House Rules Discussion (d20 AND d6!)

We have a very simple house rule which is probably the most useful one we use:

"You have to say something stupid TWICE in order for it to actually occur."

Of course, one of our players powering up a crashed Trade Federation battleship under a lake on a planet and saying "I activate the hyperdrive, I activate the hyperdrive" doesn't help matters but...

//shrug

 

Rules for Mass-Combat:
Simple Version:
GM makes the results whatever s/he wants.
Variation 1: the actions of the party have some effect on the result of the battle. If the party does well in their part of the fight, their allies rally and beat the mucus out of the enemy.
Variation 2: the actions of the party are inverse to the results of the battle. Very effective drama. Even though the party won, the death toll was catastrophic. Or, the party fails, the villains get away, but the troops booted gears of the enemy.
Variation3: assign a d20 to each side. Assign a modifier based on size of forces, technological advantage, etc. Roll dice & add modifiers. Whichever is higher wins. The greater the difference in numbers, the more massive the victory. If there's a difference of 18-20, it was a massive victory, a rout even. If the difference was 2-3, both sides were devastated, and the phiric victory is a technicality. If it's a draw, both sides take massive losses.

House Rules threads:
http://boards.theforce.net/Message.aspx?topic=20789797&brd=10196&start=21120751
Looks like the link to the old post I had no longer works--guess the thread got deleted for being too old. Oh Well.
http://boards.theforce.net/Message.aspx?topic=18982060&brd=10196&start=19815929


Prequel Stats:
http://boards.theforce.net/message.asp?topic=11883149&replies=37

 

I?ve never met a rule I didn?t want to tinker with. There?s two big changes I?ve made to how I run. The first is the Force, the full rules I?ve posted a link on this boards before. The other is combat.

I use D6 rules, which I love dearly. It?s slick, playable, easily modified, and simple. That said, in situations where lots of dice are rolled, game play slows. This is a particular problem in combat where there are a lot of rolls, and many characters stack heavy into the combat skills. As a result, where you want game play and rolls to be fastest D6 drags for advanced characters.

My solution: Use D6 Legends for combat.
D6 Legends was produced by WEG as a lower math alternative to D6, the character sheet stays more or less the same. In play, if you?ve got a +2 to die code, round your dice pool up another die, for +1 round down (this slows advancement, but no biggie).

Roll the appropriate skill pool for your action. 3,4,5,&6 are successes, 1&2 are failures; count your successes, if your successes are more than difficulty you succeed. Combat is mostly opposed rolls, but on the occasion you need difficulty tables:
1: V. easy
2: Easy
3-4: Mod
5-6: Diff
7: V. Diff
8+: Heroic

Take your strength, and multiply it by 3 (2 if you want combat to be more lethal), these are your body points. When a character is dealt damage, subtract away body points. Your health is dependent on the fraction of health you have left:
5/6: stunned
2/3: wounded
1/2: Very wounded
1/3: Incapacitated
1/6-1pt:Mortally wounded
0: gone but not forgotten

I?ve got a whole document written up, but this is the core. Stats are unmodified from published books, and most of the rest follows intuitively.

 

Core rule:
For every Dark Side Point a character has, their Force Powers increase by 1d. THis reflects the seductive POWER of the dark side.

House rule refinement:
Eventually, the Dark Side gets impatient. If you do not continue down the dark path, that bonus lessens 1d per adventure. This does not mean the DSP go away, just that the Dark Side needs to be fed new henious deeds to continue with it's rewards. Dark side points must be actively repented to remove their taint completely.

This was brought about by a player who made a jedi character, then during the first adventure deliberately did 3 things to get DSP to make his character more powerful. Then, at the end of the second adventure, he had to call on the Dark side to survive. In spite of the odds, he managed not to go over to the dark side, and thus had +4d to all force powers. He got up and did a little victory dance that would have been annoying at the best of times, and on someone with that much extra weight was outright disgusting. After that, he played straight jedi for the next 7 adventures. Then the GM imposed this new rule. Character got killed (along with the rest of us) when a TIE fighter blew up our freightor.

