Let’s learn the basics of Advanced Starship Use in West End Games’ Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game 30th Anniversary Edition. You can learn more about Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Roleplaying_Game
You can pick up the original sourcebooks as PDF’s here: https://www.starwarstimeline.net/Westendgames.htm
Time Stamps:
- 0:00 Intro
- 0:24 Foreword
- 0:54 Hyperdrives
- 2:01 Astrogation
- 2:59 Torpedoes and Missiles
- 3:39 Multiship Combat
- 4:51 Ships and Personal Combat
- 5:58 Improving Ships
- 7:31 Outro
About Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game 30th Anniversary Edition
Few books or games have had as enduring an impact upon the Star Wars galaxy and its fans as Star Wars™: The Roleplaying Game. Originally published by West End Games in 1987, it arrived at a time when the future of the Star Wars galaxy was uncertain, and it captivated a whole generation of gamers with rules and guidelines that made it possible to design and enjoy adventures truly worthy of the Star Wars universe and its ongoing space opera.
Now Fantasy Flight Games is proud to offer faithful recreations of this influential rulebook and The Star Wars™ Sourcebook. Our Star Wars™: The Roleplaying Game 30th Anniversary Edition is a limited edition set of both books, printed with higher quality than the originals and packaged in a stylized slipcase.
These books were sent to Timothy Zahn as references when he started to develop Grand Admiral Thrawn and his Thrawn trilogy. They introduced materials that were later adopted into Star Wars canon, such as the names of alien races like the Twi’lek, Rodians, and Quarren. They even inspired members of the Lucasfilm Story Group as they worked on their writers’ bible.
Now, Fantasy Flight Games is proud to return Star Wars: The Roleplaying to print as a collectible set of two high-quality, hardbound books presented in a stylized slipcase. You’ll find all the original game materials—just as playable as ever—and they’re presented with the same graphic design and fake, in-universe Star Wars advertisements for the Imperial Navy, the R2 astromech Droid, and more.
Even the books’ use of black-and-white, blue ink, and full color sections have been recreated, along with its use of still photos and concept art, some of which have been updated for this new 30th Anniversary Edition. Finally, the books come with a foreword by Pablo Hidalgo, one of the creative executives on the Lucasfilm Story Group.
Transcript
Intro
Welcome to The Infernal Brotherhood of the Scruffy Looking, Nerf Herders! In this episode of How to Play West End Games’ Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game 30th Anniversary Edition, we are discussing Advanced Starship Use.
Discussion
Starship combat is more than just dogfighting. You will at times be a part of a fleet that is coordinating a jump through hyperspace to a predetermined coordinate in space. This can be for a myriad of reasons but understanding the basic concept of hyperspace travel will keep you from running into a star or actually arriving when and where you are meant to. As with any travel, let alone space travel there are dangers involved and even the best hyperdrive can malfunction due to operator error or anomalies in space.
Hyperdrives
In hyperspace you are traveling faster than light, and your hyperdrive is powered by massive fusion generators. But even this advanced technology is useless without the correct Astrogation. It will always take at least one full day to travel from one point in the galaxy to another, and depending on the frequency the route is mapped and traveled, it can take much, much longer. But it is still infinitely faster than traveling through space at sunlight speeds. The Astrogation Gazetteer chart shows the standard duration to the locations in the films.
Every hyperdrive is annotated with a multiplier. This will modify the duration by speeding up the trip or slowing it down, depending on if the modifier is less than or greater than 1. Many ships even carry backup hyperdrives, not unlike a spare tire in a car, for the very same reason. You don’t want to be stuck in the vacuum of space, unable to contact anyone, and vulnerable to everything for an undetermined amount of time. Of course, not all starships are equipped with a hyperdrive, as they are traditionally launched from larger ships with them.
