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Whill
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 Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 9:48 pm Post subject: The Round, in all editions |
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First Edition Core
First Edition Rules Upgrade
First Edition Rules Companion
Second Edition, Blue Vader Core
Second Edition, Revised and Expanded Core
Introductory Adventure Game
Here are the "Round" rules for all six versions of the WEG Star Wars RPG (with the default sub-edition of this website in green). The combat round is a central mechanic of each sub-edition, and I thought it would be nice to have the full "evolution" in one place. For some commentary on these versions, please see the next post below this one.
1e CORE Combat Round Sequencing (1987)
Decision Segment
Declaration Segment
First Action Segment
Second Action Segment
Subsequent Action Segments
| To GMs, Greg Costikyan wrote: | Decision Segment: Decide what each non-playing character (NPC) is going to do this combat round. While you're deciding, let the players decide what they want to do next.
Declaration Segment: Go around the table, and ask each player what he wants to do. Then, tell the players what the NPCs are doing.
First Action Segment: Each character for whom an action was declared takes his first action. An "action" is either movement, or a skill or attribute use.
Second Action Segment: If a character declared more than one action, characters' second actions are now resolved. Any character for whom only one action was declared does nothing (but may dodge and/or parry) in this segment.
Subsequent Action Segments: If a character declared more than two actions, additional action segments occur until all characters have performed all declared actions.
...
Seat the player whose character has the lowest perception to your left, the one with the next lowest perception next to him, and so on, around the table. When you ask the players what they are doing, start with the player to your left... Or seat the most experienced player to our left
...
Reaction skills (see page 12) can be used in any action segment; a character who uses a reaction can still take an action (move or use a skill or attribute) in the same segment.
If a character use a reaction skill, it affects all attacks in the same segment, but not in subsequent segments
...
Normally, it doesn't matter when during an action segment something happens... When two characters are doing things that affect each other...The high-roller goes first.
[1e Core p.46-47,13] |
1e RULES UPGRADE (1988)
1. Declare Actions
2. Declare Reaction Skills
3. Roll Reaction Skills
4. Roll Actions
5. Calculate Damage
| Quote: | 1. Declare Actions. Characters declare all actions for this combat round. The full dodge option must be declared now. The character (PC or NPC) with the lowest Dexterity code declares actions first, followed by the other characters in ascending order of Dexterity.
2. Declare Reaction Skills. Characters declare combat dodges. The character (PC or NPC) with the lowest Dexterity code declares first, followed by the other characters in ascending order of Dexterity.
3. Roll Reaction Skills. Characters who declared the use of reaction skills (full or combat dodges) roll skill dice. The gamemaster determines the to-hit difficulty numbers for this combat round.
4. Roll Actions. Characters who declared actions roll skill dice. Actions are resolved in descending order of the number of haste actions taken; a character who takes three haste actions would act before a character who took one or two haste actions. Actions with the same degree of haste are resolved simultaneously, with all non-movement actions occurring first, then all movement.
5. Calculate Damage. Roll damage and strength dice for all targets which were hit, and determine the effects according to the "Damage Summary" chart. Any targets hit early in the "roll actions" segment because of haste actions must calculate damage at that time, before lesser hastes or simultaneous actions occur. These damage results affect the outcomes of the remaining actions in the segment.
[1e Rules Upgrade p.1] |
1e RULES COMPANION (1989)
1. Declare Actions and Full Reaction Skills.
2. Declare Combat Reaction Skills.
3. Roll Actions and Reactions in Order of Haste.
4. Calculate Damage as Hits Hit
| Greg Gorden wrote: | 1. Declare Actions and Full Reaction Skills. Characters declare all actions for this combat round — movement, haste, skill or attribute use, or full dodge or full parry. The character (PC or NPC) with the lowest Dexterity code declares actions first, followed by the other characters in ascending order of Dexterity. If a PC has the same Dexterity as an NPC, the NPC must declare first.
