i'm thinking about restarting my star wars campaign with a new group after getting my grubby mitts on the sith edition of force unleashed (tusken skarkiller with unstable yellow crystal lightsaber FTW!!!). i used to run a saga edition group back when d20 radio was a single podcast and on episode 2 but that group has long drifted apart. the new group isn't really keen on learning another variant of the d20 system (most of the current players are already in a 3.5 AND 4e campaign) and they're looking for something different as a change of pace. i've always liked the core mechanics of shadowrun and am strongly leaning towards this system as the basis for the campaign. the other reason is simply $$$; i've already got all the core SR 4e books so there won't be an additional expenditure on my part. so, here's the question... what changes would you make to SR to make it feel more like star wars? here are some of the things i've thought of...

the force/magic: only allow mystic adepts (ie. the magic type in shadowrun that allows people to take physical adept powers and spells but no astral projection). for me, that pretty much solves alot with a simple restriction. force users who want to go the "sorcerer" route can still spent their entire magic point allotment on spells and jedi lightsaber whizzes can use them all on phys ad powers. the only other thing i would add/modify would be be a phys ad power called Lightsaber parry costing .5/level that allows those armed with a lightsaber a chance to deflect ranged shots.

hackers/droids: i'd dissallow full VR hacking as they don't really fit in with the movie trilogy hacking by R2 we've seen. pretty much any full out of body in game actions (astral projection, full VR hacking, etc) slow down the game immensely (even with the sr4 rules) and the group will be new to SR4 so i'd rather them getting used to the core rules before doing that stuff. maybe at a later date i'd incorporate it but not for the beginning. obviously, any AI or cyberthreats (as well as astral ones) would have to be toned down appropriately as the group can't use the most effective ways of handling them.

cybernetics: star wars does allow almost complete cyber replacement (vader, grevious, the force unleashed's starkiller evil ending) but it's extremely uncommon. i'm not sure if it's better to increase the availability threshold on the items or simply make them prohibitively expensive. i'd need to do one and i'm leaning towards upping the availability threshold on cyberware/bioware by 50%. by increasing the difficulty in obtaining even the more mundane cyberware, i curtail the cyberzombie problem (or goal) that some players have.

weapons/tech: not too much to change here. assault rifles become blaster rifles, heavy pistols become heavy blaster pistols, etc. just add "blaster" somewhere in the name of most of the shooty weapons and we're ok. drones = droids. the lightsaber gets the stats of a monofilament whip (as well as the dangers in using) and gets its own exotic weapon skill.

vehicles: here is another problem for me as a GM. i've never done a vehicle heavy SR game and frankly i find the SR4 rules for vehicles clunky. since i'm not too familiar with them, i don't want to go in and start house ruling stuff as my changes may end up being for the worse instead of better. initially, during character generation, i'll explain that we won't be doing much in the way of vehicle combat. if players want to go that route, i'll ask them to tell me ahead of time and i'll allow them to change their skills/purchase retroactively in the future if we become comfortable with the vehicle rules. in the beginning, i feel comfortable using jet packs and speeder bikes and such but there won't be in space dogfighting. as with hacking/projection, no full VR rigging.

experience/THE DARK SIDE!! mwuuhhaaaaa!!!!: don't know what to do here. do i incorporate a "dark" karma system of some sort? if you accomplish something via an evil route, you get a "dark karma" point. i'd also probably offer each player a "free" dark karma point that they can use each game, probably offered when the critically fail or need just a little bit more effort, which will also add to the "dark karma" total. at what point threshold should the dark karma officially turn the character to the dark side? i'd allow them to spend their normal karma earned throughout the game to remove dark karma (one for one), using the same reasoning as in saga that they're mediating/atoning for their actions. i've played in campaigns where GM's allowed evil characters and the players ALWAYS screwed up the fun for the non-evil players by messing with them. i don't want to deal with that so if someone goes dark side, they become an NPC. the question is how they go dark side mechanically.



soooo.... any other ideas??

