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Star Wars Roleplaying Game — Saga Edition
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a ... company called Wizards of the Coast abandoned Star Wars fans who enjoyed their tabletop roleplaying game to an awful fate: product death. The Star Wars d20 product line, which saw print from 2000 to late 2004, attempted to capture the epic adventure that is the Star Wars setting within a simple quantifiable ruleset. Unfortunately, the d20 rules (circa 2000) were far too clumsy to make the RPG 'feel' like Star Wars. Even a 2002 Revised Core Rules book did little to create an intuitive play experience. Now, in time for the setting's 30th anniversary, Wizards has released a brand new edition of the rules, marking a relaunch of the product line. Dubbed the 'Saga Edition', it has completely revamped the d20 rules to meet with demands for Star Warsyness. Read on for a review of the changes, which may finally bring the fun to the galaxy far, far away.
Star Wars Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, Saga Edition
author
Christopher Perkins, Owen K.C. Stephens, Rodney Thompson
pages
286
publisher
Wizards of the Coast
rating
9/10
reviewer
Zonk
ISBN
0786943564
summary
The newest edition of the Star Wars tabletop roleplaying game.
The first notable thing about the Saga edition of Star Wars d20? It is small. Instead of the normal 9 x 11 footprint of almost every other gaming book, Saga Edition looks more like a coffee table book, measuring a petite 9 x 9 inches. It's over 100 pages thinner than 2002's Revised Core Rules book, too. A few pages in, and it's obvious that the loss in size and thickness has not come at the price of production quality. The entire tome is full color glossy paper throughout. While there is quite a bit of art reused from previous products, there are also a number of notable original works peppering the pages. What's not there, to my relief, are the needlessly huge quotes from the movies. There are quotes, to be sure, but they're used sparingly. It is laid out to provide the maximum amount of information in the minimum space; a significant improvement over previous main books.The Revised Core Rules seemed to have a half-page-sized quote every three pages, turning most of its 400ish pages into wasted white space. Saga Edition is a tight, well crafted book.
That attention to detail extends to the rules as well, which may be the most refined version of the d20 mechanic yet released in an official Wizards product. Gone are the cumbersome concepts of Armor Class, Defense, Vitality points, and Saving Throws used by other products. The game takes a simple approach: every Star Wars character is a hero. As such, it's possible for every character to take part in every scene, to one degree or another. Character Level, then, becomes the tie that binds every other mechanic. Almost every d20 roll you'll be making is modified by your character's level; neurotically min/maxing every aspect of your character is no longer a requirement.
The difference, of course, is that your choice of class determines your character's specialties. Everyone can participate in the scene where the party flees from the Imperial Star Destroyer in a cargo ship. The star of the show, though, is the Scoundrel at the helm. Classes have been revamped to allow for several 'builds'. Seemingly taking a cue from Blizzard videogame titles, every class has a trio of talent trees. Talents accumulate from these trees as characters gain levels, allowing for my Scoundrel to be completely different from your Scoundrel. Further customization is encouraged by allowing free multi-classing. Prestige classes further this idea of customization by allowing access to novel talent trees, as well as mixing and matching talent trees from multiple base classes. The Officer, for example, allows access to trees from the Soldier and Noble classes.
The best part is, as far as I can tell, none of these classes are completely useless. The Noble, which had a poorly-understood role in previous editions, has become something of a social hacker/bard character. Smooth talking abilities and talents that improve the capabilities of her fellow characters combine into a highly effective support class. The designers have as much as admitted that these changes were prompted by the Jedi. Instead of tuning everything so that the Jedi beat everything else, the Jedi is the baseline all other classes were tuned to. Every character made under Saga Edition rules is going to be some kinda badass.
Badassery in combat is the focus of many class abilities, of course, and it's going to be easier than ever to convey that to players. Combat is dirt simple. There are very few ways to modify in-combat die rolls. The endless hunting for a +1 to hit here or a +2 to hit there will not longer be required. Even better, every character only gets a single attack per combat round, regardless of their level. High level D&D games are marked by endless dice rolling, as characters make a ludicrous number of attacks in a frighteningly short amount of time. And if you really want to attack more than once a round in Saga Edition, you can; you just take penalties for it, penalties more easily compensated for at higher levels.