2. Declare Combat Reaction Skills. Characters declare combat dodges or parries. Haste for reaction skills, including full reactions, may be increased. The character with the highest Dexterity code declares first, followed by the other characters in descending order of Dexterity. If a PC has the same Dexterity as an NPC, the NPC must declare first.
3. Roll Actions and Reactions in Order of Haste. Non-movement actions with the same degree of haste are resolved, followed by all movement actions with the same degree of haste. Characters roll skill dice for their actions. The gamemaster determines the to-hit and other difficulty numbers for this round.
4. Calculate Damage as Hits Hit. Roll damage and strength dice for all targets hit by an attack, and determine the effects according to the “Damage Summary” chart.
Note the change in the "Declare Combat Reaction Skills" segment. While actions are still declared in order from low dexterity to high, reactions are declared high dexterity to low. This change was made to give low dexterity characters a slightly better chance in combat.
[1e Rules Companion p.13] |
2e BLUE VADER (1992)
1. Initiative
2. Declaration
3. Rolling Defensive Skills
4. Rolling Actions
| To GMs, Bill Smith wrote: | Step One: Initiative
Each side picks the character with the highest Perception, who then rolls a Perception attribute check. Characters may not spend Character Points or Force Points on this roll, although penalties for being wounded count...
Whichever side gets the highest roll gets to decide who declares and acts first in the round – their side or the enemy.
In the case of more than two sides, the highest roll declares whether they want to go first or last. If they decide to go first, they would do so, followed by the middle roller, followed by the lowest rolling side. If they decide to go last, just reverse the order...
Step Two: Declaration
After initiative has been decided, each character on the side that declares first says what they're doing.
• If the players' characters declare first, they tell the gamemaster what their characters are doing. Then, the gamemaster explains what the gamemaster characters are doing.
• If the gamemaster characters declare first, the gamemaster tells the players what those characters are doing, and then asks the players what their characters are doing. Players must declare all skill uses, including full dodge, dodges, full parrys and parrys.
• Players must declare Force Point use now.
• If the player doesn't declare that the character is doing something, he can't change his mind later. Likewise, if a gamemaster declares something for a character, but forgets an action, the gamemaster can't go back later and change a character's declaration.
When it is the players' turn to declare actions, don't let them hesitate...
You may want to seat players in their Perception order, from highest to lowest, left to right, so you can just point to each player in order. You might also want to alternate declaration order sometimes, going from lowest to highest Perception (right to left) so that the same players aren't declaring last all of the time. Use what works best for your group...
Step Three: Rolling Defensive Skills
Characters roll all defensive skills now, before any other actions are rolled. This includes all brawling parry, melee parry, and dodges, both normal and full uses...
Step Four: Rolling Actions
Each character rolls the first action they declared in the order that they declared their actions...
Each action occurs as it is rolled – a split-second after any actions rolled before it and a split-second before any actions rolled after it. After each character has taken their first action, any characters who declared two or more actions take their second action, again in the order that they declared. Any characters without any actions left are simply skipped.
...
After all characters with second actions have acted, any characters with third actions roll them, again, in the order that they declared their actions. Characters with fourth, fifth or more actions take them, until every character has taken every action.
At this point, the round is ended and a new round begins. Repeat the procedure, beginning with "Initiative."
[2e Blue Vader p.27-29] |
2e REVISED AND EXPANDED (1996)
1. Initiative
2. Rolling Actions
| To GMs, Bill Smith wrote: | 1. Initiative
Decide how many sides are in the battle— normally there's just two: the player characters and whoever they're fighting. However, sometimes there will be three or more sides — for example, you may run a battle where the player characters, Imperial stormtroopers, and a group of pirates are all shooting at each other.
The character with the highest Perception on each side rolls that attribute. The character who gets the highest roll gets to decide whether his side acts first or last in that round. (Re-roll in the event of a tie.)