Core rule:
Using a Force Point at a climactic momment not only regains the force point, but the GM can award a second, bonus point.

House Rule Refinement:
The climactic momment has to be non-character scale combat. Thus, burning the FP to fire a blaster at 8 people won't do it, nor will slicing down the lead villain with a melee weapon. Using a speeder cannon to take out a cloud-car, or freightor laser turret on TIE fighter Squadron, however, does count.

 

(sorry, had to leave & didn't want to risk having to retype everything)

If a player plays the exact same character more than 3 times in a row, the next character template will be selected at random.
We have one player who ALWAYS plays Force-sensative female brash pilots with anime names.

Ship combat.
In the movies, even hits that don't do severe damage still cause some chaos in internal systems that send sparks flying. Some people call this the "Leaky shield" effect. To reflect this, we created a table of random items that could be damaged or disabled in combat. It was originally intended for star-ship use, but can be easily adapted to capital ship, walker, and speeder/repulsor-lift use.

Whenever a ship or vehicle is hit, the following chart is used:
d20
First hit Second hit
1 Navicomp Hyperdrive
2 Fire Control Security Systems
3 Sublight Drive Weapons Locker
4 Sensors Ship's Log
5 Fire Suppression System Ambilical Socket
6 Heating Head
7 Lights Air Lock Door
8 External Lights Data Pad
9 Cargo vac/loader Random wall holed
10 Coffee Maker Engineering
11 Communications Antenna Magnetic Grappler/Tractor Beam
12 Blaster Cannons Vac Suit
13 Shields Backup Hyperdrive
14 AutoChef Turret
15 Ladder Ventilation Fans
16 Couch Command Chair
17 Vehicle Hatch Landing Gear
18 LandSpeeder/Ground vehicle Door Locks
19 Droid Cargo
20 Escape Pod(s) Landing Thrusters

Note: only role on this table if the ship has received stun damage or worse, but role once for each level of damage. If a roll results in an item already rolled, either a second item of that type or the item from the second column is used, at GM discretion (I personally prefer to hit a variety of different systems).
Some of the items on here are serious and could totally incapacitate the ship or story function (like the hyperdrive), and some are so trivial as to invite mirth (command chair, coffee maker, autochef). If the vehicle does not posess the system indicated, Gm may substitute the closest approximation, item from the second hit chart, or any other system of his/her choice.
Incapacitating wound=2 roles, Mortal = 3 roles, Stunned or wounded = 1 role. Fatal = who cares (unless someone is looking for salvage)

"Sir, we've surveyed the wreckage, and can repair the ship simply by collecting and reassembling most of the parts and some minor work. It will need a new autochef, couch, and coffe maker though. And I'm affraid the command chair was a total loss. Still, with a couple months in any decent shipyard, we'll have a fully functional Star Destroyer..."



Any character can start with as much cyber-wear/cybernetics as they wish for free. (of course, there are Role-playing problems as well as game-mechanics penalties with being a cyborg, and no player has ever taken my up on this)

Anyone who empties the lemonade pitcher is required to make more lemonade (not a big deal, since the cans of concentrate are right there, in the freezer). THe penalty is to have water poured on your head from behind when you least expect it by an angry GM.

Stupidity is it's own reward.

No one is allowed to play with swords during gaming. (I have about 40 of them decorating my apartment).

Our gaming group consists of a wide ethnic background: 1 chinese, 1 black, 1 philipino, 1 greek, 3 generic/gemanic european "white" guys, and 1 white woman. Racial/sexist jokes will be met with the scorn and derision they deserve.

