A role-playing game is based in imagination. The stories, characters, in fact the whole world is based all in the mind of the storyteller and the players who live there. Its history, the countries, the cultures; they're all yours to create and influence. The s6 system is designed to let you tell your story, and let the game take care of the rules.

Rules are a necessary evil. If you don't have enough, things become confusing, but the more of them you have the less fun the game is to play. The s6 system endeavours to lay out a simple, rule-light system that will leave you free to role-play, with hopefully just enough rules to play and have fun and not one iota more.

GETTING STARTED

The first thing you should do is select a knowledgeable player to be the Gamemaster (GM). This player doesn't need to be the bigger rule-hound, but rather, someone with a good basic knowledge of how to play, coupled with good storytelling ability. The GM will take you through a world, either a pre-made one, or one from his own imagination. After that, you'll need to get ready to play. You may need:

• A copy of these rules. You'll probably want to have enough copies to go around so everyone can create their characters in a short amount of time, and keep on hand enough to make reference, if needed, a quick and easy affair.
• A quiet place to play, where you'll be undisturbed for at least a few hours.
• One character sheet and pencil for each player, and some extra scrap paper is a good idea as well.
• Dice: You'll need a number of six-sided dice; the same pool of dice can be shared by all if needed.
• Some prefer to imagine the setting and action; others may prefer a board and token. Bring these if needed.

MECHANICS

The mechanics have been designed with achieving a flowing style of play, without having to devote more time than necessary to calculations. However, if you and your group dislike a rule presented in s6, you are encouraged to modify it to suit your needs. This book is composed of many guidelines, but certainly does not reflect the 'One True Way' to role-playing success. Use what you like, discard what you do not, and fill in the blanks with your own ideas.

ACTIONS

Every character is capable of performing or attempting a nearly endless list of actions. These can be mundane activities (talking, breathing, thinking), skilled activities (building a suit of power armour, hacking into a computer, moving silently, climbing the side of a building), or combat activities (fighting, dodging, shooting).

A later section on combat covers combat action in detail and thus is not discussed here. Additionally, players can assume that characters carry out routine skilled activities successfully on a regular basis unless specified otherwise by the GM. For example, the GM can assume that characters with guns routinely keep their weapons clean, safely stored, and properly maintained. Every GM has a preferred method for having players describe their characters' actions. Usually this involves the GM moving from player to player asking, “What is your character doing?” GMs should try to give each person equal role-playing time so that everyone is an important facet of the story (switching between characters as necessary).

Conversely, players are responsible for relating their characters' intended actions to the GM. In return, the GM will describe the results of those actions or will request an Ability or Skill check to determine the outcome.

The s6 system uses six-sided dice, (otherwise referred to as d6) to handle the game mechanics.

In most cases, a player rolls dice to determine the success of an action his or her character performs, while the GM rolls the dice to determine the results of NPC actions when they impact the characters.

In situations where NPCs are only involved with other NPCs, the GM should simply decide what happens rather than rolling dice.

In some circumstances, the GM may roll the dice to determine the results of a character’s action instead of having a player roll, keeping the actual dice roll – and the reason for rolling – secret. This is normally done when the player rolling would give away an event that should remain unknown to the character.

If, for example, there is something hidden that the character may or may not notice, the GM can secretly roll dice to see if the character spots it. If the GM allowed the player to roll the dice, the player would know that a clue existed even if the character did not succeed in noticing it.

CRITICAL SUCCESS & FAILURE

CRITICAL SUCCESS

A critical success is scored by rolling two sixes (regardless of the result of the third die). If you roll a critical success, this is not an automatic success. Instead, keep the result from your roll, and re-roll any sixes. Add the new result to your total. If you roll sixes again, re-roll those sixes, always adding the result to your total. Do not re-roll any dice that do not result in sixes. If you roll three sixes, follow the steps above, but you get to re-roll all three dice..

A hit on an attack with a critical success adds one point of damage for each point the result of the roll exceeds the defense of the target.