Star fighter battles are going to be the hard part. You're going to need stats for those first off. I'd suggest basing them very loosely off of the t-birds for a base line, so that you at least have a few different sets of stats to work with, then jack up the speeds. That way there's at least rules for maneuvers and armor levels for combat vehicles with heavy weapons.

I'd suggest restricing summoning/conjuring to only specially skilled Sith btw. Doesn't really fit with anyone else.


You'll also have to find something appropriate for astrogation. Maybe computers? The Navigation skill gets a lot more important.

For jedi - Combat Sense Adept power should be a must. That and Iron Will. "Control! You must learn control!" Combat spells are definitely going to be dark side. No jedi throwing lightning bolts. I'd suggest dark side paths would include special ordeals for Initiation to make your cost lower, like blood magic sacrifice instead of self sacrfice ("Quicker, easier. Not stronger").

Dark side traditions such as Sith, and the Jedi would be magical groups.

SR (with the modifications you noted) would be a good consistent base for a Star Wars game.

Just remember that the vehicle rules are primarily for chases and not tank battles, and most players use vehicles in chase scenes in the movies. Even the attacks on the Death Star were essentially chases.

The Lightsabers probably need to have some damage over time ability added (remember Qui Gon melting through the blast doors during the beginning of Episode 1?). Actually if you added the fire elemental effect to them so that they go against 1/2 impact -4 armor, that might be enough. Lets face it, unless it was central to the story, nobody lived through a Lightsaber hit.

Someone lived through a lightsaber hit? Oh wait, the ones who lost limbs...

not too worried about star fighter battles in the beginning as i'm not planning on allowing vehicle stuff larger than a speeder in the beginning. i'll be doing either clone wars era or old republic era during the sith wars and will probably strand them on a backwards planet in the beginning (not too much access to vehicles).




hadn't thought about initiation yet but that's a good idea. initiation at a lower cost at the expense of dark karma.... also, i'll probably make *most* summoning/conjuring a dark side thing also; hadn't thought of that one either.




8P at -4 is pretty hefty as is for the monofilament whip/lightsaber but you're right that laser weapons are generally half impact. i'd be hesitant to use both but i'll consider half impact instead; the lazy GM in me prefers the straight -4 though as its less work, lol. as for the fire effect, people don't seem to be catching on fire in star wars from repeated light saber strikes and the existing laser weapons don't have a fire effect in SR so i'll probably keep it normal physical damage for now.

Reminds me of the old West End Games d6 edition. Every character, capable of serious heroics right out of the box - just as long as you kept rolling sixes.

Sounds familiar, amirite?

Personally, I'd even rather use the West End Games d6 rules. I like Shadowrun as much as the next guy -- I mean, duh -- but I've never been a big fan of trying to swap game mechanics around. The WEG Star Wars was one of my first RPGs, and I always had a blast playing it...if it ain't broke, why "fix" it by using a whole different game?

I'd rather keep my Shadowrun in Shadowrun, and vice versa.

You and I both, really. I weaned myself on WEG SW, SR1/2 and D&D2A - and those three are really all I've played ever since.

that's very noble but not an option for me. i own the shadowrun books (and like/understand the basic mechanics) whereas i don't own the WEG rules let alone know them. so, now that me buying up a collection of books that is OOP for at 15+ years is off the table... got any ideas on how to make SR4 work for star wars?

I would also disallow manipulation spells with Elemental effects. They don't really have the feel of the movies. Even force lightning from the movies seemed like it was a suprise to the Jedi when they ran into it.

I recommend that the Sith characeters take their mentors as enemies, and/or their friends....

I guess my big question is WHY? ok you don't want to do d20, fine but there are a TON of fan conversions for many systems out there. Some of them I'm sure are free to (Savage Worlds is $10 which is my favorite conversion). I guess what is it that Shadowrun brings to the table that the other systems don't, assuming your costs would be near the same (as I'm sure we might even find a game you already own with a conversion)?

[edit] You also mentioned you like the mechanics. I know there are a couple Mage conversions out there, is that something that you own and would interest you?

Friends in melee bonuses will have to be tweaked so jedi can't be punched out by 5 fat rental cops.

