D6 Star Wars RPG Thoughts

I've been perusing WEG's D6 Star Wars core rulebook. The first edition is action, and lite rules, and fun, fun, fun. If you want more grit, go with 2nd edition. There, you'll see a more dense rulebook with rules that you are used to seeing in most RPGs.

But, Star Wars first edition?

Get this: Character creation is given two pages. The entire chapter is four pages, but the last page and a half (half the page is a pic of Han Solo), is a detailed example of how to create a character.

And, just how do you create a character? Well, you pick one of the 24 character templates from the book's appendix. An example of a template is the Tounge-Tied Engineer, the Smuggler, the Loyal Retainer, or the Laconic Scout.

Each template comes with blanks for typical character sheet info, a background for the character, his starting equipment, blanks for the player to assign dice to his skills....and stats that are already assigned a die code.

That's right. In Star Wars first edition, the player does not assign dice to his own stats. That's already done on the templates.

All a player has to do, in order to create a character for the game, is assign 7D to the character's stats, with the restriction that no more than 2D can be assigned to any one skill. Skills that aren't improved this way use the die code of the governor attribute (for example, Blaster falls under DEX, so an unimproved Blaster skill will use the same die code as the character's DEX).

Have you ever seen a more simple method of generating characters? All you gotta do is decide where 7 dice go. That's it. You're off and running.

Literally, it takes mere minutes to create a first edition Star Wars character.







Here. I'll show you. I'll use the example character in the book.

We pick the Smuggler template. We'll call him: Roark Garnet. Write in player's name and make up character description: 6', 180 lbs., Male, age 28. Roark's got a pencil thin mustache, leather jacket, jeans and boots. He's in good shape. He always wears a blaster in a worn leather holster.

OK. We're done with that.

Next, on the template, we see his stats.

DEXTERITY 3D+1
KNOWLEDGE 2D+1
MECHANICAL 3D+2
PERCEPTION 3D
STRENGTH 3D
TECHNICAL 2D+2

Those stand as they are. Our job--our final job in creating this character--is to assign 7D to Roark's skills. We use whole dice. We can't move more than 2D into any one skill. And, every skill in the game, Roark now uses at the code of the skill's governing attribute. For example, we're not going to improve Astrogation, which is governed by the Mechanical stat. Therefore, Roark's skill is Astrogation 3D+2.

So, we assign those 7D. We put 2D, the max, into Blaster. That's a DEX skill. And, we put 1D into Dodge, another DEX skill.

We don't improve any Knowledge or Technical skills.

Under Mechanical, we put 2D into Starship Piloting.

And, with our last 2D that we have to spend, we put one into Bargain (Perception skill) and one into Brawling (Strength skill)

So, combined with the stats above, Roark turns out lookling like this:

Blaster 5D+1
Dodge 4D+1

Starship Piloting 5D+2

Bargain 4D

Brawling 4D

As I said above, any other skill uses the governing attribute's dice code.

And....that's it! We're done! We've created a first edition Star Wars character. Easy Cheesy.

Even a someone new to the game could do this in five minutes.





Our template gives us a little more information about the character. He's got a stock light freighter (a ship!). He gets a comlink and a heavy blaster pistol. And, he gets 2000 standard credits as starting wealth, which he can use to buy additional equipment at standard prices.

Oh....ha! And, the template says that he starts 25,000 credits in debt to a crime boss. This can be a story element for the GM (with the Hutt's men out to get Roark), and a bit of a game balancer--he gets a ship, but he has to contend with the debt!

Reading over the rules, I am reminded of another variant round structure that we used with first edition. IIR, it worked quite well.

Movement, in 1E SW, was simple, like every other rule. A character could walk 5 meters in a round or run 10 meters in a round. If the character ran, then that was enough effort to be considered an action--and thus the multiple action penalty would come into effect. If a character wanted to run and fire his blaster, the blaster shot would be done with a -1D penalty (Roark, above, would fire using 4D +1 instead of his usual 5D +1).

