(I make no claim to Star Wars, or the West End Games RPG, the graphic is just for reference to the source material!)
Simple Six is a re-imagining of Star Wars D6 as published in 1987 by West End Games. It shares much in common with the game, and can be used with it's source books, and extended rules. Note: this is based on first edition not second. Its is very much not compatible with second edition, unless you make many adjustments. The changes between the editions were rather sweeping.
Action ratings are rated in die codes, just as challenges (difficulty) against them are. A die code is listed as Xd + Y. 1d+2 is a valid die code. However the Y bonus can't ever be higher than 3. When it reaches 4, you flip the die up one and return to zero. Increasing 2d+3 by one gives you 3d+0, 3d. Sometimes rolls get a boost: This is listed as dice. A boost of 2d increases the die code that much for the roll. If you had 2d boost on your 2d+3 die code, you have 4d+3 for that roll.
How good is a given action die code?
How hard is a challenge die code?
Some notes:
There is only one hard rule for when to roll in Simple Six: Only roll when it matters. A roll in the game has to have a major impact on the adventurers themselves or what matters to them. There are implications from this rule that shape the game, and you can read more about that in Establish What Matters. Once that condition is met, the GM has to decide the category of the roll using the following rules:
Each type of roll puts a special demand on the GM before the roll is made.
These are the most grave rolls made in the game. A lot of rolls in combat are of this nature. First, the player should see these rolls coming. It is bad practice as a GM to sucker-punch a player with a surprise Jeopardy roll, with few exceptions, see Handling Surprises. Second, determine what is at risk with the roll. This is the thing the player will lose if they fail to succeed. Be clear that the loss may be permanent, or at the least costly to recover. Injury (health) in combat is a normal risk to attach to action rolls for battle.
If the roll may cost an adventurer (or adventurers) an opportunity, it is a roll with Clear Risk. First, in these cases, be clear about the opportunity that will be lost on failure. Then you are ready to roll. Han Solo attempting to sneak up on a Storm Trooper to get a surprise attack, perfect example of a Sneak roll with Clear Risk. Sometimes however, the loss of opportunity might not be as clear, so make efforts to establish it before the roll. Your bounty hunter heading down a network of dimly lit alley ways looking for the properly marked door of a private club would be a Search roll. In this case the implication being the method being used to find that club is lost. This doesn't mean the adventurer won't find the club eventually, they will just have to use another method.
If Clear Risk and Jeopardy seem similar, they are. The primary difference is that what is lost with Jeopardy can be impossible or costly to regain. The loss of Opportunity can be mitigated. Essentially any valid reason created in the fiction to regain it by the play should be accepted. While the situation with Solo above doesn't give many options, the bounty hunter looking for the club could just find a guide and try again tomorrow. But of course, some of that needs played out in the fiction and it did cause a delay.
Now we have come to the interesting roll category for the GM more than the player. The type of roll also implies how the game should be run, the style of GMing needed to make it work. The roll with Inspiring Implication doesn't cost the adventurer opportunity, or does it place them in any jeopardy. However the roll occurs because it may shape the flow of the story around the players and help set the stage for things in the future. Ok, that is really vague. Let me try again: As the GM you should always be building and refining your sandbox. This is the world in which the adventurers live, it is the stage of the story of the game. In this sandbox you have characters who are not the adventurers. They have their own goals, drives, weaknesses, and history. It is these Notable characters and Villains that may be affected by rolls in this category. In return, their actions change and your sandbox shuffles a bit.
Here are some good examples of such rolls:
Note, the result of these rolls will be established in the fiction with a scene, even if the adventurer themselves is unaware of the outcome. This is one common method to avoid the sucker-punch talked about above in Jeopardy.
This is also the roll type that really drives home that the adventurers are heroes (even if they don't know it). Here are examples:
The outcome of these rolls always changes the way in which the Force flows around the adventurer. If they fail they earn flow and if they succeed they lose it. How flow can be used is down in Flow.
So when it comes time to finally make the roll, you roll all your six-sided dice and sum them plus the modifier. 2d+2 becomes: 2d6+2. The GM rolls the challenge dice the same way. Then you compare:
Here is a breakdown of how to handle each result for both the GM and player of the adventurer in question:
You've hit a snag. Well, more like a brick wall. Things have gone so wrong, there is no way forward. Whatever being attempted, its over for now. The player of the adventurer defers to the GM for the reason, or offers a choice of up to three options from the GM it pick from. The player narrates the results of the roll, with a closing added on to the end by the GM as desired. The adventurer earns 1 Flow, or more if the GM awards more.
