My D6 Mods (Split from "How to Spice up Combat")

[Eric J.]

Okay, I've needed a thread to figure out how to deal with my D6 mods for a while now.  This might end up longish... but please bare with me.  I need help.

In D6 Star Wars, a year ago I decided to run a new campaign so my friends and I came up with one.  It's called Star Wars: Sins of the Father.  The premise is that the characters play Jedi a century after the foundation of the Jedi order and they deal with the reprocussions of that.  It's been my best campaign yet and here's the full synopse of it a while ago:


Anyway, for this campaign, I decided to do a few mods. to the system (the system needed it).

Here's a really quick list:

Stats were decided using a table I created because the original one allowed for disbalanced play.

I extended the Difficulty table (though I have not changed the DCs for actions listed in the rulebook).

I redid the jedi system.

I redid the combat system.

For the jedi system, I added about 60 force powers to the books pitiful 22.  These new powers almost never replace the original ones, but it does make certain powers better at doing specific things (i.e. Force Strike is a specific application of Telekinesis that lets the force user better attack targets with objects)

Force ability progression has been completely changed (the old way was far far too easy).

Force attributes (Alter, Control, Sense) have all been changed to a near-arbitrary improvement system.  Basicly, you learn about the force from a special lesson from your teacher, you find an ancient artifact or you gain a force point, and you'll have a chance to improve your force attributes.

Force skills are a 3 stage challenge.  First the players declare what 'actions' their characters are going to make.  This includes movement, number of attacks, drawing weapons, etc.  This is what gives the penalty to all actions for the character.  (Ever action after the first incures a -1D penalty to all other actions)

Anyway, there are 2 compications.  First there are 'duals', which is a way of resolving initiative when it comes up.  This is where the speed of your weapon comes in handy.  If you attack a few times before your oponent, their dice will be depleated from blocking you.  So as you can see,  speed, attack, and defence are important.

The second, and by far the most difficult part are 'reactions'.  During the round, after another character has performed an action you can 'react' and change what your character does.  This can be such things as:

Blocking
Dodging
Moving
Making an Attack of Opertunity
Change Weapons
Talking

Whatever, really.  The only problem is that these very wonderful and truly cinematic things require RULES.  I'm thinking that dodging and blocking will incure a -1D for the rest of the Actions you make in the round.  Moving and will do likewise.  Making a reactive attack will require forfeiting an action that you would have already taken in the round.

I actually went through the battle between Jango Fett and Obi Wan in Episode II and recorded how I wanted each action to be resolved and it came out pretty beautifully (It works well with the damage system and everything).  Even the number of attacks and the dodging remains plausable in my weird little system.

Anyway, I'm hoping that I can work it out into something I really like.   I think I only really need to figure out a more complete initative system and a sketched out reaction field.  I'm curious about what other tweaks people might have thought about for D6 or what problems you think you might find in a system like mine.

If you help me out, I promise to stop starting so many threads. ;)

May the wind be always at your back,
-Pyron

[Andrew Martin]

The only problem is that these very wonderful and truly cinematic things require RULES.  I'm thinking that dodging and blocking will incure a -1D for the rest of the Actions you make in the round.  Moving and will do likewise.  Making a reactive attack will require forfeiting an action that you would have already taken in the round.

I did a lot of work on my S combat system, trying to make it all very interesting through several versions, then I eventually realised that something like Bayn's Wushu did pretty much everything I wanted to with a lot more flashiness and ease of use. Have a look at the examples of play section on the Wushu site: http://bayn.org/wushu/examples/index.html and see what you think.

[M. J. Young]

If I haven't totally lost it, you were describing this on another thread; I had a thought or two there, but one of my thoughts there was that it would be thread drift and you hadn't asked for an opinion.

One thing that bothers me about the system is it seems to me that if you don't have the initiative, you have to give up dice you could use for your attack in defending against attacks; but if you do have the initiative, you can attack with full force and still defend in response to the other's attacks.

