Month / May 2019

by guyeatsfood

Spotlight Maintenance and the Three-Skill Trick: A One-Shot Prep Technique

After several cons in the last few weeks, I’ve come to realise how important spotlight sharing is in One-Shot games. In some games, a structured turn helps to make this happen naturally, especially in combat; in D&D, for instance, everyone has a role to play in combat, so generally a fight has the spotlight shared reasonably equally. But in games that are less combat-centric, such as investigative games, it can be easy to neglect some characters and favour others. And even in D&D, outside of combat it can be easy to make the game focus more on some PCs and not others.

So, in thinking about this, I present…

The Three-Skill Trick

You do this at some point in your prep after you have your pregens ready. You might only have the bare bones of your plot – in which case this might take you in unexpected directions – or you might have the game basically prepped – in which case this will add detail and options that will check that everyone has plenty to do.

Start by looking at your pregens and working out what they are really good at – this will include their “Apex skill,” whatever they are best at, but also anything that they have a Talent/Stunt/whatever your system calls them that can boost it. Sometimes talents can have specific instances – for instance in FFG Star Wars Talents sometimes just remove penalty dice – so consider if those instances can occur in the game.

Then list three places in the scenario for each pregen where these skills can shine. Make sure these are skill uses that hinge on success – passing them adds significant value and plot leverage to the game.

Why three? Well, not all of them may come up, no matter how obvious you think they might be. By having three, you’re guaranteeing as close as you can that it’ll come up at least once. This is easier to illustrate with an example, so let’s look at a classic/boring adventure structure, and let’s stick to D&D, the “Bandits on the Road” adventure.

Imagine this is as far as our prep goes for this 1st level D&D adventure: the PCs are hired to escort a caravan through the dangerous woods; part way through they are ambushed by bandits, who run off with a vital item. The PCs are offered double their fee to track the bandits and recover the item, from which they can then return to civilisation.

Just to stick to the cliche, let’s assume a bog-standard D&D party of Fighter, Magic-User, Thief, and Cleric, and let’s make them good at standard 1st Edition AD&D things – the Cleric can heal and speak to people, the Fighter can, er, Bend Bars and Lift Gates, and hit things with his sword; you get the idea.

Let’s look at each PC in turn and look at what we can add to give them a proper spotlight.

Fighter

  • during the ambush, the caravan is forced into a rut and loses a wheel – it needs lifting up and repairing
  • during the ambush, one of the bandits is carrying a shield bearing the heraldic crest of the Duke’s bastard son – foreshadowing that…
  • the bandits have a champion, the Duke’s disgraced bastard son, who seeks to duel the fighter in single combat

Thief

  • The camp is nestled up a cliffside – by climbing the (fairly easy) cliffs it can be scouted and alarms cut off
  • The bandits around the camp (or even during the ambush) carry obvious keys that can be pickpocketed from them
  • The camp has tripwire traps all around the approach to the forest

Cleric

  • At the start of the ambush, the merchant’s wife is shot and dangerously wounded – she needs healing
  • During the night – during which the PCs must travel to get to the bandit camp – restless spirits and ghosts stalk the forest
  • There are druids in the forest who are none too happy about the caravans coming through, but a friendly approach leads to their help against the bandits, who they are equally displeased with

Magic-User

  • the stolen item is an arcane box that can be magically tracked
  • during the camp ambush, there are lots of braziers and pots of oil (that can easily be mage hand-ed to cause distraction)
  • from the ambush, they find a map to the bandit camp – but it is in code

Obviously, this isn’t quite game-ready, but I’d argue it’s a significant improvement on the standard adventure already. All it needs is a re-arranging into order and a few stats and names, and it’s a pretty serviceable one-shot. Watch this space and I might even do that – after all, I did try and chisel a decent one-shot out of another classic/corny adventure plot, “The Orc And The Pie.”

