I always knew there was an option for players to fly groups of fighters, but most games I've been in and experienced have the entire party based on one ship. Since I'll be GM'ing a new game soon and at least one player expressed this opinion of having this, I wanted to know what challenges/experiences other GMs had of giving their party groups of fighters instead of one ship?

I figure if I do this I'll need to concoct rules crossing X-Wing with the RPG systems, because X-Wing seem so much easier to use/understand/comprehend. Flip attacks out for gunnery checks, piloting checks on stress maneuvers needed to prevent system strain on fighters, that kind of direction.

Why does everyone want to cross X-Wing with the RPG? In fact getting shot to tiny little pieces is much easier in X-Wing than in RPG. If you want that: go for it!

If you decide to cross X-wing with the RPG, the main problem is talents. The miniatures game isn't set up to take any of an RPG character's talents into consideration, and talents are how the best pilots survive and thrive. You'd have to majorly rework how talents work in order to make them compatible with the miniatures game. Bryan Young wrote a couple of articles, "We're Going in Full Throttle" and "From One Chance to the Next," about mixing the two, but I don't think he makes a very good case for doing so. Here's a Reddit thread talking about some of the other frustrations involved , too.

The better way to incorporate X-wing into the RPG is to just use the ships as models, since visualizing vehicle combat is the hardest part for most of the RPG players. Otherwise, read this thread on making space combat work , especially the rules clarification towards the bottom regarding Gain the Advantage.

If you run a fighter game, using the squadron rules from the GM screen is almost a must, as it allows PCs to act in epic space battles for a lot longer before having to manage damage to their individual ship. It also can add an element of NPC attrition that the PCs will have to come to grips with, if you are thinking of doing more of a "war story" style of game.

The book also recommends Y-wings, as they are two-seat vehicles that allow some of the PCs to take non-flying specs and still contribute - three seats if someone wants to play a PC astromech droid.

Having done this once before, I would also recommend paying special care of the base of operations. Keeping it safe, as well as upgrading the defenses and finding parts to fix, modify, or upgrade the fighters provide a welcome chance for other types of encounters, especially if there are non-pilot PCs.

Getting back to the topic and ignoring the X-Wing TMG stuff.
A squadron based campaign is imho best if it's 1/3 about the crew of the carrier, the squadron dynamics, 1/3 about the current mission and 1/3 about the overall campaign.

The Crew
The crew of a ship serve as a tool for social interactions, binding with other squadron mates, telling war stories, helping the characters with tactical decisions, giving hints about the enemy forces or upcoming missions, chitchat not limited to but including about higher ups, campaign progress, news and rumors. It makes the whole campaign feel more alive, more immersive and makes players more invested and feeling more at home.

The Missions
Here we are not only talking about combat encounters, but as well patrols, escort, emergence defenses, joint strikes with other units, ets … basically everything which requires a sortie. You can be here pretty creative, not everything needs to fits into the big picture, and not everything needs to be limited to just work in a fighter, because there are many scenarios which might lead to action on the ground. From diplomatic escorts, to rescuing comrades on the ground who ejected before getting shot down, etc

The Big Picture
As good and interesting a good encounter design for missions is, without an overall arc and choices for the players to make to influence that arc the game would degenerate into space dungeon crawling. So what you want is some overall campaign objective to reach and give players opportunities for decisions to influence the course of action that is taken to achieve those objectives. This is actually surprisingly easy in context duty mechanics. (Just make sure that not your whole group is picking space superiority ;-)). As the game progresses players will gain rank and accolades and start to have a say during missions and later even in planning of missions. Start the players as rookies in the squadron is the most easy approach to his, make them the wing leader of new rookies once they get more experienced (and thus giving them a squadron of 1 minion to take a hit for them if they desire so ;-)), advance to flight leader, squadron leader and lastly even wing commander … at least for some of the players. Some players might gain reputation of expertise, etc

The important part here is to give the players agenda who the campaign progresses, have choices and consequences for this planned, don't just rail-road from mission to mission and show the player the results of their decisions together with the decisions of the world around them. This makes things more dynamic, which is important because else a campaign makes the players feel quickly uninvolved. I know it sounds silly to explicitly mention this as this is true for any campaign, but I feel like a squadron campaign is especially vulnerable to fall into the trap of presenting players with challenges, but not giving them enough agenda.


