On Wednesday night we played Star Wars at Vault Games CBD using the Fate rules (which I will argue is the best $15 you can ever spend on a physical RPG book - I've bought 3 copies from Vault already!!) - oh, it's also free as a PDF from the publisher Evil Hat.
I was a bit rusty on the Fate rules, despite it being my favourite rules-set I've been playing a HEAP of PbtA lately so made a few mistakes here - still I hope everyone had a great time. I'm going to run a lot more Fate games from now on, definitely Star Wars but many others too, let me know if keen.
As with all games I run, players learnt the rules and had characters down within about 20 minutes - 3/4 of them having never played this rule set before. It's THAT EASY.
Our characters were:
• Kootootu - An excitable Jawa mechanic who has taken one too many speeders for unauthorised "test drives".
• Klore Belor - An ex-imperial prison guard with a brutal streak and poor decision making skills.
• Mooloo Jax - An Ewok raised by adoptive Wookie parents out to prove herself, with anger issues and extremely violent, but allergic to blood.
• Upgrade - A medical droid with a god complex, tinkering with biological lifeforms to 'improve' them and hunted by the rebellion for human rights abuses.
WOW. What a mix of characters there.
As usual, this was a 0 prep game so I asked the players where we were at contextually to begin, and they suggested we were playing a 'fringe' group (not rebels, not imperials etc - just 'scum and villainy') and that 'we've all been locked in a cell together', which is a nice place to start isn't it? I've run several others in this group through a similar starting scenario for Fate Star Wars before, so had some broad story beats in mind to throw at them (this will seem familiar to those who have played this before with me).
They awoke in a dank cell, which Klore decided was clearly not Imperial in nature by its decrepit nature. Kootootu and Klore immediately started scuffling with each other - it seems Kootootu had taken Klore's speeder for an unauthorised spin and there was some animosity there. An enormous pig-faced Gamorean Guard stalked the hall out beyond the force-field that kept them contained, a scraggly looking human mercenary approached the big lug and instructed the Gamorean to "gas them again if they give you any more trouble". Craning their necks to see down the hall they saw a control panel clearly marked 'gas' at a dead-end out in the hall.
The Gamorean came over and started prodding the force field with his halberd to try and separate the Klore/Kootootu scuffle, just as Upgrade tried to interfere with the electronics of the field. Something went wrong and the field was disrupted but only for a second - and now an armed, angry, and violent Gamorean had fallen into the cell with them!
Klore threw Kootootu bodily at the pig-face, sending him sprawling to the ground with her atop. Upgrade tried to use his medical knowledge to dissect the still living brute, but only got in the way. Mooloo jumped in and began viciously kicking the creature in the face until it was a bloody pulp. Using her technical skill, Kootootu reconfigured the electronics in the halberd and disrupted the field long enough for them to exit the cell. She walked up to the big button on the panel marked "Gas" and resisted the urge to push it to see what happened. Looking at their cell from the outside, Klore noticed that this cell said "Group 6" above the doorway - but there were no other cells obvious down here in the corridor…
A little scouting led them to a mess-hall style room filled with long tables, and a number of Klatooinians and Weequays (humanoid, piratey looking guys) were rifling through their gear. Rather than try to fight these guys, Kootootu went back to the gas panel and diverted the gas into a long hose which she brought up to the room door. Needing a distraction, Upgrade walked in to 'talk to' the mercenaries but stupidly Klore went with him. Seeing the issue, Mooloo ran back and banged the big "gas" button putting all organics in the room into a deep sleep - including Klore. Luckily, now with all their gear back Upgrade was able to stab Klore with a stim and wake him back up instantly.
The group set to work getting the hell out of here. Upgrade interfaced with a terminal to get a map of the place, finding them to be in a multi-level underground pirate haven. Kootootu re-wired some of the alarms to sound an 'evacuation' tone, causing the pirates to leave. Mooloo worked on the doors and figured out their locking mechanisms making escape easier. Klore was intrigued by a grimy door they hadn't explored, and entered a dark trash compactor - startled by two red pinpricks of light emanating from the detritus and muck. He realised this was a smashed and broken droid - a medical model of the same type as Upgrade, and tried to interrogate it but could only establish that he, Klore, was 'Subject 6236' and that this particular droid had made a mistake on some medical procedure involving the group and so they were scheduled for termination. The group made their way up and out through the now empty pirate warren, with Klore dragging the upper torso and head of the dismembered droid with him, hoping to get further information.
They made their way through the now abandoned complex and emerged into the night-time at a sea port facility - surrounded by many shipping containers and cranes ready to load them aboard ships - from the sounds of it, the pirates from the complex had not evacuated very far and would notice them quite easily. Mooloo and Upgrade climbed up the shipping containers to get a better view, while the hyperactive Jawa Kootootu started rummaging around in the abandoned equipment looking for stuff she could steal and make useful again. Klore decided to sneak up on the mercenaries around a corner but attracted attention when the eyes of the droid he was carrying lit up like beacons - a handful of the bad guys were now headed his way, but he did manage to get some vital information - someone had been trying to contact the group in 'Channel 63'. Kootootu found the right parts to quickly strap on some repulsor/rocket boots, and she took to the sky, while Upgrade jumped down from the containers next to Klore, damaging his leg mechanics on the way. Klore and Upgrade tried some bad bluff with the pirates, before Koottootu picked up Mooloo from the top of the shipping containers - the two small but deadly aliens began strafing the pirates with blaster fire from the air, held aloft by the jet-boots.
