D6
Base
Body Trait
Experience
Points
Derived
Game Master
Party
PC
NPC
Characters in the D666 system are built on three sets
of statistics. These are Body, Learning, and Peculiarities.
Body is the big picture with a
character. It’s the skills they were born with or have learned without really
trying.
Learning, however, are skills that
the character has put their mind to mastering. Things they’ve dedicated time
and effort into gaining.
Peculiarities are just that. Odd little
things that can’t really be placed or defined, studied or learnt.
Each type of Body
trait has two scores, ‘Base’ and ‘Derived’. The Base score is used to
modify a Learning, the Derived is used when the Body Trait is rolled on its own. The Body is made up of six traits, each of
these influences a Learning. For each
of the Body traits roll a D6
individually. This roll determines a characters Base Body score for each of the six traits. Each ‘Derived’ Body trait is the Base score multiplied
by three. Naturally, these may be shuffled and swapped for each other if the
Player desires their character to be better at one thing than another.
The eyes are used for looking. You can see and find
stuff with them. It sounds pretty obvious. That’s because it is.
The face is a social organ. It lives to be shared
around. It’s the characters communication tool with the world around them.
Anyone whoose got a good sword can get their party into trouble, but a decent
face can talk the party’s way out of it.
Feet is a bit of an odd one. It reflects the
character’s ability to get out of harms way in Melee combat. As such, it starts
at eighteen and has three Learnings subtracted
from it. These are Acrobat, Brawl, and Melee. Each of these creates a separate
Feet score. When being attacked in combat an attacker must not only roll over
their own Brawl, Gun or Melee Leaning.
They must roll over the target’s Feet as well.
Which Feet do you use if there is three, then? Well,
Acrobat can be used in any circumstance. Brawl can be used in close quarters
and hand-to-hand combat. Melee can only be used in hand-to-hand combat when the
character has a weapon in their hand.
Eyes might seem straight forward. Hands are a little
more tricky. They’re good for manual manipulation. That means everything from
hammering a nail, popping a cork through to swinging a sword.
The Heart is a tool of passion. It loves and it lusts.
It’s the physical component of the ethereal drive in the soul. The Heart is
used for all matters that aren’t exactly physical and aren’t exactly mental,
but some strange emotional discipline in between. Painting, poetry, and music
are all products of the heart.
The Limbs lift and bend. They do all the hard physical
labor. The Hands may move the sword deftly, but the Limbs put the force behind
the blow.
The Skull thinks and plots. It schemes. It’s a
thinking organ, used for all those mental processes that we love so dearly.
While items such as Skull or Hand help in determining Learnings, there are other statistics
required of a character in a role-playing game. Things such as Hit Points,
wealth or the number of languages a character may speak. These particular
aspects of a character are determined by Torso, Nose and Ears. Each of these
starts at eighteen. Each of these are determined in their own individual
manner.
Ears
Ears are used to hear, but this statistic reflects how
well known an individual is. The lower the number the more is said about the
character. Unlike other rolls, Ears is not used by the character. Rather, other
individuals use the characters Ears. An Ears score for a character begins at
twenty-four minus 1D6 plus their Face, meaning that the character is most likely
unheard of or has very little known of them. Simply by rolling 3D6 against the
target characters Ears determines what, if anything is known about them.
Nose
If you’re on the Nose, that means you smell. Like the
lower classes, that is. The lower ones Nose score is, the higher up on the
social food chain they are. Nobles have a lower Nose score. Nose also
determines a characters starting wealth and possessions. This score is
determined by rolling a single die, which is 1D6.
6 Begger
One-fourth starting cash
5
Half starting cash
4
Three-fourths starting cash
3
No change to starting cash
2
1.5 times starting cash
1 Nobility
Double Starting cash
Tongue
A measure of how many languages the character knows.
This is six minus their Skull score.
Torso
Basically a measure of how many hits or how badly
wounded the character may endure before death. Basically equal to
Limbs+Heart+D6, every time a character is hit in Combat they roll 3D6 against
their Torso score. The results of this roll have both the weapons damage and
the number of times the character has been previously hit removed from its
total. If the roll is successful, the character is fine and may continue
acting. If it fails the character is unconscious.