Astrogation
Calculating the trip duration will take a minute for common routes, and up to a day for unknown routes. The standard duration of hyperspace travel is shown on the Astrogation Chart, as are modifiers you may encounter along the route and the difficulty number you must roll over with your Astrogation skill in order to end up in the desired coordinates. When the ship enters hyperspace, that is when the pilot or individual or droid who is at the Nav Computer, must roll their Astrogation Skill.
You may attempt to increase or decrease the duration by a day, which is reflected by increasing or decreasing the Difficulty Number by one point for each day modified. If you do not roll over the Difficulty Number, you suffer a mishap. These are presented in the Astrogation Mishap Table. They can range from the Hyperdrive cutting out, losing a day of travel to Colliding with an object in space and suffering Heavy Damage to your ship.
Torpedoes and Missiles
Next let’s discuss torpedoes and missiles. Because while not every craft is equipped with them, many are. Torpedoes and Missiles can only be used at short range, and they are designed to be used against slow moving targets. When you fire one at an enemy, they will roll the ship’s speed dice and add it to the fire difficulty. This is not a skill use, and does not penalize the enemy ship. If the fire difficulty is met or exceeded by the roll, the missiles strike. Unless a successful shield roll is made. If a shield roll is successful, the missiles dissipate on the shield and does no damage to the starship.
Multiship Combat
You may find yourself being engaged by multiple starships, or you may be engaging a single starship with multiple allies. In this case we would defer to the Multiship Combat rules. Each ship begins at short, medium or long range. The single ship may attempt to run away from all opponents or close with any one of them. If the single ship closes with one of the enemy ships, the range decreases. If it runs, speed dice are rolled to determine if the range increases or decreases. Each enemy ship follows the same range modification rules.
If there are multiple ships against multiple opponents, separate them into individual dogfights. Once a dogfight ends, the victor may join another dogfight, which would follow the aforementioned rules of one ship against multiple opponents. A ship may not fire on another that is not part of the dogfight. A ship that leaves the battlefield, beyond long range, cannot fire on any ships. If another ally ship joins a two versus one dogfight, break it into two, one on one dogfights. This should make the management of space battles simpler for everyone.
Ships and Personal Combat
It is truly unusual for a starship to fire at characters. Tie fighters are known to strafe ground targets however. The gunner of a ship can’t truly see an individual at medium range. When a starship fires on a character, the base difficulty number is twenty. If the roll is successful, the character may dodge. As starship damage codes are scaled for starship combat, not character combat, you must double the damage code for any starship firing on a character. The character may then roll their strength attribute dice normally.
When a character fires on a ship, the range is determined normally for the character. The ship may evade using its normal evasion rules. Again, character scale damage is different from starship scale damage, so no matter what weapon is used, a successful character hit will only roll one dice for its damage against the starship. The ship would then roll its hull, and shield dice normally. If the damage is less than half the ship’s hull and shield, it has no effect.
Improving Ships
Through the course of adventuring, you may want to improve your starship. You would need to spend your skill points in order to do this. You can increase any of its die codes: speed, hull, maneuverability, shields, fire control, and damage in this way. The cost is the same for improving a character’s skill dice. If the ship has multiple weapons, each would have to be increased separately. Changing the hyperdrive multiplier from x2 to x1 would take twenty skill points. x1 to x1/2 costs forty points.
You can add weapons to your ship at a cost of six skill points for a 1d of fire control and damage. You must also spend the appropriate credits, or use the Starship repair skill. The credit cost is 100 credits per skill point, and the time is one day per pip increased. If the Starship Repair skill is used, it can only be improved up to the repair skill die code. So a 4d skill can only increase a starships stat up to 4d. Doing so this way takes one week per pip increased. Kind Game Masters or GM’s may allow their player characters or PC’s to increase their blasters or equipment in a similar manner.
I hope that provides you with a more complete understanding of the use of a Starship in navigating interstellar space, multiple ship combat and improving your starship.
Outro
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Until the Infernal Brotherhood convenes again my fellow scruffy looking, nerf herders “May the Force be with you.”