(Sometimes it makes sense to act last — by letting the other side go first, you can react to their actions.)
...
2. Roll Actions
The first side acts now. The character with the highest Perception goes first. The player tells you how many actions he's making this round and you assign the multiple actions penalty. Then, the player rolls his character's first action.
Acting in Perception order (highest to lowest), every player tells you how many actions his character is making and rolls his first action.
(If the gamemaster characters go first, you just have to know how many actions each character is taking, assign the multiple actions penalties, and have the characters take their first actions.)
This process is repeated for each character on the second side. (If there are three or more sides, these characters now take their first actions.)
After every character has taken his/her first action, the characters on the first side take their second actions. (Again, go in Perception order.) Characters without second actions are skipped. Then the characters on the second side roll their second actions... and so on.
This process continues until every character on both sides has taken all actions.
Each action occurs as it is rolled — a split-second after any actions that have already been rolled and a split-second before the next action that's rolled.
Characters can't "skip" actions and wait to go later in the round.
After everyone has completed all actions, the next round begins or you can switch back to "scenes."
[2e Revised and Expanded p.77-78] |
INTRODUCTORY ADVENTURE GAME (1997)
1) Players Take All Their Actions.
2) Narrator Takes All Actions for the Enemies.
| To Narrators, an IAG author wrote: | In fights, the players usually get to act first. The only time you go first with enemy actions is when the enemy surprises the heroes. This can happen if the characters fail a Perception or search roll to notice opponents hiding in ambush, or if they are distracted by something else.
...
To help make sure every player gets a chance to act, go around your players one at a time, asking each what he's going to do that turn. Make the rolls for that player's character and resolve any weapon hits and damage. Then move on to the next player. When all the players have gone, then it's your turn to make rolls...
[IAG Narrators Booklet p. 23-24, 16] |
Note: IAG does not seem to give any guidance on the order the characters go in within each side. Narrator prerogative is implied.
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Last edited by Whill on Sun Oct 30, 2022 5:40 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 9:49 pm Post subject: Re: The Round |
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I started running this game with the 1e core and updated to the next version's combat round as each new one came out, until R&E. I've had fun with all versions of the game, but the combat round never felt right until R&E.
I feel 1e's no-initiative combat was a failed experiment. Is it functional? Yes. Rolling dice for actions that don't end up happening because of another roll that beat it, and everyone declaring all actions for the whole round before any are rolled, are clunky. The second and third versions of 1e's combat round tweaked it and tried to improve on it, but their stubborn insistence on staying with no-initiative combat was a fatal flaw that tweaks can't fix. And Haste created human gameplay issues.
Blue Vader 2e was step in the right direction with Initiative, but it still retained some vestiges of the 1e combat round that held it back. Everyone still declares what they are doing before they do it in order of initiative, then defensive skills are rolled, and then all other actions are rolled, in initiative order, and going around as many times until all declared actions are taken or rendered moot. Functional, yet clunky.
IMO, R&E perfected the combat round. After initiative is determined, then the player of every character declares their number of actions taken this round for MAP calculation purposes then declares and rolls their first action, in initiative order. Then it continues around for any subsequent actions. No actions are declared until they are rolled, and there's no advance declarations to keep track of except the number of actions. No defensive skills are rolled until they are needed, and if that character has any actions remaining in the round, the player chooses if that reaction roll further MAPs the rest of the round or if that extra action uses one of the declared actions. No rolls are wasted because nothing is rolled until it it happens. There is no question that R&E's round is easier and quicker than Blue Vader's (and everything else), and that's why they did it. I've tweaked initiative, but I've had no reason to change the R&E round because, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
In my experience, GMs that choose 1e over 2e do so because they want simplicity. They want less skills, less complicated movement rules, less overall crunch.