A character begins with a base score in their Learnings. This score is eighteen,
meaning that an unskilled check requires the optimum roll to succeed. However,
the player additionally gains the same, eighteen points with to purchase Learnings. Each point spent in a Learning lowers the level of said Learning by the same. No more than six
points may be spent on a single Learning.
Additionally, as stated each Learning is associated with a Body
trait. Each Learning to which the
player places points lowers said Learning
a number of points. Ironically this number goes higher the lower ones Body score is. See the table below for
details.
Body score-
1 2 3 4 5 6
9 7 5 3 1 0
Learning reduction-
Any mixture of leaping, swinging, ducking, diving and
other swashbuckling feats.
Medical knowledge. A successful roll of this skill
removes the penalties of a successful hit from a character. Such a roll may be
made once per day per patient.
Use of a bow-and-arrow. This includes hunting, still
target-shooting as well as combat.
Creating a painting, sculpture or other such work.
The ability to bluff, sweet-talk and down-right lie
convincingly.
Metal work of common-place objects. Requires a forge
and tools.
The ability to fight unarmed in combat.
Scaling a face such as a wall, a cliff, a rope or a
ladder.
The workmanship of a whittler, wheelwright, and
hand-carving common place items such as a table or bed.
The opposite to Intimidate. Empathy is the characters
ability to play ‘good guy’, appealing to an individuals softer side.
The character with Esoteric knows much about magic and
monsters. The occult is no mystery to them having thumbed there way through
texts such as the Necronomicon or visited the dread Plateau of Leng.
This learning allows an individual to conjure
momentary sexual interest from another individual.
Telling the odds, picking a poker face and using every
fiber in your being to win.
Not merely hunting, or still-target shooting. It is
also the ability to use firearms in battle and under-fire.
A method of putting on bully-boy manners to get ones
way.
Picking up details, sorting through facts and noting
clues.
Picking a lock.
The ability to weave and direct spells. Actual rules
on spell-casting are detailed under the Rules
chapter in the section entitled Magic.
Use of close-combat weaponry such as knives, clubs or
swords.
Reflects graduation from an academy or some other sort
of formal training in the leading and marshalling of troops, tactics, logistics
and so forth.
Training in a wide variety of instruments and songs.
The ability to give a professional performance.
Public speaking with passion and conviction. The
ability of every good Politician.
Giving a performance as an actor.
Using words and manners to push one agenda on an
unwilling party.
Picking trails and tracks for optimum safety and
speed.
Using ones senses to pick out details not blindly
obvious. May occupy any of the five normal senses.
Books, and copious amounts thereof. The character with
this Learning is well read and versed
in a wide variety of formal academic topics.
Reflects the products of some basic education. This
includes rudimentary history, geography and literacy.
Taking and planting object from people or off shelves
without being noticed.
Moving silently so as not to be seen, heard or
smelled.
Building a fire, a shelter and foraging for survival
in the wilderness.
Taking ‘Stock’ of an individual. Digging through their
demeanor for signs of falsehood.
An action in water that does not result in sinking and
drowning.
The skills of a trained priest, monk or other
religious official.
Simply put, Throwing is the ability to hurl an object
over a distance.
Noticing marks, trails, broken branches and other
signs that point to a bodies passing.
The basic rule of the D666 system is to grab 3D6 and roll them together, adding the sum
of each die to get a number between three and eighteen. The sum is then
compared to the associated Learning or
Derived Body Trait. If the result of
the three dice is greater than the number of the Learning or Body the roll
is considered a success. Note, we say greater, not equal. Thus a roll of three
always fails, regardless of how good the characters Learnings or Body traits actually are. The exception to this
rule is that of a score of eighteen, which is considered a pass regardless.
These sort of rolls are generally called when the Game
Master is uncertain as to the characters ability to complete the task at hand.
For example, say we had an Occultist scouring his highly worn copy of the
Necronomicon for one particular sentence. The Necronomicon is a big and weird
book, so the Game Master asks him for an Esoteric
roll to find the sentence. The scholar’s Esoteric
score is thirteen and their player rolls 3D6. If the result was say two
sixes and a two- a fourteen, which passes the roll. If, however, the result was
a five, a six and a two- thirteen –the result would be a failure.
Contested Rolls are called for when two characters
compete. In this situation, it’s not simply passing the roll which matters.
