I'm so back into D6 again at the moment, been playing in a 1st Edition Game, and GM'ing two different 2nd Edition campaigns for different groups. Who'd have thought it'd still be getting played 20 years after going out of print?
My original 1st edition core book is still sitting on my shelf a couple of meters away (along with almost every WEG D6 product published!). I realised the other day that I first bought that 1st edition core book in my last year of *primary school*! GM'ed the same campaign for years in high school. I'm in my 40's now... ::)
Yep, you're completely right, as I avoided mentioning it to keep things simple. I didn't go into multiple action penalties either (which both characters should have gotten in the fight, so the Stromtrooper really should have only been rolling 2D since he was Dodging. Stormtroopers are quite complex sometimes. Since their helmet gives them +1D to hit targets moving faster than 10m per turn, and they've got a stock on their Blaster Rifle which can give them a bonus +1D when Aiming, but I wanted to keep it relatively simple for an example of play, I probably shouldn't have chosen the Stormtrooper.
My friends and I have been on a serious Star Wars kick lately, and it's ended up making us want to play our own tabletop campaign. Having only played DnD 5E before, I'm very glad that I decided to search this up. This video is older but I see that you have some recent comments, so I was wondering if you could direct me to some free and mobile friendly resources to use? I'm going the GM the first campaign and I could use things like pre-generated NPCs, a Ship Builder, Map generator, etc.
There's a bunch of places. But I'm obviously going to talk up my own. RPGGamer.org Been going 20 years, it's Updated regularly, some 8000+ sets of stats on the site, there's a ship designer, and it's linked to BeyondD6.com, which allows you to create and share characters and dice rolls. We're trying to add more features to make it a more fully fleshed out virtual tabletop, but there's just not enough hours in the day.
@@RPGGamer neat! Thanks for the info! I checked out beyondD6 and put in the basic info that I know so far for my two players. I can't wait to see how they assign stats, I need to see if I need to give them a support droid for piloting and medical help lol. I'm also excited to see how the other website works with the ship customization. I'd love to let them design their dream ship and then find it in the back corner of some dealer's lot (barely holding together and needing repair/upgrades of course)
Totally agree, I wrote and use BeyondD6 for my Gamesmastering, and simplifying the rules down to clicking a button really makes the rules get out of the way of the game, and allows me to just get on with telling a story.
I do love Star Wars D6, its such a lightweight system that it gets out of the way and just lets me get on with my game without me needign to constantly look up the rules.
Always found it amusing that the bonus dice to damage that Vader gets to his lightsaber with his forcepowers (11D+1) almost counters the scale penalty he gets to damage for a capital ship (12D), so he can hit a Star Destroyer and slice it into pieces. Although given the recent episode of Visions where that pretty much happens with a Dark Jedi and a Star Destroyer, perhaps it's actually really accurate. Cheers for the kind words.
I run this version of Star Wars for a group of teenagers at my local community centre (or I did before it got locked down), and it's nice and simple to get them into gaming.
I was trying to keep to just the absolute minimum, so I skipped that and Force Points too. But basically, you get to move the value in your move attribute, but can take multiple moves to move faster, making running skill checks to achieve that (or piloting rolls if in a vehicle), each multiple action used for movement also adds 5 to the target number needed to make that movement (so +5 for one move, +10 for 2, +15 for 3, etc), which is added to the base target number for moving through the environment. Multiple actions are actually far easier, you just drop your number of dice by 1D for each multiple action. Which means number of actions needs to be declared at the beginning of each combat round.
I am looking for an online campaign for this. Any suggestions for a returning PnP RPG player (30 years ago) returning to finally play WEG-style Star Wars? I'd be a first time player to PnP Star Wars. Where should I look for a DM to run a newbie-friendly campaign online?
My character, Captain Vertigo, was the terror of the table. I was half-droid, half revolutionary. Hated the Empire, not too cool with the rebels, went into business for himself. At the end had better blaster skill than Han Solo, but it didn`t matter because Jedi. Don`t have an arch-enemy that has mad force powers in this game. You will lose in the long run.
D6 was always easy to become mega powerful in. Our party ship was caught by an Imperial Customs Frigate, which we proceeded to fight our way through it's entire crew and steal the ship. And one time our Stock Freighter went toe to toe with a Star Destroyer, my pilot skill was so high that we couldn't be hit, but were chipping away at the Destroyer until the GM had it run away rather than let us destroy it. Fun times.
