Five years ago, after a long hiatus, I finally returned to one of the things that gives me great joy: creating stories as a Game Master. Nothing thrills me more than being with good friends and weaving a tale together that is set in the universe of Star Wars. It had been almost 10 years for me since I last sat behind the GM screen. The closest thing to an RPG that I had played during that time had been Star Wars: The Old Republic, and, frankly that doesn’t really count. In this article, I want to share with you my foray back into Star Wars roleplaying using the Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) system.
During my time away from the GM role, Star Wars Saga Edition came and went with hardly a whimper in my world. Don’t get me wrong. I thought it was a wonderful system and what D&D 4th Edition should have been. I collected all of the books, wrote down ideas, and made some characters and NPC’s. And I promptly liquidated it all for store credit once FFG’s new games were announced.
At 50 years old, I could probably be called a Grognard, but that would be a mistake. I don’t cling stubbornly to the Old Ways. I’m “down with change”, as my kids might say. Graying Fatbeard? I have little gray and no beard and let’s just leave it at that. I blame my weight gain on the comforts of a long marriage and an aversion to running when I don’t have someone yelling at me to do so. In college however I was in Army ROTC, ran just about every day, and kept my hair high-and-tight. I was the guy that always ran a Paladin in AD&D and one of my gaming buddies even referred to me as “The Paladin.” But the nickname with my gaming friends that stuck was “Dobie” after the main character after the old television show Dobie Gillis. There was a passing resemblance, but I was really too devious as a GM to be thought of quite as wholesome as he was. I can’t repeat the names my players sometimes called me.
And I threw myself into the d20 version of the Star Wars RPG as much as I did with d6 or anything else in my life including AD&D. I introduced the members of my old d6 campaign to d20 Star Wars during a weekend at my house as I had moved away and the Fellowship was broken. We got together during a quasi-annual event we had dubbed “Dobie-Con.” Basically, 8-10 guys sleeping on couches and floors and gaming as much as they could over a weekend with my wife’s blessing; she understood that I wanted to stay in contact with my college friends. Everybody chipped in some cash and we stocked the kitchen with coolers of drinks, snacks, and food. My wife kept out a table of cookies, fruit, and nacho fixings all the time. We only had one real meal around the table and that was a steak dinner with all the trimmings.
At Dobie-Con 2.0 (Actually the 3rd Dobie-Con; we had two during the previous year and the second had been just an overnight event which we dubbed Dobie-Con 1.5.) I introduced my old group to the d20 Star Wars system. Everyone had fun, but there were issues with the system and I’m not going to get bogged down into an analysis of it. It wasn’t enough to convert them from d6 and our campaign was still very alive for everyone, and we were building up to the “final act.” I say final act as it was getting harder and harder to gather everyone together. Jobs and marriages were taking us to multiple states. Two of my college friends lived near me in the St. Louis area and we did play both d6 and d20 Star Wars for about six years. We added three other friends and played a couple of times a month with new campaigns. Eventually, my career took me away from St. Louis and I sold off all of my RPG materials: Star Wars, AD&D, GURP’s, Vampire the Masquerade, etc.
During Saga’s run, I had few opportunities to play and missed my window. With the advent of SWTOR, I succumbed to the lure of an MMO and didn’t think I’d ever get back to tabletop RPG’s. Then I discovered FFG and the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Beta and I became excited to GM Star Wars again. In September of 2014, I found myself visiting southeast Missouri for several days and I called some of the guys from the old group to pull as many of them together as I could to play Star Wars. The first one I reached was Larry and I knew he would be willing to try Edge of the Empire as long as he was available. I told him I wanted to game on the Saturday afternoon and evening when I was in town and I needed his help to rally the group. He was excited by the opportunity to play Star Wars again, but commented that he wasn’t sure if he knew where his d6 character sheet was. I told him I wanted to try Edge and he thought that would be cool, but wondered what I had in mind for the campaign setting.
I told him that I wanted everyone to re-imagine their old characters in the new system. It was going to be a reboot of our d6 Team Maverick Campaign à la J. J. Abrams; familiar characters and locations, but not the same universe. I wanted to catch everyone as brand new adventurers living on the Fringe and, much like my old campaign, not have them start as members of the Rebellion.