What are your tricks for managing spotlight in one-shots? Have you tried a similar technique? And watch out for Part 2, where I’ll apply it to a more complex base adventure.

by guyeatsfood

Fly-Traps and Capitalists – a Fate One-Shot

Red PlanetLast weekend, at North Star convention in Sheffield, UK, I ran two games of Fate. This was my Sunday afternoon end-of-the-con offering, a pulp Soviet sci fi raygun romp using Jess Nevins’ excellent Red Planet Fate World. I’ve written up my prep notes and post it here both as an example of what my current prep structure looks like, and also a look at what Fate can do for the Fate-curious. I used the pregens included in Red Planet itself – like all the Fate Worlds series, it’s PWYW at DriveThruRPG.

I’ve got another post cogitating that’s a sequel to my Fate one-shot advice post – since I’ve seen and stolen some more really good ideas since then – but for now, please join the Progressive Materialists of the Martian Union in finding out what happened to Trotsky IV.

Introduction

The Martian Exploratory Force Trotsky IV has disappeared in the Venusian jungles; their last contact said they had found an ancient relic and were concerned about Geometrist involvement, but they haven’t been heard of in a week. You are dispatched to sneak into the jungles on the far side of Venus and explore the jungles, but the Americans have also intercepted the message and are already on the scene.

Upon arrival the PCs find a crashed Geometrist ship, and must overcome its security systems to unlock the computer core before finding a town of native Venusians in league with the Americans have captured the Expeditionary Force. They must show the villagers the error of their ways and help them defeat the Americans, dealing with the double-agent in their midst who led the Americans to the village.

Cast

Sarah Bannon is the American Spy leading the forces on the Venusian Jungles. She is a devoted capitalist who grew up hunting deer on her father’s ranch before serving in the “quiet war.” A zealot, she has no time for the Martian communists with their socialist ideals.

Felk Yath is the commander of the town of Hath’met, in the Venusian jungle. His guards were attacked by Bannon’s forces and he was asked to capture the Martians and hold them; he’s been offered the riches of America and better weaponry for his forces, to allow him to conquer the nearby villages of Reth’met and Yess’met, and to defend against the robots that keep guard at the crash site. Yath is a typical Venusian frog-man, and he has eschewed the American trappings of his lieutenants.

Yath’s Guards wield a mixture of crude spears with shiny American Reagan-class Rifles. They are old models and prone to misfiring, but they are very proud of them. The sergeants wear baseball caps and weirdly-made baseball jackets, and call each other “Chuck” and “Buddy”

Paskin Petrovich is the leader of Trotsky IV – he’s grizzled and injured, walks with a limp and is out of his depth.

Kinyev Kusya is Petrovich’s lieutenant – she’s angry and doesn’t trust the Americans, and doesn’t know how they managed to capture her.

Vladlen Krupin is a double agent. He has been in contact with Bannon since the start, and revealed their location to the Americans so they could be captured. He hopes that a rescue mission (such as the PCs) will decipher the Geometrist’s code so he can take the weaponry himself for the Americans. He’s a physically massive man, part of the early New Man program that grafted muscle onto its subjects.

Arz Vangodal is a Geometrist who is currently trapped in the computer system of the crashed spaceship. He only really wants to return home to his own dimension, but to do this he needs his computer core to be repaired, and so far every 3D being he’s encountered has wanted to kill or rob him. He’s paranoid but could become an unlikely ally.

Scene One – Approach to Venus

The PCs will attempt to avoid the patrolling ships – there are many American forces patrolling around the far side of Venus, and they need to try and sneak in to the planet and make a safe landing

Aspects: Cloud cover and Venusian Storms, Lots of Spaceships

This is a Challenge, involving, in turn

  • A Pilot roll against +2 (Fair) to avoid the patrolling ships
  • Stealth or Crafts against +3 (Good) to evade the on-site sensors
    • If this is failed, their ship takes a consequence “Engines Damaged” as it is fired on
  • Finally, a +3 (Good) Pilot roll to land – the jungle is too thick, but they can find a clear spot and land safely
    • If this is failed, take a “Position Compromised” aspect – people know they are there

Once they have landed, safely or otherwise, they can make their way to the co-ordinates that Trotsky IV gave them for the Geometrist site

Scene Two – Jungle Attack

As the PCs venture into the thick jungle, they have to contend with the natives – a Venusian Tooth Beast, as they venture into a clearing of Venusian Fly-Traps. The Tooth-Beast looks like a 2m tall velociraptor, and is clearly enraged by activity around the site. The Fly-Traps are man-sized carnivorous plants.

