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RamrodTheWizard
2007-06-11, 06:30 PM
Hey, i just borrowed the revised d20 starwars rules and i would like critiques or comments on the system.

Matthew
2007-06-11, 08:21 PM
Uh, which one? Saga Edition? If not, I hear Jedi are very unbalanced in previous D20 Editions...

LeeMon
2007-06-11, 08:50 PM
There's the Revised Core Rulebook which is (I believe) a few years old, and the new Saga Edition which is a week old. :)

You'll know the Saga Edition when you see it: it's square and has Vader on the cover.

There's another thread on Saga Edition already. I've read through it once, and my five-second review is: It cuts down on at least half the paperwork of d20 while still making things just as much fun, and retaining virtually all of the power and versatility.

RamrodTheWizard
2007-06-13, 05:18 PM
I was asking about the revised edition, it looks promising, but is missing fluff about episode three.

PhallicWarrior
2007-06-13, 05:28 PM
Wotc has an Ep III guide with stats for chars ships and droids from it, though some of the rule bits are useless without the hero's guide or power of the jedi sourcebook.

TheGreatJabu
2007-06-13, 05:42 PM
Personally I was always a big fan of Revised Star Wars d20. I loved Vitality Points/Wound Points, but I hear that is a common complaint amongst others. Generally people found that, when crossing lightsabres, the battle was all a matter of "whoever crits first, wins". This is most definitely true. However, I always considered this acceptable because hey - if someone as skilled as you is swinging a lightsabre in your face, somebody is going to die in a horrible manner. I usually got around this by doing my best to, as I called it, "never play the Jedi's game". Don't try to go toe-to-toe with a Jedi - you've pretty much got to fight dirty. If you can stay far away, great - but good luck with that when they take Burst of Speed.

You can die just as easily from a crit when fighting anyone else, but wearing good armor and dropping 1 feat in Toughness REALLY pays off. Personally, I liked the fact that a crit could pretty much put you out of commission. I always liked the feel, the idea that your character IS mortal and has to face death in each battle.

As for class balance, yeah, the Jedi were a pretty decent bit better than anyone else. Their weakness lied in having few skills. Unfortunately, a few of the other classes that COULD have shined in those fields did not. Core Nobles and Core Tech Specialists were not particularly awe-inspiring. There've been official variants created to offset a few of the shortcomings of some classes, though.

Vehicle and starship combat is pretty cumbersome. It's realistic, but cumbersome. When my players were in a situation like that, I'd use the rules as a guideline but generally wing it to keep things going at an exciting pace.

All in all, I think that Star Wars d20 is a VERY fun game. I still like the new edition, Sagas, a little better, but both are good game mechanics that have exciting gameplay.

TheThan
2007-06-13, 07:33 PM
Jabu summed up Revised Edition pretty well.

Personally I HATE the way the force works. In starwars The Force is the magic of the universe, so to that effect they should have put in a system that resembles magic powers. I’m not talking about scribing everything down in a spell book, but the powers themselves should act like spells (or better yet Psionic powers!), not skills, that makes no sense to me.

I only hope they replaced the system in Saga edition.

And yes, Revised doesn't have anything from episode III, because it was printed before the movie was out.
You can find the Revenge of the Sith stuff here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/rules




Uh, which one? Saga Edition? If not, I hear Jedi are very unbalanced in previous D20 Editions...

I just realized I hate the name “saga edition”, why on earth couldn’t they have just called it “starwars D20 version 2.0”, I mean that would cut down on confusion.

Misplaced_Jedi
2007-06-13, 09:33 PM
I just realized I hate the name “saga edition”, why on earth couldn’t they have just called it “starwars D20 version 2.0”, I mean that would cut down on confusion.

They were attempting to capitalize on this edition being the first Star Wars RPG to be released since the release of Ep III. With the story being complete (EU excepted) and the ability to play in any of the film eras with far fewer information gaps they went with "Saga Edition". Maybe the next one will be the "Revised Saga Edition" or "Advanced Saga Edition".

SpiderBrigade
2007-06-13, 10:09 PM
Special Digitally Remastered Saga Edition.

Dan_Hemmens
2007-06-14, 10:49 AM
Jabu summed up Revised Edition pretty well.

