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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

New Star Wars RPG Core Rulebook Coming!

Discussion in 'Archive: Games: RPG & Miniatures' started by Geoff1138, Jun 30, 2006.

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  1. dizfactor

    dizfactor Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 12, 2002
    Understood, and at some point it was the opposite of my own approach, too, but once you flip around your expectations, everything works much better.

    It's also worth mentioning that SECR is more-or-less designed around this mindset, and using it the way you're using it is kind of like driving a Lamborghini with the parking brake on, and then complaining that it doesn't drive as well as you want it to. It performs like a dream when you use it as designed and recognize that we're talking about features, not bugs.

    Going out looking for the stats you want to fill out the character concept and background is not necessarily the same thing as looking to squeeze out maximum mechanical advantage.

    Let's say you're playing in a Jedi Purge-era game, and you're playing a young Human who grew up in the Jedi Temple, was briefly a padawan before screwing up and getting shunted off to the ExplorCorps before the war, and is now trying to piece together Jedi training while on the run from the Imperial Inquisition.

    If you start from the assumption that growing up in the Jedi Temple and becoming a padawan = starting as Jedi 1, you're going to be really frustrated trying to create your character, because there are no cross-class skills or anything like that. If, on the other hand, you start with the assumption that someone from this background should have basic lightsaber proficiency and Force training with some measure of outdoor survival and exploration skills, and then go looking for a class package that suits that skill set, you'll find an easy solution: Scout 1, taking WP: Lightsabers and Force-Sensitive as your starting feats. The character can call themselves a Padawan, and the skills will fit the background. As the character advances, he or she can multiclass into whatever classes get the blend of abilities right to reflect their capabilities based on their concept, background, and experiences.

    I don't think character optimization is necessarily metagaming, nor is it incompatible with good roleplaying, especially in the context of an action/adventure game. For a character like, say, Mace Windu, being an absolute beatstick is a pretty central aspect of the character, ditto someone like Wedge Antilles and piloting, or Tholme and stealth and spycraft. A certain degree of highly specialized skill fits the genre assumptions well.
     
  2. Jedi Merkurian

    Jedi Merkurian Future Films Rumor Naysayer star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    May 25, 2000
    While I disagree with diz about the "snapshot" issue, I agree wholeheartedly about character creation in Saga.
     
  3. Rogue_Thunder

    Rogue_Thunder FanForce CR, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 7, 2003
    I don't think a character build should be modular, is the crux of the issue I'm trying to get at here.

    As an example let's say I'm running a campaign set in the legacy era, and I want Luke Skywalker to make an appearance. I need to do a build of his stats that's as up to date as I can make it, so I would use the base stats for the Luke in the SECR. Now when I build out those stats to represent Luke as the grand Jedi Master that he is in the legacy era, I'm not going to leave out his one level in Scout (to represent his level/class when he first encountered Obi-Wan) Just so I can make him an uber-powerful Jedi that he should be. This is still the same character who was once a desert farmboy, and I think his stats should reflect that. The way it's been debated, a character should be able to switch out levels/classes at a whim if they've trained up high enough along their current class. I think I've even heard it said (might not be this thread) that WotC should release some kind of supplement allowing this to happen. That a character who started out as a Jedi, but has fallen to the darkside could switch his levels to Sith, or vice-versa, and not just with Force-user levels.
     
  4. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2001
    I've discussed it with my gaming group (some of whom I've known for 19ish years) and we've decided that we collectively hate the lot of you (especially you, dizfactor!) and we want to kill your puppies and kittens!11!!11!one!!1!

    :p

    Nah, just kidding of course. But Penny Arcade brought up a good point this week:
    Which is pretty true. We don't have to stop playing RCRB (or, really, WEG for that matter) because we despise SERB. In fact, we can incorporate the very few things we LIKE about SERB into the RCRB campaign we're playing because of the modularity of the SYSTEM rather than how you all define the modularity of the characters.
     
  5. HansHunkyChest

    HansHunkyChest Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Oct 6, 2003
    This sums up my stat strategy for characters. You pick classes and skills that fit your character without worrying about the labels for those classes. The classes don't need to tell the character's backstory, their backstory tells their backstory. All the classes and skills need to do is describe what your character can do and how well they can do it. The class system in SECR is basically a way to separate out talent trees and skill sets. It makes a player think about how they wait their character to progress when it comes time to gain a level. Do they want to get another talent on their current tree for class A or do they want some skills from class B and are willing to put off advancing class A for another level.
     
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