gameworld.thesnakefarm.com: star wars: rebel scum

Introduction | Basic Rules | Advancing Characters | Combat Basics
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Don't worry. Here's the basics of what you need to know.

Your skills and stats are represented with die codes. This is the number of d6 that you roll, plus one or two. You have a Mechanical of 2d+2? Roll 2d6 and add 2 when trying to do something mechanical.

Your skills default to the parent stat. If you haven't increased your Lifting skill, when lifting something heavy you'd roll the die code listed for Strength.

On an unopposed tests, you try to roll higher than or equal to a difficulty number; Opposed tests require you to roll higher than the other person. The difficulty number or target number is set by the GM. Average tasks are in the 11 to 15 range.

The first die in your roll is open-ended. This allows someone with a die code of 2d to occasionally beat a difficulty number of 13.

Use Force Points to increase your stats for a round. Trust to the Force and all your stats and skills are doubled for one round.

It's harder to do more than one thing in a round. More on that in the Combat section.

The GM can't describe everything. If something would logically be in a location and it isn't mentioned by the GM, it's probably there.

There, that wasn't so hard, was it? Check below for more on these and some other rules.

Your character can do simple things without worry of failure: start a landspeeder, swim in a pool, chew gum. But when your character attempts something that might fail, or something that's difficult, you roll dice to determine how well you've succeeded or how horribly you've failed in the attempt. Every character has Stats and Skills measured in Die Codes. Each time you attempt to use a Stat or Skill, you look at the die code to find out how many dice you roll.

A typical die code would look like this: 3d. This means you roll three six-sided dice and add the numbers you roll together. If the die code had a plus at the end, like 3d+2, you would roll all the dice, add the numbers rolled, then add 2 to the total.

Die codes go in steps. 2d, 2d+1, 2d+2, 3d.... The +1 and +2 are sometimes referred to as 'pips'.

Each character is defined in game terms as a bunch of stats and skills. A stat is a basic attribute, like your IQ, your strength, your hand-eye coordination; Stats are innate abilities. Skills are abilities you learn instead of abilities you are born with. You can't improve your stats during the game, but you can improve your skills.

All skills start with the same die code as the stat. If your character has a Dexterity of 3d, all your Dexterity-based skills have a rating of 3d.

Each time you roll the dice, you're attempting to equal or roll higher than a difficulty number. Most of the time this will be an unopposed test, like jumping for a hanging rope ladder. Other times, it's an opposed test, like when your character decides to arm wrestle another character.

For opposed tests, generally who rolls higher wins. If you rolled an 8 and your opponent rolled a 10, you lose.

For unopposed tests, the GM determines how difficult the task is. Something Very Easy would fall in the 3 to 5 range. Easy tasks are between 6 and 10. Moderate, between 11 and 15. Difficult, 16 to 20. Very Difficult tasks are between 21 and 30. Impossible tasks are 31 and up.

Ranged weapon combat is similar -- Point Blank Range: 3-5, Short Range: 6-10, Medium Range: 11-15, Long Range: 16-20.

If you only have 2d in a skill and you need at least a 13 to pass a task, you're hosed, right? Not really -- everybody gets lucky sometimes. To represent this, we have something called "the wild die". Here's how it works -- If you get a six on the wild die, you get to keep re-rolling that die and adding it to your total. Keep getting sixes, you keep rolling and adding.

Normally, in a game where we're all sitting around a table and rolling real dice, we'd have you roll a different colored die and use that as the wild die. But in the chatroom, we'll use the first die that comes up in your roll.

For instance, if you type "/roll 2d6" and chat room responds with "User Jericho rolls 2d6: 6 + 2 = 8", that first die rolled was a 6. That means you can keep rolling -- more sixes, more rolls. Keep rolling 1d6 until you don't get a six. Add everything you've rolled to your total.

Every character starts with one Force Point. Anytime at all during a scenario, you can say that you're "trusting to the Force", which uses your Force Point. This will have one of two effects -- you double all your stats and skills for a short moment or you can avoid certain death.