Rather, its passing and getting the highest roll possible. Imagine two
swimmers, both competent, racing from one end of a stream to the other. They
would both make Swim rolls. If one
passes and the other fails, its clear to see who the winner is. One reaches the
end while the other is floundering around. But if they both pass, then whoever
rolls higher than the other is considered the victor, in the case of our
swimmers, reaching the other side first.
Sometimes simple die-rolling isn’t enough. When the
characters come face to face with a gang of thugs or a hideous monster a few
more rules may be necessary to cover the violence and chaos that follows. For
this reason, we have Combat.
All players roll a single die for the party. At Game
Master does so for each Extra or group of Extras involved in the combat.
Compare each of the players dice to the Game Masters. Equal rolls cancel each
other out. Whoever has the highest at the end goes first.
If it is the Game Master they then proceed to
describe the actions of each Extra or group of Extras in a suitably applicable
and dramatic manner.
If it is the players then, beginning clockwise from
the Game Master, each player describes what their character is doing.
Combat slows the normal progression of a game. Each
action a character undertakes consists of roughly five seconds of real time.
This is essentially enough time to do one thing. In the interests of less
complicated play a character may speak a short sentence and move one Range
increment for free. Aside from these two all actions, including those involving
rolls, constitute an Action.
Multiple Actions may be undertaken at a penalty of
negative one from the total of the roll. This effect acuminates. Thus drawing a
blade counts as an action. Using the in an attack counts as a second action,
and incurs the negative one penalty from the results of the roll. Attacking a
second time after the first two actions incurs a penalty of negative two, and
so forth.
Combat utilizes five loose range increments to work
out approximately how far combatants are from each other. These are Close,
Short, Medium, Long and Extreme.
Close is about an arms length. Short is a stones
throw away. Medium could be considered across the street, while Long would be
several blocks down it. Extreme would be in the distance and on the horizon.
Various weapons have differing ranges, but generally
a Melee weapon is close range and a thrown is short.
When calculating the range against a flying target
calculate also how high up the target is. Characters, creatures and vehicles
with the ability to fly may make two movement actions each turn. One moving a
Range Increment and one increase or decrease their Height measurement.
Height measurements use the same rulings as Range:
Close, Short, Medium, Long and Extreme. The difference is it measures the
characters height from the ground not other character.
Essentially this means the character has two movement
characteristics to consider. The first is how far they are from their target on
a straight incline; the other is how high up they are. To attack a target on
the ground, or be attacked from the ground, the character must be within both
ranges. That is, they must be within Height as well as Range. This is
calculated like a normal range.
For example, say a hunter wants to shoot at a game
bird flying overhead. The bird is flying at a Medium distance away, but they
are an Extreme height from the ground. That means the hunter must have a ranged
weapon capable of reaching an Extreme range, as that is a measure of how high
the bird is flying. If the bird was flying at a Short distance from the ground,
the hunters weapon would only need a Medium range to hit it.
Unless noted above, the range of an attack is noted
by the characters weapon. Anyone within the weapons range can be targeted. The
attacking character or extra then rolls their appropriate combat Learning- be it Archery, Brawl, Gun, Melee,
or Throwing. Details of which Learning to use with which weapon are detailed both in the Weapons and Learnings sections.
The result of this roll is compared both to the
characters Learning rating and that
of their targets appropriate Feet
statistic.
Basically, each character has three sets of Feet. These are Acrobat, Brawl, and
Melee.
Acrobat Feet
can be used in any combat situation, even ranged, since it represents the
characters ability to duck, weave, dodge and generally move with skill.
Brawl Feet are used when the character is unarmed and
attacked from a Close range.
Melee Feet are the same as Brawl Feet except that the character must be armed with a Melee
weapon of some kind to make use of this statistic.
Any successful attack does damage to the target. This
is usually determined by the attackers’ weapon. A character may take damage
equal to the sum of their Limbs and Heart scores, plus the roll of a D6.
This is termed ‘Torso’. A character that looses all their Hit Points falls
unconscious. Torso can be regained at
a rate of one per day of rest with an additional one per day gained through
application of the Apothecary Learning.