Personally I HATE the way the force works. In starwars The Force is the magic of the universe, so to that effect they should have put in a system that resembles magic powers. I’m not talking about scribing everything down in a spell book, but the powers themselves should act like spells (or better yet Psionic powers!), not skills, that makes no sense to me.


So you don't like the way the Force worked in D20 Star Wars, because it doesn't work enough like D&D magic?

Because you wouldn't want it to work like, I don't know, the films, or anything.

On the game itself:

This quote comes from a review of the game I found on the intarweb, and sums up my issues with the system:

"Remember that scene in Episode IV where Luke and Leia are being chased by stormtroopers, and they come to a chasm, and so Luke shoots a grappling hook across it, and graps Leia around the waist, and they swing out over the pit, and he loses his grip and they fall to their deaths? No, neither do I."

Ultimately, Star Wars D20 is D&D in space. It sucks at actually reproducing the feel of the movies. It's like Star Wars Monopoly. Sure you've changed the names of the locations, but you're still moving around a circular board buying up property.

TheGreatJabu
2007-06-14, 12:17 PM
So you don't like the way the Force worked in D20 Star Wars, because it doesn't work enough like D&D magic?

Because you wouldn't want it to work like, I don't know, the films, or anything.

Ultimately, Star Wars D20 is D&D in space. It sucks at actually reproducing the feel of the movies. It's like Star Wars Monopoly. Sure you've changed the names of the locations, but you're still moving around a circular board buying up property.

There's a problem inherent to making ANY game that replicates the feel of a movie. In a movie, the good guys almost always

1. Avoid being hurt in a severe or permanent fashion
2. Succeed at the dramatically appropriate moment
3. Defeat the bad guys
4. Avoid being embarassed by failing at something in front of witnesses

The things that make a good movie hero are pretty much by default beyond the reach of realism. On my list above, the only SINGLE instance of any of those occuring was when Luke had his hand lopped off by Vader.

If you make a game where you never are badly injured, you always succeed, the bad guys are always bested, and you have never experienced a humbling moment, it's not going to be fun. It's like turning the cheats on in a video game - you enjoy a brief "Woohoo" factor and quickly get bored. The Star Wars game isn't designed to perfectly replicate the movies. It's designed to let you feel like you're playing in the same universe as Star Wars.

TheThan
2007-06-14, 07:10 PM
I don’t want DnD in space. I want starwars. However the rules for the force in my honest opinion are bad, just bad. I put a summation of the starwars “force skill” system in the spoiler below. But just as Jabu said, its not a matter of being the heroes IN A MOVIE its about feeling like you’re a character in the same universe as those heroes in that movie. It’s the same reason why there’s a Babylon 5 rpg, and a Serenity RPG, people want to role play characters in those universes.



You have to invest skill points for each force skill to stand a chance of being remotely decent at it. Which takes away from your other important skills. This makes certain character concepts very difficult to pull off. For example if you wanted to play a force user with a large variety of mundane skills, you won’t be able to pull it off (even with the 6+int skills you get for being a Jedi counselor).
Force skills drain your vitality points, which can easily kill you. So the Emperor couldn’t shoot lightening out of his finger tips for as long as he does, otherwise he’d simply drop dead from exhaustion while trying to kill Luke, (unless he had crap loads of health). Plus there are several abilities that should be powers (force run for example) but are instead designed as feats. To this day, that baffles me.

Not to mention the shear and total headache the system causes when one tries to multi-class, particularly if you’re starting a higher level game and you’re character has two or even three classes prior to the start of the game.

All and all the force system could use a significant overhaul, to make it easier to use, worthwhile and generally better.

The psionics system particularly solves all of these problems. You spend points to activate your powers. Subtract x points from your PP pool, your power goes off, roll appropriate dice, then the result. There end of story. When you’re out of PP for the day, you rest and in the morning you’re back at full strength. Now You only really need about 25 powers to emulate the Force, that’ll cuts down on a significant amount of page turning.

And yes, I’m working on a psionic to Force conversion. But I had to put it on hold until I get a copy of Saga edition.


Now if you don’t like the D20 starwars version that’s fine, you don’t have to, nobody is forcing you to like it or even play it. There is always the West End Games version, which incidentally a lot of people like better.