It is my hypothesis that the R&E combat round can be plugged into any other sub-edition without negatively impacting anything else, if the R&E reaction rules are also ported with it. If a GM is going backward to 1e for the sake of simplicity, then R&E's combat round has them covered. But I admit my bias for R&E's round. For me, the others were only acceptable when I didn't know any better before R&E (because I never devised those innovations on my own). When I hear someone is going back to an older edition, I cringe at the idea of returning to a prior version of the combat round. The tinkerer in me is resistant to the concept of each published sub-edition being all-or-nothing.
I'll never play test my hypothesis because I'll never go back to those other systems (I'll never even go back to running RAW R&E). Unless anyone here has done this, this is a hypothetical. What do you think? Do you agree that plugging the R&E round and reaction rules into prior editions would work? Why or why not?
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Dr. Bidlo
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| Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2022 1:00 pm Post subject: |
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So, I read this post and realized I have been playing the rounds incorrectly for years! Apparently when I upgraded from Blue Vader to R&E I skimmed the rules on the round sequence thinking it had not changed. It addresses so many of my nagging concerns about wasted actions, trick turn order shenanigans (oh, you are dodging? Well, I will brawl you then.), and remembering what EVERYONE was going to do when they each declared four actions. I think it will make rounds go much quicker as a round does not become a genie puzzle to predict and solve.
Last edited by Dr. Bidlo on Sat Feb 19, 2022 1:20 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2022 1:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Dr. Bidlo wrote: | | So, I read this post and realized I have been playing the rounds incorrectly for years! Apparently when I upgraded from Blue Vader to R&E I skimmed the rules on the round sequence thinking it had not changed. It addresses so many of my nagging concerns about wasted actions... and remembering what EVERYONE was going to do when they each declared four actions. I think it will make rounds go much quicker as a round does not become a genie puzzle to predict and solve. |
You've been running the Blue Vader combat round all these years and this post lead you to switch to the R&E round?! That's awesome! This reply alone makes all my work into posting this worth it! Thank you. So glad I could help.
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Dr. Bidlo
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| Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2022 1:23 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, THANK YOU! I have also shared with with my players and a friend who runs a few campaigns using the Blue Vader round rules. The benefits of the post have spread already.
We just took for granted that the changes in R&E were more E than R and didn't read it carefully enough. |
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Whill
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| Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2022 2:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Dr. Bidlo wrote: | Yes, THANK YOU! I have also shared with with my players and a friend who runs a few campaigns using the Blue Vader round rules. The benefits of the post have spread already.
We just took for granted that the changes in R&E were more E than R and didn't read it carefully enough. |
Nice! For those familiar with the 2e Blue Vader version of the game, a good read would be the Star Wars Rules Upgrade, a document with rules revisions to Blue Vader that are present in R&E. (The combat round is on p.4.) WEG actually didn't want its customers to feel price gouged with a new core book four years later that was mostly the same rules as the previous one, so they published this document as an article in SW AJ #11 and said it was free to copy and share, plus anyone could get a free printed document from WEG if they sent postage costs to them and requested it. I'm pretty sure the only change it doesn't mention is passive awareness checks going from base Perception to the search skill.
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Dr. Bidlo
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| Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2022 4:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | I'm pretty sure the only change it doesn't mention is passive awareness checks going from base Perception to the search skill. |
What now??? Passive checks with search?!? I need to read the article in SWAJ #11 to see how many other changes I missed. I just need to dig it out. |
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Whill
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| Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2022 4:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Dr. Bidlo wrote: | | Whill wrote: | | I'm pretty sure the only change it doesn't mention is passive awareness checks going from base Perception to the search skill. |
What now??? Passive checks with search?!? I need to read the article in SWAJ #11 to see how many other changes I missed. I just need to dig it out. |
You don't have to dig out the AJ. Above I linked to a PDF document of the rule changes from Blue Vader to R&E.
And like I said, search being used for passive awareness checks was a change that did not make it into the document. R&E itself is explicit about it though. That's a particular change I never adopted, so I still handle it like 1e and Blue Vader.
