I'm sitting here thinking that there's not much to talk about today on the gaming front. Thinking I could go a day without posting something, I sat down with a bowl of noodles to watch The Clone Wars in HD (HOLY CRAP PRETTY STAR WARS ACTION). I quick check Tabletop Gaming News and see the headline that Wizards of the Coast is not renewing their Star Wars license. I don't really have much to say about this other than it's kind of exciting. I liked Saga Edition actually quite a bit. It was the first crunchy game we ever ran, and even though it was my first game I tried to GM (with varying levels of success), it was a hoot to play. Even though this is true, I haven't played a game of the mini's game in years, and I won't miss it much.
I think it'd be fun to round out a collection of all the Saga books now that the line is ending, but who knows? Maybe they'll get all expensive and collector-y now. It's hard to say. I think there's definitely potential considering the line is actually pretty big, complete you could even say (although describing anything "Star Wars" as complete is pretty silly to begin with). I think the big factor is how long it takes for a new company to pick up the license and start producing a new game. No matter what, this is kind of the end or an era of Star Wars RPG'ing. Wizards has held the license for at least 10 years.
There are really two eras of Star Wars RPG's: d6 when West End Games held the license for a long time. Haven't ever had a chance to play with the rules, but it seems like a flawed system that holds a lot of rose-colored googles effect for older gamers. The d20 era is the current one, or soon to be "most recent" version. To the best of my knowledge, there have been three versions of the rules, with Saga being the most recent, and most notable as the "3.75" edition of the D20 ruleset. It bridged the gap between D&D 3.5 and Fourth Ed., and was a testing ground for a lot of the most popular mechanics of Fourth Ed.
Saga Edition, we salute you and your square-shaped books!
I played Star Wars under the d6 system, and it was very functional. I liked it much better than the d20 system, shame it had to change. Ultimately it comes down to the quality of the GM, but I really liked how the game flowed using West End rules.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the D20 star wars mechanics over the D6 mechanics actually. I have a strong nostalgia for the West End stuff (as I do for 1st and 2nd Ed D&D) but mechanically I think the D20 stuff was nice and clean. I do agree it really comes down to DMs. Lets face it DMs 10, 15, 20 years back just put in more time to their craft. There was no WoW, Ipod-pad-pud, 20 years back the internet was just a glimmer in Al Gore's eye (lol .. kidding kidding). These days even the most dedicated DMs seem to shine with supported material that is lower DM prep. Honestly I'd rather play in a modded up Fate or Savage Worlds Star Wars game with a group of SW fans ... much fun indeed :) ... I'm sure its only a matter of time before the license picked up by someone else.
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