Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

[Henry]

I have the first edition Star Wars rules I'm pretty sure. I didn't know there was a second edition.

Star Wars revised was released in May of 2002, right at time of the Clone movie.

Basically, I dislike three main things about the d20 Star Wars rules (at least in the edition I have): first, I don't like wound points, easily fixed. In fact, I have a neat way of fixing it. (In my game, if you go to -10 hit points, you aren't necessarily dead, but something really nasty happens to you, like having your hand chopped off or being frozen in carbonite Second, I don't like the complexity of the way that force powers work (i.e., make them feats or skills, but not both!). Third, I don't like the D&D flavor interfering with the Star Wars flavor. I want the game to be more Star Wars than adapted D&D.

I'm afraid the revised version won't fix any of these for you.

1 - One thing that Vitality does well that I like is making scenes like Leia getting shot in the arm in Return of the Jedi possible, or when Luke is shot in this robot hand on the Barge Skiff in RoTJ; straight hit points will definitely work, but a wounding component without taking you totally out of the fight would be helpful.

2- My only comment here is that the game splits them up into Powers and Feats, although the difference between is much closer than Feats and skills. One thing I like in the game is the "Light Side/Dark Side Meter", though I would find that harder to incorporate in an RPG.

One thing the revised edition DOES do, is let you take 10 on most force skills; it's very good at this, defining what can be done as take 10 or take 20, and the ship battle rules are totally revamped.

3- I'm not sure I understand the third point, unless it's that the "d20 flavor" (feats, skills, classes, levels, etc.) is feeling like D&D flavor to you.

Somewhere on SWRPG.net is doubtlessly a list of the differences in the two versions; It might be worth it to look this up.

 

[Davelozzi]

I have the first edition Star Wars rules I'm pretty sure. I didn't know there was a second edition.

Silver cover = first edition

The revised edition has a black cover and the subtitle Revised Core Rulebook, so you'd probably be aware if that was the one that you had.

 

[Desdichado]

Basically, I dislike three main things about the d20 Star Wars rules (at least in the edition I have): first, I don't like wound points, easily fixed. In fact, I have a neat way of fixing it. (In my game, if you go to -10 hit points, you aren't necessarily dead, but something really nasty happens to you, like having your hand chopped off or being frozen in carbonite Second, I don't like the complexity of the way that force powers work (i.e., make them feats or skills, but not both!). Third, I don't like the D&D flavor interfering with the Star Wars flavor. I want the game to be more Star Wars than adapted D&D.

Ah, well. To each their own. I'm indifferent about VP/WP vs HP. I happen to think the Force powers is one of the most elegant "magic" systems I've seen in an RPG and I would love to see the mechanical concept expanded into other genres. I don't know what about d20 is D&D flavor either. d20 Star Wars (or d20 Modern, or d20 Wheel of Time or d20 Call of Cthulhu) are often called D&D-feeling, especially by folks over on RPGnet that never play them, but I've never found that to be the case. YMMV obviously.

 

[Balsamic Dragon]

Ah, well. To each their own. I'm indifferent about VP/WP vs HP. I happen to think the Force powers is one of the most elegant "magic" systems I've seen in an RPG and I would love to see the mechanical concept expanded into other genres. I don't know what about d20 is D&D flavor either. d20 Star Wars (or d20 Modern, or d20 Wheel of Time or d20 Call of Cthulhu) are often called D&D-feeling, especially by folks over on RPGnet that never play them, but I've never found that to be the case. YMMV obviously.

It's a tricky thing to describe... Hmmm, the D&D system has always seemed very organic to me. It's rules are very non-intuitive in the sense that just because you know that a Paladin is a holy warrior, doesn't mean that you will be able to guess what kinds of abilities they might have at any given level. You have to look in the rules to find out. There are all these little quirky mystical abilities, like Druids being able to disguise themselves to look like anyone. The skill system incorporates a feeling of the medieval guild with things like crafts and traditional thieves' skills. The feats are build around complex melee combat styles using different weapons and armor types to reflect the many different cultures of a D&D world.

