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Greetings!

I have just finished the first draft of this ruleset for Star Wars-themed dogfighting, and figured this forum was the best place to look for some feedback (Mods, please move if this would be more appropriate in Misc Games or Discussions).

I have not played X-wing, so can't say how similar or different this is to it, and I'm certainly not trying to beat it at its own game as I hear it a very accomplished ruleset. With my own rules, I've tried to aim for simplicity over complexity, hoping to keep it light on the rules and heavy on the thinking. The document is 15 pages in total, including stat cards, templates, cards and the full rules, so I think that's a good size with that in mind. The game is really scaled for roughly 1:100 scale minis as that's the size of the toys I'll be using to test it, but there's nothing stopping you using it with X-wing minis or even, with some alterations, WW2 fighter planes.

I'd very much appreciate it if you would take a few minutes to have a read through, maybe playtest it a bit if you like the look of it (all the cards counters you need are inside) and would like any feedback on the rules, layout or anything else. While I certainly can't publish it as-is, due to copyright, if it goes well I may genericise it a bit and make it available on kindle or Wargames Vault ect.

Thanks for taking a look, I look forward to seeing what you have to say. Also, a ground-based SW system will be inbound in a few days once I finalise various Force lists.

 Paradigm wrote:
I have not played X-wing

Then you really need to play it before you invent your own game in the same genre. Your game isn't bad (at least at first glance), but I don't see any reason to play it instead of X-Wing. If you want anyone to be interested in your game you need to learn from how X-Wing works, figure out a way to make yours different in clear ways, and be able to explain why someone should play your game instead of the one that currently dominates your market.

I moved this thread since it is not a Fantasy Flight game.

@Lorek: Cheers for the move.

@Peregrine: I see what you're saying, and I certainly intend to look up some X-wing batreps at the least to get a feel for how that plays..Honestly, I have heard that X-wing is a great set of rules and have no reason to doubt that, so I have no delusion that I'm somehow going to get people playing this instead. This was just something I threw together for a bit of fun, and from what little I have seen is that this is a bit simpler than X-wing, especially in terms of list-building; there's no need to have a ton of cards or upgrades.

But yes, I'll certainly look into making the differences a little clearer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Having looked a little closer, here are some of the main differences with X-wing:

- Has the same kind of 'hiddenn movement' thing going on, but in my rules all Flight Paths are laid out (players alternate placing templates) before anything moves, so you can react to the enemy movement as it happens and employ techniques like blocking movement ect, as the enemy can never cross your Flight Path templates.

- Uses normal D6, with a simple pass/fail mechanic.

- The key thing I had in mind with this system is that you have complete control over your ship; you assign Power to Thrust, Firepower and Shields, turn by turn.

- At the moment, ships are ships, there aren't (yet) specific pilot rules, and when there are, they will be simple upgrades rather than altogether different cards.

Going back to what I originally said, if X-wing is a highly-realistic FPS, this game is an arcade shoot-em-up. Much less complex, plays faster from the looks of it, less tokens/rules to keep track of.

Sorry, your rules are not simpler (X-wing does not use an allocation phase, and also, basic Tie Fighters don't have shields) and have some glaring issues.

Being unable to lay templates over each other prevents basic dogfighting manuevers, such as a scissors maneuver. You are also failing to account for the fact this takes place in a 3D environment, where ships can fly over and under each other.

The game should be able to handle all of the following fighter maneuvers in some form or fashion: turn, bank, barrel roll, climb, dive, drift, immelman, split-s, and wingover. Right now, your game lacks the ability to do immelmans, split-s and wingovers (which are similar enough they could be represented as one type of action). The inability to cross templates essentially rules out the use of climb, dive and banks. There's utterly no way to perform a barrel roll or drift in your current game setup.

Star Trek attack wing uses a licensed version of the X-Wing rules and it breaks the ships down into a basic ship and separate pilot/captain entity so you can mix and match as you need (in Star Wars terms, you could put Wedge in a B-Wing, if you wanted to).

<Edit: nix this, I see you have an Agility skill that represents this, missed it on the first pass of the rules>[b] [strike]Another thing to consider is that you are not taking maneuverability of different ships into account in your game. This has nothing to do with thrust/speed. Y-wings, for example, have a much wider turn radius than an X-wing, and a Tie Fighter lives on its ability to jink and out-turn all but the A-wing. Some fighters are designed for boom-and-zoom pass fighting (A-wing, Tie Interceptors), some are designed for intense turning knife-fights (X-wing, Tie Fighter) and others are slow-moving whales that rely on shields and heavy armor to deliver their ordinance (Tie Bombers, Y-wings, B-wings).[/strike]

X-Wing is arcade-style space combat. It is NOT simulationist at all. A more detailed version of Star Wars combat is Star Warriors. I strongly urge you to learn more about both games. This version falls in between the two. It will work for a fun afternoon of gaming, but I don't think it will really catch much of the spirit of Star Wars itself.

Thank you for your thoughts

 Stormonu wrote:
Sorry, your rules are not simpler (X-wing does not use an allocation phase, and also, basic Tie Fighters don't have shields) and have some glaring issues.

Could you expand on how it's not simpler. I may have a different phase setup to X-wing, but I don't see how that's inherently more complicated. By saying it is simpler, I refer to things like the fact you don't need unique dice and it works on a simple 4+ pass/fail mechanic, while what I've seen of X-wing requires far more memorising and rolling.

Being unable to lay templates over each other prevents basic dogfighting manuevers, such as a scissors maneuver. You are also failing to account for the fact this takes place in a 3D environment, where ships can fly over and under each other.

This is true. In playtesting, I quickly decided to scrap this rule, now so long as the ship is not placed touching anything or off the board then it's fine.

I don't think it will really catch much of the spirit of Star Wars itself.

Could you elaborate? Maybe suggest something I'm missing that would make it more Star Warsy?

Thanks again for the feedback.

 Paradigm wrote:
Could you expand on how it's not simpler. I may have a different phase setup to X-wing, but I don't see how that's inherently more complicated. By saying it is simpler, I refer to things like the fact you don't need unique dice and it works on a simple 4+ pass/fail mechanic, while what I've seen of X-wing requires far more memorizing and rolling.

This is why you should play X-Wing, not simply just watch some reports or read about the rules. X-Wing honestly in its purest form is a simple game, there is not a lot to really do to make it any simpler but yet provide the ability to give that Star Wars combat feeling. You also don't need special dice for XWing, you could use 8 sided dice (simply odds vs evens to a degree), although since they come with the base game no reason not to use them. I'm not sure I'm following what you think you need to memorize in X-Wing... there is nothing to memorize, its all on the cards. Although there is rolling, it is simple and straight forward with nothing complicated about it. Gameplay is pretty quick.