Hey you darn kids get off my edition!

[JAL_1138]

Nothing said about Thaco has made it any easier to understand and I am now more angry and confused at it than ever. Please let thaco remain buried and dying in the fires of old editions.

How Thaco seems to me.

What part of it is difficult to understand? I'm legitimately asking, not criticizing you for not getting it; I really want to know what would help you get it, but I need a little help to see where it's confusing you. I want to help you get it and not be angry or confused at it.

Here's the easiest way to do it, and please tell me if and where I lose you:

You get a number, which is called your THAC0, off a class-and-level chart in the PHB. Look at your class on the chart, then find your level in that class, and it'll give you a number. Write that number down on your character sheet. Forget about why this number is called THAC0, it just is. This number won't change until you level up, so you won't need to look at the chart again until then.

This number you got off the chart and wrote down, called THAC0, is only ever used when you make an attack roll. Doesn't come into play anywhere else.

When you make an attack roll, roll a d20. Add any bonuses you have, from your stats or a magic weapon, to your d20 roll. This number is called (roll+bonus).

Take (roll+bonus) that you just got, and subtract it from your THAC0 (the number you wrote down off the chart). So, THAC0 minus (roll+bonus).

The result is the best AC you hit with the attack. The lower the result, the better the AC you hit.

That's it. Is there anything I can clarify further? I'd like to help.


Don't worry about why there's three or four people giving three ways to do it. We're just fiddling around with the math to get different formulas to end up at the same result. You can do that with any formula, as long as you follow certain mathematical rules. Ignore all that if it's part of the frustration and stick to one method.

[Cazero]

I have a simpler explanation.

Substract your THAC0 from 20. You now have your BAB. You add it to your attack rolls. (You might want to write it down somewhere.)
Substract your modified attack rolls from 20. You hit any AC higher than this result. (Because lower AC are better in the THAC0 system.)

[GreatWyrmGold]

I think the only games which I've seen different editions of are D&D, Shadowrun, and GURPS, and the only one I've played different editions of is D&D.

I started gaming with 3.5 D&D, so that's always going to have a special place in my heart. The older editions seem needlessly complicated, while 4th edition seems overly-focused on combat and keeping everyone "balanced". D&DNext is a bit odd; I like some of its changes, but there are a lot that—while I understand why they were made and realize they make the game better—just feel wrong.
Then there are warlocks, which play almost the opposite of how they play in 3.5. I'm resource-use-adverse, so the 3.5 warlock's at-will spell-like abilities were a perfect fit for me...then comes Next's warlock, which has invocations as a secondary ability and even fewer spell slots than other spellcasting classes. Oh, sure, it has at-will cantrips, but everyone has those now.

Shadowrun seems to have some interesting differences, but a lot of them seem silly (e.g, people who magically connect to the Internet, bonuses for connecting almost-random equipment to local wifi). Maybe they streamlined the rules; I haven't looked deeply enough to know for sure.

GURPS's editions seem mostly the same. Some balance tweaks, but that's about it. It's a pretty solid game engine.

[JAL_1138]

I have a simpler explanation.

Substract your THAC0 from 20. You now have your BAB. You add it to your attack rolls. (You might want to write it down somewhere.)
Substract your modified attack rolls from 20. You hit any AC higher than this result. (Because lower AC are better in the THAC0 system.)

I think we should avoid multiple versions for now, until we see what the exact issue causing the confusion is.

They're just different versions of the same underlying math, but it may not easy to see that at first, especially since we've not gone into detail on why all the different versions get the same result. That we've all gone through several different ways to calculate the attack roll here (I'm certainly guilty of it; I think I've given three at the least) may be a big part of what's confusing Gamgee.

I try to go with "THAC0 - (Roll + Bonus) = Best AC hit" for newbies because it keeps the terminology clearest. Bonuses are added (and penalties subtracted) to the die roll like their plus or minus signs imply. THAC0 gets used straight off the chart so there's no confusion over where it comes from or what to do with it.

[Talakeal]

Aside from Thac0 what else is bad about 2e?

Istarted in 2e, but all the 1e materials I saw seemed pretty compatible, just with a slightly lower production value.

What is it that 2e changed that was so drastic? Amd why does,it turn so many people away from the game that they rate 2e significantly lower on the totem pole of favorites?

[Raimun]

Every edition older than the one you play is a clumsy artifact that only grognards play because they can't handle change.

Every edition newer than the one you play is a dumbed-down video game on paper that only entitled kiddies play because they can't handle Real Roleplaying^TM.

