Finally figured out what I hate about Star Wars in RPGs

[Inu]

Re: Finally figured out what I hate about Star Wars in RPGs

 

Of course the logical result of fixing this is a game where a lethal weapon used by a skilled assailant will kill it's target.

 

That sounds like a desirable result until you want to have your PC's face a team of skilled opponents. And then have a third of them die outright when hit in the vitals by something fragmentary.

 

Gurps is infamous for the lethality of it's combat system, and I have found that the last iteration of the old World of Darkness (I think they called them the "second edition revised" rules) has some similar problems. They result in games where everybody talks alot more than they shoot. This was the desired result of both systems, but runs against the grain of Star Wars.

 

It's actually pretty hard to run a coherent plotline when everybody dies after every serious fight. Which is more or less why lightsaber duels result in damage rather than insti-death.

I'll repeat some advice I gave a long time ago in the Stargate rules thread: judicious use of a made-up limitation 'reduced penetration against combat luck' (-0) can see mooks being mowed down while PCs and major NPCs survive.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Finally figured out what I hate about Star Wars in RPGs

 

(One things: If you do use Hero, and damage, then lightsabres should do +1 stun, at least. I haven't seen ANYONE take a lightsabre hit and come back for more, even if the wound wasn't deadly or incapacitating - see Kenobi, Obi-Wan.)

D'Oh! I was going to mention this and forgot.Good catch. I've been giving energy weapons in my more realistic sci-fi games extra stun too, for a similar reason... Many years ago a game (Aftermath, IIRC) discussed the secondary damage from heat release into a body. Basically, the idea was this...if the attack is hot enough to vaporize flesh and cauterize wounds, then its hot enough that the area around the wound site will be flash cooked and have most of the water content instantly vaporized into steam. This translates, IMHO, into a LOT of stun.

Though why I even mention any sort of scientific explanation in a star wars thread befuddles me...

[keithcurtis]

Re: Finally figured out what I hate about Star Wars in RPGs

 

D'Oh! I was going to mention this and forgot.Good catch. I've been giving energy weapons in my more realistic sci-fi games extra stun too, for a similar reason... Many years ago a game (Aftermath, IIRC) discussed the secondary damage from heat release into a body. Basically, the idea was this...if the attack is hot enough to vaporize flesh and cauterize wounds, then its hot enough that the area around the wound site will be flash cooked and have most of the water content instantly vaporized into steam. This translates, IMHO, into a LOT of stun.

Though why I even mention any sort of scientific explanation in a star wars thread befuddles me...

That why I figure Qui-Gon must have been using the force like crazy in tPM. He's standing a few inches away from a heat source hot enough to melt several feet of blast door. Not even his clothes catch fire.

I don't think lightsabers emit all that much heat. I think they have more of a disintigration effect.

 

As for the kludging of adding damage for a better to-hit roll: I see the damage roll as complementary to the to-hit roll. Rolling low on the to-hit doesn't tell you how well you hit; the damage roll tells you how well you hit. The mechanic is already there; it just might not be immediately intuitive.

 

Keith "I ran out of funny things to say in here" Curtis

[Dauntless]

Re: Finally figured out what I hate about Star Wars in RPGs

 

I apologize for the thread hijacking but....

 

As for the kludging of adding damage for a better to-hit roll: I see the damage roll as complementary to the to-hit roll. Rolling low on the to-hit doesn't tell you how well you hit; the damage roll tells you how well you hit. The mechanic is already there; it just might not be immediately intuitive

 

I don't think damage should be complementary to the hit roll, I think it should be dependant on it (and theoretically, you could do it vice versa...how much damage you inflicted tells you how well and where you hit). If you think of the to-hit resolution and damage determination as complementary events, they are in effect independent from each other or rather, they simultaneously effect one another. However, damage should be a result of how squarely you hit something, where you hit something, and the inherent ability of the weapon to change the state of the object. In other words, damage is a function of how well you hit, and the inverse is true as well too (how well you hit is a function of how much damage you did). As long as you know one, you can determine the other since the inherent damage of the weapon is a constant.

 

Therefore a lightsaber is really no different from any other weapon in how damage is determined. It just seems like lightsabers have only 3 outcomes because the inherent capability of the lightsaber to change the state of an object is extreme. But a graze is a graze, whether its getting nicked by a cannonball or by a .22 (course, a nick in the eyeball could still be pretty damn painful, which is why location is important too).

[John T]

Re: Finally figured out what I hate about Star Wars in RPGs

 

My problem with gaming in the Star Wars universe is that the story has already been told. We all know that the universe will be saved. The important story is done. The end.

Pardon the expression, but "piffle". I've always told my SW players two things prior to any campaign that occurs in the same time period as eps 4-6:

1) It's a BIG galaxy, full of a LOT of important things that need doing, and

2) Forget the established storyline; this is MY campaign, NOT George Lucas'.

Balancing a game between Jedi and non Jedi can be difficult' date=' but it can be done. We played a d6 Star Wars game for years with a Jedi and the game never revolved around him and none of the players felt outclassed. Actually, the felt more outclassed by my PC than the Jedi.[/quote']Same here; I played a Jedi in a friend's campaign, and no one felt I was running the show by any means; if I had to pick ANYONE, it would've been the freighter captain. Nor have any of the games that I've run been dominated by the Jedi, if any.

 

Personal gaming philosophy/observation: no character, player, item or ability can break a game, only the GM.

 

YMMV, naturally.

 

John T

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Finally figured out what I hate about Star Wars in RPGs

 

I have to agree that there aren't only 3 possibilities. I haven't seen Sith yet, but in Phantom Menace, Dooku scars Obi-Wan on the legs and arm before a last second block from Anakin saves Obi-Wan from the Coup de Grace.

