Hard Six: The Devil's West

So it's called Hard Six, what does it do?

Hard Six sets out to provide a toolbox for gamers to create collaborative stories about the classic tropes and clichés of the mythical West - equal parts 70s spaghetti western, like The Magnificent Seven or A Fistful of Dollars, and weird western, emphasizing themes of occultism and the supernatural as found in Stephen King’s The Gunslinger or DC’s Jonah Hex. Wagon trains, bandit raids, and high noon shootouts are to be found here in plenty, the cheesier (spaghetti-er?) the better. 

Hard Six strives to strike a balance between mechanically intricate modern tabletop RPG systems and the more straightforward systems inspired by games of the past, with attention given to meaningful character progression within the confines of mechanical simplicity, verisimilitude, and swiftness of play. In situations of danger, Hard Six provides players a range of options intended to simulate the tropes on which the game is built - a player character might dash behind a wall for cover, spook a rival’s bronco to unseat them, detonate a keg of powder with a gunshot, or swig from a hip flask to fortify themselves. 

So it’s a Western TTRPG, what sets it apart?

We use dice pools - not single dice. This means that character skill matters more reliably. We think that outcomes on bell curves encourage verisimiltude in a game world, and swingy results can damage it. A gunslinger's traits inform the number of d6s a player rolls, and the number of dice showing hits (4-6) dictates the outcome.

We are classless and levelless, but characters are specialized, and grow through play. Despite relative mechanical simplicity on the character sheet, there are thousands of possible combinations of skills to define a character. The skills are written with the intention to make it easy for players to interact with and riff on western and occult tropes, and players can buy new skills and trait points organically during play, instead of “levelling up.”

We play tactically, but we don't count squares. Conflict in Hard Six is all about TIMING. Rather than managing position, gunslingers must draw their weapons in a flash, and time their attacks to go off just in time to dive behind cover, light a stick of dynamite, or unhorse a bandit as they cross a bridge.

Although Hard Six is inspired by western and horror tropes, the system is suitable for other settings populated by gunslingers - the adventures of smugglers in spaceships, gun-toting cyberpunk mercenaries, and post-apocalyptic wastelanders can be reasonably represented in this system.