You didn't get by. No progress has been made towards the goal of the action. You may however, press forward, giving the GM +1d on the next challenge roll. The player narrates the results of this action and how they didn't get by. The GM adds a closing narration as desired.
You got by, and have made progress towards the goal. If the action was uncomplicated (see Complications In The Action), or you have earned enough progress, move to success. Otherwise, record one progress and take a boost die for your next roll. The GM narrates the action and the player can add in a closing as desired.
Thing went right, and you've succeeded! The end goal is reached. GM and Player narrate the outcome together as they agree.
In order to create an adventurer, decide on their level:
Once you have a level you have:
The GM will set the “level” of the game. This is the maximum level you can take in a character. If you choose to take a lesser level, you'll get certain abilities under The Flow of the Force.
Dexterity | Knowledge | Mechanical | Perception | Technical |
---|---|---|---|---|
Blaster | Aliens | Astrogation | Bargain | Computers |
Dodge | Bureaucracy | Beast Riding | Command | Demolition |
Heavy Weapons | Cultures | Driving | Con | Droids |
Melee | Languages | Starship Gunnery | Gambling | Medicine |
Thrown | Planets | Starship Piloting | Hide & Sneak | Repair |
Unarmed | Streetwise | Starship Systems | Search | Security |
Body | Force | Genius |
---|---|---|
Athletics | ~talent~ | Insight |
Brawling | ~talent~ | Invention |
Lifting | ~talent~ | Mechanical |
Stamina | ~talent~ | Technical |
Swimming | ~talent~ | Schemes |
Toughness | ~talent~ | War |
Force Talents are specific to each Force user, and therefore created by the player of that adventurer with the assistance of the GM.
To finish an adventurer you need the obvious, name, appearance, etc. But also: Background, Personality, A Quote, and Connection to Others. These should all be vague, allowing you to build on them during play.
A brief idea of where the adventurer came from. A one line summary, and perhaps some further highlights is the right amount of background for a starting adventurer. Usually you include a homeworld here, and some idea of why they became an adventurer.
A short summary of the kind of demeanor and personality the adventurer has, you can make this super-short “joker” or expound as you wish. This is meant to inspire your roleplay, nothing more.
Perhaps a favorite phrase, or just something notable the adventurer has said. It should make a statement about who they are. A smuggler's example from the original game: “I don't have the money with me.”
Your adventurer has to know at least one other adventurer. It is important that this relationship matters to them, the adventurers are always a group that has each other's back.
First, a blank adventurer template page: Adventurer Template.
(To be filled in)
This is the most basic part of SimpleSix. As a group, GM and players have to discuss and agree on what matters to each adventurer, and to the group as a whole. This will include goals (both ultimate and short term), relationships, and even the hopes and fears of the adventurers themselves. Ultimately this feeds back into the idea of which actions matter enough to trigger action rolls (and possibly result in sequences), what is important enough to count as a cost for Rolls with Jeopardy.
None of this is on the adventurer sheet. It is up to the GM to track it all and remind everyone as needed. With a wiki based online game it is enough to just record the data on a public page shared with all the players and point it out on occasion.
In general it is considered fair for a player to unilaterally declare what matters to their adventurer, but they should be open to suggestions from players and GM alike, and feedback.
(To be filled in)
(To be filled in)
This can be as simple and complex as the GM decides for each action. Here are some examples of more complex methods which can be used to figure out Advantage in situations, and then the highest Advantage (by dice) gets that boost to their action:
Actions can be either Complicated or Uncomplicated. This is not really meant to be analogous to complicated directly in the fiction, but meant to denote two types of actions rolls:
Since Progress is a measure of the likeliness of a complex action sequence, it is used when things complicate an action. Take an example: A droid is attempting to hack into a secure door to free a prisoner:
Complications don't make the roll harder, they require that many successful rolls. Meaning it increases the chance of getting a failure (which will make the roll harder, and eventually end the action sequence).