That should just about cover things.

Yes, thank you. That's exactly how it is. I don't see how absolutely everyone hasn't realized this. With the same reference point that I have. And I'm not being ironic.

OD&D, 1st edition, 2nd edition, AD&D, etc. haven't really aged well. The combat systems are rather rudimentary (I hit you, you hit me, until one goes at 0 HP) and out of combat-systems don't actually exist.

3.5 (and Pathfinder and even 3.0) is the gold standard and there's nothing wrong with it. Casters with 9 spell levels are not a bug, they are a feature.

I feel 4th and 5th edition rulesets are both incomplete, like the people writing them just kind of wandered off before implementing everything that's needed to have a versatile ruleset. Also, the numbers behind the rules mechanics are really weird and this directly translates to the game experience.

In 4th edition every monster has tons of HP but doesn't do much damage. PCs are the inverse. This feels artificial.

In 5th edition, the numerical abilities of everyone, monsters and PCs alike, are within these arbitrary boundaries. Legendary heroes and mythical monsters are standardized. There's no room for variation or surprises. This feels even more artificial than 4th edition.

[Khedrac]

With all the discussion of Thac0 and "to-hit" tables I haven't seen any mention of one (of many) of AD&D 1st edition's obscure quirks when it came to extremely low ACs: the repeating 20s and numbers greater than 20 required to hit. (Which was a reason why classic Thac0 didn't actually work in 1st ed.)

Well I suppose that is the problem with a thread that can grow as fast as this one...

Also BECMI took the '20 needed' point on the table and repeated it 5 times before the '21 needed' AC (I think AD&D did the same).
BECMI however also did that at 30 and 40 etc.
Similarly at 0, but instead of going to '-1' it went to '1*' - still only miss on a '1' but now add 1 to the damage dealt!
These repeating rows meant that using THAC0 to work out the AC hit only had a very limited range.

Well yes, I wasn't sure if it applied to 1st Ed or not.

Roll = Best AC hit
1 = Miss
...
19=AC -5
20=Hit

And as we both said in the earlier editions that is false (not sure for 2nd Ed - and I cannot be bother to go and dig out my copy to check)
20=AC-12 (if I have added it right, -12 needs a 22 which is your 20 with +2 to hit; -13 needs a 23 so with only +2 to hit you miss).

[JAL_1138]

Aside from Thac0 what else is bad about 2e?

Istarted in 2e, but all the 1e materials I saw seemed pretty compatible, just with a slightly lower production value.

What is it that 2e changed that was so drastic? Amd why does,it turn so many people away from the game that they rate 2e significantly lower on the totem pole of favorites?

Structure of the combat round changed from segments to a monolithic 1-minute round with initiative modifiers. The way Surprise and Initiative worked got changed. (Also, IIRC, Missile weapons in Surprise rounds in 1e could chew someone up and spit them out, because of how rate-of-fire interacted with segments in Surprise, although few people ran that by the book apparently.) Half-Orcs and Assassins were removed as player race and class until later supplements. Bards got reworked into a completely different class. A lot of little neat crufty bits like level titles got dropped. Some changes to classes. Unearthed Arcana classes got dropped (some returned as kits in supplements, although usually weaker). To-hit tables got replaced by THAC0.

The 1e DMG is badly organized and has a definite authorial voice and bias, but it had a ton of useful worldbuilding material and cool wacky things. 2e's has less-useful material and offers some bad DM advice from time to time (basically telling DMs to railroad hard in a few places), as it mostly mirrored the PHB in layout and had fewer helpful tables compared to 1e, which had a table for everything.

2e's writing is fairly dull and sterile in comparison to The Elder Grognard Gygax's nardiest of all groggery, and also seems like the corebooks are trying to push highfalutin' sanitized shining-armor heroic fantasy on a system that's still pretty much built for good ol' murderhoboing. Gold-as-XP became optional instead of default, so at many tables the emphasis shifted to "KILL THINGS (and take their stuff)" instead instead of "LOOT STUFF (and kill anything trying to stop you if you can't get around it)."

Mechanically, not much more than some classes and the combat round changed in the core. Supplements gave more options later on. The Players' Option supplements are barely the same game as core 2e and aren't usually in the discussion, but 2e had a ton of Complete (Whatever)'s Handbook splats that can be a detractor for some.

(2e also ruined Greyhawk, IMO. Shot it to flinders. But that's just my personal opinion.)

