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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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 Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2019 8:38 pm Post subject: How To Deal With Temperamental Ships |
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It's established canon that, while the Millennium Falcon is a serious hot-rod of the ship, it also requires constant maintenance in order to continue operating. However, this isn't represented anywhere in the official stats.
Recently, I had an idea about how to represent this. What I'm thinking is giving ships like the Falcon (high performance, but in need of constant maintenance and upkeep) a CP cost in order to keep it in good working order. This represents personal time spend doing all the drudge work and minor repairs needed to keep a starship in good operating condition. The CP cost could be averted by hiring out mechanics at star ports to do it for you, or by having a military-issue ship maintained by said military's maintenance personnel.
I can see starfighters having this, as well, seeing as how their write-ups constantly hint at how many maintenance hours per flight hour are needed to keep a starship operational. This could also be where an astromech comes in handy, such as how Artoo got tasked with maintaining Luke's X-Wing while he was on Dagobah...
Bottom line, since spending CPs to improve skills between missions is a staple of the game, it's also a good way to track the amount of time spent off-screen keeping your ship in good working order.
There could also be a penalty that kicks in if the CP expenditure isn't met, such as a blanket -1D penalty to all skill rolls involving ship systems (just an example. A starting penalty of -1D is a bit steep, so it would probably need a random chart to generate penalties for whatever system the dice rolls call for).
Thoughts?
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Dredwulf60
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Joined: 07 Jan 2016
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| Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2019 9:29 pm Post subject: |
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Well...my only thought is...
MY players would mutiny if I tried to get them to spend CPs on ship maintenance!
They are just too damned valuable in my game.
I once tried something similar in another rules system...paying points (similar to CPs) to maintain really high skills..like...the 8D and up type, especially the ones not used often.
Revolution!!!! |
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garhkal
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2019 12:01 am Post subject: |
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Would players be able to 'bank extra xp'? Use CP to repair damage caused?
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16281
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2019 1:43 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | Would players be able to 'bank extra xp'? Use CP to repair damage caused? |
No. This is just regular upkeep for a high performance vessel to keep it in operating condition. Any needed repairs would be in addition to this. However, I would combine it with my concept of allowing characters to transfer CPs to their personal ship to be spent on things like Damage rolls as critical moments. For example, if a high-performance craft needed an upkeep of 2 CP between games, the character could spend 3: two for the upkeep and one into the ship's CP pool for emergencies.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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MrNexx
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Joined: 25 Mar 2016
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Location: San Antonio
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| Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2019 8:55 am Post subject: |
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I dislike it as a concept and as a game mechanic.
One simple point: If Han and Chewie are having to dump constant CPs into the Falcon to keep it running, how are their skills so high?
I am not a fan of investing CPs into specific items of equipment... what's the point of building up your Starship Repair skill if you ALSO have to invest CPs in the item itself to keep it running? I invested my CPs to repair the ship... that's my skill. Any further expenditures of CPs on the ship should go into improving my skill rolls for hard repairs, not a nebulous, recurring, cost to keep the ship running.
Also, what happens if my character acquires an astromech droid to do the constant maintenance required, does that reduce the CP cost? If I spend money to replace a temperamental system, does that remove the cost?
I think a more accurate representation of the time and money put into such ships would be time and money. A high-maintenance ship like the Falcon would be more prone to mishaps... your roll succeeded, but this subsystem failed, and you will have to repair it. Repairing it costs money and time.
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Dredwulf60
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| Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2019 9:49 am Post subject: |
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I understand the spirit of it.
CPs represent a character's heart and soul more than just time and money. It shows a real investiture of spirit, a bond. No one would do it except someone with a genuine love for their object...like Han and the Falcon....and maybe Lando and the Falcon.
In D&D 3rd edition they linked spending XP to the creation of magic items. I never really agreed with it, but I understood what they were trying to do.
So, how to get otherwise rule-bending performance perks for your ship without just shelling out credits?
As MrNexx says, a lot of CPs are spent in Starship Repair skills.
Perhaps link the ship to the skill of the person/ droid keeping it running.
When it gets tempermental/ acts up, make a retroactive roll on the skill of the one doing maintenance. If the roll fails...the ship suffers whatever tempermental effect.
If the effect is a real hardship, the character is going to spend some CPs to avoid the effect, while those with decent skills won't have to as often.
In an RPG system in a modern setting I had a retroactive skill for weapon stoppages.
Some characters had a weapon maintenance skill.
when the dice roll and rules called for a weapon stoppage or malfunction, I let them roll their maintenance skill retroactively...in a kind of flash-back to represent all of the care and attention they would have been giving their weapons off-screen in the down-time.
