Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 047 – Feb 16th

Today is spent in RRR. I promised ads on RRR days, but instead of throwing a content free post at you, I would like to consider the rules presented so far.

As far as modifying Star Smuggler for solo play, I would discourage it. The system is carefully balanced where the player must be generous with the AI, which is just series of events and rules. Were I to change something, I would allow more characters to drive skimmers, the medic to accelerate healing and both the engineer and medic would have to have some sort of die roll to perform their functions. Aside from speeding up play and forcing more long term thinking, I don’t think this would have too much effect.

Personally I like have a large entourage, so I would like to increase the crew quarters size on the ship. It’s more fun than carrying goods. In exchange for this, I would give more items a CU value, such as a box of 10 handguns taking up one CU. Currently, they take no space. That seems balanced.

I would be interested in cranking the rules up into a full game system for general play by a party of people. The solo game does a great job of handling whole parties of characters, with the exception of Duke.

The first step I would take is to list out the professions. Gunner, Pilot/Navigator, Bodyguard, Medic Skimmer Driver, and Engineer. Then I would list out the “skills” as presented. Repair, Maintenance, Hand-to-Hand, Ranged Combat, Medicine, Radio Operator, and so on. Your profession allows you one skill and you get a choice of second skill to start. Additionally, every character would have the Cunning Stat.

This means that Duke isn’t a first level character, he has 5 skills: Gunner, Pilot, Hand-to-Hand, Ranged and Radio Operator. I would assign a point value to every event or rule that depends on a character making a die roll or performing a skill with a roll. That would be worth 1 exp point directly to that one character. If the character is subject to death, that is worth 2.

Every ten points, you level up. Each level allows you to get a skill or increase a stat by one.

Additionally, I would allow each skill to have ranks, which is equivalent to one tech level. Therefore, your character can get by with a lower tech level item via their skillfulness. So as not to unbalance combat, all bonuses are limited to 6. If you have a bonus of 3 from tech levels and 3 from a skills, you’d get a total of six. It’s no help to have a tech level of 6 combined with a skill level of 6, it’s still going to be limited to 6, max.

I will have to think more on this type of game play, because the system is so multi-faceted.

The ad for today is a simple choice: Classic Traveller from DriveThruRPG.