What If ... Vader Had Turned Leia?

Image Source: http://philnoto.tumblr.com/post/6970738677/leia-skywalker-dark-lord-of-the-sith-just-a

I love "What if...?" stories. Especially the ones that look at well trod ground in new ways. Some of the best comic book limited series have come from these grounds, stories like Superman: Red Son, Kingdom Come, and Age of Apocalypse. I don't know yet if this'll become a "thing" but I had an idea and I needed to write about it, hopefully some of my readers will enjoy it. 

In the weeks before the Battle of Yavin Darth Vader had begun to feel a disturbance in the Force. It was weak at first, but slowly and steadily it gained in power. When he came face to face with Junior Senator Leia Organa on board the Tantive IV that feeling came to a head. He recognized in young Leia something of her mother and in searching the Force learned the truth of her parentage.

On board the Death Star as the Sith lord saw to the interrogation of the suspected rebel collaborator Vader saw an opportunity. He awoke Leia to the Force and tempted her with knowledge of her birth mother. When Tarkin ordered her death Vader intervened and removed her from the Death Star to his personal retreat, claiming to Tarkin that further interrogation was needed, and telling Leia that he desired her aid in destroying the Emperor.

With Vader and Leia no longer on board Luke, Han, Chewie, and Obi-wan were able to escape the Death Star and the Battle of Yavin went similarly to the established history. Without Leia to draw out the better part of him Han turned his back on the Rebellion and never returned, but without Vader present Luke was still able to make the shot and destroy the Death Star.

With time Vader wore down Leia, slowly drawing her to the dark side in secret while elsewhere in the galaxy Obi-wan, with a little help from Yoda, once more took it upon himself to train a Skywalker in the ways of the Force. Two years later the battle of Hoth ended disastrously. Luke died of exposure in the frozen wastes without Han to save him, and likewise without Han and Chewie finding the probe droid the Imperial attack was entirely the shocking ambush that Admiral Ozzel intended. Trapped on the planet, Obi-wan and forced to confront Darth Vader and Leia and was killed, but not before making Leia aware of her true relationship with Vader.

The leadership of the Rebellion was killed and the entire movement destroyed, but a wedge was driven between Vader and Leia. At first the dark princess remained loyal to Vader's ultimate goal to overthrow the Emperor and take his place with her at his side. Emboldened by their victory the pair struck the Emperor and together slew him. Leia immediately took the initiative and destroyed Vader, rising to position of Empress of the Galaxy.

How do you think it would have gone had Vader recognized his daughter on-board the Tantive IV?

Second Hand Treasures - Edge of the Empire

$10! TEN BUCKS!

Yup, my copy of Edge of the Empire is a Second Hand Treasure. I'm still a little gobsmacked to this day that I was lucky enough to find this like new copy in the store's used bin for ten measly dollars.

I trawl that used bin (really more like a set of shelves, but bin sounds so much better) frequently, about 2-3 times a month. More often than not I buy nothing, but sometimes I get lucky.  I picked this up on a "Well, shit, it's ten bucks!" mentality. I figured, if nothing else I could read the rules and see what people were talking about.

At home I gave it a skim. Later I gave it a read. It seemed simple enough. I liked the way that attributes and skills combined to form your pool in a unique way. Not just 3 dice plus 2 dice, but instead something more interesting, 3 dice then upgrade 2 of them. This system uses custom dice of course, with the upgraded dice having both more faces AND more results on them. The difficulty system was likewise innovative (at least in my experience) with dice added to your pool that had negative results, and those can be upgraded (downgraded?) into their more challenging version. And of course there are positive and negative modifier dice. It's a lot of dice to roll, and then to you have figure the symbols out, cancel out the bad with the good and find your net result. But it was certainly new (to me) and certainly different.

A lot of the rest of the book was as expected. Lists of gear and weapons and ships and ships and ships and gear and weapons and ships and creatures. But it felt very Star Wars-y to me. This led me to buy the Edge of the Empire beginner game (for $20 on discount it was by far better than $15 for a set of dice given that the dice came with it). I played that with a group of friends. I played it with a different group of friends.

I found that I wasn't comfortable enough with it to take it further. As a GM I need to feel like I have expertise, or better still mastery, over the rules system. I'm willing to accept a certain learning curve, but if I cannot gain that level of expertise I'll never feel good running the game. I knew that Edge of the Empire would need a lot of learning on a larger curve. It's crunchier than what I'd been playing.

