Indiana Jones WEG D6

[Falconer]

Indiana Jones Adventures - snagged this auction. Super excited! By all accounts the “good” Indiana Jones RPG, but sadly obscure. Hoping to rectify that!

[tdenmark]

Great game, really captures the action pulp feel of Indy. I particularly like the Artifacts book.



Also handy is the Indiana Jones Ultimate Guide. It is not a game book, but is filled with useful material.

[Zenopus]

Does it use the same rules as the Star Wars d6 game? Could one do a cross-over easily?

[tkdco2]

Didn't TSR also produce the Indiana Jones rpg as well?

[Falconer]

Yes, there is the TSR Indiana Jones (1984), the WEG “Masterbook” Indiana Jones (1994), and the WEG “D6” Indiana Jones (!996).

[Falconer]

I got the book! Unfortunately it is softcover and perfect bound, which is, of course, the worst format for a RPG book. As a game system it looks solid. FYI, though, you have to also own the The D6 System book to play it.

[tkdco2]

How compatible is this book with Star Wars or d6 Fantasy?

[Falconer]

As far as I know, it’s the same ruleset with minor tweaks. Some useful info (the bad) here:

The D6 System-derived attribute set was kind of wacky. Take the six Star Wars attributes (yes including even Technical), then split Dex into two and split Strength into two, for a total of eight attributes. The skill set was very fine-tuned so there whole lot more skills than Star Wars even though this is pulp and only 1930s Earth. Each language was its own skill, each riding beast was its own skill, etc. I think starting characters get 24 skill dice. But the distribution of skills was very uneven. Coordination had four skills, Strength had three skills, and Endurance had only one skill, Swimming. Knowledge and Perception had tons of skills.

And lets not forget that they tried to make the Wild Die more into a thing that invokes critical failures. Now, I know they don't call it a critical failure in the D6 System book, but they describe its results as just PUNISHING.

I gave the various rules for the Wild Die a treatment in one article or another, I think it was #5 of D6 Magazine. Also, you should hear Peter Schweighoffer's take on the Wild Die. He, apparently, was not a fan of its addition to the system.

[Falconer]

The D6 System was made OGC and available for free download:

ogc.rpglibrary.org/images/b/bf/D6_System_Book_weg51005eOGL.pdf
www.dicegeeks.com/opend6-rpg-free-pdf/

[tdenmark]

Apr 1, 2021 15:03:50 GMT -6 Falconer said:

The D6 System was made OGC and available for free download:

ogc.rpglibrary.org/images/b/bf/D6_System_Book_weg51005eOGL.pdf
www.dicegeeks.com/opend6-rpg-free-pdf/

I don't know of anyone really taking advantage of this. There are some other OGL's out there too like Basic Role Playing, BESM, but it seems like the audience is too small to really support an ecosystem.

[tkdco2]

I downloaded the d6 Space book and bought a hard copy of d6 Fantasy. Reactions to the game mechanics seem to vary. One of my friends is used to rolling polyhedral dice, so using only d6 isn't ideal. It may be easier to get people who play HERO or GURPS to get into the system because they're used to rolling six-siders exclusively.

[Falconer]

I love games like Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars (WEG), and Marvel Super Heroes (TSR). I am not in love with the core mechanics of any of the rulesets; what I love is that they drilled down to the bare minimum needed to nail the genre and the feel of the game that they are trying to capture. So, the percentile roll or the d6 roll or the Universal Table don’t excite me, but the fact that I can proceed straight to immersing myself in the “stuff” of the genre with a minimum of fuss.

So yeah, I don’t expect to be bowled over by this IJ ruleset, I’m just happy to find a halfway competent one that’s lite and has actual adventure material for it. (In fact a whole ‘trove’ of it just appeared. Thanks, whoever you are!)

As for the types of dice, I have two comments. First, we play a lot of different RPGs, so playing a game which emphasizes a single type is not the end of the world (because no single game is our “game of choice”). Second, even if a game system only calls for one kind of die, there are plenty of situations where I’ll say, roll a D20, or a D4, or whatever, because it’s what I need to make an ad hoc adjudication of a situation.

[tkdco2]

I agree. I play all sorts of games with different mechanics and different dice. Castle Falkenstein doesn't even use dice; it uses playing cards instead, and it's one of my all-time favorites. I have also used other dice besides those in the game mechanics. They're tools that make your job easier.