The author acknowledges the existing copyrights of Star Wars and the Star Wars RolePlaying Game and in no way attempts to challenge or undermine them. The following system does not attempt to replace the Star Wars RPG or to reproduce the facts and data contained therein. In fact you will need access to it in order to use this system.
This role playing system uses simple dice rolls to de-emphasize complex rules and mechanics and to place more importance on role playing, where it belongs. This reduction in emphasis is not at the expense of either the realism (what ever that means in this context) or feel of the game, in fact I have found that combat speeds up and produces an experience that is even truer to the films.
The system is based on a nominal skill or statistic range of 0 to 10, with ten being equivalent to fully competent. In normal everyday, non-stressful use a character with a skill of ten will always succeed in a normal skill usage. In difficult tasks or stressful situations however this is no longer certain. The system also extends beyond 10 to higher levels of skill (and statistic) which represent increasing ability up to the extraordinary.
Where division is called for round the results mathmatically with 0.5 and greater rounding up and lower fractions rounding down. Generally this results in fractions often rounding upwards as a lot of the divisions are by two.
All the dice used in this system are ten sided. The numbers generated by the dice are read from 0 to 9.
In normal unstressful situations dice rolls are from 0 to 9, the number rolled is added to the appropriate skill (or statistic) and any situational modifiers.
Under stressful conditions characters may make stupid mistakes or surpass their normal limits. To simulate this an open ended dice roll is made. Roll the dice normally, but if a zero is rolled, roll again and subtract the number rolled. Likewise, if a nine is rolled, roll again and add the scores. If the additional roll is a nine reroll again and add or subtract accordingly; continue this if further nines are rolled (thus there is no absolute limit to the number generated).
The dice score is added to the appropriate skill or statistic and to determine the result. The higher the total the better. The GM will set the difficulty number in the usual way (see Star Wars RPG). If the score is greater than or equal to the difficulty number then the action is successful. Higher scores indicate increasing levels of success.
If the result is less than the difficulty number it indicates a failure. Optionally, if zero or less (generally only achieveable during stress) it indicates a fumble (the more negative the worse the outcome).
Characters have the 6 statistical ability scores given in SWRPG; strength, dexterity, mechanical, technical,
Generally humans have a score of 2, but characters may add 21 points to these (adding no more that 7 points to an individual statistic). Non-humans often have different base scores.
Skills are grouped under each statistic and have a base score equal to the statistic. Skills can be raised above this base score. The cost of raising a skill by one is a number of skill points equal to the new level.
To convert a SWRPG character to SWODES multiply number of dice in each skill or statistic by 3.5 (round up) then add any additional points and finally subtract 5 The following table shows this conversion for numbers of dice up to 15, just add any extra pips.
| Dice | Skill | Dice | Skill | Dice | Skill |
| 1D | -1 | 6D | 16 | 11D | 34 |
| 2D | 2 | 7D | 20 | 12D | 37 |
| 3D | 6 | 8D | 23 | 13D | 41 |
| 4D | 9 | 9D | 27 | 14D | 44 |
| 5D | 13 | 10D | 30 | 15D | 48 |
Some devices augment a skill or statistic such as:
These items augment the skill by an amount equal to the number of dice times 3.5 (plus any additional pips).
NB. Do not subtract 5 from this score (it has already been subtracted from the skill or statistic).
Each SWRPG character point is converted to 3 SWODES skill points.
GMing published scenarios is no more difficult than normal. Ideally go through the scenario beforehand and convert the SWRPG skills and statistics to SWODES, alternatively the table above can be used to convert on-the-fly as and when a roll needs to be made.
As all target numbers are unchanged from SWRPG there is no need for the GM to alter these. Overall, there is very little conversion necessary and the simplification of the system should still result in a speed up of game-play.