Aspects: Thick jungle vines; Even the plants hate us

Venusian Tooth-Beast: stats are on p37 of Red Planet
Physical: ††††                     Mental: †††
Mild (2):
Mild (2):

Venusian Fly-Trap: Fair (+2) Fight, 2 stress per plant (default 4 plants)
††                           ††                           ††                           ††

Once they are dispatched, a search of the area reveals papers and polystyrene debris around the Tooth Beast – a Fair (+2) Lore check reveals these as wrappings of burgers and other American fast foods – and that this is what must have sent the Tooth-Beast into an even more deadly rage.

Scene Three –The Spaceship

The PCs can find the crash site now; a circular ship – think classic flying saucer design – has crashed here, and is clearly damaged. As they explore the bridge, it is clearly of alien design – there are no life support systems, and there are no signs of the robots that crewed it – they must be around the area. The doors have been brutally jury-rigged to seal them by the Venusians – it is a +3 (Good) overcome action from Craft or, a +4 (Great) Physique or Shoot to get them open – failure leads to a 3-stress explosion. Inspecting the mechanism finds that it is of American design – it’s a Bush Mk II Grenade.

Aspects: Geometry not meant for 3D people; Remnants of defence systems; Bigger inside than outside – or is it smaller?

The main bridge is deserted and has clearly been for some time. They can find the state-issued insignia of their Martian comrades here, along with traces of blood which shows this is where they were attacked.

The computer core is where the geometrists, Arz Vangodal, is currently hiding. There are powerful sensors that would be able to find their comrades, and a loose CCTV -type system which Arz uses to understand the actions on the bridge, but they will have to unlock it.

This is a Contest of whichever players attempt to hack the system against Arz.

Arz Vangodal has the standard Geometrist profile from p33 – his most important skills are Will +7 (which he will use to defend against any attempt to persuade him to let them access the systems) and Craft +4 (which he uses to try and stop any attempts to hack his systems)

As soon as the contest begins, a group of security robots arrive and attack. Two arrive in each exchange until they are defeated or the area is hacked. They show evidence of self-repair from the jungle around; Arz’ ship is able to do this as well once the core is online, something that Arz has not noticed yet.

Security Robots: Fair (+2) Shoot, Average (+1) Notice; Weapon: 1

This is likely to play out as a parallel contest / conflict with some PCs attempting to hack the core while others fight off the robots.
                                                       

Scene Four: Captured!

As they are dispatching (or being defeated by) the robots, a Venusian patrol happens upon them, alerted by Bannon’s monitoring of them. They speak through awkwardly-translated voices (with American accents) that the PCs must surrender and come with them – if they want to see their friends alive. One of them carries a crackly monitor showing the three Martians at gunpoint, to reinforce this threat.

If they succeeded in bringing the core online, Bannon herself appears – and thanks the PCs for helping her to hack the system.

“This will prove very useful for the President and our ambitions on Venus – I guess you commies must be good for something! All that free education and healthcare you waste your money on I guess!”

As the PCs are having to concede, they each earn 1 fate point, plus 1 for each consequence they took in the conflict, as they are taken to the Venusian village.

Scene Five: An Audience With Trotsky IV

As they arrive in the village, they are taken to Yath, who explains the situation; he has all three members of Trotsky IV, but he needs to give them to the Americans or they will destroy his village. He has seen the technology they have, and that they will stop at nothing to get what they want. He is a formal and careful leader – but it is obvious that he is uncomfortable with the deal with the Americans. He takes the PCs out to see his men working in the jungles, distilling spirits from the Fly-Traps “A technique the Americans have already given my people,” they pass Venusians feasting on chocolate bars and drinking Bud.He speaks to  The Americans have armed his people well, he tells them – and he should be able to conquer the surrounding villages with the arms and armour he has.