This could work by allowing the character to parry blaster shots like melee attacks, i.e. with Reaction+Exotic Weapon (Lightsaber). I'd split the Parrying specialisation to Parrying (Melee) and Parrying (Ranged) in that case.



I'd consider these options:

A) All hacking is handled by droid NPCs. The GM simply decides the results as appropriate.

B) There is no VR, WiFi, accounts and ICE. If you want to hack a node you need to find an access port and then you just use Skill+Program against Response+Firewall. If you win, the system executes this command. If you don't, it gets a single attack with Response+Attack Utility (if loaded) against you that deals stun or physical damage depending on the security level of the node. The DV equals Attack utility rating + successes resisted with System+Armor (if loaded).



In the movies cyberware acts as a replacement but does not boost capabilities beyond the human norm. Even cyberzombie Darth Vader was not physically superior to Obi Wan or Luke. General Grevious was very agile and had four arms, but this could also be normal features for his race. He was visibly suffering from bad health and had been fighting with lightsabers without proper training, so his 'ware could just have been to compensate disabilities. On the other hand, the movies do not present a single character who got cybered up just for the bang, even if some guys like Boba Fett would definitely go down that route if it existed.

This, however, is a very important factor for the conversion because it would severely limit mundane characters compared to the force users. Still, I'd consider disallowing all mods that give a boost to attributes (especially Initiative boosts) or limit them to +1 at most.
Also, putting some wires into your meat is always portrait as something that makes you more inhuman, so you might punish losing essence with additional darkside points.

As compensation you could declare all PCs to be "force sensitive" by default - they have much larger Edge pools than the mooks, after all - and allow them to buy some low-key force powers with Karma later on.


Great idea!



Shadowrun's vehicle rules don't really fit to space fighter dogfights and the like. I'd just use the normal combat rules with heaps of GM fiat. In order to preserve the cinematic feel things should be loud and fast. "Suddenly, one of the capital ship's turrets fires a laser salvo in your direction while a small wing of enemy fighters emerge from the asteroid field before you. What do you do?"

There's a free OGL download of D6 2nd Edition.

The Jedi in the movies were surprised by it because they hadn't seen a proper Sith in, well, ever for most of them. Sith sorcery had all kinds of elemental effects, force lightning only being one of many. It's more a question of what era the game is going to take place in.

Jedi will be adepts mainly, with very few spell abilities . Some healers will have access to health spells for example, or even physical barrier in some rare cases. Magic Fingers certainly comes to mind, as does levitate of course. It's going to have to be very specific and laid out.

I would also get rid of mana warps and mana voids as the Force is most certainly seen being used in space.

Now aspected mana is shown (Yoda's little vacation home )

Except Yoda, of course, who was cool as a cucumber when Tyranus whipped out his FL. "Okay, here comes the lightning, block it with my lightsaber, on to the next thing..."

here's a question. for the normal SR4 missle parry rule, do you get that IN ADDITION to the reaction test to dodge an incoming slow missle (like an arrow) or is in INSTEAD of that roll? i know it's used once per phase as a free action.

i'll still allow hacking to be used by characters via a commlink but the range will be severely limited at best (only certain systems will allow wireless connections) and you'll get a bonus if you're physically jacked into whatever you're trying to hack (ala R2D2) to give players the added motivation to get closer instead of wirelessly doing everything. since i'm not allowing full VR, i'll be dumbing down any countermeasures to match the lower meat/physical stats the characters will be using without the VR bonuses. the SR4 hackable tshirt and stick of gum will be gone (no RFIDs).





cool, hadn't thought of that one. i'll have to get rid of that. thanks!





kind of off topic but yoda was 900 years old and a young knight when the last batch of sith were fought by the jedi order (he fought them on dagobah and discovered the dark side cave there then) according to the comics. while the other jedi may have heard of force lightning, i'm sure it was suprising/shocking/crap your pants scary for them to see it for the first time. for yoda, it was just like old times.

