MOVEMENT & CHASES

SPEEDS Cinematic combat is about characters on speeder bikes rac­

ing through the air at 600 kilometers per hour, blaster bolts
You can use a vehicle’s (or character’s) Move to find its all- flying wildly around them — pick a difficulty number, roll the
out speed in kilometers per hour. character’s skill, give a snappy description of what you think
should happen — and keep the game moving.
Kilometers Kilometers Whether the vehicles are 140 meters apart or 150 meters
Per Hour Per Hour apart isn’t as important as making the chase or battle as excit­
Move (All-Out) Move (All-Out) ing as the ones in the Star Wars movies.
3 10 150 430 Use a combination of rounds and scenes to maintain the
5 15 160 460 flow of the game. Rather than rolling for every round, lump
7 20 175 500 several minutes’ travel into one scene: have the players decide
8 25 185 530 how fast they’re moving and roll their repulsorlift operation (or
10 30 195 560 other skill) a couple of times. If the characters beat the terrain
14 40 210 600 difficulty number, they have no problems; if they roll lower
18 50 225 650 than the difficulty number, they may have had to slow down
or may have even had a minor collision.
21 60 260 750
Then, compare the piloting rolls of their opponents — if
25 70 280 800
their opponents started far behind but made several great rolls,
26 75 295 850 they may be able to catch up to the player characters. If the
28 80 330 950 gamemaster characters rolled poorly, the player characters may
30 90 350 1,000 have pulled away.
25 100 365 1,050 Once the stage is set, you can run a round-by-round battle
45 130 400 1,150 as the climax of the chase. When you use round-by-round
55 160 415 1,200 combat, don’t be afraid to “bend” the rules in favor of telling
70 200 435 1,250 a great story — approximate ranges and terrain difficulties, and
80 230 450 1,300 estimate difficulty numbers quickly.
90 260 470 1,350 Focus on exciting narration — “the Imperial airspeeder races
105 300 485 1,400 ahead, diving into the forest. You notice three more speeder
115 330 505 1,450 bikes are coming up from behind — the lead speeder opens
125 360 520 1,500 fire! What are you going to do?”
140 400 Yes, you’re sacrificing a certain amount of “realism,” but the
game moves quickly and you also now have the freedom to
A vehicle’s “high speed” (“running” speed for the character) adjust difficulty numbers to suit the needs of your adventure.
is half the all-out kilometers per hour speed. A vehicle’s cruis­ For more suggestions on running these types of scenes, see
ing speed (“walking” speed for a character) is one- quarter of “Long-Distance Travel” in this chapter and the chapter “Role­
the “kilometers per hour” speed. A vehicle’s cautious speed (a playing Battles.”
character’s “slow walk”) is one-eighth the “kilometers per
Encounters. When setting up a cinematic chase, you should
hour” speed.
have a general idea of what the vehicles could run into. What’s
Example: Rhen is piloting an airspeeder with a the terrain like and what obstacles will the combatants face?
Move of 350 (its all-out speed is 1,000 kilometers You have to figure out who’s involved in the battle. (Some
per hour). If she flies the speeder at high speed, she’s people sketch out a map of the chase area — but that’s only
going 500 kilometers per hour. If she’s flying the necessary if you think you need one to keep track of what’s
speeder at cruising speed, she’s flying at 250 kilome­ going on. Other people are perfectly happy to make up details
ters per hour. If she decides to fly at cautious
speed, she’s going 125 kilometers per hour.

You can find a vehicle’s all-out speed in kilome­

ters per hour by multiplying the Move by 2.88.

Example: Rhen is flying a landspeeder with

a Move of 200. Its all-out speed is 576 kilo­
meters per hour.

RUNNING
CINEMATIC CHASES
While this set of rules allows you to measure
out every move of every round, you should consid­
er using a “cinematic” approach when running
chases and vehicle battles in your games.

