Favorite House Rules

By Jahpocalypse, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Ok, soooooo. I have to say that I abhor almost all house rules, but to each their own. I really despise it when a GM just makes them up as we go. Example: I use Move Object on that mook. Ok, roll your force die and give me a discipline check versus him...??? Wha???

My all time favorite is: Bad GM Guy: " ok that check will be 35/Formidable with 2 challenge up grades."

"Um, ok, why? I'm just trying to hack in the 7/11 survaliance video feed"

"Yeah, well my house rule is that becuase you are really good at it, it should be more of a challenge for you."

Ok, that is really more bad GMing than anything....sorry for my rant.

Now on to the post.

One House Rule that I do do is (hehehe), is a thing I call Panache Dice.

It stems back frm the days of "numbers" in games. Back in the days where we had difficulty numbers and that sort of thing. So I would hand out Panache Points for good one liners, good role playing, and just sheer awesomeness. Players could then spend these points on thier rolls to give them a little boost. "Ok, I rolled a 23, I will spend 2 Panache to make it a 25." They typically can get about 5-10 of these per adventure.

Now that we no longer have numbers, this concept fell away.

Well I had some little dice lying around that have three green sides, two yellow, and one red. So I took my idea of Panache Points and made into Panache Dice. Still using the same concept of how to earn them. (The more I drink in the adventure, the more they get, LOL).

So now my players can spend Panache Dice on rolls they want. The caveat being that they HAVE to be in the dice pool at the time of roll, not after the fact. So if the player feels like they are making a really important check, or have a higher difficulty they can say I am going to spend 1-3 Panache Dice on the roll. (Three is max limit per roll).

The GREEN side is ONE Sucess

The YELLOW in ONE Advantage

The RED is TWO. Can be 2 success or 2 advantage or 1 and 1. (Their is no "bad" or blank sides like Boost")

I like these as this is a real time award for good role playing and innovative ideas. I also encourage my players not to do "static" combat. "Ok, what do you do soldier guy? I aim twice and shoot..." Every single effing time!!!!!

"Ok, what do you do soldier guy? I jump to the chandelier, swing over the table, kick the candles at the baddie and shoot him! Ok, I will need a average (with an upgrade to a Challenge die, don't set yourself on fire) athletics check, you spend your maneuver, and you get 2 Panache Dice, give me an easy ranged light check, with a Boost for flying candles."

So for me, it can help encourage my players to think more creatively, in and out of combat, and bring in some flair to the game that might be otherwise missing.

I use this house rule to encourage radical game play and thinking. To help people break out of the mold of "tactile miniature" combat that has been prevalent in our hobby for years now, and encourage the old '80's style one liners, and some high adventure and swashbuckling heroics. My players really seem to dig it, and I have seen a change in thier antics for the better.

It really boils down to basic psychology. I give my players positive reinforcement for behavior I deem praise worthy. This leads to us all having more fun at the table, and having some good laughs. If people don't want to do this and stick with a more "tactile miniature combat" mind set, they can, they are not punished for it, but neither is it encouraged. Nor do I want them not want them to use their Talents they have bought. I don't want someone to forego True (Deadly) Aim to try to just get a Panache Die. But not every encounter needs to be a serious life and death consequence, they can be a little wacky and fun, and they can earn some bonus dice to help in that big fight with BBEG.

So for me, this is about the only House Rule that I use, and it gives a direct bonus to the players for breaking out of a way thinking and playing that many have grown into. I feel this House Rule can directly enhance our fun factor at our table.

Wall of Rant hits Eyes for 9999 damage.

Eyes die.

Lol, but seriously I understand what you mean by making it harder just because somebody is very good. For me in my games I almost don't want to bother making the slicer roll anymore since they have 5 int and 5 computers... I sent them to Kessel for a prison break and he started a prison riot by opening all the doors to the cells. "Impossible" is just 5 purples and a destiny flip, and I even upgraded that a few times!

Ok, sort of off topic...kind of, but no need to start a new thread.

This is more of a clarification question. I asked in another thread, but I made a mistake in my retelling of my story (about the number of upgrades) and no one discussed my question, just pointed out my mistake. The incorrect upgrade number was only in my post, not in the actual game...

So now.

Adversary Talent:

When attacking the NPC you upgrade the difficulty of ALL attacks against this character by the amount of ranks in the Adversary Talent.