Yeah but it did not matter. I hated this kid and wanted to bring him down. I minimaxed all the way, had better blaster skill than Han Solo, fought in the droid fighting arenas hand to hand, was a master power sword wielder, built a pirate fleet by hook and crook,and got cheesed by Jedi powers at the end climatic battle. Yeah, I`m still salty.
If you want to power Stormtroopers up, then give them a commander to command them to co-ordinate their fire. Then multiple Stormtroopers fire together at a target adding dice to hit or damage (each extra Stormtrooper adds 1D to either). This can make Stormtroopers menacing even to powerful characters, or vehicles.
@@RPGGamer I’ve always wanted to tell my own Star Wars story set after Return of The Jedi and have the villain be rouge AI that will slowly gain sentience overtime.
Depending on the setting, perhaps D6 Space, D6 Adventure or D6 Fantasy might suit better, as they are more generic for their settings, but use the really quick as simple D6 rule system.
I see what you mean ruleswise. But I think Men in Black was really the spiritual successor to Ghostbusters. Same rules system (with some improvements over time), same tone, really deserved to do better.
I think the Star Wars one (the first edition, that is) was either released at the same time as Ghostbusters or just slightly before or after, as there's an ad for it along with the ads for the SW Sourcebooks in the back of the First Edition book.
@@joshuahartman3132 The two are close, but Ghostbusters came out 1986 (not sure when in the year), and Star Wars 1st Edition in October 1987. Amazing how the D6 system works so well for both, with the difference of adding comedy through the Ghost Die, and adding the chance of performing heroics through the exploding wild die. Great stuff.
I've managed to pick up a couple of books I never got at the time fairly cheap on ebay. Just got to be patient and have searches set uo to inform you when items become available. Picked up Tramp Freighters for about £20, which isn't much more than the cover price, but took about 6 months for me to get it at that price.
I'll admit that my current favorite RPG is called Mini-Six Bare Bones Edition. It is the West End games rules trimmed WAY down to just 30 pages, includes 2 versions of combat, and 2 versions of damage tracking. And it is FREE! img.fireden.net/tg/image/1452/92/1452929431285.pdf or you can download it for $0.00 on Drive Thru RPG. The rules are meant for generic rules to play anything, but it does Star Wars D6 well as they're the same family of rules. In fact the Mini-Six rules have 5 sample in it for the shows of Willow, Firefly, and Star Wars, but everything is renamed to avoid a lawsuit. The other two are Victorian ghost hunters, and 1970's cops and robbers sterotypes done for humor. The Two combat systems. One is the traditional D6 combat from the old rulebooks with a few small changes that match up with D6 Space rules, but none of the Star Wars rulebooks had. The 2nd combat system is assumed to be the new default rules where you pre-calculate all 4 of a characters defensive dice rolls to be fixed numbers instead (block, parry, dodge, and damage reduction). This speeds up combat since you only roll the attack. The counter to being attacked, or damage are fixed at a number on the sheet, and there is no penalty for both defending and attacking in the same combat round. Its supposed to be simple, and it is. Two Damage tracking systems. One is the traditional damage levels, and is the assumed default way to play, but that sometimes means uber tough guys shrug off nearly all normal sized hits. Or you can use a hitpoint system, but it doesn't have penalties side effects as you get more and more wounded. The full blown D6 games does, so I borrow that for Mini-D6. I actually prefer both of those rule changes for combat. The whole point is to keep it simple, yet still play Star Wars. I will admit that I do use some stuff from the source books, mostly gear and prices of stuff, but the core rules I'm using to play are Mini-Six Bare Bones Edition.
I know your comment is 3 years old I've been looking at a spiritual successor of this but Star Wars known as Hyperspace D6 (and it's also about 30 pages long) and it's a great simpler to digest (both in form and content) with a tad bit of modernization in there
@@juauke Hey, thanks for the recommendation. When I first read this comment I thought I already had Hyperspace D6, and I did. But, my copy was a janky, unfinished preview of the game, not the current version 2.8 with art and an actual layout. So, I'm glad you brought it up. I still recommend Mini-Six Bare Bones. It has a couple of features that I really love that makes the D6 system better. It makes combat sequence faster and easier, hero points are nerfed, but also giving more uses, and the game is designed for more than just Star Wars.