Well... Mace Windu did not seem all that surprised when he fought the Emperor either... Just because it was not seen often, does not mean that the Jedi order never encountered it... there were, after all, Dark Jedi capable of using Dark Side Powers, of which Force Lightning is only one of...

Just Sayin'

Keep the Faith

I'm working on much the same sort of conversion. But I'm jacking the weapon, damage and vehicle rules from another system.

i'd be interested in seeing what you're doing with them as shadowrun seems lethal enough for me personally. my goal at this step is to see if i can successfully make a smattering of popular star wars races with the core SR4 races combined with perks/flaws.

I'm taking the stats, and how dice roll in SR4, and combining it with the damage, and combat system of DP9, as it does vehicles way better, but SR4 handles how stats, and skills work better.


edit: Its not so much a method I would recommend for you as it requires the purchase of more books to get the rules you need. But I think the systems work well together. Once I patch together the base I need, I'll be making vehicle and force power conversions from a combination of the WEG and D20 star wars books my friends have.

You've obviously made up your mind on the matter, but in the interest of clarity I'll state my case in a little more detail. Many of the West End Games D6 rulebooks can be found for cheap on eBay or at used book stores. Cheaper than current-printing Shadowrun books, in fact. I see the core book for $9 in one auction, $10.79 in two others, etc, etc. Yes, there are folks that will always overcharge for OOP material because they see it as a collectible, but in the same vein there are always folks emptying out an old box of books and selling them for next to nothing.

My suggestion had nothing to do with "nobility," and everything to do with simple practicality and laziness.

Laziness first, simply because I've never been a fan of fixing what ain't broke. To me, the WEG Star Wars game is a mechanically sound foundation from which to run a campaign, and I no I'm not the only one that feels that way. You're free to disagree, of course, or even to simply lack confidence in that assessment due to a lack of experience, but I wanted to make it clear -- it's not about being noble, it's about using what works.

And, practically speaking, the WEG system does so. It's a game designed to recreate the feel of the Star Wars books and movies, which Shadowrun is very much not. Many people feel SR4 has gotten a little too cinematic (particularly with certain builds and exploits/loopholes), but even so I'd posit that it's not really cinematic enough to let people pull off the crazy stuff they could in a dedicated Star Wars game. What's more, since the focus of Shadowrun is on the integration of man, magic, and machine, and the focus on Star Wars quite simply isn't -- as you're already discovering with talk about cybernetics and how to handle them -- I think you'd bypass some real issues by not trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

A goodly chunk of Shadowrun's game balance revolves around cybernetic enhancement, not only magical (the magical being easily enough handled by Jedi or other Force User tricks)...and cybernetic enhancement really isn't a major part of the Star Wars mythos. Cybernetic replacement, yes, but not the same level of cyberpunk-style enhancement that's a big part of balancing combat in a game like Shadowrun. Shadowrun's a game of resource micromanagement -- spending Essence wisely, for instance -- and that same focus was never really a part of Star Wars as a game setting.

You can spray handwavium all over the place and rename metahumans as aliens, sure, and like I said Adepts and Mages are easily enough combined into Force Users. But it's with the non-Jedi that I think you'll have a real problem, and the problem will be letting them keep up and feel like useful team members. Shadowrun balances out magic -- theoretically -- by letting folks cram themselves to the gills with combatware in order to act faster, take more hits, and sling more dice than their magical counterparts. In Star Wars, that isn't particularly an option, or at least it isn't a particularly common one.

Unless you're going for a very gritty feeling Star Wars game, with their own versions of Shadowrun-style street docs and enhancements, I think you'll find the core mechanics of SR4 just don't work terribly well. And if you are going to just run Shadowrun in Space, complete with cyberware/bioware enhancements, Essence ratings, and gunmen that can outreact a Jedi due to those enhancements...well...why not just run regular old Shadowrun?

