Monday, May 11, 2015

the oddity of order

Finally managed to get the guys together for our Star-Wars mini-campaign.

In this scenario, the players are Stormtroopers who find themselves on a certain moon of Endor. While scouting for rebel spies in the forests, they fall foul of the local wildlife.

The initial idea was to make a sort of StarWars Survival-Horror, where we get to learn how really terrifying Ewoks are. I was going a sort of Apocalypse Now/Deliverance/Fantasy Fuckin' Viet Nam thing.
 
In practice, however, the ewoks are getting slaughtered. They can hardly even touch the player characters in their trooper armor (which is actually effective in the SWRPG) Also, the trooper's energy weapons tend to simply mow down ewoks.
"When the only damage is from friendly fire..."
Who would have thought? Certainly not George Lucas.
 
The golden moment of this game thus far was when one player observed that everything cute was trying to kill them. I looked at the bestiary I had prepared with the help of wookiepedia, and realized that this was essentially true. I literally ROFLed.
 
Nonetheless, I am having a very different sort of experience running this game as opposed to the typical D&D setup:
 
For one, The PCs are in the military. They take orders. Within reason, this allows me more direct influence over them, as compared to the footloose eternal-European-vacation setup of the average D&D adventurers. I feel very odd actually using this influence, but am finding it almost necessary. It has been suggested that I show less restraint with this power.
 
Also, they have technology. Helmet-Radios, computer networks.
I even let them have a probe droid to follow them around. I figured it wasn't star-wars unless you had a droid sidekick for comic relief.
Basically, this gives the players access to information which simply would not be available in a medieval fantasy setting. Heck, I even mentioned the unofficial wiki page maintained by Imperial troopers. I retconned the internet into StarWars. I am surprised they have not used this to completely defuse the situation.
As a result, if they want to know something, they don't have to trek overland for however many days to find some sort of sage. They can just radio in. And this keeps them out of all sorts of trouble.
 
All in all, there is an unusual amount of order and stability and predictability in this scenario. But the players have seen the movie and know the other shoe is about to drop. 
 
Meanwhile, the 2d10 thing is still working pretty well.

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