Musing on Star Wars themes in RPG

[Laurefindel]

The theme of Star Wars is Goofy, Silly, Cartoonish, Safe, Kid Friendly Action Adventure. Much like the sci fi and adventure serials of the past. The Empire are ''bad guys" and the Rebels are "good guys" because we are told so. There is lots of Goofy "bad military" Empire that can't hit anything vs the demi god Rebel heroes.

And for a movie with "everyone" appeal....it works!

For an RPG though........you get stuck with "generic kitchen sink sci-fi" and "space clerics". And it just does not work. In an RPG a couple Stromtroopers really can shoot and hit a character....but that would "never happen" in Star Wars. So, as soon as it does, it does not feel like Star Wars.

So your answer to making a better Star Wars rpg is; don't do a Star Wars rpg ? ;-)

You can have some characters flying around in a Menlieneal Falcon "smuggling" some "power crystals" in space.....but it just feels like generic sci fi, not Star Wars.

I don't disagree; that's actually pretty close to the presmise of my OP. So my question is; what would a Star Wars rpg need not to feel generic sci-fi?

 

[bloodtide]

I don't disagree; that's actually pretty close to the presmise of my OP. So my question is; what would a Star Wars rpg need not to feel generic sci-fi?

Go full Cinematic Cartoonist. You need a game that does not have anything close to "combat": that is not Star Wars. That is part of the big problem for a lot of players. Even as a "10th level" Jedi they can fail a "force deflection roll" and get hit and take damage...that right there does not feel like Star Wars. The same way your "10th level smuggler" should be able to do a "lucky dodge" and avoid a dozen space gangsters blasts.

Maybe something like "drama points"? You can gain them by being 'cool' during the adventure....like you get ten points when you flirt with the princess or do some Jedi training. But then you use them to say "get away from stormtroopers". If you have, and can keep enough....you can have a blockbuster ending.....you shoot your blaster and blow up the whole gangster empire. If you don't have enough...it's just "too be continued".

 

[MGibster]

I've often said that Call of Cthulhu doesn't do a great job of simulating an H.P. Lovecraft story but it does a great job of adapting his work into a game. If you're playing a game based off of Star Wars I think you've got to come to terms with the idea that it's not going to be exactly like the movies. i.e. Your character might fail to deflect blaster bolts. Like Luke did in Return of the Jedi which led to his iconic Michael Jackson look. Or all those Jedi in episode III who were surprised by Order 66. Okay, in some ways it'll be like the movies.

And rather than bringing in any deep themes, the most important thing to remember is that Star Wars is fairly simplistic. Other than Andor/Rogue One, which are both very different from other Star Wars properties, keep things simple and lighthearted. You're aiming for Flash Gordon, Radar Men from the Moon, Buck Rogers, and Commando Cody which were all serial films shown before the main feature at theaters in the 30s, 40s, and 50s.

The one important thing to remember when running a Star Wars game is that evil will always triumph because good is dumb. Er, no, that's not it. But now I've lost my place.

 

[pemerton]

what would a Star Wars rpg need not to feel generic sci-fi?

It should have a Flash Gordon-y, swords-and-planet sort-of vibe. Pendragon was mentioned upthread, but I think The Green Knight is probably a better fit.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Man yeah I hard disagree with folks saying that actual combat “isn’t Star Wars” or that SW characters should never get hit.

Like I hope someone makes a cool pbta SW game for y’all where resolution isn’t about individual actions and their success or failure, but for me, that isn’t in the same Galaxy as what I want from a Star Wars game.

Obi-Wan gets shot by a sniper in Clone Wars. Various Jedi are forced to retreat to cover by blaster fire. All kinds of people get hit with lightsabers.

I also don’t like the idea of Star Wars characters with stats like Slick, Cool, and Sharp, or whatever. Those are great for some games, like a Noir Mystery game, or a heist game, or a lot of other things, but Star Wars IMO needs to have the ability to saber lock, deflect bolts, and redirect them only some of the time when they deflect it just right or really focus on doing so.

Han fails a check to move sneakily, and another to lie convincingly. Most lightsaber fights are skill/power/faith* against skill/power/faith*. Anakin and Obi-Wan trying to push eachother straining against each other’s power until finally they both get sent flying is a great example of a character having to try to do something with a chance of failure.

D&D is a better fit for SW than the most narrative of pbta games, and D&D isnt a great fit.