More often, the complaint seems to be that it's a sanitized, streamlined version with dull corebook writing, but not enough actual changes to justify the switch for a group that's already happy with 1e. (Interestingly, a similar complaint gets levied by 3.X fans against 5e, except that 2e had the splatbook bloat compared to 1e. Weird sort of mirror.)

[johnbragg]

Aside from Thac0 what else is bad about 2e?

Istarted in 2e, but all the 1e materials I saw seemed pretty compatible, just with a slightly lower production value.

What is it that 2e changed that was so drastic? Amd why does,it turn so many people away from the game that they rate 2e significantly lower on the totem pole of favorites?

I started with 2e. But 1e stuff didn't seem that different. My guess is that 2e gets the least love because its place in the Great Edition War ecology is largely taken by 1e. If you're a "Back In My Day" grognard, 1E is the Original and Still the Best, Often Imitated Never Duplicated, etc etc. (Pipe down, OD&D Chainmail guy.)

The half-generation that came to the game during 2E's print run I think mostly migrated to 3E. Those that didn't probably drifted into OSR groups, which had held or returned to the One True Gygaxian Faith.

Think in terms of identities. 5th is the Newest. 3rd is the customizable, all-the-splats. 1st is Old School.

2nd is also Old School, but it's not as old school as the 1st edition. Edition warring is a polarizing thing.

[GreatWyrmGold]

(the shadowrun squirtgun wars is probably the funniest example of GM/Player arms race and it is something i can see happening in shadowrun)

I'm glad I heard about that. I can't decide if I wish my games got into madcap antics like that, or if I'm glad my groups don't get into that kind of conflict.

THAC0 gets a bad rap for being confusing, and that's mostly due to how it's written up...

I'm inclined to agree. In principle, it's the same.
I think the 3.5 AC system makes more sense, since "high number better" is more intuitive, but ultimately I agree that the most important difference is the clarity of the explanation.

Take 2e, rewrite it to where AC goes up, where you always want larger numbers on your sheet and always want to roll high, and it would be a better, more intuitive, more approachable game. Then the only advantage 3e would have over it is more options... and a built in concept of game balance (even if the implementation may leave much to be desired).

I've only played a little 2e, but it seems like you'd need to rewrite most of its rules with the philosophy behind the change you mentioned to get it to the point where 3e's balance and options were its only advantages. By then, you'd probably be closer to 3e than not.

Personally, I find the way later D&D's attack rolls work to be unnecessarily time-consuming as well, which is why I'm perpetually on the hunt for faster, more intuitive combat systems that don't sacrifice verisimilitude.

Why not look for cheap games that don't sacrifice quality? There's a trade-off; fast and intuitive combat needs to be simplified, while verisimilitude requires complications. And if you're looking for even the slightest bit of tactical depth, that requires more complications.

[Talakeal]

I would love to see someone make a d20 port of AD&D.

Swap out Thac0, saving throws, and proficiencies to the d20 mechanics but not go in and screw around with the numbers to make them more like the broken 3e system.

[JAL_1138]

3e also had a vastly different combat round, being based on 6 seconds instead of a minute, with fiddlier movement, fiddlier division of actions, OAs based on a slew of factors instead of "retreating faster than 1/3 your speed," and changed how spellcasting worked so that it wasn't disrupted by taking any hit before the spell went off. Granted, most of those changes came from Player's Option: Combat & Tactics, except the change to spellcasting.

[2D8HP]

Aside from Thac0 what else is bad about 2e?

Istarted in 2e, but all the 1e materials I saw seemed pretty compatible, just with a slightly lower production value.

What is it that 2e changed that was so drastic? Amd why does,it turn so many people away from the game that they rate 2e significantly lower on the totem pole of favorites?

What was wrong with 2e? What's wrong? I will tell you sonny! Now where was I? Ah yes. ..What was wrong is that I was a DAMN FOOL! I never played 2e so I can't rate it.
You see I had played a little oD&D, some Holmes Basic, and a lot of 1e AD&D before 2e came out. In 1985 "Unearthed Arcana" came out, which I read in the store and passed on because I thought it made the game I loved even more complex and unbalanced. When 2e came out I assumed it would be more of the same so I never played it! By that time my gaming circle was mostly trying other genres (Traveller, Champions etc.) and those that still would play a fantasy/Swords and Sorcery RPG wanted more "realism" (blows raspberry) and were switching from D&D to Rolemaster and Runequest.
Later the only RPG's anyone in my area would play were Cyberpunk, and Vampire, which I played for a little bit, but then the pointlessness of RPG'ing in settings that just seemed too much like real life got to me and I left the hobby and got more into motorcycles and "punk" rock instead.
Now I pretty much feel that:

If the game features a Dragon sitting on a pile of treasure, in a Dungeon and you play a Wizard with a magic wand, or a warrior in armor, wielding a longbow, just like the picture on the box I picked up in 1978, whatever the edition, I want to play that game!