If you are looking for more specific tips, feel free to ask and I have to highly recommend the Wing Commander games for doing all this actually quite right, which is impressive considering that those games are at heart not RPGs, but clearly space combat sims, but they nail imho how a narrative in an interactive medium can involve the players and make them feel part of the universe, something which is essential for RPGs, especially pen&papers.

One Last Thing (edit)
Do not be afraid of shooting down players. The Rogue Squadron series is full of shot down pilots, minions and rivals die all the time, main characters usually survive and even Poe Dameron goes down right in his first movie, Luke gets shot down in his second, Han crashes in his fourth. Crashing a ship happens, it's is not an mistake in your encounter design, it is an happy accident which leads to new opportunities. Just be prepared with solutions how to deal with it. From Rescue Missions on jungle worlds to simply sending in a shuttle to pick up an ejected pilot. It can be easy, it can be an adventure in itself, just mix things up in this essential and common element of a squadron campaign as well.

There is already an X-Wing to SWRPG conversion out there.

Thank you everyone, all this advice is helpful!

By switching to fighters forsee a couple of problems. The first is finding seats for any passengers to be rescued or heavy equipment items to be moved, along with cutting down on the size of stowed personal gear. If the PCs have to hijack a transport to do what they need to, then they risk abandoning a fighter they've been building up for a couple of sessions. If we're in fully loaded Y-Wings that can't happen. Two ways I can see around it are:

• Flip a Y-Wing out for something with transport capacity, like a HWK-290. I can't give them too many heavy items, or they'll want something bigger to fulfill their missions.
• Design missions where this extradition is not necessary
• Provide a second group of NPCs to provide the extraction.

I guess as long as I keep these things in mind it could work... though has anyone run a YT along some player-controlled fighters? How did that go?

The second challenge is forcing players to split their skill points between being good at their fighters and being good at their specializations. Players may find it easier just to go aces all the way down if their survival is so dependent upon performance in a starfighter. Then again, diverting skills between piloting and their chosen specialization could be a way to cut-down on ranking up too quickly for me to throw challenges at them.

Re: X-Wing. My approach would have been to use X-Wing as a navigational and visualization aid within the rules of the RPG, rather than try to use much from X-Wing's mechanics. As I said above, I'd use a gunnery check in place of an attack roll, use the stats for the RPG for tracking hits and damage. I'll need to review the rules on maneuvering and starfighter battles, but the idea of forcing pilot checks on red maneuvers seemed sufficient to me. All of this is back-of-the-envelope planning... it could be that when I sit down to do this for real I find it's impractical.

5 minutes ago, ASCI Blue said:

There is already an X-Wing to SWRPG conversion out there.

This isn't helpful if there isn't a link.

It also isn't helpful to give people things or they tend to stop working for themselves.

7 hours ago, Norsehound said:

I always knew there was an option for players to fly groups of fighters, but most games I've been in and experienced have the entire party based on one ship. Since I'll be GM'ing a new game soon and at least one player expressed this opinion of having this, I wanted to know what challenges/experiences other GMs had of giving their party groups of fighters instead of one ship?

I figure if I do this I'll need to concoct rules crossing X-Wing with the RPG systems, because X-Wing seem so much easier to use/understand/comprehend. Flip attacks out for gunnery checks, piloting checks on stress maneuvers needed to prevent system strain on fighters, that kind of direction.

Good timing! The Order 66 Podcast just dedicated their latest episode to the topic and hands out some pretty good advice. As I'm running my own starfighter based campaign, I can echo a lot of these. Let me give you a few pointers:

* Starfighters are made of tissue paper, and as most starfighter weaponry is linked, even the sturdier starfighters like the Y-wing can be taken out in a single attack if unlucky. GMPhil's snap-roll house rule deals with this quite elegantly. It has been much lauded, and for good reason.

* The Pilot (space) skill isn't as important as it might seem to fighter combat, as essentially only Gain the Advantage uses it. The Snap Roll rule mentioned above gives it a bit more mileage, but players who simply bump their pilot skill will not become instant expert dogfighters. Talents are essential for the serious fighter jock. Make sure the players know this.