My question: does this work for starship combat? If my BBEG is flying a TIE, do the PCs upgrade thier attacks against him? My player pointed out that they are not attacking him, but the ship, and the difficulty is based off of scale, not range like in personal combat. I countered with it says ALL attacks. I made a ruling at the table, but would like to what others feel/do about this.

Now I only threw the BBEG in his special TIE as flair, not to actually be in "combat", but what if you were facing off on a NPC TIE ace? (I have mixed emotions about this and see both sides of the "argument" here)

I would also say that the one using the Adversary Talent has to be the pilot, not a passenger or other crew member.

So would you consider this to be a house rule or actual RAI by the developers? Thanks.

(Note: I try to play as close to RAW/RAI as much as I can. I understand this is my game and I can do what I want, but I want to stick to "scripture" as much as possible. That way, when my players buy and read the books, they know what to expect, and we can avoid debates and discussions about the rules)

I would upgrade the difficulty against a character with adversary in a ship they are piloting, but this gets a little silly with larger ships so maybe cut it off after 4 silhouette. Technically the TIE Ace does not have adversary (from the Age of Rebellion book) so for them the only extra thing protecting them is their improved stat line and 2 points in piloting(space).

I have my whole party, regardless of Force sensitivity, have Morality from the F&D beta, and fear failures always result in Morality loss in addition to normal effects. Despair doubles it!

I'll have to look at the Force & Destiny beginner game when it comes out, just to add this "officially." My players tend to be pretty immoral with their characters' actions, so an in-game mechanic to mitigate obnoxious behavior would be good.

My favorite house rule is if a player does something awesome then comes up with a good one liner afterwards it heals the party for 1 strain! So far it hasn't been abused and is just there for fun.

If I did this, my group would never have any strain. :)

I ran the last two sessions without allowing strain to be recovered between encounters. It made the sessions extremely tense towards the end.

I'm running a very episodic campaign, so there will be few opportunities to recover strain during a session. Depending on how much and how quickly they accumulate it, I may restrict those even more so the end of a session feels like they're on their last legs.

There's still armour, just no soak benefit. So the Gadgeteer still gets their extra bonuses wearing it.

We read Pierce as always doing a small amount of damage regardless of Soak, so it's still useful against high Brawn targets. And we still have Soak, so Breach is still useful.

And yes, all that means they have to be wary of blaster fire, no more videogame stuff like standing around in the open, or PCs with 10+ soak who laugh off heavy weapons fire.

That's one of the things I'm worried about in my game. In our previous games using other systems and genres, there's always one character that just walks into the middle of everything without caring about damage because they built their character that way. As a GM, that's very annoying in any genre. I think it's important that the players fear big npcs or lots of incoming fire, as much or more so then their characters. The meta-gaming "I know I have a high Soak so those blasters can't really touch me" makes designing encounters difficult, and always inspires an inner wince.

That's one of the things I'm worried about in my game. In our previous games using other systems and genres, there's always one character that just walks into the middle of everything without caring about damage because they built their character that way. As a GM, that's very annoying in any genre. I think it's important that the players fear big npcs or lots of incoming fire, as much or more so then their characters. The meta-gaming "I know I have a high Soak so those blasters can't really touch me" makes designing encounters difficult, and always inspires an inner wince.

We had one player at our table mention his build for this kind of character. (A brawn 6 construction droid). After the group wide facepalm, he went and made a brawn 1 hunter/tirader. We did end up with one defense specialist (gadgeteer/force exile) but it's more interesting when it's still all dice. That and the player still plays like, well, someone who's concerned about not getting killed.

Adversary does apply in vehicular combat, but its unclear if the Nemesis must be the pilot of the targeted craft and even more unclear how it works with Sil 5+ targets (like a Nemesis on the bridge of a Star Destroyer).

Yeah, the intent of Adversary is clearly to provide a simplified way of handling active abilities like Dodge/Sidestep etc., but the defensive talents for space combat are already always-on* (Tricky Target, Defensive Driving). I think I'd still allow it, as it's easier to just stick on "Nemesis 2" than "Tricky Target 1, Defensive Driving 2"- and there's nothing in the rules stopping Tricky Target/Defensive Driving from applying to capital ships.

*Bar Brilliant Evasion, but that's just weird.

...a brawn 1 hunter/tirader...

Does he get really made when he can't find what he's looking for? ;)