I know what you mean, it is definitely a bit of a buckets of dice system. But there's something quite satisfying about grabbing a big handful of dice and rolling them. I recently started playing Shadowrun 5th Edition as a Troll, and every time I'm hit I need to roll 28 dice to resist, my hands aren't quite big enough.
I own all the variations of the WEG rules, and IMO the "best" is the least crunchy: the first edition. The book shown here (2nd edition, revised and expanded) however is a *gorgeous* book that stands up against current RPG books released to this day, and is a joy to just leaf through. I do personally prefer the 1st edition rules; there was also a 1st edition "Rules Companion" that added a few more rules if you want something not quite so minimalistic, but I was never as fond of the second edition and played 1e+rules companion almost every time I played this game in my youth.
My SWRPG books have been in storage for 20 years. Now I'm dusting them off to play once more, & this has helped. Many thanks!
I'm so back into D6 again at the moment, been playing in a 1st Edition Game, and GM'ing two different 2nd Edition campaigns for different groups. Who'd have thought it'd still be getting played 20 years after going out of print?
My original 1st edition core book is still sitting on my shelf a couple of meters away (along with almost every WEG D6 product published!). I realised the other day that I first bought that 1st edition core book in my last year of *primary school*! GM'ed the same campaign for years in high school. I'm in my 40's now... ::)
@@MattyDaKing LMK when you want to sell those ;)
I've been wanting a good basic system to play with some friends, and it was right under my nose the whole time. Thanks!
I do love d6 for being such an easy and quick system that the rules just get out of the way and let you get on with the game.
I think the stormtrooper was only suppose to get 3D for his Blaster roll. He would lose -1D to his DEX because of his armour.
Yep, you're completely right, as I avoided mentioning it to keep things simple.
I didn't go into multiple action penalties either (which both characters should have gotten in the fight, so the Stromtrooper really should have only been rolling 2D since he was Dodging.
Stormtroopers are quite complex sometimes. Since their helmet gives them +1D to hit targets moving faster than 10m per turn, and they've got a stock on their Blaster Rifle which can give them a bonus +1D when Aiming, but I wanted to keep it relatively simple for an example of play, I probably shouldn't have chosen the Stormtrooper.
My friends and I have been on a serious Star Wars kick lately, and it's ended up making us want to play our own tabletop campaign. Having only played DnD 5E before, I'm very glad that I decided to search this up.
This video is older but I see that you have some recent comments, so I was wondering if you could direct me to some free and mobile friendly resources to use? I'm going the GM the first campaign and I could use things like pre-generated NPCs, a Ship Builder, Map generator, etc.
There's a bunch of places. But I'm obviously going to talk up my own.
RPGGamer.org
Been going 20 years, it's Updated regularly, some 8000+ sets of stats on the site, there's a ship designer, and it's linked to BeyondD6.com, which allows you to create and share characters and dice rolls. We're trying to add more features to make it a more fully fleshed out virtual tabletop, but there's just not enough hours in the day.
@@RPGGamer neat! Thanks for the info! I checked out beyondD6 and put in the basic info that I know so far for my two players. I can't wait to see how they assign stats, I need to see if I need to give them a support droid for piloting and medical help lol.
I'm also excited to see how the other website works with the ship customization. I'd love to let them design their dream ship and then find it in the back corner of some dealer's lot (barely holding together and needing repair/upgrades of course)
Best thing about modern times are dice rolling apps for your phone/ipad. Rolling 14 dice is not a huge problem anymore.
Totally agree, I wrote and use BeyondD6 for my Gamesmastering, and simplifying the rules down to clicking a button really makes the rules get out of the way of the game, and allows me to just get on with telling a story.
Having started playing and gming this system earlier this year, it quickly has become my favorite RPG system. (Next 2nd edition AD&D)
I do love Star Wars D6, its such a lightweight system that it gets out of the way and just lets me get on with my game without me needign to constantly look up the rules.
Starting a new group after 20 years too... cant wait to get going and incorporating new technology. Thanks for the primer!
Glad it was of some use to you. Good luck with your new group.
Very helpful thanks. I have totally forgotten how this game works [decades since I last played it], so this was a very nice refresher.
Glad to have been of service, always nice to hear that I've been useful.