*faith being shorthand for oneness with the force, belief in what they’re doing, dedication to a cause, etc.

 

[pemerton]

Man yeah I hard disagree with folks saying that actual combat “isn’t Star Wars” or that SW characters should never get hit.

Like I hope someone makes a cool pbta SW game for y’all where resolution isn’t about individual actions and their success or failure, but for me, that isn’t in the same Galaxy as what I want from a Star Wars game.

I don't know what PbtA game(s) you're thinking of. But Apocalypse World does not use scene resolution (cf eg Agon 2nd ed).

I also don’t like the idea of Star Wars characters with stats like Slick, Cool, and Sharp, or whatever. Those are great for some games, like a Noir Mystery game, or a heist game, or a lot of other things, but Star Wars IMO needs to have the ability to saber lock, deflect bolts, and redirect them only some of the time when they deflect it just right or really focus on doing so.

Han fails a check to move sneakily, and another to lie convincingly. Most lightsaber fights are skill/power/faith* against skill/power/faith*. Anakin and Obi-Wan trying to push eachother straining against each other’s power until finally they both get sent flying is a great example of a character having to try to do something with a chance of failure.

I have no idea how these points relate. Cool and Sharp are stats in Apocalpyse World, which is neither a heist nor a noir mystery game. Dungeon World uses the same resolution framework as AW, and has D&D stats. And deflecting bolts would easily be handled in DW (Defy Danger).

I actually think "Sharp" would be quite a good Star Wars stat - Han has quite a bit of it, Luke not so much. Instead of "Weird" we could have "Force", and Jedi moves would permit substituting Force for the normal stats. (Not unlike an AW Brainer.)

D&D is a better fit for SW than the most narrative of pbta games

This makes no sense at all. There is no "most narratives of PbtA games". But to the extent that the core of PbtA is the soft move/hard move dynamic, that does not create any particular problem for Star Wars.

Just off the top of my head, some soft moves - Stormtroopers arrive as the heroes are about to take off from the starport; running away from Stormtroopers in the Death Star, you come to a gap where a bridge is withdrawn; you're in a weird gas mine facility and suddenly a ton of liquid carbonite is pouring down onto you.

And some hard moves - your hand gets cut off; the planet you were on your way to has been blown up; the Wookie won't be a good sport about losing the game.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't know what PbtA game(s) you're thinking of. But Apocalypse World does not use scene resolution (cf eg Agon 2nd ed).

I didn’t say that it did? What are you talking about?

I have no idea how these points relate. Cool and Sharp are stats in Apocalpyse World, which is neither a heist nor a noir mystery game. Dungeon World uses the same resolution framework as AW, and has D&D stats. And deflecting bolts would easily be handled in DW (Defy Danger).

It’s a poorly constructed sentence due to getting interrupted while writing it. Two separate points. A lot of your counter points make no sense to me, though.

The first statement in the post is “ Man yeah I hard disagree with folks saying that actual combat “isn’t Star Wars” or that SW characters should never get hit. “

If a given game allows for PCs getting hurt by attacks u less they defend well, it isn’t an example of what I’m saying doesn’t fit SW.

If I had brought up DW, I’d see the point of talking about its mechanics, but…I didn’t?

Like do you think that I claimed that all pbta games have XYZ features? Because I didn’t. I’m well aware that there are literally no universal mechanics that all pbta games share,

I actually think "Sharp" would be quite a good Star Wars stat - Han has quite a bit of it, Luke not so much. Instead of "Weird" we could have "Force", and Jedi moves would permit substituting Force for the normal stats. (Not unlike an AW Brainer.)

It’s partly an aesthetic preference. IMO Sharp/Cool/etc as an attribute sounds goofy as hell even in some games I enjoy, like Monster of The Week. In SW I’d hate it.

Beyond aesthetics, I also think that more phisiological attributes fit SW better. I’d go with something like Body/Wits/Will, or similar. No D&D 6 stats, but very much in the vein of “you are rolling to test your ability to leverage your attributes to gain success” rather than like…personality traits expressed as genre savvy descriptors. Han relies most on wits and XYZ skills or moves or whatever, while Luke relies more on Will and these other moves or skills, and Chewie relies more on Body (which also sucks as a name, but fitness isn’t right either, and no single word is gonna be right for the whole concept) and a third set of widgets.

This makes no sense at all. There is no "most narratives of PbtA games". But to the extent that the core of PbtA is the soft move/hard move dynamic, that does not create any particular problem for Star Wars.

