6S Rules

At the end of the day, 6S is designed to create a fun game to play. So if any of the existing rules are inhibiting your group's fun, you are more than welcome to make any changes you all see fit. Also, as this system is still a work in progress, things may need to be adjusted for balanced play.

Basic Mechanics

6S is based around the d6 (six-sided die), and often operates using scales of 1 to 6.

Throughout the game, if there is ever an action with a fair concern that you wouldn’t automatically succeed at it, someone or something working against that action, or if someone would prefer to leave the result up to chance, you must roll a d6 to determine to what extent the action succeeds or fails.

Sometimes, you will add or subtract a number from your roll, giving you a final Roll Total. The result of your Roll Total can be found below:

Roll Total	Result
1 or less	You fail and things get much worse.
2	You fail.
3	You somewhat fail.
4	You somewhat succeed, or succeed at a cost.
5	You fully succeed.
6 or above	You succeed and beyond.

If you are trying to act in a way that is opposed by another party, you must both roll the appropriate skill check to see who succeeds and how it plays out. The magnitude at which one party beats the other determines how successful their action is. (Rules are slightly different in combat.)

Difference Between Roll Totals	Result
0	Whoever has a higher Level in the relevant Skill wins, but just barely, or wins at a cost. If the Skill Levels are even, and a tie is not appropriate for the scenario, whoever has more Energy Points wins, but just barely. If these are even as well, re-roll.
1	Whoever has the higher roll wins by a small margin, or wins at a coste.
2	Whoever has the higher result wins.
3	Whoever has the higher result clearly wins, and the losing party might suffer a cost or effect.
4 or more	Whoever has the higher result wins and gains the upper hand in the scenario, and the losing party suffers a cost or effect.

Sometimes, a roll might have advantage. This means you roll the d6 twice and use the result you want (almost always, the higher result). A roll might also have disadvantage, which means you roll the d6 twice and take the lower result.

If a roll has multiple cases of advantage, it acts as just standard advantage. It's the same for disadvantage. If a roll has both advantage and disadvantage, they cancel each other out and the roll is a normal roll. In the rare case that a roll has multiple cases of advantage and disadvantage, each case of advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out. For example, if a player has two cases of advantage and one case of disadvantage for a roll, they will end up with advantage on the roll.

Skills

There are 18 skills in the game:

Brawl: brute force, melee combat, tackling, restraining
Bully: intimidate or provoke others, throw your weight around
Charm: flirt, flatter, suck up
Connect: empathy, communication, collaboration, building rapport
Create: make contraptions or art, and interpret art and contraptions made by others
Deceive: lie, cheat, disguise
Endure: toughness, stamina, physical health; affects Health and Buffer Points
Heal: give medical aid to yourself and others
Know: book smarts, theoretical knowledge, piecing things together
Notice: use the five senses, find details in surroundings, pick up on subtleties
React: act fast, respond quickly; affects Buffer Points
Resist*: mental fortitude, mental resilience
Shoot: long-range attacks (shooting, throwing, launching), understanding long-range weapons
Sneak: move carefully, stay unseen, escape quickly
Survive: know about and navigate through the wilderness

Skill Level	What It Means
6 (excellent)	You have mastered this skill. You have a +2 modifier to these rolls.
5 (great)	You are very good at this skill. You have a +1 modifier to these rolls.
4 (proficient)	You are getting better at this skill. You have a +1 modifier to these rolls.
3 (average)	You are average at this skill and have no modifiers.
2 (poor)	You are not good at this skill and have a -1 modifier to these rolls.
1 (terrible)	You are actively bad at this skill. You have a -2 modifier to these rolls, if you can even attempt them.

*: Optional Resist Rule: Resist is a special Skill. If you fail a Resist skill check with a 1 or below, you lose a Resist skill level. The only way to gain back a Resist level is through successfully role-playing its recovery and succeeding in a relevant skill check. This could be bonding with someone new, deepening an existing relationship, talking with someone about the scenario in which the Resist check failed, engaging in therapeutic activity, creating art, or something character-specific.

