R2-D20
So it looks like Wizards of the Coast is putting out a new version of the Star Wars pen and paper game. I must say I am definitely stoked about it, I've already ordered mine off Amazon and am just waiting for it to ship. I've been playing pen and paper games for bout 14 years now. I started with Rifts and moved on to D&D (3.0 and 3.5), the first Star Wars version and some other smaller independent games. Done some D6 gaming also, mainly Shadowrun.
From playing around with the different systems I can kinda compare the differences, and I must say on average the D6 system used in Shadowrun is way simpler to understand than the D20 system used in almost any other system. So it's really great to hear that they've simplified the rules in the new Star Wars book. Starting with combining some of the related skill into a sort of skill group, meaning you roll against the skill group for any of the skill in that group. For example if you need to make a spot or listen check you would roll for the perception group. The skills levels are also gone, meaning you are either trained in a skill or not and all rolls for that skill are based on your character level.
Also gone is the horrible tracking of how many attacks per round everyone has, you get one. If you try really hard you can get more than one, but by default you get one. Nice, simple, no more of the crazy warriors with 12 melee actions taking out the whole enemy army in 2 melee rounds.
Now I know that there will be some "hardcore" players that will think that WotC is just nerfing the system to let the lamers casual gamers in, but personally I think that the changes are going to be appreciated by all. And if any of the number crunching, stat min-maxing, love to argue semantics of minor details, "serious" players want to complain about the changes all I have to say is: My Light saber, your "where the sun don't shine", savvy?
-nurple