You don’t think that some games are more narrative focused than others? Perhaps you use the term “narrative” in a very gaming specific manner and I’m not? Idk.
You seem to have assumed for some reason that I don’t think any pbta mechanics or concepts fit SW, which is a bit of a wild jump.

Just off the top of my head, some soft moves - Stormtroopers arrive as the heroes are about to take off from the starport; running away from Stormtroopers in the Death Star, you come to a gap where a bridge is withdrawn; you're in a weird gas mine facility and suddenly a ton of liquid carbonite is pouring down onto you.

And some hard moves - your hand gets cut off; the planet you were on your way to has been blown up; the Wookie won't be a good sport about losing the game.

I know…what moves are…? What even?

It may not be my clearest post ever, but I genuinely have no idea what you are responding to.

 

[innerdude]

So I have to disagree with the premise that FFG Star Wars just "doesn't capture the right feel for Star Wars."

This may not be true for everything, but the combat side of things is quite well done for a "Star Wars" feel.

In the past, I believe @pemerton once described D&D 4e combat as having a sort of common feel to it -- characters get hammered early, then use their wits and assets to slowly turn the tide until they overcome. Sort of a "rally to save the day after an early setback" kind of a feel.

FFG Star Wars combat doesn't follow 4e's paradigm, but it has a similar kind of structure. It's very much an "escalating risk as your resources and options slowly shrink, until you're forced to act boldly or abandon your intentions."

Its hit points + fatigue points + critical hit chart makes it so that nearly every combat action has a result of some kind. You're always shifting the narrative of combat, even just a little, on nearly every throw of the dice. The way the player resource pools + abilities + triggers based on advantageous dice rolling makes it so that in an even fight, the winning side really comes down to who can best utilize their strengths in the situation. If two sides are just fighting an evenly matched pitched battle, eventually it comes to a point where resources are depleted, the enemy is about to break through your defenses / strategy, and you're going to have to do something bold and innovative in response, or else you'd better just retreat and live to fight another day.

It's a really interesting sort of combat dynamic. It's very, very different from D&D. It's very different from Savage Worlds. It's very different from Ironsworn. In play it totally reminded me of the emotional swings watching Han try to fight his way into the shield bunker in Return of the Jedi, or the gold heist in Season 1 of Andor.

Some things go right, but lots of obstacles crop up along the way, and hard choices have to get made. FFG Star Wars combat has this same kind of distinct tug of war going on. How much do you risk? How far do you let your resources dwindle until you have to break out of the current state of battle and do something to turn the tide?

*Edit -- In retrospect, one of the things FFG Star Wars does well is telegraph when an opponent's grasp of victory is about to slip away. The overall tenor of a fight follows fairly closely with what the characters involved would be experiencing. It creates an interesting in-game narrative, where the game results are correlating one-to-one with the thought process of the character or NPC. "Man, this is getting away from me. If I don't get out of my current result loop, we're going to lose and probably get captured or worse."

This also creates an interesting dynamic because Star Wars combat isn't necessarily considered to be "to the death." Surrender and capture, bargaining, and retreat are all presented in the source fiction as being viable ways of handling a battle rather than just simply slugging it out.

 

[pemerton]

@innerdude

I've not played that RPG (it's a version of Genesys? a game enging I know for featuring funky dice, but not much beyond that). But I definitely found your characterisation of it very interesting!

 

[pemerton]

I genuinely have no idea what you are responding to.

I was responding to this:

I hope someone makes a cool pbta SW game for y’all where resolution isn’t about individual actions and their success or failure, but for me, that isn’t in the same Galaxy as what I want from a Star Wars game.

<snip>

D&D is a better fit for SW than the most narrative of pbta games, and D&D isnt a great fit.

Maybe the "of" was meant to read "or"? I still don't know what is meant by "narrative or pbta games", but I think a gritty simulationist system a la RuneQuest or Rolemaster is not fit for purpose for Star Wars at all.

Apart from anything else, one thing that should make a big difference in Star Wars is degree of emotional investment by the character in the situation. D&D doesn't do this, and nor do the gritty simulationist games. PbtA can do it - via the constraint this generates on moves - and so can plenty of other non-sim-type RPGs.

I've often thought that a version of Prince Valiant would be very good for Star Wars, except that you'd need to work out how to incorporate the Force, and I don't think that would be a trivial design problem.