WEG Star Wars: An Nearly Excellent Roleplaying Sport?

I feel it’s not the primary time that I’ve talked about my love for West Finish Video games’ unique Star Wars Roleplaying sport from 1987. It’s one of many first roleplaying video games I’ve performed and it’s a sport I nonetheless learn once in a while regardless that I don’t really play it on the time.

One factor I’ve observed lately is that Star Wars The Roleplaying Sport 1st Version – albeit all of its flaws is an virtually good roleplaying sport, particularly in case you’re making an attempt to introduce new folks to the pastime.

The obvious benefit is its setting. Star Wars is massively standard – these days in all probability much more so than again within the late 1980s. It’s THE popular culture phenomenon of the second half of the 20th century. Everybody is aware of it, most have watched a minimum of one of many films, many like it. This makes pitching it to new gamers extraordinarily straightforward. You could suppose introducing D&D is perhaps as straightforward, however that’s solely true if in case you have been raised on D&D-inspired fantasy materials. Many D&D-isms are literally fairly particular to the franchise, and are usually not simply grasped by new gamers.

The second enormous benefit of WEG’s sport is its mechanics. The D6 System is a straightforward to study, quick, cinematic and fairly strong roleplaying sport system. The core rulebook additionally does a superb job at instructing the way to play it. The guide begins with a fundamental clarification of an important ideas which is adopted up by a solo journey which any aspiring GM or participant can play by. Extra detailed guidelines are included, however you get the fundamentals first, which is definitely how extra video games must be structured.

The GM recommendation included can also be fairly good. You get concrete recommendation not on the way to run roleplaying video games normally, however notably the way to run Star Wars. How are you going to convey the vastness of the Star Wars universe and the spectacular vistas you realize and love from the flicks on the sport desk? The guide has a solution for that. It offers tips about whether or not its acceptable to make “pew-pew” noises, supplies journey hooks and explains the way to design your personal adventures. Apropos adventures: there may be after all a fully-fledged introductory adventures which you should utilize to jumpstart your personal marketing campaign utilizing the concepts and hook supplied within the guide.

Due to the character templates the sport makes use of, folks don’t have to fret about character creation an excessive amount of. You simply choose a template, make a couple of modifications if crucial and begin enjoying. Gamers extra acquainted with the system can after all create their very own templates.

The setting info included within the guide is proscribed, however due to the recognition of the setting there’s not a lot wanted to allow GMs to run video games within the Star Wars universe. The 145-paged guide incorporates the whole lot you must begin enjoying except for a few strange six-sided cube. No fancy cube are wanted – which is one other plus.

In my view the Star Wars Sourcebook is the one different guide of the roleplaying sport sequence you actually ought to have, the whole lot else is simply “good to have”. It consists of stats for many main characters, extra tools and automobiles, creatures and aliens, and a number of beloved spaceships. Along with the core rulebook GMs have greater than sufficient materials for months to come back. The entry hurdle is fairly low with this one.

Sadly different Star Wars video games have been by no means nearly as good because the very first one. Even the second version was a lesser product – a minimum of in my view. It included a number of new guidelines which could have given the sport extra mechanical depth, however it additionally raised the complexity which may simply drive off gamers or GMs much less on this facet of the sport. The d20 version launched by Wizards of the Coast on the peak of the d20 System craze, was an amazing sport, however it was much more advanced and had a approach greater hurdle of entry. Fantasy Flight’s sequence of Star Wars roleplaying video games are good in their very own approach, I like the Genesys System they spawned, BUT once more, it has the next complexity than the easy d6 System, makes use of proprietary cube and is kind of expensive. Maybe Star Wars followers are financially more comfortable these days.

Certain, nostalgia performs a task, however I nonetheless suppose Star Wars 1st Version by West Finish Video games is an superior Star Wars sport and an amazing sport normally. Heck, you possibly can simply hack it for use in different settings or genres. The superb Heavy Gear d6 is an ideal instance. Sadly it has additionally been out of print for ages. Fantasy Flight Video games has launched reprints of the core rulebook and the sourcebook a couple of years again which must be nonetheless accessible on-line. Alternatively some followers have scanned many if not all of West Finish Video games’ Star Wars video games and made them accessible on-line.

In case you are a fan of Star Wars I extremely suggest getting your palms on a replica of this high quality sport. It’s the right sport to introduce folks to the pastime, it’s straightforward to study, straightforward to run, and even the reprint isn’t too costly. It would even be an amazing reward to a Star Wars fan (of any age) who won’t acquainted with roleplaying video games but.

So what are your thought on this sport? Did or do you take pleasure in enjoying it? Would you suggest it as extremely as I do? Or do you suppose I’m completely off my rocker? Please share your ideas under. Each remark is very appreciated.