And after recently leafing through a reprint edition of the 2e PHB, I wish I had tried harder to find a D&D table when it was still the current edition, as it seems like a good game. Oh well I'm having fun with 5e (while it ruins my "old school cred", I'm in the tank for class balance which at least at low levels 5e seems to have).
But whatever the edition if the game has dragons in dungeons, I won't even ask the edition, just hand me the dice and a pencil (please just don't expect me to accurately remember any rules that weren't in the 1977 "blue book").

[Quertus]

I've only played a little 2e, but it seems like you'd need to rewrite most of its rules with the philosophy behind the change you mentioned to get it to the point where 3e's balance and options were its only advantages. By then, you'd probably be closer to 3e than not.

Well, we could start with 3e, and give every class it's own XP table. Make iterative attacks use full attack bonus, and remove iterative attacks from non-fighter classes. Give ranged weapons their own iterative attacks, irrespective of class level. Make the save DCs static. Give the fighter all good saves. Make everyone roll their stats, and roll for HP starting at level 1 (so that even the fighter could start with only 1 HP - and you die at 0 HP). Remove magic item Wal-Mart. Make it take 100x the XP to advance a level.

Give the game a completely different balance point. Rewrite all classes so that imbalance is guaranteed in every party, but where that imbalance is / who it favors can vary by level, by adventure, by DM, or even by player. But, that imbalance should be much smaller than in 3.x. Make all races LA +0, 0HD when taken by a PC (but still full HD when taken by an NPC).

Don't make things cost XP - make them either cost constitution, or years off the user's life.

Don't have the world level up with the PCs - ancient red dragons are perfectly acceptable level 1 random encounters.

Add a base time of 2d6 months to magic item creation. If the PCs are making something truly amazing, like a +5 vorpal holy avenger staff of the magi, add a couple of weeks. Change magic item creation to no longer cost XP - make it give XP instead. However, make magical items require special components, like rare ore or butterfly dreams, to create. Remember that these cannot be bought at magic item Wal-Mart.

.....

Why do I love 2e so much?

[2D8HP]

Why do I love 2e so much?

:) Because

Levels used to mean something!

[Straybow]

Personally, though, I've always felt like hitpoints should go down instead of up, and that levels should be measured logarithmically. I've also never understood why XP has to be measured in base 10.

Levels should be varied by function. So when for an AD&D style fighter you'd start at 1.0 and go up by tenths until you achieve the nominally 7th level that gets 3/2 attacks, which is 2.0. Fighters would progress slowly.

Wizards start at 1.0 and then 1.1, and then up to 2.0 with 2nd level spells, etc. Now, of course that means your level can vary by Intelligence. If you had Int 14 and got to the nominally 9th level, you would be 4.2 instead of 5.0 because you wouldn't have 5th level spells.

[oxybe]

who dropped this 2nd edition chart here?



yes, in 2nd ed both wrestling and boxing were completely random and could Knock Out an opponent regardless of hit dice. or monster it is.

now, i'll go on a limb and go "well, obviously this is humanoid VS humanoid" but the devs didn't expect gamers to think like gamers and go "IMMA PUNCH DER DARGON!" and hoping to (Dempsy) roll the fight in seconds with their supersecret tech.

It was full of this weird little stuff that most people either ignored or forgot about. Note that, as i stated in my initial post on this thread I started with 2nd ed.

I will also say that failed expectations might also be a contribution to my moving away from 2nd ed, wherein it gave Hercules as a reasonable example of a Fighter one could hope to emulate.

[martixy]

I've come to the recent realization that I'm a 3.5 grognard.
I don't even make apologies for it.

I like the breadth of that system, I'm invested in it. And I'm too young to be an AD&D grognard. My only exposure to that has been the Infinity Engine games(which got me into D&D in the first place).
I sort of thrive on complexity(not unnecessary amounts, but when it has a point). E.g. THAC0 is too esoteric for my tastes.

I like tinkering with systems. In 5e, which has, I concede, a lot of good design, I'd probably just end up messing with the systems to the point where it stops being 5e.
And I perceive it as an example of game design philosophy that seems to permeate a lot of modern games, which I hate - that of dumbing down games, for the benefit of the stupid masses.

