Quote from: VellorianX-Wings and Y-Wings have shields.  Although in the movies they blow up pretty easily, in the video games this isn't the case.  Unless the PCs are flying TIEs, you're guaranteed a few hits before they go KABOOM!    (And remember Luke, the hero, got hit a couple times and had a stabilizer that kept coming loose that R2 had to fix...)



Which is the perfect time to have non-gunners/non-pilots go running around to fix things, batten down the hatches and generally "help out."



Perhaps in your games it almost never happens.  It happens all the time in my games.  In fact, I deliberately add it into the game to keep the non-gunners/non-pilots active and participating.



Wow.  That sounds like you're playing D20 or something.  

I've never had a space combat that was just a bunch of "armor crunch." It's always been a serious situation that required the attention of the whole crew, it involved every skill set used by a team of players.



Wow.  No.  Definitely not.

First of all, there's the fact that every player should be in a space-suit/evironment suit that provides them a little time in the vacuum before they're dead.  

Secondly, you have plenty of time to get to escape pods.

Thirdly, you can seal off sections of the ship so that they can be captured, providing all sorts of fun plot twisting.

Fourthly, ever heard of the "emergency hyperdrive?"  They can go screaming off into the void, they just burn out their hyperdrive in the process and have to spend the next few days/weeks/months/years involved in repairing their ship (depending on the specific needs of the campaign).  I've had PCs stranded on uncharted worlds for so long they forgot about the space campaign and had a blast on the planet where they crashed.

Honestly, Pundit, it sounds like you fell into the "D20 trap" of hack-n-slash with your space campaign and can't see your way out of the box because D20 has locked up your thinking.  Time to reboot and look for a more creative and less closed-system mechanic.

Dang it! I could have written this! Are you telepathically linked to me or something, Ian?

-clash

whoops wrong thread

How do Star Trek RPGs handle combat then?

Is it like Pendragon with tactics rolls or is it that the captain gives orders (generate a tactics total) then the helmsman interpret the orders (generate a piloting total) and then the security officer adjusts shields or fires on the enemy(generate shield or capital gunnery total) then add em all up and oppose them to a similar set of rolls on the other ship?

I'll be interested to see how QuestWorlds suggests handling this sort of thing.  Certainly ship combat in HeroQuest worked well for me since everyone can contribute and the bidding/contest system gave good control over the outcome.  I think abstracting it like that is the best way to deal with it in a personal, hero centred RPG capacity.

Quote from: RPGPunditHow do you do space (ship-to-ship) combat in a way that:

a) doesn't bore everyone else in the party aside from the gunner and the pilot?
b) doesn't just amount to the biggest fucking potential Total Party Kill due to Bad Rolls of any sci-fi game?
c) Isn't boring?
d) actually feels like what starship combats LOOK like in movies like Star Wars or Star Trek?

Virtually every system I've ever seen for this is pathetic at it.  Most of them are ultra-complex, and usually are NOTHING like what they're attempting to emulate.

Cowboy Bebop got it right. Give everyone their own ship, and design the ships to match the roles/classes in your game.

Quote from: mearlsCowboy Bebop got it right. Give everyone their own ship, and design the ships to match the roles/classes in your game.

Hell yes! Bebop is for the WIN!

Of course, what they had there could hardly be called a party... I'd be at a bit of a loss trying to run something like that.

Quote from: RPGPunditOf course, when I run a starship battle its not any of these things. But that's because I cheat. Rampantly. I lie, I utterly ignore the rules, I make the dice mean whatever the fuck I want them to mean, so basically there is no "system" I use. I just make it all up as I go along. But really, that sort of sucks that I have to be put in the position where I feel I must do that.

That's because the kind of roleplaying that requires real team-work, dealing with a problem the way that people really enjoy it and the way it is portrayed in the movies we know and love needs to be as fluid as possible, with as little mechanics involved as possible.

A mechanic that gives you a basic concept of how well you accomplish a task while the GM interprets that along with the whole plethora of data flowing in.

