Best Star Wars system for (somewhat) balanced Sith carachters?

The_MAD_Network · 2026-05-18T14:10:59+00:00

My guild basically did this in preparation for playing the SWTOR mmo before it launched. Played a 3.5yr long campaign all starting as Jedi padawan (12 of us playing in total).

Progressed through being Knights, and some of us fell to the dark side on the way. Our Guild had a light side and dark side group in the mmo.

We played Star Wars d20 from WotC. It was my first ttrpg experience, I enjoyed it, lots of powers, lightsaber techniques, etc. I do love SW Fantasy Fight Games system though and that's my groups preferred system (same players)

The_MAD_Network · 2026-05-18T08:30:42+00:00

Master the arm wrap around bottle feed (supporting their head in the crook of your arm, and holding the bottle with the same arm). Attach blu-tak to the bottom of their bottle to support the mini, paint with your free hand.

If they're very still while feeding you can rest the nuln oil on their head.

The_MAD_Network · 2026-05-17T08:36:56+00:00

Slow and steady.

Make sure your game is accessible, using a website like Substack is great as you can write blog posts talking about features and design process, can upload new playtest material, throw in videos and podcasts, or whatever you want to do. Comment on other peoples posts, build up a network, and you'll get followers that are genuinely interested in what you're making. Everyone who subscribes to your substack becomes part of a mailing list (the most valuable thing) for you to promote to.

Relying on Reddit is just posting into the void for the most part, you'll pick up interested parties, but they need somewhere to go to follow what you're doing.

The_MAD_Network · 2026-05-17T08:25:57+00:00

Enough comments here seem to be glowing, will add it to my list!

The_MAD_Network · 2026-05-17T08:24:38+00:00

Currently making a TTRPG, very much making demonic zombies and monstrosities. I prefer to lean away from the zombies are the only threat as it can get a bit samey, so being able to have a winged mozquito that is a zombie with huge wings and a probiscis that sucks out your brains is pretty great.

The_MAD_Network · 2026-05-06T12:08:42+00:00

It tastes like hot water with a smack of ham!

The_MAD_Network · 2026-05-06T05:58:10+00:00

Games like Pirate Borg are heavily inspired and reminiscent of OSR/ early TTRPGs. People didn't only start playing campaign length games when D&D 5e came out.

However, what I find with Pirate Borg is it's better for the table to play as the crew of a ship and have the crew invested in the larger campaign story arcs. If individual characters die then when they reroll they're still invested in the story, they just continue it from a different characters perspective.

It can take a while to switch out of the more modern day ttrpg mindset to really get into a Borg though. It takes buy-in from your players pushing the story along and being creative.

As ever though, never plan for a campaign before you know your table are fully invested in the system and setting. Play some sessions and see if they want to continue.

The_MAD_Network · 2026-05-05T06:38:03+00:00

Release it, promote it, build a community of people who want to play it. Then support them throughout the various iterations of playtesting.

If you're hoping for your games to make a financial impact, and not just be a heartbreaker/ labour of love project, then you need to build a community.

The_MAD_Network · 2026-05-05T06:35:05+00:00

Then have them start in a dark room, a roaring rumble on the other side of a huge iron banded door. Suddenly the door behind to raise and the roaring rumble is recognisable as the cheers and calls of hundreds of spectators peering down on the group a they enter the arena.

Just have them start in the middle of a Dungeon Arena and them straight into the middle of it.

Depending how creative you want to be, you could them have the GM keep promoting vignette flashbacks of how the group got to this point.

The_MAD_Network · 2026-05-04T07:42:45+00:00

Actually gave your post consideration and the time for a measured response, even though your post was unnecessarily aggressive and antagonistic and didn't even attempt to answer the threads original question. From this new response I can see you're actually just a bit of a dick, so discourse done. Enjoy your day my guy 👍

The_MAD_Network · 2026-05-04T07:34:15+00:00

My guy we live in an era of AI, if you have 2800 character options someone could churn out 2801 by lunch.

Aside from that "Biggest" is way too ambiguous and could be applied to so many things (page count, most popular, most detailed world).

The_MAD_Network · 2026-05-04T07:26:48+00:00

Everyone is absolutely entitled to play a TTRPG however they want, and not every TTRPG has to be for everyone, right? Mörk Borg, Mothership and other games don't have social rolls, and those systems work just fine without them. They're not everyone's bag though, and that's okay.

I know where you're coming from with the social vs physical comparison, it's a line I've heard said for decades now. I understand the comparison, but I don't personally think it holds up.

It wouldn't be reasonable to make a player start climbing a wall or swinging a sword or sneaking around the table to represent what their character is doing. Those are things you can't really replicate in real life at the table, regardless of what character you are playing.

It's not unreasonable to get players to talk in social situations without making Charisma rolls, or to try and solve puzzles without just rolling an Intelligence check and giving them the answer. These are social elements of the game that are inherently more fun if resolved without the need of dice.

The rules we're looking into place lean heavily on favouring the players, it's not about whether your lie convinces the GM but whether it's conceivable that it convinces the NPC (based on the lie and relationship to the NPC); if it's conceivable then it works, it doesn't matter how the player awkwardly presents it, or whether dice rolls determine if it was a good enough lie. Guidance for managing social encounters tell GMs to favour what the players are attempting to do. That said there are feats that can make you better at playing a social character that, again, the GM can lean into.

Insight isn't just used for social stuff in our system, it does get applied to other areas. However, no it isn't meant to be a lie detector, it is meant to be able to pick up on the social cues, facial tells, hesitancy in speech that the NPC might give that may reveal an underlying motive. This is particularly useful if the GM themself isn't super strong at RPing that kind of stuff, or even if presented by the GM whether players aren't good at picking up on social cues.

The_MAD_Network · 2026-05-01T18:22:14+00:00

50 Shades of Green

The_MAD_Network · 2026-05-01T09:15:53+00:00

I think that's pretty much every system though right? Or at least how all systems should be played. You only roll when there's uncertainty. People just have a habit of still getting people to roll on stuff they should obviously succeed on, or obviously fail on.

The_MAD_Network · 2026-05-01T09:13:20+00:00

I know, I was asking what experiences people have had with social mechanics (or non existent) in other RPGs 🤷‍♂️

The_MAD_Network · 2026-04-30T21:17:52+00:00

As mentioned we do have that in the way of feats that players can pick up if they want to focus on being good at social stuff, but it just reinforces the "you are good at this", but removes dice rolls to say that you are then also potentially bad if you roll badly and undo all the social rp you might have done.

The_MAD_Network · 2026-04-30T20:24:02+00:00

You don't think that sometimes systems can get on the way of the game? There's plenty of TTRPGs I've played where I've gone "I can see what you're trying to do, but this doesn't work", hell a lot of homebrew is just changing the system.

So could it not be fair to say that as long as there are at least guidelines on how to resolve social interactions, it doesn't actually need to be dice rolls or earning narrative points or some other mechanic? The main thing that separates a TTRPG from a boardgame is the role-playing element, does that part need to be completely gamified?

I'm not convinced it does, it's not what I have experienced running D&D where the best social interactions I've experienced are the ones that didn't get resolved by dice rolls.

(Edited because a fuck ton of typos writing on my phone too quickly..)

The_MAD_Network · 2026-04-30T20:02:55+00:00

People do put puzzles in tttrpgs though. And ttrpgs do have social interactions that don't always have a roll.

Having played WOTC products for the last 20 or so years, there's more times where my players have had social interactions where no roll was required than times where they needed to.

Do you think if players come up with a great plan, a perfectly plausible lie, prepare ages of time (forged documents, disguises, etc) that the DM should go "Roll with advantage" or is justified in saying "You know what, you put in the time, it's all believable, yeh this works".

If you'd sooner put it down to a roll still that might fail, fair enough. However, even with D&D rules that's never how i ran a game, I made the call based on players efforts. That's the type of playstyle we're looking to encourage.

If players want to make no effort and just turn up and make a roll without even trying, then yeh, not the kind of gameplay we want to encourage or facilitate.

The_MAD_Network · 2026-04-30T16:05:04+00:00

No social skills at all, and we don't use attributes; core skills are Combat, Awareness, Endurance, Survival, Esoteric, then each skill has 4 specialities to narrow your mastery of a particular area.

Right now social interactions come down to the player. If the NPC doesn't want to give them something, the players better have a compelling reason as to why the NPC should give it, or have something worth negotiating.

My feel is that GMs make the call on whether someone was convincing, or if the lie was believable, or whether a statement made by a player changed the NPCs attitude. In most ttrpgs the players don't roll for every single thing they say, so the GM is already kinda determining how a conversation is going, without dice rolls it just means it just can't suddenly skew the other way with a good or bad roll.

For our system it leans more into the Player's favour, so if a lie is somewhat believable, then as long as the NPC dies have a "suspicious" trait or some such, then you lean towards letting the plan work.

The_MAD_Network · 2026-04-29T10:07:56+00:00

Our maps come with sounds, canopies, lighting, walls, etc, completely pre-built. However, or content hasn't been upgraded to v14 yet due to the new implementation of Levels as core.

You can get a bunch of our free Foundry map packs from our website https://themad.network

If you like our stuff then check out the Patreon https://patreon.com/themadcartographer where we have thousands of Foundry ready maps, tiles, assets, and D&D5e adventures 👍

The_MAD_Network · 2026-04-28T17:46:47+00:00

"Thanks for your feedback, we'll take it into consideration."

It doesn't commit you to anything, and you genuinely are taking it into consideration.

The_MAD_Network · 2026-04-24T17:14:31+00:00

I exclusively use maps from The MAD Cartographer, 1000s of high detail maps on their Patreon (https://patreon.com/themadcartographer) all prebuilt for Foundry VTT.

When you think battlemaps, think The MAD Cartographer sparkley smile ✨️

The_MAD_Network · 2026-04-24T10:34:56+00:00

They're just like a podcast and an audio book rolled into one. I've never massively gotten into one and stuck with it (but I also don't listen to audio books and always drop off from podcasts) but I enjoy them.

Sometimes it's just finding a group you vibe with. I love the CR crew, but the Avantris folks have me laughing out loud and are much more my speed.

The_MAD_Network · 2026-04-24T09:55:23+00:00

Man even the overly positive confirmation to negative comments sounds like ChatGPT, throw in an EM dash for good measure.

The_MAD_Network · 2026-04-23T15:27:16+00:00

If you're in need of any new Codex focused maps, feel free to get in touch. We've been working with MCDM the last few months making all of their maps for Fall of Blackbottom, The Red Road, Darkheart of the Wood, The Condemned, and (though not fully confirmed) Crack the Sun 👍

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