Musing on Star Wars themes in RPG

[pemerton]

"Luminous beings are we! Not this crude matter!" Master Yoda, Ep V

"Judge me by size, do you? And well you should not - for my ally is The Force."

(That's from memory - I hope it's not too far off.)

One reason why I don't think a Size attribute is a particularly good fit for Star Wars. "A little short for a Stormtrooper" is colour, not an attempt to judge how well Luke will do at actions requiring strength or physique.

(The Wookie's ability to rip arms off is about being a Wookie, not about having 18 STR and a Powerful Build feature.)

 

[aramis erak]

"Judge me by size, do you? And well you should not - for my ally is The Force."

(That's from memory - I hope it's not too far off.)

One reason why I don't think a Size attribute is a particularly good fit for Star Wars. "A little short for a Stormtrooper" is colour, not an attempt to judge how well Luke will do at actions requiring strength or physique.

(The Wookie's ability to rip arms off is about being a Wookie, not about having 18 STR and a Powerful Build feature.)

Cut-off mid paragraph, but close enough. You missed the "Hmm???" parts.

I concur on the size element to a point. Ewoks, Jawas, Yoda and Groghu are hard to hit because of their size. Yoda is also hard to hit because, when in battle mode, he's bouncier than a basketball. And Groghu is hard to hit also because he's got this psycho in armor who tries to protect him.

But, how size is used in BRP? not so good a fit.

 

[Bill Zebub]

(The Wookie's ability to rip arms off is about being a Wookie, not about having 18 STR and a Powerful Build feature.)

Exactly.

 

[innerdude]

The greatest missed opportunity of eps. 7-9 was to not explore themes relating to the idea of, "Okay great, we've created the New Republic. Now how do we avoid becoming the thing we had to destroy to get here?"

 

[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!

It helped a great deal that I had been exposed to Dungeon World and especially Ironsworn before getting into it. I was much more easily able to come at the FFG narrative dice system from a more open minded place and accept it on its own merits.

It was instantly apparent that FFG has a similar GM ethos as Ironsworn, even if the base mechanics are different.

It was easy to see the parallels in mindset and techniques, and how the FFG system was very much designed to work best with strong player input and collaboration.

What was most surprising to me was how much I enjoyed going back to a more traditional hit point + fatigue point + critical hit combat system that still runs largely in theater of the mind.

I was absolutely not expecting to enjoy the combat system as much as I did. It really does straddle an interesting line between traditional and narrative spaces.

 

[Celebrim]

Other than Andor/Rogue One, which are both very different from other Star Wars properties...

Ironically though, Andor/Rogue One might be the most like an RPG experience, since they don't focus on unusually powerful "chosen ones" and instead focus on smaller scale heroes doing important but smaller scale heroics. As such, they also lend themselves to more variety in story telling than forever trying to recreate the Vader/Luke story arc.

I'd also point to "Jedi: Fallen Order" and "Star Wars: Dark Forces" and many of the Legends era books and video games such as "Star Wars: X-Wing Fighter" and "Star Wars: Tie Fighter" and the "Rogue Squadron" novels as examples of embracing a more gameable aesthetic than the original "single special person" aesthetic of the principal movies.

Even aside from the fact that once you've established a "chosen one" it prevents replicating that with dozens of chosen ones in the same setting, games and especially RPGs are meant to be social affairs where no one character is special.

 

[Celebrim]

The greatest missed opportunity of eps. 7-9 was to not explore themes relating to the idea of, "Okay great, we've created the New Republic. Now how do we avoid becoming the thing we had to destroy to get here?"

Also, "Okay great, now we can establish a new academy for Light Side users. Now how to we avoid making the same mistakes as the Jedi did that brought us to this point?"

I was never a fan of the Legends material, but they did a better job with those two questions than the sequels did.