X-Wing Miniatures adapted to StarWars themed Roleplaying game?

By Kingsguard, in X-Wing

Has anyone ever tried adapting X-Wing miniatures to supplement a roleplaying game?

It occurred to me that Character level could be converted to pilot skill, Commendation upgrade cards could be taken as feats. Players could buy modifications.

I'm actually excited to try this....

There are a few people out there who have tried something similar. Hopefully they'll post what they've run.

I would do something like:

Start with a generic

XP gained in-game can be used to purchase a pilot ability equal to x times the PS of the related pilot.

XP can also be spent to up your numerical pilot skill

XP can be converted to cash to buy upgrades and munitions.

If your ship is destroyed, you have to spend x amount of XP to purchase a new one.

Maybe throw in a pilot death mechanic - if your ship is destroyed, drop a token on the board. Another pilot must fly withing range 1 and use an action to recover your escape pod.

I really wish ffg used the obvious potential here in their rpgs

Especially since they have several pilot centric expansions coming out

There are a few people out there who have tried something similar. Hopefully they'll post what they've run.

I would do something like:

Start with a generic

XP gained in-game can be used to purchase a pilot ability equal to x times the PS of the related pilot.

XP can also be spent to up your numerical pilot skill

XP can be converted to cash to buy upgrades and munitions.

If your ship is destroyed, you have to spend x amount of XP to purchase a new one.

Maybe throw in a pilot death mechanic - if your ship is destroyed, drop a token on the board. Another pilot must fly withing range 1 and use an action to recover your escape pod.

I hope they do post. I would like to see what others have come up with.

I would also be very interested to see how this would pan out as I would love to use X-wing minis on the RPG side as well.

We play it as an RPG most of the time.

Each player flies a rebel ship (Starting with an X-Wing, an Y-Wing with ion turret, an A-Wing or a B-Wing) and the master of the game plays as the Empire and designs the missions.

Killing gives you experience, mission objectives give you experience, surviving each battle gives you experiece. With the experience you can increase the upgrades in your ship.

If you are killed with the same amount of hits as hull points you end up in space and you can be rescued if a friendly ship passes by. But you lose the XP of that mission.

If you are killed by more hits than your hull points you die. You have to create a new character and your XP get reduced 50%

Everyone has to create a character (species, background, name....) and the team creates a nickname based on his style of playing. We have nicknames like Bumper, Granny, Hotshot, Blondie....

The missions are a bit like campaigns. We started right after the Death Star exploded. The ships that appear have to be invented by the time we play. So at first there were no B-Wings or TIE-Interceptors. We were part of evacuation of Hoth, we lived in the Vergeso Asteroids.... stuff like that.

This also gives the oportunity to introduce lots of new factions and ships from shapeways.

@melminiatures: This actually sounds really good!

I wonder, how do you deal - both fluff/story wise as well as mechanically - with issues such as Pilot Skill and Pilot Talents (example: Wedges "When attacking, reduce the defender's agility value by 1")?

I mean, maybe your pilots can advance in rank (by spending XP), reflecting their pilot skill on the board?

And are they talent-less, or can they come up with a talent of their own through the course of the story?

The XP is almost the same as squad points. So yes, you can level up to being Luke or Wedge. Its a bummer when you have to go through Biggs :D But you dont have to think about the name on the card, the card just says your Pilot Skill and your Abilty, the pilot name is the character you made.

The good thing about the way the game works, is that since the higher Pilot Skill the sooner you attack, most of the time the veteran players ingure the enemies and the new players get the kill (rising XP).

The Imperial team is not exactly the same squad points but its similar. But for the sake of story and to not kill half of us every battle, the Imperials usually come in waves.

We usually also have ticking clocks. For example, if we dont do the mission in a number of turns an Star Destroyer with a full squadron of fighters will come for us. When that happens usually is running time. And yes, sometimes we had a hero that got killed to help us escape. Unless the story says that we should know, we usually dont know how many turns do we have left, or we just have an aproximation.

For example, at some point the master tells someone to roll a die, if we roll an evade he will say "you detect that an Star Destroyer is aproaching this sector in three turns" if we roll an eye "you detect a call for help signal from the imperials but you dont know more" and if we roll a blank he doesnt tell us anything.

The missions go from escorting a bunch of civilians out of a planet. Or escorting a transport and disable an imperial transport to dock to it and capture it. Or directly attacking an imperial convoy/platform. Or escaping for our lives through an asteroid field.

Things like that.

Edited by melminiatures

Very interesting stuff...here's my perspective and what I would keep in mind if I were to adapt your idea ;)

I would allow each character to be able to pilot up to 2 ship types (3 at maximum). Each ship of course requires its own skills and experience to master it, characters only gain XP for the ship they flew in, meaning one character can be PS5 on his X-Wing but only PS 2 when flying his A-Wing. This also makes tailoring the squad for each specific mission as well as pilot specialization much more important.

Characters start at PS 1 and increase their PS through XP won.

Starting PS 4, characters gain the Elite Pilot Talent slot (example: Push the Limit) like the named pilots have. The Talent they choose is supposed to be semi-permament, as they could switch it at a relative high XP price, but it shouldn't happen too often.

Similar approach for the Unique Abilities: At a relatively high XP price, characters could buy one of the Unique Abilities available with a named pilot of that particular ship type and of the corresponding Pilot Skill.
Example: Upon reaching Pilot Skill 5 with his X-Wing, the player character XYZ could spend XP to either gain Biggs' or Klivians' Unique Ability. Upon reaching PS 6, the character would be able to buy Garvens' ability, at PS 9 Wedges' ability would be available. For a relative high XP price, UAs could be changed within what's allowed, see above.

Only one UA per character obviously, but I would probably also require that only one UA can be active on the table at any given time. No need for 4 X-Wing with Wedge's UA...

Permanent upgrades like Astromechs, Modifications or Systems only need to be bought once and are then kept in Hangar for switching and installing as needed, Torpedoes and Missiles and such are always expended per mission. Original rules for Unique cards apply, as in there can only be one R2-D2, but many generic R2s.

This is as in order not to break the core game mechanics and balances - and for the fact that I don't want me or my friends to play the game dramatically differently from its original rules, set up and balancing so we can still play against other people without having internalized "wrong" strategies, lists, etc...

Fluff wise I'd say the characters are part of an experimental rebel squadron on board a small to medium frigate, dedicated to developing new tactics of the various ship types working closely together.

Edited by LtRico