It may be that I missed something in the description, and it may be that this assessment is correct and an effect you want, but it seems to me that it is a great disadvantage to ride on a single resolution--the one who strikes first has a lot in his favor. I'm reminded that my cousins eventually got to the point in their Risk play that when they were at the point of deciding who made the first move, one of them would say, "Roll to see who wins the game." If too much rides on initiative, the rest of the combat significantly loses value, as it might not matter.

Maybe you've got that covered and I missed it, but I've read two descriptions of your system and that's what stuck out, so I thought I'd mention it.

--M. J. Young

[ErrathofKosh]

Force skills are a 3 stage challenge.  First the players declare what 'actions' their characters are going to make.  This includes movement, number of attacks, drawing weapons, etc.  This is what gives the penalty to all actions for the character.  (Ever action after the first incures a -1D penalty to all other actions)

See, this is what I never understood about the D6 rules.  How can your first action be affected by actions you haven't taken yet?  Because you've planned them?  IME, using a real life example, (which probably isn't a good idea, but here goes) in fencing the effect one action has one the next is position and timing.  Now, if we based a combat systme on real life, it would be extremely complex.  However, I think a few simple ideas can be drawn usefully from experience.

Instead of rolling initiative, have the players declare who goes first. (This is going to be similar to TROS I think, though I've only read it once...)  If both wish to go first, have them roll their appropriate skill.  The more skilled character will be faster, in general...  However, if you want to add in Perception or Sense as a factor, grant bonus dice and pips equal to the difference between the two characters' attributes to the character with the higher attribute.   If both character's attack, the losing character has no defense and loses a die for his next action (if he can even take one).  The next idea is a little more radical.  If the losing character successfully attacks or defends on the next action, he gains the die back, up to his original skill, but never higher.  If the character loses all of dice in a skill, he has lost.  Perhaps his weapon is destroyed, perhaps his character is knocked to the ground and a lightsabre pressed to his throat...  whatever.  Thus, there are no need for rounds, just a series of interrelated actions.  

Perhaps this isn't the way you want to go, but I hope it will spark some ideas...

Cheers
Jonathan

[Eric J.]

Andrew- I'll take a look.

M.J. Young- You are indeed correct.  It is very important.  However, I must clarify a few things.  First, it works like this:

Two people roll initiative- We'll call them Stormie A and B.

Stormie A rolls a 26.  Stormie B rolls a 24.  Initiative looks like this:

Stormie A: 26.
Stormie B: 24
Stormie A: 16
Stormie B: 14
Stormie A: 6
Stormie B: 4

Second of all: Speed is a natural skill.  That means that the players have to increase their speed skill, as do enemies.  This type of system allows for a lot of different dynamics.

Take Jedi 1 versus Jedi 2 (now I'm getting original).

Jedi 1 has-
Attack: 5D
Defence: 6D
Speed: 4D+1

Jedi 2 has-
Attack: 4D+2
Defence: 5D+1
Speed: 5D+1

In a straight out fight it might look like this.  (Straight out is where they just attack eachother and block when neccicary.)  Once the dual starts it looks like this (I'm using actual dice.)

J1 elects to make 2 attacks.
J2 elects to make 1 attack.

J1 speed-15
J2 speed-22 * 6 on the wild die.

J2 attacks: (4D+2) =19 [Initative 22]
J1 Blocks:  (6D) 28
Block!

J1 attacks (3D [5D-2D])=10 [Initaitve 15]
J2 blocks (5D+1)=17
Block!

J1 attacks (3D [5D-2D])=17 [Initative 5] *6 on the wild die
J2 blocks (5D+1)= 15
Hit!

Damage resolution is pretty close to the normal system.  Lightsabers do 7D damage, though.  Anyway, that's just an example.

So as you can see, speed is important, but it can also be canceled out by a higher defence and attack.  It's just a way to make combat more interesting and pistols more usefull.

Jonathan-
Er... I guess I didn't proofread my post.  The part that you quoted didn't make sense.  Oh, yeah... Actually I typed this up and copied it (which I do frequently on long posts) and then i accidently closed the window.  I guess when I started writing again I screwed up.  Anyway-

I think that D6 assumes that you are trying to do things in a limited time-frame.  The more actions you do, the faster you do them, the less accurate each action's going to be.

