the_gneech | Hey, Out There... [gaming]

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Anybody out there have the WotC Starships of the Galaxy supplement? Drop me a note here or send me an e-mail (thegneech at gmail dot com)!

-TG

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

athelind.livejournal.com

Hey, how are the starship mechanics in d20 Star Wars? The ones in d20 Future frankly SUCK, and I can't seem to find Traveller d20 anywhere.

From:

rhanlav.livejournal.com

Well, they were based on the original d20 Star Wars and not the revised version thats more like 3rd ed, but its not too bad. But it is annoying in some respects since they list speed categories, but don't have actual grid distances moved like the new ships do. All a part of the problem with the book not working totally, but you can fudge numbers with the GM over speed and stuff. Otherwise its fine. D20 Future is ok, although its probably not what I'd suggest for making Star Wars stuff. But making mecha with D20 Future is fun though. ^_^

From:

the-gneech.livejournal.com

The ones in the original release are just plain awful. Don't bother with them.

The ones in the revised edition are a tad clunky at first, but workable with practice. The problem is, the rulebook only has stats for a handful of ships ... the rest are in the Starships of the Galaxy supplement, which goes for something like $150 on eBay and is written for the original release -- so you have to convert!

I haven't seen the d20 Future rules, so I can't compare. My first guess would be that they're closer to the revised version, since d20 Future came later.

Alas, this is a place where the d20 SW really fell down. If the line was still being supported, I'm sure they would have a decent revised ship supplement by now ... but the economics just don't support it. Le sigh!

-The Gneech

From:

rhanlav.livejournal.com

Well, I looked into d20 Future and d20 Future Tech. The Future Tech book has all the nice rules on how to make your own Custom Starship, but considering you'd have to do that for every SW starship, that might get a bit tedious. But if you did want to make them, you'd need the d20 Future book since it contains most of the weapons and armor and system, whereas Future Tech just supplies additional rules and a few more items to pick from.

And yes, a revised ship supplement would have been wonderful, or at least a Prequel Era based source book.

--Salen

From:

galadrion.livejournal.com

Traveller d20 isn't particularly good in the starship department, IMNSHO. Probably the weakest such rules in the entire franchise - the Traveller franchise, that is. I'm not so sure about the d20 franchise, since I haven't seen all of them, and something out there might very well be worse.

Best Traveller starship mechanics system I've seen? Fire Fusion & Steel, the T4 edition. So far as design goes, the TNE edition is actually a bit better, but the gameplay tips the balance the other way for me - TNE's gameplay sucks, to be frank.

(I'm still working my way through GURPS 4 Traveller: Interstellar Wars at the moment; haven't yet reached the crunchy bits. Got some high hopes, though.)

From:

athelind.livejournal.com

Hmmmm. I recall that the TNE version allowed you to play around with non-Traveller-standard powerplants, drives, and other technology, so you could use it in settings other than the Imperium. Does the T4 version preserve that?

I'd still like something that meshed well with d20 -- I'm no zealot of the d20 system, mind, but it's What I'm Running because it happens to suit my wonky SF setting fairly well.

From:

galadrion.livejournal.com

T4 does indeed support the broader range of components, though not quite so wide as the TNE. That's actually a good thing as far as I'm concerned - TNE gets a little far afield to my way of thinking, and a lot of the "options" listed in there tend to be incompatible with other gaming systems without a lot of work... and if you're going to go to that much effort, you may as well create your own rules and be done with it.

T4 will mesh somewhat reasonably with d20 if you do it the same way as adapting GURPS products - remember that the measurement units are the same (feet), and eyeball the crunchy game bits as appropriate. As long as you keep the feel somewhat consistant, you won't go too far wrong.