One of my PC's made a pilot and he's very excited in doing a swoop race.

I'm trying to come up with a few cinematic ideas for a race in EotE. Any ideas?

I was planning on having the swoop race be a lap or two around 'The Wheel'.

Also, I'm concerned that the other players at the table may be bored when he races.

I was thinking of allowing the other players to play NPC racers.

Regardless, I'm just trying to come up with some ideas / mechanics that would be cool.

Any thoughts out there? Has any GM out there done something similar? Thanks!

This has been discussed a LOT on these forums.

Give them something else to do, even if it isn't directly involved. Beyond that, give plenty of obstacles to be dealt with by the PC racer; things that may require several different types of rolls. I'm sure someone who's done this before will be along shortly to elaborate on potential obstacles.

take a look at what they did with the race in Jewel of Yavin.

Both Jewel of Yavin (as noted by Daeglan) and Sons of Fortune (about the Corellian sector) have mechanics for handling swoop races, both are worth a look.

I'm putting together a racing adventure for my group, part as an exercise in alternates to combat, part as an exercise in creative and alternate skill use. While the focus of the race will be on Piloting checks, I'm offering up a variety of alternate skills to use in its place.

For example, a character might choose to make a Deception check at one point in the race to fake out another race and gain position, or fire a mounted weapon at a dangerous beast rather than drive around it. Astrogation and Perception can also be used for the Plot a Course action, as can a few of the other alternate combat actions. Stuff like that.

As checks are passed, characters will move ahead in the race. If checks fail, they will be delayed and lose their position to another racer. In essence, I'm using a modified version of the One-Check Resolution rules from the GM's chapter to keep things moving forwards. After passing so many objectives, they cross (unless they got fragged along the way) the finish line and are ranked based on their success. Characters can also take extra maneuvers or mod their vehicle, which such speed boosts affecting their position throughout the race

Prior to the race, I'm going to include a "qualifiers" round, which is just a simplified version of the race to get them thinking of other skills they can use, and they will have a chance to modify their vehicles as well as sabotage (and be sabotaged by) others.

At the end of the day, I'll be heavily abstracting everything. I though about making an actual track and running it turn by turn, but that flies in that face of how half of the game plays anyways. Abstracting the whole thing based on the actions taken and the results of the roll will make it more interesting and easier to tell.

Look on this site for the eote link for support under downloadable content grab Taming the Dragon. I recently finished the race. It was a lot of fun

The action-movie roleplaying game Feng Shui 2 has an interesting take on vehicle chases. You basically do Driving "attacks" and each successful attack does "chase points". If you do enough chase points to your enemy before they do enough chase points to you, then you succeed (if you were the pursuer, you catch them; if you were the evader, you get away).

It's a tiny bit more complex than that, but I really liked the simplicity of it. It treats the chase like a thing with a wound threshold, and doing "damage" to it improves your position in the chase.

I'm putting together a racing adventure for my group, part as an exercise in alternates to combat, part as an exercise in creative and alternate skill use. While the focus of the race will be on Piloting checks, I'm offering up a variety of alternate skills to use in its place.

For example, a character might choose to make a Deception check at one point in the race to fake out another race and gain position, or fire a mounted weapon at a dangerous beast rather than drive around it. Astrogation and Perception can also be used for the Plot a Course action, as can a few of the other alternate combat actions. Stuff like that.

As checks are passed, characters will move ahead in the race. If checks fail, they will be delayed and lose their position to another racer. In essence, I'm using a modified version of the One-Check Resolution rules from the GM's chapter to keep things moving forwards. After passing so many objectives, they cross (unless they got fragged along the way) the finish line and are ranked based on their success. Characters can also take extra maneuvers or mod their vehicle, which such speed boosts affecting their position throughout the race

.......

I love alternate skills used creatively. I would even go further than just and ordinary deception check and instead of using presence use agility, allowing a pilot who isn`t good at deception normally to 'spoof' another pilot. This also allows you to have dirty tricks from the bad guys, using say ranged (light) to make a check as they fire at an opponent or destroy a part of the track, forcing others to back off.

I created rules just for dueling and gave people boost die for not using the same skill repetitively. Makes it much more entertaining for those not rolling to watch. I also recommend letting the person racing use unspent advantages and triumphs to give boosts or extra dice to their next check, allowing them to gain momentum they can try to capitalize on with one big check.

As far as a 'track' I would simply have a target number of total successes required, 10-15 for a short race 30+ for a long one. First one to hit the final number wins. If you want obstacles you can put general descriptions in a number range. 1-5 is a narrow alleyway filled with trash, 6-10 crosses a busy intersection, 11-15 is through a working industrial district. And so forth. You could even have some preset difficulties or modifiers for each, but a description alone should feed the narrative nicely if you embellish a bit.