Ultimately, a role-play game tells a story. Killing a
character for bad roles doesn’t necessarily make a good story. While this may
seem like a free pass for all sorts of havoc wrought by power gaming players,
think of all the fun a villain can have with characters who just won’t die.
Death, in the D666 system, comes to a character at a suitably dramatic moment.
Each successful attack does damage. The base, bare
fisted damage a character does is equal to their Limbs. Melee weapons improve this and fire arms do damage all their
own. However, armour helps reduce damage. This is termed a Soak rating. This
reduces the amount of damage dealt equal to the Soak.
Environmental Rules cover an entire collection of
circumstances and rulings that may come into play under certain circumstances-
combat or otherwise.
Characters exposed fires might find themselves
on fire. All characters in contact with fire are at risk of catching.
Characters are allowed a Limbs roll .
If a character’s clothes or hair catch fire, they suffer a D6 of damage equal
to the number of burning areas of their body immediately. For purposes of
determining this a character has six areas of their body- two arms, two legs
one head and one torso. In each subsequent Action
the burning character suffers the same until someone attempts to put them out.
When this happens must make another Limbs
roll. Success means that the fire has gone out.
Cold and exposure deal damage to the victim. An
unprotected character in cold weather must make a Survival roll each hour or take a die of points of damage.
In conditions of severe cold or exposure an
unprotected character the Game Master may rule that the roll is made every half hour. Extreme cold may deal 2D6
points of damage.
Sometimes a character has trouble seeing. This is
usually the case when dealing with situations at night, or places with poor
lighting such as caves or dungeons. Each ‘sight impairment’ correlates with a
negative one pnealty involving sight- such as attacks or Apothecary rolls.
Poor Light (Negative one) constitutes the times such
as dusk and dawn or an average lit city-street by night.
Limited Light (Negative two) constitutes a single good
light source in darkness, or many limited ones, such as a campfire or a
several-dozen strong search party all armed with torches.
Darkness (Negative three) constitutes one source of
light alone- such as the moon, or a single candle in a large room.
Total Darkness (Negative four) constitutes no source
of light whatsoever.
Any character can hold her breath for a number of
rounds equal to their score in the Swim Learning.
After this period of time, the character suffers D6 wounds each round until
unconscious or out of danger.
The basic rule is simple: One Die of damage per
Height increment fallen, to a maximum of 5D6. If it happens to exceed Extreme,
simply start adding on from close again. In the end it pans out something like
this:
Height Increment Damage
Close D6
Short 2D6
Medium 3D6
Long 4D6
Extreme 5D6
Whether in the form of a low-lying cloud or a mist
rising from the ground. Any character attempting to see more than Close must
make an Eyes check.
Rain reduces visibility and impairs the actions of
those beneath it. Treat as Darkness varying based on how heavy the rain is.
Falling snow has the same effects on visibility,
ranged weapon attacks, and skill checks as rain. Additionally it reduces a
characters speed by one range increment every two rounds. Heavy snow has the
same effects as normal snowfall, but also restricts visibility as fog does.
Essentially frozen rain, sleet has the same effect as
rain while falling and the same effect as snow once on the ground.
Hail does not reduce visibility, but the sound of
falling hail makes hearing things more difficult (a negative one penalty).
Sometimes hail can become large enough to deal D6 points of damage to anything
in the open. Once on the ground, hail has the same effect on movement as snow.
Like most Role-play games, a few extra rules are
needed to represent Magic. In the D666
system anyone can do magic. All they
need is the Magic Learning. Making it
work is simply a different story. The nature of Magic, and the rules used to
represent it, means that an inexperienced or unknowing practitioner can only
produce the most minute effects with the most effort.
That said, there are no set spells. Magic is
free-form. Essentially character designs their own spells based on a list of
common effects listed below. Each has a difficulty attached to it. These are
then tallied and added onto the score of each characters Magic Learning. The greater and more numerous the effects, the more
it costs.
Magic, however, is also communal. Meaning that the
more people with the Magic Learning
the Character has helping them cast a spell the easier it is to cast. The afore
mentioned cost- represented by an increase of the Magic rolls difficulty -is then divided amongst the number of
characters participating in the casting ritual, rounded up. Each participant
must make a successful Magic roll for
the spell to succeed. Any partial numbers are rounded up.
