Last Sunday we started a Star Wars D6 campaign using the Introductory Adventure Game and the Revised and Expanded Edition that Jeff so kindly sent our way. And we had a blast :D
I have to say that this may be one of the best introductory products I've ever seen, along with the Red Box. The box contains a player's booklet, a GM's booklet (with a very short scenario, not even an adventure) and an adventure booklet with 6 short adventures that form a campaign.
Apart from the booklets, there are several maps for the adventures, and a big bunch of paper figurines to use on the game. And 5d6. :D
The adventures are excellent regarding their goal, which is to introduce players and GMs to the different systems of the game in a structured manner. In each adventure new situations are introduced, so the learning curve of the game is not steep. When the campaign is finished, the players will have experienced all the common situations that they can find in Star Wars.
The only part I didn't enjoy so much is the GMing advice, which is heavy in railroading and things like fudging dice for the story and things like that. Fortunately, as any GMing advice, is easy to ignore and the rules work great without it :D
We generated PCs (a Minor Jedi, a Bounty Hunter, a Brash Pilot, a Smuggler, a Pirate and a Kid) and played through the short scenario in the GMs booklet and the first adventure in the Adventure Booklet. My players fell in love almost instantly with the system (half of them are HUGE SW fans, and the others are familiar with the movies, no EU nerds). In the scenarios the PCs are in a Rebel base that is attacked and destroyed by the Empire. In the first part they had to escape from the attack (the Brash Pilot got 2 TIE fighters down before she was shot down), avoiding the Imperial net. In the second scenario (first in the Adventure booklet) the PCs are trying to reach one of the rendezvous points to try and escape the planet, which is now under Imperial occupation. They had a short encounter with local fauna, and captured and used some Imperial uniforms to take over a comm post and steal a speeder for themselves. After a thrilling chase with 2 scouts in speederbikes, the PCs managed to escape and arrive to a city.
To sum it up: a great session, and a great game. Though 2 of my players were familiar with the D20 version, they liked better the D6 edition almost instantly.The game makes a wonderful job of emulating SW while keeping everything fast and simple. It seems that we have a new campaign in the making :D Now they are plotting how to shot down that Imperial Destroyer in orbit that prevents them from leaving the planet :D
Jeff, your present has been put to good use. :hatsoff:
Yes.
Star Wars WEG d6 is made of awesome and a half. After playing the new Edge of Empire by FF, I must say I longed for the former as if in a desert.
Sure it breaks down at some point, but all games do, cuz numbers work like that. Yet few games can say they touch that feel of "I start awesome! And now I'm in the movie, too!" Few games I've played started with as good or better first impression.
Quote from: Imperator;656311The only part I didn't enjoy so much is the GMing advice, which is heavy in railroading and things like fudging dice for the story and things like that. Fortunately, as any GMing advice, is easy to ignore and the rules work great without it :D
I cut the Star Wars' GM advice a lot of slack because I am fond of the game.
More to the point the advice has to be taken its historical context. Star Wars wasn't the first game to embrace genre emulation, but it was among the first big champions of Hollywood blockbuster genre emulation much of which is at odds with the then prevailing old school, wargame-derived style of roleplaying.
The advice is there to try to bridge that gap. It may not always be good advice, but it was a start and I suspect for many it was an eye opener. Speaking as a roleplayer that prefers Hollywood cinematic style of play, it was an important step in the , subjectively, right direction.
But mostly I cut the Star Wars' GM advice a lot of slack because I am fond of the game.
Quote from: Opaopajr;656313Star Wars WEG d6 is made of awesome and a half. After playing the new Edge of Empire by FF, I must say I longed for the former as if in a desert.
Sure it breaks down at some point, but all games do, cuz numbers work like that. Yet few games can say they touch that feel of "I start awesome! And now I'm in the movie, too!" Few games I've played started with as good or better first impression.
I agree. One of my players was enthusiastic about that: "We were mowing scouts left and right like in the movies!" (she hasn't met yet an Stormtrooper so she's used to guys soaking damage with 2D+2 :D).
Also, they liked that, for example, spending some dice in Con pays big. When they were disguised as Scouts the Pirate PC rolled like 5D vs the Imperial Officers' Perception 2D. It was glorious.
Also, they liked that combat is dangerous, despite that. In the first combat, against 4 Scouts, 2 PCs were wounded in the first round. They like that they feel heroic but also have to be careful. At least for now, they are already imagining what is to have 9D in Dodge :D
Quote from: Soylent Green;656319I cut the Star Wars' GM advice a lot of slack because I am fond of the game.
My feelings, exactly. It is a bit of a pity, because I feel that kind of advice makes the game a disservice. The system is so good it does not need ot be ignored because it interferes with the fun, it is a well designed system.
