Rules Lawyer - Starfighter Race

In my home game recently I had a chance to test out one of Star Wars RPG Adventures hooks. Specifically this one:

@SWRPGAdventures: Sienar Fleet Systems sponsors an asteroid field race to prove the superiority of TIEs. How embarrassing if an uninvited Rebel A-Wing wins.

There are a lot of pilots in my current group and one of them happened to have an A-Wing. So when his Duty, Space Superiority obviously, came up I decided to dangle this idea in front of them. Sienar Fleet systems is demonstrating their new TIE Interceptor and wants to show its superiority to everyone. Incom, Mandal Motors, Corellian Engineering, and Koensayr have all entered to show up Sienar with their craft.

But how do you actually run a space race? There’s the chase mechanic obviously but just making one or two pilot checks is a little boring. So how do you make it more exciting?

I decided to break the race down into five stages, with each having a different twist. To further keep things interesting, the other pilots in the race get handed to the other PCs to make rolls for so that everyone isn’t sitting there doing nothing while our fearless A-Wing pilot does everything.

Phase 1: They’re Off!

The start of the race is mostly a simple matter, straightforward pilot checks all around. The race order is determined by number of Successes. But there are two minor twists. First, for every stage, bonus Successes are awarded based on speed. I used a baseline speed of four and every speed above that gives an extra auto-Success. This helps the A-Wing and TIE Interceptor make good use of their inherent speed advantage.

The second was to have each player decide per round if they are Staying on Target or going Evasive. Depending on the stage, this might help or hurt their chances for success. In this stage, they get an upgrade on their pilot check for Stay on Target and a difficulty upgrade if they are being Evasive. This represents the advantage of beelining off the start line.

A Triumph on this pilot check counts as double Success and any Advantage can be used as Boost on the next rounds check.

Phase 2: Chaotic Atmosphere

This race is launching from a Cloud City-like location in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant. As such, there are lots of strong wind sheer and chaotic conditions. This adds a red Challenge die and a black Setback die to the pilot check pool.

Again pilots will choose to Stay on Target or go Evasive and decide their speed. These modify the results just the same as the first round.

Triumph – Avoid a terrible gust, pass a difficulty upgrade to next pilot in line
Advantage – Cut next pilot off, give Setback to their check
Threa t- System strain per
Despair- Wind sheer damages steering, lose one Handling for rest of race

Phase 3: Jockeying for Position

The third phase sees the group of pilots blast out of the chaotic winds and through the short gap to the planet’s rings. The brief open stretch gives the pilots an excellent chance to try and force their way to the front.

This time the difficulty of the check is determined by how many choose Stay on Target. The more that focus on pushing hard forward, the harder it is for everyone. Additionally, this time Stay on Target actually upgrades your difficulty and going Evasive downgrades it. Speed continues to award free Successes.

As an added complication there are some Setbacks added based on your starting position. First place is clear as is the person in the back. Person in the very middle gets two Setback because they are deep in the mix. Everyone else gets one Setback.

Triumph – Can be be used to force a collision between two others
Advantage/Threat – Use as Boost/Setback in any collisions
Despair- Collide with nearest ship, hard check for each to avoid. Success on both- avoid collision maintain spot. Success on one causes a Minor Collision (Crit – 10xDefense), while person who failed loses one spot. Failure on both causes a Major Collision (Crit – 5x Defense) and both lose a spot.

Phase 4- Into the Rings

Now the race moves through the toughest challenge, maneuvering through the dense rings around the planet. The difficulty of this check is set by the standard space obstacle rules (highest of half silhouette vs speed sets difficulty, lower is upgrades). Stay on Target and Evasive return to their usual modifications.

While speed continues reward some free Successes it also really makes this a difficult check. If a player maintains speed 6 in this phase they are rolling four purple Difficulty and two red Challenge dice. That is not an easy check.

Triumph – Fly through a large asteroid, upgrade next check
Advantage – Gain Boost in Phase 5
Threat – rock damage equal to threat to within 1 of threshold
Despair – Major Collision with debris.

Phase 5- Sore Loser

Now we enter the home stretch of the race. If the Imperial pilot of the TIE Interceptor is not in the lead on this section he will fire on anyone in front of him. This is where Stay on Target vs Evasive really comes in handy. While going Evasive will upgrade your pilot check, it also makes it a lot harder for the Imperial pilot to shoot you. Additionally, if you earned any Advantage from the last phase this is where they come into play as Setback on the attack.

Any of the NPCs who are hit immediately break off and are out of the running. Anyone left makes a final pilot check. The difficulty of this final stretch is a single red Challenge die plus one Setback to represent the remaining but thinning ring system. Most Successes is the winner.