Authors: Robert Donoghue and Fred Hicks
Editors: Fred Hicks, Lydia Leong
This document is Open Game Content, as described in section 1(d) of the Open Gaming License.
Six-sided dice(d6) have a lot of advantages for gaming. They're easy to read, easy to count, stackable and, most importantly, when there's a need, they can be rummaged from a couple of old board games. They also can be used very easily - there's no need to explain what these funny plastic shapes are, or what them mean. Most people are already pretty comfortable with the idea of rolling a few dice and adding them together.
When playing Fate with D6 rules, a lot of elements remain the same. The ladder is still in place, but it now has new values assigned to it. Rather than rolling four Fudge dice and adding the value of the adjective, just roll the number of six-sided dice associated with the adjective.
| 8d | Legendary |
| 7d | Epic |
| 6d | Superb |
| 5d | Great |
| 4d | Good |
| 3d | Fair |
| 2d | Average |
| 1d | Mediocre |
| 2* | Poor |
| 1* | Terrible |
| 0** | Abysmal |
* - Poor and terrible scores are the same as if the player had rolled 1 die and it had come up showing a 1 or a 2. However, the die is considered to be "on the table", so aspects can be used to change the die. Any bonus or penalty dice start out at this value.
** - An abysmal score means there is no chance of success at all. The GM may allow the player to spend an aspect to put a die on the table (which will be treated as if it had rolled a 1), which then allows it to be treated as a terrible skill (above).
Difficulties are measured in steps of 5, with the goal being to roll a total that matches or exceeds the difficulty target number (TN). Difficulty descriptions may be found in "Setting Difficulties"
| 1 - Negligible difficulty | 20 - Daunting Tasks |
| 5 - Simple tasks | 25 - Staggering Tasks |
| 10 - Challenging tasks | 30 - Revolutionary tasks |
| 15 - Difficult Tasks | . |
The difficulty of a dynamic task will almost always be the total of the opponents die roll.
It's easy to add bonuses and penalties to d6 rolls, and there are numerous ways to do it. For Fate, bonuses and penalties are applied as "Bonus Dice" and "Penalty Dice"; for instance, a "+1" modifier becomes one bonus die, while a "-1" modifier becomes one penalty die. Bonus dice are added to the total number of dice rolled, but do not change the number of dice counted. This means that if a player is rolling 3 dice, and gets two bonus dice, they would roll 5 dice, but only count the best 3. Penalty dice work the same way, except the player must count the worst dice. Bonus dice and penalty dice cancel out, so a player should never be rolling both at once.
Modifiers can be applied for a number of reasons. Low quality tools or a lack of tools might add a penalty die (or dice) while having high quality tools may grant a bonus. Similarly, doing a task quickly might cause a penalty, while taking the time to be careful might grant a bonus. Distractions might be penalties, while extra resources on hand may provide bonuses.
Aspects are maybe used in Fated6 to do one of 2 things:
Turn a single d6 into a 5
or
Reroll all dice
It's important to note that all dice are considered to be on the table for purposes of bonuses and penalties. Thus, if a character with an Average skill rolls with a penalty die rolls 2,2,4, he can check off an aspect to turn the 2 into a 5 to make the result 2,4,5, but he will still need to chose the two worst dice (the 3 and 4). Mind you, in this case, invoking the aspect has changed a result of 4 into a 6, enough to make a difference in many circumstances.
In addition to the dramatic uses of fate points, the mechanical benefit is to add 1 more die to a roll. While auctions are an option, no more than 1 fate die can apply to any single roll.