Dan_Hemmens
2007-06-15, 04:58 AM
There's a problem inherent to making ANY game that replicates the feel of a movie. In a movie, the good guys almost always

1. Avoid being hurt in a severe or permanent fashion
2. Succeed at the dramatically appropriate moment
3. Defeat the bad guys
4. Avoid being embarassed by failing at something in front of witnesses

The things that make a good movie hero are pretty much by default beyond the reach of realism. On my list above, the only SINGLE instance of any of those occuring was when Luke had his hand lopped off by Vader.

Exactly, and those are *all* things which I hate having happen to me in an RPG *anyway*.

I understand that, to somebody who primarily plays D&D this is going to be an enormous leap, but for me precisely *none* of the things on that list are integral parts of a roleplaying game. When I play an RPG I do not *want* the PCs to die, I do not even want them to fail. I want them to succeed, and to succeed marvellously. I want characters in my Star Wars game to do the kinds of things that people do in the Star Wars saga. I don't want them to stand there making Full Attacks with Lightsabers.


If you make a game where you never are badly injured, you always succeed, the bad guys are always bested, and you have never experienced a humbling moment, it's not going to be fun. It's like turning the cheats on in a video game - you enjoy a brief "Woohoo" factor and quickly get bored.

It's not like turning on the cheats in a video game, it's like playing a video game in which keeping your avatar "alive" is not the point of the game. Like The Longest Journey or Second Life.


The Star Wars game isn't designed to perfectly replicate the movies. It's designed to let you feel like you're playing in the same universe as Star Wars.

It's designed to let you feel like you're playing D&D in the same universe as Star Wars.

Or, less sarcastically, it's designed to let you feel like you're playing an RPG in the same universe as Star Wars, but it comes with a bunch of D&D-based preconceptions about what an RPG has to involve (tactical combat, variable weapon damage, risk of PC death as primary motivating and strategic consideration). It is perfectly possible to play an RPG in which "how do you complete this mission without dying" is not the point of the game.

Counterspin
2007-06-15, 12:09 PM
Dan - But as you move away from the tactical roots of gaming, particularly in a setting which is already well know by it's target audience, there's less and less to market. Once you get down to no system at all, there's nothing to sell to the consumer other than setting books, and if the audience is already very familiar with the setting, or if there's a bunch of books that already do that, there's not much to sell.

Systems certainly do effect the experience of a setting. The designers of Saga tried to modify the combat system to more closely resemble the movie, but you're right, it still has strong tactical roots, with their attendant risks of death.

It's certainly cool to remove tactics as part of the experience, though I don't personally find that one conflicts with the other, but again, once you strip out the crunch, particularly with such a well known setting, it's unclear what you would sell to the consumer, exactly.

TheGreatJabu
2007-06-15, 01:03 PM
I see your point, Dan. It really does just break down to what each individual likes and dislikes in their game. And I agree that pretty much any of the d20-based games that I've read of thus far do follow the same guidelines. It hurts the imagination to say things like "No, you can't walk 10 feet, shoot, then walk another 10 feet - you don't have the proper Feat". Some things about the rules seem good, and other things seem completely ridiculous. I guess it's just the price I'm willing to pay to be able to play the way I want.

My personal preference is the whole "Rising Star" type-cliché. Your character starts out as being pretty uninspiring. As I keep playing, if I stay alive, my character keeps getting better and better until he CAN do those incredible things that we see in the movies. I like being able to watch my character's growth, and to see that each of those battles and encounters he/she has been through improved them in some way. That's why I infrequently join games that start at levels higher than 5 or 6.

Still, that doesn't change the fact that the d20 system can feel very Stop-Go in the middle of what should be a dramatic clash. Like TheThan said, it's been improved upon in Sagas, but the action can still be a little choppy since you have to take turns in combat.

TheThan
2007-06-15, 02:36 PM
Exactly, and those are *all* things which I hate having happen to me in an RPG *anyway*.

I understand that, to somebody who primarily plays D&D this is going to be an enormous leap, but for me precisely *none* of the things on that list are integral parts of a roleplaying game. When I play an RPG I do not *want* the PCs to die, I do not even want them to fail. I want them to succeed, and to succeed marvellously. I want characters in my Star Wars game to do the kinds of things that people do in the Star Wars saga. I don't want them to stand there making Full Attacks with Lightsabers.