As they do this, they see Venusians bringing the parts of the spaceship back, along with robot parts that are being deactivated.

They can meet Trotsky IV, who tell them, separately, that there is no hope – the Americans have a strong force here – their best hope is to try and escape.

Scene Six: Finale

There are a few options for the PCs to resolve this. It should be obvious that the Venusians are ripe for conversion – use the rules on p25 of Red Planet for this. As they turn the Venusians against their forces, they might also have an ally in Arz to trigger his robots.

It is expected that the start of this scene will be a Conversion roll to get the Venusian village on side, but other options are a Contest to sneak out of the village – use Yath’s Great (+4) Village Leader to oppose this. On a failed attempt, Yath won’t fight them himself, but he’ll use his alarm to alert Bannon, and they must fight both his village guards and Bannon.

As they do this, Vladlen’s treachery will trigger – as they see him communicate to Bannon what is happening, and a force of Americans attack!

Sarah Bannon: American spy
Aspects: Veteran American Spy; Carries a torch for Vladlen Krupin; For Mom and Apple Pie!; Deadeye Shot; Exploit the Exploitable
Skills: Fantastic (+6) Shoot, Deceive; Superb (+5) Athletics, Fight, Physique; Great (+4) Investigate, Notice, Will
Stunts: Mook Shield – spend a fate point to divert an attack to a nearby GI; No Taste for Personal Danger – +2 to create an advantage with Athletics by diving behind cover
Stress: Physical  Mental 
Mild (2):
Moderate (4):

Vladlen Krupin: Martian Double-Agent
Aspects: Super-tough super-spy; In love with Bannon
Skills: Fantastic (+6) Physique; Superb (+5) Fight, Shoot
Stunts: Poison grenades – by spending a fate point you can physically attack everyone in a zone
Stress: Physical  Mental 
Mild (2):

GI’s: Good (+3) Shoot, Average (+1) Athletics – Weapon +2
†††    †††    †††    †††    †††    †††

As always, let me know if you find this useful – or even run it – and watch out for more one-shots in future. I’m trying to write up as many of my convention games and put them on here as I can, so let me know if there’s anything you’d like to see.

by guyeatsfood

Snowblind – A Star Wars Age of Rebellion One-Shot

After my post reviewing the Star Wars options, I dug out my old convention one-shot for Age of Rebellion, FFG’s rebels vs. Imperials game of strange-diced Star Wars. It’s balanced and designed for five starting AoR characters – the pregens that I used are here.

A note on how I’ve described NPCs here – a score of YYG, for example, means 2 yellow and 1 green dice – although often enemies will be instead adding red and purple dice to the PC’s rolls when they are opposed. This one-shot also predates my standard trad format for one-shots – I ran it several years ago at one of the first Go Play Leeds meet-ups.

It’s also here as a single .pdf – let me know if you run it, hack it, or just use it for inspiration. It was largely inspired by the fantastic Strongholds of the Resistance sourcebook, which has further details on Hoth – as well as other rebel locations and lots of adventure hooks. One of my pregens is a Pol Massan from that sourcebook, too. And note that this is an entirely planet-bound adventure; it avoids the ‘pilot’ being useless by making them a Tauntaun tamer and including a Tauntaun chase in the finale.

And let me know if you want more Star Wars content – I’ve got at least four or five one-shots sketched out, and only two of them involve Ewoks and Gungans.

Snowblind

An Age of Rebellion Adventure

Background

TaunTaun

Tauntaun – these might be important later

Three days ago, sensors on Echo Base picked up a signature of a shuttlecraft; it appeared to have breached Hoth’s limited orbital defences by accident, and crash-landed on in the hills to the North. A patrol, led by Lt. Nela Arseli, was quickly despatched to investigate and check that the base had not been discovered. Communication was lost with them – there are rumoured to be radioactive deposits in the hills which can interfere with comms, so this is not necessarily a problem, but the rebels are twitchy and cannot risk Echo Base being discovered this close to its completion.

