Tag Archives: Edge of the Empire

Star Wars Games That Are Actually Good!

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I know Star Wars Day was a few days ago — check out the Star Wars crossword I constructed for May the Fourth — but while the spirit of that galaxy far, far away is still being celebrated, I want to recommend some Star Wars-infused fun for board game and RPG fans to savor.

Now, there are dozens, possibly hundreds, of Star Wars-themed games. But, as I proved with my history of Godzilla games, it can take a long time for a beloved franchise to get a tabletop game worthy of the subject matter.

Thankfully, there are some choice options out there with Star Wars sauce for your tabletop enjoyment.

Image courtesy of BoardGameGeek.

Star Wars: Asteroid Escape

In this space-based variation on the game Tsuro — one of my all-time favorite board games — you try to navigate your ship through space by laying tiles and following the path as it connects to other tiles. Each player is laying tiles, quickly filling up the board, so you need to grow more and more strategic with your plays as the stack of tiles dwindles.

But with asteroids also roaming the field of play, can you outlast every other ship on the board? This is a terrific mix of Star Wars flavor with everything that makes Tsuro fun and challenging. It might be hard to find, but it will be a welcome addition to your game shelf.

Images courtesy of BoardGameGeek.

Star Wars: Timeline

I love the Timeline games. (I own nearly a dozen of them!) The simple act of trying to place your card in relation to other events on the table is both a great trivia experience and an opportunity to engage in some deduction and logical thinking.

So when I heard about Star Wars versions of Timeline, I happily snapped them up. With editions for both the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy, it will definitely exact a toll on your memory to see if you can precisely place key moments from the movies in the proper order.

Although easier than some of the other editions of Timeline (like their Inventions edition), this is still great fun for Star Wars fans of all ages.

Image courtesy of BoardGameGeek.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

In this prequel era take on Pandemic, players take on the role of Jedi trying to battle back the onslaught of battle droids across the galaxy. Can you stop the spread of Confederacy forces by saving one world at a time?

While Star Wars versions of Risk and Monopoly are pretty much the same game with Star Wars seasoning, The Clone Wars takes the best of the Pandemic system and feels like it takes it in a fresh direction. This isn’t just another version of Pandemic, this is a very clever marriage of the two that takes the best from both.

Strategy and cooperation is absolutely key in this one, and the cooperative aspect separates it from many of the other games on today’s list.

Image courtesy of BoardGameGeek.

Villainous: The Power of the Dark Side

The Villainous games are amazingly well-designed games. Balancing different mechanics for four different villains as you try to achieve their goals and foil the efforts of the villains played by other players, this Disney franchise continues to expand and never disappoints.

And The Power of the Dark Side, their first Star Wars edition of the game, is one of the best versions of Villainous available today. With five villains to choose from — spanning the original, prequel, and new trilogies, as well as the Clone Wars TV show –there’s truly a villain here for any Star Wars fan.

Can you achieve your villainous dreams, or will the other evildoers at the table outmaneuver you and realize their darkest ambitions?

Image courtesy of Nerds on Earth.

Star Wars: Outer Rim

Embrace your inner scoundrel with this game, where each player strives to complete jobs for their employers, collect bounties, smuggle cargo… you know, your usual day-to-day shenanigans in the Star Wars universe.

This game sorta gives you the roleplaying experience in a one-session microcosm. You’ll make your character, make your choices, upgrade your gear and your ship, and make some money, all while dealing with shady and dangerous folks. It’s a whole narrative arc crammed into a single sitting.

Image courtesy of Entertainment Earth.

Star Wars: Rebellion

While Outer Rim is a personal journey, Rebellion is Star Wars on a galactic scale. This is full-blown war between the Rebellion and the Empire, where one side has a Death Star to build and an insurrection to crush, while the other builds alliances, plays cat-and-mouse with the Empire, and plots to destroy the Empire’s greatest weapon.

I’ve only played this game a few times — it’s expensive, a bit overwhelming, and takes a while to get good at — but it’s been a blast every time.

The tabletop scene for Star Wars sure is stacked, but there are plenty of terrific immersive options out there as well for roleplaying fans looking to explore the universe of Star Wars.

And while officially licensed games are great (I’ll be mentioning one below), sometimes the best stories are told in the shadows by companies that understand the spirit of that franchise, but can’t afford all the bells and whistles.

Here are two of my favorites:

Rebel Scum

If, for any reason at all, you felt like punching a Nazi in the face, you can do so in Rebel Scum by 9th Level Games. Yes, they’re space Nazis running an evil empire, and you’re an intrepid anti-fascist trying to save the galaxy, but hey, punching Nazis, amirite?

This game manages to feel like an epic battle across the stars AND a session of playing with your favorite action figures all at the same time. It’s childhood wonder and all the heroic action we wish we could undertake as adults.

Will you stop Baron Deathray and his Killtroopers with a handful of dice and a lot of gumption? Only one way to find out.

Scum and Villainy

If you really like the Han Solo-esque scrappy smuggler making his way through the universe sorta thing, Evil Hat Productions have you covered with Scum and Villainy.

While the Evil Galactic Hegemony is ever-present, this game is more about criminal dealings, clever negotiation, devious schemes, and profiteering adventure. It feels like the day-to-day trials and tribulations of a struggling spaceship crew.

I love the focus in Scum and Villainy on the roleplay aspect of RPGs. So much of the game is about character and the worlds you visit, and not as much about swinging lightsabers and dodging turbolasers.

As you can see, there are many different ways to play a Star Wars game. It can be a war game, an exploration game, a scheming game, a storytelling game… sometimes all of them at once. And Fantasy Flight Games brings a seriously impressive narrative tool to the table with their Star Wars Roleplaying Game.

