Gallant Knight Games Designing 2nd Edition of WEG’s D6 System

Gallant Knight Games have signed an agreement with Nocturnal Media, the company that owns West End Games, to design, publish and distribute a new edition of the classic D6 System. The D6 System has been a popular system over the last thirty years and with FFG bringing out a limited anniversary edition of the classic WEG Star Wars The Roleplaying Game later this year the system will be in the spotlight again.

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“Since Nocturnal purchased West End Games, the plan has been to revitalize the D6 System and modernize a system so many gamers have enjoyed.” Steve Wieck says, “This partnership with Gallant Knight is part of our journey to achieve that.”

This new edition will be overseen by Gallant Knight Games’ design team, with approvals from Nocturnal Media & West End Games.

“The West End Games D6 system and it’s classic D6 game of cinematic space opera adventure was hugely informative of my growth as a young gamer,” Alan Bahr, founder of Gallant Knight Games adds. “Helping to bring West End Games back into the mainstream gaming community is an exciting moment for us, and serving as the official West End Games creation and publishing studio is an opportunity of a lifetime!”

More announcements about changes in D6 System: Second Edition, timelines and dates will be forthcoming!

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Gallant Knight Games and Nocturnal Media have had extremely close connections in the past, with Nocturnal Media buying GKG and bringing Alan Bahr on board until Nocturnal Media’s founder, Stuart Wiecks, sudden death earlier this summer. Gallant Knight Games returned to Alan and has since merged with novels and comics publishers Ragnarok Publications and Outland Entertainment.

The current D6 System is Open License, allowing anyone to produce games using the system.

You can read the full press release here.

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[Blue]

I'm conflicted about this. There's no denying that WEG d6 Star Wars is a classic. But that doesn't mean that the mechanics, outside the setting and all that goes with it, was a good system. IIRC is was rather easy to optimize, which in practice meant you needed to optimize otherwise you'd be far behind the bar set by the other characters. And that's assuming that the new version fixes the huge power divide between Force users and those who aren't Force sensitive. (Can I call them muggles? )

That said, if they fix those issue I'll be happy to see the result even in different genres.

 

[jimmifett]

I never cared for the weg d6 system, confused the heck out of me.

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

It's a great system for Star Wars and other pulp or cinematic type games. For most people who know what it is though it is so heavily tied to Star Wars that it's a tough sell to use it for any other genre.

With this though - who are these guys? I'm not seeing any names I recognize. People have been tweaking and customizing this system for 30 years so there are plenty of examples of what might be good to change out there.

Finally - "generic" game systems are not doing great right now. Savage Worlds is the only one I can think of offhand and that's mainly because of Deadlands and the other strong settings/campaigns available for it. How big is GURPS right now? Hero? Most systems used in multiple games (and doing well) emphasize the individual games more than the system: It's Conan, Star Trek, Mutant Chronicles, etc., not just "The 2d20 system". It's FFG's Star Wars, L5R, etc. not just "The Funky Dice System". I think this would do a lot better if it was tied to a setting and not just sold a standalone rules system.

Just my $.02

 

[Von Ether]

Finally - "generic" game systems are not doing great right now. Savage Worlds is the only one I can think of offhand and that's mainly because of Deadlands and the other strong settings/campaigns available for it. How big is GURPS right now? Hero? Most systems used in multiple games (and doing well) emphasize the individual games more than the system: It's Conan, Star Trek, Mutant Chronicles, etc., not just "The 2d20 system". It's FFG's Star Wars, L5R, etc. not just "The Funky Dice System". I think this would do a lot better if it was tied to a setting and not just sold a standalone rules system.

Just my $.02

I think having an anchor game for a generic system is a good idea, though Savage Worlds didn't have the Deadlands setting in it's early years (that would be Evernight and 50 Fathoms)

The Cypher System has a generic book that's taken off, but it has double support. Two related stand alone games (Numenera and The Strange) and two accessory books (Gods of the Fall and Predation.)

 

[obidavekenobi]

Like so many game systems it's all about what you want to get out of your gaming experience. The beauty of WEG's d6 was its quickly-paced, shoot-from-the-hip, low rules-heavy setup. The difficulty system (D&D 5E, anyone?) ranging by 5's from 1-31+ was easy to run and play. Very rarely when I played or Game Mastered that system did we deal with any rules-lawyering.

I do agree with Blue (above) that the Force Sensitive/Users got pretty tough to handle as they progressed in power. In a way it was like a high level party with a high level wizard; they can change reality, and that's tough to adjudicate as well as keep everyone feeling like they are doing their part.

When playing SWRPG it very much felt like you were in one of the movies, and that had great appeal. The "Wild Die" always changed things up nicely, and made for great storytelling Back in the 90's my game group ditched D&D for a while as the rules bloat was getting to us (it was the rough years between the end of 2E and the start of 3E). We similarly took a break from PFRPG around 2011 and 2015 for the same reasons.

It will be interesting to see if the system can be revived. I wonder how the licensing will or won't play-out with SW.

 

[pming]

Hiya.

No need to "update" a system that is so simple. It's like trying to "update" Go Fish. Oh, sure, they can add a bunch of crap that will do nothing but detract from the simplicity and free-flowing "story'ness" that happens when you play any D6 game.

As for 'confusing'? Err...roll some d6's, add, beat a target number. That's it. Attacking in melee, same thing. Missile? Same thing. Casting a spell? Same thing. Using a super power? Same thing. Successfully navigating through an asteroid field? Approximately 3,720:1...basically, same thing. How they think they can "improve and bring it up to date" isn't something that any of us are going to be happy with.

In short...don't mess with a good thing. It didn't work for New Coke...it's not going to work for this either.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Ghost2020]

Look at the newest version of the Star Wars revised, expanded, and updated (REUP) for what might be updated.
It's a fan made creation and it's incredible.

 

[Von Ether]

Hiya.

No need to "update" a system that is so simple. It's like trying to "update" Go Fish. Oh, sure, they can add a bunch of crap that will do nothing but detract from the simplicity and free-flowing "story'ness" that happens when you play any D6 game.

As for 'confusing'? Err...roll some d6's, add, beat a target number. That's it. Attacking in melee, same thing. Missile? Same thing. Casting a spell? Same thing. Using a super power? Same thing. Successfully navigating through an asteroid field? Approximately 3,720:1...basically, same thing. How they think they can "improve and bring it up to date" isn't something that any of us are going to be happy with.

In short...don't mess with a good thing. It didn't work for New Coke...it's not going to work for this either.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

I guess they could be talking about the Legendary version of d6, which was more like a dice pool system vs adding the pips.

I though WEG's $10 generic book was ahead of it's time, but their "edgy" art made it a non starter for anyone wanting to run a family game. I thought their d6 genre series was perfectly fine and had most of them, along with friends who had the whole series. So I color me confused why it did so poorly that it had to be pulped by that owner at that time.

I guess this one of the reasons we have Kickstarter now. Not for the funding aspect, but for the communities it helps build. "Hey, we all like a thing! Let's keep talking about it even after we get our toys, so we can keep playing with those toys."

 

[trancejeremy]

The thing is though, since it was released as open content and there are many variations on it, I'm not sure how much a new version is actually needed.