D6 Starwars 2nd edition, Has anyone played it? Options

[Wounded Ronin]

The other day I was looking over the old West End Games D6 Starwars 2nd edition rulebook which a friend had given me a long time ago as a PDF. I was a bit bored so I read through it all yesterday.

I think I actually like the D6 game a lot better than the D20 game currently on the market. I haven't played it but just looking at the rules it looks like combat is more deadly than it would be under the D20 hitpoint system. Also, Jedi are super powerful but they're also screwed. They're screwed because all that it takes to make them turn to the dark side and become evil NPCs is several "evil" actions. They're worse off than D&D paladins, if you think about it.

That seems more in tune with the Star Wars movie world as well. In starwars D20 they try to balance all the classes so that we can all come forward, join hands, and lose hitpoints gradually together. In starwars D6 the jedis can come and chop you all up with lightsabers but then they scream and turn to the darkside for not having found a nonviolent way out of the situation. That just strikes me as more fun and quirky than playing a D&D clone.

Has anyone on this board had experience with D6 Starwars 2nd edition? How did it play? Would you consider running a message board game?

[Draug]

Just started it up in a PbP.

I like it. It's fast, simple, and has no classes. Overall, much more fun than d20.

There does seem to be an ocean of ridiculous skills though, if you look through supplements. The GM of my game has already berated me for not investing skill points in "Household Appliances". I shall suffer greatly the day I have to cook a meal, and shun the shower like the Devil himself.

[tisoz]

I played it, but it was on of the few games I played entirely from a roleplaying point of view. I had the only jedi powered character, but I was the failed jedi. Basically a drunk. The other players were into min/maxxing and power gaming way more than me, maybe because I did not know the ins and outs of the system.

I did have the most fun with in any game I've played by not just fudging or going along with things that would coast me out of trouble. Like we had one guy that would RUN from door to door opening them, taking a quick look for loot, then going to the next door. Once he opened a door on his turn, on my turn I said I enter the room, on his turn the GM says its filled with hostiles so he closes the door. When the GM finally realized I was not chirping in with actions, he asked what my character was doing. "I think I'm back in the room full of bad guys that so-and-so shut me in."

The GMs wife also played and kept asking my character to use jedi powers he did not know. After telling her a few times OOC that I didn't have those powers, enough that the GM knew I didn't know them, when she asked again for me to try to use a power, I said I'd try, then told her it didn't work. The GM looked at me funny and asked when I learned that power. I said my character didn't know it, but he thought he might have known it but forgot he knew it since everyone assumed he knew it, but when he tried it failed.

[fistandantilus4....]

I used to play it about 6 years ago for a good while. We had a lot of fun with it and I loved the ssytem. Advancement was straight forward, you could branch out easily, and the mecahnics made sense.

We'd played a bounty hunter campaign, a pilot campaign, and also one where I too had an old failed jedi with a couple of dark side points. he was training another PC character that was a young jedi just trying to learn,. It made for some great roleplaying. And the light saber battles were always awesome of course. Ours had a tendancy to really las ta while and came out pretty neat.

[Ophis]

It's a great game, I played it for a while in the early 90's before I discovered SR. I helped me as a ref discover the fun of RPing proper relationships etc, and I will always remember my Wookie(best rules ever for wethe you can play a character, though I can't remember if they made it into second ed.) character decapitating an annoying NPC with a back handed slap.

[eidolon]

I almost bought a copy the other day, before I realized that the store I was in was of the "collector" mindset regarding OOP roleplaying books. They wanted almost $40 for a 2nd edition revised main book that was kinda beat up. Again, I don't care so much about the condition because I'm not collecting it, but I'm still not overpaying for it.

[Jame J]

I own a whole bunch of the SW d6 supplements. Never actually played, though...

[cristomeyers]

D6 Star Wars was great, much better than the abomination they have now. The rules were intuitive and you didn't have the HP damage scale, instead you used resisted rolls.