At any rate, good luck. I hope you enjoy the campaign, and I hope spelling out my thinking a little more will at least give you pause, maybe encourage you to fire up eBay or Craigslist and take a look, and do more than write my post off with another snippy comment about nobility. Have a good game, whichever way you try to run it!

yup, definitely made up my mind. i'll either be doing normal shadowrun or the star wars shadowrun. honestly, i don't see the non-jedi as having a problem, even with the lower cyber level. with magic adepts as the only magic types allowed (and them being quite underwhelming), i'm more afraid of the jedi feeling less useful than the opposite. as for the weg stuff, i'm not interested in hunting down multiple books for a system i'm not familiar with for a campaign that may drift apart quickly (as so many statisically do). while i appreciate the effort, i was kind of hoping my explanation in the first post would address that, lol.

Just to throw my opinion intot he ring, In my opinion, there is no better system to portray the over-the-top crazinbess that is star wars than the Feng Shui System... I have had a campaign using this system and it works wonderfully well... everythign is there, ready and waiting to be used...

Like I said, though, that is only my opinion...

And you can get the D6 Edition of Star Wars very cheaply... Was the best Star Wars RPG that was ever developed in my opinion, assuming that you do not want to use Feng Shui (Yeah, I am biased)... Though West End put out a massive amount of product while they had the license. I wish that I still had my copies.

Keep the Faith

so i've been giving this a bit more thought and decided to make a post regarding each of the main areas of shadowrun and what i'm changing. since star wars is most memorable for it's jedi more than anything, i'll start with the magic system. as people post in the thread with new ideas or questions, i'll update the appropriate posts accordingly with changes. i'll be discussing the campaign with the interested parties this week during the FLGS 40k night so i'll know by the end of the week if the campaign is actually a go.

Magic

I'll only be allowing magic adepts out of the core magic variants. i'll still allow players to choose whether they want to be part of the shamanic or hermetic traditions with the stipulation that the jedi are ONLY hermetic. non-jedi are free to choose how to spend their available magic points, with all or none going into spellcasting or adept powers. jedi, being "balanced" light side users, must spend at least one point in both adept powers (including taking either magic sense OR astral perception as mandatory adept powers) and spell casting (must take ONE spell and spellcasting skill level 1+) as they share a similar upbringing within the order, learning techniques for both. since full mages are not allowed, i don't have to worry about astral projection and the associated hurdles. the first min/max problem i see is if a player who is not a jedi takes the level 3 combat reflexes power (IIRC the name) that gives him 3 additional passes. since i'm limiting the nonmagic analogs (cyberware, bioware, etc... see first post), this could be overpowering so we'll have to see what the PC's actually end up taking. jedi, while having some options restricted as above, will recieve a free high loyalty contact (their jedi master) as well as the discount on initiation costs due to the order/group. in order to be bestowed with the rank of jedi knight, the player must initiate one level through the jedi order.

As for spells, i don't see too much need for change here. magic tended in my previous short lived sr4 campaign to seem overpowering, especially with direct combat spells. part of this was due to the mage of the party simply never opting to counterspell for some reason and part of it is due to the rules themselves (which are incidentally changed for direct spells with the anniversary edition of sr4). perhaps i'm assuming too much but i see a natural balance in the power of spellcasting by not allowing full mages. while it's still possible to take all 6 magic points in spellcasting and max out the skill, most characters who mix the phys ad and mage powers will be inherently lower in both the force of their spells as well as their spellcasting skill, lowering the average damage output. we'll have to see how this actually goes during character creation. the basic spells/jedi powers i've thought of so far are leviate for move object (luke lifting the xwing), control thoughts for mind trick, and power bolt/ball for light side for push as obvious analogs for their movie counterparts. the biggest quandry i have is with powers that are typically associated with the dark side, like force lightning. if i stay true to the movie roots, i'll have to rule that any spells with elemental effects are automatically dark side powers. that still leaves light side users with a few direct combat spells as well as the mana ones so i don't think they'll be too hard up.

Since space combat/interaction is integral to star wars, the rules for mana voids and magic users going insane in space will be gone. since characters will not have access to astral space, NPCs (outside of the occasional force ghost/shadowrun spirit) will not either. i don't forsee any problems with dual natured creatures so they're staying as is for now. magic items overall will be unchanged with the exception that jedi are not allowed to take spells linked to fetishes or anything that requires a physical object to use a power; those of the non-jedi tradition can take any they choose.