If the roll was successful, the stoppage/malfunction was ignored and play continued as normal. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16281
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2019 11:22 am Post subject: |
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| MrNexx wrote: | | One simple point: If Han and Chewie are having to dump constant CPs into the Falcon to keep it running, how are their skills so high? |
Because the total CP cost would be relatively low (1-3 CPs total) and could be split between multiple characters if they all agree to contribute to keep their hot-rod ship in good working order.
| Quote: | | I am not a fan of investing CPs into specific items of equipment... what's the point of building up your Starship Repair skill if you ALSO have to invest CPs in the item itself to keep it running? I invested my CPs to repair the ship... that's my skill. Any further expenditures of CPs on the ship should go into improving my skill rolls for hard repairs, not a nebulous, recurring, cost to keep the ship running. |
Because there is no game mechanic for basic wear and tear, so it can either be one more thing for a GM to keep track of, or can be handled by a simple rule representing an investment of time that happens off screen, with progressively negative consequences for the ship if this is neglected.
| Quote: | | Also, what happens if my character acquires an astromech droid to do the constant maintenance required, does that reduce the CP cost? |
Yes, because your character would no longer be the one spending time and energy maintaining the ship. There would, however, be cost and upkeep for the droid.
| Quote: | | If I spend money to replace a temperamental system, does that remove the cost? |
Potentially, yes. I think most ships would be okay on the maintenance schedule suggested in Tramp Freighters, and a ship with more reliable systems (or one professionally installed) wouldn't need nearly as much babysitting.
| Quote: | | I think a more accurate representation of the time and money put into such ships would be time and money. A high-maintenance ship like the Falcon would be more prone to mishaps... your roll succeeded, but this subsystem failed, and you will have to repair it. Repairing it costs money and time. |
I would argue that Character Points are a representation of time and money; time spent repairing/maintaining your temperamental hot-rod YT-1300 is time that you can't spend training with your lightsaber or working out in the gym or practicing on the range with your blaster pistol.
I prefer to reserve Repair rolls for when things actually break down (I'm also considering making things like Improving, Jury-Rigging and Sabotage be part of the Engineering Advanced Skill, but I digress). This is more just constant, low-level work needed to keep the ship in running order. If I were to classify it under Repair work, it'd be on the level of a Free or No-Roll Action, but it absolutely is time-consuming, and time between missions is a finite commodity.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16281
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2019 11:27 am Post subject: |
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| Dredwulf60 wrote: | In an RPG system in a modern setting I had a retroactive skill for weapon stoppages.
Some characters had a weapon maintenance skill.
when the dice roll and rules called for a weapon stoppage or malfunction, I let them roll their maintenance skill retroactively...in a kind of flash-back to represent all of the care and attention they would have been giving their weapons off-screen in the down-time.
If the roll was successful, the stoppage/malfunction was ignored and play continued as normal. |
I like the sound of that, but what was the mechanic for generating random problems, and did it slope up for more heavily modified ships?
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Raven Redstar
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Location: Salem, OR
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| Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2019 11:48 am Post subject: |
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The mishap tables from GG6 might be an okay place to start.
I think if they'd updated the Falcon with GG6 mishaps, you'd be less inclined to write up a whole new rule to cover hot-rodding.
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Dredwulf60
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| Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2019 12:48 pm Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Dredwulf60 wrote: | In an RPG system in a modern setting I had a retroactive skill for weapon stoppages.
Some characters had a weapon maintenance skill.
when the dice roll and rules called for a weapon stoppage or malfunction, I let them roll their maintenance skill retroactively...in a kind of flash-back to represent all of the care and attention they would have been giving their weapons off-screen in the down-time.
If the roll was successful, the stoppage/malfunction was ignored and play continued as normal. |
I like the sound of that, but what was the mechanic for generating random problems, and did it slope up for more heavily modified ships? |
I thought there was a system in place for negative effects of jury rigging. Was it in Cracken's Rebel Field guide.
EDIT: Meh. Page 3 Jury Rigging break down table. Quite lack-lustre.
The other game I referred to had a stoppage/malfunction result on a critical miss with a firearm, but the concept is similar.
I have my own system of wear and tear for SW ships. I'm pretty sure there's a topic for it somewhere here. But it isn't linked to higher-than-normal performance.; but now I'm thinking that maybe there should be an option for that. Push the ship beyond specs...risk generating wear; and an option for the maintenance spent to alleviate the wear with a retroactive skill roll. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16281
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 12:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Raven Redstar wrote: | The mishap tables from GG6 might be an okay place to start.
I think if they'd updated the Falcon with GG6 mishaps, you'd be less inclined to write up a whole new rule to cover hot-rodding. |
Of course then the stat write-up for the Falcon would be about eight pages long in order to cover all the potential breakdowns.
I could see Starships having a Reliability Rating based on how prone they are to breakdowns, with, say, a brand-new YT-1300 fresh from the factory having a rating of Very Easy, while the Falcon would be Heroic.
