How To Run a Star Wars Game that Doesn't Get All the Players Killed?

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

The same is true of pistols and swords in Indiana Jones movies.

Design adventures that are almost all not combat. Give the PCs objectives other than slaughter. Let them run away from military units.

I would strongly recommend combining that with Luck, Serendipity, and some cinematic combat rules from page B417 or other supplements. Your adventure might be more Rogue One than Return of the Jedi, but Star Wars is still a dramatic setting.

[rkbrown419]

As others have said. Luck helps a lot so do mandatory levels in Hard to Kill. A friend of mine noted when trying to do Star Wars in another system it's virtualy impossible to have force users as powerful as they are shown to be in the movies and TV shows without making them incredibly more powerful than non force users. Trying to run a balanced game with a mixed party users won't work well. The only way to have such a mixed campaign is if you weaken your force users significantly or the players of the non force users don't mind being sidelined for much of the action.
If you don't have it I'd suggest getting GURPS Supers. Star Wars is much closer to four color comic book action than realistic style of adventuring.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by rkbrown419

As others have said. Luck helps a lot so do mandatory levels in Hard to Kill. A friend of mine noted when trying to do Star Wars in another system it's virtualy impossible to have force users as powerful as they are shown to be in the movies and TV shows without making them incredibly more powerful than non force users. Trying to run a balanced game with a mixed party users won't work well. The only way to have such a mixed campaign is if you weaken your force users significantly or the players of the non force users don't mind being sidelined for much of the action.

As Noah Antwiler (Spoony, one of the original "angry rant review" YouTube stars) put it that a Star Wars RPG sometimes works best if it's all Jedi or no Jedi. I've played in games (both Star Wars and conventional fantasy) that eventually put in a no Jedi/wizards/psychics rule, not so much because of the power difference, but because it can very easily fall into a case of the GM effectively running separate games for the powereds and the normies.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Gavynn

I thought that was still in the books too! I guess I remember it from third edition as well!

As pointed out by Michael Thayne, it does appear in 4e, in GURPS Martial Arts. So, not a Mandela Effect - I was a bit worried given CERN's recent reactivation.

Originally Posted by RyanW

As Noah Antwiler (Spoony, one of the original "angry rant review" YouTube stars) put it that a Star Wars RPG sometimes works best if it's all Jedi or no Jedi. I've played in games (both Star Wars and conventional fantasy) that eventually put in a no Jedi/wizards/psychics rule, not so much because of the power difference, but because it can very easily fall into a case of the GM effectively running separate games for the powereds and the normies.

A lot depends on how powerful you make the Force - or more specifically, how powerful you make your Force users, and how weak you make your mundanes. If your Jedi is someone like Luke Skywalker, Kyle Katarn, or Darth Revan, yeah, mundanes aren't going to be able to keep up. Similarly, if you make your mundanes comparable to stormtroopers, your Force users are going to overwhelm them. But if your Force users are more like Cal Kestis, and your mundanes comparable to Purge troopers? That's a different story (and more akin to how the MMORPG The Old Republic works).

[Chuckg]

The Cinematic Combat Rules on page B417 of Basic Set - Campaigns may help.

I would particularly look into TV Action Violence, which allows heroes to convert a failed Defense roll into a successful one at the cost of '-1 Fatigue and lose next turn'.

In other words, unless the enemy scores a critical you just get dramatically missed and forced to flinch and duck a lot, until you finally run out of FP and are exhausted. Only then do you become vulnerable to actually being shot like a mook. Well, unless the enemy scores a critical hit, but that's why critical hits are critical.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by rkbrown419

As others have said. Luck helps a lot so do mandatory levels in Hard to Kill. A friend of mine noted when trying to do Star Wars in another system it's virtualy impossible to have force users as powerful as they are shown to be in the movies and TV shows without making them incredibly more powerful than non force users. Trying to run a balanced game with a mixed party users won't work well. The only way to have such a mixed campaign is if you weaken your force users significantly or the players of the non force users don't mind being sidelined for much of the action.
If you don't have it I'd suggest getting GURPS Supers. Star Wars is much closer to four color comic book action than realistic style of adventuring.

Until The Rise of Skywalker the ability of force users in the gameswas already totally ridiculous. The games had taken Vader's "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force" statement to 11 and then some. The Rise of Skywalker just turned it up to insane with Palpatine getting thrown down into a power core of a Death Star that then exploded and surviving.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Gavynn

And that rule about burning XP to reduce damage is a joke. You'd run out of XP way before you run out of enemy hit that you fail to dodge.

That's a bit rich given that the original Star Wars game either invented or was one of the early adopters of the "Fate Point" mechanic (called Force Points or Dark Side Points in WEG SW series). It was the same thing as Impulse Points/Burning XP, but Fate/Force points could only be used to power cool abilities, make good things happen, or reduce the negative effects of bad things happening.

Star Wars is wildly cinematic, with almost all of its protagonists either having a Destiny, Extra Life (looking at you, Obi Wan and Anakin), Luck, Serendipity, or some combination of those traits that made them the Galaxy's favored children. Even the poor doomed sods in Rogue One have serious Destinies.

The key to any combat heavy Action game (which Star Wars is) is to eliminate combat dice rolls except when it matters to the plot. Mooks with blasters exist only to slow the PCs down, limit their options, keep the clock ticking, or make them look good. The GM has to roll with that philosophy to make an Action game work regardless of genre.

That means the GM can describe a smoky hall with blaster bolts whizzing by as a way of telling the players "You can't go that way without getting seriously hurt. Do something clever." ("What an incredible smell you've discovered!")

If the players are being typical players, the GM might have to tell them as much or even drop 16-ton lead clad hints. ("There's a hatch nearby that you might be able to pry open to escape.")

If the GM is actually making dice rolls for the mooks to hit, they're doing it wrong.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Chuckg

I would particularly look into TV Action Violence, which allows heroes to convert a failed Defense roll into a successful one at the cost of '-1 Fatigue and lose next turn'.

Ablative DR or a FP pool which can specifically be used for the TV Action Violence rule (and any kewl powers) is also a convenient substitute for the massive HP totals that high level d20 system characters have.

That allows even stupid, impulsive, kill-crazy PCs/players, who see every dice roll as the chance to slaughter something, a chance to survive in a violent ultratech universe.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by maximara

Until The Rise of Skywalker the ability of force users in the gameswas already totally ridiculous. The games had taken Vader's "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force" statement to 11 and then some. The Rise of Skywalker just turned it up to insane with Palpatine getting thrown down into a power core of a Death Star that then exploded and surviving.

He didn't survive. It's no coincidence that Rey finds him right beside a cloning facility. They did the same thing in Dark Empire. Mechanically speaking he used an Extra Life.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

He didn't survive. It's no coincidence that Rey finds him right beside a cloning facility. They did the same thing in Dark Empire. Mechanically speaking he used an Extra Life.

The problem with the movie was that they chose a director and scriptwriter or writers who weren't very good.