An additional decrease in the fiddly-factor comes from skills. Instead of requiring you to track skill points, which must be slotted into a dizzying array of strangely over-specific disciplines, skills in Saga Edition are a binary state. Either you're trained or untrained in a skill. Thus, a skill roll looks like this: d20 + half your character's level + relevant ability score (strength for climbing, etc.) + 5 if you are trained. That's it. This mechanic, then, allows even the Princess Leia to fly the Falcon for a short while, or a merciless bounty hunter to sweet talk a taciturn guard; or, at least, it allows for the possibility of such a thing happening. There are far fewer skills as well, with specific uses outlined in the book. The skills Spot, Listen, and Search have all been combined into Perception, for example. This one skill also allows a character to ascertain an object's wealth (Appraise) and see through duplicity from another character (Sense Motive). Thus, with fewer skills to keep track of, players and GMs are encouraged to make heavier use of the few that still remain. Fun without the fuss is the order of the day.
The rules section that benefits most from these rule revamps is the vehicle combat section. Formerly an arcane labyrinth of edge cases and complex maneuvers, simple skill checks and combat tests now allow dogfights and space-based combat to drop neatly into the middle of a Saga Edition campaign. For example, ships are now functionally creatures; characters inside the ships alter die modifiers, and can act independently, but there is no longer a need to keep elaborate track of ship statistics as opposed to crew statistics. The two are now one and the same.
Though I've yet to have the chance to roll dice in a Saga Edition campaign, it's hard not to be impressed by the rule changes this book represents. Essentially the cutting edge of tabletop RPG rules, Saga Edition has the benefit of more than seven years of modern roleplaying design and dozens of gaming books to prove out ideas. The book was helmed by Chris Perkins, a Dungeons and Dragons R&D veteran, and it really shows. It's been a long time since I read through an RPG manual with such enthusiasm; the clarity and precision with which the designers have conveyed their ideas does nothing less than inspire excitement. Based on a tried and true mechanic, eschewing complexity for approachability, and integrating tightly with the miniatures game for even more simplicity, this may be the best product WotC has put out in years. While I'm not eager for a D&D 4th Edition, more products like this make such a concept seem much less repugnant. Highly recommended for tabletop playing Star Wars fans, and anyone interested in the future of d20 game design.
You can purchase Star Wars Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, Saga Edition from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
That attention to detail extends to the rules as well, which may be the most refined version of the d20 mechanic yet released in an official Wizards product. Gone are the cumbersome concepts of Armor Class, Defense, Vitality points, and Saving Throws used by other products. The game takes a simple approach: every Star Wars character is a hero. As such, it's possible for every character to take part in every scene, to one degree or another. Character Level, then, becomes the tie that binds every other mechanic. Almost every d20 roll you'll be making is modified by your character's level; neurotically min/maxing every aspect of your character is no longer a requirement.
The difference, of course, is that your choice of class determines your character's specialties. Everyone can participate in the scene where the party flees from the Imperial Star Destroyer in a cargo ship. The star of the show, though, is the Scoundrel at the helm. Classes have been revamped to allow for several 'builds'. Seemingly taking a cue from Blizzard videogame titles, every class has a trio of talent trees. Talents accumulate from these trees as characters gain levels, allowing for my Scoundrel to be completely different from your Scoundrel. Further customization is encouraged by allowing free multi-classing. Prestige classes further this idea of customization by allowing access to novel talent trees, as well as mixing and matching talent trees from multiple base classes. The Officer, for example, allows access to trees from the Soldier and Noble classes.
The best part is, as far as I can tell, none of these classes are completely useless. The Noble, which had a poorly-understood role in previous editions, has become something of a social hacker/bard character. Smooth talking abilities and talents that improve the capabilities of her fellow characters combine into a highly effective support class. The designers have as much as admitted that these changes were prompted by the Jedi. Instead of tuning everything so that the Jedi beat everything else, the Jedi is the baseline all other classes were tuned to. Every character made under Saga Edition rules is going to be some kinda badass.
Badassery in combat is the focus of many class abilities, of course, and it's going to be easier than ever to convey that to players. Combat is dirt simple. There are very few ways to modify in-combat die rolls. The endless hunting for a +1 to hit here or a +2 to hit there will not longer be required. Even better, every character only gets a single attack per combat round, regardless of their level. High level D&D games are marked by endless dice rolling, as characters make a ludicrous number of attacks in a frighteningly short amount of time. And if you really want to attack more than once a round in Saga Edition, you can; you just take penalties for it, penalties more easily compensated for at higher levels.
An additional decrease in the fiddly-factor comes from skills. Instead of requiring you to track skill points, which must be slotted into a dizzying array of strangely over-specific disciplines, skills in Saga Edition are a binary state. Either you're trained or untrained in a skill. Thus, a skill roll looks like this: d20 + half your character's level + relevant ability score (strength for climbing, etc.) + 5 if you are trained. That's it. This mechanic, then, allows even the Princess Leia to fly the Falcon for a short while, or a merciless bounty hunter to sweet talk a taciturn guard; or, at least, it allows for the possibility of such a thing happening. There are far fewer skills as well, with specific uses outlined in the book. The skills Spot, Listen, and Search have all been combined into Perception, for example. This one skill also allows a character to ascertain an object's wealth (Appraise) and see through duplicity from another character (Sense Motive). Thus, with fewer skills to keep track of, players and GMs are encouraged to make heavier use of the few that still remain. Fun without the fuss is the order of the day.
