Simply6 Simply6: A Fast, Light Universal RPG

Simply6 is a fast, light tabletop roleplaying game for 2 or more players which you can play using just six-sided dice. I put this together over the last couple of days in my spare time (based on something I was playing with in the forums a while back) and have uploaded it to DTRPG. It's only about 20-pages long, and will likely be tweaked and updated after I get some feedback.

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[Justin Wyatt]

How is movement handled? I was imagining something abstract like range bands: Close (adjacent, melee weapons), Medium (several yards away) and Long (dozens of yards away) with 1 Movement action required to Move one range band. Firing missiles suffer -1d at target’s at Long Ranged, and +1d6 at Close range.

 

[Morrus]

How is movement handled? I was imagining something abstract like range bands: Close (adjacent, melee weapons), Medium (several yards away) and Long (dozens of yards away) with 1 Movement action required to Move one range band. Firing missiles suffer -1d at target’s at Long Ranged, and +1d6 at Close range.

Same way I said when I answered you earlier.

 

[Justin Wyatt]

Cool. I guess that is simple! I actually like a lot about this system. WOIN is way to Complex for my tastes.

 

[Justin Wyatt]

Same way I said when I answered you earlier.

Sorry, my post seems to have been duplicated !

 

[Justin Wyatt]

To add more randomness in combat, I was thinking of making Health equal to level x3.5 (you can use the chart on page 2, substituting d6 for level, so a starting level 3 character has 10 Health). Then have attacks inflict 1d6 damage Instead of 1 point.

 

[NineLizards]

Interesting... Had a quick look at it. How far will you take this? (Nice cover, by the way.)

 

[KaeJae]

I love this game, but magic still seems pretty costly, especially if you're playing in a high fantasy setting. As it is currently, a starting character who wants to be vaguely functional as a magic user needs to drop all their skill points (3d6) into Magic. On their first roll, regardless of whether they pass the check or not, they have a 42% chance of losing 1 or more magic dice for the rest of the day. Once you're down to 2 dice, there's only a 1/36 (less than 3%) chance of rolling a 10 without rolling another 6 in the process.

I'm trying this rules tweak, and I wonder what you all think:

• Magic is a Specialist skill, so unless you put dice into it, you have a default score of 0
• Putting 1 die into Magic (or any other Specialist skill) gives you a starting score of 3d6, which is basic competency
• Rolling a Magic check:
  • On a failure, there are no consequences unless you roll three 1's (critical failure)
  • On a success, if any of your dice come up 6's, lose 1 die (total) from your magic pool (so even if you roll all 6's, you only lose 1 die)
• When making a Magic check, you can choose how many Magic dice to commit to the check
• Multiple Targets or AOE effects: Sacrifice Magic dice to affect additional targets on a 1:1 basis. Targets must be Close to one another
• After each encounter/scene, if the character has a moment to rest in relative safety, they can make a single Resolve check to recover 1 Magic die lost in that encounter.

This keeps the basic mechanics the same, doesn't introduce any other systems to keep track of, and seems to make Magic more cost-effective without becoming overpowered. It also introduces a bit of Magic economy in that sometimes it might be wise to roll fewer than your maximum dice to lower your chances of losing one.

 

[Oldtimer]

On a failure, there are no consequences unless you roll three 1's (critical failure)

The problem there is that the probability of getting three 1's goes up dramatically as you go up in skill (compared to 3d6, it becomes more than three times as likely for 4d6, and almost seven times as likely for 5d6). Granted, it only applies to a failure, but a roll with three 1's in it, will very often be failure.

 

[Morrus]

Rather than 3 ones, a better way to do it might be "half the dice are ones". So if you roll 7d6, you'd have to roll three ones, at 9d6 it's four ones (assuming we're rounding down not up).

 

[KaeJae]

The problem there is that the probability of getting three 1's goes up dramatically as you go up in skill (compared to 3d6, it becomes more than three times as likely for 4d6, and almost seven times as likely for 5d6). Granted, it only applies to a failure, but a roll with three 1's in it, will very often be failure.

You're right, and that was part of the thinking. Using lots of dice for magic is messing with 'Things Mortals weren't meant to Mess With,' and so the more power you're trying to channel, the greater the risk should be that something goes horribly, horribly wrong. This is where that 'Magic economy' I mentioned comes into play. If you don't really need to roll all 6 dice to take out that Goblin, it might be wise to leave a few in reserve. But if you need to take down a major threat that's terrorizing an entire city, its risk vs reward time. At least that's what I was trying to simulate....

Addendum: I'm not totally sure my calculations are right, but I think the odds for rolling at least three 1's are:

• 3d6 = .46% (1 / 216)
• 4d6 = 1.62% (21 / 1296)
• 5d6 = 3.14% (244 / 7776)

I haven't tried to calculate 6d6+, but the odds don't seem unreasonable for mortals wielding 'Eldritch powers'