Star Wars D6 2nd Edition: Revised, Expanded, and Updated

[klhaviation]

So for the first topic of discussion, I was wondering about the layout and design that would prefer. Do you like the original SW 2 R&E style, do you like what we have done with updating the style, what are your thoughts



EDIT: REUP Errata Thread

[Forceally]

I looked over some of the chapters. In terms of style, I have nothing against it. I do think that you should adjust the paragraphing a little. You would start a section with the title of the section at the bottom left or right, and then begin the description of the section at the top right or on the next page.

As for skills, I have a question about two of them. You list acrobatics as a dexterity skill, yet in the past it was listed as a strength skill. So which one would it be.

Would submarines or other submersible crafts, like Ackbar's private shuttle in Dark Apprentice or those submersible propulsion pods that Ahsoka and the clone troopers used in Water War, fall under aquatic vehicle operation/repair, or do they deserve a separate skill.

[klhaviation]

[Luwingo_Spince]

One issue you might want to deal with in your skills and attributes is their seems to be no way to repair cybernetics, Melee weapons, or lightsabers in the current second edition. True you could use the attribute but it seems like a missing skill what if you changed the oddly specific blaster repair to a weapon repair skill.

Secondly, I am currently working on a medical sourcebook and your illness section looks quite similar to mine. I do have a a lot more symptoms and different rules concerning how you contract a disease and pass it around. If you would like to see it let me know.

Also I would place the martial Arts section in the combat portion of chapter 6 it seems out of place after illnesses.

Edit: Read your blog and it seems like your striving to stay as close to 2nd ed as possible, most of these comments probably won't help u then.

[klhaviation]

actually this is exactly the kind of feedback we want. Thanks

[cheshire]

Sorry it's taken me so long to comment on this tread. I've got three jobs, and two of them are asking quite a bit from me right now.

But after a quick overview I really appreciate what you're doing here. The layout is very clean. It contains some art and stills from the movie without being overwhelming. You seem to have copied the rules directly without unnecessary editorial comment. I find it interesting that you included an advantage and disadvantage system, though without referencing the awful system in the D6 Space book.

You've provided quite a bit to consider in the character creation section about fleshing out a back story.

I'll continue looking at the various sections as I get the time, but it looks like you have a positive trajectory.

One question I had was on the skill Agriculture. Is there a particular reason why that skill was included in the base book? If I'm not mistaken it wasn't in the R&E, and I noticed that few other "official skills" from some of the sourcebooks and supplements were not included. Was there a particular editorial reason for that skill?
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[klhaviation]

Thank you for your encouragement.

Before we started "tweaking" any rules, we had a long team discussion about what EXACTLY we were trying to accomplish. R&E is not a perfect rulebook, but in our humble opinions it is pretty close. There are a few blemishes, omissions and the like, but it is a very, very well done book. That being said It is our opinion that the basic rules need very little tweaking. In fact I despise the name 3rd edition. I wish R&E was called the 3rd edition, that way we could call our project 3rd edition Revised & Expanded. That better captures the spirit of the project. So you will see a lot of additions from other WEG books, some with tweaking, but most are RAW.

I read the 1st D6 magazine interview with Bill Smith a while ago, he had a lot to say about how the beauty of R&E was that they went back to a simple style of game play. We are trying to keep that intact, while still expanding the "options" if you will.

You mentioned the advantage and disadvantage system. This was something I was vehemently opposed to, but I was convinced by a few fellow gamers that it was a good move to add the option. I tried rewriting the D6 Space system to make it simpler, but it is not even close to being geared for the SW universe. What you see in the Characters chapter is actually from the D6 Toolkit. It seemed simple enough for GMs to tweak for their own needs without droning on and attempting to balance a system that inherently invites unbalance. I still am not completely satisfied with the result, we will see if it makes the cut.

The character development material comes straight from the Heros and Rogues book by WEG. It is a lot of fluff text for the chapter. If this book was going to print, I would quickly hack 80% of the material, but being that it is a free ebook, I thought I'd see what people thought of it being included. I personally like the material, perhaps it deserves its own chapter though--I am still on the fence.