The rules section that benefits most from these rule revamps is the vehicle combat section. Formerly an arcane labyrinth of edge cases and complex maneuvers, simple skill checks and combat tests now allow dogfights and space-based combat to drop neatly into the middle of a Saga Edition campaign. For example, ships are now functionally creatures; characters inside the ships alter die modifiers, and can act independently, but there is no longer a need to keep elaborate track of ship statistics as opposed to crew statistics. The two are now one and the same.
Though I've yet to have the chance to roll dice in a Saga Edition campaign, it's hard not to be impressed by the rule changes this book represents. Essentially the cutting edge of tabletop RPG rules, Saga Edition has the benefit of more than seven years of modern roleplaying design and dozens of gaming books to prove out ideas. The book was helmed by Chris Perkins, a Dungeons and Dragons R&D veteran, and it really shows. It's been a long time since I read through an RPG manual with such enthusiasm; the clarity and precision with which the designers have conveyed their ideas does nothing less than inspire excitement. Based on a tried and true mechanic, eschewing complexity for approachability, and integrating tightly with the miniatures game for even more simplicity, this may be the best product WotC has put out in years. While I'm not eager for a D&D 4th Edition, more products like this make such a concept seem much less repugnant. Highly recommended for tabletop playing Star Wars fans, and anyone interested in the future of d20 game design.
You can purchase Star Wars Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, Saga Edition from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Blatant advertising. There's even a click-to-order link.
Is there a saving throw against hype?
Does a +10 charisma for small children give you an extra six trillion credits?
Can we actually slay George Lucas?
they can change those rules when they pry my level 10 Jar-Jar character sheet from my cold, dead mechanical hand.
I should hope not. The massive and unwieldy size of the 9x11 rule books stems from the inexpensive printing of such sizes. By printing on such large paper (usually in mono-color black and white) they can reduce the cost of both printing and binding. Just run the paper through the printer, staple, and fold.
Printing in smaller sizes is bound to be a sign of quality rather than the lack thereof. Especially if grayscale, color, or (*gasp*) glossy paper are used.
Now if someone could just rewrite the Starfire rules in a format that makes sense to those new to the game... *grumble* *grumble* (Yes, I spent some God-aweful amount of time trying to decode rules that were listed completely out of order, spread across two volume for no real reason other than to confuse you.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Instead of the normal 9 x 11 footprint of almost every other gaming book, Saga Edition looks more like a coffee table book, measuring a petite 9 x 9 inches.
Aren't "coffee table books" the really big ones? How is more petite more like a ctb?
You mean it starts out great, gets even better, then goes straight into the crapper?
The other day posters were complaining about the Sopranos not being 'news for nerds.'
Today they whine about this - Hey!
*slap*
D&D - Star Wars - this is what this site was built for!
Enjoy!
Capisce?
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Nothing signals success for a Star Wars RPG like a relaunch!
Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
If the book is as good as he boasts, it ought to do well.
Reminds me of KotOR in a way, with a WoW twist. Now if we could just get that adapted into a newer version of SWG, we might have something that people enjoy playing again. Otherwise, it's back to waiting for SWGemu to progress a bit further.
Did G.U.R.P.S. have a Star Wars version or am I remembering wrong?
501st Legion of Stormtroopers
OCO is Loco
neurotically min/maxing every aspect of your character is no longer a requirement.
It was a requirement before? The amount of fun you could have in a game was determined by how high a certain attribute was, as opposed to the interaction you had between the players and the GM? I guess if you measure success by "I can do more damage in less time than you, therefore my character is cooler and I win the game" it's a requirement...
The endless hunting for a +1 to hit here or a +2 to hit there will not longer be required.
See above. It doesn't matter if you can get a +1 for a flank attack or +2 because you're within 10' of the target. The dice really, honestly, seriously don't matter that much. Why undergo "endless hunting" to get a bonus to a roll? Just roll the die, see what happens, and take it from there. The GM's not out to get you, and if he is, he's a bad GM.
Thus, a skill roll looks like this: d20 + half your character's level + relevant ability score (strength for climbing, etc.) + 5 if you are trained. That's it.
"That's it," spoken like it's really simple. Simple in comparison to cross-referencing the results of four die rolls on six tables, sure, but that's still needlessly complex.
