West End Games' Star Wars RPG

I really like the West End Games system for Star Wars. It's simple, but with enough flexibility to encompass most situations. It is not overly detailed, but good for the sort of adventure-driven scenarios to which the Star Wars universe lends itself. For that matter, I feel that it could be used to good effect for almost any setting that supports swashbucking and adventure.

Here is a rundown of some of the high points of the system:

• Skills and defaults. With the exception of a few advanced skills, each skill has an attribute to which it defaults. If you haven't improved your Repulsorlift Operation skill and need to drive a speeder, it defaults to your Mechanical attribute. It is handy, and fitting for the setting, to know that any character might understand a given language, fix a droid, fire a starship laser or bluff past the port authority.
• Scale. This, if you'll pardon the pun, is a big one. They have a lovely system for differentiating between humans, speeders, walkers, starfighters, capital ships and so forth. In this way, a human-scale blaster can be rated 2D and a starfighter hull can be rated at 2D, but the blaster has almost no chance of damaging the starfighter. Because of the scale difference between them, the fighter is considered to have 8D to resist the 2D blaster, but it has only 2D to resist the laser fire of another starfighter. It keeps the number of dice down while maintaining the same mechanic. I find it really quite elegant.
• Starship combat. Their system for starship combat is fast and effective. The dice of the ship (maneuverability and gunning accuracy) work with the dice of the character directly to keep it simple with the result the dogfights last long enough to be tense and interesting but not so long that it gets old. The danger is there and real, but even severe damage doesn't necessarily mean death.
• Multiple actions. The technique here was truly innovative, sufficiently so that some thirteen years after the first edition of Star Wars introduced it, White Wolf stole it for their own RPGs. All of a character's skills and attirbutes are rated in six-sided dice. A character can take as many actions in a phase as the player likes, but each action beyond the first reduces the all character's die codes by -1D (except for perception, resistance or similar) for that round. Want to shoot four stormtroopers in one phase? No problem, except that each shot is at -3D. Now if you're a starting character with a blaster skill of 4D, that's significant. But if you're a hotshot veteran with 8D of blaster, it's not so bad.
• Character points. The concept was not new with the game, but I like their treatment of it. In addition to character improvement, Character Points (CP) can be spent to improve your chances on any one roll. If the roll is defensive (such as a dodge or resisting damage), you can add up to 5CP to the roll, each providing an addition d6 with an open-ended 6. If the roll is not defensive (meaning for anything else, including increasing a damage roll) a character can add up to 2CP. One of the really useful things about this is that the CP don't have to be declared in advance. The player can roll, see the total (but may not know the result) and then decide, one at a time, how many CP to spend, if any.
• The Wild Die. The Wild Die is a part of every roll. If a 6 is rolled, the 6 is added and the die is rolled again, continuing until a number other than 6 is rolled (all totals are added). If a 1 is rolled (on the first roll, this is not true is a 1 follows a Wild Die 6) it is either a Mishap or a Complication. On a Mishap, take away the wild die and the highest rolling other die. The total is what remains. On a Complication, add the complete total, but worry because the GM has something in mind to happen as a result. Obviously, whether a 1 is a Mishap or a Complication is up to the GM. This can lead to exceptionally good rolls (the blaster from the above example might damage the starfighter, such as if it hit a weak spot in a key system) and to marvelous complications (a complication on an astrogation check might mean cutting a wide path for a bounty hunter to follow).

There are, however, a couple of problems with the system. Complications, if you will. The first problem is the Force. The game mechanics are clearly and completely slanted in favor of Force-users. First there are Force Sensitives, people who are more naturally in tune with the Force than others. In the game, they get access to more Force Points (FP) and spending an FP lets a character double his die codes for a phase (if this doesn't sound like much, think about the multiple action rule). If a character is not Force Sensitive, she canot have more than 5FP (any excess gained are traded for CP. I do not, offhand, recall the conversion rate). A Force Sensitive character has no limit, and even starts the game with two instead of one.

Now this can be kept under control with the careful distribution of FP. The Force Sensitive will always be more powerful than those who aren't, but the difference will not be so clearly visible. FP are only gained when they are spent being heroic at a "Dramatically Appropriate" moment (which regains the point spent plus one more, as opposed to spending them when "just" being heroic, which regains the point but doesn't get the additional). It's in the definition of "Dramatically Appropriate" that the problem manifests. It can be too easy to leave the door open, as it were. Say, for example, that the game master has been setting up a climactic battle for two games. The enemy is pure evil, the cause is truly just and the heroes spend FP like water. Is the battle itself Dramatically Appropriate or are there only specific moments that qualify? IF the GM is not careful, the 2FP a Force Sensitive character starts the campaign with can become 6 or 8 before a dozen game sessions have passed. That character's experience progression may be the same as that of the others, but the other PCs will probably not have half as many FP, making them significantly less powerful.

That problem, once you know it exists, can be kept in check with a little planning and experience. The benefits are also counterbalanced a bit by the fact that Force Sensitives have to avoid acting out of anger, hatred (and such like) lest they succumb to the Dark Side. If the GM enforces this, it can keep them from dominating the game too badly.

The real problem are the jedi. One of the great things about the Star Wars series is that, while the jedi are great, there are enough cool characters who aren't jedi that players will want to play other things too. At the start of a campaign this is fine, since the cost of having Force skills is counterbalanced bytheir proportionally decreased attributes (there are three Force skills: Control, Sense and Alter. A character may start the game with 1D in any or all of them, but each die so allocated comes out of their attribute pool). Unfortunately, over the course of a campaign, the scales tip. The jedi will gain Force Points, develop their Force skills and gain Force powers (the abilities they roll their Force skill dice for). As the campaign continues, they will outstrip the other characters, and maintaining game balance will become trickier. The real trick, though, is to keep the dark side a threat to them, keeping them in check, without shifting the game to focus primarily on them.

Don't get me wrong. The balance can be maintained and the game can certainly be enjoyed by all. These are simply caveats, so that a GM new to the system will not begin from a place of ignorance. Personally I feel that the key is in plot hooks, but I've rambled on enough here and drifted far enough from the topic.

Back

Four Winds Bar