To perform a standard difficulty action, the gamemaster calls for the player to roll the dice for a certain attribute or skill.

Each character point spent adds an extra wild die to one skill or attribute roll.

In one variant, The Legend System, instead of adding the die totals up, the dice showing 3, 4, 5 or 6 are each counted as a success.

This variation of the system was referred to, in jest, as "The D6 variant for the mathematically challenged" on WEG's own discussion forum.

A precursor to the D6 System first appeared in Ghostbusters: A Frightfully Cheerful Roleplaying Game, designed by Chaosium alumni Sandy Petersen, Lynn Willis and Greg Stafford, which was published by WEG in 1986.

WEG followed the D6 core book with Indiana Jones Adventures (a reworking of the earlier MasterBook setting) and the stand-alone Men in Black RPG.

A half-finished draft of a D6 System based Stargate SG-1 role playing game remained unpublished as a result of the bankruptcy.

Most of WEG's earlier licenses were terminated at this point, but the reconstituted company acquired another one from DC Comics.

Ron Fricke and former WEG publisher Scott Palter's Psibertroopers, the first licensed third party D6 System product, also saw release during this period.

An initial PDF version of D6 Adventure was released as a rules lead in for the eventual re-release of Bloodshadows.

Each shared the same core mechanics, but utilized different attributes, skill sets, equipment lists and power systems.

Khepera Publishing's licensed D6 System super hero game Godsend Agenda was released shortly thereafter.

Near the end of the year, WEG publisher Eric Gibson tentatively announced that the D6 System would soon be adopting a free license.

This re-release was in anticipation for a formal launch of the OpenD6 website portal and workstation, meant to aid publishers and players alike in creating, archiving, and searching the wealth of D6 rules and variants.

[11] In 2019, Nocturnal Media signed a development license with Lion Forge LLC to create new titles using the D6 system.

The first title released under this license was Carbon Grey: The Roleplaying Game in 2022, based on the graphic novel series created by Hoang Nguyen.