If you waste RPG time on getting nookie for your fictional character (boy are we geeks sometimes) there will be RPG consequences. More than one player has had to visit the temple for a

 

Grey Points:
Grey points are awarded for actions that, while they do not warrant a DSP, are certainly shady. They can be repented fairly easily with a goody-2-shoes type deed.
For Force-sensative characters, 3 grey points = 1 DSP.
For non-force-sensatives, 6 grey = 1DSP.

There is no warnign about Grey points, and no arguing about it. On the other hand, they can be repented without the player having to declare ahead of time. "I saved the orphan from the exploding bus. Does that clear my grey point?""Sure"

 

bump

 

I'm more used to the d20 system, so that's what I'll post.

Let's see...

Skills: Anything usable untrained is a class skill for anyone. If it can be done by anyone, it can be learned by anyone. This isn't incredibly game-breaking, and allows for people to make their characters more interesting.

If your INT bonus goes up, it retroactively gives you skill points. Otherwise it just gets messy.

Diplomacy: As a skill, it sucks. Use this one instead

Feats: Gained at first level and every even level. Hopefully you'll use it to make your character more versatile/interesting, instead of the same damn feat selection on every character

Jedi: You can be a consular or someone with full Jedi levels in the Rebellion era if and only if you're at least old enough to have been around during the Old Republic (making you 30+) and have some method of hiding/surviving/evading the purge. If you cannot do this, I will decide that your character didn't survive the purge.

Owing to the overabundance of fanboys, I've grown less than fond of certain characters. If a player ever uses the word "Mandalorian", he'd best have a really good reason.

The Force Warrior's bonus damage dice go up by 2d4 instead of 1d6, and Martial Arts style feats are on the bonus feat list. Otherwise, it would be hands down better to be a Jedi Weapon Master. I think I also put some of the "Stunning Fist" feats from D&D onto the Force Warrior bonus feat list.

That's all the ones I can think of for now.

 

Darn it!
I remembered another rule this morning while I was out, but can't remember it now.
Don't you just hate when that happens?

 

These are a few of our house rules. We have a ton of them, to the point where I spawned my own "Zombie" rpg, influenced heavily by the Zombie Survival Guide. The first rule, in addition to rule 6, cannot be touched.

1) All rules, excepting one, are subject to change or removal by the current GM, and more rules may be added at a later date. The untouchable rule is #6.
2) Weapons such as lightsabers and blasters do not require damage rolls. Only accuracy rolls. If you take a lightsaber to the arm, you will lose the arm in question.
3) Force powers can only be blocked by a force-user or force-sensitive person. If you find force lighting being shot at you, either shoot whoever's throwing it or move outta the way.
4) Beware a bored GM, for his ingenuity is indeed fearsome to behold.
5) It is the GM's perogative to ignore statements of "I was only kidding!".
6) Everyone is required upon pain of death to bring snacks and drinks, for I have a voracious appetite despite my small size. And my friends have voracious appetites as befit their sizes.
7) We WILL kill you if your character is related to characters from the movies.
8) Mary Sues shall be met with the Dalin Inquisition.
9) Mentioning rulebooks is forbidden under pain of death.
10) Logic and common sense conquer all.
11) He who has the most toys is most likely to lose everything.
12) While jokes are appreciated, we ask that you ensure no one will be offended by the nature of them. If they are offended, they may offend you back three times. Under pain of death.
13) Rule 13 has been intentionally left blank.
14) You do require food, drink, sleep, and rest. Note that sleep and rest are two seperate things. If you lack sleep, you hallucinate and are prone to fainting. If you lack rest, you make stupid mistakes and can't fight well.
15) When Nktalloth is GM, the smiling, well-groomed man is a terrible person. He also probably is a death-magician or satanist or demon or something.
16) The actions of the GM require no explanation.
17) If Nktalloth, the player that is, is not kept busy, he may commit crimes against HUMANITY out of boredom. It is essential to keep him busy.
18) Do not plan on finishing a campaign, for we are fickle things.
19) When Nktalloth runs his Zombie rpg, your hard-made character will die. And then Zombies will eat you.
20) The television shall be turned off during gameplay or it shall be smashed into a thousand tiny peices.

