Star Wars First Edition WEG - A Love Story

[Water Bob]

ROUND 3.

GM (Situation): You move in to knee the trooper in the gut, but he's too fast for you. You didn't even see it coming. The guy is highly trained, and he moved like a cat!

He had something in his hands--what was it? You're too groggy to think! All you saw was this piece of black pipe that the trooper used to shove into your face! Did he break your cheekbone? Your head went backwards. Your body went limp. Fire broke out on your face!

You went down.

And now, you're on your back, coughing, blinking your watering eyes. You've got blood free flowing out of your nose.

The trooper shouldered his weapon and stands astride your feet, blaster rifle at the ready, pointing directly at you, point blank range.

As you blink and cough and hurt, you suck in air to breath through your mouth because your nose isn't working.

And, you hear his mechanical voice say, "(click)Stay down! Don't move!(click)"

What do you want to do?





P (Declaration): He's straddling me? I'm going to kick up, with all my might, right in his manhood!

GM (Declaration): He fires. Twice.

P (Reaction): I'll roll out of the way and Dodge that fire!



NOTE: No initiative needed here. The trooper is firing, -1D for two actions, and +5 for a prone target.

Roark is Dodging, rolling out of the way, rolling his full 4D+1 Dodge. But, he's wounded, so he has a -1D. He rolls 3D +1: a total of 5! (I really rolled that! 1, 2, 1 + 1 = 5! Wow!)

So, the trooper needs a total of 10+ to hit. Trooper has Blaster 3D, -1D for multi-actions, +5 for prone. Rolls 2D +5. 13!



GM (Segment 2 - Situation): Let's figure damage. The rifle does 5D damage. Roark throw STR 3D.

Rifle 5D: 24! Wow! This trooper is on fire! (I've been rolling real dice--it makes it interesting for me to write this as I don't know what the outcome will be).

P: I've got to blow my Force Point! I should have used it on the Dodge!

Roark 6D: 18.

That means, even with the Force Point, that Roark takes another Wound. This means that Roark is Incapacitated.

The Force Was Not With Him. (And, Roark should have used the Force Point on the Dodge, ensuring that he wouldn't get hit. This shows the perils of waiting too long to use your FP.)



GM: You start to move, but you're hurt. You can barely see! You're much slower than what was in your mind.

As soon as you twitch, the stormtrooper fires. The bright fire erupting from his weapon burn your retinas. You made about a quarter flip when the bolt caught you in the right arm. It blew a hole through your jacket and shirt and tore out a large chunk of your bicep.

Your entire body lurched, like you had been stabbed with electricity.

Then, the lights went out.

Good night, Martha!

The trooper kicks you in the back, a blow that flops you on your face in the gutter. "(click)This is TC1875 at Docking Bay 12. I've got a pick up. It's probably that Rebel scum that hit the alert this morning. Come get him before he bleeds to death all over the walk way,(click)" says the trooper, but you don't hear it.



Note: In that entire combat, Initiative was not used at every instance. It was only used when needed.

 

[Palmetto Swamp Fox]

I feel ya. The West End Games System was good but the D6 needed more. But I look through my WEG books often with fond memories (I own every book). The days of the early to mid 90s were awesome and my players went on every conceivable scenario. I remember walking into Walden Books in 1987 and seeing the Core Rule Book and knowing that it was going to be good.

 

[Water Bob]

The West End Games System was good but the D6 needed more.

What do you think it needed?

 

[Palmetto Swamp Fox]

What do you think it needed?

My players and I agreed it need an XP based class system and a simpler combat system (too many D6s).

One GREAT thing was the skills were directly related to the attribute. Something most RPGs missed big time. We played several ROGs and each of us ran one. My buddy Travis ran RIFTS and I always hated Palladium's skills. So unrealistic.

Luckily Star Wars Saga Ed solved these problems.


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[Water Bob]

My players and I agreed it need an XP based class system and a simpler combat system (too many D6s).

One GREAT thing was the skills were directly related to the attribute. Something most RPGs missed big time. We played several ROGs and each of us ran one. My buddy Travis ran RIFTS and I always hated Palladium's skills. So unrealistic.

Luckily Star Wars Saga Ed solved these problems.


Sent from my iPhone using EN World mobile app

As for the too many D6's, you probably didn't play First Edition. The dice bloat come with Second Edition, with its Skill Specialization, Character Points, and such. With First Edition, players typically throw 2-4 dice, tops.

I'll have to disagree with you on the class based XP system. There's d20 Star Wars for that.