He and I contacted several guys from the old group; Gary (aka Gus), Chris (aka Mookie), and Scott. Of those three, only Chris was available that day. Larry’s wife, Heather, would be our third player as she had played in my secondary d6 campaign for a number of years. Finally, Larry invited a Pathfinder friend of his named Tim to join us and he was the fourth PC.
On the appointed day, I was driving over to Larry’s house to run my first session using the FFG rules and I was feeling anxiety. A nagging thought was stuck in my head and that thought was: “You aren’t ready.”I didn’t feel ready and I wanted everything to be perfect. It was not that I had never made a mistake as a GM. I’ve made plenty. That infamous Star Wars/Star Trek crossover I did once still carries a big mark of personal shame for me. But I did not feel prepared and I wanted to cancel the game.
I had only a thread of an idea ready for play and I was going to tie it into a pre-generated adventure. I had finished reading 90% of the EotE Core Rulebook. I wasn’t entirely certain I understood the narrative dice. In my younger days I was able to rattle off numbers about the crew complement of an Imperial Star Destroyer, knew the stats of Stormtroopers by heart, knew the difficulty chart and number ranges without looking, etc. Here I was less than an hour from game time and still trying to remember how combat works, how weapon qualities activate, etc.
But I had made a commitment to my friends and I continued on my way. The worst case scenario was that I struggled with the rules, they got frustrated with the rules, and it was a one-time-and-done game session. All I can say now in hindsight is that I have great friends. My anxiety was such a load of nerf dung. Once I was seated at the end of the table in Larry and Heather’s basement it just felt right. I was there with my friends who know me better than anyone. We’ve supported each other through ups and downs for over 20 years, and I knew that they were excited to play Star Wars again.
My players came up with the following for their characters:
Chris aka Mookie – Mookbacca (aka Mookie), a young-adult male Wookiee from Kashyyyk. After being captured by slavers, Mookbacca managed to break free and escape at one of their ports-of-call. He made his way to Tatooine where his strength and ferocity made him an easy hire for Teemo the Hutt. He was assigned to the crew of The Gilded Mynock, a light freighter making low-profile smuggling runs for Teemo. A being of few words, he prefers to wade into combat swinging his fists or his deadly vibro-ax. (Career – Hired Gun; Specialization – Marauder; Motivation – Freedom)
Tim – Zorushaa, a Chiss female from the Unknown Regions. Little is known of how this young Chiss came to be on Tatooine and she is not too talkative with her new companions. Suffice it to say that her loyalties, for now, lie with the Chiss Ascendancy and whatever mission they have given her in the fringes of the Galactic Empire. While on Tatooine, she has been entrusted to pilot The Gilded Mynock for Teemo the Hutt. (Career – Explorer; Specialization – Scout; Motivation – Ambition)
Heather – Neza L’lic, a Twi’Lek female from Ryloth. Freed from a life of servitude to her own uncle, Neza has left Ryloth and is now plying the space lanes to find others like her and help them to escape the chains of enslavement which often find the females of her species. Full of charm, with an underlying layer of grit, Neza is determined to never be a victim again. She too found employment with Teemo the Hutt as co-pilot and face for the crew of The Gilded Mynock. (Career – Smuggler; Specialization – Scoundrel; Motivation – Freedom and Wanderlust)
Larry – G’nash Endlighter, a human male from Coruscant. Shunning the privileged lifestyle of his parents, G’nash set out for adventure the easiest way he knew how; he secretly applied to the Imperial Military Academy on Carida and shipped off. The young man quickly made his mark at the Academy; within the first week he punched a superior officer and found himself facing assault charges and imprisonment. Highly resourceful, G’nash escaped from Carida as a stowaway on an outbound shuttle and added desertion to the charges against him. Arriving at Kuat, he made contact with the crew of The Gilded Mynock and booked passage for Tatooine. (Career – Bounty Hunter; Specialization – Gadgeteer; Motivation – Cause)
We began playing the Escape From Mos Shuuta scenario from the Edge of the Empire Beginner Game in that first session. In Part 2 of this article, I will describe how I worked these characters into that adventure and share some of the things we discovered together about the FFG system. It was a learning experience and one that we all enjoyed!
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