There have been Star Wars RPG games since the 80s, but I don’t think any of them offered the same spirit of choice, chance, and adventure that the FFG edition of the game does.

Like most RPGs, you pick a class and build your stats and roll dice to determine the outcome of your choices. But unlike many RPGs where the number you roll declares your action a success or a failure, the narrative dice of Star Wars FFG offer a much more exciting and engaging answer.

It’s not just a binary option, you succeed or you fail. With narrative dice, you can have additional complications, both positive and negative.

You could fail, but with some unexpected advantage: You missed a swing of your lightsaber, but you cut through the awning supports and blinded your foe for a round.

You could succeed, but with some negative consequence: You might have caught the bad guy with your blaster, but you also shot the engines of your ship, and now they need repairs.

Your actions tell a story that goes well beyond yes and no. And in a world where scoundrels often make mistakes while trying to do good, it’s a more interesting, more immersive journey every time, and it truly brings those adventurous moments to life.

Whether you’re a scoundrel on the Edge of the Empire, a hero during the Age of Rebellion, or someone caught between the Light Side and the Dark Side in Force and Destiny, they’ve got a place for you to tell your story.

Did your favorite Star Wars game or RPG get mentioned? Or are you miffed I left out Star Wars Trivial Pursuit and its bweepy little R2-D2 dice roller?

Let me know in the comments section below! I’d love to hear from you.

Demystifying Role-Playing Games

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When you hear the words “role-playing game,” what comes to mind? A bunch of nerds in a basement, hunched around a table debating weird and esoteric rules? Practitioners of the black arts, thumbing their noses at God and all that is natural? Or nothing at all?

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Some TV shows, like Community and Freaks & Geeks, have displayed role-playing games in a positive light, but for the most part, role-playing games in general, and Dungeons & Dragons in particular, have gotten a bad rap over the last few decades, maligned as (at best) a game for lonely friendless types and (at worst) a tool to corrupt children.

(This might sound ridiculous to many of you, but folks like Pat Robertson continue to talk about role-playing games as if they’re synonymous with demon worship.)

But in reality, role-playing games are simply a way for a group to tell one collaborative story.

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There are two major elements to this storytelling. The first is managed by a single person who oversees that particular game or gaming session. In Dungeons & Dragons, this person is called the Dungeon Master, or DM; in other games, this person is the Game Master, the Storyteller, or bears some other title tied to the game or setting. For the sake of simplicity, from this point on, I’ll refer to this person as the DM.

So, the DM manages the setting and sets up the adventure. In this role, the DM will describe what the player characters (or PCs) see and explain the results of their actions. The DM also plays any characters the players interact with. (These are known as NPCs, or non-player characters.) Essentially, the DM creates the sandbox in which the other players play.

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Which brings us to the second element in role-playing storytelling: the players. Each player assumes a role, a character, and plays that character for the length of the session, or the game, if there are multiple sessions. (Some games last months or years, so these characters evolve and grow; players often become quite attached to their characters.)

The PCs navigate the world created by the DM, but their actions and decisions shape the narrative. No matter how prepared a DM is or how carefully he or she has plotted out a given scene or adventure, the PCs determine much of what happens. They might follow the breadcrumbs exactly as the DM laid them out, or they might head off in an unexpected direction, forcing the DM to think on the fly in order to continue the adventure.

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That’s what makes role-playing games so amazing: you never quite know what you’re going to get. The PCs usually don’t know what the DM has in store, and no DM can predict with perfect clarity what the PCs will do. You’re all crafting a story together and none of you knows what exactly will happen or how it all ends.

For instance, I run a role-playing game for several friends that is set in the universe of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and my PCs routinely come up with solutions to problems and puzzles that I didn’t expect, but that nonetheless would work. They constantly keep me on my toes as a DM, and it’s one of my favorite aspects of the game.

Oftentimes, major events and key moments are determined by dice rolls, adding an element of chance to the story. (In some games, players have replaced dice rolls with a Jenga-style block tower, and they must remove pieces from it to achieve certain goals. That adds a marvelous sense of real-world tension to the narrative tension already present!)

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And while I’ve talked quite a bit about the game aspect, some of you might be wondering where the puzzly aspect comes in.

Some of the best, most satisfying puzzle-solving experiences of my life have come from role-playing games.

These puzzles can be as simple as figuring out how to open a locked door or as complicated as unraveling a villain’s dastardly plot for world domination. It can be a poem to be parsed and understood or a trap to be escaped.

There are riddles of goblins and sphinxes, or the three questions of trolls, or even the brain teasers and logic problems concocted by devious fey hoping to snare me with clever wordplay. I’ve encountered all sorts of puzzles in role-playing games, and some of them were fiendish indeed.

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One time, during a LARP session (Live-Action Role-Playing, meaning you actually act out the adventure and storytelling), I thought I’d unraveled the meaning of a certain bit of scripture (regarding a key that would allow me to escape the room) and acquired a sword as my prize, only to realize much much later that the key I’d spent the entire session searching for was the sword itself, which unlocked the door and released me.

And designing puzzles for my players to unravel is often as much fun as solving the puzzles myself. Especially when they’re tailored to specific storytelling universes or particular player characters.

(Trust me, it doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with a Jedi or a paladin; riddles stop pretty much everybody in their tracks.)

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Whether it’s Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder, Legend of the Five Rings or Star Wars, GURPS or Ninja Burger, there’s a role-playing game out there for everyone, if you’re just willing to look.

This post was meant as a brief overview of role-playing games as a whole. If you’d like me to get more in depth on the subject, or if you have specific questions about role-playing games, please let me know! I’d be happy to revisit this topic in the future.

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