D6 Epic - A is for Attributes

A lot of people are doing the 30 day blog challenge, and I thought I'd give it a go as well! Each day I have to post something that ties into a letter of the alphabet. Today being the letter A.

Over the past year or so my husband, Sam, has been working along with Matt Ewertz, Scott Palter and myself, to create a new core rule book for a D6 system. Although I played RPG's in my teens it's been a while since I've played an established game, so I've come back into this almost as a newbie. So, what's my job where the game is concerned, apart from writing fiction snippets, it's my task to turn game geek speak into English so that returnies and newbies won't feel as if they're reading a foreign language.

Right now Sam is also working on a D6 Epic message board and website for people interested in the game, and I'll have the link by 5th April.

So keep in mind my posts about the game system will be from the viewpoint of someone returning to gaming - and as such I interviewed Sam about attributes in the system.

With that said - A is for Attributes.

Terri Q:What is one?

Sam A:Attributes are the abilities you are born and there are seven core ones which are as strength, agility, intelligence, knowledge (in this it refers to the ability to remember things)reflexes, perception and willpower.

Terri Q:Okay, that's cool, but what do you actually 'need' these attributes for? What part do they play in being able to play the game?

Sam A: Your character needs skills to do things. The skills are based off certain attributes. An example would be - if you wanted a character to be able to bend bars, break doors, crush heads, then you'd need the strength attribute and would focus your attribute points on increasing your strength.

Terri Q: Isn't that just a complicated way of having skill sets?

Sam A: No. Because if your character does not have the skill break, but still wanted to break a door in, they could attempt it with just their strength attribute - it would just be more difficult to accomplish.

Terri Q: Sounds complicated to me. Why isn't it?

Sam A: D6 Epic has difficulty numbers when you attempt to do something. When you have a skill that difficulty number is lower than just relying on your attribute.

Terri Q: Hold on, does this mean I have to sit there with a calculator to work all of this out?

Sam A: No, the GM decides on the difficulty number for you and you roll die. If your total is over it, you do it. If it's under, you don't. And no, we're not putting massive amount of work on the GM here, because there are tables he or she can modify to keep the game running smoothly.



I'll be pestering Sam with more questions as the month continues!