LostSoul said:
Hmm...
All I have to say is that I really enjoyed playing d6 (Star Wars).
Wik, would you mind opening up another thread that details how the game went? Not a "Story Hour" write-up, but more like pointing out times when the rules did/didn't get in the way of role-playing. (For instance, contrast a moment when, in D&D, the rules did get in the way with a moment in d6 where they didn't.)
That would be cool. I always wondered if I played d6 in a totally different manner than most people.
Yeah, I might do that after wednesday night's game. But I can give you a pretty good example right now.
In our d6 game (which is based off The Fifth Element, with a lot of Shadowrun Elements thrown in), the PCs live in an abandoned building underneath the shadows of mile-high skyscrapers. They live in the smog zone, so that if they want to leave their (insulated) house, they need to wear gas masks.
Two PCs were on the roof, getting their vehicle ready for flight, when a flying police car lands and threatens to open fire if the PCs don't peacefully resort to some questioning (the PCs made a suspicious phone call to a taxi service to get info they wanted, and screwed up so badly that the taxi dispatcher called and warned the people the PCs were asking about, who promptly sicced the police on them). So, the PCs let the police car land, and get more than a little nervous when two heavily-armoured police officers get out. One PC was fixing the car, and refuses to get out, while the other one (a tweaked-out drug addict with an obsession over knives) tries to negotiate but isn't doing a very good job at it. Meanwhile, the other two PCs are doing whatever theyc an to destroy phone records.
So far, I haven't requested a single roll since the police landed. In D&D, I probably would have felt that the situation merited a diplomacy check on the roof, to gauge the police reactions, although this is more a minor point than anything else. In d6, I don't ask for a roll because, well, the scene seems to be going fairly well and I don't want to ruin it with a die roll (I probably wouldn't have asked for a roll in D&D either, if the scene were going well; the problem is, one of the PCs would have insisted upon making a Diplomacy check if he had a halfway decent charisma, which would have changed the nature of the exchange).
Now, the player of the hitman decides to head up to the roof while the hacker continues to mess with computer files. I ask for a quick roll to see if she can block the police car's communication channel to headquarters. I would have done the same in D&D. In any case, she succeeds. Before the hitman can get on the roof, though, one of the PCs on the roof acts, completely surprising everyone (including myself and the rest of the group).
Quickly, he draws both of his guns (a sawed-off shotgun and a pistol of some sort) and blasts them at the cops - one at each. Since he is making two actions, he takes a -1d6 penalty on both firearms rolls, meaning he rolls only 3d6 for each check. Since neither of the police can dodge (they haven't acted yet; initiative in d6 works almost exactly like d20), he easily makes both rolls, although neither weapon does much damage against the heavy police armour - one is stunned, and one is wounded (using d6 damage codes). The stunned officer flies backwards into his police car, while I decide the wounded officer gets a bullet into his helmet, which shatters his viewglass and sends shards of glass into his face.
In D&D, this would have been different. Since the character would be firing two seperate weapons at once, ie two weapon fighting, he would have taken a rather large penalty for each shot. Not only that, but the roll to hit the enemies would have been much the same as if they had not been surprised (since the police wouldn't likely have a very high dex or defence bonus anyways). The main thing, though, is that I doubt the player would have even attempted the action with the stat penalty; in any case, the penalty would have been in his mind when he made the decision to attack. In other words, he would have been seriously considering the rules of his character's action, rather than just saying "this is what my character is doing".
The whole fight worked along these lines. The Hacker tried her best during the entire fight to stall the police from sending an emergency signal for help, and then re-wrote the police report to make it look as if they had been sent on an entirely different objective. She failed at both rolls, but was able to spend character points to improve the rolls (I don't think D&D has a system that lets you re-roll cinematic rolls, which I can understand... can you use action points that way?). The PCs made the equivalents of critical hits and such, but each was a much quicker roll (and remember, this is a system the players had never used before, whereas they were all familiar with the D&D rules) to resolve - even when you take into consideration that there are three or four rolls to make as oposed to two (roll to hit, optional roll to dodge, damage roll, and a damage resistance roll). This was probably because I wasn't slowed down trying to record all the information of damage, and players weren't considering what feats to implement in their attacks.
Really, the combat ran very smoothly. Much more smoothly than it would have in D&D. Ah, well. I'll talk more later.
By the way, nice to see you Lost Soul. Been a while, neh?
But we still made characters in different ways. I guess what I meant was that, to a degree, rule-heavy games can accomodate min-maxers, to a degree, while still providing a pleasant gaming experience to non-min-maxing players, in the same group. Sure, extreme cases will still break the game, but non-extreme cases can co-exist easily.