I would posit that you can't make a game mechanic do this because it's not an issue of mechanics.  It's an issue of story, setting, play-style and the ability of the GM to keep the story rolling when the mechanics get in the way.

This is my biggest gripe with D20.  Even after you strip it of its levels and give it a decent skill system, remove the wonky bits and strip it down to a baseline mechanic, you still have the "D20 trap" that has players thinking in terms of how to ramjet their square ships into the round hole patterns that D20 has overlaid their thinking patterns.

With this kind of thinking you get the concept that the more armor you have, the harder you are to hit!  So combat begins to resolve into a tragically mundane battle of "hack n slashing" your starships.  Instead of focusing on the incredibly skillful methods of avoiding being hit, you wind up rolling dice and removing layer upon layer of virtual armor.

The way that I do it is to "wing it."  It's not hard.  You can even make up the "mechanic" on the fly.  The PCs all roll on their respective rolls.  Every successful roll makes it +1 harder for their ship to be hit (sensors, maneuvering, "angling the deflector screens," etc.).  Then you roll for the baddies against a target number with all those mods.  If it fails, then the shot just misses, the ship jiggles, you make a quick check to see if anything "jiggled loose" and then next action.

When the ship is finally hit, you have a "short list" of affected systems.  Roll against it.  That's what got damaged.  If you get a critical, then roll two times.  

If you want to make it more complex, you can, but it's really just you, the GM, whose going to take much away from a more complex system.  The PCs are blind to the world unless you show it to them.  When the ship gets "rattled", you can tell them to make Dex checks to remain standing or Int rolls to see if they can maintain their focus.  

Do you need a system to tell you that when the ship is rattled, the toolbox may skitter across the decking and crash into your Engineer's head while he's in the guts of the ship, desperately trying to repair the hyperdrive so they can go screaming "like little girls" into the void?

Or does your common sense, your ability to tell a story and your love the story over the mechanic take over and give your PCs the ride of their lives?  

Wing it, man.  WING IT!  

If you want a mechanic heavy battle, then go get some minis and one of the many space battle games where it's a question of how powerful your ship is against another ship.  What you've done is mix up tactical space combat game with a roleplaying game.  In a roleplaying game, you get the players involved in what's happening inside the ship.  In a tactical space combat game, you get them involved in what's happening outside the ship.

I don't normaly run much space combat, but what I do is, that I have a massive (I constantly keep adding and subtracting stuff) list of random stuff that can happen to a starship when hit in combat. So after taking into account deflector sheilds, force fieilds etc, I just roll on the list and see what happens.

Sometimes the stuff that happens is minor, sometimes it's major - very ,very bad, esp if it's the first couple of shots in the game -  So everyone has something to do, not just the pilot or gunner. Repairs need to be carried out, passagers saved, crew members hurt, things falling of in the heat of battle etc - so combat is always messy and fun.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David RI have a massive (I constantly keep adding and subtracting stuff) list of random stuff that can happen to a starship when hit in combat.

David,
What you have sounds really cool.  Can you share your list?  

Quote from: RPGPunditI'd agree that hacking is the one thing that I think is the most obvious case where RPGs have fucked up even worse than starship combat.

And this is NOT a D20 issue, Ian. I haven't seen any RPG anywhere that handles starship combat well. Either it is too deadly, or not deadly at all, it fails to involve the pcs, and it fails to emulate the tv/movie feel that one wants.

Of course, when I run a starship battle its not any of these things. But that's because I cheat. Rampantly. I lie, I utterly ignore the rules, I make the dice mean whatever the fuck I want them to mean, so basically there is no "system" I use. I just make it all up as I go along. But really, that sort of sucks that I have to be put in the position where I feel I must do that.

RPGPundit

While I don't like pimping SJG products, I have to say that the gurps traveller combat system is pretty good and allows multiple players to do important things on a ship.

Quote from: VellorianDavid,
What you have sounds really cool.  Can you share your list?  