I like Cypher as a mechanics lite system that still has a bit of that old-school optimization flavour to it.

[Cluedrew]

However, make magical items require special components, like rare ore or butterfly dreams, to create. Remember that these cannot be bought at magic item Wal-Mart.

This is my favourite part of the old editions. Out of everything I have seen in every D&D edition actually. It put some magic into magic. Hopefully that makes sense.

3.5 (and Pathfinder and even 3.0) is the gold standard and there's nothing wrong with it. Casters with 9 spell levels are not a bug, they are a feature.

Every time I hear that "Quadratic casters are a feature not a bug" I can't help but think "so linear martials are the bug".

[johnbragg]

who dropped this 2nd edition chart here?



yes, in 2nd ed both wrestling and boxing were completely random and could Knock Out an opponent regardless of hit dice. or monster it is.

now, i'll go on a limb and go "well, obviously this is humanoid VS humanoid" but the devs didn't expect gamers to think like gamers and go "IMMA PUNCH DER DARGON!" and hoping to (Dempsy) roll the fight in seconds with their supersecret tech.

It was full of this weird little stuff that most people either ignored or forgot about. Note that, as i stated in my initial post on this thread I started with 2nd ed.

I will also say that failed expectations might also be a contribution to my moving away from 2nd ed, wherein it gave Hercules as a reasonable example of a Fighter one could hope to emulate.

We actually made that that Boxing table work at our table, with only some homebrew. We were using the Weapon Proficiency and Weapon Specialization rules, and I had a half-ogre DMPC. (HE started as a random encounter, an ogre who I rolled crap for hit points. Then I started thinking about him, and he became a half-ogre--S 18/00, good Con & Dex, 6-8 for Int and Wis, 12 Cha for some reason)

I ruled he wasn't smart enough to use most weapons. So all of his weapon proficiencies were spent on "club/mace/morningstar specialist", and "Boxing specialist" You could pour extra proficiencies and over-specialize. Punching Specialization, which let you adjust your result on that table, up or down 1. So he could pretty much always adjust to 2 + 6 points of damage. I don't know if we bothered with the KO percentage--if 3 shots in 2 rounds wasn't going to take you down, he'd have been using the morningstar.

Ogie the Basher was a lot of fun.

[BayardSPSR]

Ogie the Basher was a lot of fun.

Pronounced O.G., I assume?

[johnbragg]

Pronounced O.G., I assume?

Actually, rhymes with Bogey. Ogie was such an O.G., he was played before OGs were a thing.

(I'm not 100% sure this is true. It's been a while.)

[JAL_1138]

I didn't see anyone answer this question, so I'll take a stab at it.

1. Classes other than Jedi are viable.
1a. Lightsabers are good without being 2-3 times stronger than any other weapon.
2. Powers actually work. In the previous d20 edition, for example, a Jedi could only deflect a blaster bolt if it was going to miss him anyway (therefore making the power useless) and only if it missed by less than 5. Saga edition simply makes it an opposed check of the Jedi's Use the Force skill vs. the attack roll to determine success or failure.
3. Saga doesn't use the vitality/wounds system, which means your PCs won't die to a random critical hit. Neither will the BBEG, so you aren't cheated out of that climactic final battle.
4. Force powers are their own category of abilities rather than using the d20 skill system, so Force users can still have skills other than using the Force, and don't need to have genius-level intelligence to be decent at more than a small handful of Force powers.
5. Force powers work a lot like maneuvers in 3.5's Tome of Battle system. Not the exact same, but if you're familiar with that it's a good reference point. And you don't have to sacrifice hit points to use them anymore.
6. The condition track can model injuries or other conditions that reduce your effectiveness, so that there's a middle ground between fully functional and completely unconscious. It isn't a perfect system and it can be abused if you try, but it's simple and easy to understand.
7. The product line covers the original trilogy, prequel trilogy, and the EU as far back as the KOTOR games and as far forward as the Legacy era comics. All it's really missing is the Clone Wars cartoon and everything that's come out since then, because the RPG line ended around that time.

The system is not without flaws by any means, which we can go into if you want. And I know some people prefer the old WEG version or the newer Fantasy Flight game. But Saga is unquestionably the best d20 iteration of the Star Wars RPG.




RPG hipster, maybe?