 

However, this does highlight one of the things I'm grappling with in my own game design. I've always felt that damage should be based on two factors, the lethality of the weapon and how well you hit. A Lightsaber is obviously an extremely lethal weapon, but if you just get grazed by it, so what? I've always hated the fact that it's possible in most game systems to just barely hit and then do the maximum amount of damage possible, or conversely, to roll extremely well to hit (but not quite a critical hit) and then roll almost all 1's for damage.

 

Other than implementing some funky house rules, I don't think there's an elegant way to do this in the regular Hero rules though.

 

 

 

Actually, when I use Hit Locations, my house rule is you can "push" the hit location around by the margin of how much you hit by.

 

So say your hit location is Hand, but you made the roll by 5 -- you could push the hit location up or down by 5 points to a location of your choice. The location based multiples do the rest.

[Brother Jim]

Re: Finally figured out what I hate about Star Wars in RPGs

 

Actually, when I use Hit Locations, my house rule is you can "push" the hit location around by the margin of how much you hit by.

 

So say your hit location is Hand, but you made the roll by 5 -- you could push the hit location up or down by 5 points to a location of your choice. The location based multiples do the rest.

 

 

that is NEATO !!!!!!!

 

thanks, i'm gonna hafta borrow that if i can get people to play(and i get another car----immobility sucks like a vaccuum).

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Finally figured out what I hate about Star Wars in RPGs

 

that is NEATO !!!!!!!

 

thanks, i'm gonna hafta borrow that if i can get people to play(and i get another car----immobility sucks like a vaccuum).

Where do all these San Diego based HERO's players keep coming from? There's a ton of us!

[Kyle A.]

Re: Finally figured out what I hate about Star Wars in RPGs

 

Where do all these San Diego based HERO's players keep coming from? There's a ton of us!

 

I'd assume San Diego.

[Captain Pants]

Re: Finally figured out what I hate about Star Wars in RPGs

 

I posted this in another thread, but it seems more relevant here, so here's the part that might be of interest:

 

I found it challenging to create a Sith villain who could take on large packs of Jedi Knights and survive without getting obscene. Using the rules as they are, and assuming lightsabers will kill you with one hit, a defender had better abort to a dodge or block if he's being attacked. If a Jedi attacks first, or there are several Jedi attacking, a lone Sith spends all his time blocking or dodging and can't get a shot in edgewise unless he wants to abruptly die. The only way he can attack is if you jack up his SPD, which seemed like cheating to me.

 

What I wound up doing was giving them a Force Field, Requires a Skill Roll, along with a linked Damage Shield equivalent to their saber damage. Sabers were built as 4d6 HKA, NND, Does Body, not vs. Lightsabers or Force Fields. I made the Skill Roll a new skill called "Sword Mastery," which was subject to skill vs. skill. Jedi could also take this FF/Dmg Shield for the same effect, so it came down to skill vs. skill rolls, which I could easily jack up on the Sith without going overboard.

 

- Captain Pants

[Starwolf]

Re: Finally figured out what I hate about Star Wars in RPGs

 

Caution *** Revenge of the Sith Spoiler ***

 

 

 

 

 

I think a large part of wether a Jedi would over shadow other characters comes from the Jedi battle philosophy. For the most part Jedi seem to refrain from using ranged weapons. They are almost always engaging in HTH combat. This is reflected in RoS when Obi Wan uses the force to retrieve a blaster after loosing his light saber, and then makes a distasteful face and says "barbaric".

[Old Man]

Re: Finally figured out what I hate about Star Wars in RPGs

 

Actually, when I use Hit Locations, my house rule is you can "push" the hit location around by the margin of how much you hit by.

 

So say your hit location is Hand, but you made the roll by 5 -- you could push the hit location up or down by 5 points to a location of your choice. The location based multiples do the rest.

 

That sounds really cool, but with guts and vitals sitting right in the middle of the chart, could be too lethal for some.

[Tom Carman]

Re: Finally figured out what I hate about Star Wars in RPGs

 

That sounds really cool' date=' but with guts and vitals sitting right in the middle of the chart, could be too lethal for some.[/quote']

A more restricted version might work: make by 1, can shift location by 1; make by 3, can shift by 2; make roll by 5, shift hit location by 3.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Finally figured out what I hate about Star Wars in RPGs

 

I disagree. Anything that does a massive enough amount of damage will have those effects--that which you hit will be destroyed (which would give the result that you mention). Still, in theory, somebody like Superman could probably resist such a weapon.

 

And lets look at your contention: Lightsabers have one of 3 possible effects against a human sized foe. Death. Limb removal (which comes without any actual damage, since the limbs are removed cleanly and bloodless every time). Miss.

 

Please explain a scene from the movies. . . . Near the end of Attack of the Clones, when Anakin, and Obi-wan face Dooku (right before Yoda comes in), Dooku fights Obi-wan with his lightsaber. He hits him in the arm and leg (if memory serves).

 

Are you saying:

(a) that Dooku actually missed Obi-wan?

( That Dooku removed Obi-wan's limbs?

or © that Dooku killed Obi-wan?

 

It must have been one of those, because there can only be 3 outcomes--right?

 

All of the examples where none of these three took place were against Jedi. I'd say that Jedi 'magic' is in play here. It could be power defence of some kind and it could be some other instant heal or equivalent that means there is a lesser effect.

 

I'm not saying that I completely agree with the original proposal but I don't think that showing effects on Jedi are a ggod way to go about disproving it.

 

Personally I'm inclined to give light sabres damage for non-jedi using them but they would essentially be just a focus for jedi powers for any Jedi user - they wouldn't utilise the damage that the weapon provides but focus their force use through it...

 

Doc