The certain death thing -- if your character is trapped under a falling building and you roll to try to get out of the way and completely fail and there's pretty much nothing that's going to happen except your character's life is over, spend that Luck Point. Poof. You're automatically safe. But you have to explain why -- debris from the falling building hit around you, ripping a hole in the ground to a previously-undiscovered subway station which you dive into just moments before the massive building would've crushed you. Something like that.

The doubling effect only lasts for that combat round. A combat round is how long it takes for someone to do something -- shoot a gun, run over there, play a hand of cards. When you double your stats and skills, you get to take twice as many actions as you normally could, your chances of success are much higher, you are less likely to be injured, and if you somehow become stunned during the round you ignore stun effects.

When spending Force Points, one of four things happens. 1: If you trust to the Force to do evil, you lose the Force Point and gain a Dark Side Point -- you might turn to the Dark Side. If this happens, you become evil and lose your character. 2: If you trust to the Force in a way that isn't particularly heroic nor evil, you lose the Force Point, but do not gain a Dark Side Point. 3: If you trust to the Force in a heroic way, you do not lose that Force Point. You get it back at the end of the adventure. 4: If you trust to the Force in a heroic and dramatically appropriate way, you get that back and may get another one at the end of the adventure.

Under most circumstances, using a skill or stat takes one combat round. One round is about seven or eight seconds, so four rounds is about half a minute.

If you want to make sure you use a skill or stat successfully, you can take an extra round to prepare. You do nothing at all during one round and in the next, you make your skill roll, but get to add 1d to the roll. You can only use one skill or stat in the next round. For instance, you have a blaster skill of 3d+1. If you have a heavy blaster and declare you're going to aim at a target, when you fire you get to roll 4d+1.

If you run in the same combat round you use a skill, your skill code is reduced by 1d.

If you are wounded when you use a skill, your skill code is reduced by 1d.

You can use more than one skill or stat in a single combat round. You have do decide which skills you'll use at the beginning of the round. Every skill use after the first one costs you 1d. If you use two skills, all skill codes are reduced by 1d; three skills, a 2d penalty; four skills, a 3d penalty. This applies to every skill use in that combat round.

Beginning characters such as yourselves probably aren't skilled enough to do more than two different things at once and hope to succeed at whatever they're doing.

Dodge, melee parry, and brawling parry are reaction skills. You don't have to declare their use at the beginnning of the combat round -- you can use them whenever you need to. If someone shoots at you, you can dodge right there.

However, if you use a reaction skill in a combat round where you're using more than one skill, this counts as an extra skill use. All the skill uses you've declared after this reaction skill still have to be attempted, but because you just used a reaction skill, all those following are reduced by an additional 1d.

For example, Jericho has a blaster and declares he's going to fire three times. He has a blaster skill of 4d+2, which means he'd make three blaster attacks at 2d+2. He fires once, than is fired upon and decides to dodge. His dodge skill is 4d, but now he's using four skills this round, so he is now penalized 3d instead of 2d. He now has a 1d for Dodge for this round; his last two blaster shots are at 1d+2.

When describing the setting, the GM will do his utmost to accurately describe what's in the area. However, the GM will not be able to describe every single detail in a location. The players also get a chance to shape the world. Here's two examples.

Jericho and Talia are in the ruins of an abandoned city and are being pursued by a large group of Stormtroopers. They run down an alley, which is described as having "a fence" at the end. Talia's player states that she is going to climb the chain link fence and hop over. The next combat round, the Stormtroopers show up and attack Jericho. Jericho's player cannot state that he's going to pry a board off of the fence and block with that as Talia's player had just made the fence a chain-link fence instead of a wooden fence.

Jericho is backed up against our chain-link fence, the Stormtroopers are closing in. Jericho's player states that Jericho is going to pick up a brick and throw it at the lead Stormtrooper. Even though the GM didn't state that there was a brick or rubble in the alley, there probably is one -- Jericho picks up a brick and throws it at the lead Stormtrooper. If Jericho's player stated Jericho was going to reach down and pick up a heavy repeating blaster that someone discarded, that wouldn't work.