Hm. I kinda liked Vitality, one of the only systems in it I cared much for, and the possibility for a random vibroshiv in the kidneys or a stray blaster bolt to end a character. I know it's a little at odds with the movies, but it's not that farfetched for the EU.

The Revised edition of WEG D6 had something that allowed for that kind of thing with "exploding" dice (although Revised also made character generation a bit slower by increasing the size of the skill list).

Modeling prequel material isn't a big draw for me; I'm one of those people who pretends they never existed, although modeling the KOTOR era would be nifty.

Solving the "All Jedi or No Jedi" problem without lightsaber-proof Wookies (in WEGD6, minmaxed properly, a Wookie could boost a particular stat high enough to shrug off lightsabers, blasters, grenades, etc; it's become a meme / running gag of sorts) or dedicated "Jedi hunters" using specialized weaponry like flamethrowers, certain grenades, and Stokhli sticks (and who could likely still just get mind-tricked, IIRC) would be a big draw. Granted, in WEG D6 it could be a bit more like division of labor; a non-Jedi character could definitely still fill a valuable role in the party, but probably wasn't ever going to be the guy to go toe-to-toe with a dark-sider without being purpose-built for it to the expense of other skills (and funding). I didn't really mind being the mook-sweeper who took out the crowd while the Jedi dueled, or the pilot, or what have you, but they were a balance issue. And Force powers were generally wonky, as I recall.

Not too familiar with ToB. I wasn't a big 3e player; my TSR-era grognardism kicked in long before ToB came out. Although I know enough to know the Iron Heart Surge meme.

A big issue I have with a lot of d20 System games is the fiddliness of combat rules (WEG could bog down in combat itself, without using static numbers as shortcuts for mook dodge and soak, due to number of rolls), and the crunch of the enemy statistics. As soon as I start having to cross-reference a half-dozen feats and non-spell abilities instead of just running out of a statblock, or if making an individual enemy (and for that matter, not having a large bestiary of ready-to-run enemies) starts taking longer than 5 minutes or so, I get really put off. How does SAGA stack up in that regard?

[Anonymouswizard]

Hm. I kinda liked Vitality, one of the only systems in it I cared much for, and the possibility for a random vibroshiv in the kidneys or a stray blaster bolt to end a character. I know it's a little at odds with the movies, but it's not that farfetched for the EU.

The Revised edition of WEG D6 had something that allowed for that kind of thing with "exploding" dice (although Revised also made character generation a bit slower by increasing the size of the skill list).

Modeling prequel material isn't a big draw for me; I'm one of those people who pretends they never existed, although modeling the KOTOR era would be nifty.

Solving the "All Jedi or No Jedi" problem without lightsaber-proof Wookies (in WEGD6, minmaxed properly, a Wookie could boost a particular stat high enough to shrug off lightsabers, blasters, grenades, etc; it's become a meme / running gag of sorts) or dedicated "Jedi hunters" using specialized weaponry like flamethrowers, certain grenades, and Stokhli sticks (and who could likely still just get mind-tricked, IIRC) would be a big draw. Granted, in WEG D6 it could be a bit more like division of labor; a non-Jedi character could definitely still fill a valuable role in the party, but probably wasn't ever going to be the guy to go toe-to-toe with a dark-sider without being purpose-built for it to the expense of other skills (and funding). I didn't really mind being the mook-sweeper who took out the crowd while the Jedi dueled, or the pilot, or what have you, but they were a balance issue. And Force powers were generally wonky, as I recall.

Have you considered using Fate for Star Wars? There's nothing to stop you from ruling 'defeat in an armed combat means dead', and unless built for it characters start taking serious damage after one or two hits (unless we are talking about SotC, in which case characters are tough). Non Jedi are also competitive, because you can simply make the force cost Fate Points, Refresh, Skill Ranks or Stunts, with skill ranks significantly reducing Jedi competence and Stunts making them almost exactly the same as non-Jedi.

[JAL_1138]

Have you considered using Fate for Star Wars? There's nothing to stop you from ruling 'defeat in an armed combat means dead', and unless built for it characters start taking serious damage after one or two hits (unless we are talking about SotC, in which case characters are tough). Non Jedi are also competitive, because you can simply make the force cost Fate Points, Refresh, Skill Ranks or Stunts, with skill ranks significantly reducing Jedi competence and Stunts making them almost exactly the same as non-Jedi.

I'd need to play it first. Just reading it, I don't think I'd like it much--I generally need something more concrete and defined--but I'm certainly willing to be proven wrong by table experience (I certainly have been before) and am looking for a local game to join to give it a go. The one I know of is full up, but I'm on the lookout for an opening in that one and talking to the players and GM to see if they know any others. I don't want to dislike it, but it's written so vaguely that I'm not even sure how it works, much less see advantages to using it.

