Sci-Fi, space battles and multiple PCs in a single ship

[Morrus]

Not to say that Leia doesn't have skills in addition to diplomacy: In the fight during the jail breakout, she showed that she was able enough using a blaster, was athletic, and showed ranks in Command. It's just that during the space fight, none of these skills seemed relevant. One could suppose she provided encouragement to the others, but that doesn't seem to quite be active enough of a skill use.

Yeah, characters on screen don't get bored when they don't have an active role in the current scene!

 

[MarkB]

In the Millenium Falcon example, wasn't Chewbacca pilot, R2D2 on repair, and both Han and Luke gunners?

Both Leia and C3PO were sidelined. It seemed that neither had any relevant skills. C3PO was a translator, and Leia a diplomat, neither particularly useful in a space dog fight.

Not to say that Leia doesn't have skills in addition to diplomacy: In the fight during the jail breakout, she showed that she was able enough using a blaster, was athletic, and showed ranks in Command. It's just that during the space fight, none of these skills seemed relevant. One could suppose she provided encouragement to the others, but that doesn't seem to quite be active enough of a skill use.

Leia was copiloting for Chewie during that battle. As shown in The Force Awakens, the Falcon is a bit of a beast to fly single-handed.

 

[Shasarak]

As shown in The Force Awakens, the Falcon is a bit of a beast to fly single-handed.

Was that where the Falcon flew through a planetary defense shield at light speed?

 

[MarkB]

Was that where the Falcon flew through a planetary defense shield at light speed?

That happened too, but I was thinking of the part where Rey couldn't reach the deflector shield controls without letting go of the piloting controls. It's probably easier for a Wookiee, given the longer arms, but a second pair of hands is still, well, handy.

 

[adwyn]

When I ran my last homebrew sci fi, I addressed this issue by stealing liberally from multiple RPGs and board games. First by creating multiple stations that could be either PC, NPC, or AI (really just a robotic NPC) controlled. The PCs were usually better, but even if they weren't a player could still play the NPC or AI running a station and not have to sit out the action.

Each station then had decisions that needed to be made. The helm/pilot steered and chose maneuvers, there was one or more combat positions that selected what targets would be locked on, rolled to hit, etc. The engineer allocated power between the systems and chose how hard to push the engines. Then there was damage control - players had to maneuver repair bots to damaged locations and make checks, not much different than maneuvering in combat on a battlemat.

I did not have a command position or captain for PC controlled ships, though ultimately the pilot usually was the de facto commander.

 

[Sunseeker]

Ideally, they have stations that cater to their strengths, pilot, engineer, gunner, etc... Sure, not everyone is going to be able to be involved in every event, this is true of pretty much any game ever. Sometimes certain people shine, sometimes others don't. Ideally, when Leia and C3P0 don't contribute in a dogfight, there will be times when they contribute more in other areas of the game.

But I mean if your game is always taking place on a ship, it's best to advise players that they ought to have useful ship-related skills.

 

[Celebrim]

L.O.V.E.R.S. in a Dangerous Space Time manages.
Puzzle Pirates managed.

But I've never seen a PnP RPG manage to give valuable choices to every member of the crew during a space battle. Someone always has either no relevant skills, or has a relevant skill but the use of it involves no choices - they simply roll a die on their turn and report the results.

To be fair, very few video games manage to make cooperative play fun for everyone either.

 

[Laurefindel]

Leia was copiloting for Chewie during that battle. As shown in The Force Awakens, the Falcon is a bit of a beast to fly single-handed.

Probably, which makes a lot of sense from a movie perspective, but in order to be viable in a RPG, co-piloting (or any other task) should engage the player to the same degree as the ones shooting the laser batteries.

I guess what I'm looking for is a system (or a plug-in module) where players feel the same level of engagement in a space battle as during ground combat. During ground combat, players usually have choices and options about their actions, movement, and need to manage individual resources and deal with some sort of action economy.

Of the systems I checked, N.E.W. comes the closest to what I'm looking for (thanks Morrus!). I'll have to do more research on Coriolis, but the different roles sounds promising.

 

[MarkB]

Probably, which makes a lot of sense from a movie perspective, but in order to be viable in a RPG, co-piloting (or any other task) should engage the player to the same degree as the ones shooting the laser batteries.

That is the tricky part. I've run Star Wars Saga Edition and played Traveller, and while they do offer a variety of secondary roles, those roles often boil down to "make an ability check on your turn. If you succeed, you give +2 to the gunner/pilot/whatever." Ultimately, the only ones having fun are the gunners, and to a lesser extent (unless they also get to shoot) the pilot. The only times I really made space combat work reasonably for an entire group was when I gave them Y-Wings so that everyone was either the pilot or gunner, and they all got to shoot. Even then, the ones who weren't specialised for space combat felt awkward.

But it's a delicate balance between people feeling left out, and artificially adding make-work to the encounter just to keep them entertained. Not every space combat is going to feature a boarding action, or a warp core breach, or an unexpected stowaway, and adding in such events simply to give the non-starship-oriented characters something to do can feel very artificial after the first few times.

My preferred solution, if I were designing a game that heavily featured starships, would be to have a separate 'layer' of starship-related talents and abilities on top of a character's personal traits, ensuring that they must pick some of each rather than choosing between them. Characters could certainly specialise towards one or the other to some extent, but it would essentially be a way of ensuring that you'd never end up with a party divided between space combat specialists who feel useless outside a cockpit, and away-team specialists who start to feel bored the moment the Red Alert klaxon sounds.

And then ensure that multi-crewed starships were designed to take advantage of each of the crews' strengths in active fashion, not just in terms of "roll to assist the cool people." Every action that a character takes should be either proactive or opposed - either they're doing something to set the pace of the combat, or they're foiling the efforts of the enemy to do so, or both.

 

[Spookykid]

Do any of these have realistic spaceship movement? Stupid to have to calculate vector sums for a game but you never know.