I don't know if it breaks. My previous experience with it was a veeeeery long campaign in the 90s, maybe 3-4 years long IRL, where the PCs got to very high skills with a very much optimized ship. They were almost Han Solo-like, and I didn't feel the game would break. Yeah, they were ridiculously skilled, but as they regularly did ridiculously difficult stuff it was challenging nonetheless.
This made my night.
Quote from: jeff37923;656328This made my night.
Glad to be of service. I'll keep you posted on how it ends! :hatsoff:
Quote from: Opaopajr;656313After playing the new Edge of Empire by FF, I must say I longed for the former as if in a desert.
I was left wondering why we didn't play d6, and have the Wild Die be used for narrative Advantage/Disadvantage (1=Disadvantage, 6=Advantage, no exploding/reduction die mechanic).
I still maintain that d6 is the perfect system for a Firefly-type game, and with my tweak to Force Powers, my perfect Star Wars game.
I have tons of fond memories of this game.
Don't underestimate the value of mining EU material for your games.
That's a far cleaner solution for adv/disadv. But y'know some people like collecting novelty dice.
Though few things piss me off more than having to share propriety dice around a table because they never got around to selling extra dice outside the beta box in time...
/spit
I don't miss that system.
Quote from: Opaopajr;656499But y'know some people like collecting novelty dice.
Hey man, I got a couple of d30 and d7's. I can dig it! ;)
Quote from: Opaopajr;656499That's a far cleaner solution for adv/disadv. But y'know some people like collecting novelty dice.
Though few things piss me off more than having to share propriety dice around a table because they never got around to selling extra dice outside the beta box in time...
/spit
I don't miss that system.
WTF are you talking about?
The
d6 Star Wars system only uses d6's, which are easily found.
Quote from: jeff37923;656575WTF are you talking about?
The d6 Star Wars system only uses d6's, which are easily found.
I think he's taking a shot at FFG's newfangled Star Wars RPG, which, like WFRP 3e (and Cubicle 7's TOR, too), comes complete with obligatory FFG funny dice. At least one of which is a wild-die-like thingie with a Rebel symbol for success and an Imperial sigil for failure.
Quote from: The Butcher;656580I think he's taking a shot at FFG's newfangled Star Wars RPG, which, like WFRP 3e (and Cubicle 7's TOR, too), comes complete with obligatory FFG funny dice. At least one of which is a wild-die-like thingie with a Rebel symbol for success and an Imperial sigil for failure.
Oh, OK. My apologies, I must be more tired than I thought tonight.
Quote from: The Butcher;656580I think he's taking a shot at FFG's newfangled Star Wars RPG, which, like WFRP 3e (and Cubicle 7's TOR, too), comes complete with obligatory FFG funny dice. At least one of which is a wild-die-like thingie with a Rebel symbol for success and an Imperial sigil for failure.
Yep, that's it. I am not terribly interested on it.
Anyway, I just found a cornucopia of WEG's Star Wars stuff, so I think I am set for life. Holy shit, never knew there was so much stuff for the game.
When does WEG's Star Wars/d6 break down? Some particular skill levels?
Quote from: Rincewind1;656591When does WEG's Star Wars/d6 break down? Some particular skill levels?
It never has for me. I've heard of people complaining of rolling buckets of dice when the PCs get to be very highly skilled, but that is only after those characters have been played for years. I've also heard people complain that their characters were never the heroes of the game because the movies already had the Main Heroes, but again I have never encountered that in Actual Play.
Quote from: Rincewind1;656591When does WEG's Star Wars/d6 break down? Some particular skill levels?
Eventually, Jedi characters will outclass everyone because of the way Force skills work. JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIES. We played a 1st edition campaign one summer when I was in grad school, almost daily sessions since no one was taking classes. The Jedi of the group became extremely beastly in combat and the game grew more centered about developing his abilities. One of the players even brought it up during a session, but everyone agreed it made sense and fit perfectly within the genre/world.
The Outlaw and Smuggler ended up leading an attack on a Super Star Destroyer, almost succeeded in blowing it up and killing Vader (and the Emperor), but we ended up not playing any more right after that for a variety of reasons. Really wish we had wrapped that up...
Quote from: Rincewind1;656591When does WEG's Star Wars/d6 break down? Some particular skill levels?
Particularly high levels, especially with Force Users.
More my gripe, is that multiple attackers can quickly overwhelm even the best of fighters (throw 20 stormtroopers against Vader, and mechanically Vader will go down in a straight fight, barring blasting through virtually unreplacable Force Points). In a more "real life" example, you can have a high-level villain, who will challenge 3 players, but will mow through the first two if the 3rd gets busy elsewhere.