For instance, Aspects are still something I'm not sure of--practically anything can be an Aspect, and I honestly don't know what works and what doesn't--and the notion of Compels just bugs me, a bias largely due to the way they're written up in Accelerated.

Fate Core at least has sidebars Accelerated doesn't, saying you can refuse a compel if it really, really bothers you, but I still get peeved at the idea someone besides me has any say in how my character behaves absent insanity or mind-control. E.g., my Paladin might change alignment and lose his Paladinhood, or even become an evil NPC, if he decides to, say, murder a priest, but nobody gets to Compel his Aspect of "Defender of the Faith" and actually stop me unless I pay a Fate Point, and be unable to refuse if I'm out of them. There's just consequences, not someone else deciding what he does or doesn't do. Now, I know you're not supposed to troll people with them, and it might be something I don't mind nearly as much as I think I do once I'm at the table, and I might be misinterpreting how they work, but with my current understanding they bug me.

There's a list of Stunts in Fate Core, but they're only examples, and there's only some general guidelines not to have the Stunt overshadow the base ability for others. I don't really have a good baseline for when a Stunt works or doesn't, and don't really want to write up and/or approve two dozen new ones for Star Wars.

I also don't really want to write up a system to play. I liked WEG, and while I don't have the books currently and haven't read it in years, I could pick it up again quickly. For all its flaws, I could pick it up and run it as a tailor-made Star Wars system that functions reasonably well, particularly with a little streamlining of mook combat rolls and some tweaking of how Strength lets you resist damage to avoid grenade-proof Wookies. I'd have to homebrew Star Wars onto Fate, homebrewing a whole system of Force powers, a metric crapton of gear and technology, systems for hyperspace travel and space combat that take into account ship differences, droids and alien races, and then homebrew every enemy statblock, all with no clear "feel" for how it's supposed to work. It looks to me like there'd be a lot of work going into just adjusting the system to work for Star Wars, which I'm frankly almost too lazy to do when I can pick up and run another system that has all that done for me, unless I see a massive advantage to Fate I currently don't.

But, if I can get into a game and get some experience with the Fate system, I might feel differently and start seeing advantages to it (and be able to grok how it actually works) once I've used it. So I'm not ruling it out, but am not going to use it until I've played it enough to get a solid grasp on the ins and outs of it.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'd need to play it first. Just reading it, I don't think I'd like it much--I generally need something more concrete and defined--but I'm certainly willing to be proven wrong by table experience (I certainly have been before) and am looking for a local game to join to give it a go. The one I know of is full up, but I'm on the lookout for an opening in that one and talking to the players and GM to see if they know any others. I don't want to dislike it, but it's written so vaguely that I'm not even sure how it works, much less see advantages to using it.

For instance, Aspects are still something I'm not sure of--practically anything can be an Aspect, and I honestly don't know what works and what doesn't--and the notion of Compels just bugs me, a bias largely due to the way they're written up in Accelerated.

Fate Core at least has sidebars Accelerated doesn't, saying you can refuse a compel if it really, really bothers you, but I still get peeved at the idea someone besides me has any say in how my character behaves absent insanity or mind-control. E.g., my Paladin might change alignment and lose his Paladinhood, or even become an evil NPC, if he decides to, say, murder a priest, but nobody gets to Compel his Aspect of "Defender of the Faith" and actually stop me unless I pay a Fate Point, and be unable to refuse if I'm out of them. There's just consequences, not someone else deciding what he does or doesn't do. Now, I know you're not supposed to troll people with them, and it might be something I don't mind nearly as much as I think I do once I'm at the table, and I might be misinterpreting how they work, but with my current understanding they bug me.

There's a list of Stunts in Fate Core, but they're only examples, and there's only some general guidelines not to have the Stunt overshadow the base ability for others. I don't really have a good baseline for when a Stunt works or doesn't, and don't really want to write up and/or approve two dozen new ones for Star Wars.