This is one thing that has always bemused me- how some people are so focused on the mechanics and gaming the system that they miss the fact that they're playing a game with friends. You're telling a story together, you're solving puzzles together, you're (get this) role-playing together. Yes, of course, there's no one way to play a RPG, who am I to tell people how to have fun in a game, but it seems all too often people misspell the first word in the abbreviation: it's role, not roll. Kudos to WOTC for making this "fun without fuss," at least.
Personally I think the d6 system that West End Games had for the original Star Wars RPG was close to perfect. It was simple, fun, and didn't get in the way of storytelling. Here's an article on the system: Star Wars role-playing game (WEG)
It was easy as a Game Master to assign difficulty numbers to actions and have the characters roll against them. The die rolling was fun (everyone loves lots of dice) and the wild die added an element of excitement to the roll. I once had a player roll the wild die 4 times! Everyone around the table was going crazy, especially since that roll saved their butts.
Advancement was easy and made sense, the skills system worked well, and the source material was amazing. The source material was so good that Lucasfilm considered it an authoritative source for Timothy Zahn when he was writing Thrawn Trilogy.
I have tried playing the Star Wars d20 system and I have come to the conclusion that there is no point in playing anything but the West End Games d6 version. They got it right the first time and there is really no reason to switch to the flavor of the week.
Sapere aude!
I've got a bad feeling about this.
I liked the West End Games version better. Too bad it's probably history since West End Games is gone (bought by Wizards of the Coast).
n g_game_(WEG)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_role-playi
Gorkman
Could these changes foreshadow the 4th edition of D&D?
My second edition Vampire: the Masquerade, thank you! Though I've been dying to get some experienced roleplayers together and give Call of Cthulhu (non d20!) a shot.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
I'm a little fuzzy on the reviewer's concern for balancing the Jedi class--as though they should be balanced with everyone else in combat. Jedi are badass in the previous d20 editions--but they pay for it in their skills, feats, and behavioral limitations. It doesn't make sense in terms of the game universe for them to be on anything resembling a level playing field in combat, but that's one of the reasons that good games are not just one combat after another.
Vehicle mechanics definitely needed help, though.
It's not like you had to do much re: crew stats before. You'd declare your action, make any relevant check, and move on.
Is the next edition of the rules just going to make it a free-form RPG?
(IANAL)
Actually one of my favorite parts of the system. It actually cost you something to use some of the badass Force powers or maneuvers, and managed to make the game still lethal for even a high-level character: even a Jedi lightsaber/weedwhacker could take a critical hit if he was unlucky.
Wasn't Saga the rules system TSR (or was it wizards by then) used for a revamp of Dragonlance back in the 90s? It used playing cards for it's randomness generator.
This vaguely excites me, if only because they've stripped the numbers down again and apparently made an effort at developing a game that's fun, instead of an exercise in spreadsheet manipulation. Unfortunately, I don't think it's likely to last, because mudflation, feature creep and rule proliferation is pretty much necessary to sell additional sourcebooks. Nobody wants to buy the Complete Book of Twi'leks unless it comes with rules (and illustrations) for Doing That Thing That You Do With Your Lekku.
But no matter how you slice it even after all these years D20 still blows. Silhouette, L5R, Shadow Run 3rd, (hell even paladium) are better systems.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If you want an authentic Star Wars feel, how about wiring yourself to a car battery and playing swordfight in the basement with F40 fluorescent shoplights?
If you can't play Star Wars without a chart to tell you if a heavy blaster kills you more than a light rifle, you've missed the entire point of roleplaying games.
The Story.
Don't get me wrong. I understand some people need structure in their gaming experiences, and sometimes GMs need structure to control the players. But you don't need to spend 30-50 bucks on a main book and a hundred dollars on More Books just to play Star Wars. When you were a kid, you probably did it with sticks and no dice at all.
Imagine watching d20 Star Wars on the big screen. Before Luke and Leia go for that famous swing, there'd be 10 minutes of measuring the distance of the swing, checking the working load on the cable, verifying the sturdiness of the pipes the grapple attached too, checking Luke's strength vs Leia's weight, and rolling constantly for the Stormtroopers trying to open the door.
At that point, I've stopped eating popcorn.
Write your own system. Throw out the charts. Tell stories. It's more fun, more memorable, and a heck of a lot cheaper.
If you like spending money, then take that 150 bucks and buy 10 indie games you've never heard of, and spend some time reading their systems and learning how to take a few rules a long way. Check out octaNe or Dust Devils or Shambles or any of a hundred others.