Fast forward to now. I get an email earlier this week inviting me to a game. A Star Wars game using this very system. If all goes well the first session of this will be my ... fifth (I think) time playing FFGs version of Star Wars, and my 2nd as a player. I'm hoping that with a GM who is very comfortable with the rules I can ride part of that learning curve toward expertise. I'm hoping I have the opportunity to try out the rules for the Force that seem quite different than what has come before.

And all for a measly ten bucks.

Twin Ion Engines - An X-Wing Campaign Play Test

Image Source: http://dawnofvictory2289.deviantart.com/art/A-Day-Long-Remembered-578523559

Thanks to The Force Awakens I found myself easy target for the X-Wing Miniatures game. A 30% off sale at my FLGS (and comics emporium) resulted in a purchase of The Force Awakens core set and ... within a month things were pretty dire. I usually get a few games a month in with an old friend of mine, we split my available minis which is basically one of everything for Scum and Imperial (not counting the two Epic ships).

Recently we decided that random skirmishes were all good and fine, but we wanted something where victory mattered more, and resources were limited. So last night we sat down and hammered out some tentative rules for a campaign test as follows.

• 400 points to spend building a stable of available pilots and upgrades
• multiples of upgrades cards may be purchased, 2x limit on 0 point upgrades 
• unique pilots are unique, but multiples of generic pilots are allowed
• negative squad point title upgrades are limited to 1 per eligible pilot 
• Play will be at 100 points, and limited to only those cards purchased above
• Destroyed ships are removed permanently from that player's roster as well as the attached upgrades
• A ship that flees the field must be played in the next match, and gains a permanent +5 point cost penalty

Pretty simple and easy we think. The forced deployment and point penalty prevent abusive retreats (like a gunboat firing its missiles and immediately fleeing. And also gives an immediate and guaranteed edge to the other player.

We drafted our forces with my having Imperials and my friend taking Scum. 

My force as follows:

• Pilots
• TIE/In
• Soontir Fel
• Royal Guard Pilot
• Royal Guard Pilot
• TIE Adv. Prototype
• The Inquisitor
• TIE Defender
• Col. Vessery
• Lambda Shuttle
• Col. Jendon
• TIE/fo
• Omega Leader
• Zeta Leader
• Zeta Ace
• Epsilon Squad Pilot
• TIE Phantom
• Echo
• Upgrades
• Titles
• TIE/x7
• TIE/D
• TIE/v1
• Royal Guard TIE (x4)
• ST-321
• Systems
• Fire Control System (2x)
• Tech
• Comm Relay (x3)
• Cannons
• Heavy Laser Cannon
• Ion Cannon
• Crew
• Weapons Engineer
• Rebel Captive
• Intelligence Agent
• Missiles
• Cluster Missiles 
• Elite Pilot Talents
• Marksmanship
• Wired
• Juke (x3)
• Push the Limit (x3)
• Veteran Instincts
• Predator
• Adaptability
• Modifications
• Stealth Device (x3)
• Autothrusters (x2)
• Advanced Cloaking Device
• Twin Ion Engins Mk. II (x2)
• Guidance Chips
• Lost Pilots & Upgrades
• Darth Vader
• TIE/x1 
• Advanced Targeting Computer
• Adaptability
• Valen Rudor
• TIE/v1 
• Autothrusters
• Juke

Our first battle saw Vader, Valen, and Vessery face off against a Contracted Scout, Black Sun Vigo, and Kavil. Some poor piloting (and bad defense rolls) on my part lost me both Valen and Vader, but I took all three of the opposing ships in return. Vessery with the TIE/D title (proxied) paired really well with Vader. I equipped him with Marksmanship and was routinely dishing out a damage and ion token followed by 2+ damage from primary weapon fire. 

Not sure when our next game will be, but we're both looking forward to things where losses have a longer meaning than just that current game.

Nuts & Bolts #29 - Fun(nel) with Stormtroopers

Image Source: http://phantomxlord.deviantart.com/art/Stormtrooper-303710186

Earlier this year I got my first exposure to Dungeon Crawl Classics via the Quattro con Carnage experiment in cross-system gaming run by +James August Walls. Unfortunately, because we started the game with Basic Fantasy RPG, we didn't run through a funnel. While the idea of the funnel set-up had seemed odd on first hearing of it, seeing one of the other players go through the process after joining the group mid-way through I saw some of the charm of the meat grinder methodology.

For those who don't know, a funnel is a process where each player brings a number (4 per player is the norm) of level 0 characters (non-adventurers / commoners) and the GM runs them through an adventure. Life is cheap and character death is expected during this adventure because these characters are not yet "heroes". Any surviving characters are deemed worthy to become full fledged hero characters. 