The bigger problem was of course the 15-20 other bandits nearby, so after forcing the remainder of the small group to surrender Mooloo went over to the larger group nearby and with some choice insults, provoked them into fighting with each other - nothing deadly yet, but they were certainly distracted. Klore interrogated the two remaining pirates who had surrendered, but all they could tell him was that there was a 'massive amount of imperial credits' flowing through their group lately from some unknown source. Upgrade the droid interfaced with one of the giant gantry cranes overhead, swing a shipping container over the bad guys, and dropped it on them.
Kootootu had meanwhile found the impounded speeder that she had previously stolen from Klore. With some incoming emergency response drones responding to the 'industrial accident' of a dropped container, the group booked it in the speeder - headed towards the star port. Checking the comms in the speeder, they realised it was tuned into channel 63, but comms on that channel were being blocked for some reason. Upgrade tried to breach the comms blocking, but ended up sending his unique ID out on broadcast - he was now certain that the rebellion who were hunting him would know where he was. Klore managed a risky manoeuvre to shove Kootootu out of the driver seat, demanding that she fix the radio rather than this droid who kept stuffing up. Kootootu got the comms working and was surprised to find the mysterious 'Habon' at the other end of the line - he said he was a friend and would meet them at Docking Bay 94 of the towering spaceport superstructure in the centre of the city. Habon warned them that their very lives depended on getting there and 'liberating' the containers in that bay. That conversation was interrupted as alliance military pilots broke into the channel - demanding that Upgrade stand down and surrender, or else they would blow the speeder out of the sky. Looking out to the west, Upgrade identified the ominous outline of a pair of X-Wing fighters on intercept course between their speeder and the spaceport spire they were headed for. Mooloo could do little but cling on for dear life.
Klore floored it, trying to outdistance the intercepting X-Wings, but came under fire from imperial forces who had by now set up in Docking Bay 94. Hit at both rear by the X-Wings and front by the imperial E-Web turrets, Klore realised there was no hope of staying airborne and deliberately crashed the air speeder into the docking bay they needed to get to, as the X-Wings peeled off under fire from the imperials. In the docking bay, the 6 stormtroopers paused loading their crates into the imperial shuttle parked there and turned their blasters on the interlopers hiding behind the flaming wreckage of the air speeder. Klore came out from behind the flaming speeder wreck trying to talk them down, but was shot for his troubles - he was now in dire straits, as was Upgrade, who copped a few blaster bolts for his troubles as well, taking his arm clean off. Mooloo went running in and shot one stormtrooper while physically attacking another, and was helped by Upgrade to take him down.
Upgrade decided to grab two of the crates floating on repulsors and take them over to the edge of the docking bay as he saw a beat up old freighter coming in hot - surely this was the mysterious ally 'Habon'. Klore shot another stormtrooper and Kootootu managed to get the flaming wreckage of their speeder moving again and sent it into the remaining stormtroopers, eradicating them. Mooloo grabbed a third crate but slipped and sent the crate spinning dangerously towards Upgrade standing right at the edge of the docking bay - he just managed to stop it before it sent him over the edge. Kootootu ran up the ramp into the imperial shuttle and communicated with Habon, directing him to their landing bay, while off in the distance Upgrade saw two pinpricks of light emerge from the X-Wings several kilometres away - they had launched proton torpedoes!!
Habon had by now backed his freighter up to the dock, but was a sitting duck for the incoming torpedoes. Mooloo jumped on one of the imperial E-Web blasters and started spraying fire out towards the torpedoes, but had to get help from Klore to manage the mighty gun to have any effect - knocking one torpedo out of the sky, but only delaying the other as it spun out of control for a little bit. Kootootu used the shuttle radio to tell Habon to bring his beat up freighter inside the docking bay and Mooloo dashed across the docking bay in a desperate attempt to activate the docking bay forcefield. The furry little ball of Ewok sprinted across to the control panel for the docking bay and just barely managed to slam her hand onto the button and the shield went up - the remaining proton torpedo impacted outside of the spaceport on the shield rather than inside the docking bay.
Everyone piled into the beat up freighter with the remaining crates and met their ally Habon - an ancient Mon Calamari captain. Habon immediately punched for orbit and then into hyperspace, escaping the pursuing X-Wings. Settling into the familiar rhythm of hyperspace travel, Habon came back to the main cargo hold of the freighter and opened the shipping cases one by one, revealing clones of each of the characters (including a droid the same model as Upgrade). "I guess the only thing to figure out now" began the ageing fish-man, "is to figure out which one of you is the clone and which is the original".
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