So in my rulebook revamping I have been working on vehicle and critter sections. I have always known that a lot of the game stats given for things were a bit wonky. Well, in my 'research' I have found out that a LOT of things are wonky, not just the stats found in gaming books. The biggest thing I've noticed are dimensions. Maybe its just men and their tendency to exaggerate.. lengths. But more likely, its just folks not bothering to check made up numbers with the.. made up things they're trying to measure. My god. Am I really this geeky? Yep. I am. But.. let me give you a few examples:
The A-Wing Starfighter. It's official stated length is 9.6m. Unfortunately, that just does NOT jive with the various visual representations I've seen of the thing—and just how small it seems to be in relation to the pilot. In 'reality' the A-Wing is probably closer to 5 and a half meters. That's a pretty huge difference. And there are a lot more like this- like the Super Star Destroyer, for instance, which has been sized at anywhere from 8km to 19km.
But one of the most glaring mistakes I found was in the size of the Rancor. The 'official' height of the beast is listed at 10 meters. Looking at the movies, you'll see this aint even close. It seems more plausible to me (and was borne out with a bit of 'research' that the Rancor is actually about 10 FEET high. Oh, us silly Americans and our misunderstanding of the metric system.
Anyway, it is just an observation—one I discovered while trying to (for the first time ever) try and really get an idea of how the sizes of different vehicles and critters relate to eachother (still fine-tuning the various 'scales' in my game). It has been an eye-opening (if incredibly geeky) exercise.
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Yeah, the sizes and scales in Star Wars are rather "wonky" as you put it. Needless to say, if you just take what they list in the game books, you're going to have a lot of problems and issues to contend with. The whole thing would need to be re-written. So if that's what you're doing...GO FOR IT!
ReplyDeleteAlso, I've got a working remake of the scale system, so I'd like to see what you come up with.
Yep, I am in the process of reworking the stats for just about everything. I'd be happy to share what I have when it is in a more presentable condition. I'm a graphic designer, so I'm a bit of a stickler when it comes to this stuff. So stay tuned!.. or if you have more specific questions, just contact me!
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