I never have liked declaration phases in games, and I was always looking to keep the game--no matter which game we were playing--flowing fast and exciting. This seemed especially appropriate for a Star Wars game.

So, we rolled DEX for initiative (later, we changed that to PERCEPTION) for every character, noting the throw, creating a initiative order, and then we kep that order for the entire combat--not unlike 3.5 d20.

When it came time for a character to move, he could do anything he wanted, but 2nd actions came at a -2D multiple action penalty. A 3rd action would have a -3D penalty, and so on.



Thus, let's say that Roark wants to fire his blaster then run. He throw his full 5D+1 blaster skill, but then have to throw for his movement. If he failed the Move check, he'd have a mishap--like falling down (doing too much at one time--stumbling around).

So, the GM would make the terrain Very Easy, since it was flat corridor, but the kicker is that second actions get the -2D penalty. This is a DEX check, and Roark's has DEX 3D+1.

That means, when Roark runs, he'd have to make a 5+ roll using 1D+1. That ain't easy, and odds are, Roark will fail, slip, and fall.

His character just isn't that coordinated enough to pull that off even half the time.



Or, let's say that Roark wanted to stand in place and squeeze off 3 shots of his blaster. No problem. He doesn't move, and his first shot is at 5D+1. He second shot at 3D +1. And his last shot at 1D +1.

Recoil.

As he stood there, quickly squeezing off shots, the recoil of the weapon made him less and less accurate.




It's not a bad House Rule, and it fits the "universe" well.





EDIT: The RAW is that a character can walk 5 meters a round and still do one action at no penalty, or he can run 10 meters in a round, having it count as an action (thus -1D to any other actions performed).

Under my House Rule above, that translated like this:

Roark uses his blaster and then walks? 5D+1 on the shot, then move the character 5 meters.

Roark walks, then uses his blaster? Move the character 5 meters, then use 3D+1 on the shot.*



*Some players argued that, since the base game allowed a walk + single action at no penalty, then there should be a special case in our House Rule for this. I think that's a fair argument. So, if you wanted, you could allow, just in this instance: Move the character 5 meters, then use 5D+1 on the shot.

Basically, you would consider Walking a "free" action that did not count towards the multiple action penalty. Thus, a character could move 5 meters then sqeeze off 3 shots at 5D+1, 3D+1, and 1D+1. Depending on the target number, though, that last shot (and possibly the second shot, too) might be a waste of ammo.

There was one other initiative system that we used for a bit with first edition Star Wars. The combat round played out as I outlined above (first action - no penalty, second action - minus 2D, third action - minus 3D, etc.).

Instead of rolling for initiative, each round, automatically, the person who went first was the one with the highest Perception score--then the next highest, then the next, and so on.

If Perception was tied, the tie was broken by the highest Dexterity score. If still tied, Player Characters won over NPCs, and any tied PCs went simultaneously.

Therefore, there was no rolling, and the combat round was smooth as glass. He round, the GM knew, easily, who's turn it was.

We added to this our own version of Haste (much different than Haste in the book). Any character could challenge the character immediately in front of him. They roll opposed DEX throws. If the challenger won, his place in the initiative count was moved up one place for the rest of the combat. The character could attempt this Haste once per round on his turn (and he can only challenge the character, friend or foe, immediately before him).

Performing Haste was considered an action, and thus, even if the character won the Opposed DEX throw, his next action would be at -2D. So, a player really needed a good reason to want to change his line-up position. (The defender was not penalized an action--only the challenger. I didn't want this turning into a tactic to penalize the guy in front of you.)



So, let's say Roark (PER 3D, DEX 3D+1) ran into two stormtroopers (PER 3D, DEX 1D). The combat would be played out in this order:

First, Roark.
Then, Stormtrooper 1 is simultaneous with Stormtrooper 2.

So, Roark starts to act, but Stormtrooper 2 declares a Haste challenge. We roll opposed DEX throws, 3D +1 vs. 1D. Roark rolls a total of 5. The trooper gets lucky and rolls a 6.