Health and Death

Endure Skill Level	Starting Amount of Health Points
6	6 HP (plus advantage on all Life Checks)
5	5 HP
4	5 HP
3	4 HP
2	4 HP
1	3 HP

Health Points	What It Means
6 HP	Very good health; no effects
5 HP	Good health; no effects
4 HP	Average health; no effects
3 HP	Low health; skill checks for physical actions get disadvantage
2 HP	Very low health; all skill checks automatically fail; basic actions require a roll
1 HP	Critically low health; unconscious or nearly there; any additional damage, including mental, will kill you; no skill checks can be attempted; Life checks to stay alive must be rolled every 30 seconds until stabilized; failure to stabilize within 3 minutes will kill you
0 HP	You are dead

Life Checks:

If you are at 1 HP, you must begin making Life checks every 30 seconds.
To make a Life Check, roll a d6. If you get a 5 or 6, you succeed. If you get a 2 or 1, you fail. A 3 or 4 does nothing.
Three failures means you drop to 0 HP and die. Three successes means you manage to stabilize.
If you don’t stabilize within 6 rolls, or 3 minutes, you die.
If someone (or something) else successfully helps you stabilize, you stop making Life Checks and stay alive.
If you stabilize, your Life Checks reset.

What Lowers Your Health:

Physical damage (and/or mental if you are at 1 HP) will lower your health by a certain amount, depending on the severity of the damage (determined by GM)

Buffer Points:

Count how many Endure Skill Points you have above 3. Count how many React Skill Points you have above 3. Add these two results together and divide this by 2, rounding down. These are your Buffer Points. For example, if you have 5 Endure Skill Points and 2 React Skill Points, you would treat this as 1 Buffer Point.
Whenever you take physical damage in combat from someone else, you may subtract your Buffer Points from the points of damage being dealt. This result is the amount of HP you will lose. For example, in combat, if you have 1 buffer point and are dealt 2 points of damage, you will only lose 1 HP. However, if the damage is dealt out of active combat, such as by surprise or from an environmental toxin, or dealt by yourself, you don’t get to use your Buffer Points.

How to Regain Health:

If you are at 1 HP and stable, you may regain 1 HP after 1 full day of not taking damage.
If you are at 2 HP or above, you may regain 1 HP for every 3 days that you don’t take any damage
These healing rates may be accelerated using successful Heal skill checks.

Stabilizing Someone Else:

If someone else is at 1 HP and making Life Checks, you are able to help them stabilize.
In order to do this, roll a Heal check. If you succeed with a 6 or more, they automatically stabilize, and no more Life Checks are required. They remain at 1 HP but they are stable. If you succeed with a 4 or 5, they are partially stabilized. Another 4 or greater must be achieved in order to fully stabilize them. If you fail with a 2 or 3, they are not stabilized. If someone is partially stabilized or not stabilized, you may continue to attempt Health checks until they are stable. However, if at any point you fail the Heal check with a 1 or less, they drop to 0 HP and die.

Death:

Death isn't always the end.

Aspects

There are three types of Aspects: Drives, Bonds, and Proficiencies. Every character has these Aspects, regardless of being a player or non-player character. These Aspects can be invoked in the game, or called upon to give advantage or disadvantage to a character for a relevant roll.

Drive Aspects:

A Drive is what motivates someone. Everyone can have multiple reasons for doing something, but their Drive is what really fuels them. It’s the reason they do what they do. It informs the choices they make.
Every character, player or non-player, gets one Drive.
A Drive can change throughout a story, as a character’s motivations change, but everyone starts with one.
Drives are varied and can be many different things. It can be a concrete achievement or something more conceptual. Here are some examples: protecting a child, finding a cure for an illness, getting revenge for a partner’s death, becoming a better person, inventing a new weapon, killing an enemy, going to space, finding a home, proving the existence of ghosts, solving a specific mystery, or becoming famous.
Any character can invoke a Drive. For example, if a player is making a roll that is considered by both the player and the GM to be vital to that player’s Drive, the player may invoke their Drive to receive advantage on their roll. However, Drives are a double-edged sword: someone else can invoke that player’s Drive against them, to give themselves advantage against that player. For example, if a player is trying to take the killing shot against their lifelong enemy, and killing that enemy is their Drive, they can invoke their Drive to get advantage. But if someone’s Drive is to solve the mystery of their mother’s murder, an enemy could invoke that character’s Drive in trying to manipulate the character to work with them under the guise of solving that mystery.
If a character is torn between multiple motivations, or has just achieved their Drive and is now unsure what to do, they might enter Drive Moratorium. Drive Moratorium can only be used when a player or GM truly feels a character has lost their Drive or is torn between multiple Drives. A character should never start a story in Drive Moratorium. Drive Moratorium can’t be invoked.