Money, and time, well spent.
http://downwithpants.org Overthrow the tyranny of your pants
I played a little bit of the original variant of the d20 Star Wars game, and I don't see how the ruleset bound it from not feeling enough like Star Wars. A good GM is never bound by the ruleset, and I feel that I played with a GM talented enough to make our sessions fun and exciting. In fact, the close similarity to 3E DnD was helpful as we weren't hampered by having to totally relearn a whole new system.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
The one thing the WEG version was missing was limits on using Jedi Powers. The ideal Star Wars, to me, combines the west end games version with Shadowrun. Fatigue for using special powers [...]
Since when do Jedi get tired from using the Force? That never happens in the movies, even when it looks like they're straining themselves doing something hard. The limits on Jedi powers seem to be more that of mental stumbling blocks than a reserve of stamina. Frankly, the idea of Jedi having limits on how often they can use their powers is quite contrary to the style and feel of Star Wars where Luke casually tosses mind-control around, and Qui-Gon throws droids around like he's playing a game of kick-the-can.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I think I can safely say this story cancels out yesterday's Soprano's article. All is well with the /. universe once again, carry on.
Currently bidding on sig
Wizards killed the Star Wars CCG, bastards...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
MOderate Parent as Bummer Dude.
And you're posting on Slashdot? Double fail hypocrite.
I'm looking forward to this. It looks to be very streamlined and more of a "one book" approach.
But, I really recommend the following change to and "D20" game:
Replace all D20 rolls with 2 D10s. It always bothered me that you had the same chance to hit yourself as do an amazing hit, no matter what your level was. Making it have an average allows the GM as well to get away with really good/really bad outcomes.
Of course, if you want easy role-playing, Witchcraft is by far the best that I have run across. The mechanics of the game take up all of about twenty pages, and 80% of each "page" is usually some sort of artwork or example(figure 2-3 pages, compressed).
Am I the only one who looks at modern role-playing game manuals and gets a headache? This obsession with four-color printing on every page needs to go. The stupid doo-dads around every page number and obnoxious icons do nothing to improve the readability of the book. They probably do, however, help to justify charging $30 for a book that tells you how to play a game. Give me a 1980s-era AD&D manual any day.
Breakfast served all day!
As a kid we used to play the 1st version of the RPG that must have been released back in the late 80s. It was far more a slick a production than all of the other RPG books out there (I probably played 10-15 in my life), had humor (Storm Trooper recruitment posters and astromech droid ads), and a very cool dodge-first combat system. Everything was driven from D6s as I remember and accounted for armor penetration (idiotically omitted from games like the Robotech RPGs).
My favorite feature of the games though was that it distilled Star Wars down to its crucial elements for GMs to follow:
1. The characters are as unimpressed with their own gadgets as you would be with a remote. A ship's capatain should never shake his fist at a target on a giant view screen and yell to his crew "Fire the proton torpedoes!".
2. Technology just works. Don't worry about silly rationalizations like you see in Star Trek (sorry fans). But, know the limits of the technology.
3. The world is black and white. Some people just haven't picked sides yet. Very Romantic (not the soap opera definition).
4. The banter between characters is so colloquial. No technobabble.
My one disappointment with the new SW movies was that they'd forgotten these elements.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I agree with you that rules shouldn't be the focus of play. The indie games are worth checking out. But I have significant doubts about the indie game crowd's focus on "story". Story is a rather high-level concept, something you don't necessarily see unless you step back from the experience of playing. The most satisfying moments I have experienced and witnessed in RPGs have been more immediate: the excitement of diving out the window just as the bomb goes off, the players huddled around the candle flame as some Thing stalks their characters through the abandoned house, the shock on his comrades' faces as the religious fanatic torches the planetary stabelizer as "evil technology".
Don't get me wrong: theme and plot and narrative and all that good stuff can certainly enhance the experience of playing, and it's certainly worth trying to do something else with the medium. But for most players I suspect the immediate experience matters more. The indie game designers seem to be aiming to produce Art - which is great; for them story may be what they really want to achieve. However, I think they get a bit too wrapped up in the narrative structure that's usually necessary in traditional forms that are experienced by an audience rather than participants.
I do take issue with your suggestion that structure is something used by GMs to control the players. Some have argued quite the opposite (players use rules to fend off GM fiat), while I think they're the framework that aids the GM so s/he can focus on the other creative aspects of play that rules cannot provide. If you can run a creative game off-the-cuff with little or support, you're a better GM than I - I'd love to play in your game sometime. It's quite ironic that you diss too much structure in one breath, then praise indie games in the next - because indie games (with their "system matters" rallying cry) often introduce carefully tailored structures and rules to support specific kinds of story (e.g. the excellent Dogs in the Vineyard). Often they narrow play far more dramatically than "traditional" games like D&D.
