So we at the Big Shed were looking at various campaign systems that folks have written.

None seemed a good fit; we wanted multiple players, a facility for mirror-matching, an interesting way of matching up to prevent fixed lists dominating, not too much book-keeping and not messing too much with the very fine job FFG did with balancing the game.

Here's my very early attempt. I think it's pretty much there, other than adding more missions, and making it easier on the eye.

http://www.winterdyne.co.uk/maz/BSL-campaign.pdf

http://www.winterdyne.co.uk/maz/xwing_roster.pdf

I'd appreciate feedback, suggestions etc.

Just a bump to say this ruleset is now updated to version 0.6.

What has changed since then, how was testing? Anything you particularly like over other systems? Things you're still not totally satisfied with?

The few tests I've done seemed to work pretty well. I really do need more feedback from as many players as possible.

The particular thing I like is that it's not a 'campaign turn' based system where every player involved needs to do something before other players can do anything - our group has a lot of demands on its time, so not everyone is around all the time.

I also like that it's got pretty minimal book keeping (apart from the force roster) - pretty much limited to status tags you can jot down in the relevant section on the roster sheet.

It's very tempting to use lots of elite named pilots early on, but getting them nobbled before they can run away means you can't use them later. Not sure if I should limit them in terms of how they're picked - doing so may alter the balance of individual games, which is something I definitely didn't want to mess with too much. However, limiting the purchase of named pilots may lead to more cautious play with the basic pilots in order to use the upgrade method which might help with getting more of a narrative feel to games.

I also felt the need to soften the run-away penalty for ships without hyperdrives and the cost to repair crippled large ship sections. Remains to be seen if that was a good idea or not.

I also added a few disctinct 'experience levels' for pilots. Not really had enough games to see too many pilots rise to veteran level or above yet - they tend to become priority targets. I'll describe the system in brief here:

Each game a pilot survives on the winning side gets you an experience level. A single surviving ship on the losing side gets a level.

Levels run as follows: Experienced - Veteran - Elite.

Named pilots only get 'Experienced' bonus at 'Veteran' level - they need to survive 2 games to get the bonus. They can't progress past that point.

Experienced pilots treat their PS as 1 higher than the value on their card. This works pretty well so far.

Veteran pilots treat their PS as 2 higher than the value on their card, and gain a reroll for 1 attack or defend roll (no matter how many dice - a Veteran with APT is very nasty).

Elite pilots treat their PS as 3 higher than the value on their card, and gain an EPT slot, but no longer get the reroll.

Experienced or Veteran pilots can be upgraded to another card of the same ship type by paying the difference in points. Any EPTs, modifications etc MUST be preserved (so you can't upgrade your Black Squadron Pilot to Mauler and then pick a different APT for example). If a pilot has an EPT, they can't be upgraded to something without. 'Elite' pilots can't be upgraded any further.

I could do with a decent way of producing some upgrade cards (small) too - there's a few 'new' upgrades that help deal with the jump-to-lightspeed mechanism and stop it becoming something that gives Rebel fleets an unfair 'hit and run' advantage. At the moment these mean extra book keeping and remembering who has what in a game - it'd be easier and look a lot better to have the 'cards' down at the side of the table.

I'm also not sure about the currently allowed cross-faction ship use - mostly this is in place to give the Imperials access to huge ships, but thematically the use of 'generic' freighters and freelancers could also be justified.