Regarding your question on the editorial reason for adding Agriculture: We wanted to include several skills from supplements that added to the game without over-inflating and complicating the skill list. We added the following skills:

Acrobatics, Aquatic Vehicle Operation, Aquatic Vehicle Repair, Agriculture, Artillery, Artist, various (A) Engineering skills, and, Flamethrower.

In that list Acrobatics, (A) Engineering, and Flamethrower I think are great additions. Acrobatics might need to be tweaked a bit more, but these are solid additions (and Flamethrower I believe was an omission).

Artist, and Agriculture are more for flavor, I believe they are actually outlined in a supplement or adventure, I can't remember which one. They are not necessary, just little extras. A skill like Agriculture is great if a GM wants to allow a skill like Geology,, he has a baseline for adding another type of scientific skill. Artist is a neat Perception skill. They are not definitely going into the final book, but we are playtesting them and they are working ok.

Other skills in the expanded WEG rules exist of course, but I really dont want to put (A) Brainwashing into the core rules, it is kind of a specialty for Ssi-ruuk. Skills like Cleaning, Digging, Singing, and musical operation kind of exceed the scope of Star Wars, and are really self explanatory. Although you could argue our addition of Agriculture and Artist fall under that same category.

(A) Engineering is a real beast. We already screwed up by trying to make it a skill that makes it easier to modify a starship. If you read the rules about modification, it cites (A) Engineering skills as the baseline and Repair skills incur an additional penalty if used. So that was our attempt to easily integrate Engineering and after playtest it is getting axed. We are going back to RAW for modifications. (We also accidently included 2nd Ed jury rigging rules).

We are going to expand the modification system a bit by adding some optional basic mishap tables. Engineering is going back to the old system. We are going to clarify how to design weapons, computers, starships, equipment, and vehicles in the appropriate chapters. We are going to take a very simple approach. No Traveller-style flow charts, just some basic guidelines for Engineering.

[aegisflashfire]

is there another link to download the files other than 4shared (dropbox? etc) I dont always trust 4shared.
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[DougRed4]

klhaviation, I really like the 'tone' you guys are approaching the game with. I get the impression your proposed 3rd Edition is more of an enhancement of (and compilation of stuff for) the RAW, as opposed to a wholesale revamping. I for one really appreciate that approach!
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[DougRed4]

[CRMcNeill]

Are you planning on concentrating on the rules, or is there any plan to address the inconsistencies found in the background material?
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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

[aegisflashfire]

RE: Skills

I finally bit the bullet and downloaded the skills section and here are my thoughts/impressions. Bear with me on this, because its a significant change from the WEG skill breakdown, but its one that makes more sense.



I was never happy with how ranged weapons are broken up by WEG, but I'd like to suggest an alternate breakdown of skills (Still trying to keep the number of skills approximate, but clearing up a couple of odd places in the rules where common sense directly conflicts with the rules.)

We all know how the rules stand, so let me get into the changes I'd suggest:
Eliminate the following skills:
Blaster
Archaic Guns
Firearms
Blaster Artillery
Vehicle Blasters
Bowcaster

Replace With:
Marksmanship, Pistols
Specializations: Blasters Pistols, hold-outs, slugthrowers, flintlocks, etc
Marksmanship, Rifles
Specializations: Blaster Rifles, Blaster Carbines, Sniper Rifles, Verpine Shattergun etc
Marksmanship, Scatterguns
Specializations: Shotguns, Deck Sweepers, Blunderbuss etc
Marksmanship, Heavy Weapons
Specializations: miniguns, heavy repeating blaster, light repeating blaster
Marksmanship, Bows
Specializations: longbow, short bow, Dathomri Energy bow
Marksmanship, Crossbows
Specializations: Bowcaster, crossbow, dart-casters, Grappling hook thrower


Reason for the change: long guns are aimed and fired radically differently than pistols. Butt against the shoulder, aim down the sight, arm positions are different---but firing a blaster pistol is not different than firing a Glock. Yes, one is kinetic and one is a beam, but over the course of typical handgun ranges its not hugely significant. The nice thing about this split is it gives you something to do with weapons that have extendable stocks (like the Blastech E-11/Stormtrooper One) They can be used as either a pistol or a rifle and thus use an alternate skill.
Similarly, also this provides an easy demarcation line between heavy weapons and blasters, without having to rely on the weapon description itself.

