Wednesday 17 July 2013

Run Fatboy, RUN!!

Another Tuesday night down at the Enfield Gamers and Rich ran us through the final instalment of FF's Star Wars roleplay. Relatively practiced hands now heads have been wrapped round the interactive dice system rather successfully.

Rich has put up the final write up on his BLOG and I don't intend to re-tell the tale that he has already put so well. Instead I thought I'd offer another set of comments on how I feel the game plays more narratively.

All about the dice of course but more so than with any other game I've ever played before. As Rich alludes to our luck generally ran one way throughout the session,  from terrible to triumphant (pun intended).

Trying to be clever Plans A and B quickly went horribly wrong, net Fails with net Threat = all gone wrong, just as with any "standard" system. What saved our arses were a couple of net Fails with net Advantage = door slammed in face but another left ajar. It's a fine difference and one that demands experience all round the table to make best use of but oh so potentially rewarding.
Being offered a Plan C, though 50% of our own devising, we infiltrated Teemo the Hutt's palace rather effectively.

With our rolls suddenly picking up, net Success with net Advantage, we then managed to access the security systems to locate and isolate Teemo from the majority of his gaurds for a much easier final assault. 
Swinging into action Teemo fled sacrificing his minions to buy him time to escape. Well ahead we gave chase for our dice to really rev up into net. Success  and net Advantage with a few Triumph thrown in to ice the bun cherry and all.

Flushed with success Lady L struck back hard to temper our ardour with Jabba taking insult at his nephew's demise and damning our evidence of his attempted coup as a poorly fabricated ruse.

Heading back off into the Galaxy we had freed ourselves from the shackles of one Hutt only only to chain ourselves to another, bigger, nastier version! Well done us ;)
The point I eventually make is that the dice system allows for a far broader, less rigid range of results. Several times we had a net zero across the board, not a fail or a success simply the status quo. When did that last happen in any other game you've ever played?

To paraphrase a certain bearded games designer the system takes "moments to learn but a lifetime to master". The scope in the mechanics themselves can do half the storytelling for you, you've just got to let it!

You can play it like any other system you've ever roled or rolled with. "I shoot or with my blaster" is fine but there's so much more on offer.

To infinity and beyond?

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