 

[Palmetto Swamp Fox]

As for the too many D6's, you probably didn't play First Edition. The dice bloat come with Second Edition, with its Skill Specialization, Character Points, and such. With First Edition, players typically throw 2-4 dice, tops.

I'll have to disagree with you on the class based XP system. There's d20 Star Wars for that.

I played first edition alright. Right from the start in '87. Character points were part of the first edition in fact. And yes the skill spec increased it that is for sure. D20 Star Wars suck. Like all 3.5 edition games it suffered from too much detail and satay overload.


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[Water Bob]

I played first edition alright. Right from the start in '87. Character points were part of the first edition in fact. And yes the skill spec increased it that is for sure. D20 Star Wars suck. Like all 3.5 edition games it suffered from too much detail and satay overload.


Sent from my iPhone using EN World mobile app

Your memory is foggy. Character Points did not enter the game until Second Edition. You might be thinking of Force Points, which a character starts the game with only a few and never has a lot of them.

With First Edition, a character throws only the dice he has in a skill. And, since most players try to pull of as many actions as they can in a round, the number of dice thrown is, as I said, 2-4 dice, on average, with 1E.

 

[Palmetto Swamp Fox]

Your memory is foggy. Character Points did not enter the game until Second Edition. You might be thinking of Force Points, which a character starts the game with only a few and never has a lot of them.

With First Edition, a character throws only the dice he has in a skill. And, since most players try to pull of as many actions as they can in a round, the number of dice thrown is, as I said, 2-4 dice, on average, with 1E.

You want to know something? Being over forty sucks! I was thinking "No am sure character points were still used as dice modifiers in first edition". So I took the book off my shelf and search. Indeed you were right.

As for the dice I allowed my players more dice than average character creation. In fact to solve the "class" problem, I created a template that had trained skills. So you automatically received more than average skills. I got the idea when I saw the average template for a rebel soldier in the Rebel Sourcebook. So my players were throwing 5-12 dice. But we were young. This started in Jr High and lasted through to college. In fact the first time I ran a game I had no idea what I was doing and a player had a blaster skill of twenty two dice. Oh man we got real good at adding that is for sure.

WEG Star Wars was so good. If Saga hadn't come around I would have started my campaign back with that instead of D20.




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[Water Bob]

You want to know something? Being over forty sucks!

Brother, I hear ya.

As for the dice I allowed my players more dice than average character creation. In fact to solve the "class" problem, I created a template that had trained skills. So you automatically received more than average skills. I got the idea when I saw the average template for a rebel soldier in the Rebel Sourcebook. So my players were throwing 5-12 dice.

Respectfully, it sounds as if you created your own problem. Had you played core 1E, then one of your problems with the game (too many dice) would have never existed.

As for an experience system, the game does have that. No character levels, but every adventure, a character gets skill points (depending on how well the character does in the adventures in the GM's estimation). Those points are used to build the skill levels. So, the better the character is in an adventure, the higher and better his skills improve, and the more new skills he gets.





As for a Class Based system--

Most SW fans balk at the idea of playing SW with a class based game. I'm sure that d20 and SAGA SW solved the issue (I never played those games except on the computer with Knights of the Old Republic), but the biggest complaint is Luke's attack on the Death Star. Luke is obviously a 1st level character. How could he have out piloted and delivered the final blow to the Empire the way he did as a 1st level character?

With D6 SW, it's easily answered. Luke gets as many dice at character creation as any other player character and, as a hero, more than your standard NPC. When Luke took his shot,, he used a Force Point, doubling all his codes, using the Force to help him deliver those proton torpedoes.

It's a lot harder to show how Luke pulled off what he did with a 1st level character in a class based game. I'm not just talking about the actual attack that brings down the Death Star, but the entire engagement. It was extremely dangerous going against the DS, and the Rebel Death Rate proves that. There were only a handful of survivors. The way D6 creates characters seems to make a lot more sense for this universe, where a class based system makes more sense for a universe like Lord of the Rings.

 

[aramis erak]

Your memory is foggy. Character Points did not enter the game until Second Edition. You might be thinking of Force Points, which a character starts the game with only a few and never has a lot of them.

With First Edition, a character throws only the dice he has in a skill. And, since most players try to pull of as many actions as they can in a round, the number of dice thrown is, as I said, 2-4 dice, on average, with 1E.

Unless he's piloting a ship or firing ship's guns. And characters were able to increase skills with experience... My first ed games routinely wound up with 10+ dice on ship combat rolls. 6-8d skills and 3-6 d fire control (especially after using experience to raise the ship's, as was permitted.)

The person misremembering is YOU, Bob.