Star Wars Introductory Adventure Game.

Way back in 1977, when I was just a teenager, growing up in a small mining town in the northwest of England. Myself and two of my life long friends spent an entire night sleeping out in front of our local cinema, just to watch a movie. It was no ordinary movie that was certain. It had broken box office records in America that summer and all the hype we impressionable thirteen year olds had heaped upon us went a long way. Of course the movie to which I refer is ‘Star Wars’.

Well now some twenty years later on, the motion picture industry is being taken over once again. Not by a new epic saga, but by the very same film that started off the word ‘Blockbuster’, way back in 1977. Having re-released his hit trilogy of ‘Star Wars’ movies, creator George Lucas isn’t sitting back on his laurels and reaping in the cash {well kinda not anyway}, he is busy in post production of the next set of films in the ongoing series.

Over ten years ago, Lucas gave the rights to a struggling games company to license his Star Wars universe. West End Games faced going into liquidation when they sank everything they had into the ‘Star Wars Role-playing Game’, and beating off competition for the rights from such companies as Games Workshop and TSR. Now West End has one of the most marketable licenses in the gaming industry under its belt and the fact that everything in their games are ‘Official’ to the Star Wars universe. The role-playing game has been out now for over ten years and has sold extremely well all over the world, is available in many different languages and is now in its third version containing lots of beautiful artwork and color photographs.

Being a proud parent myself, and an avid gamer and Star Wars fan. I couldn’t wait to take my children to see this event on the big screen, and I got a real kick out of seeing the magic on my little boys face as he watched the film for the very first time. My eldest child Sara loves the films and is always wanting to have a go at the ‘strange games’ that Daddy plays!

I am a strong believer in the use of role-play as a means to further expand the imagination of a child {or anyone for that matter} and I was overjoyed to find out that West End were to release a much simpler version of the ‘Star Wars’ rpg, aimed specifically at a younger audience. I picked up a copy and after opening the box and checking the contents, I sat down with Sara and we began to read the books together. The box catches the eye of the Star Wars fan immediately as the full color cover is one of the promo posters for the first movie, with the assembled cast fighting against the evil Empire. Inside the box we found a slip of paper blazoned with the image of bounty hunter ‘Boba Fett’, that told us what we should find inside the game itself. Well it all checked out. There were six normal dice {d6}, a small Players booklet, a Narrators booklet, a larger Adventure book, seven Maps, sixty-four full color cards and some stand up card characters.

My daughter picked up the card characters and asked if she could assemble them. I agreed and she went to cutting them out and gluing them together. So far so good, she was still interested in the game. After assembling the card characters and leaving the card ‘Scout Walker’ to me to finish. Sara began to read the Players book. My daughter is only ten years old and she has some difficulties reading sometimes as like me she is dyslexic, but it didn’t seem to stop her and I must say that its the fastest I have ever seen her get through a book.

The Players book is laid out in a very simple and straightforward manor, and is very easy to follow. Starting with a simple introduction. The game leads right into an easy to play ‘Choose your path’ type adventure, called ‘Escape Pod Down’. The adventure gives the player a number of options of what to do next and builds up a story, {in fact its very similar to the old ‘Fighting Fantasy’ books that Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone made so famous a few years back} but no matter what path you choose or what the die score is the adventure ends up more or less happily and leaves the player feeling rewarded {especially if they destroyed the Probe Droid!}.

The rest of the Players booklet is made up from a very simplified version of the standard Star Wars rpg. You choose a character template and are taught the simple tasks of opposed rolls and combined rolls, and how your character can take damage and how during the game your character can grow and become experienced.

And that’s it for the Players booklet. Its only thirty-two pages long and as I stated very easy to read. In no time at all Sara had chosen one of the templates that come with the game and her ‘Young Jedi’ character was ready to play in the time it took her to roll a few dice and write down the scores, allocate her points and make up a name.