With Star Wars, I prefer a more technological, rather than organic feel. I want all the feats to have standardized requirements. For example, in the computer game, all feats come in sets of three, all with increasing level requirements. I want character classes to look more like the Fighter (bonus feats at regular levels that you choose from a list) than the Monk (weird abilities that increase at different, unpredictable rates). I want the fighting classes to distinguish themselves by profession rather than fighting style, with skills playing a greater role than feats. I want someone who can use a blaster to be able to use any technological missile weapon, including a starship turret. I want anyone who can pilot one vehicle to be able to pilot any vehicle. In short, less emphasis on specialization and more emphasis on adaptability.

D20 Modern might have been a better base to build Star Wars off of than regular d20. But I don't really mind the use of character classes, I just want them to be a little more generic, so that with multiclassing you can build whatever you want and not worry about sticking with a single class to get some of the "signature" abilities, like you do in D&D. Star Wars d20 already goes in this direction, but I want to go even farther. Not sure that makes sense to you, but that's the best I can explain it.

Balsamic Dragon

 

[Desdichado]

Yeah, that does make sense. I think you're right; d20 Modern as a base is probably the way it should have gone for you, then. I wonder how hard it would be to create some kind of jedi "Stuff" that wasn't reliant on the classes, and then you could simply use d20 Modern.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

my biggest beef with star wars revised or not, is star ship combat. It quite frankly sucks, piloting skill means way too little.

wp/vp works for me.

force, is well ok, I dig the feat/skill aspect of it though I think it shluld jus tbe the 3 feats and the rest skills. At most have some skills with a prereq of x# of force skill points overall or in a specific force skill befor eyou can purchase any points in it.

but way to many of the force skills suck big time,(I aint going to blow 6 vitaility to do 12). Then some are too good like the absorb energy feat.

and also I don't dig the auto dark side points every time you use most of it on a human. it doesn't give with the universe for me, especially when you can gut people left and right with your lightsaber which is guided and strengthened by the force.

 

[Salcor]

Hmm, I agree, and disagree with what you are saying here. I believe the difference between science fiction games and fantasy games is the amount of variety that is available. I do agree that in a modern+ setting that there are a large number of skills available to a character. Hell I have tried to make myself in a game and it is damn near impossible to do.

However, the feats allow for a lot of specialization that exists. You say that if a person can pilot a vehicle that they should be able to pilot anything. Well I am a helicopter pilot by trade, and I can asure you that if you took a jet pilot an put him in a helicopter without the proper training he has a high chance of killing himself. So like in D20 modern I believe that there are a number of vehicles that require specalization to pilot (which is recieved through feats). I really don't mind they way that they have done the classes in Star Wars revised. I think it does a good job of capturing star wars (can't really compare it to the older rpg).

I haven't ever really run through space combat in the system though, and I think it is one of the more difficult things to work, since you will generally have a few people who can work on a starship. One of those situations that is hard to roll play.

The biggest problem that I had with the Star Wars roll playing game was the way they treated some of the npcs. For example, one of my biggest beefs was the fact is was just as easy to kill a 1st level stormtrooper as it was to kill a 15th level stormtrooper. This was due to the fact that they made stormtroopers thugs (the NPC class) as opposed to soldiers. Of course this is due to how most people view stormtroopers (basically as cannonfodder to be rolled over). I have changed this a bit, because in my version of the world I want players to really consider attacking stormtrooper units. The reason the stormtroopers fall like wheat in the movies is because they are fighting the icon heros. But we all know that stormtroopers were the elite troops of the Empire. So basically I have switch the classes of the stormtrooper (soldier) and the Imperial Soldier (thug).

But playing through KotOR has gotten me interested in running my Star Wars game again. The one problem I really have with the Star Wars universe is it seems like every major storyline deals with people trying to get control of some (excuse the phrase use) weapon of mass destruction. There never seems to be some mundane lesser storyline.

I hope that with the success of KotOR that Bioware will make another game like this. Maybe place it during the clone war. I think that would be awesome.

Salcor

 

[Balsamic Dragon]

Hmm, I agree, and disagree with what you are saying here. I believe the difference between science fiction games and fantasy games is the amount of variety that is available. I do agree that in a modern+ setting that there are a large number of skills available to a character. Hell I have tried to make myself in a game and it is damn near impossible to do.