Another nice thing about this breakout, is that when a new weapon is encountered you don't have to make a hard judgement call about what class it is. Charric? Machine Gun? Colt Revolver? The age of the weapon isn't the factor, its all in how its held and fired. Crossbows & Bowcasters fit nicely together but can also encompass grappling Hook throwers, wrist crossbows, etc.


re: Vehicle Blasters & Blaster Artillery- I'll get to this in mechanical, but the short version is that I don't understand why a blaster is different if its on a "vehicle" (an ambiguous term) vs. a "repulsorlift" vs. a "Walker" since both would be classified as a vehicle.


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This Next change is somewhat controversial, but let me try to make the point, and I'm saying this as someone with 15 years of martial arts training:

No one learns to attack without also learning how to defend. You learn to block then attack, or block and attack, or execute one move that is both block AND attack. Ever watch UFC? Watch the fight Anderson Silva lost most recently. He lost because his trademark leg kick was checked by a knee that broke Silva's leg. Block + attack in one move. If you're doing Jujitsu only to defend you will lose every time. It isn't about only defending, its about turning whatever position you're in into an attack your opponent has to defend.

I am therefor opposed to Parry skills being separate from the attacking skill. (On the other hand, one CAN learn to shoot without learning to dodge, and dodge without learning to shoot. )

Secondly, brawling attacks (martial arts) are not always about strength. They can be about speed, agility or flexibility. Raw power can be huge, but a successful attack should be both fast and powerful. Allow the brawling skill to be EITHER a dex or a Strength skill, with the damage dealt equal to the Strength score. That makes strength still valuable to the brawler, but if they want to be a quick striker instead of a powerful one, they don't have to make a character that is the Hulk, but is instead Black Widow.

Lastly, this rule (about attack/defense) already covered to some degree in the section on Martial Arts, (and Lightsaber Combat) and takes out the special exception just for martial arts these two. (anytime you remove 'special case' rules, is a good thing.


Lastly, this makes a skill investment in melee or brawling overall more valuable and encourages a diversification of skills. Ranged combat is overall far more common in Star Wars, so investing in two skills there is pretty much a must for nearly all characters.

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Knowledge Skills
no comment at the moment here
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Mechanical Skills
oooh boy. Ok. this is where I go on my crusade.
First some quick suggestions.

Rename Aquatic Ship Operation -> Aquatic Vehicle Operation
I'm a sailor too, and Ship has different connotations. (Sub guys will talk about the "Boat", no one would call a dinghy or a Zodiac a ship, etc)

Archaic Starship Piloting - consider eliminating this skill. In 20 years of playing & GM'ing star wars, I've never seen someone make a roll with this skill. I can't even think of a single character I've seen who has the skill. Its not hurting anything here, but its kinda just a void skill

Communications - Move to Technical. Mechanical skills are about translating computer/console/reigns input into some other motion or action. (aiming a turret, turning a ship, etc) Its about the user's ability to perceive in 4 dimensions, judge position, etc. Communications just doesn't seem to do that for me, other than its a ship system. It logically makes more sense as a technical skill (reading computer input/output, adjusting frequencies)

Jet Pack Operation/Rocket Pack Operation -> Consolidate. Does it REALLY matter if the source of the thrust is a rocket or a jet? There is no good reason to split these skills other than someone at WEG forgot what the skill was named.

Sensors: Consider moving to Technical. The same arguments for Communications also work for Sensors

OK, and this is where I get controversial.

Capital Ship Piloting/Space Transports/Starfighter Operation
--->Eliminate Space Transports as a skill. Ships in star wars are either nimble craft that in combat duck and weave through a battlefield, or move like huge bricks in space. Space Transports was just kind of 'there' But you CANT tell me that a Space Barge or a Gallofree Yards medium transport flies like the Millennium Falcon. Yet RAW, they do. Furthermore a Skipray Blastboat, by almost any definition, is a heavy fighter, yet flies like a Star Destroyer.
So what to do here. Originally I was advocating just splitting the two skills and wiping out Space Transports. You use the skill based on the role in combat.