I don't mind sharing the list, but the thing is, it's hand written in various ledgers, which I dig up, when running space campaigns (I'm really old school)

One of the things about the list, is that it is based on stuff I've read or seen in books or movies. Sure, the dog fights in Star Wars was cool and all, but the stuff that really translates well to rpgs IMHO, are moments like when Han was busy trying to fix up the Falcon's hyper drive (?) - his head sticking up and muttering to Chewie

So, if I'm remembering correctly my list includes charts for stuff like :

 - the ship's enviromental controls are damaged and things begin heating up. Sweat clouding your vision, dripping on to the controls, etc

- if the pcs have incorporated any alien tech they are only slightly familiar with, it begins acting up, in the heat of battle. Things come alive, weapons begin randomly firing on their own.

- If the ship had previous owners, hidden computer programs are suddenly activited when the ship is hit. Old messages for the previous owners come up, dire warnings, intriguing calls for help...

- passagers acting up during the battle. Some may need medical attention, caught under debris, screaming for attention, getting in the way, etc

-old repairs not holding up. Damage from previous encounters requirng immediate attention.

- cargo. If they are transporting cargo, said cargo, may need to be stored in a specific way. During a battle, shit happens, and the cargo is compromised.

All the examples above make up the general stuff that could happen. Each of these aspects are further divided into sublist that have grown over the years. Each part now contains about twenty or thirty posssible random outcomes, that I personlize for each campaign and sometimes even for each adventure.

I only use each event once. But the effects of that random event are felt long after the batte finishes. Most folks I gather have a lot of trouble, running space battles, because besides the pilot, gunner and maybe navigator, nobody else has anything to do.

Now, my charts, aren't really for hard scifi games. Like I said, it's mostly stuff from books, tv and the movies.

When I use these charts, I find that everybody, is scrambling to do something. In every battle, there can be heard shouts between the players to 'fix this" or "handle that". Space combat is rarely boring in my games

Regards,
David R

Quote from: mearlsCowboy Bebop got it right. Give everyone their own ship, and design the ships to match the roles/classes in your game.

Yea, except that in many campaigns/genres that doesn't really fit. I mean, its great if you're playing Cowboy Bebop... not so much if you're playing Star Trek.

RPGPundit

Star Wars D6 totally ruled.
Half the group in the freighter, the other half in fighters. Totally rocks.

Quote from: kryystAs for the how's.  One system I was toying with is making space combat abstract and breaking it down into parts that come together to make the whole.

Now the number of rolls dependend on how big the ships were.

So a 1 man crew each round pilots would make opposed rolls the winner of the roll gains the advantage.  The extra success (past 1) go into a pool if that pool is possitive you can attack or you can run.   If you are running you move onto the next round and make opposed rolls again extra success keep stacking to your advantage and prevent the other guy from getting a good shot on you.  The person chasing you can still attack but you can use your successes to help cancel out his attack roll - think of it like a dodge/defense action.

If you are attacking you then make an attack roll using the extra success from your position to add to your attack roll.  Once you attack your advantage pool is set back to zero.  If you are on the run and decide to attack then your advantage is also set back to zero but you get to make an unmodified attack roll.


In multi-crewed ships you make multiple rolls that help in the next event that ultimately lead to the run/shot phase.

This is officialy the coolest sounding dice pool system that I think I've read.

Thanks.  At first I wasn't sure how to work it out with multiple ships on each side but it's all very easy.  Just roll as normal and then calculate your pools based on who you are against.  If you are running and attack - say you are tailing one opponent while being tailed you'd have to split up your advantage accordingly.

Which seems unfair but actually makes a lot of sense in the end.  If you are spending all your time getting a nice steady perfect line on someone it's much easier for the guy behind you to draw a beed on you.  

You could make it more involved if you want speed and maneouverability to get involved by modifying rolls or adding extra dice.  But ultimately if it's a space, air, or a horse chase.  It comes down to the skill of the people involved and becomes less about the ships.  If you want to engage you are all going to be moving at the same relative speed.  The exception would be fly by attacks.  The faster ship can certain swoop in attack and move away - but a slower ship can turn face and fire.