The round becomes
Stromtrooper 2
Roark
Stormtrooper 1

On that first round, Stormtrooper 2 will have a -2D penalty associated with his first action (-3D on the second, and so on) because of the Haste attempt. He gets this penalty regardless of whether the Hast challenge was successful. But, the perk is that he has changed the initiative line up for the entire fight (and there are no Haste penalties on later rounds--only in the one where the Haste was performed).

Oh man I love me some WEG Star Wars. I think the fantastic technology books, specifically droids added so much to the game. I'm going to go read my old books now and see if I can get a group going.

I've been looking over that old Star Wars rule set. Man, I love that game. I've been thinking of running a by-the-seat-of-the-pants, blasters firing, princess saving, asteroid dodging game using just the first edition rules.

I haven't found all of my old stuff yet, but I did uncover an adventure I've never played: Battle For The Golden Sun.

This looks perfect.

I'm not 100% going to do this yet--just thinking. But, if I do run it, I want to change the beginning a bit. I want to set the players up as normal citizens (as normal as you can get in the Star Wars universe), and then let them make decisions during play as to if they want to be Rebels...or maybe they'll go more towards the Fringe.

Here's what I'm thinking....





We'll start the game on Alderaan. This is shortly before A New Hope. I've got three players right now, so I'm thinking I'll start them as the crew of a tramp light freighter. They can pick from an assortment of aliens, if they don't want their characters to be human. I've got all the Alien books. There's a ton of species to pick from.

The Trade Federation has been heavily taxing the local space routes, and our PCs start the game fallen on hard times. Credits are tight. Payment for their ship is due.

First scene of the game session: I figure we'll start in a spacer bar near the starport. Their looking for work. There's actually lots of work--lots of small cargos that need to be taken to different worlds, but the problem is, once you figure in local export tax, then import tax at the destination, the Empire's transport tax, and now, the Trade Federation's lane tax, there's nothing left for profit.

The bigger shipping lines are soaking up all the smaller cargos. They can make it work, financially, by the shear quantity of freight that they can move at one time. Plus, the big companies are politically connected, getting the quantity discount from the Empire and the Trade Federation (and with many of the worlds that they service).

This situation is leaving scraps for the independent--the tramp freighter captains.

All of that is a bunch of BS I just made up, but I think it's good enough for a Star Wars game. Maybe I'll refine it. Besides the "push" this creates to get the PCs off planet, it also puts a bad taste in their mouths for the Empire.




So, for the one and three man stock light freighters, finding a profitable job has become an exercise in managing expenses. Some jobs filter through the cracks, sure, but operating a vessel of this size is no longer a matter of just going to a posting office and grabbing the next ticket.

At this point, a droid approaches the PC's table and introduces itself. It's designation is G0-B-TWN, but the droid tells the players that they can address it as "Gobiteen" or "Gobi" (Go Between....get it?).

The PCs have heard of this droid. Since times got tough, and the law on Alderaan is fairly strict on the fringe element, spacers have set up a method of business contact without having to identify themselves. The droid is used as the go between, and each side doesn't know the other.

Now, this is a fairly risky way to do business. The freighter captains don't like not knowing their employers, but as times have become lean, even the most honest captains have resorted to this method of business.

Many times the jobs that Gobi will have are those that are just trying to skirt the high taxes. And, sometimes, the jobs are of a more nefarious quality--gun running, things like that.

A freighter captain that deals with Gobi takes his chances. But, there are those in the spaceport that have made runs for the droid and have been quite happy with their compensation.

So Gobi has a deal for the PCs. Would they run a cargo of local wiker tradeables (baskets, figurines, ornate chairs, wall hanings and the like) to Coruscant? The run pays quite well. The stipulation is that the PC's ship must leave within 4 hours.

Let's see...good compensation...leave within 4 hours...deal through Gobi...and it's a cargo of wiker do-dads. Riiiight.

But, that's the deal.




