Making a Star Wars hack of The One Ring's system

[Laurefindel]

[UPDATE 2024-09-02]
Here's my master document I'm using for our games. This one is (almost) without images so it looks a bit dry, but my own version is fully illustrated (with a bunch of images I do not own, taken over Pinterest and whatnot).

If you're reading this thread for the first time, here's the elevator pitch:

• It's a Star Wars RPG using the core mechanics of The One Ring RPG (mostly 2e, with a few leaked elements of the first edition here and there).
• The game uses a regular d12 instead of TOR' special feat die.
• There are six class archetypes: Commander, Drifter, Heavy, Technician, Scoundrel, and Force User. These replace TOR's heroic cultures. As in TOR, each offer 6 archetype-specific virtues.
• Species are mostly cosmetic, giving a choice of a favoured skill, a trait, and a starting standard virtue. Species replace TOR's callings.
• Serenity and Passion replace TOR's Hope and Shadow but essentially work the same.
• The Force mostly relies on TOR's concept of magical successes, and Force User's archetype virtues.
• Equipment is generic on purpose. Special equipment and specific weapons work similarly to rewards and magical weapons/items in TOR.
• Combat is shifted from melee-focused in TOR to something more ranged-combat oriented. Forward/Open/Defensive stances are engaged combat stances, allowing attacks at range and in melee. The Rearward stance is a disengaged stance, allowing for interaction with environment in combat (like using a medkit to stabilise a dying ally).
• The game is meant to be played more like a "mini-series" than a "movie", with frequent "offscreen" phases between "aired" episodes. Rest, healing, acquisition of new equipment and abilities etc. mostly happens offscreen.
• Space combat is still in the making and not included here.

Spoiler: Original OP

So I've started to make a Star Wars RPG using the The One Ring's game system. Why? Mostly because I felt like it...

I like Star Wars. I don't like funky dice and narrative dice resolution mechanics. I don't feel like d20/5e. I want something slightly crunchier than d6. I like The One Ring. The transition was a natural one.

I'll be using this thread to share my thought process and run a few ideas by ENworlders and take suggestions. The only suggestion I'm not gonna take is to use another (more appropriate) system. This one is a TOR hack; it's not going to be anything else

I have the chance of running this game with an actual group; I'll be posting my observations based on play. We've played twice so far, or three times if we count the (rather chaotic) session zero.

 

[Laurefindel]

Obviously, some things had to change. That was to be expected. Still, the essence of TOR is intact, at least I believe so...

Focus was shifted from Cultures to Class Archetypes. Star Wars isn't very culture-oriented, or at least, I wouldn't know where to start. And Star Wars has like a gazilion species, so I wasn't about to equal culture to species either. So culture/species and callings/class archetypes swapped places. With species replacing callings, the shadow paths are gone. At least for the moment.

At first I tried to keep the TOR callings appellations for archetypes, but that didn't stick. Still, we can see some remnants of that (commander was the captain, drifter was the messenger etc.). So class archetypes are now Commander, Drifter, Heavy, Technician, Scoundrel, and Force-User (I may yield and just call it Jedi). These replaces the six heroic cultures, each with six exclusive Virtues.

Again, things got swapped around and remixed, so it's hard to see direct correlations, although the Heavy still resemble the dwarves it was based on, and the Force-User is basically the High Elves. By the way, magical successes are re-fluffed as Force powers.

Skills got changed a little bit to "sci-fi it up"; Hunting became Survival, Travel became Piloting, Explore became Astrogation, Enhearthen became Streetwise, but conceptually Skills remain unchanged. Combat Proficiencies however changed significantly with the shift from close-combat fighting to ranged-combat fighting. I ended up making three Combat Proficiencies following my Twilight Imperium hack; Melee and Heavy blasters (based on strength), ship gunnery and grenades (based on heart), and blasters pistols and rifles (based on Wits).

The melee combat to ranged combat shift also affected Combat stances, whereas the Forward, Open, and Defensive stances now became engaged combat stances for both melee and ranged combat, and Rearward became the disengaged combat stance to open doors, heal wounded allies, and do other stuff that isn't an attack roll (with the same restrictions as in TOR as to who can go into Rearward stance).

Anyhow, that's already a lot for now. More to come later...

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Sammath Naur, exhaust port... same thing when you think about it.

 

[Laurefindel]

Witch King of Angmar, Darth Vader... Star Wars being closer to a fairy tale than true sci-fi helps with the transition.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

And Frodo only lost a finger. Luke dropped the entire hand.

 

[Laurefindel]

Another game in. Things are starting to take shape...

I'm realizing that I've played a lot of TOR 1e but never played or GMed (Loremastered?) TOR 2e, and I'm confusing more 1e into it than I thought I would. Interesting.

Another change I brought to combat were about the combat tasks. TOR's combat tasks are fitting the LotR very well - that's the strength of TOR - but in order to have an equally strong Star Wars system, I needed combat tasks that would fit Star Wars. So I ended up with...