The PCs are sent out in a snowspeeder to identify the lost patrol, and find out what happened to the shuttle. They have the shuttle’s coordinates, and some details of the signatures of their allies sensor packs.

The shuttle, the Emporium, is a brig, escorting Vander Krag, a notorious pirate and Hutt ally, through backwaters to be tried. Krag somehow seems to have hacked the shuttle’s navigation systems and landed it on Hoth, but has fallen foul of the planetary defences. He and his pirates escaped in the crash and took shelter in some caves nearby, hoping to find the resources needed to repair the shuttle.

It has been attacked by planetary defences triggered by Goran Zuck, a Bothan rebel and quartermaster who used to serve with Krag. Zuck, a one-eyed, bad-tempered rebel, plans to join up with Krag and reveal the rebel base’s location – he reckons that only someone as experienced in skulduggery as Krag could help him escape the rebels and the Empire.

The remaining Imperials are sheltering near the shuttle, having booby-trapped it for when Krag returns with a bomb.

Arseli’s patrol never got as far as the shuttle, being ambushed by Krag’s pirates as soon as they got near – but now both rebels and pirates are held in the caves by a tribe of Wampa. Krag is pretty sure that they’ll get rescued, but Arseli is worried that more rebels will reveal Echo Base’s location.

Synopsis

The PCs track the signal to the shuttle and approach it, and the booby-trap (set by Zuck) and subsequent Imperial Ambush damages their shuttle. They can track the escapees to the nearby caves through the Biting Snow, and navigate the caves, facing a Cave-In and hiding from wampa to eventually rescue the Arseli and Krag from them in the Wampa Caverns. At this point they encounter Zuck and his loyal rebels; Krag then takes flight upon learning of the base, equipped with the scavenged equipment from the rebels that he will need to repair the shuttle – and the PCs must give chase in a Tauntaun Pursuit to capture Krag and decide what they do with him.

Scene One – Briefing

The PCs are briefed of the previous situation – there is their team and another in the room, Goran Zuck, a one-eyed Bothan who works on shuttlecraft, keeping them in good repair. Zuck and his crew of 3 rebels are to scour the wider area looking for the shuttle and the escapees, while the PC team is to search on the ground. Upon launch they find Zuck is inspecting both his own shuttle and their snowspeeder.

Scene Two – Imperial Ambush

The coordinates of the shuttle crash lead to a narrow valley ringed by crags. The shuttle lies half-buried in the snow, its nose deep in the drifts. As they approach they trigger the booby- trap; the speeder will crash into the snow, but the Pilot can make a Hard Piloting (Planetary) check to try and crash ‘safely’ – unless they succeed each PC takes 3 Strain as they are jolted about. They can see shapes moving around in the site, and are ambushed by the remaining Imperials – there is a Tie Ace leader, the pilot, 4 Tie Pilots and 4 Troopers. The troopers attack in pairs as minions, but the pilots are alone. This is a combat that uses Vigilance for initiative.

Vindo Palass, captain: Initiative GG, Soak 2, WT: 12
Attack – Lt Blaster Pistol GGGG, Dam 5, Crit 4, Stun setting

Crewmembers: Initiative GG, Soak 2, WT: 5       5      5       5
Attack – Lt Blaster Pistol GGG, Dam 5, Crit 4, Stun setting

Pairs of Troopers: Initiative YGG, Soak 4, WT: 10        10
Attack – Lt Blaster Pistol YGG, Dam 5, Crit 4, Stun setting
Frag grenade (1 each) YGG, Dam 8, Crit 4, Rng Short, Blast 6

The PCs can then explore the shuttle – they find it is an Imperial brig and there are signs of around 15 crewmembers and 6 prisoners. A thorough search reveals that many of the systems are damaged, but the shuttle could be repaired if supplies could be scavenged. A Survival check also reveals tracks leading further North towards the hills, and that there are caves there they should be able to shelter in. Their snowspeeder, similarly, is damaged from the blast and will need repairs – and, unsurprisingly, their comms are dead.

