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MrNexx
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 Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2019 3:02 pm Post subject: Redesigning Humans |
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If you were redesigning humans to have more active racial features, rather than just "Are the galactic average", what would you do?
I'm kind of thinking giving them an extra one or two attribute dice, and an extra one or two skill dice at character creation.
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Mamatried
Commodore
Joined: 16 Dec 2017
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Location: Norway
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| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2019 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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I don't remember where this was raised before, but there was a ton of cool suggestions.
To me humans are above all else adaptable, and looking to most other rpg systems the adaptablity is what sort of define humans as a spcial ability.
There have been suggested to give +4D to skills extra to represent that.
I also think suggestions like various cultural ones have been looked into as well. |
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Naaman
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Joined: 29 Jul 2011
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| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2019 6:49 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm not certain D6 is "balanced" enough to give humans a lot of extra skill dice. One additional attribute die and 2D extra skill dice feels a little more in line with a mid-spectrum special ability to me. |
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Mamatried
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Joined: 16 Dec 2017
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Location: Norway
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| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2019 7:16 pm Post subject: |
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I was actually thinking giving +4D but no more than +2D over atribute, and the 4D can only be allocated to knowledge, perception, technical and mechanical skills, leaving out humans getting some direct combat boost, with strenght and dexterity.
Humans however being highly adaptable will find some way to get aroun the issue, uning their added non combat skills .
But yes......maybe +4D is mucch, I do not see humans warrant a attribute dice, this will then give human caracters 18-20D
this bumps skills up by far more than 4D, but IDK |
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Raven Redstar
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| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2019 7:42 pm Post subject: |
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I saw it suggested on here to just give humans an extra +2D skill dice. It gives them a little bump, but not so much that you really have to worry about game balance. I don't think that extra attribute dice are the way to go.
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Mamatried
Commodore
Joined: 16 Dec 2017
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Location: Norway
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| Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2019 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Raven Redstar wrote: | | I saw it suggested on here to just give humans an extra +2D skill dice. It gives them a little bump, but not so much that you really have to worry about game balance. I don't think that extra attribute dice are the way to go. |
Yeah a +2D to skills is alo more or less in balance with other special abilities for other races |
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garhkal
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| Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 1:00 am Post subject: |
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I can see that... +2d in skills (no skill 2d over attribute), or +1d skills, and 3 free specialties...
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 3:13 am Post subject: Re: Redesigning Humans |
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| MrNexx wrote: | | If you were redesigning humans to have more active racial features, rather than just "Are the galactic average", what would you do? |
| Mamatried wrote: | | I don't remember where this was raised before, but there was a ton of cool suggestions. |
This has been brought up a lot here, but I feel it is an important topic.
| MrNexx wrote: | | I'm kind of thinking giving them an extra one or two attribute dice, and an extra one or two skill dice at character creation. |
| Mamatried wrote: | To me humans are above all else adaptable, and looking to most other rpg systems the adaptablity is what sort of define humans as a spcial ability.
There have been suggested to give +4D to skills extra to represent that.
I also think suggestions like various cultural ones have been looked into as well. |
| Naaman wrote: | | I'm not certain D6 is "balanced" enough to give humans a lot of extra skill dice. One additional attribute die and 2D extra skill dice feels a little more in line with a mid-spectrum special ability to me. |
| Mamatried wrote: | | But yes......maybe +4D is mucch, I do not see humans warrant a attribute dice, this will then give human caracters 18-20D |
| Mamatried wrote: | | Raven Redstar wrote: | | I saw it suggested on here to just give humans an extra +2D skill dice. It gives them a little bump, but not so much that you really have to worry about game balance. I don't think that extra attribute dice are the way to go. |
Yeah a +2D to skills is alo more or less in balance with other special abilities for other races |
In 1987, the game system in the RPG core was designed around typical humans being the galactic standard with 12D total in attributes with an average attribute value of 2D. However the films portray humans as the dominant species of the galaxy, and EU fluff's description of humans in general more explicitly contradicts the game system's original character premise. There is a really simple solution that all of you are dancing around.
First, keep the base system 12D being the total attribute dice of the average galactic citizen with 2D as the typical galaxy citizen attribute value, but make humans above average with a 14D attribute dice species, with 2D+1 as their typical attribute value. This makes them typically slightly above average in everything, which is closer to how they are described and makes the human domination of the galaxy seem more plausible.
That was the average human, so let's now move on to the human PC. The PC templates have 18D in total attribute dice.
In 1987 the SW Sourcebook pronounced the rule that to create an alien PC that did not have a PC template, you take the average species attribute dice and add 6D to them. That worked out with human stats provided (12D+6D=18D). But not all species have a typical attributes dice total of 12D so species with a lower total typical stats made PCs of lower attribute dice value and likewise species with higher typical stats made PCs of higher total attribute value. Is this "+6D" rule really instrumental to the game system? It is simple and the human stats retro-fit the formula, so it seems to be logical on the surface. But it is flawed.
The RPG core was clearly based on the premise that all PCs should have 18D in attributes. No, species do not evolve equally so typical attribute dice totals shouldn't be equal, but PCs should be. Since human PCs with 20D in attributes would be too OP, just chuck the "+6D" rule and they are 18D again. Typical members of different species don't have to be equal, but PCs should be. D6 Space (basically 3e of this game) equates 1D in attributes to 4D in skills, but I would argue that attribute dice are even more valuable than that. Even an extra 1D in attributes is like raising all skills in one attribute by 1D, or all skills in three attributes by +1 pips.
