This post was made as a submission for Dice Goblin's Adventure Calendar Jam 2023 where we post one short RPG idea every day until December 24. Here are my previous entries: day one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight

Non-combat skills are weird in a lot of retro-clones and old-school compatible systems. I have always wanted to bolt skills onto the system instead of relying on a skill-focused Specialist class, but it's very easy to defeat the purpose of the D6 skills in the first place (simplicity and ease of use) by making things overcomplicated. So here's how I do it:

Expanded Results

If you want to have a smoother curve of results instead of a binary yes/no, you can roll 2d6 instead of a single die:

2d6 Roll	Result	Result Description
Double 1s	A Critical Success!	Yes, and...
Two Successes	A Partial Success	Yes, but...
One Success	A Partial Failure	No, but...
Double 6s	A Critical Failure!	No, and...

I prefer to roll under for D6 skills, so double 1s are the best possible result, while double 6s are the worst.

You'll notice there are no straight "Yes" or "No" results on the table. That is partially due to a limitation of the system (it is possible to have the whole range of six results by using two differently colored dice and reading each accordingly, but that runs into the cardinal sin of overcomplicating the D6 skill system), and partially by design. Using this system forces you to keep the narrative flowing by virtue of making you think into what the "X, and..." or the much more common "X, but..." results actually entail.

Skill Progression

Having skills is cool, but getting better at them via good old pratice is even cooler. Let's make it class-independent!

Any character can attempt anything they might reasonably achieve with an unmodified 1-in-6 success chance. The odds are modified by:

• +1/-1 if it's easier or harder than normal (Referee's call),
• +1 if your background applies to the task at hand,
• +1 if you have superior gear (assuming basic gear is required),
• +1 if you're an EXPERT at the task,
• +1 if you're a MASTER at the task.

These last two are from my quick and simple progression system:

• Everytime you get one success and one fail at a skillcheck, you write down one letter of the word "EXPERT" (from left to right) next to the name of the skill you used, in your character sheet. When you manage to spell out EXPERT, you get a permanent +1 bonus to your odds when attempting tasks using that skill;
• If you're already an EXPERT at a skill, you can start working on getting the "MASTER" tag using the same method. Replace your letter E with an M, then replace your X with an A and so on. When you finish spelling out MASTER, you earn another permanent +1 bonus to your odds;
• Successes and fails are not cumulative, meaning if you fail five times and get one success, your four other fails will not carry over as progress to the next letters.

But What About the Thief?

If you want to use these 2D6 skills with your Specialist class, you can let them roll another D6 every two class levels, and count all successes using a slightly modified table:

# of Successes	You get	Result Description
3+	A Critical Success!	Yes, and...
2	A Partial Success	Yes, but...
1	A Partial Failure	No, but...
0	A Critical Failure!	No, and...

#Adventure Calendar Jam 2023 #character advancement #house rules #skills #thief

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