With a good GM and a halfway decent group of roleplayers, you could do just about anything.

[SuperFly]

I have a LOT of love for the WEG SWD6 Game.

Years ago, Ska-Boy, a veteran member of the #S-Run Community, GM'd a three episode 'alternate history' which started up around the ending of Ep4. It was so good, that I've been actively gathering any last bit of remaining game data I can find for the past 6 years or so.

'The Ska Wars' was the single best campaign I've ever played in, and the d6 rulesets were damn near infallible the entire time. Not only did the d6 game capture the 'feel' of the Star Wars universe far better than I've ever seen the d20 game do -- but the rules were very easy to understand, and new players could join in the game within an hour or two after getting their hands on the book for the first time.

If anyone is interested in reading about the campaign (or was fortunate enough to have been a part of it), everything I've been able to compile is on the Community website, under the Star Wars section.

[James McMurray]

Never actually played it, but in all my years of surfing gaming forums I don't know if I've ever heard it bad mouthed.

[Unarmed]

This is probably going to show off how young I am, but the WEG Star Wars game was the game that got me into roleplaying in the first place. Admittedly, it was the first edition.

Still, there is a very special place in my heart for that game. I haven't done more than a quick read-through of the d20 version, but pretty much everything in it looked worse.

What was the name of the one die that you rolled that could "pop" again? The special die?

[eidolon]

The d-20 version seemed cool at first glance, but then you read it and find that it suffers from the same blandness and "D&D skills don't work for any other game"-ness of every other d-20 product. :(

[James McMurray]

[Moon-Hawk]

I think he's saying that D&D skills don't work for Star Wars.

[James McMurray]

If that's the case then he's definitely right, Star Wars created it's own skills. Most of them d20 skills would work and some are even ported over, but SW opted to take a different route. The ones that don't work, don't work because of system differences. For instance, you can't just port all the magic-oriented skills (concentration, spellcraft, use magic device, knowledge(arcana), etc.) over into a game that doesn't use spells or magic objects. Nor can you really generate rules for operating a computer using the D&D skillset.

[eidolon]

MH has it. Every time I read a skill list from a not-D&D-but-still-D20 character sheet I find myself groaning over the direct port of some skills. I have no such sheet on hand, but I remember thinking this when glancing through Modern, Star Wars, and Deadlands.

[James McMurray]

[SuperFly]

Ugh, a d20 Deadlands?

[Grinder]

It exists, yeah.

And it sucks big time.

[eidolon]

[James McMurray]

Cool. It never bothered me, but when I want extremely detailed futuristic skill lists I play Spacemaster, not a d20 derivitive.

[eidolon]

Right. Same thing here, it's just that I never want a poorly defined generic skill list. ;)

[Unarmed]

[Adam]

I played in a very satisfying Star Wars campaign in 2004, using the WotC d20-based rules.

We spent a good few hours talking about our goals and desires for the game beforehand [a step that I believe 100% necessary if you plan on any sort of extended campaign], made characters, and ran a playtest/introduction scenario. From there, we identified a few things that didn't fit our vision of how we wanted the game to go -- we didn't like scarce Force Points were, we didn't think the starship combat rules were especially interesting, and a few other things that I've forgotten, and then we re-jiggered our characters to fit the rules tweaks and went out to kick some Sith scumbags.

I'm not a fan of the typical d20 skill list, but I really don't think it had a negative impact on the campaign. Certainly no more than those reeediculous tripping rules. ;)

[mfb]

SWd20 is kinda fun from a d20 enthusiast's POV. i basically look for the same kind of entertainment in d20's mechanics that many people get from playing Japanese RPGs such as Final Fantasy. you just have to accept that everything is abstracted and have fun with the system.

for the SWd20 game i was involved in, i built a secret Sith, 12th level. he was horrible--dual-wielding lightsabers for a +16/+16/+11/+11 attack routine, with each hit dealing 5d8+8 damage. 27 defense, too.

that said, WEG's SW beats the holy hell out of SWd20.