Not sure if I already posted about this, but I made a flowchart explaining the steps needed to calculate the difficulty number for a hyperspace jump in Star Wars D6 (1st edition). I'll upload a picture once I have access to my own computer again (and post the last part of that minis series), but for now I'll just type it out, as though this was Thy Dungeonman. Ye adventure ſtarteth below ye cutte!
Ye find yeself in yon ſtarship. Obvious exits are HYPERSPACE. Have ye a navigation computer or ſtored route?
If YES, ye baſe difficulty for a ſtandard duration journey is 15.
If NO, ye baſe difficulty is 30.
Art thou entering hyperſpace with haſte?
If YES, ye jump itſelf requireth an Aſtrogation ſkill roll with a difficulty of 15, & ye difficulty of ye trip is doubled.
Art thou irritated with mine uſe of ye long ſ?
If YES, I'll stop already.
Is the ship damaged?
If it's NOT DAMAGED, keep going.
If it's LIGHTLY damaged, add 5 to the difficulty.
If it's HEAVILY damaged, ad 10 to the difficulty.
Are you traveling through hyperspace faster or slower than normal?
If you're going SLOWER, decrease the difficulty by 1 for each extra day taken.
If you're going FASTER, increase the difficulty by 1 for each day saved.
Add, subtract, and multiply everything above, and you've got the total difficulty number for the trip.
* * * *
So, what have we learned? General Solo was right; traveling through hyperspace isn't at all like dusting crops. In the worst-case scenario - no pre-planned route, in a hurry, in a heavily damaged ship, the difficulty of the jump is 70! And this is the number you'd need to roll on a small handful of D6s.
While this whole process isn't explained as clearly as it could be in the rulebook, I really like the way it's designed; preparedness and caution are rewarded by making the trip less likely to go wrong, even if it takes longer. Conversely, you can take a bigger risk, but get a bigger reward (i.e., a faster jump) if it pays off; this might be especially attractive to players in an otherwise slow freighter, with TIE interceptors on their tail.
To be honest, this is something I like about the design of the D6 game overall - the ability to push yourself in an emergency. In classic D&D, a priest can't make an extra melee attack, no matter what. In D6 Star Wars, a character can try to make extra attacks, but their chances of success decrease sharply with each one - so they might accept a possible botch if it means saving their friend's bacon.
I have the 25th Anniversary box of the Star Wars RPG, but it's sitting in plastic. I do have fond memories of playing it all too briefly in high school...that was the "Super Mondo" edition with the Millennium Falcon on the front.
ReplyDeleteOpen it up! I find it fun just to read through the setting stuff, since it predates the (rather uneven) prequel trilogy by a good bit. :3
Delete"Rather uneven" is the most diplomatic way I have ever heard those movies described.
ReplyDelete