[Interest Check] Adventures in the Black Spire Outpost

[iamtim]

Hi there.

I'm looking to start up a Star Wars game, set between the end of Return of the Jedi and the beginning of The Force Awakens. Essentially, the Empire and the Sith have been largely destroyed (there are Imperial holdouts and warlords spread across the galaxy, but the New Republic generally has a handle on them) and the Jedi are all but non-existent (some hold out hope that they will return, but the last known Jedi has gone into hiding).

It would be set initially on Batuu's Black Spire Outpost. Once a popular stopping point for those heading out to the Unknown Regions, the Black Spire Outpost lost popularity with the advent of hyperspace routes. However, eyes are starting to once again look to the Outpost as a very organized Imperial remnant calling itself the First Order has come out of the Unknown Regions and established itself on Batuu. The New Republic has responded by secretly establishing a base of "resistance" fighters on Batuu to keep an eye on the First Order and their activities in the Outpost.

I'm a very "play to find out" GM, so initially I have no preset conceptions of the game beyond that. Players could be mercenaries, working for whoever pays the highest, they could be aligned with or operatives of either of the factions, they could be spies of one faction keeping tabs on the other, or something else I haven't listed here. My only caveat is that I don't want to deal with PvP.

I would like to run this using White Star, a really cool, rules-light, old-school style RPG based on Swords & Wizardry/0E D&D. I don't see that in the game listing when I try to make the game, but I'll figure out what I need to do there. If I even can, LOL.

Anyway, that's my pitch.

 

Edited September 24, 2023 by iamtim (see edit history)

[Jedaii]

Looks like a great pitch 😃 Count me interested in this 👍

[Malkavian Grin]

Interesting concept. I'd love to see what White Star has to offer (and I'm no stranger to running Star Wars in systems not specifically designed for it).

However, I don't touch anything even resembling the Disney stuff. Good luck to you!

[Neopopulas]

I'm not familiar with White Star but in my experience Rules Lite is the way to go with star wars. Aside from a heavily modded d20 star wars i haven't played in a game that the rules really fit. I was in a very short lived Fate star wars game that looked like it would work out but we didn't get into a lot of mechanics, however the more loose rule-lite theme of Fate really seemed like it'd work.

It sounds like it could be fun so i'll take a look at the white star stuff.

[iamtim]

On 9/24/2023 at 4:10 PM, Malkavian Grin said:

I don't touch anything even resembling the Disney stuff.

Aw, that's a shame. Personally, I love the Disney stuff, and I grew up on Star Wars. I saw Episode IV in the back of a Pinto wagon at a drive-in. :D

 

17 hours ago, Neopopulas said:

i haven't played in a game that the rules really fit

I was originally thinking of using Fate Accelerated. That would allow Force powers quite gracefully, I think. But I just finished running several TT FAE games, and I want something that's not Fate, LOL.

White Star - being based on a 0E D&D clone - might be weird with Force powers. But I think with the situation in the game I'm going to run (set between VI and VII, Sith and Jedi are gone, but untrained Force users are still around) it might work out fine. You know, anyone Force-sensitive is learning and experimenting with the Force on their own, instead of being trained on specific paths, so it would be different. So... we'll see.

  

On 9/24/2023 at 12:04 PM, Jedaii said:

Count me interested in this

Woot! I'm putting the game together as we speak, will probably start recruiting soon.

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by iamtim (see edit history)

[Neopopulas]

I don't mind playing in Disney versions because i like to be able to sort of rework some aspects that i may not have loved.

I don't have the White Star rules but i have heard they are good so i might look around for them.

[Malkavian Grin]

2 hours ago, iamtim said:

Aw, that's a shame. Personally, I love the Disney stuff, and I grew up on Star Wars.

As did I. I suppose I should say, I don't like the movies they made.

Mandalorian is good, if basically just ripping off old westerns. Book of Boba Fett was... geez, barely a story about Boba, who then gets one-upped by Mando. Quite disappointed in that one. They done my boy dirty in Kenobi, though. That show was awful. I can't bring myself to watch anything beyond that for fear of screaming at my TV.