I think I follow your idea, but I think it's a little too radical.  I have a pretty freeflowing combat system on my side.  Players are given freedom from the reactions they can make durring the battles.  The system is pretty centered around that.  I enjoy the idea of reactions because it means that my characters don't just stand there when my enemies attack me.  99% of systems just assume actions that your character takes.  I wanted a system where wizards could cast counterspells.  When someone throws a grenade at me, I can shoot at it in midair or dodge out of the way in the direction I choose.

I think I've done this.

I don't know what was lost in my post so I'll try to restate the basics:

At the beginning of the round you declare your actions (each player does this without any foreknowledge to the NPCs actions).  After this all actions begin to proceed at one time.  Discrencies in time are resolved with initiative.

Durring the round your character can make several changes to actions that you declared in the beginning with 'reactions'.  Reactions are actions that you can make durring the round but only in response to an action that another character (or object, whatever) has made.

I'm still detailing out the reaction rules, but it should allow for a lot of player freedom when it's done.

Anyway; stuff you guys could help with-
I need a better Jedi system.

The system that comes with the book has these flaws:
All force powers are aquired at godspeed.
Force atrributes increase at godspeed.

In the normal system you pay a small amount of character points to aquire a force power.

Force attributes increase like skills.
That means you can go from 1D to 6D with just 46 character points.  That's just 3 sessions.

Anyway, I want to make Jedi cool without consuming their character points down.  Since they have to pay for powers, and force skills and their normal skills, and their decisive battles ingame, I'd prefer a mechanic that didn't rely on character points for force abilities.

In my campaign having a teacher is very important to learning force skills but I don't want to make it arbitrary.

I also want a way to increase force attributes without spending massive amounts of character points.

Thanks for all the input thus far.
BTW-Interesting what you said about the risk game.  I'll have to play more.

May the wind be always at your back,
-Pyron

[Andrew Martin]

Anyway; stuff you guys could help with-
I need a better Jedi system.

The system that comes with the book has these flaws:
All force powers are aquired at godspeed.
Force attributes increase at godspeed.

In the normal system you pay a small amount of character points to aquire a force power.

Force attributes increase like skills.
That means you can go from 1D to 6D with just 46 character points.  That's just 3 sessions.

That seems to mean that you have consistently rewarded that player with 46 / 3 = 15.3, or around 15 - 16 character points per session. That seems excessive to me. I checked a Star Wars D6 rulebook, and found that an adventure over several sessions gives a maximum reward of up 15 points. The game also intends that a number of character points are spent during game play to gain extra D6 to roll.

I found when GMing D6 Star Wars that Force users were usually very slow to increase in powers, compared to non-force-users.

[Andrew Martin]

I think that D6 assumes that you are trying to do things in a limited time-frame.  The more actions you do, the faster you do them, the less accurate each action's going to be.

That's right. There's a tradeoff between more actions the character does, the less skill there is for each action.

[Eric J.]

Andrew Martin:  Yes, you are correct.  However, I think I can recover from this:

Prescribed for Character Points are these guidlines:

How well the players did: If they came up wiht great solutions give them 6 or 8 character points.  If they did poorly, give them 3 or 4.

How well each individual player did: Give the player 2 or 3 extra character points.

Whether they cooperated: If they cooperated give them 2 or 4 extra character points.

Did they play in character?  If they did, give him 3 or 4 character points.

Did you all have fun? If you all had fun give the players as manay as 3 or 4 character points.

Add those up and you get up to 23 character points.  If they get 66% or higher than the amount of possible character points, they get 15.

15 is pretty clearly just a cut-off point.

My players, generally, do a pretty good job.

Besides, when they're spending 10, 15 character points per adventure, it's difficult not to give them 15.

Like it was said in a past thread: Force users should be just as good (if not better) at generic skills as normal people so focing them to spend character points on force powers just seems unintitive and un Star Warsish.

So if anyone has worked out a better system for force users, I'd be greatly appreciative.

May the wind be always at your back,
-Pyron