I just realized that SR3 Rigger would have had everything you needed for vehicular or space battles with spaceships.

You could modify the system so everyone gets 2 passes for mundanes.

4 passes vs. 1 is a much more major hurdle than 4 to 2, or 3 to 2. Much less of a comparitive advantage.


Also I like always breaking the turn into 4 passes. Per the rules you can use your action phase on any of the 4 passes (you don't HAVE to use up your action in the first phase per the rules). (you get a free action each phase). Every pass, everyone can move a quarter of their speed and get a free action... (limits the amazing low pass guy 'teleporting' from cover to cover...).


Mana voids and space goes without saying... Limiting yourself to aspected counts is probably enough. (seriously a 1 point aspected count is -1 to everyone else, and +1 dice to the aspected tradition which gives a 2 point swing to start... going up from there). (in a current campaign the rampant abuse of 2 to 4 point aspected counts resorted in me going nuclear and learning 'cleansing' in a hurry as the dice penalties bonuses were just too large).


Actually the 'influence' spell and power are probably much more akin to the jedi mind trick. Control thoughts is FAR more powerful and abusive (more akin to mind rape than implanting a subtle suggestion in the weak willed).

hmm, didn't realize that you don't *have* to use your action in the first pass. i guess it's intuitive but my players never really wanted to delay and i didn't personally catch that. as for the influence spell, you are correct. after reading the descriptions, i'll change that one out for mind trick instead. thanks!

with the holiday weekend and low turnout at the FLGS for 40k night (where i hope to get most of the new converts to the campaign) this week, i hope to have a bit more info by friday about whether the campaign reaches the critical number of players in this new format.

Yes it's actually a little obtuse. According to RAW, see p145 'delay action'.... lets say you have 2 IP's... you can effectively delay YOUR LAST ACTION PHASE without penalty to any IP you like!!!

But my main point to you was if everyone has 2 IP's... having +1 more isn't nearly as monstrous of an advantage as having twice as many to the unaugmented, while still being quite significant. Since you're house ruling a lot, thought I'd suggest that to you.


You can take your first action phase (AP in the first Initiative Phase (IP) normally:
2nd IP... you can declare that you're delaying your action... then take it later that pass OR IN A LATER IP!!!
If you delay action into a turn you already have an action in... you lose your normal action. So effectively someone w/ only 1 IP, can delay to whatever IP they want to act on (they have no extra IP's to lose!).

Also according to RAW... in any IP where the character gets an action phase... they get 1 free action as well.

When the character acts the character moves his speed/IP's in that AP. So someone w/ a single IP would move their ENTIRE movement speed in one round (IE: human running moves 24 or 25m IIRC in a single phase and acts... or 'teleports' as I like to call it).

I don't like RAW there as the whole thing is rather clunky!!!! (and I also dislike the 1 round wonder sprinters...).


So as a houserule...
I like to modify free actions: everyone gets 4, one each pass. Each pass everyone moves their movement/4 (no different speeds for different folks). The reason for the 4 free actions passes... is everyone forgets that 'run' is a free action (which gives -2 attack and +2 defense also to boot!! seen many players forget that one!). Also free actions don't do a lot typically (just switch device modes... run... *COMMUNICATE/TALK*!!!, though someone w/ krav maga could use them to get +1 aim bonuses I guess as well... which isn't too bad).

Then like I said... rather than the clunky delay mechanic above... I like to let anyone use their IP's on any pass, no more than one AP per pass. If they want to act out of initiative... then I prefer a more traditional 'ready action' mechanic. (when they run across the open ground between cover, I'm going to fire the machine gun... a definite delcared action w/ a 'trigger'). "I'm on overwatch, when a target presents itself. I'm going to identify and shoot it... " if it's an obvious target it's a free action to ID it... not obvious a simple action observe in detail... then another simple to shoot)..

How about having each level of IP enhancement add another 'simple' action which can be taken, as opposed to another whole IP. Allow 2 simple action for a complex action, and call it done.