Perhaps if your intentions were to swerve away from everything that happens in Force Awakens, I may be interested. No planet-sized death star, no bringing back the Emperor, no breaking canon and explaining it with throwaway one-liners, etc. Obviously you can't give your plot away, but that's the only way I'd be up for this.

I'm not trying to stir the pot here. I'm just passionate about a thing I love.

[Neopopulas]

The best (new) star wars is when its star wars + something.

Rogue One: Star Wars + War Movie
Solo: Star Wars + Heist Movie
Mando: Star Wars + Western (+Wolf and Cub)

Honestly, i liked the EU more than most star wars for a lonng time, but its hit or miss itself. I really like the world of star wars but a lot of the stories themselves are a bit, not for me.. I guess.

Which is why i like RPGs set in star wars where people do their own take or have stories that aren't super connected to the movies and are kinda adjacent to canon. Star Wars feels like a property that could be very high-concept, but (with lucas addmiting as much) its incredibly black and white. I could talk about the light/dark side divide and the morality of the jedi and the influence of evil on the force for hours but the fiction really doesn't really bear it out, its supposed to be a diconomy, its supposed to be 'good vs evil', there isn't supposed to be greyness in there, you're either a good guy or a bad guy when it comes to that sort of thing (i guess Solo gets a pass?)

Also i've found that star wars fans have very strong opinions about how stuff works in-universe that also means doing some custom/AU/non-canon/main story adjacent stuff is always best. Because any time you have a canon plot point or character or organisation its rife for complaints.

For example i have opinions about the jedi that would for SURE upset some people lol, or how i feel about how the force works, or midiclorians or any number of things, so its always great when you get to play in a more loose star wars world where you can do and say things that might not be 'official canon' but no one cares because the setting might not be tied strongly enough to something for anyone in the game to care. If the jedi temple doesn't exist and you just have force sensitive people, then i can say anything i want about the force and no one will 'um akshually' me because no one in-game knows different.

My special brand of neurodiversity means I could info-dump for hours about my opinions on star wars, some of which people would not agree with lol. But i try and keep my passion under control.

[cailano]

On 9/24/2023 at 4:10 PM, Malkavian Grin said:

Interesting concept. I'd love to see what White Star has to offer (and I'm no stranger to running Star Wars in systems not specifically designed for it).

However, I don't touch anything even resembling the Disney stuff. Good luck to you!

I was pretty impressed with the Mandalorian. Not so much with the most recent movies. Andor and Ashoka are both on my watchlist, tho.

Was Rogue One one of the Disney Star Wars movies? That one was really good.

[Malkavian Grin]

14 minutes ago, cailano said:

I was pretty impressed with the Mandalorian. Not so much with the most recent movies. Andor and Ashoka are both on my watchlist, tho.

Was Rogue One one of the Disney Star Wars movies? That one was really good.

Oh yeah, Ahsoka came out already didn't it? People keep talking Andor up and down which just makes me hesitant to watch it. I have a thing where I don't like to watch/play stuff if it gets hyped up.

Yeah, Rogue One was by Disney. Surprisingly well done. But then Solo was as well and that felt... well... not great.

[Neopopulas]

Andor is once again barely a star wars show and thats why its good, in my opinion. It skips a lot of the classic tropes - and uses other ones instead.

Ahsoka is good, but i feel like you get more out of it if you were into the clone wars cartoons, which i wasn't. It has a lot of callbacks to people and things that i miss and have to look up. Its well acted (mostly) and the action is good (mostly) but i think i'm missing some context. Its quality, but its very star wars.

[iamtim]

Thanks for all the discussion. I've been dragging my feet on the game because I was having to really retrofit White Star to do the Force like I wanted, so I've decided to switch systems. I was originally going to run using the old WEG Star Wars system, but I've found a really cool streamlining/modification of that system called HyperspaceD6 I'm going to use. I'm working on getting the game up and running now, and will probably formally open it for players soon.