Who Should Make The Next Star Wars TTRPG, And What Should It Look Like?

[Micah Sweet]

It cannot be stressed how important this is. If you don't love everything that Star Wars is, I don't trust you with making a fun game based on the property.

I also think that this is the right way to go. And there genuinely hasn't really been a Star Wars TTRPG that has really managed to capture this feeling, not even the OG d6, as much as I loved and still love it. That said...

Yeah, I'm not a fan of FATE at all. I don't know if it's a thing that flows more smoothly over time the more you get used to it, but I found it so incredibly clunky and absurdly crunchy for a "narrative-focused" game.

This I can't get behind, though; give me story and style over basically anything else. I'm too old and life (and the extremely limited amount of time I have to game) is too short to worry about anything than having fun with my friends while they get to do a bunch of extremely cool stuff, and that's basically Star Wars.

That's not to say I don't think there's not room for a crunchy Star Wars TTRPG experience; just that, as you say, there's plenty enough of that as it is out there, so those looking for that can "stick with what [they've] got". SW5e in particular I think perfectly captures that feel.

My default answer to "who should develop [X game]" is generally going to be Mongoose, but their games also tend to get a little too thick around the fiddly bits. Still, I'd love to see them get a shot at it anyway.

Well, I'm old too (50 in a couple days), but having fun with my friends isn't the only enjoyment I get out of the hobby, or even my primary one in practice and temperament. I really feel mechanics are best used to model the physical setting and it's bits and pieces. Roleplay and genre should IMO be mostly left to the players and the GM to handle as the group sees fit.

 

[Micah Sweet]

My gut feeling is that a Star Wars game should lean in a neotrad direction. Creating a specific character concept is really important in a Star Wars game, and people into Star Wars are also people for whom details generally matter. They want a carbine to feel different from a blaster pistol in play, and see a mechanical difference between Soresu and Ataru lightsaber forms.

Also, most Star Wars characters tend to be variations on a theme (soldier, bounty hunter, mechanic, pilot, Jedi, droid, etc.), and there's an appreciable difference in capability between powerful characters (Darth Vader, the Mandalorian) and common mooks. It's definitely the genre where the hoary old class/level system is actually pretty fitting.

If I had to look for a current game that has a lot of character build options but also leans towards allowing drama and big plot moments, I'd use Fabula Ultima as a base template for a Star Wars game.

Neotrad as a general concept for some games is something I could get behind. It could work for Star Wars I think. But like I said, I basically have that with Level Up.

 

[Gradine]

It's a great system...from a certain point of view.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Same feeling. It tries to sell itself as smooth but it ends up being crunchy. Its like they labeled the jar of peanut butter wrong.

The problem I have at times with SW as a tabletop game is that the different character types really don't play together. It's not a balanced story. It can't be a balanced game unless you start coming up with tons of guard rails on the fly to explain why someone can't do what they want to do because they've seen it in all the movies and shows. Trying to reconcile all the different stuff everyone can do on the same field becomes a exercise in nonsense once anyone progresses unless you either have no rules beyond flipping quarters or "feels" or unless you're willing to accept that your level 13/13 fighter/wizard is taking some level 1 hobbit rogues to fight level 0 goblin commoners because, while he could just fireball everyone, he'd rather delegate those tasks so the hobbits can feel a little better that day about being hobbits.

PC Balance is IMO less important in the modeling rules than a lot of folks say. That area should I think be handled mostly at the table level, and let the rules be as accurate as is practical with the actual modeling of features.

 

[Reynard]

It's a great system...from a certain point of view.

Honestly, I think it's a pretty good system that is poorly explained, and I completely understand people not liking it. The modern permutations have gotten progressively cleaner and better, but there are still mechanics of it that aren't as elegant as they could be (the Fate-point economy and stress tracks, primarily). Plus, much like "Feats" of D&D, "Stunt" terminology rubs me the wrong way. Feats and Stunts are something you do, not an ability you have...

PbtA occupies a similar design space, but I would consider that a mediocre game that is abysmally explained.

I love Fate but it is definitely more difficult to on-board people than it should be. More and more I think that the best route is to start with Fate Accelerated to get them used to the core mechanics and Asapects, then you can move on to more complex games like Core or Dresden.

 

[TwoSix]

I feel like this is a little too much of a generalization, and for lots of people Star Wars is far more vibes than details.