From my notes:

Goldilox Swoop Den is named after the proprietor, Huni Minama , a bothan with dyed golden locks. She is resourceful, outspoken, and irritable.

Her course starts off blasting down main street of the tourist district, cutting through a windy mountain canyon, and then cutting across the pier. This being in the mid rim circuit, pilots race individually, posting times. Each race attempt is 100 credits. You have to complete lower tiers before trying the higher.

Difficulty is the higher of Speed and half of silhouette upgraded by the lower. One setback per speed lower than 3, one boost per speed higher.

Section 1: Two setback, dodging people while navigating narrow pedestrian streets.

Section 2: Three setback, speeding through a canyon just wide enough for the swoop while still making sharp turns.

Section 3: One setback, dodging occasional boat.

Two advantage adds a boost, two threat adds setback. Despair/Triumph up/downgrades… failure + despair is a crash.

Tier 1: 1 Success, 500 credits

Tier 2: 4 Success., 2000 credits

Tier 3: 8 Success, 5000 credits

One of my players just barely failed to clear tier 2 with Agility 4 Pilot 2. She crashed on the final attempt.

Edit: I was pretty liberal spending destiny points to upgrade the check against her, mostly on the second and third leg.

From my notes:

Goldilox Swoop Den is named after the proprietor, Huni Minama , a bothan with dyed golden locks. She is resourceful, outspoken, and irritable.

Her course starts off blasting down main street of the tourist district, cutting through a windy mountain canyon, and then cutting across the pier. This being in the mid rim circuit, pilots race individually, posting times. Each race attempt is 100 credits. You have to complete lower tiers before trying the higher.

Difficulty is the higher of Speed and half of silhouette upgraded by the lower. One setback per speed lower than 3, one boost per speed higher.

Section 1: Two setback, dodging people while navigating narrow pedestrian streets.

Section 2: Three setback, speeding through a canyon just wide enough for the swoop while still making sharp turns.

Section 3: One setback, dodging occasional boat.

Two advantage adds a boost, two threat adds setback. Despair/Triumph up/downgrades… failure + despair is a crash.

Tier 1: 1 Success, 500 credits

Tier 2: 4 Success., 2000 credits

Tier 3: 8 Success, 5000 credits

One of my players just barely failed to clear tier 2 with Agility 4 Pilot 2. She crashed on the final attempt.

Edit: I was pretty liberal spending destiny points to upgrade the check against her, mostly on the second and third leg.

why were you so liberal with spending destiny points against her? why not let them be awesome?

If I have destiny points, I spend them as frequently as possible to get them light-side-up.

The point of that comment is for full disclosure should someone try to use my rules verbatim - so they understand there was an extra red die in those checks.

Also... I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Should the GM NOT spend destiny to upgrade checks?

Also... I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Should the GM NOT spend destiny to upgrade checks?

Nah you're fine. Using them at the most cinematic time, which it sounds exactly like what you did, makes the game more awesome.

I'm going to necro this thread as the OP actually asks a question that was never answered, which is the whole reason I ended up here in the first place.

How do you keep the other players at your table involved and engaged if they're not actually racing? TJoY suggests having the other players making the rolls for the NPC pilots and gunners, but that's mostly just about keeping the game moving, since the players don't actually make any decisions.

Any thoughts?

I let them take on the roles of some of the NPC racers to get in on the action. If they’re mature enough, they won’t completely throw the race. If you design the course with decisions on how to avoid obstacles, it works ok.

I think it's worth mentioning that I ran my own version of the Granee Noopa (Lords of Nal Hutta) that featured "Dinner" and "Dance" as parallel events: The dance was an anarchic swoop race on a hovering track above an island where my combat group fought in a PUBG-like event. Our Clawdite diplomat enjoyed a bit of sabotage of the rival pit crews before she impersonated one of the competing drivers and caused havoc on the track.

The key to getting other players involved is to think of a reason why their skills will be needed.

I'm about to run a campaign with a lot of skills based characters. Lucky for me I have a guy with "Foresee" and it will allow me to nudge them in any direction I want.

When it comes time to Swoop race I will give him a vision that there will be some bad guys taking pot shots at our pilot as he's racing. What to do? Send the group over and guard the area which will most likely end up in a fight while the Swoop racers are flying by.

It's easy just look at their skills and talents and just "invent" a way for them to be useful while the main guy is doing his thing.

Got a guy with a magic hammer that fixes everything? Have him fix the track that got blown up while everyone was watching the race.

You are free to do anything you want!