Star Wars WEG D6 - The Force Point - "Is it a good thing?"

[Peter BOSCO'S]

I mean, we mostly played Star Wars in our lower teens, and it's possible the GM was a bit stingy with dramatic opportunities. But I remember it feeling like it was really hard to start climbing the force point ladder, and that it was much easier to fall down (as spending a force point to save your butt was "unheroic").

The way around that is to only spend force points to save the other characters butts. When Luke and Leia were running from the DeathStar Stormtroopers they didn't spend their Force Points to save themselves, they spent them to save each other, which is heroic, so their GM gave them back at the end of the session. Then the next session Han used a Force Point to take out Vader from behind to save Luke, and then Luke used one again to shoot the thermal exhaust port to save the Galaxy from the Death Star, not
to save himself. Therefore they both got those back too, maybe with an extra.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think I would say, dramatic moments do not need to be pre-scripted by the GM. They can arise spontaneously during play. Most obviously, X will certainly die unless Y saves them is always dramatic.

Often, what make a moment "dramatic" is not what the player does, but the way in which they do it.

GM: "Your friend is about to be overwhelmed by enemies."

Player: "I rush to their aid." is not dramatic.

Player: "I jump on a shield and slide down the steps, shooting as I go" is dramatic.

SW D6 is supposed to be a pulp action adventure take on the IP. It's not grounded like Traveller or even SW D20. The metacurrency is intended to reward pulpy stupid and reckless actions (remember this is an old game, more modern metacurrency games are more explicit about this). Players are not supposed to be cautious and pragmatic. In Star Wars, those are the guys the heroes ignore.

 

[dbm]

It sounds to me that you players have a fundamental disconnect with the type of game you are trying to run. I can understand your group’s desire to ‘win every encounter’ however that can result in a really unsatisfying experience for some kinds of games.

In my personal experience, systems like D&D tend to promote the desire to win every encounter since it provides few tools for reversal of luck, and in a combat heavy / options limited environment like a classic dungeon there can seem like only a few routes to success. So there is a lot of pressure to push through encounters, which in turn puts pressure in the GM to only provide encounters which are winnable, and a vicious circle can form which re-enforces that behaviour. Lots of people have this ingrained assumption and apply it to all games they play.

Contrast that to systems like Fate where you primarily earn meta currency by experiencing set backs, and the concession mechanic rewards players for choosing to fail an encounter while giving them a degree of agency in how that failure plays out. The system is much more supporting of the dramatic beats you see in stories like Star Wars.

While WEG Star Wars has Force Points from memory it doesn’t have strong mechanics to support the ‘pulp action’ story beats of failure and reversal of fate. So, if you want to keep running it as-is, I think you need to have a conversation with your players about the style of game you are trying to run, and how failing in a task will actually result in more enjoyable adventure overall as the group experiences difficulties and eventually overcomes them. Explain the type of game experience you are trying to deliver and see if they can get onboard with it.

Or switch to a system which provides tools to mechanically reward the kind of play you want the game to feature, since games tend to promote the action they reward.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The players aren’t earning Force points because they are not trying to earn force points. Clearly the players do not find the reward worthwhile.

Possibly introduce an element of competition: the player with the most Force points is the winner?

 

[aramis erak]

I'm not very familiar with Burning Wheel, but I am familiar with Mouseguard. The metacurrencies in Mouseguard are really quite weak and are as you say there to mitigate somewhat against the odds being stacked against the player. I'm not really a fan of Luke Crane as a designer, but in this case the real issue is just how very different the metacurrencies are in the two games and not just how much I quibble with the need for three different currencies or how much I dislike systems that stack the odds against the player heavily.

In general though, one "solution" would be to make force points weaker and more common. But I'm not sure that fits with Star Wars, where heroes do big heroic things.

MG has three metacurrencies, only two of which are shared with BW/Burning Empires, which also have 3.

MG has Fate and Persona, and checks. Fate open-ends 6's, persona is used prior to rolling to add a die. Advancement is based upon successes and failures. Checks are used to get player turns in the Player phase. Fate can make a difference for advancement, by turning a failure to a success, which is often advantageous for advancement.

