I’m new to the SWRPG Community forums, but I’m a veteran user of the Discord Star Wars RPG community. A few weeks ago, I submitted an entry to the SW RPG Discord community for a FFG SW racetrack competition. The entries are now seeking public comments with the aim of revising/polishing them. I’d like to request please constructive feedback from this community on my racetrack.
Here’s a link to the Google doc where you can read my entry and comment/edit in the Google doc. Thanks in advance for your help!
Currently, viewers have “Suggestion” permissions. I’d suggest you change that, since it allows them to “edit” the doc. Of course it leaves things for you to accept or deny, but still.
Thanks,. There are saved versions elsewhere, so it won’t damage anything. The intent is for people to make copy edits and comment as they see fit. Kee suggested I post in these forums for more feedback.
Well then I’ll provide some, since that’s what you’re looking for.
I haven’t been able to go through all of the mechanics yet, but here are some style suggestions:
Leave breaks between paragraphs, not just indentations. This will make it easier to read.
Don’t capitalize the entirety of your headers. It looks like the outline is screaming.
Name the table something identifiable. If you had multiple tables, numbering them would be useful, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of illustrative names.
Thank you. All good suggestions to be sure. Ultimately, some of the race submissions will go into a community created racing source book that I’m guessing will be made available early in 2023. The final formatting of headings and the like will be consistent at that point among the entries. I tried to replicate FFG formatting after a fashion in Word.
Well I’ve added a bunch of grammar/writing suggestions, which hopefully make it a little bit clearer/more professional-looking.
Collisions:
The paragraph above the table looks very odd offset since it’s only one line.
This could perhaps be resolved by lengthening the paragraph, adding clearer/more detailed rules for what happens when there is such a collision.
Nowhere do you use the word “collision.” I think that a minor collision would be the best way to resolve that, with the vehicle suffering a crit -10 per Defense (though virtually no swoops would have Defense). Then maybe just say “adding +10 per speed above 2.”
I think that crits are a better way to resolve the vehicle’s side of things than dealing System Strain or Hull Trauma since they provide a lingering effect, but don’t risk immediately taking a bike out of the race (though they DO immediately remove a minion). For example, if your bike has 0 Armor and a HTT of 2, it won’t take much to take you out of the race, while a speeder with even just one Armor could be bashing around with no penalty (the implication of not using the word “collision” is that no “Collision” occurs, and thus no crit).
That brings up another question: “Suffer,” or “takes”? “Suffers” mean past soak, while something like “takes X damage before soak” quite clearly means the opposite.
I’d also adjust how many wounds are taken. I’d adopt the falling rules in some regards, so a collision at speed 5 incapacitates, and a collision at speed 6+ puts wounds at double threshold. And what about the rider suffering Strain?
(It’s worth that it would be exceptionally rare for racers to move this quickly.)
As far as bailing, I think it should be more severe at different speeds. Short range fall damage is almost nothing. Instead, I would base it off of speed, similar to the collision or falling charts. So maybe speed 1-2 equals Short, with 3-4 Medium, 5 Long, and 6+ Extreme.
I will add more suggestions as I review more of the race. It’s very interesting and evocative, I look forward to reading more!
The main issue I see so far is that nowhere do you really define a penalty for failed checks, or a benefit for successful checks, nor is it defined how race positions are determined.
I did point out one issue I found quite glaring, which threatened to neutralize all previous rolls, and that was when you had a roll that could jump a PC immediately to first place, and send an NPC immediately to last place (as I understood it). I left a comment to that effect.
I suppose that my mechanical questions would be answered by the supplement, which I perhaps am not privy to due to its residence on the FFG SWRPG Discord?
Anyhow, I hope that my “suggestion spam” is not a bother. My family placed a large emphasis on grammar and writing when I was growing up, so while I not be the professional editor my sister is, I’ve picked up a thing or two, including various pet peeves. At any rate, some of my comments may sound sarcastic. They were not intended as a criticism, I was merely pointing out why a certain phrasing did not work.
I hope my efforts thus far have been helpful. Any feedback you may have thus far on the quantity and quality of my suggestions would be appreciated so that I can better assist you.
Thank you for your very generous feedback thus far. I really appreciate it!
Your meticulous reading and copyediting is helpful. I may not agree with all of the copyediting suggestions for the next draft I’ll be preparing after this public commentary stage, but your suggestions for rephrasing, cutting words, and for increasing clarity is very helpful. I’ll weigh them against authorial style and what I’m trying to communicate.
For the contest, we had a word count to stay under. This is the second draft you are reading after revision suggestions from Kee, and I still have word count restraints after fleshing some areas out more. It was assumed for the contest that we would be using the EotE core chase rules on page 241 and more specifically in the Jewel of Yavin on pages 49 - 50 the Conducting the Race rules. So, it’s assumed that there will be an initial piloting check at the start of the race, and each subsequent leg will have at least a main piloting check. Once the initial race order is set, the PCs are in a particular speed group (with NPCs nearby in their group). The intent is that they can advance or fall behind in their speed group or perhaps even advance to the next speed group of racers or fall behind to a slower speed group.
I don’t think that I should spell out all permutations for success, failures, triumphs, and despairs in each leg. I think instead I have to be judicious and give the GM some specific guidance for a leg, and leave the rest up to the adjudication and creativity of the GM running the race (and to an extent the players). Word count is one facet of needing to leave certain things out. Another facet is the Discord community will be developing a table for suggested spending of advantages, triumphs, threats, and despairs. That table will be part of the finished race book.
That makes sense, particularly regarding word count, although sometimes I think more specificity would be useful. Something to consider is the phrase “(modified by check results)” or “(to be modified by check results)” such as “…failure adds a Setback (modified by check results).”
The usage of “at least” is what’s really making me balk, since it isn’t as definitive about the result of the check, as if suggesting a minimum penalty for the GM to impose rather than saying “This is the penalty, plus whatever the roll results would indicate.”