Since Quattro con Carnage I've been curious about the funnel, and figured that in due time I'd get an opportunity to see for myself what kind of experience the funnel system is ... thankfully due time came swiftly.

Enter International Tabletop Day ...

As part of his plans for ITTD Jim had decided to create a Stormtroopers hack of DCC, and solicited advice and suggestions from the net to build a list of occupations for the Star Wars universe. Armed with that list he ran a one shot funnel using Stormtroopers in the sandy wastes of Tatooine.  Apparently he enjoyed the heck out of it, because with that game under his belt (or maybe burning a hole in his figurative pocket) Jim offered our usual Tuesday group the chance to take the role of a bunch of loser Stormtroopers in place of our regular game before we started the next chapter.

And thus D'erp, Saan Dyy, and Hau Berk were recruited into the ranks of the Emperor's "Finest"...

D'erp was the only character of mine to go. He wasn't the smartest guy (ok he was dumb as a box of hair), and the others convinced him to undertake the dubious task of setting up a zip-line from their crashed ship to the ground below. D'erp, being rather agile, managed to set the zip-line up and slide down safely. Feeling pretty awesome about himself he didn't see the womp rats until they were chewing his limbs off. *sigh* R.I.P. you magnificent moron.

D’erp - 0-level Occupation:  Hutt Informant
Strength: 10 (0)
Agility: 13 (+1)
Stamina: 12 (0)
Personality: 6 (-1)
Intelligence: 3 (-3)
The Force: 13 (+1)
AC: 13; HP: 3; Weapon: Blaster Rifle +1 (1d6), Speed: 30; Init: 1; Ref: 1; Fort: 0; Will: -1
Equipment:
One-way radio to Jabba the Hutt, blaster rifle that causes 1d6 damage, belt with compartments, stormtrooper armor (+2 AC), Starting Funds: 26 credits
Languages: Basic

Saan Dyy was the smartest of the group, and he made up for his lack of health with an abundance of brains. Towards the end of the adventure, as he group was facing down Obi-wan himself Saan mixed up an explosive concoction of imperial strength peroxide-based cleaner and suntan lotion. The improvised molotov failed to harm the jedi, but it did cause him to drop his weapon, and allowed for a fatal blow to be dealt to the jedi.

Saan Dyy

0-level Occupation:  Desert Comber
Strength: 13 (+1)
Agility: 12 (0)
Stamina: 9 (0)
Personality: 12 (0)
Intelligence: 15 (+1)
The Force: 12 (0)

AC: 12; HP: 1; Weapon: Blaster Rifle +0 (1d6), Speed: 30; Init: 0; Ref: 0; Fort: 0; Will: 0

Equipment:
Sunscreen, blaster rifle that causes 1d6 damage, belt with compartments, mop, bucket, peroxide cleaner, stormtrooper armor (+2 AC), Starting Funds: 35 credits
Languages: Basic, Huttese

Hau Berk the armorer was rather tough, with 6 hit points and some extra-heavy armor he'd modified partway through the game giving him an AC of 13 he was less concerned of getting into combat. Sadly he couldn't hit the broadside of a sand crawler, and proved largely impotent during the evening's activities (which is fitting I suppose). Hau's only two moments to shine involved taping himself to the crippled shuttle so he could shoot a womp rat two-handed, and being the only 'trooper to get shot and survive (at least I don't recall anybody else surviving blaster fire).

Hau Berk

0-level Occupation: Stormtrooper Armourer
Strength: 13 (+1)
Agility: 10 (0)
Stamina: 16 (+2)
Personality: 11 (0)
Intelligence: 13 (+1)
The Force: started with 5 (-2) ended with 3 (-3)

AC: 13; HP: 6 4; Weapon: Blaster Rifle +0 (1d6), Speed: 30; Init: 0; Ref: -2; Fort: 2; Will: 0 

Equipment:
Electrical Tape, blaster rifle that causes 1d6 damage, belt with compartments, Merit Badge (Awesome Use of Electrical/Duct Tape), modded stormtrooper armor (+3 AC, -2 reflex), Starting Funds: 33 credits
Languages: Basic, Wookie

Overall it was a fun game, a bunch of characters bit it in interesting ways (lightsaber, falling to their doom, womp rats, a blood clot), and I can see where the story of your 0-level nobody can help to drive a fun backstory and personality if you were to move forward into an ongoing game. I did find it strange how differently I played, how much more (in general) conservative I was with these fragile characters. I can certainly see the appeal, especially as the kick off to a campaign, and am considering how this might be something that could be ported into other game systems.