Roleplaying games you should play: Star Wars
This is the latest in a series of posts looking at roleplaying games I really think you owe it to yourself to play.
Last time out, looking at Ghostbusters, I talked about the wonderful simplicity of the game’s system, and how it could only be betterered by one thing: taking that system and combining it with the greatest science fiction movie trilogy of all time. Well, at least, it was in 1987….
9) Star Wars
Remember how Traveller, well, just didn’t do it for me? Remember how I was essentially seduced by that image of a Luke Skywalker-lookalike on the box? (Damn you, GDW….) Well, it took five years or so, but finally my sci-fi roleplaying prayers were answered in 1987 with the release, on the (gulp) tenth anniversary of the movie, of Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game from West End Games.
If Marvel Super Heroes had opened my eyes to how a game system could work with you in creating a setting, Star Wars blew out of the back of my skull. Designed by Greg Costikyan, Curtis Smith and Bill Slavicsek, the simple D6 system in Star Wars expanded on the initial principles of Ghostbusters, and was an absolute joy to read. The original rulebook filled my head with the potential excitement of adventures across the galaxy, where the players would fight for the Rebellion against the evil forces of the Empire. Blasters would be fired! Quips would be uttered! Lightsabers would be drawn! Heroes would be made!
So naturally, in the first session of my campaign, the players stole a starship and then – I remember this quite specifically – spot-welded the ship merchant to the inside of his own safe.
Yeah, they weren’t really looking to be heroes. Continue reading
Old is new again: a guide to ‘retro-clone’ roleplaying games
About as scrappy and loosely organised as the original roleplaying hobby, retro-clone roleplaying games (or ‘simulacrum games‘ to some) are spreading across the web, gradually gaining converts to their cause: a return to fast-paced, imagination-led roleplaying.
Most of them have a lot in common:
- They’re inspired by the early editions of Dungeons & Dragons.
- They use Wizards of the Coast’s System Reference Document, under the terms of the Open Gaming License.
- Best of all, most of them are free to download, with no strings attached.
Just add dice and you’re ready to play.
Why play a ‘retro-clone’?
You might ask why anyone would want to play these games, when Dungeons & Dragons now has a 4th Edition, and thirty-plus years of recognition behind it.
Well, the reasons are as varied as the players, but for most, it seems to be simple: they want to get back to something that they feel has been lost. Away from enormous rulebooks and mountains of supplements, they want their imagination to take hold again, to run things fast and loose, and to experience roleplaying as they remember it.
While you can easily argue that roleplaying games don’t ‘force’ you to play any particular way, it’s also hard to argue with history and tradition. So if you’re fed up with people throwing rules in your face, or you just fancy getting back to the ‘old school’ way of playing without hunting down out-of-print rulebooks, there’s probably something for you here.
Secret origins
While there may be some people who’ll come to these games completely fresh, perhaps even as their first roleplaying experience, I think it’s more likely that they’ll be introduced to them by someone else – someone who played the original games that inspired these clones.
As one of those people myself, when I first heard about these games, I wanted to know which retro-clone was inspired by which original game. I figured that would help me gauge whether I was interested in using them, based on my memories of the original game, and frankly, I was also just curious.
Unfortunately, most of the retro-clones don’t explicitly state their ‘inspirations’ – basically because of the legal terms of the Open Gaming License, which do not allow them to position themselves as direct replacements for those Other Trademarked Games which usually feature an ampersand in their title. As a result, I had to do some research to determine exactly which game, and which edition of which game, inspired what. (Then I made some pretty pictures to make it really clear.)
As I haven’t agreed to any binding legal license, however, I don’t have to be coy as to what inspired what – even though it’s just that, inspiration. I want to be clear that while most retro-clones use the System Reference Document and will therefore have very familiar mechanics and systems, that does not mean they’re direct copies of Dungeons & Dragons. Instead, they’re inspired and derived from it, and that means all of them will be slightly different from the original… even while they feel very much the same. In other words, my use of an ‘equals’ sign in the pictures below is meant to be interpreted very loosely.
Five roleplaying games I’ve played, and you should too
Five roleplaying games I’ve played, and you should too
I tend to ignore ‘pingbacks’ or ‘trackbacks’, because nine times out of ten they’re from RSS-scrapers who are linking back to where they stole the original content from, so they can die in a fire. However, very rarely, I get a genuine blog post at the other end; even more rarely, I get a blog post I actually take an interest in.
Witness: 100 Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games You Should Play Before You Die, an impressive inaugural blog post on Games Info Depot’s Games Information Blog. (Looks to me like someone’s been reading hints on making catchy blog headlines. Hey, it worked!)
It’s a pretty good list, admit stretched a bit to get to that catchy one hundred figure; as well as a lot of old favourites there’s some new indie stuff in there too, along with a few titles I’d never heard of, so kudos for the research.
No clue why I got linked for Marvel Heroes (sic) though – if you’re after Marvel Super Heroes stuff (thanks, Pedant Man!) then you should head over to Classic Marvel Forever for everything you’ll ever need.
I thought about compiling my own list of roleplaying games that I’d rate a ‘must try’, but me being me, what started as a simple list turned into a long trip down memory lane, and a lot of research into games I’d never even played. Continue reading