An alternate idea might be to take Capital Ship Piloting and rename it to just Piloting - this skill would be used for any ship where you're not weaving all over the battlefield. That includes things like landing a starfighter or trying to dock with another craft. Then add a 2nd skill of Combat Maneuvering or Space Combat Maneuvering (the TLA for dog-fighting is ACM- Air Combat Maneuvering) which would cover combat situations.
(thinking down the road a bit, I'm thinking of situations like Ep4, where the Falcon was largely stationary, and used as a firing platform for the guns; rationale: Chewbacca or Leia was using basic Piloting, rather than trying anything evasive--there should be a penalty for people in gunnery stations trying to hit a target when your ship is weaving and spinning everywhere)


Second:
Vehicle Gunnery, Walker Gunnery, Repulsorlift Gunnery, Speeder Gunnery, Starfighter Gunnery, Capital Ship Gunnery Eliminate: Replace with
Laser Gunnery, Missile Gunnery, Artillery Gunnery, Turret Gunnery

Is firing a T-47 Snowspeeder's lasers so different from firing an X-wing's lasers?
Now I draw a distinction between firing your forward firing lasers (having to move your ship's nose to point at a target) and aiming with a turret gun. Furthermore I think aiming with a missile system is radically different than aiming with your laser cannons. (the X-Wing uses two totally different systems to aim the weapons for example)
So what is the fix? I suggest 4 skills, Turret Gunnery (used for beam weapons on a turret mount of some kind-ion cannons, blaster cannons, tank main gun) this would apply for all vehicle scales), and also things the main cannon on the Clone Army's SPHA-T, Laser Gunnery used for any weapon you point your whole vehicle at and Missile Gunnery used for firing missiles, torpedoes, etc.
To that we will add Artillery Gunnery which would be non-Line of Sight/Ballistic weapons, like a howitzer

Starship Shields/Capital Ship Shields - again, not sure the distinction needs to exist here between the shields on various systems, but I can excuse it:Logically it makes some sense if you're talking about one/two/four shield projectors vs. 60 on some capital ships. Maybe able to leave this one as is.

Swoop Operation -- If you're going to leave this skill in, you need to add a separate Podracer Skill. These are very different vehicles, and the podracers are more prominent than swoops in the Star Wars Canon (now, though they were not at the time). Me, I'd be inclined to throw Swoops & Speeder bikes in the same class (possibly split from from repulsorlift Operation) and make Podracer Operation its own listed skill given its importance in Ep I.
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[aegisflashfire]

Perception:
Add Awareness skill
Rationale: One big hole in WEG's perception skill use is that Sneak is only opposed with Perception. Since perception is capped at your attribute limit, anyone with even a little bit of sneak will always be rolling more dice than someone attempting to notice them

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Strength:
Nothing really to add here. Strength has always been the shortest skill list, but that probably ok since its important to all characters for other reasons (aka, not dying)

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Technical

oooh boy. Again, WEG really dropped the ball on this section because they tossed common sense out the window.

Throw out the following skills:
Starfighter Repair
Space Transports Repair
Repulsorlift Repair
Capital Ship Repair
Walker Repair
Aquatic Vehicle Repair (See, you used "aquatic vehicle" here)
Capital Ship Weapon Repair
Ground Vehicle Repair
Hover Vehicle Repair


Replace with:
Sublight Systems Repair - Fixing ion/sublight engines on cloud cars, fighters, transports, capital ships
Repulsorlift Systems Repair fixing repulsors on anything from gravsleds & boots to ISD's and Cloud City
Computer Systems Repair repairing any computer system including navicomputers,
Hull/Armor Repair physical repair of anything from Clone Trooper armor to welding plating on a ISD or cross bracing a mineshaft; repairing the physical integrity of a system
Mechanical Systems Repair Fixing a device with moving parts, includes engines, pistons, the motor on a minigun or the servo that moves the landing doors on a Venator Star Destroyer
Energy Weapons Repair Fixing Blasters, Ion Cannons, laser cannons
Shield Systems Repair repairing both Particle & Ray shield projectors on anything from a Gungan personal shield to a Star Destroyer
Missile Systems Repair repairing the non-moving parts on missile/rocket/torpedos systems
Hyperdrive Systems Repair obvious.
Environmenal Systems Repair Grav Plating, HVAC, food processors, air scrubbers, etc

