Musing on Star Wars themes in RPG

[Bill Zebub]

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.

I keep re-reading these two sentences, trying to make sense of them.

Certainly many people have a high degree of emotional investment in their characters, but you specifically say it's the character's emotional investment in the situation. Which I take to mean some kind of mechanic that is tied to specifics about the character's mindset/background/disposition. And based on what you've written about other games, that makes sense to me.

The thing I'm curious about is why you think this is especially important in a Star Wars game?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I was responding to this:


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.

Gritty simulation isn’t systems are…not something I want anything to do with, to put it kindly.

And no, it’s “of” on purpose. I still have no idea what is confusing to you about that phrase, so I can’t really clarify it.

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.

Eh I think I would probably strongly dislike the SW game that you would like.

I do agree that emotional investment should play a role, though. Just as long as it isn’t in a “the player has no control over this” way. A meta-currency would definitely work.

My first thought, either in this thread or another, was to use the Cypher system for Star Wars. I mostly know the new Old Gods game, having bounced off Numenara’s setting hard, but the Descriptor/Type/Focus setup is good, cyphers are great mechanically for devices, your lightsaber or cool ship “coming due” fits, and the way Story Arcs work fits.

My next thought is hacking The One Ring, and then I’ve floated the idea of fitd as a base, with elements of much of the above woven in.

 

[DevL]

Dave Thaumavore made a video on Scum & Villainy and its hackability regarding turning it into a Star Wars RPG. I’m inclined to agree that it would be a good fit.

 

[pemerton]

I still have no idea what is confusing to you about that phrase, so I can’t really clarify it.

I think I have worked out that you are using "narrative" as an adjective - the most narrative of pbta games would be the pbta game that exhibits the property of being narrative to the highest degree.

I still don't know what you mean, as I don't know what "narrative" means as an adjective of RPGs, nor what it means to exhibit it to the highest degree.

I keep re-reading these two sentences, trying to make sense of them.

Certainly many people have a high degree of emotional investment in their characters, but you specifically say it's the character's emotional investment in the situation. Which I take to mean some kind of mechanic that is tied to specifics about the character's mindset/background/disposition. And based on what you've written about other games, that makes sense to me.

The thing I'm curious about is why you think this is especially important in a Star Wars game?

Because Star Wars is particularly striking in the degree to which emotional stakes drive outcomes - contrast, say, a James Bond film or a noir film.

 

[Laurefindel]

@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!

Genesys is FFG’s game engine that they took from their Star Wars rpg and made it generic. So yes FFG’s Star Wars is like Genesys insofar as Genesys is Star Wars rpg’s child.

 

[Campbell]

So, if Narrative Game includes the like of:

• Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition
• Legend of the Five Rings 5th Edition
• Gumshoe games (Trail of Cthulhu, Swords of the Serpentine)
• FATE (Dresden, Atomic Robo, et al)
• Cortex games (Tales of Xadia, Marvel Heroic)
• Numenera
• Hillfolk
• Dogs in the Vineyard
• Story Now leaning PbtA (Masks, Monsterhearts, Apocalypse World, The Between)
• Neotrad leaning PbtA (Monster of the Week, The Sprawl)
• Classic Deadlands /2d20 games
• arguably Classic World of Darkness

Then I am personally not seeing its usefulness as a label. We're talking about a wide variety of games here that are played in incredibly different ways. There is no throughline in mechanical design, GM roles, player roles, structure of play, objective of play or even who they are designed to appeal to. It has no descriptive value because it tells us nothing about the game in question.

It might tell us what it is not - a game that does not match a highly idiosyncratic threshold for what a roleplaying game should look like which when fairly applied would exclude a fair chunk of fairly mainstream games (like Mutants and Masterminds, Savage Worlds, World of Darkness, 3e's treatment of Ebberon).

I don't think we need a word to categorize games not structured in the highly idiosyncratic way I prefer. It's actively harmful to communication because it implies a commonality that doesn't exist between widely divergent approaches to play. Swords of the Serpentine and Sorcerer have roughly as much in common as Risk and Secret Hitler.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I keep re-reading these two sentences, trying to make sense of them.