Personally, I find d20 way too complex; for me, Call of Cthulhu, with its minimal menu of rules, is far easier to run because it's far easier to wing it without worrying about the rules (it also helps that the players' position is unequal from the start, so there's no need for "balance"). Many of the indie games I have looked at are so focused that they don't easily support that kind of freedom or long term play. My impression - though there are some excellent counter examples (e.g. Shadow of Yesterday, the rules-heavy Burning Wheel) - is that many of the games most focused on "story" are weak when it comes to supporting open-ended campaigns that go in unexpected directions.
Wow, hi AJ! I thought for sure that the black screen at the end last Sunday meant that you and your whole family got whacked. I thought the hot underage girl and new car would have kept you happy longer, too...
I'd be a lot more excited if it weren't a level-based system; growth in "levels" was a fresh idea 30 years ago, but today there are better ways to handle character development. "No, you can't learn to swing this sword better without sacrificing a few wizard levels" makes zero sense. Point-buy systems are both more realistic and more fun, especially if you prefer a narrativist or simulationist outlook to a gamist approach.
I'm really not sure why anybody would write a level-based system these days, other than to fit the d20 branding. Would it be the end of the world if the new Star Wars game weren't d20-powered? If there's any brand that shouldn't need the d20 stamp to succeed as an RPG, Star Wars should be it.
Posters demanding to be modded a certain way should always be modded "-1, Self-Important Nitwit."
More like "Galaxy of Warcraft"
You are reading a sig. Cancel or allow?
I cut my teeth in role playing on the old West End Games Star Wars d6 system. I played the d20 and truth be told, spent the entire time missing the d6 system and material. I'd take the old standby d6 any day over what WotC put out. The real shame was not the original d20 version from Wizards meeting product death, but rather the West End Games version doing the same. I finally found all of the d6 material at a used bookstore and coughed up the cash to rescue it, so it couldn't be lost to me and my small collective of friends who miss the real classic Star Wars role playing experience.
Randimal: AT-CG-CG-AT-CG-AT-AT-CG-CG-AT-AT-CG-AT-CG-CG-AT-CG-AT-AT-CG-AT-CG-CG-AT-AT-CG-CG-AT-CG-AT-AT-CG
Every Time.
"Now I'm seriously serious!" - Serious Sam
Rules matter.
The rules tell you what the game is really about instead of what it claims to be about. A game might promise "exciting pulp action," but if the conflict system is highly lethal you're not going to see lots of exciting pulp moments in actual play. The heroes will either die quickly and pointlessly, or they'll become cautious. The very tone of the game is set by the rules.
The rules impact a player's success at fulfilling their vision for their character. To take Star Wars for example, say I want to be a great pilot. However, the rules set has enough complexity and tradeoffs that I accidentally build a decidedly sub-optimal pilot. As a result, another character, for whom "be a cool pilot" wasn't their goal but who is better at working the system, is the best pilot on the team and regularly outdoes you. That's no fun. Or maybe your vision is a dangerous Jedi, but poor choices in character generation mean a lone storm trooper is a major threat and a pair is insurmountable. Not terribly fun. Ultimately, having to resign yourself to being the hanger-on to the team because of lack of rules master isn't fun. A player should play a bumbler because they want to, not because they are forced to.
Now, a GM can fudge or outright ignore the dice to lead to more desirable results, but then why are you rolling? Your success and failure ends up having little to do with your preparation and design and is in the hands of the GM fiat. The resulting success is hollow.
A GM can modify the rules to try and improve things, but then you're playing a new game. If the rules need to be modified to make it better, surely the publisher should try to improve their source material so their customers don't need to do so. At the very least it will same countless GMs from wasting their time fiddling with the rules.
This is why the Star Wars overhaul is important. If it works, there should be fewer cases of PCs failing to meet expectations. The new tone of the rules says, "You're really cool all the time." The old set of rules said a bunch of things, including "You can be exceptionally cool in some ways if you've mastered the rules, but if you haven't you have a real chance of being just mediocre," and "You can be really cool in a few areas, but totally useless in others, or you can be unexceptional in a bunch of ways." Neither one of those seems to reinforce the pulp space-opera feel of Star Wars. The new rules help balance the playing field. A group of players, some of whom are love studying and using rules, and some who don't, have a more even chance of satisfying their visions for their characters.
Ultimately the focus on "role" play instead of "roll" play is the entire point of these changes. The resulting system, if the changes work, will encourage role-playing. If it works, it's a huge win for everyone.