Forward Stance: Cover Allies. A "shoot to keep their heads down" mechanics.
Open Stance: Overwatch. A "shoot anything that moves your way" mechanics.
Defensive Stance: Prepare Shot. A "take aim" mechanics, closer to that of TOR 1e's Rearward stance than the current TOR 2e.
Rearward: None. At first I had Hunker Down as a "you can't take me as a target" mechanics but dropped it. Now it's part of what 'Rearward' is.

Have I succeed in adapting Combat Tasks to a ranged-combat paradigm? I think so. Does it feel Star Wars? No, it doesn't. At least not specifically. That's how we've been playing so far and I don't really want to change it, but I'd reconsider for version 2.0. Though I'm not sure what would be better...

Speaking of themes dear to the setting, The One Ring has the duality of Hope vs Shadow as an excellent integration of Tolkien's work into game mechanics. Hope is a central theme in Star Wars too; it's even in the title of the original episode and quoted as such in Rogue One. However, the Shadow isn't. Conceptually, the Dark Side is pretty close but I elected for something not as Jedi-focused and more inclusive for all character types. So I went with Serenity (as hope) and Passion (as shadow). It's taken out of a verse of the Jedi's creed; "There is no passion, there is only serenity". In retrospect, quoting the Jedi's creed in attempt to move away from Jedi themes wasn't the smartest move... That ship too I'll let sail for the sake of my players, but if I had to redo it all, I'd reconsider.

I made Passion as something not so evil. Some characters may want to lean into it more than serenity, and I wanted them both as opposites rather than good/evil analogue. Han Solo for example, would be a "Passion" character, whereas Din Djarin from the Madalorian is a "Serenity" character. Jedi of course will aim for Serenity whereas Sith is all about Passion. So Serenity ended up as the "self-control" pool, and Passion the fear/enthusiasm bank. Serenity is something you spend and need to gain back, whereas Passion is something you accumulate and need to get rid of. Currently, Serenity plays as the TOR 2e hope (add d6 to pool), whereas Passion plays as the TOR 1e's hope (add attribute bonus to roll). Serenity is easier to gain than Passion is easy to get rid of. I'm curious to see how it'll play out.

 

[Laurefindel]

One of The One Ring's great contributions to RPG (in my opinion) was the Journey mechanics/minigame. Looking back, it was a bit patchy in TOR 1e but it still opened my eyes back then. It's better now in 2e, not to mention 5e adaptations in AiME and variations like EN-World's Level-Up. Thing is, as much as land-travel is an essential theme for a LotR game and even a great one for medieval fantasy games, it has little place in Star Wars. Traveling in Star Wars is either uneventful or the main focus of the story. Either your hyperdrive works and it's hard to tell whether the voyage took 5 minutes, 5 hours, or 5 days; or it doesn't work and the whole movie revolves around that (Empire Strikes Back, The Phantom Menace).

That said, the Journey minigame can easily be re-fluffed. Conceptually, the Journey mechanics work well for montage scenes, but Star Wars isn't big on montage scenes either... What Star Wars stories have, and can take the place of TOR's journeys, are ellipsis; periods of time in between movies/episodes where characters do things that the viewer isn't really aware of, until the next movie/episode starts in media res. This is where I want to take TOR's Journey for my Star Wars hack; "offscreen" stories and adventures that the characters have, leading to the game starting right in the action. In this Ellipsis mechanics, the characters would get in position, finding their friend Han Solo's location, infiltrating Jabba's palace, just in time to start the game right in the middle of things so that Han's player doesn't have to sit through five games of watching the other players planning to get him free while he's stuck in carbonite. This is in the works now, so more to come on that...

 

[Bill Zebub]

I haven't looked at the document, but I love the concept. I'll check it out later.

 

[Laurefindel]

Updated docs in OP to the current state of things.

Special Reward Items are meant to take the place of Famous Weapons and Armours (Magical Treasures). Not sure about the balance of things, and armours definitely need rework.

Also, not sure what to do with Valour and Wisdom tests. They come up regularly-ish in TOR, but I haven't been able to place one yet in our games. Either I amp the supernatural in my Star Wars game or mundane-ize Shadow tests. Still pondering, but I'm open to suggestions.

 

[Laurefindel]

A few more games have been played. It’s been fun!

One change I decided to make early in the transition from TOR to Star Wars was to drop the Eye of Sauron and Gandalf Rune symbols on the Feat Die (d12). My reasoning was that they didn’t match the SW universe (in retrospect that could easily be a light side/dark side representation) and wanted to keep it simple; results of 12 can easily be read as auto-success, and 1 can carry unwanted effects. The consequence was the now existing result of 11 and the elimination of a 0. This ups the average of the d12 by one point vs TOR’s feat die. Not a big deal I thought, and the TNs are actually a bit hard to hit in early play, so it could even be a good thing.

The unforeseen consequence however, was that Piercing Blows now trigger on a 10, 11, and 12, so going from a 16.67% pierce chance to a 25% pierce chance. And this is not considering pierce increase rewards. This has lead to a higher number of piercing blows than anticipated. At least it’s even across the board, so not unbalancing PCs.