Certainly many people have a high degree of emotional investment in their characters, but you specifically say it's the character's emotional investment in the situation. Which I take to mean some kind of mechanic that is tied to specifics about the character's mindset/background/disposition. And based on what you've written about other games, that makes sense to me.

The thing I'm curious about is why you think this is especially important in a Star Wars game?

@pemerton is a huge narrative game advocate, so I would expect them to look at things from that perspective.

While it can certainly work that way, so can a lot of stories or genres or franchises if you're into that sort of thing. Not sure why Star Wars deserves a special plug in that department, but it is what we're talking about.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think I have worked out that you are using "narrative" as an adjective - the most narrative of pbta games would be the pbta game that exhibits the property of being narrative to the highest degree.

I still don't know what you mean, as I don't know what "narrative" means as an adjective of RPGs, nor what it means to exhibit it to the highest degree.

Because Star Wars is particularly striking in the degree to which emotional stakes drive outcomes - contrast, say, a James Bond film or a noir film.

Like I said, it can work, but I see no reason to squeeze every story with an emotional component into the storygame box. You don't need mechanics for that stuff for every game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So, if Narrative Game includes the like of:

• Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition
• Legend of the Five Rings 5th Edition
• Gumshoe games (Trail of Cthulhu, Swords of the Serpentine)
• FATE (Dresden, Atomic Robo, et al)
• Cortex games (Tales of Xadia, Marvel Heroic)
• Numenera
• Hillfolk
• Dogs in the Vineyard
• Story Now leaning PbtA (Masks, Monsterhearts, Apocalypse World, The Between)
• Neotrad leaning PbtA (Monster of the Week, The Sprawl)
• Classic Deadlands /2d20 games
• arguably Classic World of Darkness

Then I am personally not seeing its usefulness as a label. We're talking about a wide variety of games here that are played in incredibly different ways. There is no throughline in mechanical design, GM roles, player roles, structure of play, objective of play or even who they are designed to appeal to. It has no descriptive value because it tells us nothing about the game in question.

It might tell us what it is not - a game that does not match a highly idiosyncratic threshold for what a roleplaying game should look like which when fairly applied would exclude a fair chunk of fairly mainstream games (like Mutants and Masterminds, Savage Worlds, World of Darkness, 3e's treatment of Ebberon).

I don't think we need a word to categorize games not structured in the highly idiosyncratic way I prefer. It's actively harmful to communication because it implies a commonality that doesn't exist between widely divergent approaches to play. Swords of the Serpentine and Sorcerer have roughly as much in common as Risk and Secret Hitler.

Well, I've only heard of about half of those games, but I would classify nearly all of them as narrative games or storygames (except Classic Deadlands, not sure why that's in there). All of them use mechanical means to enforce emotional action or push narrative outside of the game setting. I'm sure they do play differently, but so do Rifts and AD&D 1e, both of which I would classify as "traditional" (in the non-Six Cultures sense of that word) RPGs, along with a host of others that differ greatly in basic play from those you listed.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think I have worked out that you are using "narrative" as an adjective - the most narrative of pbta games would be the pbta game that exhibits the property of being narrative to the highest degree.

I still don't know what you mean, as I don't know what "narrative" means as an adjective of RPGs, nor what it means to exhibit it to the highest degree.

Narrative as an adjective simply means “representing a story” in a general sense. In a game context, I only ever see confusion about its use here on enworld, really.

To be more narrative, a game is less simulationist, less focused on giving characters a world to run around in and traits and features to allow them to do whatever they want in a system that tests very individual actions, Monster of The Week is more Narrative than d20 Modern. 4e D&D is arguably more narrative than 5e D&D.

More narrative games often (but this isn’t absolutely necessary) focus resolution mechanics on something other than success or failure of actions. Like the post upthread wherein someone suggested that SW characters should be taking an action to accomplish a goal like “clear the building”, not breaking that goal into actions and resolving each in turn.

My point, is that IMO Star Wars is a terrible fit for that sort of play, and wants instead for the resolution of individual tests of skill, dedication, focus, power, etc to resolve individual actions.

Because Star Wars is particularly striking in the degree to which emotional stakes drive outcomes - contrast, say, a James Bond film or a noir film.

Yes, agreed. And the Players should drive that using some sort of resource or mechanical lever with a chance of complication, or the like.