But Luke did fail. He failed his test at the cave on Dagobah and he failed to defeat Vader in Empire Strikes Back, which cost him his hand. Eventually yes he did succeed but he had to go through some failures first. The end of Return of the Jedi would not have been that dramatic if Luke defeated Vader on Bespin and never found out that he was Luke’s father. Rpgs are about character growth as much as they are about combat and killing bad guys. Luke grew in character and in power in the course of the original trilogy. Luke from Return of the Jedi is a greatly different person from the kid we meet in A New Hope. If he always succeeded and never suffered hardship and setbacks, well then he would still be the exuberant, passionate kid we met in A New Hope instead of the confident and mature Jedi Knight we see in Return of the Jedi. He would not have learned, or grown as a character.

These set backs, when placed into an RPG enhance the end result when the final bad guy is defeated. They are obstacles to be defeated by the heroes. If heroes always succeeded and never encounter such an obstacle or set back, then the ending of the game wouldn’t be nearly as sweet as it would be if the heroes earned their victories.

It’s like beating a video game on hard mode. Sure you may already know the ending, but it’s a much sweeter victory when you beat it on hard mode as opposed to easy mode. Because you know, it was hard. Now if the characters in Starwars were never challenged, then the movies wouldn’t be nearly as awesome as they are.

prufock
2007-06-15, 09:40 PM
I really like d20 Star Wars. There will be some reasonable house ruling (hit points instead of wound/vitality points, for instance). I have no problem with the feel of the system, the force skill checks, the tactical combat, or most of the other things mentioned by others in this thread. I find that "feel" depends largely on the group you're playing with, particularly the DM. Force skill checks are fine - even the experienced heroes in the movies don't succeed all the time.

We swapped out vp/wp for hit points, limited some of the force powers (such as the amount of points you can heal per day), and some other house rules. Are Jedi overpowered? Sort of. But we even did away with ALL VP costs for using force skills and ADDED some features (like jump bonuses) to the jedi classes, and we haven't really found them unbalanced. The most unbalanced thing in the game, in my opinion, is Force Mastery. Of course, this may be due to the type of groups with whom I've played.

Godna
2007-06-16, 07:24 AM
Why not just rip of the system used by the Knights of the Old Republic games they worked pretty well for running force powers.

Dan_Hemmens
2007-06-16, 08:35 AM
But Luke did fail. He failed his test at the cave on Dagobah and he failed to defeat Vader in Empire Strikes Back, which cost him his hand.

Both of which were the *direct* result of Luke's decisions. At no point does Luke fail *randomly*.


Eventually yes he did succeed but he had to go through some failures first. The end of Return of the Jedi would not have been that dramatic if Luke defeated Vader on Bespin and never found out that he was Luke’s father. Rpgs are about character growth as much as they are about combat and killing bad guys. Luke grew in character and in power in the course of the original trilogy. Luke from Return of the Jedi is a greatly different person from the kid we meet in A New Hope. If he always succeeded and never suffered hardship and setbacks, well then he would still be the exuberant, passionate kid we met in A New Hope instead of the confident and mature Jedi Knight we see in Return of the Jedi. He would not have learned, or grown as a character.

You're confusing "hardship and setbacks" with "messing up and looking stupid because of bad dice rolls". One leads to character development, the other leads to frustration and a desire to kill more monsters, to get more loot, to get bigger bonuses.

Besides, while the Star Wars saga would have sucked if Luke had killed Vader on Besipin, it would have sucked a hell of a lot more if young Anakin Skywalker had been killed in a freak pod-racing accident.


These set backs, when placed into an RPG enhance the end result when the final bad guy is defeated. They are obstacles to be defeated by the heroes. If heroes always succeeded and never encounter such an obstacle or set back, then the ending of the game wouldn’t be nearly as sweet as it would be if the heroes earned their victories.

Now you're confusing me.

On the one hand you say that the heroes have to "earn" their victories, that games wouldn't be interesting if the heroes "never failed". But on the other hand you talk about "when the final bad guy is defeated" as if it's some kind of foregone conclusion. So you have their ultimate success predetermined, how can you say that there still has to be a chance of failure?