If all PCs of all species have 18D in attributes, then all you have to worry about is skill dice, special abilities, and story factors. Species abilities are based on humanity being the norm so their abilities are not special. Humans have the cultural story factor of being the dominant species of the galaxy. To make up for Humans not having Special Abilities, give Human PCs bonus skill dice to allocate at char gen. The versatility fluff means Humans aren't restricted by certain skills to apply these bonus too. How many bonus dice? Some here say 1D-2D. That could work.
I also try to balance all PC species by giving each one a species package roughly equivalent to 4D in skills. If the species abilities and bonuses that reflect the fluff don't add up to a 4D value, then add bonus skill dice available to allocate to certain skills that reflect the fluff (but no munchkin-building 2-for-1 deals). That would give Humans a +4D to allocate to any skills as their species package (bonus dice still don't exceed the +2D limit per skill). If a species has more than 4D worth of special abilities, then their species package gets some disadvantage to offset, based on the fluff. But 4D usually covers all species.
So all GMs have to do is just let go of their dogmatic adherence to "species typical attribute dice +6D" to have fluff-fulfilled dominant above galactic-typical humans but still only have 18D attribute PCs. Then give Humans some bonus skill dice at char gen in place of alien species special abilities and further fulfill Human fluff. It really is a simple solution.
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Naaman
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Joined: 29 Jul 2011
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| Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 3:33 am Post subject: |
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This is the most sensible solution that I have heard.
My answer was based on the assumption that only humans were going to get reworked. |
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Mamatried
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| Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 10:11 am Post subject: |
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I aloso think we should consider the force skills, Alter, control and sense.
And I think we should do it species wide, maybe make them skills, maeaning you can create a 18D attribute jedi.
With a +4D to skills if human and the normal +7D to skills, and he picks his force skills to (max at creation 4D same as human cration max) from these +4D and +7D.
I trill see a human with 15D and 3D force as too puny compared to any 18D human.
I do like the +4D versitility to ALL skills and think this indeed fit the spirit of how humans are portrayed in RPGs |
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MrNexx
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| Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 10:44 am Post subject: |
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I agree; plus, by making +4D skills your sort of standard design premise, you can arrange new races you make around that.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Naaman wrote: | | My answer was based on the assumption that only humans were going to get reworked. |
Sure. If someone wanted to only give human PCs bonus skill dice and leave other species as-is, they could and it would still still be better than RAW. Since my answer addressed typical human stats along with PC rules, I had to address all species to address chucking the +6D rule for all species.
| Mamatried wrote: | I aloso think we should consider the force skills, Alter, control and sense.
And I think we should do it species wide, maybe make them skills, maeaning you can create a 18D attribute jedi.
With a +4D to skills if human and the normal +7D to skills, and he picks his force skills to (max at creation 4D same as human cration max) from these +4D and +7D.
I trill see a human with 15D and 3D force as too puny compared to any 18D human. |
The Force is also not species-specific, but I didn't want to get into the Force here because that is a whole other topic. I'm in The Force attribute camp so a PC with the Force would still have 18D in attributes. I don't disagree about the 15D+3D character. I've always hated how weak starting Force PCs are in everything (Force and non-Force), so in my game you could make a Force PC with 17D in the normal attributes and 1D in the Force, and still have all three Force skills. Force skills can have normal skill dice allocated to them, on top of The Force attribute value. If you really wanted to start out more powerful in the Force you could put 3D in attribute dice in The Force (and apply skill dice from there), but that would leave you will with 15D in normal attributes.
| Mamatried wrote: | | I do like the +4D versitility to ALL skills and think this indeed fit the spirit of how humans are portrayed in RPGs |
| MrNexx wrote: | | I agree; plus, by making +4D skills your sort of standard design premise, you can arrange new races you make around that. |
| Naaman wrote: | | This is the most sensible solution that I have heard. |
Thanks! It is one of goals to make sense whenever possible!
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 3:08 pm Post subject: |
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I've often thought about doing a rework of the various character templates so that they're non-species-specific, and then doing something along the lines of D&D where various races take the form of modifier packages applied to the basic character "type", as it were. For example, rather than having a Wookiee First Mate, just make it a First Mate template, with generic starting stats, to which you can then apply whatever Species modifier you feel like playing. This is a nice step in that direction.
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Whill
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| Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 4:19 pm Post subject: |
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I forgot to mention above that I also increased the attribute maxes of Humans to 4D+1.
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | I've often thought about doing a rework of the various character templates so that they're non-species-specific, and then doing something along the lines of D&D where various races take the form of modifier packages applied to the basic character "type", as it were. For example, rather than having a Wookiee First Mate, just make it a First Mate template, with generic starting stats, to which you can then apply whatever Species modifier you feel like playing. This is a nice step in that direction. |
I love templates and I think that would be an neat endeavor. However there is a consideration with SW D6 that doesn't exist with D&D. D&D races just have ability modifiers based on tendencies, but SW has attribute mins and maxes. Templates may have attribute values outside a species attribute range. Of course RAW addresses this by template attribute values perhaps needing tweaked when changing a species' template (R&E p.30).
One of my ongoing projects that goes in hand with my alien stats revamp is a list of "galactic templates" that by capsule could be many different species, but the template image depicts a human and all the attributes are within the Human attribute range. So you can play other playable species but might have to tweak the attribute values depending on the species. Other than that, then yes you just apply species ability package to the template. Humans have been such an unpopular PC species in my game that I want to encourage players to consider playing humans, but still have lots of alien options if they absolutely don't want to.
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Naaman
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| Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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Interesting about Humans being unpopular.
I think I may have played a non-human once... but not sure.  |
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