Rationale: The logic here being that if repairing the repulsorlifts on a swoop, speederbike, X-wing, TIE or VSD are all the same; same physics go into each so the same repair techniques work.
Similarly the same hyperdrive physics are at work be it on a Mon Cal Cruiser or a TIE Phantom
Repairing the Hull/Armor is still about fixing/welding a physical system that requires bracing, ablation, etc
Repairing mechanical systems means fixing engines, servos, aka,physical moving parts.
Repairing a laser cannon is the same if you're fixing the turbolaser on a death Star or a blaster pistol- its the same physics, the same type of engineering.

Using the logic that WEG used, some yokel who spent their entire life fixing an antiquated sub-light only barge, somehow develops a knowledge of fixing the hyperdrive on the Millennium falcon just because they're both space transports.

And again, WEG's bizarre rulings about whats a transport vs a fighter vs. capital ship: repairing a Skipray Blastboat or Assault Shuttle is somehow vastly different than repairing an X-wing or Lambda Shuttle because The Blastboat's engine is somehow too big.

A systems-based repair rule also allows for new vehicles to be interpreted into the existing skills. Want to fix a dirigible? Sure, fixing the hull? Got a skill for that. Fixing the propeller? Got a skill for that. Fixing the nav systems? Got a skill for that. How about an archaic ship? Want to patch the hull? Sure. you can weld a piece of plating on it the same way you do a YT-1300. You don't suddenly forget how to weld just because its an old ship.
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[klhaviation]

We are currently working on getting the beta files available on D6holocron.com and getting a Dropbox set up.

RE: the skills rules mods. I think they are very well thought out, and for the most part very good changes. I have forwarded the post to members of our team to get feedback, and I hope to get some feedback on this forum from the community.

My only real concern (other than making sure we re-edit the entire document to replace skill names and make sure that the rule changes are consistent across the board) is that we would fail to maintain compatibility with many of the fan books and WEG books. That is one of our core missions. Believe me I dislike some of the skill rules (capital, space transport, and starfighter skills for instance), but we are willing to accept some "warts" to make compatibility work.

On the other hand I do like the concept of the rule changes and compatibility conversion would not be too difficult. If changes are going to be made, now is the time to make them. I just want to avoid going overboard like D6 Space did. There are certain elements of Star Wars, that while they are not completely logical, are difficult to isolate from the core system across all editions.

Skill bloat became a problem in 2nd ed and was arguably throttled back in R&E, but I think the ship had sailed and certain changes could not be made and still be able to support some of the 2nd ED material. We are trying to maintain a system that supports as much material as possible, but we also want to "fix" as many warts as possible. Skills and Attributes and Combat & Injuries are two chapters that are the most difficult to walk this thin like.


Would love to hear community feedback, and we are seriously considering some of these skill mods.

Thanks for the post aegisflashfire, I appreciate it.

[aegisflashfire]

I've already made my suggestions on combat skills, so I'll leave those there, however here's a few points I noticed reading this section:

Knockout uses the phrase 'half normal damage' without defining it. Half the number of dice? roll full dice and half the total? Round up? Round down?

The whole knockout rule is a little confusing. Was this nabbed from Specforce?

Unwieldy Weapon makes reference to weapons longer than 60cm, but since that isn't a value actually given on any weapon statistic, its a meaningless number. (again, this is where a clear pistol vs rifle/carbine is a nice break point.)

Quickdraw rule is overly complicated.

I didn't see anywhere (and WEG didn't mention it) What happens if penalties exceed number of dice being rolled, especially in the -2 - +2 range. (Say my skill is 2D+2, and I am wounded twice. Can I still roll 1 wild die and subtract 1 from the total?)



Diseases - you use the term Epidemic to describe a severe illness. Epidemic refers to the degree of spread through a population, not the lethality of disease within the individual. You can have an Epidemic of runny noses, but it isn't going to kill anyone.
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