d6 Attributes

The best thing about d6 is it is open and free. Seriously, click the link, download all 12 books. It's completely legal.

One of the neat things about d6 is it's flexibility. It's a very basic attribute and skill system. You can have as many or as few as the game requires and you can call them anything you like and arrange them any way you like.

This is also one of the most frustrating things about d6.

Because there is not firm consistency for what is an attribute, what those attributes mean and what skills are covered by that attribute, you get a ton of variation. For example, Star Wars, d6 Adventure, d6 Fantasy, d6 Space, and the DC roleplaying game (by WEG) all use the d6 system. Cool, Fantasy Cyborg Batman gets a lightsaber.

...and fights sharks apparently. 

Give me a second, that picture has completely derailed my mind...

Remember to breath.

Okay, where was I?

Ah yes. So you would think this would be awesome, but like all awesome things, there is a catch.

Here are the attributes in Star Wars:
Dexterity, Knowledge, Mechanical, Perception, Strength, Technical

Here are the attributes in d6 adventure:
Reflexes, Coordination, Physique, Knowledge, Perception, Presence

Here are the attributes in d6 fantasy:
Agility, Coordination, Physique, Intellect, Acumen, Charisma

Here are the attributes in d6 space:
Agility, Strength, Mechanical, Knowledge, Perception, Technical

and Here are attributes in DC RPG
Reflexes, Coordination, Physique, Knowledge, Perception, Presence

Now that doesn't look so bad, but when you get into where the skills are assigned you may have a skill assigned to an attribute wildly different than what you thought it should be assigned to. It's such a mess, the old WEG site (now archived away) had three different charts to help convert between them. Plus, they added a guide for it in d6 fantasy creatures. But who has time for that? It's irritating to need 3 or more versions of everything on the chance you just have to have a a matchup between Batman and Darth Vader on Mount Doom.

really? I wasn't the first to think that up?

Anyway.

So part of me wants to just make a personal universal set up. The d6 rules will work fine no matter what I do since it's all pretty smooth. I actually did this once, but got derailed on the equipment sections. It wasn't bad and my players seemed to like it. I may go back and work up the last little bits to finish it. It was very much a marriage of d6 and the d20 srd.

For the time being, I'll just suck it up and play rules-as-written. This is just a line of thought is all. I know for sure I am going to rely on d6 for star wars games and probably for anything not fantasy. If 5e is worth playing, I'll use that. If not, I'll use d6 for fantasy and consider a universal revision to connect them all on the same system.