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I'm not sure I see the improvement here...it still sounds like higher level characters will be making multiple attacks, with the "advantage" that lower level characters can do so too, if they want to. Why should the high-level folks be the only ones whose combats take hours to resolve?
I'm gonna stick with FATE, thanks.
I think we're splitting hairs on "The Story" versus "Immediate Experience". The examples you cite - diving out the window, huddling in fear, the inevitable betrayal - these are story elements. What made them satisfying moments? Was it rolling X on YdZ and consulting charts Alpha and Beta (considering effects from the Resistance table)? Or was it the imagery that was invoked, the players expressions, and the fact that it actually got your heart pumping for real?
.38 revolver does 1d6 damage but a .45 does 1d6+1? Getting shot in the chest with one is going to suck and it's going to knock you on your hinder. Sure, that +1 might make the difference between tripping the self destruct sequence and dying before you get to the button, but that's exactly the case where the framework has hindered the story.
I suspect is was the latter, and I suspect what you refer to as 'immediate experience' is the same thing I call 'the story'.
As for GMs using structure to control the players, I'll say this: If the players need anything to protect themselves from the GM, then the GM should be sacked. I know of what you speak, and I know the type of GM you refer to. I won't sit at the table with them, on either side. A GM's job is to let the players play and provide the landscape. Not use the players to tell the GM's story. It's usually what happens when a GM has a story he wants to tell and hasn't gotten to tell it in his own roleplaying. THe Players should tell the story. The GM should provide the setting.
And I say the the GM often needs structure to control the players, because experience shows that players will take everything they can get, and GENERALLY tend toward wanting bigger and better weapons. Sometimes you need a reason to be able to say "No, you can't have 200 tons of putty."
Framework should aid the GM, I agree, and let him focus on the creative aspects of the game. But the more complicated the framework, the more the GM has to memorize to provide off the cuff answers, or else your games turn into long sessions of looking in the index. The simpler a framework is, the less it can possibly get in the way, the less the GM has to memorize and explain, the less the players need to remember. How important is it, really, to be absolutely certain that a
I won't support any game, indie or mainstream, that puts their system ahead of the story and the players enjoyment and experience. I am not saying Indie is better just because it's Indie. Some Indie games are crap. At least you're not out a lot when you buy them. And no amount of money spent on books will make a game good. If you don't have the chops to make a good game out of a bad system, the best system in the world won't help you. And that's a fact. Systems don't make bad roleplaying games good, but people can turn bad systems into good roleplaying experiences. And once you go that far, it seems pointless to invest large money into books of charts for one system, when you can spend the same money and get 15 different ideas and settings to mine for material.
As for wanting to play in one of my games, if you ever make it to the bay area cons, I can point you to the games I run. The Computer is always looking for volunteers.
http://downwithpants.org Overthrow the tyranny of your pants
It's a trap!
The GM's not out to get you,
Or you are playing Paranoia.
God I loved that game. Especially since the GM and one of the players were brothers. The game usually involved a brotherly fight played out via the game dynamics.
Ah, and with the official "7 clone" adventures (you got 6 clones, but the adventure was designed to only be finished if you had 7 clones) you got to play new characters every game.
is the best system to run Star Wars in.
It catches the easy to remove Secondary characters A.K.A Mooks, and still makes for tough villains.
I hate it when the heros end up in a 1 hour fight with 4 stinking guards. It's not about the guards, it's about the story, the heros, the epic villains.
I want a game where the player is pretty good at the beginning, not after 2 years of play.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Do or Do not. There is no try.
If anyone remembered the old West End Games version of Star Wars. It was one of the best Pen and Paper games I've ever played, and I've played most of them...
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
Then why'd you post anonymous coward? Nothing like winning a magic tourney to make you feel like King of the Nerds.
Shoot yourself.
If you *really* wanted to run a campaign set in the Star Wars universe and you were willing to do a bit of work fleshing out some of the details then you could have used the HERO System to run your game and it would have been a hell of a lot better than WotC d20 Star Wars. I know that HERO is a bit complex, but it really works well in groups of older gamers (who have better than high school level of education) with previous experience in similar RPG type games. The problem with d20 and similar simplified systems is that they are bound by their simplification to pre-determined and templated campaign styles and this is fine IF you just want to run quick and casual games where the action moves quickly at the expense of some realism and details. However, serious players with more refined tastes will appreciate the greater flexibility and freedom afforded by the HERO system when the game becomes longer, more detailed, and more drawn out in scope.
what happened to -> to hit = (THAC0 - AC)
doesn't a rocket scientist to figure this one out
Wikipedia on The World's Easiest Role-Playing System
Hitting a d20 group that plays like that, I'm afraid. Its what all d20 brings to the surface. Even groups that claim to be "different" all suffer the same sort of min-maxery. The entire d20 line just needs to sink into oblivion and never surface again.