If the PCs don't take the deal, then I think it will be time for an action scene with some toughs by the local crime boss. Where's the money?

Or, if the PCs bought their ship legitimately, this crime boss becomes a legitimate Repo agent. Either way, where's the money?

The PCs don't have it.

Now, maybe, the ship will be taken, and the game will go off on a tangent. I need to think about this and be prepared. But, hopefully, the PCs will take Gobi's job. Because they've got no real other choice. It's a bit of a railroad, but this is Star Wars. And, I won't stop them from not taking the job. If they don't, I'll probably change the direction of the adventure, making it the PC's vs. the Repo Agent, or the PCs vs. the Crime Boss.




So...the PCs take the job. The cargo arrives. And, they need to lift off. I'll put a sense of urgency with the delivery of the cargo by moving the timetable up, explaining that a certain Alderaan traffic controller was going off duty earlier than expected...,"So, you got to leave port NOW!"

The PCs will most likely want to dig into the cargo once its aboard. There won't be a lot of time to do that while its being loaded. I bet they'll wait until their in hyperspace. But, if the players figure a way, every container that they open does, indeed, have wiker do-dads in it.

And, that won't make sense. What they're being paid is way too much for what they're carrying, even if the shipper is just trying to skip under the taxes. It can't be even worth the bribe to get off of Alderaan.

When the deal is struck with Gobi, he'll offer to pay them half in electronic Imperial credits, or X amount (whatever I think the PCs should have as starting money) in hard currency--the rest once they reach Coruscant.

If they take the electronic Imperial credits, these will completely blank out and become worthless (nonexistent) after a few hours. Of course, the PCs don't know this at the time of lift off. I'll tell them, though, if the players ask the right questions at deal time, that electronic credits can be risky once offworld.





Once the PCs lift and break Alderaan's orbit, I want an action scene with an Imperial customs boat bearing down on them. "Come to and prepare to be boarded!" I might throw in a couple of fighters and an SDB just to make it clear to the players that they are outgunned.

We can trade some pops here in a Star Wars-esque escape from the planet scene. Maybe the PCs will get lucky and knock off a TIE fighter or two...

...and that, right there, is changing their lives on Alderaan....

...while they rush to get the navicomp ready to make the jump to hyperspace.

The stars make lines, and, boom, the PC's ship escapes.



But, something is immediately wrong. Alarms are going off. The ship should be safely in hyperspace now, but the instruments are showing that the ship is coming out of jump.

That's impossible. The players might think that they're just outside the Alderaan system.

But, in fact, they've suffered a hyperdrive mishap that has taken them far off-course, through a treacherous, gravitic-thick region of space, to the waterworld of Sedri. The PCs, though, will have no idea where they are until they can somehow figure it out.

The ship is damaged, and it plunges through the atmosphere. I'll have the pilot do some throws for a heroic splash landing in Sedri's great ocean.

There will be a few moments as the PCs recover from the crash. The interior lighting is flashing on and off. The PCs may check the ship. The hyperdrive is damaged, and she is taking on a bit of water. They'll plug the hole, I'm sure, but they'll find out that there's no fixing the hyperdrive without new parts and a starport repair facility. Comm's damage. Power finally goes completely out, and the ship is adrift on Sedri's world ocean.




Then, the PCs hear a crash on the hull. Out the dorsal hatch, they exit the ship to see....that their ship has floated into the remains of a sea battle. There are pieces of vehicles (a big piece just slammed into the ship with the roll of the ocean) and bodies....yes, bodies, floating out in the water.

There was some kind of skirmish here--some battle. Wait, what's that? Is that a stormtrooper floating over there?

Then, in the distance, they see the colored beams of blaster bolts being fired across the water. How to investigate? Among the debris about the ship, the player see an intact sea-speeder.

It's up to them. Do they take the sea speeder and investigate the battle in the distance...or, do they just stay with their ship?

And, that's pretty much where the adventre Battle For The Golden Sun.