(of course, you can argue that's part of genre emulation too. Vader captures Han, Chewie and Leia with Boba Fett and a gaggle of Stromtroopers. The only time fights were "one-on-one" was when Vader was fighting Luke, really.)
And boy, was it a success.
In the second installment of the introductory adventure, the PCs arrive to a small city to try and find some Rebel contact who can take them to the rendezvous point so they can get out of the planet. Of course, things never work that way.
The PCs managed to find a contact allright, but the contact asked them to help with a mysterious bunch of disappearances around the city. Up to 40 farmhands had disappeared over a few nights, and the contact wanted to look into that. Having a Jedi in the group, they agreed.
When they (along with a bunch of NPCs) staked-out one of the farms, they discovered that Empire soldiers were kidnapping and taking away the farmers. And that is the moment where the session really took off, and the system got to shine and proide a true Star Wars feeling:
- the Brash Pilot retrieved a Scout armor they got from the previous session, she disguised herself, and shot in stun her romantic interest (a local constable she just met) so she could get inside one of the armored transports pretending she was carrying a prisoner. "Hey, nice outfit, why are you pointing that blaster at me?" "Believe me, is for the Rebellion." "Bitch." Priceless :D
- at the same time, the Young Jedi and the Pirate rose from the high grass where they were hidden, and pretended (with some wicked Con rolls by the pirate, who rolls 5D and loves it) to be farmhands dazed by blaster fire. And they got into the same transport as the Brash Pilot. Meanwhile, they could hear the Bounty Hunter PC threatening to kill them once they got out.
- the Smuggler got back to a warehouse where he got a salvaged Y-wing while the Bounty Hunter and the rest of the NPCs shadowed the Imperial convoy. Despite a Rebel mechanic trying to warn him about the miserable status of the ship (only 25% of fuel, only 4 torpedoes, no ion cannon), he looked at him and just told him "starships are my bitches", before taking off, Solo-style.
- the Imperials took the group to a secluded landing site, where a Lambda shuttle was arriving in order to take the prisoners to the Star Destroyer blocking he planet, for unknown purposes. Of course, my players were not taking any of that shit, and being confronted with almost 30 Stormtroopers, 2 speeders, 2 armored transports and a fucking AT-ST walker is nothing if you got the surprise :D Using a combination of surprise, clever tactics, the aerial support of the Y-Wing (which destroyed the AT-ST and the shuttle before it could get back to the Star Destroyer) and a fuckton of Force points ("it doesn't matter, we're spending them to save these people at the best dramatic moment, we'r getting them back and then some!") and character points (this they didn't like so much), they managed to obliterate the Imperials and rescue most of the farmhands. Some of the farmers died when a PC (the Pirate) detonated the fuel deposits without thinking about who was near, and almost killing the Brash Pilot (and killing her romantic interest).
After playing the battle, my players and I got to the following conclussions:
- the rules of scale are great. My players liked a lot how elegant they are when it comes to emulate how powerful a ship's weapon is against a walker or speeder.
- once you get the hang of the movement rules they stop being weird and cumbersome and truly add to combats. Movement and terrain becomes an important part of the combats.
- the system is quite lethal, and Stormtrooper armor is badass (I also tend to roll super high :D) Stormtroopers are tougher than in the movies.
- it is great that there are rules for combined fire and the like, because otherwise managing a big battle becomes quite unwieldy. The system is not that fast, and if you have many NPC rolling is better to devise some rules for combining their attacks.
- they loved how you can use Character Points to improve rolls after the roll is done, until I remembered them that Character Points are also XP :D
- lightsabers are not that lethal against Stormtroopers, at least until you buy the lightsaber combat power (5D damage against 4D soaking, like a heavy blaster).
- Force points are badass. Jetpacks too, if you max out your skill (as the Bounty Hunter did).
- skill specialties are awesome. You can be really badass at something for a very low XP amount. My players are going to use this a lot.
Everyone agreed that it felt really Star Wars. Also, they are really excited about the next session, that should be next Sunday. They interrogated an Officer and knew about a couple of Dark Jedi twins or some weird shit like that, so they are itching to find them.
Great session, great game :)
Awesome. Reminds me of my time with WEG Star Wars. I'm sad I moved back from college and stopped playing it.
... gotta dig in the used book stores...
I love this! :D
Quote from: Imperator;661498- lightsabers are not that lethal against Stormtroopers, at least until you buy the lightsaber combat power (5D damage against 4D soaking, like a heavy blaster).
Actually, Stormtrooper armor only adds +1d to energy attacks, so it should be 5d damage against 3d soak (unless these were special troopers, with greater than 2d STR). 2nd Edition and later made Stromtrooper armor add +1d versus energy attacks, and +2d versus physical attacks (like knives and grenades, which makes my troopers a little more grenade happy...)
