6 books, like Strength damage and stuff like that, many of those small issues have been recognized and looked at, so go look at the book again to make sure that your complaints are still valid. Arguing is fine when the point is valid, so make sure what you are against is still in the new edition.