 

Anyone created their own races?

Has anyone ever not tried to adapt an alien race they read in a book or saw on some other show to fit into SW RPG?

I brought in the Choron and Sazians from Illegal Aliens a couple of times. Chorons are big rock beings with moderate intelligence, high technical (ship building, hyperdrives, demolition, sculpture), and incredible strength (duh, they're giant rocks!), while Sazians are furry blue humanoids with a high predeliction for torture and an avocation for inflicting pain (they're tolerated because they mostly torture other members of their own species, but also because they make really great audio entertainment systems, though everyone else throws away the demo disk--invariablly "music" of the screams of slowly dying sentients modulated by instruments of torture).
Later I found out there was a rock species in some expansion or other.

What else have people adapted/invented?

 

Here's my biggest home-brewed house rule:

I variously call it 'Force Guidance' or 'Force Insight'. It's an adaptation of the whole 'Force-Sensitives getg a DC20 WIS check to avoid surprise' thing, and it applies to anyone with the Force-Sensitive feat:

Force-sensitive characters may add their Force point total to their WIS modifier when making the Force-Sensitive WIS check to 'sense danger' (avoid surprise).

Under certain circumstances, and as a full-round action (requiring total concentration), this formula may be used to 'hear the will of the Force'. On a failed check, the character is unable to quiet his mind sufficiently to hear the Force 'speaking'. Generally, the GM will call for such checks as needed... although the player may request such a check when he feels it is appropriate or necessary. The player may call for such a check voluntarily as many times per day as he has Force points. Such checks instigated by the GM do not count against this total. Players may find this useful when faced with a difficult decision; it should be noted, however, that the will of the Force may not always provide useful answers.

Characters with the Force Mastery or High Force Mastery feats may reduce the time required for such a check, just as with any other Force skill.

The idea here being, you see, that Force points serve as a measure of how strongly the character is connected to the Force at any given time... I usually don't give the players anything very concrete as a result of this check. Usually along the lines of 'you have a bad (or, as appropriate, good) feeling about this.' It's definitely not, for instance, Farseeing. But it works for broad, vague 'trust your feelings' kind of stuff. I find it useful, and the players seem to like it; the DC of 20 still keeps it from being an end-all be-all universal cheap solution to problems, and yet it can be very helpful for pointing characters in the right direction. It allows for the fact that, say, Jedi (as characters) are supposed to be trained to quiet their minds and learn to trust the will of the Force to guide them... where as the people who play those characters are mere mortals who sometimes can (and are entitled to) do amazingly stupid things or be incredibly obtuse.

 

Finally remembered what that other rule was while I was at the computer.

This rule started because of another RPG called "It Came from the Late, Late, Late Show."

Cheering: any character may cheer or otherwise verbally encourage another character, and by either enhanced motivation or will-power, add the cheering score to the other character's attempted action. Cheering/cheerleading is a skill under perception. Note: the character doesn't necessarily have to be able to hear the cheering, and is probablly too busy to care at the time.
I.E. Devon has been called into single combat. There's nothing anyone can do to interfere. Grethin begin's cheering him on. Grethin didn't spend any points on cheering, so G uses the base perception attibute of 3d+2. Devon gets to add +3 to his actions that round.
or
Fmorp has to patch up Devon after the fight. Grethin only has 2D+1 in first aid, so in order to help, G silently encourages Fmorp. Once again, G adds +3 to Fmorp's first aid.
This does count toward people combining actions or cooperating, so either one person helps by cheering, or one person helps by performing the same action. You can't have someone doing something (and thus making the roll), one person adding their D modifier from the same skill, AND one person cheering. I might, however, allow multiple people to combine their cheering, thereby giving the performing character a bigger bonus.
CheerLEADING is the ability to combine the cheers of more than 3 people, just as Command does. Likewise, I would say command & cheerling of 5D each would allow a command roll instead of a cheerleading roll. Maybe cheerleading is a concentration for the command skill?

