I'd be up for this (yes, hello... I lurk).

Would this be a case of adding in some 'dice rolls' to the story based RP or an entirely new approach? Hex mats and minifigs ftw!

I'd need a flash designer for stuff like hex-grids - anyone know one? lol

Great idea! I'm definitely up to it! It could fill up our desperate waiting time for actual game nicely with some *phew* *phew* to do

Well I've started the preliminary work on this (seeing as the interest seems to be positive) and I can tell you that you're gonna get a 'species reveal' one hell of a lot quicker than you will from BioWare!

I don't want to release all the info yet, but here are some snippets on "Species":

No. of Species Available:

38

Are Droids playable?:

Yes

Are all the races we've chosen (eg: Falleen, Umbaran etc) playable choices?:

Oh yes!

Trandoshan! Please tell me you saw trandoshan amongst them?! Nah, seriously, I think I might give it a shot, who knows, it may be better! (besides, I don't want to hold people back)

Like I would leave out Trandos.... H2 what do you take me for, eh?

Yeah I'm up for this, never really had the chance to have a go with this type of stuff but been interested

I'll offer you my services as well to help, 1. if you need help with finding out how to make it work on the site I'll give you a hand (not that I'm and expert but I managed to set up Vent easily enough so maybe I have the magic touch )
I'm not sure what your talking about when you say Hex-grids but I used to dabble with flash, I'm not a designer ofc (is Hare?) but I might be able to put something together for you, flash is pretty intuitive but that said I'd have to find my (very legal *cough*) copy of it

Flash is intuitive? Guess I'm dumb then! (don't answer that )
I tried for ages with FlashMX and Dreamweaver and just gave up and went back to poser instead!

Help is of course appreciated, but at the moment I'm just doing the basics like working out a point-based rules system so any flashy stuff is a ways off.

Hex grids are cool for a tactical combat tabletop game, not for RP... imho of course

In all honesty I would'nt know - never used Hex Grids or Miniatures in any of my RP's before, tabletop or otherwise.

Quick update for ye:

# of Species (final at game creation): is now 40, not 38 (more will come later)

Classes: There are 9 classes available, some restricted by species - Droids cannot be force-users for example. (General Greivous was a cyborg before anyone mentions him!)

Elite Classes: There are 8 elite classes available, though you need to work up to these.

Statistics: There are 6 statistics, 3 Physical and 3 mental. They range from 1 to 5, 5 being heighest.

Skills: There are many skills to choose from, ranging in ability from 0 to 5. 0 is untrained, 5 is a master in that skill.

Talents, Force Powers and Upgrades: Talents are "knacks" or special abilites that people know and are open to all classes (Droids have limited access to Talents however and Force Users will have less because they need to spend points on Force Powers as well.) Force Powers are what you expect, Powers accessable only to those with Force Sensitivity. Lastly Upgrades are Droid-only special abilities, though these may be open to Cyborgs in later rules expansions (Cyborgs are not available at start of play)

Character Creation: is based on a point-based distribution, you "choose" how you want your character to be.

More to follow!

Are you using a d20 system? What's the relation between stats & skills (direct or indirect modifier etc)? Or am I too curious now? :p

I don't mind curiousity Sharasvar!

As it happens, no I'm not using the d20 system. Although I'm very familiar with it (and a big fan I might add) I've decided to go for a similar, but streamlined system.

I've taken as much from the SW:SE stuff as I can without horribly plagerizing it, but have taken a lot out that would slow a forum rp.

I don't want to give away too much until it is completelted but it runs on a very similar system to SW:SE at its core, so that players who know that system will find it familiar but players new to it won't find it too confusing.

Skills are directly connected to statistics, and in the same way as SW:SE you add your skill rating to your statistic. Once you have that number you roll a die and add it all up. If that is equal or higher than the Target Number (TN) assigned by the GM, your character succeeds in his or her task.

Of course there are other modifiers, both situational and player-controlled, but that is the game mechanic at its core.

EDIT:

For example, the Rodian Bounty Hunter Nikrit is attempting to blast an Imperial Trooper chasing him through the streets of Coruscant. As the trooper comes around the corner he is utterly exposed with no cover the hide behind. Unfortunately for the tropper Nikrit is waiting for him.

The GM states the TN to hit the trooper is 10, so this is what Nikrit needs to get to hit him.

Nikrit has a score of 3 (out of 5) in the Blaster skill. That skill is linked to the DEX (dexterity) Statistic, and Nikrit has 3 DEX.

Adding those points together gives Nikrit a score of 6.

Nikrit needs to roll a 4 or more (6+4 to reach TN of 10) to hit the Trooper with his Blaster, if he rolls 3, 2, or 1 it will miss.

This is a very simple example, there are usually modifiers such as cover, abilites etc which can alter your score before you roll the dice.

Oh and the system uses d10 rather than d20.

Isn't that too much power to the stats? If you compare it with a d20 system for example. There, if you have a +4 mod through a stat that's already quite high, while a skill rank of 10 is quite normal. Just a thought

If it was in relation to the d20 system, yes very much so.

However, because statistics are out of 5 and not 18-20 (as with the d20 system) then each point in a statistic covers more of a range of that ability (1 point in this system is roughly equal to 5 points when compared to the d20 system) and so are therefore much slower to increase via character progression and xp.

There is a maximum limit that stats can start at when creating your character at level 1, though I'll cover details like this later.

To give you a rough idea of what the statistic ranges represent:

1 = Below average, limited.
2 = Galactic average. Most npcs are at this level.
3 = Above Galactic average. Most professionals are at this level.
4 = Elite. Highest most non-boss npcs are likely to reach, this level represents people who excell in a certain area and likely have a reputation due to that fact. Bounty Hunters hired for their dogged tenacity, Sith for their control of the Force, Medics for their emergency battlefield skills.
5 = Master. Characters with this score are rare, they represent the best of their species. Internationally recognized athletes, master assassins, ace pilots, legendary sith lords, etc.

Ofc all of this is still in progress and subject to change until finalized, so any suggestions are more than welcome (such as yours Sharasvar!), for example I have been considering raising the skill rank limit to 10 rather than 5 so they are, as you suggested, different from the statistics; I'm running a few mathimatical tests with it now to see how it pans out.

The above statistical info will most likely remain however because one of the things I always thought was a bit unnecessary with the d20 system was the way they gave you a statistic score which generated a "modifier" to go with it, then the modifier was heavily used and the stats score itself barely saw the light of day. Rather than have a stat that went up to 20 and gave a modifier of +5, it seems more sensible to me to have stats that go up to 5.