Well yea, any direction a game would take is going to suppose a generalization about what kinds of game the fan base likes. That's just an unfortunate consequence of making decisions!

I feel like what you mean is that my generalization is in the wrong direction compared to your generalization.

 

[Deset Gled]

I feel like this is a little too much of a generalization, and for lots of people Star Wars is far more vibes than details.

Counterpoint: Wookiepedia.

IMNSHO, Star Wars is the poster child for why "rules light" and "narrative focused" isn't a gaming panacea. If there was ever a fandom that screamed for crunch, details, and complicated subsystems, Star Wars is it. There is no silver-bullet unified mechanic that can distill everything from giant space ships, magical superheroes, cyber hacking, WWII dogfighting, sword fights, espionage, guerilla gunfights, international politics, and social arguments into a single die roll and be satisfying for all of them.

Embrace the power of the complexity. Let it flow through you. Then, and only then, will your Star Wars RPG training be complete.

 

[timbannock]

Something rules-light, written by people who genuinely enjoy all thee trilogies and th ancillary stuff. It should worry much about grognards like, say, me; we can fem for ourselves. Th target audience should be th people of the latter 2020s who are enjoying Star Wars now, first and foremost.

With that in mind…throwing money at Shawn Tomkin for a customized, refined Starforged would be nice. A lightweight version of 2d20 or Year Zero would be nice. A super-stripped BRP with no skills but with personality traits and passions would be nice. Something like that.

For that matter, an updated d6 system that deals with scaling problems and makes the main characters’ level accessible would be nice.

Stockholm Kartell, so we can have Star Borg.

But seriously, I figure the only companies that could afford that license would be the big ones. So that would be, what, Wizards, Paizo, or Modiphius.

Yo, Star Borg is right there! And it's really good. And it has a full-length adventure, an expansion zine, and two more expansion zines in the pipeline.

Okay, I'll admit the "you're the rebel grunts and you could die in 1-2 hits" is maybe not what most people think of when they think of Star Wars, but Star Borg is actually a lot more forgiving than many other Borg games. You can see it in how JP and Kyle streamlined some of the rules, mostly removing a lot of the penalizing states: heavy armor isn't constricting; there is no "negative HP" state, etc. The Broken table isn't quite as deadly as people make it out to be, but more importantly reframing the Broken table is dirt simple; just come up with different results that feel more Star Wars-y: options could be getting captured, getting stunned or knocked out, breaking an item, losing a hand (because that's the only limb main characters can lose, it seems), or having a minor ally (droid, grunt, etc.) get critically wounded.

Plus it nails starship combat by keeping it entirely balanced around personal combat: PCs take "stations" on their ship, and their HP is what's tracked, not some nebulous number for their ship. Therefore, enemy ships are built the same as normal enemies, and you just have a Scale Dice rule for when you interact with stuff on a different scale.

I've actually worked on two different Cortex takes on Star Wars, and while that system can nail some of the interpersonal drama really well, Star Borg gets the fast and furious combat just right. With the smallest of tweaks it can very easily feel a lot more heroic, too.

 

[Reynard]

Counterpoint: Wookiepedia.

IMNSHO, Star Wars is the poster child for why "rules light" and "narrative focused" isn't a gaming panacea. If there was ever a fandom that screamed for crunch, details, and complicated subsystems, Star Wars is it. There is no silver-bullet unified mechanic that can distill everything from giant space ships, magical superheroes, cyber hacking, WWII dogfighting, sword fights, espionage, guerilla gunfights, international politics, and social arguments into a single die roll and be satisfying for all of them.

Embrace the power of the complexity. Let it flow through you. Then, and only then, will your Star Wars RPG training be complete.

Well yea, any direction a game would take is going to suppose a generalization about what kinds of game the fan base likes. That's just an unfortunate consequence of making decisions!

I feel like what you mean is that my generalization is in the wrong direction compared to your generalization.

I think it is a mistake to assume the most fervent fans represent the majority of fans. 99.9% of Star Wars fans do not edit Wookiepedia, and 99.8% of them have never even gone to the site.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think it is a mistake to assume the most fervent fans represent the majority of fans. 99.9% of Star Wars fans do not edit Wookiepedia, and 99.8% of them have never even gone to the site.

Does a TTRPG have to be made for the majority of fans, at least, completely so?