So....what was going on with Gobi on Alderaan? I'm thinking that the PCs were set up to drag attention away from a different ship lifting with the real smuggled cargo. The PCs were played as fools.

And, I've got room for recurring villians and other NPCs. It might be interesting to see Gobi show up somewhere after the PCs finish the adventure on Sedri. And, sometime, maybe on Sedri, or after they leave, they'll hear about their homeworld being destroyed by the Death Star.

If I can find it, I also have the adventure called Graveyard of Alderaan. It's a neat little adventure that features scrap hunters around the asteroid field that used to be Alderaan.

You never know how games will go. I like to set up a story, then when gaming, not hesitate to deviate from it when players go in a different direction than what I had planned.

Bob I'd totally play that game with you. I'd make a droid, or a Defel. Defels are so cool.

I like the intro Water Bob, sounds like lots of fun! If you set it up ahead of time you could have a crimelord hire the PCs to bring back some shipment from Alderaan to him. After Alderaan is destroyed the unreasonable crimelord still considers their agreement binding and either their lives or their ship will be in jeopardy if they don't get him what he wanted. That could be a bridge into your Graveyard of Alderaan adventure, where they return to the Alderaan Asteroid Field to see if they can find the stuff he wanted and get out of hot water.
[MENTION=6682741]DnD_Dad[/MENTION], yeah. Defels are the coolest!!

LOL! Poster on another forum suggested this as the intro...

So, you're sitting in this bar, down on your luck, trying to figure an angle on scraping some coin together before the ship gets port-locked, when this scruffy looking droid wheels over... designation G0-B-TWN. 'Gobiteen', or just 'Gobi' to those who know it - and you know it. Or, of it, at any rate. So does The Law.

This rolling pile of plasti-sheet and neuro-circuits is trouble - trouble of the capital T and the capital punishment kind. Its also the promise of credit of the tax free and clear kind...

Click to expand...

That's what's cool about the Star Wars universe. It makes this kinda story not so cheesy, but fun!

Okay, Star Wars first edition "Eight Useful Things to Remember About Gamemastering."

1. You can't learn everything at once.

2. Understand the rules and talk them over with players. If they ask you to describe something, do. Let them worry about whether or not what you describe is important.

3. Expect to extend the rules. No set of rules can be as ingenious as players. Use your common sense to handle problems that arise, and keep playing. Don't waste too much time looking up minor rules. Reserve the right to change your mind about rule judgments. "This is my ruling tonight, but after I've thought about it, I may want to change my mind."

4. Expect to be wrong sometimes. Admit it. Say, "Oops," do an instant replay on teh action if necessary, and get on with the game. Don't be a pushover, though. Sometimes somebody has to make an arbitrary judgement, and that person is you.

5. Be fair. Earn your players' trust. Players cheerfully ignore rules mistakes and hesitations, as long as they believe the gamemaster is not picking on them or playing favorites.

6. Be impartial. When you are pretending to be the villians and bad guys in your adventures, be as clever and resourceful (or bumbling and incompetent) as they would be. But when it comes to judging conflicts between characters, as gamemaster you m ust be partial to neither side.

7. Be prepared. At first, use published adventures like "Rebel Breakout" (included in the core rulebook). Study them carefully. Think about how to present the characters and events they contain and how to anticipate the reactions of your players. Later, when you design your own adventures, organize your throughs and adventure materials before your players arrive.

8. Be entertaining. Ham up your characters, try to get across the huge scope and sense of wonder that's a part of Star Wars, and make every moment as action-packed and suspense-filled as it can be.

And, this section ends with this advice....

Relax! Wing it. Rely on common sense and imagination. Don't get too hung up on making sure everything is just as it should be. Having a good time is more important than paying attention to picayune details.

Old school, baby! This is what made roleplaying GREAT in the early days.

Another house rule we used was to completely ignore the space combat rules as written and run a more simplified form of space combat that was more cinematic. I don't remember the space combat rules specifically anymore but I recall feeling that it required too many rolls to simply maneuver around and space combats in turn felt very slow.