Calibrate Your Enthusiasm

Happy Orthodox Star Wars Day!

As I've noted in the past, while most fans - from casual to hardcore - celebrate Star Wars on May the 4th, the actual anniversary of the original film is today, May the 25th. Because of my deep love of Star Wars, I celebrate both. 

In honor of the this, I had some thoughts inspired by the newest installment in the franchise; 

We are twelve days out from the final episode of Andor Season 2. 

Overall, I really enjoyed and was incredibly impressed by the direction, writing, acting, and the production in general. It was an excellent story expertly told. I am not generally in favor of this flavor of Star Wars, preferring the more Pulp Sci-Fi Fantasy aspects of the franchise, but well done media is well done media.

A number of quirky ideas occurred to me at the end of the series that could potentially be used in a Star Wars TRPG and I figured I'd share them with the rest of the galaxy at large. 

WARNING: This post may contain Spoilers for the Second Season of the Disney Plus streaming series, Andor. Continuing on with this post may directly or indirectly impact your enjoyment of the series so it is highly recommended you watch Andor Season 2 before reading this.

Alright, Welcome to the Rebellion...

Base Building: Apartment Hunting

In the course of Season 2 we see several apartments in different sections of the mega-metropolitan sprawls of Coruscant, the city planet. Most notably I'm thinking about the hideout/safe house used by the agents of Luthen Rael (such as Cassian and Bix and later Kleya Marki) and the stark high rise abode of ISB Agent Dedra Meero. 

We've seen Coruscant a ton of times across many Star wars projects and all too often it's just a backdrop to whatever the characters are doing. Andor breathes life into the world-city, showing it as a place where people live and work in a fashion we've not really seen before. It shows the mundane, domestic side of Coruscant's massive skyscraping towers and makes the planet seem like a really real place to me for the very first time. 

It also had me imagining a 'party' of Star Wars Player Characters who fly their starship into Imperial blockades or to ruins Jedi temple ruins on a shallow ocean planet and then return home to their 175th floor duplex only to discover the Blue Milk went sour while they were gone. 

Maybe a few of the PCs can start out being roommates who share the rent of a loft on the mid-to-low levels. Maybe Experience/Character Points could be spent to deck out their place the way one might for improving their spacecraft. Perhaps Building Points could be used to do this, separate from XP, the way some other games do.

See my posts on Bases for other ideas. 

Character Concept: Control Droid

When the 'Stretcher Droid' appeared in Episode 10, the members of the Droid Fans facebook group I'm in went wild trying to find more information. As if they heard our plea, the official Star Wars website put an entry about it into its 'Databank' section. As it turns out, this isn't a Droid Stretcher so much as a standard Hover Stretcher with a spherical 'Control Droid' attached. 

This gave me a really great (IMO) idea for a PC or NPC. Imagine playing the Control Droid, carried around by one member of your adventuring group or another and connected to whatever they need to have operated remotely while they busy themselves with something else. I'd love to play this character!

Think about it - Attach my PC to a Hover Stretcher and now he's a self-guided gurney who can get an injured fellow PC to a doctor while the rest track down his attacker. Attach it to a 'Control Pit' in a Landspeeder and now he's a Droid Landspeeder like we saw in the very first episode of The Mandalorian. Need to load cargo onto your Light Freighter while under fire from Stormtroopers? Pop the ball shaped Droid into a Load Lifter and boom, it lifts your load so you can engage in the blaster shoot-out. 

I can think of so many ways to go personally wise! A Control Droid like Marvin from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy whose depressed by his lot in life and feels eternally put upon. An eager youngster who is super-enthusiastic about doing her part for the Rebellion! A self assured, almost boastful Droid who sees itself as a Jack-of-All-Trades, believing the team would be lost without it. 

So many possibilities!

Character Concept: Force Sensitives

One aspect of the original Star Wars RPG (West End Games, D6 System) that I feel is under appreciated is the way it handled 'Force Users'. The game was (initially and primarily) set during the Rebellion Era and put forth the idea that the Jedi were gone. That's 'cause they were. With only the Original Trilogy to go by, the game was 'loosely adamant' that the Jedi were all dead. At least to the point where you weren't one. 

You could be a wannabe, an aspiring one, or an adjacent Force User but not a capital 'J' Jedi. Templates in the First Edition included Alien Student of the Force, Failed Jedi, Minor Jedi, and Quixotic Jedi. Of particular note is the Minor Jedi, renamed Young Jedi in the later editions I believe, which has as the first of its 'Background' text: 'You'd like to call yourself a Jedi Knight but you are not, really.' The Jedi are all dead, at least the real ones, but you truly have a connection to the Force and with hope, effort, and the Will of the Force, maybe you can bring them back. Maybe you can be one.

In Andor Season 2 Episode 7 we meet an unnamed Force Sensitive woman who can heal, to some extent at least, who senses/foresees Cassian's destiny, and who clearly isn't on her way to battle Darth Vader and re-establish the Jedi Order. She is just a woman living in the galaxy and doing her part, however small. Yes she has a gift and while it's not flashy or spectacular, she's using it to fight the injustice of the Empire. 

This is the type of character that, while rarely seen in Star Wars live-action content (until recently that is), works perfectly in a Star Wars roleplaying game campaign. Next time you gear up to run or play a Star Wars game, particularly during the era of the Rebels vs. the Imperials, consider playing a Force User who only has a small set of abilities or even a single special power. Healing, Farseeing, Force Echoes (Psychometry), and Connection with Creatures are all good candidates for singular abilities that prove useful while adventuring throughout the Star Wars galaxy.

Scenario Hook: Galactic Antiquities, Artifacts, and Relics

When it comes time to include a MacGuffin in a Star Wars adventure, it isn't surprising most GMs turn to something of a Jedi or Sith nature. A legendary or rare Lightsaber or a Holocron with ancient secrets of the Force are both obvious and intriguing as items of significane in the Star Wars universe. Sure but what if those weren't the only objects from the distant past that had value in the present?

As evidenced by the Star Wars Comic Book character Doctor Aphra and Luthen Rael's shop, we can see that the wealthy and powerful in the galaxy are prone to seeking out and collecting various relics from the long history of outer space's starfaring societies. Be it a Nautolan Bleeder Knife, a Naboo Royal Headdress, or an ancient suit of Mandalorian Armor, these items are difficult and rare to come by and fetch a very high price on the galactic market. Finding and selling a Twi'lek Kalikori that dates back to the days of the Old Republic could easily fund a Rebel Cell for months or provide a Smuggler enough credits to pay off his debt to Jabba. 

Perhaps they have others potential purposes as well. Obtaining and returning said Kalikori to the Twi'lek people would definitely score you a positive reaction from the tribe from which is came, resulting in allies or at least a foot in the door in that direction. What if you come across the fabled Goonga-Doo Horn of the great Gungan King Doob Gon Gon and learn a high ranking Imperial is after it? Why does he want such an item and what secrets does it hold? Such items add a bit of Indiana Jones to your Star Wars and that might be a perfect change of pace for a great several session scenario. 

Hmm. Where did Luthen get all those artifacts anywhere? Maybe he hired your PC group to obtain them for him! You never know...

I think I may be posting more Star Wars content on and off in the near future. We'll see. I'm just gonna Trust My Feelings. 

May The Force Be WIth You,

AD

Barking Alien