If questioned, Palass will reveal (after a Coercion or similar test opposed by his Willpower of 3) that they were overtaken by Krag and that they are a brig – in the blast Krag escaped, but they heard signs of a firefight yesterday – they thought they were going to be rescued, but it never happened. He will reveal that all of the armaments in the shuttle were taken by Krag’s band, so they are possibly heavily armed.

If they inspect their own snowspeeder they find the computer systems fried and almost beyond repair without additional supplies; an opposed Mechanic or Computer check (opposed by Zuck’s skill of RRP) will show them that it has been sabotaged sometime in the last 24 hours.

Scene Three – Biting Snow

The PCs must make their way to find shelter and track the escapees through the snow. They walk past Tauntaun fields on their way to the hills, and everyone must make a Medium Survival check, with one black dice – anyone failing to get Successes suffers 3 Strain from the exertion and cold.

Trigger a montage with each player in turn describing their exploration towards the caves – they could hear Wampa cries, or their comms suddenly flare into life, or anything else the PCs come up with. They should emerge at the cave systems – they can see bootprints leading into the caves, and there are fresh bloodstains visible on the way in. They can follow the tracks deeper into the cave.

Any Imperials with them will refuse to go any further and must be calmed by appropriate social skills.

They will get occasional communications from Zuck and his team as they explore to the north – he can confirm that there are caves and shelter to the north, but as the snowstorm comes in he loses contact and hangs back higher up.

Scene Four – Cave-In

As they explore the caves, there are a number of challenges:

The PCs come to a cliff with the remains of climbing tack attached to it – they must carefully proceed down, requiring a Medium Athletics check from the lead climber and Easy ones from the rest of the party; failure results in a fall, requiring an Average Athletics or Coordination check to reduce the 6 damage and 6 strain suffered.

At the foot of the cliff, there is a narrow, icy bridge across a ravine. Signs indicate the escapees came this way – but the way is significantly slippery. There are pitons and rods of steel placed across the walkway, and Mechanics can be used to repair it sufficiently to make it safe again.

Their path then winds down into deeper caves, and they begin to hear a roiling above them – they are about to be in the middle of a cave-in. They can choose which skills in turn to roll to try and get out – they need 5 successes in total between them to escape unharmed, and could use Survival, Athletics, Coordination, or even a relevant Knowledge skill to get out of the way.

After the escape and flee the cave-in, they find themselves in a huge cavern, with a group of humanoids tied up above them. As they can attempt to free them (Stealth check to get one free before a Wampa notices them), they hear a the call of two Wampa – a mating pair – leap from the ceiling to engage them – and they must fight.

Wampa x2: Init GGG, Soak 6, WT: 20      20
Attack: Claws YYYGG Dam 8, Crit 3, Pierce 3, Vicious 2
Stunning Blow – may inflict damage as Strain instead – they start doing this until wounded when they will change to lethal combat.

When the wampa are driven off (if one is defeated the other may stop to cradle its mate while the PCs can escape) – they can flee to the caves above and emerge into the Tauntaun fields; where the snowstorm has cleared. They can then rescue Arseli and Krag, who are pleased to be rescued and Krag tells them his pirates now have the wherewithal to escape the planet. Suddenly, he turns on Arseli, holding a blaster against her, and mounts a Tauntaun and tries to flee.

Scene Five – Tauntaun Pursuit

The party emerges in a narrow canyon full of grazing Tauntaun – difficult, if not impossible, to be seen from the air.

At this point is also where Zuck’s patrol begins to track the PCs – they have 3 rounds while the his speeder lands and attempts to rescue Krag. Zuck needs Krag to be in the clear, at which point his speeder will land and ‘rescue’ Krag, either taking him with them or killing the PCs.

Krag’s six pirates will stay and fight the rest of the PCs while Krag makes his getaway – each round he moves one range band away, starting at Short.

To give chase, a PC must first calm and mount a Tauntaun – an Average Survival check – and he can then give chase.