For example, a one may wish to see into the future.
They wish to spend twenty minutes casting the spell (+3) and they want the
vision to be clear, so they take six dice (+6)- used to generate Bonus’ for Investigation or Skull rolls to examine the vision later. Now, they want to know
tomorrows lottery numbers, so that’s a day’s duration (+3) and the range is
only themselves (+1). Still, all that adds up to a difficulty of thirteen. Even
if the characters Magic Learning is
at its lowest, three, that still becomes a difficulty of sixteen- a difficult
number on their own.
However, if the individual wished to bring three
friends, the difficulty would be three with a fraction remaining, rounded down
to three for each of them. If each of those four had a Magic Learning of three
that would make the difficulty six- easily manageable. Still, only the
character initiating the spell gains the effect, for all four characters to be affected
the difficulty would increase by another two.
It should be noted, however, that to conjure a spell
successfully all participants in the casting process must succeed in their Magic rolls.
This is the time it takes to cast the spell. The
shorter the time, the less chance the casters have to gather their power.
The casters may perform the spell over a prolonged
period of time. This would allow greater effects to be manifested, let the
casters rest and recover their strength before resuming their work, permit new
elements to be introduced slowly or the difficulty to be divided amongst
multiple occasions. Each time the spell is left and taken up again adds a new
+1 to the difficulty. If the spell is in anyway disturbed between castings the
casters must stage again.
Time Difficulty
Hour+ +1
40 Minutes +2
20 Minutes +3
10 Minutes +4
1 Minute +5
1 Action +6
Dice measures the number of Dice a spell will use to
manifest its effect. Essentially this can work in one of two ways.
The first way depends on the nature of the spell in
regard to the target. If it is benevolent then the dice are rolled, the result
becoming a bonus for the target of the spell. If it is malevolent then the
opposite occurs. The dice are rolled and the result becomes a penalty. A curse
on a gambler, for instance, might add a penalty to his next gambling roll for
the duration of the spell.
The second way is to provide dice that correlate to
an in-game outcome. This is used most commonly in the case of anything requiring
statistics of any kind. A Golem creation spell might use its dice to generate the
creatures Body.
Dice Difficulty
1 +1
2 +2
3 +3
4 +4
5 +5
6 +6
Duration basically describes how long the spell is to
last. Like Casting Time, a Spell’s duration can be divided over time by the
casters- allowing it to be maintained beyond its original parameters. Each time
the Spell is maintained new effects can be added. Each time the Duration is
maintained, this adds +1 to the difficulty of the Spell.
Duration Difficulty
Instant +1
Minute +2
Hour +3
Day +4
Week +5
Month +6
Range determines the distance between the spell and
the target. The target must be within the range the second the spell is cast
for it to work.
Range Difficulty
Self +1
Close +2
Short +3
Medium +4
Long +5
Extreme +6
Target(s) Difficulty
Single +0
A Pair +1
Half-dozen +2
Dozen +3
Twenty +4
Thirty +5
General area +6
After a game, it is usually customary for the Game
Master to award the players with a number of experience points based on how
they played and how much enjoyment was had by all. Generally this number is
between one and five points, but really, it’s up to the Game Master. As stated
the player uses these points to improve their characters. This pans out as
follows:
10 Points.
Body Score Cost
6 9
5 8
4 6
3 5
2 3
1 2
Eyes 4/12, Face 2/6, Hand 4/12, Heart 1/3, Limbs 4/12,
Skull 1/3
Acrobat (18), Apothecary (3), Archery (18), Art-craft
(10), Bark (3), Blacksmith (18), Brawl (18), Climb (18), Craft (18), Empathy
(5), Esoteric (3), Flirt (8), Gambling (9), Guns (15), Intimidate (5),
Investigation (8), Lock-pick (18), Magic (9), Melee (18), Military Education
(7), Music (6), Orate (3), Perform (6), Persuade (6), Scout (18), Sense (14),
Scholar (3), Schooling (3), Survival (18), Steal (18), Stealth (18), Stock (4),
Swim (18), Theologian (3), Throwing (18), Tracking (18).
Ears (12), Feet (A: 0 B:0 M:0) Nose (2), Tongue (5),
Torso (11).
Robes, holy book and a religious symbol on chain
around neck.