I've always been more of a Star Trek fan than a Star Wars one but I'd probably say that Star Wars holds a very special place in my heart, not just as a fan but as a gamer. I discovered Star Wars in the same year I discovered D&D and at the impressionable age of 8, both had a major impact on my hobbies and interests to this very day.
In addition, Star Wars is probably the game setting I've run the most after Star Trek. I'm a particularly big fan of the West End Games D6 Star Wars RPG. To me, very few systems hit that sweet spot between simplicity and complexity that I'm looking for (and continue to look for) in a Science Fiction/Space Opera/Pulp Adventure game. Star Wars did it with a mechanic and writing style that had all the magic of THX sound and killer special effects.
So yesterday, on the urging of some of the players in my Compleat Strategist group, I ran the first session of a new Star Wars D6 campaign. I think the last time I ran Star Wars was shortly after the third Prequel film, so that had to be sometime in 2005. After so much time I was afraid I might take a while to hit my stride but the exact opposite was true. I think that yesterday I got back the spark that I've felt was missing from my games over the last year or so. Some time in the late nineties a friend of mine said, "Star Trek might be your favorite but you're just really good at Star Wars." I think she was right.
The game went over incredibly well if the yelling, laughing, whoopin' and hollerin' was any indication. Also, if a good portion of the noise and enthusiasm is coming from the one guy whose PC died than I call that a major success.
Yep, we had a casualty in the first session, a rarity for me in Star Wars or any other game I run for that matter. PC death is not common in most of my campaigns. Injury and lose of limb to be sure but the death of PCs is rare and, like life, usually the result of idiocy or accident. This was a tad of both but far more related to the latter. I will state for the record that everyone did the best they could and no one really messed. It was a couple bad choices and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Furthermore, the PC who perished, in a last ditch effort to reduce the damage, ended up saving another PC's life. Numerous allied NPCs were not so lucky.
I won't go into details here but suffice to say...a PC in a starfighter attacks an enemy cruiser which has a huge particle beam cannon capable of targeting the planet below. Some PCs are on said planet. He makes some amazing rolls and basically shoves two proton torpedoes up the cannon's nose cone, causing an explosion so powerful as to blow up the cannon's generator. Problem? Several PCs have boarded said ship and two are in the generator/cannon room.
Yeeeah.
Currently those of the planet's surface are safe, there are three surviving PCs and one NPC on board the horrifically damaged enemy ship and the pilot PC is adrift in space as the backlash from the explosion damaged his ship badly. Of the three PCs are the enemy ship, one is very, very badly injured.
So-Much-Fun!
More to come, May the Force Be With You,
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Barking Alien
Riiigght. And that means?
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