Running Cinematic Chases

While this set of rules allows you to measure out every move of every round, you should consider using a cinematic approach when running chases and vehicle battles in your games.

Cinematic combat is about characters on speeder bikes racing through the air at 600 kilometers per hour, blaster bolts flying wildly around them—pick a difficulty number, roll the character's skill, give a snappy description of what you think should happen—and keep the game moving.

Whether the vehicles are 140 meters apart or 150 meters apart isn't as important as making the chase or battle as exciting as the ones in the Star Wars movies.

Use Scenes and Rounds

Use a combination of rounds and scenes to maintain the flow of the game.

Rather than rolling for every round, lump several minutes' travel into one scene: • Have the players decide how fast they're moving. • Roll their repulsorlift operation (or other skill) a couple of times. • If they beat the terrain difficulty number, they have no problems. • If they roll lower, they may have to slow down—or they may have a minor collision.

Then compare the piloting rolls of their opponents: • If opponents started far behind but made great rolls, they may catch up. • If gamemaster characters rolled poorly, the player characters may pull away.

Once the stage is set, you can run a round-by-round battle as the climax of the chase. When you use round-by-round combat, don't be afraid to bend the rules in favor of telling a great story—approximate ranges and terrain difficulties, and estimate difficulty numbers quickly.

Focus on exciting narration, like:

"The Imperial airspeeder races ahead, diving into the forest. You notice three more speeder bikes are coming up from behind—the lead speeder opens fire! What are you going to do?"

Yes, you're sacrificing a certain amount of "realism," but the game moves quickly and you also gain the freedom to adjust difficulty numbers to suit the needs of your adventure.

For more suggestions on running these types of scenes, see "Long-Distance Travel" in this chapter and the chapter "Roleplaying Battles."

Encounters

When setting up a cinematic chase, you should have a general idea of what the vehicles could run into: • What's the terrain like? • What obstacles will the combatants face? • Who's involved in the battle?

Some gamemasters sketch out a map of the chase area—but that's only necessary if you need one to keep track of what's going on. Others are perfectly happy to make up details and terrain difficulty numbers on the fly:

"You round the hill, gun the throttle… and right ahead is a thicket of trees! There's no time to turn. Make your repulsorlift operation roll as you dive into the thick branches!"

You can also create several encounters to liven up the chase. An encounter is anything "extra" that happens to complicate the chase: freak weather, special terrain, people pulling out in front of the combatants, traps (such as repulsor mines set up to protect the mouth of a canyon), avalanches caused by the noise of the chase… anything that adds to the tension.

Example City Chase Encounters

•	Someone pulls out right in front of the characters' landspeeder.

The driver must make a Difficult repulsorlift operation roll to avoid a high-speed collision. • The characters stumble into a traffic jam. The speederways in front of them are completely blocked. Now where are they going to go? Maybe they should take to the aqueducts running 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. • A wrong turn leads into a zoo or amusement park. The characters have to make several rolls to avoid obstacles (energy fences, ride machinery, and so forth)… and avoid getting caught… and not get lost! • The local authorities join the chase. If the characters weren't already being hunted, they are now. If they were already being chased, more police speeders close in from all sides… and whoever they're chasing may get away if the characters are pulled over. • A news speeder starts broadcasting the battle. Soon others join. Now the characters won't be able to escape (unless they can lose the media speeders), and they'll almost certainly be identified.

Props

You can use Star Wars vehicle miniatures from licensed manufacturers to show all the vehicles in a chase. You can move the vehicles around each turn to show relative positions. • Use stacks of coins or counters to show altitude. • Terrain pieces are a nice touch, too.

While this takes some work, it gets players into the spirit of the chase: they'll start moving "their" speeder around while describing maneuvers… and everyone will enjoy the game that much more.

Because vehicles move so fast, you can't really create terrain for the whole scene—and you don't need to worry about "scale" too precisely. Move figures around to show roughly where everyone is.

For major battles between characters, you may want to use maps and counters—or better yet, painted miniatures, figure sets, and scenery—to show positioning clearly. These aren't necessary, but they help players visualize cover, enemies, and movement, and they tend to pull everyone deeper into the action.

Three-Dimensional Combat

If you're running a battle with exact distances and the combatants are at different altitudes, here's a quick way to measure approximate weapon ranges: 1. Measure the horizontal and vertical distances between the vehicles. 2. Divide the smaller number in half and add it to the larger one. That's the range.

Example: Thannik is firing at a snowspeeder off in the distance. It's 150 meters away and 30 meters above him. Thirty meters is smaller, so add 15 to 150 to get a range of 165 meters.

OTHER NOTES

Long-Distance Travel

Just as with chases, use a combination of scenes and rounds for long trips. 1. Determine the basic terrain difficulty for each leg of the journey: • Clear plains might be Easy • A thick forest might be Difficult 2. Have the driver or pilot roll repulsorlift operation (or other skill).

If the pilot rolls below the difficulty number, there has been some kind of random incident: • The vehicle may break down. • Maybe the characters have a minor accident. • Perhaps local terrain is populated by large (and exceedingly stupid) herbivores that wander in front of oncoming speeders.

Incidents don't have to relate directly to the adventure, but they can affect it. If characters get pulled over for violating local speed ordinances—and the authorities run an identity check and find they're wanted—clearing it up might take hours. Meanwhile, the people they're chasing have extra time to escape.

Encounters

Pre-planned encounters are a great way to liven up a long trip.

Maybe the characters have to deal with a freak storm and seek shelter: • What repulsorlift operation difficulties do they face? • What happens if they fail a roll? • Where can they stay, and who do they meet there? • Who can repair their speeder if it's damaged?

Other ideas: • An ambush by bandits • Avoiding an ambush in a small town during a lunch stop • Bluffing their way through an Imperial security checkpoint ("These aren't the droids you're looking for.")

Use whatever adds tension, choices, and momentum to your game.

Source: REUP:117