* As you only get one one action per turn, players often tend to be laser focused on using it for attacking or else it feels wasted. However, you can do most of the piloting with your maneuvers, so make sure that the players know that there are alternatives to shooting. Blowing your maneuver on evasive maneuvers while desperately repairing your ship with your action is and should be a viable option, as should other combat actions, such as leadership talents and such. This goes double for gunners, as simply rolling for attack every turn can feel like a boring no-brainer. If they have nothing to but aim and shoot on every turn, give them an opportunity to do something else, so at least they will have to make a choice.

* Fighters bleed strain. Multiple pilot only-maneuvers or Snap Roll will rack up the strain quickly. They can last a lot longer if there's someone around to fix it. Especiall if that someone isn't busy flying.

* Two-seaters are nice. The gunner/co-pilot needn't be an expert at space combat, and it's a good position for a character more specialized in technical or social skils. Letting them have gun to use is nice, but perhaps not essential.

* Astromechs are a nice crutch, but I'd recommend using the NPC Droid rules in Stay on Target, unless it's a PC astromech. Getting a boost die to everything is always nice.

* Make sure there's things to do when "dead". A fighter that takes too much hull trauma doesn't explode instantly (usually), and nor does the character(s) inside become helpless and unable to act like exceeding wound or strain threshold does in personal combat. It might take nothing more than a moderately successful Mechanics Check to repair hull trauma or strain to rejoin the fight.

* PC ships are going to be knocked out. Leave an out. Having established beforehand that an allied NPC skulks around in the back field of the fight with a ship capable of picking up ejected survivors can be a godsend.

* H*ll hath no fury like a moisture farmer with a proton torpedo.

And of course, a big one, the squadron rules from the GM Kit. These rules let you basically ignore a lot of the things about survivability I mentioned above, as the PCs gets a nice ablative shield of minions that, for the most part, you don't even have to keep track of their stats, as a hit deflected from the PC removes one of them from play, regardless of damage, wounds or any of that, and only rarely do they take their own actions. A few things to remember though:

* If you treat them as ablative hit points, the players will too. Limit their numbers (I'm thinking 3-4 per PC, tops. Even a "squadron" of a single wingman can be damned useful), and make sure they have faces and names. Make their deaths suitable dramatic, tragic and/or heroic. Never resist the urge for them to tell PCs what their plans are once they get home from this last mission.

* That said, make sure the players know that when they as players sacrifice one of their minions to take a hit, it is not necessarily what their character is doing. You are giving the player some control over the narrative that results from a hit and the minions are, in this case, under the players control. It can be a ruthless leader sacrificing his underlings as pawns, or a heroic soldier that swoops in to take a hit meant for their leader. Make sure they know that.

* When a minion gets taken out of action, it is just that. The exact details are up to the GM. It can be Wedge pulling out or Porkins not being able to hold it after all. Let the PCs leadership style and characterization influence you decision. If in doubt, go with the more dramatic option. Entertain the thought (loudly, so the players can hear you) that a flipped destiny point could mean the difference between a flaming impact crater or a crash you could walk away from for a beloved minon.

12 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

Thank you everyone, all this advice is helpful!

By switching to fighters forsee a couple of problems. The first is finding seats for any passengers to be rescued or heavy equipment items to be moved, along with cutting down on the size of stowed personal gear. If the PCs have to hijack a transport to do what they need to, then they risk abandoning a fighter they've been building up for a couple of sessions. If we're in fully loaded Y-Wings that can't happen. Two ways I can see around it are:

• Flip a Y-Wing out for something with transport capacity, like a HWK-290. I can't give them too many heavy items, or they'll want something bigger to fulfill their missions.
• Design missions where this extradition is not necessary
• Provide a second group of NPCs to provide the extraction.

I guess as long as I keep these things in mind it could work... though has anyone run a YT along some player-controlled fighters? How did that go?

The second challenge is forcing players to split their skill points between being good at their fighters and being good at their specializations. Players may find it easier just to go aces all the way down if their survival is so dependent upon performance in a starfighter. Then again, diverting skills between piloting and their chosen specialization could be a way to cut-down on ranking up too quickly for me to throw challenges at them.