The Star Wars Roleplaying Game 119

 MOVEMENT & CHASES

and terrain difficulty numbers on the fly: “You round the hill, character is going to dive behind and knows exactly where the
gun the throttle... and right ahead is a thicket of trees! There’s enemy stormtroopers are standing. Just as with vehicle minia­
no time to turn. Make your repulsorlift operation roll as you tures, the players will soon get into the game and move “their”
dive into the thick branches!” ) characters around on the table. Again, the visual representa­
You can also create several “encounters” to liven up the tion gets everyone that much more interested in the game!
chase. An encounter is anything “extra” that happens to com­
plicate the chase: freak weather, special terrain, people pulling Three-Dimensional Combat
out in front of the combatants, traps (such as repulsor mines If you’re running a battle with exact distances and the com­
set up to protect the mouth of a canyon), avalanches caused batants are at different altitudes, here’s a quick and easy way
by the noise of the chase... anything that adds to the tension. to measure approximate weapon ranges:
For example, if the characters are in a chase in the middle
of a city, here are some possible encounters: • Measure the horizontal and vertical distances between the
vehicles.
• Someone pulls out right in front of the characters’ land­ • Divide the smaller of the two numbers in half and add it to
speeder. The driver must make a Difficult repulsorlift operation the longer one: that’s the range.
roll to avoid a high speed collision.
Example: Thannik is firing at a snowspeeder off
• The characters stumble into a traffic jam. The speederways in
in the distance. It’s 150 meters away and 30 meters
front of them are completely blocked. Now where are they
above him. Thirty meters is the smaller of the two, so
going to go? Maybe they should take to the aqueducts run­
add 15 to 150 to get a range of 165 meters.
ning parallel to the highway... but first they have to jump the
security fence: a Very Difficult repulsorlift operation roll is
needed to loft the speeder over the fence and not crash. OTHER NOTES
• If the characters take a wrong turn, maybe they end up
careening into the heart of an immense zoo or amusement Long-Distance Travel
park. They have to make several rolls to avoid obstacles (energy Just as with chases, you should use a combination of scenes
fences surrounding the animals, the machinery of the rides and and rounds for long trips. First, determine the “basic terrain
so forth)... and find some way to avoid getting caught... and difficulty” for each leg of the journey: clear plains might be
not get lost! Easy, while a thick forest might be Difficult. Then, have the
• If the characters weren’t already being hounded by the local driver or pilot make his repulsorlift operation (or other skill)
authorities, they are now! If they’re already being chased, more roll.
police speeders close in from all sides... their capture looks a If the pilot rolls below the difficulty number, there has been
lot more certain. Whoever they’re chasing is probably going to some kind of random incident. The vehicle may break down.
get away if the characters are pulled over. Maybe the characters have a minor accident. Perhaps the local
terrain is populated by large and exceedingly stupid herbivores
• A speeder from a local news agency starts following the
that have a knack for wandering in front of oncoming speed­
chase, broadcasting every second of the “pitched battle.” Of
ers.
course, that one speeder will soon be joined by others. Now,
While the incident doesn’t have to be directly related to the
the characters aren’t going to be able to escape (unless they
adventure, it can affect the game: if the characters get pulled
can lose the news agency speeders) and they’re most certainly
over for violating local speed ordinances — and the local law
going to be identified.
enforcement officials run an identity check and find that
Props. You can use Star Wars vehicle miniatures from vari­ they’re wanted for past offenses — the characters may spend
ous licensed manufacturers to show all the vehicles in a chase. several hours clearing up their problems. Of course, the people
You can just move the vehicles around each turn to show their they’re trying to catch now have a few extra hours to get
relative positions. Use stacks of coins or counters to show the away.
altitude of each speeder. Having terrain to set up around the
vehicles is a nice touch, too. Encounters
While setting up a battle scene like this takes some work, it Pre-planned encounters can be a very effective way to liven
will certainly get the players into the spirit of the chase: they’ll up an adventure with a long trip.
soon start moving “their” speeder around while describing Maybe the characters have to deal with a freak storm and
their maneuvers... and everyone will enjoy the game that much seek shelter. What kind of repulsorlift operation difficulties do
more. they face? What happens if they fail a roll? Where can they
(Because vehicles move so fast, you can’t really create ter­ find a place to stay and who do they run into while they’re
rain for the whole scene. You also don’t really need to worry there? Who can they get to repair their speeder if it’s damaged
about the “scale” of the battle — just move the figures around in the storm?
to show “roughly” where everyone is.) Any number of other encounters can liven up the game:
When staging major battles between characters, you may maybe the characters get ambushed by bandits, have to avoid
want to use maps and counters — or better yet, painted minia­ an ambush in a small town when they pull over for lunch, have
tures, Star Wars figures sets and scenery — to show the players to bluff their way through an Imperial security checkpoint
what’s happening. They’re not necessary for the game, but (“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”) — whatever you
they help all the players see exactly where their characters and want to add to your game.
their opponents are standing. The player can see the crates his

120 The Star Wars Roleplaying Game