It might have some redeeming factors if they removed several key retardations of the Starwars universe... First, "drain" for using force powers... Dr. Weird has a word for that. Second, by the rules of d20 Starwars, the Emperor - despite his mass evilness and mastery of the darkside of the force - would be dead 1 year after the events in episode 1, at the LATEST.
If you want a social experience, play a game designed around socializing like Exalted or WOD revised from White Wolf.
That's the same reason I still think RuneQuest 2 (before Avalon Hill destroyed it with v3 and Mongoose took the worst parts of D&D and merged them with RQ to make v4) had the best pencil and paper RPG of any game I've played. Simple, elegant, and easy to understand and use, they facilitated roleplaying by their emphasis on acquisition of skills (through use). A newcomer to the game could jump in far more easily than in d20 or its predecessors. Plus, as a fantasy world, Glorantha was amazingly rich and varied.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
That seems to be a review of the rules of the game. Thanks.
:)
Where's the review of (what there is of) the setting info? Please just don't say 'Who needs it? It's Starwars!'
How about mentioning the index is godawful?
Back in the day, before the official WEG Star Wars RPG, there was Traveller. Very good game, very good ruleset. Part of the character creation process was giving your character a back-story. You couldn't "level up" the character after that, a fatal flaw of the rules, but the characters were able to hit the ground running.
I was involved with a group of people who had written up an entire Star Wars total conversion for the game. Jedi powers were an offshoot of Traveller's psionics, for example. The proof of just how good those games were that I still vividly remember some of the characters I created in the game. Good times, man. Good times.
This was in the early 1980s, well before the WEG games. When the WEG system was introduced in 1987, I sat down and read it. It made my brain hurt. The unnecessary complexity of the SW RPG system when you compared it to Traveller stood out like a sore thumb. Unfortunately this was the bellwether for the future of gaming. D20, GURPS...all of them. It's no accident that RPG gaming has shifted to online computer environments. Only the Guardians of Order Tri-Stat system bucked the trend of more and more complexity. Big Eyes, Small Mouth was a revelation. Sitting in on a BESM game made me remember just how fun paper-and-pencil gaming was.
Traveller is being relaunched as Traveller^5. They keep saying that the new system will premiere in June 2007. However, it's almost July 2007, and no big annoucements. However, later versions of Traveller like GURPS Traveller, MegaTraveller and "Mark Miller's Traveller" aka Traveller v.4 all were "added complexity" kind of systems. I hope that the new version strips things down and gets back to the basics. If not, I'll just take the old black books, graft on the skill improvement rules from Tri-Stat, and...well...hope to find some people who want to go kick some butt in a Galaxy far, far away.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
West End Games still exists. See http://westendgames.com
WotC did not buy WEG out. They just bought the Star Wars license after WEG lost it.
(The Wikipedia article had an poorly-worded sentence that could be interpreted your way. I just fixed it.)
My stupid web site
Furthermore the sourcebooks are of exceptionnal quality, and you can find them dirt cheap on ebay.
when it was a more open ended D6 system before wizards took over
I did plenty of roleplaying in university, but nowadays everybody is playing World of Warcraft, and the RPG market is shrinking.
But it may bounce back again in the future. I think it shrunk after the initial success of Magic the Gathering, but that success eventually brought the gaming hobby some mainstream attention, influx of new players, and I think some of those did eventually end up in the RPG hobby. Perhaps WoW will have a similar effect.
The original West End Games Star Wars RPG was lots of fun. It really felt like Star Wars, like space opera, and not like D&D in the wrong jacket.
" Thus, a skill roll looks like this: d20 + half your character's level + relevant ability score (strength for climbing, etc.) + 5 if you are trained. That's it."
If that's the case, why did my quick thumb-through the book at my local retailer turn up people with skills that have "plusses" such as "Negotiate +13"? Now I freely admit to not having read the skill use section, I just looked through it, but it seems what you say and what's in the book do not jive 100%... Of course, I could just be stoned; but there shouldn't be skill plusses if you get, as you say, +5 for skilled and +0 for not...
Maybe he doesn't have an account. For the longest time I didn't have an account because I posted once in a blue moon, so I just posted AC.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Try this site: http://www.gurpslabs.com/ You should be redirected to this site (mine) http://members.chello.nl/l.deckers3
Dark Lord Azagthoth
The Saga edition's a nice evolution, it's rather far from the cutting edge of anything. For the real cutting edge in tabletop roleplaying game design go here: http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/home.php
or here
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/