The Rogue One Holiday Special

Did you see there’s going to be a Rogue One Holiday Special? I’m so excited! Here are the details:

“Over the river and through the woods…to a galaxy far, far away! Join Mon Mothma, Red Leader, and lots of BRAND NEW wacky characters as they celebrate Life Day–one year BEFORE the celebration shown in the original epic Star Wars Holiday Special. Just as you felt when you first saw that classic celebration of Star Wars seasonal spirit, the Rogue One Holiday Special will leave you wondering, “What just happened?!?”

“Although Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford couldn’t make it this year, you’ll be convinced that they DID, thanks to the magic of CGI! Enjoy extended close-ups where you can see every lifelike pore on Luke’s face, Leia’s alabaster skin and painstakingly-rendered hair buns, and Han’s devilish smirk–all of them up to 92% accurate!

“Joining the famous rebels this year are a fun batch of new additions to the Star Wars canon, including:

  • K-2S0 (that’s “zero”, not “O”!), K-2SO’s evil twin (featuring an LED mustache).
  • Red Leader’s family, Martha and little Johnny Leader.
  • The Imperial Marching Band. (They may not hit all their notes, but these musicians are real troopers!)

“Finally, you won’t want to miss a few special treats we have for your human eyes and ears. Singer-songwriter Sia joins us to sing “The Twelve Parsecs of Life Day” (sure to be an instant classic), and a new animated short will introduce this year’s hot new action-figure-tie-in character: Darth Fett.

“You won’t find this magical show on just any old streaming service this year–in fact, you won’t find it on any streaming service at all! In order to recreate the magic of the most famous 1970-era science fantasy holiday special of all time, we’re releasing the Rogue One Holiday Special on unlabeled VHS tapes and distributing it directly to fan conventions and comic book store discount bins.

“Happy Life Day!”

Source
-Image created at FlamingText.com

Star Trek Adventures: First Playtest Session

Our holiday centerpiece

Last weekend I ran my group through the first playtest adventure for Star Trek Adventures (which I talked about earlier, due out next summer.) I don’t want to spoil the adventure for others who might be in the playtest, so my discussion here will be general.

Basic Rules (as of this writing)

This is a playtest, so a lot of details about the game may change before publication. But I wanted to give you a brief overview of what playing the game is like.

Star Trek Adventures uses the 2d20 system, which Modiphius uses in some of their other games such as Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition and Robert E. Howard’s Conan. I’m not familiar with those, but in the STA version, you add an attribute to a skill, then roll 2d20 and hope one or both are equal to or less than that number. The game gives you ways to add more d20s (up to 5), and rolling a 1 or rolling under your skill’s specialty gets you an extra success. The number of successes you need depend on the difficulty of the task (usually 2).

Here are some other notable rules from the current playtest draft:

Momentum: When you roll more successes than you need on a given task, you can spend the extras for added effect–or save them in a group Momentum pool that everyone can use on later turns. Momentum points let you do things like add a d20 to a roll, or make a roll harder for an enemy.

Threat: Kind of the opposite of Momentum, Threat points are a pool that the GM can use to help out the bad guys. Players can choose to voluntarily add to the Threat pool to gain an extra die to roll, thus helping themselves out in the short term by risking more trouble later on.

Another chance to use my action tracker cards!

Determination: Each PC starts with several of these tokens, and they work like hero points or plot points or bennies in other games. You spend them to do cool things, and earn them by being a good player. In STA they’re more powerful than Momentum points, but it does feel like there’s some overlap.

Values: Each PC in the playtest had 3 Values, things like “Fortune Favours the Bold,” “No Love of Violence,” and “Outspoken and Argumentative.” The playtest rules spell out one positive use for this and one negative. If you’re rolling on something your Value might help, and you spend Momentum on it, you can get an extra Momentum point for free. And on the negative side, you can choose to gain a point of Determination if you accept a Complication from the GM. (Kind of like a GM Intrusion in Monte Cook Games’s Cypher System.) It sounds like more uses for Values will be included in later rules. I think this has the potential to be core to the game’s “Star Trek” feel.

Challenge Dice: When rolling damage or similar results, you use special 6-sided dice. For now we don’t have specially printed dice, so we use regular six siders with the following values: 1-2 count as normal, 3-4 count as nothing, and 5-6 count as 1 plus a bonus effect. The effect differs per weapon; an example would be a knockdown effect when you’re punching someone.

Injuries: Every character has a Stress track, and damage will usually come off of this. If you run out of stress, or take a lot of damage at once, your character is Injured, which in this game means you’re out of the fight. You can, however, spend Determination to soldier on.

Group Impressions

Happiness is a table full of dice and playtest notes.

I enjoyed reading the playtest rules and running the game. In play, we felt that some of the rules need tweaking–especially extended tasks, which were extra hard to understand and really slowed us down–but I am optimistic about the game’s future. There’s a lot to like here: the system is (mostly) simple, there aren’t a ton of skills, players have a lot of control over their destinies, and there’s a focus on encouraging problem-solving and not just fighting.

I’m expecting the second playtest adventure in a few weeks. I hear it may include starship rules and/or character creation. Can’t wait!

Star Trek Adventures Playtest Begins

Modiphius has kicked off the playtest for their upcoming Star Trek Adventures RPG. Not only is it a playtest, it’s a “Living Playtest,” in which the playtest reports from gamers will influence characters and maybe even events in future adventures.

When you sign up, you choose between one of four playtest ships. Your choice determines what kind of missions you’ll receive, from combat missions to science missions to a balanced mix.

I’ll be running each playtest mission as Modiphius releases them, so if you’re in Memphis, feel free to join me! (My ship is the USS Venture, featuring a broad range of missions in the Next Generation era.)

You can sign up for the playtest on the Star Trek Adventures playtest page.