Side note: I do not allow this power to work unless the player actually ROLE-PLAYS it. This has lead to some very bad poetry

For d20, use the cheer-er's Cha bonus. Useful for high charisma characters who aren't combat monsters (like Nobles).

You could say this is like Bardic song, but that's a group effect, and must be heard. This is the same principle, but more directly effective to a single individual.

I keep thinking back to the cheesy Flash Gordon movie from 1985 where Dale is in the crowd acting like a cheerleader while Flash starts knocking Ming's guards arround by playing football with them.


Does this make any sense?

.

edit:
Oh, I see the old, old, old rules post is back up and the link is working again. Have a chuckle.

 

I have invented a couple of races.

[image=http://img304.imageshack.us/img304/6056/nitch3uk.th.jpg]

Short guy, short fuse. High DEX, low STR. Two opposable thumbs in each hand and stun bite. Later I called him a "Near-Bimm" cause I thought he looked very similar to the Bimm picture in the Alien Anthology book.

And this one:

[image=http://img436.imageshack.us/img436/6075/ylekvi8va.th.jpg]

[image=http://img436.imageshack.us/img436/3669/ylekvi19rn.th.jpg]

Big and deadly, but not dumb. Culture sorta modeled after a north american indian. Very high STR and good PER, low MEC and TEC. Tough Skin, horns and fangs, but will lose PER if his smelling is impaired somehow. At first I called him an Yrashu, but later I learned that the Yrashu were ape-like beings, so I need to rename him.

 

* Feats: I'm seriously considering upping the bonuses on Dodge, Weapon Focus, and Starfighter Dodge to +2 instead of +1. They're just crappy feats as is, and no one wants to take them unless they're a prereq for a prestige class.

* Prestige Classes: I've already decided to waive the rule for Starship Aces where you have to choose between starfighter ace and transport ace. If you can fly both, you can use your ace stuff for either. You can still have Familiarity with only one ship at a time, but if you were to, say, have your X-Wing fighter shot down, and start flying a YT-1300 instead, you can start to become familiar with that, too.

* Reputation, Infamy and Diplomacy: In the Core Rules, it says that infamous characters take their reputation bonus as a penalty when using Diplomacy, and the example they use is a treaty negotiation. I agree that treaty negotiations and infamy don't work well together (no one asks Jabba the Hutt to broker peace deals between warring factions). However, Diplomacy is used for a lot of things other than peace treaties, including any kind of business transaction, including illegal ones.

My house rule is that infamy works as a bonus when you're doing illegal business deals. Jabba's reputation doesn't help him at cocktail parties on Naboo, but it really should when he's making illegal arms deals or working the spice trade.

* Reputation and Followers: You can take 10 on rolling to see if you attact followers, if you'd like. Not a lot of people get +10 or more on Reputation rolls, but it can be done.

* Jedi vs Force Adept: We've decided as a group to adjust the way Jedi levels and other Force-user levels interact in my group, as far as qualifying as prereqs for Feats, Prestige Classes, ad Jedi Knight status. If someone has at least twice as many Jedi levels as they have non-Jedi Force user levels (like Force Adept), and they gained them before they became Jedi Knights (see below), they can count their Force Adept levels as Jedi levels for purposes of prereqs. If someone wants to take Knight Defense, and they're a Jedi Guardian 5/Force Adept 2, they qualify.

There are a few more wrinkles to the policy than that, but that's the gist of it.

* Jedi Knighthood: You don't become a Jedi Knight automatically upon achieving 7 Jedi Levels. You have to pass the Trials, which you can do at any point at or after achieving 7 Jedi levels. Once you pass the trials, you are considered a Jedi Knight, and you get your Jedi Knight bonus feat.

