Rules for Creating Custom Attachments?

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

I apologize if this has been covered already but I was wondering if there was a system already or a home brew guide for creating additional attachments and mods to the game?

If anyone remembers the old Torg Magic system, there was a way to create spells in a scientific way with formulas and a sheet to figure out the difficulty and effects of the magic.

Is there any such thing for Attachments?

If not, any suggestions on how to do it?

Could this be a community project (if not already done)?

No system in place. It's a little tricky because it's not that kind of system, attachment effects seem like the kind of thing you can just work out, but the in game implications when combined with talents and such and get complicated. A good example was an early (reasonably good) fan made sourcebook included an attachment that granted autofire. Seems like no biggy until you start to factor in jury rigged and realize most repeating blasters are high rarity/restricted for a reason.

I have a player playing an Outlaw Tech that wants to make items. He has a google doc of items, attachments, mods, and projects (modding a pilfered droid and similar). It's been pretty easy to handle because he's not tried to do anything bonkers. Small things, like a +1 Pierce upgrade for a mace (retractable spikes), brass knuckle grips for knives ("Stun mode"), a pistol upgrade that does Stun 1. At the end of the day, most qualities still cost 2 advantage to activate so they all sorta balance out on their own. I'll go through his list every once in a while to give feedback and tweek things, but mostly the answer to the question "Is this broken?" is "Not really."

I did let him put Burn on a pistol since I didn't realize A) Burn activates any time damage is done and B) It does full weapon damage. Luckily it's only a pistol, so with normal amounts of soak it's still not doing anything crazy for damage. That's the thing to watch out for, make sure you know what you're saying yes to because it's one thing to stop it at the theory stage and another to take it away after it pastes an NPC.

OTOH, if you discover something is horribly overpowered once you have agreed to it, you can always talk to the player(s).

If they’re reasonable, then they are likely to agree with you that it is OP, and will be fine with changes that make it more acceptable, while still being cool.

Don’t try to change history, just change the way it will work in the future.

If they’re not okay with having their favourite toy nerfed, then maybe they need to learn that things can be taken away — or broken.

Don’t do it maliciously, but within the ebb-and-flow of the dice, keep that in mind as you are deciding how to spend Threat and Despair.

But start from a position of trust, and talk to the player(s) openly about your concerns.

OTOH, if you discover something is horribly overpowered once you have agreed to it, you can always talk to the player(s).

If they’re reasonable, then they are likely to agree with you that it is OP, and will be fine with changes that make it more acceptable, while still being cool.

Don’t try to change history, just change the way it will work in the future.

If they’re not okay with having their favourite toy nerfed, then maybe they need to learn that things can be taken away — or broken.

Don’t do it maliciously, but within the ebb-and-flow of the dice, keep that in mind as you are deciding how to spend Threat and Despair.

But start from a position of trust, and talk to the player(s) openly about your concerns.

But rather than just a "free form" way of creating custom attachments, what about designing some home brew rules on actually doing attachment builds?

But rather than just a "free form" way of creating custom attachments, what about designing some home brew rules on actually doing attachment builds?

There’s already a system of attachments for weapons and armor, and a system of upgrades for ships and vehicles.

Pretty much all the stuff in those systems was eyeballed by someone at some time, play tested, adjusted, and then ultimately written down and put into the book(s).

Without adding a lot of unnecessary and undesirable crunch to the game, I don’t see how you’re going to create a regularized system of “attachment builds” that will work with what has been created so far.

However, I do look forward to seeing whatever you might invent that meets these criteria.