d20 systems vs. d6 (plus others) systems

[everythingsxen]

Poll question: d20 systems vs. d6 (plus others) systems

As I have stated before, I am a gamer. Pen and Paper, in addition to video.

Currently I am playing in a Shadowrun game, before that though (and again soon hopefully) I was playing 3rd Ed. Dungeons and Dragons.

I have played alot of games, and of all of them I like WotC's d20 system best of all. It is simple, yet complex and modular enough to accomadate almost anyhting.

What about other gamers out there?

Do you prefer d20? What about d6 (Shadowrun, Gurps, West End Games in general)? d10 (Cyberpunk, White Wolf)? d100 (ICE games as far as I know are all that use this)? Diceless (Amber is one of the only ones I can think of)? Other????!!!

[alexwcovington]

1. d20 works great

I found it to be a vast improvement over the older D&D system.

[onebigbadwulf]

2. D6 systems are the best

Started it for star wars and would never go back.

D6 is better because it's limitless. Screw thaco screw d20

[alexwcovington]

3. What makes it better?

Do you not like THAC0 rolls? What does d6 use instead?

[onebigbadwulf]

6. Well let me put out a scenario...

D6s show an unlimited amount of potential (just like d8).

You can go from a weak little farm boy who only has 2d (6 sided) in sword play to a hero who has 10d (sided) in sword play.

Where as with d20 you're stuck with 1 d20 per weapon.

Same thing with defense, magic, etc. The best thing to do, however, is play d6 with 1 wild die. This means - if the wild die rolls six, you roll again, adding to the total. If the wild die rolls one, you botch. It's really a magical system.

Star Wars RPG perfected the system I believe - and I've played everything from Whitewolf to D&D. Check em out, it's brilliant really.

[Kellanved]

4. d100 just blows

Take two D10 - a lot easier to use.

Personally I'm partial to D20 (Das Schwarze Auge/ The Dark Eye), but nothing against the good old D6.

[Fitzovich]

5. Was a game store owner

Owned a store in St. Louis for 18 years and I think both systems have their merits. It's about having fun and not necessarily the system used.
We had some great events with some of the less developed products and some great ones with the really well developed ones.

[Guy_Montag]

7. Warhammer was D100 and my all time favourite.

Though I do rather like the 3D6 system as used in GURPS & Conspiracy X.

[xcmt]

8. I'm a d20 man.

I broke into gaming with AD&D (second edition) and I think that might bias me towards the D&D style of play. I like the idea of one die representing multiple tasks, because I feel it normalizes the method of play. But D&D doesn't exclude other dice (d6, d8, etc) from play entirely, which sometimes (as lame as it seems) keeps things fresh.

I contrast this with the d10 system of White Wolf, where everything is a handful of d10s, and the monotony of the rolls and counting successes kind of creeps up on me. I can play D&D for 12 hours straight; I can't stomach White Wolf for more than six. Though it might have as much to do with the in-game environments and atmospheres as the systems themselves.

I also feel d20 lends itself to greater variation than d10, at least D&D v. White Wolf. WW is constrained by its own difficulty system, where even reasonably difficult tasks (diff 8) are most often succeeded by a dice pool as little as five. Even for impossible things (diff 10), characters with medium-to-large dice pools still have success rates far above what I would consider interesting variation. Everything feels too easy. Whereas in D&D, if you want something impossible, call it DC 40+...only characters of level 13+ish would even have a chance greater than 5%. The DM has much more control over what s/he believes should and shouldn't be capable, but there's still small enough a chance that rolling that 20 still feels special.

I've never gotten excited about rolling a zero in WW.