* Padawans and training: You can only take new levels in Jedi classes on your own (i.e. without being under the tutelage of a Jedi Knight or Master, or without a holocron) after you have successfully created your own lightsaber. At that point, "your skills are now complete" and while you may not be a Jedi Knight yet, you don't need a master to continue taking levels in Jedi classes.

 

Staying to talk to the GM until 4am when everyone else has left at 11pm will not earn bonus points, and may result in talking to someone who is snoring.

 

Dice rules:

Dice that bounce off cats, ferrets, or other pets during the course of rolling are still good, even if you don't like the results. If the die is swatted by a pet after it finishes rolling, then that result is used (previous result must be witnessed & confirmed by at least one other person. (We had some pet and Familliar-related incidents.)

Dice that roll off the table or other surface must be rerolled. Don't like it? Tough.

There will be no throwing of dice across the room, no matter how badly they flubbed on you. If you don't like the die, quietly retire it and switch to another.

 

<bump>

Just because.

 

To be fair, DP4M, please remember that not everyone has their browser set to show 50 posts at a time. So this might have appeared on the 2nd, or even 4th page for some.

I have a question:
in 1st ed WEG, differences in scale were handled with die caps. Shooting a speeder with a blaster meant that the damage dice of the blaster could roll no higher than a 5, and the str of the speeder could not roll lower than 2 (exceptions for wild/d'oh die of course). An x-wing strafing human targets couldn't roll higher than a 3 to hit (to which the humans could not roll lower than a 4 to dodge), but then would roll at least a 4 on damage dice (with the humans rolling no higher than a 3 to resist).
2nd ed WEG changed that to a +/-2D per size category. +2D for the blaster to hit the speeder and for the speeder to resist damage, +6D for the humans to dodge the x-wing's fire and for the damage done by the x-wing when it hit someone.

Which system do you prefer?

 

i am curious what r your guy's rules on call shots(this issue comes up a lot in my games)

oh and somone mentioned zombie survial rpg if they have rules on it they would be appriciated...

 

Drugs & Narcotics:
To reflect the fact that some extremely violent street criminals were using substances that messed with their body chemistry, during one battle I did the following:
Because of stimulants, the gang members Stamina target number to stay conscious when incapacitated was reduced to 10, and they could stay conscious when mortally wounded by rolling a Stamina of 15. (note, being conscious when mortally wounded is not necessarily a good thing...)
Also: Strength Attribute was variable: 3D base + d3, determined each round of a brawling or melee attack.
Because of depressants, with a Stamina roll of 10 or better, users could ignore the effects of Wound status, and with a 20 ignore Incapacitated status.

Mortality Cookoff & wound status
Normal rules: for every round that a character is mortally wounded, the GM rolls 2d. If the GM rolls less than the number of rounds the character has been at MW, the character dies. Since you cannot roll less than 2 on 2D, the first 2 rounds are safe. By extension, after 14 rounds, the character is definately Dead.
Because of the drugs in system, GM rolls a 6d every round. On a 1, the character worsens or dies. On a 6, the wound status effect improves by one level (character is still mortally wounded, but functions as if only incapacitated). Thus those who appear dead seem to come back to life.

Med Packs:
Difficulty levels for applying medpacks were increased by 3 levels to reflect the amount of drugs in system. Also, base assumption is that 3 medpacks have been applied to the character already. Thus, it would take at least 3 days to clean out one of these character's systems.

Addiction:
Like Dark Side points, any character stupid enough to choose to put these poisons into themselves voluntarily risks addiction. I created addiction points using the same rules as DSP. Oddly enough, as soon as he heard that, the player who was behaving so stupidly straightened up a bit.


All this actually came about by accident. The party went into the bowels of a vile part of the underbelly of a massive city (think corruscant, and imagine the most moral being on the planet is a Hutt). There they ran into the middle of a Turf War. And I had just finished painted a batch of Necropolis minis that day.