It’s like beating a video game on hard mode. Sure you may already know the ending, but it’s a much sweeter victory when you beat it on hard mode as opposed to easy mode. Because you know, it was hard. Now if the characters in Starwars were never challenged, then the movies wouldn’t be nearly as awesome as they are.

Again, you say "beating" not "playing", again you take ultimate success as a given.

Perhaps the "Dagobah Cave" example is the best way to illustrate my point here. To my mind there is a hugely important difference between these two situations:

1) GM: "Inside the cave, you are confronted with the image of Darth Vader, what do you do?"
PC: "I attack"
GM: "You slice the head off of the apparition, as it drops to the ground, its mask falls away revealing your own face. You pass out of the cave, and master Yoda looks disappointed."
PC: "Well damn, I guess I shouldn't have done that."

2) GM "Inside the cave, you are confronted with the image of Darth Vader, make a Will Save."
PC: "Umm ... fourteen."
GM: "Unable to master your anger at the man who destroyed Alderann, you slice his head from his shoulders, and look on in horror as you realise that it is your own face beneath the mask."
PC: "Well damn, I wish I'd passed that Will check."

In the first case Luke (or rather Luke's player) makes a meaningful decision. He chooses aggression, and thus demonstrates that he is Not A Jedi Yet. In the second case, Luke just botches a dice roll. The scene is robbed of all its dramatic potential because the player had no control over the situation.

I love to have my characters struggle against adversity. I don't like to have their "hardships and setbacks" dictated by the arbitrary roll of a D20.

TheGreatJabu
2007-06-16, 10:07 AM
Although I do think that the game should require a bit of luck, I also agree that the completely random roll of a d20 should not be the end-all, be-all of your games.

Opinions/House-rules below:

When I GM, I generally find myself paying more attention to the player's suggested actions rather than a roll. If the player says "I make a Bluff check", I actually give him/her a slight penalty for not having any idea and forcing his character to "wing it". If he says "I try to convince the Stormtrooper that he's already searched my big dumb Wookie friend at this same checkpiont 3 times today, but all the critters look the same so it's hard to tell" I'll give him/her either a good bonus to their Bluff or a much lower DC (same end result, just depends on how each situation feels itself out). Although I don't think it's fair to expect players to ALWAYS know what would be a good idea even if their characters would, my personal system rewards creative ideas/good problem solving more than "rolling a 16". No matter how highly the odds are stacked against the players, if somebody comes up with a great idea, I do my part as GM to make this idea fit and work in the game world.

And lately, as far as actually dice-rolling goes, I've been considered using the Unearthed Arcana variant of dropping the d20 in favor of 3d6. Although I like random chance, I think the d20 gives you too much. The "Bell Curve" of 3d6 paints a more realistic picture of your hero - generally performing at his average capacity, and on VERY rare occasion performing quite well or quite bad.

Matthew
2007-06-17, 04:40 PM
Yeah, a lot of DMs use that system, granting a Circumstance Bonus or Penalty depending on how the Player Roleplays the event. There are a lot of objections to this approach, but I find it is generally more beneficial than detrimental to the game. However, I imagine that it rather depends on the group.

Beleriphon
2007-06-17, 04:46 PM
Opinions/House-rules below:

When I GM, I generally find myself paying more attention to the player's suggested actions rather than a roll. If the player says "I make a Bluff check", I actually give him/her a slight penalty for not having any idea and forcing his character to "wing it". If he says "I try to convince the Stormtrooper that he's already searched my big dumb Wookie friend at this same checkpiont 3 times today, but all the critters look the same so it's hard to tell"

Which the rules actually cover. Bluff checks are probably the single worst example to use for rolling dice in place of roleplaying. The reason being that you still need to have some idea about what the character says to determine how difficult the attempt needs to be. There are several categories of bluff, as the GM you need to pick one based on what the player tells you, so just saying "I bluff the stormtrooper" is insufficient by the rules since its expected that the attempt falls into one of several categories and the GM needs some idea about what is being attempted before a category can be assigned.

Now if you said you used Diplomacy to make the stormtrooper your friend thats a whole other kettle of fish.