CRITICAL FAILURES

A critical failure is scored by rolling two ones (regardless of the result of the 3rd die). If the roll is for an attack, you either drop your weapon, if possible, or deal half your damage to yourself (roll for damage normally and divide it by two, rounded down, GM discretion). If the roll is for a non-attack, you fail completely, and any components you needed for the skill are destroyed. If opposing sides of an opposed check fail critically, all critical failures are cancelled. Calculate the results as if they were non-critical.

CINEMATIC MOMENTS

Each character has 3 Cinematic Moments with which to begin play. A character can use activate a Cinematic Moment at any time as long as the GM has not already announced the result of a roll or action. Cinematic Moments may be used as follows:

• A character can add an additional die to any roll.
• A character can take an extra action during combat, immediately after his turn.
• A character can gain a clue or a hint as to what to do next, or be given a small break in the plot (such as the character suddenly finding a panel that looks slightly different from the rest on the wall. Possibly a secret panel?).
• Any time a character is dying, he can spend 1 action point to become stable at 1 HP.
• A character can boost his defence. For the remainder of the round, the character gains +3 to one save.

SHOULD I MAKE MY PLAYERS ROLL DICE?

It is important for the GM to realise that not all actions require a dice roll. Obviously mundane character activities, such as hammering a nail, riding a horse down a road, or eating lunch, should never need dice rolls unless there are exceptional circumstances surrounding the character’s actions. In other situations, the necessity to roll dice is less obvious.If a character is virtually guaranteed to succeed at a task, then the GM should consider whether the check is really necessary. While it is true that the character might fail, having the player roll the dice will slow the game down. Thus, GMs should recognise when a character is almost certainly going to succeed at a task and, in those situations, not request the check and allow game play to continue, uninterrupted.

Conversely, one might think that if a character only succeeds if the player rolls a 20, then the GM should similarly not request a check and, instead, state that the action fails. This, however, is not the case – player characters should always be given that one slim chance of success, even at difficult tasks that seem doomed to failure (with the exception of tasks that the GM deems impossible).

The dice roll may slow game-play down a bit, but that slim chance of success allows characters to accomplish heroic feats that will be remembered for years. GMs may wish to allow only player characters to make this roll, even in the face of near-certain failure – since NPCs are not the stars of the game, they should not be allowed the same chance of pulling off superhuman feats. The following is a list of suggestions when the dice should and should not be rolled. If a check is unnecessary, the character should gain an automatic success for the action.

TIME

In-game passage of time in a role-playing game is fluid, just as it is in movies or TV series. In some situations, like a conversation between two characters, the movement of game time normally matches real world time. More often, the amount of time that passes depends on the characters' activities as set by the players' actions and officiated by the GM, who may something like “It takes you two hours to reach the castle” or fixing the computer takes 20 minutes.” The GM should telescope time until something interesting happens: “Two weeks pass as you go about your jobs and engage in routine training. Then the Empress summons you for a special mission….” Finally, in very dramatic situations such as combat, the GM may keep very precise track of time, using individual Combat Rounds. GMs may go back in time as well to employ flashback scenes. A flashback is a useful tool to establish the background for a story without simply recounting the information in dry lecture fashion, allowing the player to work through the event.Three common measures of game time are a scene, round, and Sequence.

SCENE

Any situation where the events remain linked, moment-to-moment. Think of it in television or movie terms – a scene lasts until the camera cuts to an entirely new setting, potentially with new characters. For example, a character is listening to the pleading of a distraught farmer. That conversation is one scene. Then the GM switches to the character entering a dark uninhabited section of the forest; that begins a new scene. However, if a bandit interrupted the conversation by attacking the farmer, and the character chases the bandit toward the forest, the events are linked moment-to-moment, so it is still a part of the same scene.

ROUND

A short measure of time – just a few seconds – during which every character in a scene has an opportunity to act.

SEQUENCE

One specific moment in time. The round is broken into a number of Sequences equal to the number of characters involved in the combat. The round remains only a few seconds in length, but each character acts on the Sequence they rolled.