A week or so ago I picked up the newest $40 iteration of, “We’ve rewritten the d20 Star Wars rules again, give us money.” Mockery aside, I was really looking forward to this. The teasers the the WotC Web site made it look like the fixed some of my big gripes about the older systems. (Well, aside from the fact that it’s still d20.) Prior to this, I had been thinking that any future run I did of Star Wars would involve me adapting a lot of the concepts from True 20/Mutants and Masterminds to the old Revised Core Rules.

They’ve stripped out and merged a lot of stuff to streamline it a lot. Which I think is awesome for the most part. I like simple and elegant rules. But then I discovered that they stripped out what I’ll call the “fluff skills,” skills which provide little to no mechanical benefit. Craft, Entertain and Profession are all gone. Their practical aspects have been mostly absorbed by other skills or talents. You can’t have Entertain (actor) or Profession (lawyer) but you can take skills like Deception and Persuasion that emulate the benefits that come from those skills. I immediately grokked why they did that. Being able to sing well or paint a picture or build a house have no mechanical, measurable value in the game. This was confirmed by a game designer who happens to moderate the Star Wars mailing list, who felt that if someone wanted to be a great musician, they didn’t need to devote character resources to it. It could just be part of their background.

I’m of conflicting feelings about the subject.
Continue reading →