Progress Report

My rules Star Wars rules compendium is a much more involved project than I had thought it would be. But I am making progress on it none the less. I have found it much more manageable to break into sections rather than do the whole thing from cover to cover. That way, I can jump back and forth from section to section to avoid getting 'bored' or bogged down with any one. Thus far, the tactic is working—I have gotten through the very 'dull' (from a writing perspective), core rules section by dabbling in many other sections along the way. So far, it looks like the book is going to be organized as follows:

1) Introduction and Philosophy. I haven't started working on this yet, but it will outline my reasons for making the book and my personal philosophy about Star Wars gaming.

RULES SECTION

2) Core Game Systems. This is complete (as of yesterday). It details how the D6 system works—including things like difficulty numbers, the wild-die, rounds, character points, force points, etc. Though most books tend to begin with character generation, I felt that it is important to know game terminology and how various things work BEFORE you make a character. That having been said, I want to make a much smaller book when this is all over, meant just for players of the game to give them an even more succinct overview.

3) Attributes and Skills. I have worked on this section, but it needs a lot of work still—especially the more detailed descriptions of each individual skill. I figure I probably have about one third of the work on this section complete.

4) Force Rules. Thanks to some work I have done in trying to create a force power compendium earlier, this section has a large amount of its work already completed. Basically, I just need to edit and reformat.

5) Alien Races. This section is nearly complete. I have 20+ races detailed. Again, I placed this prior to character generation so that people can get an idea of what is available when they do make a character.

6) Advantages and Disadvantages. This section has not been worked on at all. It is not part of the original SW system, but it is something I enjoy in games, so I intend to include it here.

7) Character Generation. This section needs a lot of work still. I'm not sure exactly how I am going to present all of it as of yet—but I am going to include various character templates as they did in the various official rule books.

8) Combat. This is going to be a rather meaty section, and though I have a good outline of it, it is going to require a lot of editing—and a lot of examples. I am still debating on whether or not to include vehicle combat in this section or include that in its own section AFTER the vehicle section. I think one section for both is probably the best idea.

9) Movement. Considering that in my many years of running Star Wars I always used very abstract movement rules, I am actually kind of frightened with what to do for this section. I imagine I will be paring it down a great deal. This would also be a good place to include the many very good rule systems I've seen for running 'abstract' chase scenes.

UNIVERSE SECTION

10) The Galaxy. This section would detail the overall layout of the galaxy, its various regions and political situations, etc. This is mostly written, but may need to have a bit added to it. In addition, I want to include a revised map of the Galaxy that does NOT include the retarded 'unknown space' thing.

11) Planets. This section is mostly complete. It details a couple dozen major worlds in the galaxy. I am thinking of adding 'rules' for creating other worlds as well.

12) Weapons and Equipment. I already have most of the charts written up. May need to include some longer written sections to describe some items in more details.

13) Vehicles. This section has been started, but needs a lot of work. Much of the legwork is already done, however, as part of my huge quest to organize and give an accurate representation of vehicles as they relate to eachother.

14) Starships. This section is about a third complete—with starfighters done, transports in the works and capital starships still to go. Again, it is lumped in with vehicles in my effort to create some sense out of often contradictory (or just plain wrong) stats.

15) Droids. I had, years ago, set to work trying to standardize droid design, so I have a lot of source material already finished. Now I just need to edit it all.

16) Creatures. This hasn't been worked on yet, but is going to be a selection of a couple-dozen of the most famous critters from around the galaxy—maybe with some rules as to generating new ones.

SETTING SECTION

This is something I have only recently considered including, but it should fit here. Basically, I would try to condense down various sourcebooks (Rebel, Imperial, Corporate, Criminal) and list out the various organizations important to the SW setting. Unfortunately for me, this is likely to be a MAJOR undertaking.

GM SECTION

This section has not been started on either, but would give hints and tips to GMs on how to run a Star Wars campaign and adventure—including information from the various rulebooks as well as my own observations from my own experience. The section would also have to include an example adventure. Again, a lot of writing ahead of me here.

Whuf, so looking back on this? Maybe I'm not as far as I thought I was. I may have to release the compendium in piecemeal form—complete the 'rules' section, then the 'universe', etc. We'll see how it goes.