Krag: Init YYG, Def 1, Soak 5, WT 20,                      ST 12
Attack: Hvy blaster rifle   YYYG  Dam 10, Crit 3, Auto-Fire
Vibro-ax YYYY Dam 9, Crit 2, Pierce 2, Sunder, Vicious

Pirates x6 (in pairs: Init Y, Soak 4, WT 10     10      10       )
Attack: Hvy blaster pistol YGG Dam 7, Crit 3, Stun setting

Goran Zuck Init GY, Def 0, Soak 1, WT 12
Attack: Hvy blaster rifle YY Dam 10 Crit 3, Auto-Fire
Adversary 1 (add 1 to difficulty when attacking)

Rebels x4 (in pairs: Init Y, Soak 4, Wt 10      10        )
Attack: Hvy blaster pistol YGG Dam 7, Crit 3, Stun setting

Zuck’s rebels can of course be reasoned with by a successful social skill against their Willpowers of 2 – they are: Jerej Crane, a human male; Zin Taske, a Bothan female; Penta Kyal, a human male, and Adi Roeder, a Mon Calamari male.

Once they have captured Krag, they have to decide what to do with him. He almost certainly knows there is a rebel base on Hoth now, and will attempt to escape and sell this information to the Hutt as soon as he can. Encourage the players to make the judgement themselves rather than just taking him back to Echo Base – and allow for the possibility of a really good social check resulting in him joining the rebellion.

The speeder can be repaired with a Hard Mechanics check to return to Echo Base and debriefing.

by guyeatsfood

Star Wars One-Shots: The “Way” is Strong in These Ones

star wars rpgsTo celebrate Star Wars day, here’s a review of the options you currently have if you want to run a one-shot in the worlds of Ewoks and Gungans. Why would you want to do that, apart from the aforementioned furry/aquatic aliens? Well, firstly, Star Wars has really clear tropes and expectations of its heroes – redemption, fighting the good fight, and starting from humble beginnings – which make it easy to motivate a group of adventurers to carry out a specific mission. It’s also got an unknowably huge canon, with cartoons, comics, and fiction alongside the films – and lots of sources of inspiration. And finally, there’s  lots of space opera tropes in it – human-like but diverse aliens, survivable and fun space combat, big beasts and monsters… it could already be a D&D campaign, just with blasters and laser swords.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here.

But what system to run it with? I’m going to attempt a quick tour of them …. although I think I’ll probably only scratch the surface of the options…

Edge of the Empire / Age of Rebellion / Force and Destiny 

Fantasy Flight’s big RPG offering with the license, these are high-production value RPGs (and they are three separate games, although sharing almost exactly the same system) with a pile of supplements and adventures to go with them. Personally, I’d skip the player-facing sourcebooks that focus on specific character classes, leave the adventures alone (apart from the starter sets) and look at their ‘proper’ sourcebooks, where there are some absolutely brilliant sources of hooks and adventures – Strongholds of Resistance, for example, details rebel bases and is full of mini-adventures – I ran a really fun one-shot on Hoth based on the details in this. Lords of Nal Hutta does a similar job with criminal enterprises – you could plot about a dozen great one-shot games from each of these books.

It can be a bit of a rabbit-hole to fall down, particularly as, yes, it uses weird funky dice, and no, you can’t use regular polyhedrals. The dice are, for me, just about worth it – they give a range of successes and complications that add depth to task resolution. This means that, although the game is still towards the trad end of the trindie continuum, there’s always exciting consequences of actions. Decent and quickish space combat, and although it’s been criticised as a money-grab, I actually like how the 3 separate core books can focus on different kinds of games. When I want to run Star Wars, I need a solid reason to stray from using this system. Sooner or later I’ll write up my Hoth one-shot and put it on here.

West End Games’ D6 Star Wars

One of the original RPGs that gamers of a certain age wax lyrical about, there’s no doubt that the original Star Wars game has aged better than most of its contemporaries – a straightforward d6 dice pool system and a neat archetype character creation system – which you could almost complete at the table, if you really wanted to – yes the PCs aren’t always balanced, and yes the Force rules are awkwardly funky to the point of being broken, but the core mechanic is great fun, and works well enough to still be inspiring games.

