We Do What We Do

Greetings Entities and Gentle Beings! 

I thought I would open this month with something a Long Time Ago coming to a Galaxy Far, Far Away since we have a new entry into that universe with the Disney + cg animated series, The Bad Batch. 

Having watched the pilot episode earlier today (after my nephew called to remind me it was on - he is a huge Star Wars fan), I'd like to give some thoughts I had and address some ideas it brought to mind about gaming in the early days of the new Galactic Empire. 

I've always been curious about what the Star Wars universe was like in the fledgling days of Imperial Empire and even more so after the Clone Wars Animated Series that this new show spins out of. 

What was the transition like? How did the Clonetrooper give way to the Stormtrooper and why? Did some Jedi escape Order 66 only to be eliminated later? How did the Star Wars Galaxy at large handle the change from Republic to Empire?

Overall, I get the feeling this series will address a lot of these questions and I am very much looking forward to that. It is my hope (and my belief based solely on this first episode) that the show will give us Star Wars RPG fans all the world-building elements we'll need to set a campaign during this era.  

 As with practically all the pop culture entertainment I consume, I look upon it with one eye toward analyzing its particulars as they pertain to being used in RPGs. This is especially true for IPs like Star Wars, which I not only love but which I find well portrayed in one of my all time favorite games, West End Games' D6 System.

It's not just the characters, aliens, droids, and other trappings of The Bad Batch that I am looking to stat but I'm also trying to get the feel of the era and the type of stories being told. I want to get the atmosphere and the tone correct and I am looking forward to studying them as much as the plots and events of the series. 

Now as for the pilot episode itself, I liked it a lot. One of the main reasons was that the key characters, Clone Force 99 - The Bad Batch, were far more intriguing here than in The Clone Wars final season arc that introduced them. There I found them very one-note, mere caricatures of action movie archetypes. Here there was a bit more to them but more importantly, the subtle yet distinct feeling there is more still to be learned. 

I'll definitely be tuning in this coming Friday for the second episode and beyond to see where these characters go and how this setting develops.

I will likely revisit The Bad Batch again in the near future as the show progresses. I hope you'll join me. 

Until then...May The Force Be With You.

Always.

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Barking Alien

Begun These Clone Wars Have

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