There are a few larger Sil3 or smaller Sil4 ships that make decent support craft. The HWK-290 , G-1A Heavy starfighter , Aggressor Assault fighter , Firespray-31 and A-36 Pathfinder are all nimble enough and at least capable of being armed enough to at least not be completely out of their depth in starfighter combat, while still being capable of picking up a few passengers and some cargo. There are at least two others worth mentioning, the CL-1c Lancet Interceptor that despite being a seemingly dainty and nimble little thing still manages to squeeze in a seat for a passenger and the AD-1S Modular starfighter that comes with a passenger capacity of 2 and as the name suggests, can be pretty much tailored to do any job passably, including attaching a cargo pod that can be modified to seat up to 6 more passengers.

In the campaign I'm running, all three PC's started in the Ace Career as Pilot (TIE pilot defector), Hotshot (Corellian) and Driver (Space trucker), and have now branched out to Gunner, Propagandist (Pirate Radio broadcaster) and Outlaw Tech respectively (the rebellion recruits the weirdest people). I let them know in the early stages of planning the campaign that it would feature starfighter combat heavily, but also some of that commando action rebel pilots always end up doing. I take comfort in (as they're pilots with good agility scores) they're all at least passably good at Stealth and that I early on releived them of them notion that a decent dice pool and a heavy blaster pistol does not make them Rambo. They can put up a fight on foot if needed, but should be better off sneaking around trying to do the stuff they're good at.

Now I feel the urge to warn from the snap-roll house-rule, because it changes the game into absurdly robust fighters.

I will point to one of the GtA developer interpretations that once you gained the advantage that you are forcing an arc onto an opposing ship. It's not the only developer answer on how to use GtA, but it is the one which makes piloting absolutely vital in fighter combat and makes GtA a control element. Further I recommend limiting GtA in general to close range.

Lastly:
There are plenty of shuttles suitable as support craft for squadrons. Having a squadron campaign and giving pilots just access to one ship per pilot seems silly. Even a Rigger pilot might be force once in a while out of his signature vehicle and into something more suitable for the mission, this gives the campaign more variety and allows for better duty progression awards as well, because the whole squadron will be mighty happy when their fighter wing finally gets access to a dozen B-Wings or a flight of Phantoms or some other experimental crafts with some neat little gimmicks.
Starting with Y-Wings is cool, upgrading to X-Wings once all the pilot talents are in place is even cooler, getting X-Wing T-65BR upgrade packages with stealth, enhanced sensors and communication systems is for sure an awesome ship for some missions. But sometimes you for sure would prefer to actually have proton torpedos en mass, just like the B-Wing provides, etc

So don't be shy and integrate the players into something bigger, something which is not about personal assets, but more about the whole squadron, wing or even carrier-group.

I've been running two fighter/squadron based campaigns for the past year now!

For me, a lot of combat should be focused in space, but also throw in a lot of 'ground' combat in the form of boarding actions, sabotage missions. The one thing that concerned me going into it is how fragile starfighters are in combat compared to characters on the ground. To that end, I actually provided every PC with a wingman, an NPC character who is there flying support with them. This uses the squad rules in the GM screen to actually mean that if they do get hit with a shot and they'd rather not take a big hit they can pass it off and have it kill their wingman instead.

What I did not expect was the Wingmen to become such interesting and beloved characters by the PC's that the players had to think multiple times...before deciding they would rather take the hit than kill their wingman.

Also, to make sure people still had their unique flavour I allowed people to get the pilot tree for free but start off with any career and spec of their choice so that they can still be versatile in personal combat, although someone can choose to go Ace - Hotshot if they want to be the super awesome ace. So far that has worked out very well. Provide the right ships for the right players, one of the characters is an ex-clone war veteran and another is not a great pilot but a fantastic gunner so I provided them with a homebrew ARC-170 which provides a 'passenger' seat if necessary, and they have also since acquired a U-Wing for missions that require either transporting large numbers of people or just needed as a recon ship.

If you are concerned about them losing their tooled up ships while on a mission and the mission requires them to abandon said ship...why not just let them get a replacement with the same upgrades? I mean Han Solo somehow got his DL-44 back even though it was left on Bespin at the end of Episode V. Although personally only require them to scavenge vehicles if they are sent in on a single expendable transport, this could be part of an extraction mission to rescue a VIP or even an experimental vessel such as a TIE Defender or TIE Phantom.

You can also add cargo pods with life support that can attach under a ship. It may be a little claustrophobic, but if you need to get someone off of a planet it's a decent compromise when all you have is a fighter. UYou can use the specimen containers from Enter the Unknown as a good start.