There’s now an anniversary edition out from FFG, but there’s also the entire original game line available from Womp Rat Press here – really useful if, say, you wanted to run one of the classic Star Wars adventures with a different system. Some of the old adventures even start with a ‘script’ for the players to read out – playing the roles of NPCs before the start of the game – which is a weird and funky way to start a one-shot today, let alone in the 1980s when these modules were written.

Star Wars d20 / SAGA Edition

Remember the d20 bubble? In the explosion of mediocrity that it brought to RPG publishing (including, to be fair, the odd gem) – Wizards of the Coast brought out a whole line of d20 Star Wars built around the 3rd Edition D&D system. This early-2000s line produced loads of supplements, and to be fair if you are a big fan of d20 and it’s associated quirks it’s an obvious choice. SAGA edition saw lots of rule changes that for me improved the game a lot.

With both of these game lines, though, if you’ve got them you’ll run them, and if you haven’t they’re really tricky to get hold of, and probably not your best choice unless you’ve been invited to run for a group of D&D gamers from 2001 and want to meet their sensibilities. Wizards lost the license in 2010, so the link above is to the wikipedia page – be prepared for a longer search of ebay etc if you want to get hold of the game, since it also dates from when Wizards didn’t do .pdfs.

Scum & Villainy

The first of the big Forged in the Dark games based on the Blades in the Dark engine (for more about Blades, see here) is space opera that is very Star Wars. For Blades-style play it works really well – ideally for a double slot, or a tightly-run training mission like this one – in play it feels so Star Wars that it’s easy to forget. I played a Mystic once and really struggled calling my powers “the Way” and not the Force. Great fun for a lower-prep player-driven one-shot, and the “heist” system works well for smugglers and low-lifes if you want the Han Solo end of the genre.

PBTA: Star Wars World / Streets of Mos Eisley

I’ll highlight two Powered By The Apocalypse (PBTA) options for your Star Wars one-shot – Star Wars World, by Andrew Medeiros (I’m not entirely sure the link above is to the latest version – I got it via another blog – please correct me if I have it wrong), is a full-blooded hack of Apocalypse World with a moves and playbooks. I haven’t played it but from a read through it looks great and Andrew really knows his PBTA stuff (having co-designed the brilliant Urban Shadows).

Streets of Mos Eisley is a simpler game, a hack of World of Dungeons which is a hack of Dungeon World, on of the first PBTA games (are you keeping up?) – it’s a tighter playset, with a much looser system. I think if I was running, I would favour Star Wars World, but for a more relaxed, system-lite game, SoME looks great.

Cypher System

This final entry is probably a little leftfield, but Star Wars has influenced a lot of RPGs, and hidden in the Worlds Numberless and Strange sourcebook for The Strange, are details for playing in the Rebel Galaxy recursion – which is, like Scum and Villany above, very Star Wars. Because Cypher is so easy to adapt (or even to busk), it would be easy to run a game using this, either with The Strange of the core Cypher rules, and it gives a significantly different playstyle to any of the games above.

At it’s heart Cypher is, like Gumshoe, a game that’s led by resource management to affect probabilities, and so I’m not convinced it fits the kind of action heroics I want in a Star Wars game, but if I was running a murder mystery, or a one-shot focused more on exploration than conflict, I would certainly be looking at Rebel Galaxy. Cypher is also a really good system for newcomers to RPGs, in my experience, so it might be a good starting place for them.

So there are your options. As I’ve said, for me it’s FFG (Age of Rebellion is my go-to style of play for one-shots) all the way – with an exception for D6 Star Wars and maybe for PBTA if I want that sort of game. It’s far from an exhaustive list, either – I’m sure there are people out there running Star Wars games with D100 (shout out to River of Heaven, D101 games science fiction game, which is pretty straightforward to hack into Star Wars), Traveller, or even The Code of the Space Lanes. I’m sure I’ve missed some, and it’s not like Star Wars to divide opinions – what are your go-to Star Wars games for one-shot play?