Andor dropped this week on Disney+, which is the latest entry into the Star Wars universe. I watched the first episode and it begins in the Corporate Sector Authority showing a world far from the original trilogy. It’s a darker more gritty Star Wars and I love they are trying new things with the universe.
Similarly, my gaming group is on a new adventure as well. I am looking for a new system to run a Star Wars roleplaying game. As much as I love the game from West End Games I referenced in my last post the system has its faults.
The system is very accessible with an attribute plus skill mechanic (see the template below). For instance, if a hero wanted to shoot their blaster rifle they would roll their Dexterity attribute dice (e.g. 4D) and then any skill dice they put in the skill (e.g. 2D) and roll them for a set target number.
The characters gain experience over their adventures and then they increase their skills over time to represent their own adventures. It truly is rather elegant.
Yet, that elegance comes with some less-than-ideal aspects that I have discovered over the last campaign.
- As characters advance it can be anti-climatic.
- Nothing differentiates characters with the same attribute dice and skill dice mechanically. This leads to a certain “sameness”.
- No benefit for beating the target number no matter how high you roll (e.g. if you have 8D in blaster and roll 25 for a target number 15 there is no additional effect).
- The system has been out of print for years so the ruleset lacks official support (and continued expansion).
We will be looking for a new system that can be ported to the Star Wars that captures the feel of Star Wars though it could also be used for other genres (more on that later). We have committed to having several small adventures in different systems and seeing if we can find one that works for us. I plan on writing about the different games and the experience in further posts.
If anyone has any recommendations for systems to try please feel free to leave them in the comments.