While she was creating her character, I decided that I would try and approach this game as if I were a novice myself. So I placed my twenty years of gaming experience on the back burner for a while and read the Narrators booklet. This is a much thicker book almost three times as thick in fact, and is packed from cover to cover with the game mechanics, and how to use them. I read the booklet as thoroughly as I could and found it quite refreshing and welcome. It has a positive outlook right from the beginning and is explained in great detail with lots of examples of how play should be handled. Starting with ‘Assault on Edon Base’, a short fifteen page long adventure, the Narrators book informs the Narrator {Games Master, Referee!} the text that they should read aloud to the players in the group, and what actions they should do following the decisions that the players make. Everything is covered in a very simplistic and basic way, from combat to using a Medi-pack and how characters should perform actions. One of the best quotes in the entire game is to be found in this booklet and I feel that all rpgs should carry something similar. It states ‘Don't let the Rules Ruin a Good Story’, and goes on to place an emphasis on playing the game and having fun with it rather than worrying about the games mechanics. At the end of this book is a short plug for the full ‘Star Wars’ rpg system and rules are given to translate your characters from the basic game to the more advanced version.

West End are to be applauded for the way that they set out this rule book. Its simple to read and easy to follow, and the tips on how to play the game, keep the players amused and keep the action going are excellent. All the major things you need to know about the game are presented here, from the statistics of the inhabitants of the Star Wars universe, to ‘Dog Fights’ over some back world planet. Once the Narrator is comfortable with the rules, the booklet recommends that he/she, move on to the ‘Adventures’ book, where real fun starts.

The ‘Adventures’ book is just that. Filled with six adventures that can be played alone or linked together to form a campaign. In fact some of the characters you meet in the early parts of the book, crop up again later on, to make a brief appearance or try to foil the Rebels in their quest for peace. As with the Narrators book, this book explains everything in great detail and repeats some of the information found in the Narrators book for easy reference. The adventures state when the Narrator should read aloud something important to the plot of the story, by placing a ‘Read this aloud’ caption before the text, {which is typed in a bold face} so the Narrator know what to say and when to say it {although as with all rpg’s, this can sometimes go a little astray}. For the first few adventures there is a page on ‘How we played it’, which explains how the games creators played out the adventure and is there to compare it to how well you faired. Other games designers please take note, this does work.

To play along with each of the adventures is a selection of maps. All are in black and white and are quite large to play on as well as girded. Use of the card characters and the ‘Scout Walker’ comes into its own here and the maps are double sided with one side being a close up section of the other. Two of the maps are of great use to all Star Wars gamers. The first of these is the space port city of ‘Mos Eisley’ home to some of the ruthless cut throats in the galaxy, on the reverse of this is the famous ‘Cantina’, where the heroes in the film met ‘Han Solo’ and ‘Chewbacca’ for the first time and you can almost hear the bartender yelling ‘No Blasters’.

The second map is of a ‘Docking Bay’ in the spaceport. However it is the other side of the map that has the real significance as its here we find the floor plans for a ‘Corrileian YT-1300 Stock Light Freighter’ the same ship as used by ‘ Han Solo and Chewbacca’, the ‘ Millennium Falcon’. The plans are detailed and show the major parts of the ship and allow for the placement of the card characters.

The full color cards that come with the game are there to help out the novice Narrator in game play. On one side is a clear and crisp photograph or drawing of a character, creature, or vehicle that appears in the game. Also the use of the ‘Force’ is described on the back of some of the cards , depicted by scenes from the movies such as the ‘Affect Mind’ card showing ‘Ben Kenobi’ in the ‘Landspeeder’ motioning to the ‘Imperial Stormtroopers’ in the scene in ‘ Mos Eisley’, you know the one. ‘ These aren’t the Droids you’re looking for’! The cards will help out until the Narrator becomes familiar with the system. Also all the NPC’s are included on the cards to make life just that wee bit easier.

Sara and I played the first adventure in the Narrators booklet and then later that evening went on to play the first installment of the Adventure book. As someone who has never played an RPG before, she seemed to catch on very quickly and was soon in the character of her ‘Young Jedi’.

After playing the game she asked could she re-read the books and when could we play again. My daughter doesn’t ask this type of thing of me normally and I was really pleased to see her reactions. Role-playing is one of the best tools we have for therapeutic development and getting across information. Its used by a great many companies these days and in training highly skilled people, such as doctors and nurses, in how to handle a wide variety of situations. Through the use of role-playing my daughter is over coming a disability without her even knowing it and she’s having fun too.

All in all, I can’t recommend this game enough. If you are looking to get someone new involved in the gaming hobby, then this is the perfect launch pad to start off on. Or even if your an old hand like me, I am sure that you can find something of interest here. Well done West End an Excellent starter indeed.