I also don't really want to write up a system to play. I liked WEG, and while I don't have the books currently and haven't read it in years, I could pick it up again quickly. For all its flaws, I could pick it up and run it as a tailor-made Star Wars system that functions reasonably well, particularly with a little streamlining of mook combat rolls and some tweaking of how Strength lets you resist damage to avoid grenade-proof Wookies. I'd have to homebrew Star Wars onto Fate, homebrewing a whole system of Force powers, a metric crapton of gear and technology, systems for hyperspace travel and space combat that take into account ship differences, droids and alien races, and then homebrew every enemy statblock, all with no clear "feel" for how it's supposed to work. It looks to me like there'd be a lot of work going into just adjusting the system to work for Star Wars, which I'm frankly almost too lazy to do when I can pick up and run another system that has all that done for me, unless I see a massive advantage to Fate I currently don't.

But, if I can get into a game and get some experience with the Fate system, I might feel differently and start seeing advantages to it (and be able to grok how it actually works) once I've used it. So I'm not ruling it out, but am not going to use it until I've played it enough to get a solid grasp on the ins and outs of it.

Fair enough, but bare in mind that you can compel yourself to get a Fate Point, and people have to justify compelling your aspects. It sounds like you just prefer a less narrative game.

[JAL_1138]

Fair enough, but bare in mind that you can compel yourself to get a Fate Point, and people have to justify compelling your aspects. It sounds like you just prefer a less narrative game.

I'm not sure; I haven't played them. Though I've got no issue with self-Compels, which sounds like a very solid RP mechanic, it just bugs me that other people can. My character, and my character's story, is mine, and how the character behaves is my decision unless there's an outright external force compelling them or they're afflicted with some form of madness.

A bigger issue is the vagueness. Fate feels like a toolkit to build a game on, that I don't entirely grasp how to use. I can't read it and immediately grasp how it works because so much is under-defined or not concrete; reading through it just leaves me puzzled. If there were a "Big F'ing List" of Aspects like a point-buy systems traits and flaws, it might work for me on a read-through, I dunno.

But if I can play it and get a clearer idea how it works than the write-up gives, I might change my tune, so I'm trying to find a game to join. My complaints might turn out to largely be with the write-up rather than the actual system mechanics (e.g., as an AD&D 2e fan, I'll still readily admit there are massive problems in the writing and organization of the rules; it works better than it reads).

[obryn]

The thing about THAC0 is that you shouldn't use THAC0. Subtraction is inherently a more complex operation than addition.

Whenever I run BECMI or AD&D, I've switched to the Target 20 system. You have a normal attack bonus which calculates as 20 - THAC0. Everything else that's a bonus is a bonus - specialization/mastery, strength, magic weapons, etc.

Roll 1d20. Add your total attack bonus. DM adds the target's AC. Total of 20 or more, and you hit. Easy-peasy, and it requires no conversion during play.

[Gamgee]

Thanks for helping explain it JAL. I finally get it. And I hate it even more. Why would anyone make such an obtuse way of doing things. There's retro and there's obsolete. Retro is something cool you can go back and play and its always enjoyable and accessible. Obsolete is something you never want to go back to. I couldn't see any modern gamer ever wanting to use that rule in a million years.

I respect the early grognards but damn. I hate that rule. It's about as easy to make someone understand that rule as it is trying to explain parsecs in star wars. I mean yeah you can do it but its sure an obtuse way of saying how fast you traveled.

[Anonymouswizard]

Thanks for helping explain it JAL. I finally get it. And I hate it even more. Why would anyone make such an obtuse way of doing things. There's retro and there's obsolete. Retro is something cool you can go back and play and its always enjoyable and accessible. Obsolete is something you never want to go back to. I couldn't see any modern gamer ever wanting to use that rule in a million years.

I respect the early grognards but damn. I hate that rule. It's about as easy to make someone understand that rule as it is trying to explain parsecs in star wars. I mean yeah you can do it but its sure an obtuse way of saying how fast you traveled.

There is nothing obtuse about THAC0. If THAC0 is obsolete, than BAB is obsolete. I propose that we find a way to roll attacks without applying anything to the roll.

THAC0 is just 'BAB, but counting down' with a different progression. If it's such a problem for you, 20-THAC0=attack bonus and 20-AC=ascending AC. It's that simple and clear, I don't get how people delude themselves into thinking it's complicated, probably all this stupid maths-hating that seems to be going on at the moment.

Oh, and for the record, I believe I'm younger than 2e. I didn't play D&D until after 3e had been released (although my very first sessions were BECM), although I played a bit of Baldur's Gate without understanding it, and I only picked up 2e within the last year.

And you know what? Once you get past the poor organisation, 2e is better than 3.5. So is 4e for that matter. Not certain about 5e, I'm not happy that I spent £30 on that, but 2e and 4e are the two best editions of D&D to me.