For better or worse, what a time to be a Star Wars Fan!
I have seen The Rise of Skywalker and while I had fun watching it, I also found it very disappointing over all. I don't want to discuss it in detail here but what I will say is any negative feelings I have regarding The Rise of Skywalker are greatly offset by my love for The Mandalorian.
All this Star Wars - The Light Side, The Dark Side, and The Bendu - has re-ignited my interest in the running a Star Wars RPG campaign. As I've mentioned in the past, nothing inspires my desire to game a particular genre or setting like seeing it done really well or really poorly. Here we have both!
The good in Star Wars - The Original Trilogy, The Clone Wars CGI Animated Series, The Rebels CGI Animated Series, and The Mandalorian - is so good to me, so deeply inspiring and meaningful, that it sparks in my heart and mind the ideas and passion to put my own Star Wars story together.
The bad in Star Wars - The Prequel Trilogy and The Sequel Trilogy primarily - call out to me with what could have been and therefore beg to be healed, improved upon, or simply replaced with something better.
My love of the ol' D6 Star Wars RPG by West End Games is well known. My renewed and dare I say emblazoned desire to revisit Star Wars leads me to immediately reach for that game. I have even been considering a project to reorganize all my old Star Wars D6 notes from every one of my previous campaigns into a single, enormous master sourcebook.
While I will definitely still do that...
My thoughts today are drifting towards revisiting a concept I don't feel I gave enough attention to, namely Star Wars Traveller.
Clearly my love for Star Wars D6 has not faded in the least, but I haven't been able to get a dedicated, long term campaign of it going for a while and that may be, in part at least, because the system doesn't quite generate the level of excitement and dedication in my players that it does in me.
Traveller on the other hand, being both simple in its base mechanics and yet detailed in it's extensive secondary rules and support products, makes for a game that my particular band of gamers can really sink their teeth into.
Much like Star Trek games run using FASA, Last Unicorn's Icon System, and Modiphius' Star Trek Adventures systems feel very different from each other, so too does changing up the D6 system to the classic Traveller system add a level of grit and texture you might now see in the West End rules alone.
Maybe.
I am not entirely sure I am right about this. That is to say, I am not sure I should switch to different set of mechanics when Star Wars D6 has served me so well through so many great campaigns. Changing the core of what Star Wars gaming has always been might treads into dangerous waters...like the difference between The Mandalorian and the new Sequel Trilogy.
AD
Barking Alien
I think the best thing Marvel did was put the comic book nerds in charge because they truly understood what made the comic books work for so many fans, they didn't feel the need to change things or themes. I think with Mandalorian Disney did a similar thing in putting a Star Wars fanatic in charge. Too bad they didn't do that with the movies but better late than never.
ReplyDelete