So, between every mission, it's assumed that the character/s spend some time working on and maintaining their ship. This is represented by a single Repair roll of the appropriate ship type, which can be improved by the Preparation and Coordination rules, against whatever the Reliability Rating is for the ship. Fail the roll by 1-10 and you make a roll on the Minor Mishap Table, then a Moderate Mishap by 11-20, and a Catastrophic Mishap on 21+. You can also randomize which system has a Mishap on a single D6 roll:1- Sublight
2- Maneuverability
3- Hyperdrive
4- Hull
5- Weaponry
6- Comm/Scan*
*I'd need to write up a complete list of potential Mishaps for the Comm/Scan system, though...
This could either kick in right away or the GM could save it for an appropriate moment somewhere in the game...
Giving something like the Falcon a Heroic Reliability rating would also introduce a serious - and realistic - flaw to ships like this, and further emphasize how much of what the Falcon can do is dependent on the extraordinary beings who crew it.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
Last edited by CRMcNeill on Mon Jul 08, 2019 6:15 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Dredwulf60
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| Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 5:50 pm Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Raven Redstar wrote: | The mishap tables from GG6 might be an okay place to start.
I think if they'd updated the Falcon with GG6 mishaps, you'd be less inclined to write up a whole new rule to cover hot-rodding. |
Of course then the stat write-up for the Falcon would be about eight pages long in order to cover all the potential breakdowns.
I could see Starships having a Reliability Rating based on how prone they are to breakdowns, with, say, a brand-new YT-1300 fresh from the factory having a rating of Very Easy, while the Falcon would be Heroic.
So, between every mission, it's assumed that the character/s spend some time working on and maintaining their ship. This is represented by a single Repair roll of the appropriate ship type, which can be improved by the Preparation and Coordination rules, against whatever the Reliability Rating is for the ship. Fail the roll by 1-10 and you make a roll on the Minor Mishap Table, then a Moderate Mishap by 11-20, and a Catastrophic Mishap on 21+. You can also randomize which system has a Mishap on a single D6 roll:1 - Sublight
2- Maneuverability
3- Hyperdrive
4- Hull
5- Weaponry
6- Comm/Scan*
*I'd need to write up a complete list of potential Mishaps for the Comm/Scan system, though...
This could either kick in right away or the GM could save it for an appropriate moment somewhere in the game...
Giving something like the Falcon a Heroic Reliability rating would also introduce a serious - and realistic - flaw to ships like this, and further emphasize how much of what the Falcon can do is dependent on the extraordinary beings who crew it. |
The problem I would have with it is the extra rolling during down-time. In an actual game it makes the down-time take longer and thus more tedious.
With my wear system, I link the possibility of something going wrong to the wild die.
When the pilot is making a roll for something and a '1' comes up...THEN I force a roll on the applicable ship systems to check to see if the wear has caught up with that system.
If I were to follow you down the rabbit hole of generating effects for a tempermental ship, I would do it similarly. Only make the roll when prompted by the possibility that something might happen. THEN make the roll for maintenance that was presumably done to see if it negates the effect.
Something like the wild die is a good trigger, for me at least.
When I make rolls for something that might happen later down the line...I tend to forget about it because I don't like the extra book keeping. And as GM I do a LOT of book keeping. Anything to reduce it is better IMO.
But I'm just expressing how I personally would use the ideas you are putting forward. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 6:14 pm Post subject: |
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I don't really see the problem with a few extra rolls once the game session is over.Roll #1 = Determine whether or not something breaks down.
Roll #2 = Determine what broke down.
Roll #3 = Determine how bad it broke down.
Roll #4 (Optional) = Determine whether it is broken down at the beginning of the next session or if it breaks mid-game. That's pretty straightforward, especially for something that's hinted at in the write-ups of quite a few ships, but never really made a part of the game apart from the GM handwave.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16281
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2019 1:08 pm Post subject: |
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Some thoughts as to basic Reliability Ratings / Maintenance Difficulties...Very Easy - Any New Light Freighter
Easy - Any Used, Unmodified Light Freighter
Moderate - Any Starfighter described as reliable / easy to maintain, etc.
Difficult - Most Starfighters
Very Difficult - Any Starfighter described as needing a lot of maintenance hours to stay operational.
Heroic - Any ship whose lack of reliability is legendary (the Millennium Falcon)
The Difficulty for Space Transports would then be tied to the degree to which they have been modified, and how well the modifications were installed.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Raven Redstar
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Location: Salem, OR
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| Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2019 2:45 pm Post subject: |
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Perhaps a +3 to the base difficulty for each system upgraded?
Hyperdrive increased: +3
Sublight increased: +3
Hull increased: +3
Easy Difficulty: 6-10 +9 gives you a difficulty of 15-19.
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