However, the feats allow for a lot of specialization that exists. You say that if a person can pilot a vehicle that they should be able to pilot anything. Well I am a helicopter pilot by trade, and I can asure you that if you took a jet pilot an put him in a helicopter without the proper training he has a high chance of killing himself.

Oh, I totally agree. But the Star Wars world is so very non-realistic

I haven't ever really run through space combat in the system though, and I think it is one of the more difficult things to work, since you will generally have a few people who can work on a starship. One of those situations that is hard to roll play.

I haven't really played with the starship combat rules either. I agree that piloting skill should be of primary importance though.

The biggest problem that I had with the Star Wars roll playing game was the way they treated some of the npcs. For example, one of my biggest beefs was the fact is was just as easy to kill a 1st level stormtrooper as it was to kill a 15th level stormtrooper. This was due to the fact that they made stormtroopers thugs (the NPC class) as opposed to soldiers. Of course this is due to how most people view stormtroopers (basically as cannonfodder to be rolled over). I have changed this a bit, because in my version of the world I want players to really consider attacking stormtrooper units. The reason the stormtroopers fall like wheat in the movies is because they are fighting the icon heros. But we all know that stormtroopers were the elite troops of the Empire. So basically I have switch the classes of the stormtrooper (soldier) and the Imperial Soldier (thug).

My take on Stormtroopers is this, and this is totally apocryphal. When the unit was first created (no clones here, remember) they were elite fighting forces. However, they used a lot of brainwashing techniques in training to get them to all operate in exactly the same way. This was useful, because a Stormtrooper could be moved around, and not have to go through retraining. Also, a unit of Stormtroopers always worked perfectly in sinc. They had trained for various situations, and they all used the same strategy. Unfortunately, there were two problems: first, as the Empire became more restrictive, Stormtroopers began having a problem with some of the orders they were given. There was some dissention in the ranks. The Empire decided to solve this by increasing the brainwashing techniques dramatically. The result, obedient, but kind of stupid (not quite lobotomized, but close) Stormtroopers. Also, the heros of the game did crazy, chaotic things. The Stormtroopers training is particularly ill-suited for dealing with such tactics. They are great in carrying out a specific plan, or dealing with a predictable threat, but they suck at initiative and creative thinking. They will continue to go "by the book" even as they all get killed.

Balsamic Dragon

 

[Henry]

...ne of my biggest beefs was the fact is was just as easy to kill a 1st level stormtrooper as it was to kill a 15th level stormtrooper. This was due to the fact that they made stormtroopers thugs (the NPC class) as opposed to soldiers. Of course this is due to how most people view stormtroopers (basically as cannonfodder to be rolled over)...

That's how George saw them, so that's how they are treated. Even the Rebellion soldiers on the Tantive IV (in Star Wars) stood a fair chance of knocking out a Stormtrooper or three before they were taken out.

Also, keep in mind that most Stormtroopers are the same guy, replicated after thirty years of cloning experiements. Chances are the quality of the Jango-Clones deteriorated over time, as well as inefficient training due to a need for billions of the suckers.

But playing through KotOR has gotten me interested in running my Star Wars game again.

Unfortunately, me too.

The one problem I really have with the Star Wars universe is it seems like every major storyline deals with people trying to get control of some (excuse the phrase use) weapon of mass destruction. There never seems to be some mundane lesser storyline.

I think the WEG Star Wars book put it best; Star Wars is Star Wars because the plotlines are so big and dramatic. In Star Wars, you don't blow up buildings; you blow up planets. You don't look for a minor official; you rescue the President of a world. The order of magnitude of the meta-struggle is one of the most important elements to making it Star Wars, instead of "Battle in the Stars."

IMHO, of course.

 

[Desdichado]

I think the WEG Star Wars book put it best; Star Wars is Star Wars because the plotlines are so big and dramatic. In Star Wars, you don't blow up buildings; you blow up planets. You don't look for a minor official; you rescue the President of a world. The order of magnitude of the meta-struggle is one of the most important elements to making it Star Wars, instead of "Battle in the Stars."

IMHO, of course.

Mine too, I agree with this completely. Not that the setting couldn't be fun done grim and gritty, but it wouldn't feel very Star Wars-like that way. And wasn't Battle of the Stars a really bad early 80s sci-fi remake of The Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven?