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Raven Redstar Rear Admiral


Joined: 10 Mar 2009 Posts: 2648 Location: Salem, OR
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Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:31 pm Post subject: |
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KageRyu wrote: | I have often used a skill called Jury Rig as a way out of the penalty for lacking proper tools and parts on a particular technical skill check. The way I do this is to set a difficulty for the Jury Rig skill Check based on readily available materials to the player and what is actually needed and how far apart they are. If the Player could then pass the skill check, the penalty to the actual repair skill for lacking proper components would then be ignored. To make things really interesting I allowed for Critical Success or Fumbles here to lead to unique results - for example a fumble may result in the repair seeming to work until some particularly critical moment when it doesn't just fail but fails in a spectacular way causing fresh problems with other systems. Where as a critical success (double the difficulty or more) produces some bonus effect that was unplanned.
Example:
In a D6 game I was running a pilot of a strider (like an AT-ST) had suffered a critical hit knocking out the hydraulics (couldn't move). Obviously there was no spare tanker of hydraulics nearby, or available hoses and clamps. The battle was in an urban center, with a small grocery store across the street. I set a Moderate difficulty, and when the player passed I decided he figured he could patch the hoses with Duct tape (a common field repair) and might be able to use vegetable oil as a substitute for the hydraulics fluid in a pinch. On the downside when it heated up his strider smelled like a lunch wagon serving fries.
I have felt Skills like this are a good way to allow a character to use knowledge the player may not have but the character should. |
That is a fantastic use of Jury Rigging Rules. I'm going to borrow this for use in my games. _________________ RR
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KageRyu Commodore


Joined: 06 Jul 2005 Posts: 1391 Location: Lost in the cracks
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Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2020 8:43 pm Post subject: |
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Raven Redstar wrote: | KageRyu wrote: | I have often used a skill called Jury Rig as a way out of the penalty for lacking proper tools and parts on a particular technical skill check. The way I do this is to set a difficulty for the Jury Rig skill Check based on readily available materials to the player and what is actually needed and how far apart they are. If the Player could then pass the skill check, the penalty to the actual repair skill for lacking proper components would then be ignored. To make things really interesting I allowed for Critical Success or Fumbles here to lead to unique results - for example a fumble may result in the repair seeming to work until some particularly critical moment when it doesn't just fail but fails in a spectacular way causing fresh problems with other systems. Where as a critical success (double the difficulty or more) produces some bonus effect that was unplanned.
Example:
In a D6 game I was running a pilot of a strider (like an AT-ST) had suffered a critical hit knocking out the hydraulics (couldn't move). Obviously there was no spare tanker of hydraulics nearby, or available hoses and clamps. The battle was in an urban center, with a small grocery store across the street. I set a Moderate difficulty, and when the player passed I decided he figured he could patch the hoses with Duct tape (a common field repair) and might be able to use vegetable oil as a substitute for the hydraulics fluid in a pinch. On the downside when it heated up his strider smelled like a lunch wagon serving fries.
I have felt Skills like this are a good way to allow a character to use knowledge the player may not have but the character should. |
That is a fantastic use of Jury Rigging Rules. I'm going to borrow this for use in my games. |
Thank you, though I can not take full credit for it. A different game I also ran a lot (Mekton II) had a skill called Jury Rig and defined it's use in this fashion. As I was running a Post-WWIII game with killer robots (Mad Max meets Terminator) the Jury Rig skill became almost a necessity as readily available parts and workshops were almost never present. Rarely I would rule that there may be usable materials that were not suited as-is but a separate appropriate skill roll to modify, customize, or alter them would then forego the penalty. Since I had many of the same players in my star Wars Game, the skill was moved over, along with a few other skills that just made sense to us such as "General Knowledge" so players who passed the roll could ask what common local or galactic information their character might know on a given subject, etc... _________________ "There's a set way to gain new Force Points and it represents a very nice system, where you're rewarded for heroism, not for being a poor conductor to electricity." ~Jachra |
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jmanski Arbiter-General (Moderator)

Joined: 06 Mar 2005 Posts: 2065 Location: Kansas
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Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2020 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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Update:
I have decided to differentiate tinkering and jury-rigging by time. Both use the Jury Rig skill, but taking more time reduces the DC (usually by 1-2 LOD). My son's character rarely jury-rigs something, he mostly wants to take apart stuff and try to improve it (sometimes with hilariously disastrous results). The system works well for what we are doing, although I have to take notes on each of his failures for future reference.... _________________ Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect? |
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garhkal Sovereign Protector


Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 14314 Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 1:36 am Post subject: |
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Does he have lots of money and spare parts, to be doing all this tinkering?? _________________ Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk! |
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KageRyu Commodore


Joined: 06 Jul 2005 Posts: 1391 Location: Lost in the cracks
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Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 5:32 am Post subject: |
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I would strongly recommend checking out the jury rig rules in Craken's Rebel Field Guide. _________________ "There's a set way to gain new Force Points and it represents a very nice system, where you're rewarded for heroism, not for being a poor conductor to electricity." ~Jachra |
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jmanski Arbiter-General (Moderator)

Joined: 06 Mar 2005 Posts: 2065 Location: Kansas
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Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2020 10:48 pm Post subject: |
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garhkal wrote: | Does he have lots of money and spare parts, to be doing all this tinkering?? |
Everything he has goes into his "toys" _________________ Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect? |
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garhkal Sovereign Protector


Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 14314 Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2020 2:41 am Post subject: |
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How does he live? Travel? Pay for other expenses? _________________ Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk! |
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jmanski Arbiter-General (Moderator)

Joined: 06 Mar 2005 Posts: 2065 Location: Kansas
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Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2020 12:22 am Post subject: |
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His partner helps foot the bill, and it leads to bickering... lol _________________ Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect? |
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