Quote from: Novastar;661604Actually, Stormtrooper armor only adds +1d to energy attacks, so it should be 5d damage against 3d soak (unless these were special troopers, with greater than 2d STR). 2nd Edition and later made Stromtrooper armor add +1d versus energy attacks, and +2d versus physical attacks (like knives and grenades, which makes my troopers a little more grenade happy...)
Ouch! My bad :D Well, I'm sure my players will forgive that :D
Loving your writeups, Imperator! I picked up the WEG 1E rules and I'm just itching to run them at some point.
People, tomorrow is game night! Finally, after the fuckton of work and several other RL happenings, the crew is back for more Star Wars action. So, pretty soon we will get more writeups :)
I bought the 1E version of WEG Star Wars when it first came out and we played the heck out of it, but I haven't played in years.
I ran across a similar thread on starter boxed sets and a couple of folks posted that the WEG Star Wars starter set was the best starter set ever, so I bought one on e-bay.
Wow. It's really well done!
Brings back great memories. I haven't run it yet, but I'm getting some adventures ready for a friend's sons who are huge Star Wars nuts.
OK, last Friday we played but I didn't makethe write-up because baby. Tonight we play again, so I better get this thing done.
Our heroes are reaching Fortune City on speeder, using their salvaged Y-wing to keep advanced patrol and recon, at least while the thing has fuel. They detected a TIE fighter on patrol, whose route would bring it to detect the group. So the Brash Pilot (Azahara) and the Smuggler (Seth) decided to take care of that shit and use their Y-wing for something other than blasting AT-ST walkers and defenseless Stormtroopers. Thus, our first dogfight started!
It lasted a fucking couple of rounds. The TIE not having shieds is a massive laibility when the other side is shooting proton torpedoes :D
While the dogfight was taking place, the ground group detected a convoy moving on their direction. They sneak behind them and discover a ragtag band of armed people looking for the place where the TIE crashed. They confront them, and learn that they're a group of guns for hire, lead by a man named Talenn Scruts. They used to work for Edan government before the ocupation and as guns for hire, but guess what, the Empire fucked up their shit and now they try to get by with the Rebels to fuck Imperial shit up. There is some mistrust, anyway, because Talenn is not sure if the PCs may be some undercover Imperial spies trying to flush up Rebel cells. Unknown to him, his demolitions and mechanics expert (Jarus Kai) is an Imperial agent.
My Pcs needed like 3 minutes to nail the guy's cover and catch him red-handed trying to put a transceiver on the Y-wing. After confirming that there are two Dark Jedi running ops in Fortune City, they ally with Strut's band to attack an Imperial convoy that carried lots of fuel, ammo and other useful supplies. As they cleverly positioned the Y-wing (at the moment almost fuel-empty) they could use it to dispatch the heavy repulsortank and some clever traps disabled the rest of the escrot vehicles.
In this fight, players learned to love grenades.
The Y-wing was refittted with fuel and torpedoes (the ion cannon couldn't be repaired at the moment), so they split the loot with Struts and go on and reach Fortune City. Here, things really wnet down the shitter.
Have to leav now to run some errands, be right back ;)
Quote from: Rincewind1;656591When does WEG's Star Wars/d6 break down? Some particular skill levels?
Well we house ruled a skill and force level cap of 15D as the Emperor had the only Force skill of Sense at 15D in the Game and the Highest skill as well, Intimidation at 13D, so we just assumed a natural cap of 15D anything more would be overkill anyhow.
That is one of the issues with D6, yeah.
Quote from: flyingcircus;670531Well we house ruled a skill and force level cap of 15D as the Emperor had the only Force skill of Sense at 15D in the Game and the Highest skill as well, Intimidation at 13D, so we just assumed a natural cap of 15D anything more would be overkill anyhow.
Skills can get extremely high, but also its worth considering that you can do multiple actions in a round, which in turn lower the chances of success. Consider deflecting a crapload of blaster shots. Heroes can rely less on Force Points.
Another consideration is your campaign balance. Ive played in a decade long campaign (off and on), and while some characters have a 9D in some skills, a well balanced character is buying a lot of skills over time. At least in the campaigns Ive played in, and others Ive run myself, you cannot afford to be a completely one dimensional character.
Spin off question, but the consensus on the Wound level chart? What are the pros and cons of the 1e version and the 2e/OpenD6/MiniSix version?
I only seem to remember the 1e version from play, though I am sure I also played 2e games.
SW1e
DRDR>SR = Wounded
DR>2xSR = Incapacitated
DR>3xSR = Mortally Wounded.
2e onwards
Stunned 0 – 3
Wounded 4 – 8
Severely Wounded 4 – 8
Incapacitated 9 –12
Mortally Wounded 13 – 15
Dead 16+