Last night saw seven of us running through the entire adventure out of the beginners pack.
Hadn't planned on running through the entire adventure, nor had I planned on running it with six characters, but hey, would have been mean to leave people out. Did mean it probably wasn't as smooth as it could have been and ultimately made it too easy for the group. However, the main point of the evening was to learn how to use the dice mechanic, everyone knew 'how' to role-play.
Hadn't planned on running through the entire adventure, nor had I planned on running it with six characters, but hey, would have been mean to leave people out. Did mean it probably wasn't as smooth as it could have been and ultimately made it too easy for the group. However, the main point of the evening was to learn how to use the dice mechanic, everyone knew 'how' to role-play.
More on the narrative later. It was the dice system that FFG used that was the steepest learning curve. Now ever since coming getting the original D&D from someone's dad who found it in the States on a business trip (we are talking A5 little book here not '1st ed' ) I had been hooked on role play games over wargames. From D&D through Runequest, Aftermath, traveller and Bushido; with a host of others thrown in for good measure to the modem 'Final Combat' they always had a siren type effect. However, lite RPG wargames from 2Hour Wargames, Ganesha and Skirmish Sangin seemed to satisfy the want especially since the various ventures into the D20 system world of D&D and Star Wars had left me basically cold. Long and drawn out rolling a D20 against a stat with a shit load of modifiers bored the crap out of me. FFG promised more
Using multi sided dice of various types and colours each with custom signs instead of numbers the game uses a dice pool system. But even this is with a twist. Both sides add positive or negative dice into the pool for just one roll. The idea being the active player needs to make one net success to achieve the goal; whether it is slicing an electrical lock or hiting a Tie Fighter with a turret laser. Obviously the better you do the better your result. This is all complemented by dice which show advantages and threats. Independent of the success of the roll this adds a lot of incidental narrative , which the rules leave the players to 'justify'. A lot easier I practice than to write about it means that a roll may fail but the player may have a net 'advantage' for example a check to con the doorman to a cantina might fail but leave the player with an advantage. The doorman will not let him in as they are full, but suggests a similar joint around he corner.
The system works very smoothly and adds a lot of aid to the narrative. I think everyone was hooked even with my bad GMing which was very rusty to say the least. Back for more of the same next week.
Using multi sided dice of various types and colours each with custom signs instead of numbers the game uses a dice pool system. But even this is with a twist. Both sides add positive or negative dice into the pool for just one roll. The idea being the active player needs to make one net success to achieve the goal; whether it is slicing an electrical lock or hiting a Tie Fighter with a turret laser. Obviously the better you do the better your result. This is all complemented by dice which show advantages and threats. Independent of the success of the roll this adds a lot of incidental narrative , which the rules leave the players to 'justify'. A lot easier I practice than to write about it means that a roll may fail but the player may have a net 'advantage' for example a check to con the doorman to a cantina might fail but leave the player with an advantage. The doorman will not let him in as they are full, but suggests a similar joint around he corner.
The system works very smoothly and adds a lot of aid to the narrative. I think everyone was hooked even with my bad GMing which was very rusty to say the least. Back for more of the same next week.
So what happened in the story... Nip over to Steve's blog to find out.