BW has Fate and Persona, and Deeds. Collectively, they're "artha"... skipping how you earn them...
BW Fate: open end your 6's, or negate a superficial wound penalty on a roll.
BW Persona: Add a die before rolling (max 3), counter a time complication, Negate a light wound's penalty, make a roll to recover from mortal wound, not die when otherwise you would.
BW Deeds: double dice pool before rolling, or reroll non-successes after rolling
Lots more stuff to do with it.
But BW also doesn't count successes and failures on tasks for advancement; it counts relative difficulty excluding artha-gained dice. And only excluding artha. And you need to do tests you cannot pass without artha to go above level 4 in a skill.

Burning Empires is pretty much identical in artha to Burning Wheel itself. I've run and played both, and Mouse Guard.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

West End Games, with Greg Costikyan, Bill Slavicsek, and Greg Gorden were really ahead of their time when it came to narrative mechanics in mainstream RPGs. Star Wars has some of it, but look at TORG: Possibilities letting you boost rolls, Drama cards that not only give bonuses to various things but can also add sub-plots to the game, adventures divided into acts and scenes, and different genre conventions enforced as you move from one invading realm to another.

I was also thinking of Torg when I wrote my post. Torg also had the initiative deck with the drama and the standard scene side. The deck would be drawn to determine which side would act first and hand out bonuses or penalties, stuff like setbacks (suffer some stun damage or maybe an equipment malfunction or something like that), ups (granting you basically improved die rolls), approved actions (IIRC if you used skills from the approved list, you got some benefit, was it a new drama card maybe?). And the drama side was always in favor of the villains, so you need to spend your drama cards and possibilities and maybe switch tactics to favor the currently approved action to hopefully get some benefit for later.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

For the last four or five adventures, the BBEG's do have Dark Side points they use to counter force point use. This only partially mitigates against the problem.

Yeah, I've never liked that sort of solution -- especially when the GM has to make the decision as to which players' actions to negate. I prefer a solution that is a blanket effect as feeling a lot more fair feeling. Hence my thought that I'd probably house rule that certain BBEGs just reduce the effect of all Force Points used against them. It seems less confrontational than "aha, I have decided to use my win button to negate your win button".

 

[Celebrim]

Yeah, I've never liked that sort of solution -- especially when the GM has to make the decision as to which players' actions to negate. I prefer a solution that is a blanket effect as feeling a lot more fair feeling. Hence my thought that I'd probably house rule that certain BBEGs just reduce the effect of all Force Points used against them. It seems less confrontational than "aha, I have decided to use my win button to negate your win button".

It's an interesting thought, but if I have to take away the force point at exactly the time it's supposed to be useful, it feels like it is answering my original question in the negative. Which again, is very similar to the problem of "I have decided to use my win button to negate your win button". The question becomes, "Are win buttons good for the game at all?"

Sorta. At the moment, it's a mixed bag.

Still, I like the novelty and creativity of your proposal.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'd say it depends on how "winny" the win-buttons are. I enjoy having some sort of game resources that gives me an advantage, but auto-win can be boring. Ideally, the outcome of an important situation should always be a series of decisions, involving when to use valuable resources for the most effect. In some games, that can be something like spells or powers, in other games it might be something like force points that just make you better at things you already do.

Not everone likes that, but I feel most games have this to some extent. Even if it's the arrows you still have left and the healing potions you still have, or the actions you have during your turn, making you decide when you should use them and for what (or deliberately avoid getting into a situation where you might need them.)

The win-button negation can be kinda frustrating, and maybe it's a hint your win-button is too winny?

 

[Celebrim]

The win-button negation can be kinda frustrating, and maybe it's a hint your win-button is too winny?

Well, it's not my win-button.

In essence I'm talking about how differently games play when you play them for 20 hours or 40 hours compared to 200 or 400 hours.

What seemed cool at first seems trite more often than not now. And while I'm not planning to mid-campaign rewrite or take away the force point, I am now exploring whether they are alternatives.