The character scale is silly at capital scale, but it's still useful to have! Nice video, sir!
Always found it amusing that the bonus dice to damage that Vader gets to his lightsaber with his forcepowers (11D+1) almost counters the scale penalty he gets to damage for a capital ship (12D), so he can hit a Star Destroyer and slice it into pieces. Although given the recent episode of Visions where that pretty much happens with a Dark Jedi and a Star Destroyer, perhaps it's actually really accurate.
Cheers for the kind words.
I picked up a copy a few days ago. Great video for the beginner Star Wars Game Master, thanks.
Glad the video was useful to you, and hope you have a whole load of fun. It's still one of my absolute favourite games.
Just started running this for my nephews
I run this version of Star Wars for a group of teenagers at my local community centre (or I did before it got locked down), and it's nice and simple to get them into gaming.
It's that time of year!😝
Thanks for the vid! :D
Cheers
What about movement and multiple actions?
I was trying to keep to just the absolute minimum, so I skipped that and Force Points too.
But basically, you get to move the value in your move attribute, but can take multiple moves to move faster, making running skill checks to achieve that (or piloting rolls if in a vehicle), each multiple action used for movement also adds 5 to the target number needed to make that movement (so +5 for one move, +10 for 2, +15 for 3, etc), which is added to the base target number for moving through the environment.
Multiple actions are actually far easier, you just drop your number of dice by 1D for each multiple action. Which means number of actions needs to be declared at the beginning of each combat round.
I am looking for an online campaign for this. Any suggestions for a returning PnP RPG player (30 years ago) returning to finally play WEG-style Star Wars? I'd be a first time player to PnP Star Wars. Where should I look for a DM to run a newbie-friendly campaign online?
It'd be worth asking on the Star Wars D6 Facebook group, I've seen people setting up games on there, facebook.com/groups/6056506469/
My character, Captain Vertigo, was the terror of the table. I was half-droid, half revolutionary. Hated the Empire, not too cool with the rebels, went into business for himself. At the end had better blaster skill than Han Solo, but it didn`t matter because Jedi. Don`t have an arch-enemy that has mad force powers in this game. You will lose in the long run.
D6 was always easy to become mega powerful in. Our party ship was caught by an Imperial Customs Frigate, which we proceeded to fight our way through it's entire crew and steal the ship.
And one time our Stock Freighter went toe to toe with a Star Destroyer, my pilot skill was so high that we couldn't be hit, but were chipping away at the Destroyer until the GM had it run away rather than let us destroy it.
Fun times.
Yeah but it did not matter. I hated this kid and wanted to bring him down. I minimaxed all the way, had better blaster skill than Han Solo, fought in the droid fighting arenas hand to hand, was a master power sword wielder, built a pirate fleet by hook and crook,and got cheesed by Jedi powers at the end climatic battle. Yeah, I`m still salty.
I had the better character with the better backstory. You bet I`m salty.
4D on blaster for the stormtrooper? Bollocks. I was hoping to put together a D6 SW:RPG campaign up and going, but it didn't happen.
If you want to power Stormtroopers up, then give them a commander to command them to co-ordinate their fire. Then multiple Stormtroopers fire together at a target adding dice to hit or damage (each extra Stormtrooper adds 1D to either). This can make Stormtroopers menacing even to powerful characters, or vehicles.
@@RPGGamer I used army or naval troopers in place of stormies. But my players were Fringers and rarely ran into Imps.
Thanks for uploading this tutorial. I plan to run a Luke Skywalker New Jedi Order themed campaign with this and all the players will be new Padawans.
Have fun! and glad I was helpful.
@@RPGGamer I’ve always wanted to tell my own Star Wars story set after Return of The Jedi and have the villain be rouge AI that will slowly gain sentience overtime.
@@gamrr_NERD Sounds cool, and isn't something I've heard of someone doing in Star Wars, great stuff. Good luck with it, and have great fun.
Why would he not know what the weather is? He rolled a 7.
I was thinking about using the system for an RPG that is not star wars
Depending on the setting, perhaps D6 Space, D6 Adventure or D6 Fantasy might suit better, as they are more generic for their settings, but use the really quick as simple D6 rule system.
Oddly the spiritual successor of the ghostbusters RPG.
I see what you mean ruleswise. But I think Men in Black was really the spiritual successor to Ghostbusters. Same rules system (with some improvements over time), same tone, really deserved to do better.
I think the Star Wars one (the first edition, that is) was either released at the same time as Ghostbusters or just slightly before or after, as there's an ad for it along with the ads for the SW Sourcebooks in the back of the First Edition book.
@@joshuahartman3132 The two are close, but Ghostbusters came out 1986 (not sure when in the year), and Star Wars 1st Edition in October 1987. Amazing how the D6 system works so well for both, with the difference of adding comedy through the Ghost Die, and adding the chance of performing heroics through the exploding wild die. Great stuff.
Too bad the books are too expensive to buy nowdays. I had all of them but they were boosted off me. Now some of tgem are like $150
I've managed to pick up a couple of books I never got at the time fairly cheap on ebay. Just got to be patient and have searches set uo to inform you when items become available. Picked up Tramp Freighters for about £20, which isn't much more than the cover price, but took about 6 months for me to get it at that price.
Best star Wars roleplay game ever!!
Having played them all, this is the one that's kept being played over the decades, so I cannot disagree.
I'll admit that my current favorite RPG is called Mini-Six Bare Bones Edition. It is the West End games rules trimmed WAY down to just 30 pages, includes 2 versions of combat, and 2 versions of damage tracking. And it is FREE! img.fireden.net/tg/image/1452/92/1452929431285.pdf or you can download it for $0.00 on Drive Thru RPG.
The rules are meant for generic rules to play anything, but it does Star Wars D6 well as they're the same family of rules. In fact the Mini-Six rules have 5 sample in it for the shows of Willow, Firefly, and Star Wars, but everything is renamed to avoid a lawsuit. The other two are Victorian ghost hunters, and 1970's cops and robbers sterotypes done for humor.
The Two combat systems. One is the traditional D6 combat from the old rulebooks with a few small changes that match up with D6 Space rules, but none of the Star Wars rulebooks had. The 2nd combat system is assumed to be the new default rules where you pre-calculate all 4 of a characters defensive dice rolls to be fixed numbers instead (block, parry, dodge, and damage reduction). This speeds up combat since you only roll the attack. The counter to being attacked, or damage are fixed at a number on the sheet, and there is no penalty for both defending and attacking in the same combat round. Its supposed to be simple, and it is.
Two Damage tracking systems. One is the traditional damage levels, and is the assumed default way to play, but that sometimes means uber tough guys shrug off nearly all normal sized hits. Or you can use a hitpoint system, but it doesn't have penalties side effects as you get more and more wounded. The full blown D6 games does, so I borrow that for Mini-D6.
I actually prefer both of those rule changes for combat.
The whole point is to keep it simple, yet still play Star Wars. I will admit that I do use some stuff from the source books, mostly gear and prices of stuff, but the core rules I'm using to play are Mini-Six Bare Bones Edition.
I know your comment is 3 years old
I've been looking at a spiritual successor of this but Star Wars known as Hyperspace D6 (and it's also about 30 pages long) and it's a great simpler to digest (both in form and content) with a tad bit of modernization in there
@@juauke Hey, thanks for the recommendation. When I first read this comment I thought I already had Hyperspace D6, and I did. But, my copy was a janky, unfinished preview of the game, not the current version 2.8 with art and an actual layout. So, I'm glad you brought it up.
I still recommend Mini-Six Bare Bones. It has a couple of features that I really love that makes the D6 system better. It makes combat sequence faster and easier, hero points are nerfed, but also giving more uses, and the game is designed for more than just Star Wars.
Too many rolls for a single task for my taste, but that book is gorgeous.
I know what you mean, it is definitely a bit of a buckets of dice system. But there's something quite satisfying about grabbing a big handful of dice and rolling them.
I recently started playing Shadowrun 5th Edition as a Troll, and every time I'm hit I need to roll 28 dice to resist, my hands aren't quite big enough.
I own all the variations of the WEG rules, and IMO the "best" is the least crunchy: the first edition. The book shown here (2nd edition, revised and expanded) however is a *gorgeous* book that stands up against current RPG books released to this day, and is a joy to just leaf through. I do personally prefer the 1st edition rules; there was also a 1st edition "Rules Companion" that added a few more rules if you want something not quite so minimalistic, but I was never as fond of the second edition and played 1e+rules companion almost every time I played this game in my youth.