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Dr. Bidlo
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| Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2022 5:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Thanks again. I read the PDF and saw I have properly understood all the rest of the rules from R&E. |
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Dr. Bidlo
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| Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2022 5:58 pm Post subject: |
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I tried to check old posts and did not see an answer to the following question (using the R&E rules for a round):
If a character or vehicle moves at fast or all out speed, do they move the full distance during the action thwy choose to take for the movement or do they move the standard movement distance (10 meters for a human) during each action spread out artificially. For example, a character who won Initiative running all-out speed at an NPC 36 meters away could potentially be shot at by the NPC three times before the character reaches them or would the NPC get no time to shoot before the character travels the full 40 meters?
This has to have been addressed before, but I just didn't see it. I saw other discussions that came close but didn't quite address this. |
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Whill
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| Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2022 7:31 pm Post subject: Movement in a round |
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In 2e Blue Vader, a move was the equivalent of an R&E cruising speed movement, and you could move up to four moves per round. Each move was its own action and took place in the space of one action, but that meant, if you wanted to move the equivalent of all-out speed, you would be MAPped for four actions.
To not nickel and dime characters with MAPs, in R&E they updated it that you could move once per round at different speeds, but the speed you move determined the difficulty (terrain is a factor in both systems). This saved characters on MAPs and made for less dice rolling in a round when moving more than cruising speed, but it was at the expense of realism by putting the entire round's worth of movement of a character or vehicle in the space of a single action, like in your example.
My solution was to spread movement out over the course of the round, other actions happening during the movement. There is still only one movement roll per round so characters are still MAPped according to R&E. This means that I have to do a little mental work to determine how far along the intended path the moving characters/ships get during each action segment. Actions can sometimes interrupt a movement before it reaches its intended end point. Movements are usually declared and rolled during a character's first turn in the round, and if they are doing something else while moving (such as shooting while running) then they may even get to declare and roll their first non-movement action at the same time, because the movement only just begins the first action segment.
Movements may be able to begin after the first action segment, but depending on the number of actions declared by all characters in the first segment (and thus how many total segments are left in the round), it may be too late to move the full distance normally able to be covered by the speed they choose. So basically, any movements begun after the beginning of the round, the player tells me where they want to end up by when, and I do the mental math to determine what speed they have to go to accomplish that based on how much time is left in the round for movement.
This system has worked for me but it has not been a very popular concept among other GMs. It seems it is not practical as general advice because many GMs do not have the ability to do the quick mental math in their head. I admit my solution is not for everyone, but it works fine for me – I'm a math major. The below URL links to a thread that discussed the issue, and that thread has a link to a newer thread at the end of it.
https://rancorpit.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=194657#194657
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Dr. Bidlo
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| Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2022 10:32 pm Post subject: |
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Well thanks for directing me because when I searched the key word 'movement' I got 17 pages with 832 results! My searches seem to always yield similar results so it is helpful when forum members with history help guide people with questions. Thanks!
I like your method and was thinking about using the same system in my games - cautious novement is free and happens concurrent with the first action, and other movement is one action, but the distance travelled is the cruise speed each 'action' after the movement action starts even though it does not take multiple actions. This is easy enough for me to understand but it is difficult to write out clearly to describe or document it as a house rule.
Incidentally, I didn't realize movement worked the way you described in Blue Vader, but there it is! This is one change from R&E so ingrained in me I thought it always worked that way in Second Edition. |
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Whill
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| Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2022 7:59 pm Post subject: Re: The Round, in all editions |
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You're welcome.
I moved this thread to the Official Rules forum, and edited the OP to remove my explanation for why I didn't originally post it there. With some of the stuff I've seen here and in other communities, I realize now that there is more confusion about game mechanics among players of the game than I had thought. I truly hopes this helps, no matter what edition your game is based on.
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