GenCon - Living Force

[SJ]

==no spoilers here==

I'd be interested in hearing comments from anyone who played the Living Force (Star Wars d20) games at GenCon last week.

I played them, and didn't think they were the best, but I got that distinct taste of LucasFilm's ham-handed involvement in the storyline, such that I might retire my character.

Did I over-react? Anyone else have a thought?

SJ

 

[VirtualWizard]

I played the 3 Below the Belt adventures at GEN Con. I thought that the only commonality between the adventures was that they all occurred in the Cularin asteroid belt. The three adventures didn't seem related to each other, though there may have been some back story that the GM(s) didn't convey. It seemed to me that we were on a roller-coater ride and our interactions amounted to nil. Everything seemed scripted with only one possible outcome.
The last in the series was probably the weakest of the bunch. I thought that there was a lot of information that was missing. (And yes we did search for it). At the end of the adventure, I thought "Okay GM fiat. Let's get on with this and go to the next adventure." I realize that the Living Force campaign needed to move to the latest edition of Star Wars D20, but I don't think that they needed to have such a monumental event surrounding it.
Also, I thought that these adventures were force user heavy. In that, you needed to have a force user with the Sense feat to learn some of the important information. Otherwise, you have to take a guess and hope for the best.
However on a better note, I enjoyed playing the adventures with my fellow gamers. I thought that the people I played with made the adventures enjoyable. Especially the 2nd in the series. Lots of roleplaying in that one.

 

[SJ]

I guess if I'm gonna play LF, I'll have to get used to the fact that character actions don't affect the storyline, but that LFL does.

Pardon the pun, but the stories all feel a little "forced" I like the setting and the game, I just wish we got to *do* more somehow.

I also agree about force users. In fact, I'd say the last 4 mods I've played pretty much "force" (this is getting sad) people toward force-senstive characters. I know, I know, SW is all about the force, but only 3 classes out of 8 or so have force powers.

Part 2 was actually kinda fun roleplaying that out. My group wasn't the best ever but we had a good time with it I think.

SJ

 

[VirtualWizard]

Last year at GEN Con, I played the Clouds of Genarius series. I thought that those adventures had a strong theme binding them together. Also, I felt that accomplishing the missions was important and that failure would have drastic consequences. I felt that my contributions were important to the storyline. The Below the Belt series didn't convey the same flavor. Oh well.