Equipment, ships, and gear can often have their own Die codes. The higher the die code, the better the gear. These can either become boost to action rolls directly, or be fed into the Resolving Advantage for Boost rules above for the GM to determine boost.
But, anything that is an Advantage can be used this way. If you are fighting and have the high ground, that is an advantage and worth a die code that might become boost. The exact values of any advantage are up to the GM, but it is up to the player to prompt them. It is expected and encouraged for a player that describes their stealth action as “moving very slowly and using the shadows from a nearby tree” to ask the GM if that gives them advantage dice for the action.
GM note: It is considered ok to give 1, 2, or even 3d advantage based on the creative imagery of the players. It is encouraged to suggest narrative options for advantage as well.
Player note: It is ok to bank advantage for a later roll related to a given narration. Discuss options for such that make sense with the GM.
The Force is life energy, and it flows around all living things. This game makes the assumption that all living things have some affinity to the Force, and life can't exist without it. In this way all adventurers have a Force strength. If that strength is 2d or below, it is small enough that it is not noticeable to the adventurer. At 3d, the adventurer has some small awareness of the flow of it around them. It is at this level they can begin to use force talents. Here is a simple benchmark for talents based on Force strength:
If you create an adventurer of lower level than the GM sets for the game, you end up with a Force Sensitive adventurer and the following rules are added to your adventurer sheet:
Don't create an adventurer more than two levels below the one set by the GM for the game you are playing.
(To be filled in)
In the original game, the Dark side was strictly defined and an adventurer could be lost if they gained enough Dark Side points. While SimpleSix takes a simple approach to right and wrong, good and bad, like the original trilogy did, it doesn't have such silly simple rules. It takes the view that the Force is life energy, and its energy is the Flow of it, for good or bad. There is no real dark side or light side, but thinking that makes it so. It takes the view that the light side and dark side in the fiction of Star Wars is a rigid structure created by the force users themselves. The GM and players are welcome to explore these concepts as they wish, but the game takes no sides and does not enforce any morality points.
XP is the currency of the game and storytelling overall. XP is award to characters from story events, achieving goals, and it drips in addition (1 at the start of each session always). XP can be used to buy Flow. The cost is the amount of Flow bought in the current scene + 1. So the first Flow bought in a scene costs 1 XP. Next costs 2 XP, then 3 and so on. It can get expensive to buy a lot of flow at once! When you have spent your XP, it becomes XXP, short for eXpended XP. In this state you can use it to increase skills and attributes between sessions:
Charity: You make expend 2 XP, making them into 2 XXP, to given another adventurer 1 XP at any time.
Flow is the rushing of the force around the adventurer. The more Flow, the more the Force is with them in the moment. Flow can be used two ways:
Flow can be reduced below zero, so -3 Flow is valid. This acts as you would expect, it soaks up XP spent to raise it or any other Flow your adventurer may gain. A major cause of this can be Recovery below.
Charity: At any time you may pay 2 Flow to give another adventurer 1 Flow in cinematic action together.
Drains are anything in the game that works against the strengths of an adventurer and may hamper their efforts. Drain is taken from conditions, which are recorded by themselves with their drain die rating, and then added to the total against a strength. In this way there is drain against: Body, Force, and Genius.
Note that injury can inflict all drains. Limited types clear up themselves, meaning all limited drains are reduced 1d at the end of scene (or as the GM sees fit). Major drains are harder to remove. Make sure you make limited drains with an L so you remember to reduce them.
Drains are serious business, because they are additive. If you have 3d body injury from a blaster shot and get 2d body injury from a kick that is 5d body drain of injury!
Removing total Drain with Flow does not remove the condition itself. The GM can trigger it again later against your adventurer as part of a rolled Failure.
Your adventurer ignores total drain equal to or less than their strength for each type. Once you have more dice of drain total than the strength you have dice of weakness equal to that amount. Here is how that works:
Limited conditions recover themselves at a rather quick rate. Major ones though have to be recovered with recovery. Given the GM decides your adventurer has access to a method of recovery for a major condition (might need rolling, depends on the situation), you can buy it off with Flow. The cost to recover a major condition is it's die code in Flow. This may push Flow negative, and that is acceptable (meaning you have a Flow debt). Such a Recovery also reduces total drain of that type by the same amount as a bonus.