Review: Supernova

SOME SPOILERS

It has been a while since I did my last review. Part of the reason for this is that I got pulled into other projects, but I'd say another part is that I have reviewed most of the products that I am most familiar with. Thus, it takes me a while to re-read the books enough to make a fair (or at least informed) review. Supernova is a perfect-bound book in the style of many of the later West End Games adventures supplements—a collection of shorter adventures that are related.

The framing device for this particular collection of adventures is the world of Demophon—a planet in a system who's sun is about to go supernova. The first part of the book covers this system, offering details on the planet and the situation that will become important later. There are six adventures in the collection, and I'll go through each one in turn, starting with...

Infiltration

In this adventure, it is assumed that the player characters are free-traders, come to Demophon to make some quick money by hauling goods off the doomed planet. Things quickly become more complicated when it is discovered that the 'goods' are actually crates filled with refugees—people whom the Empire did NOT want to leave the planet due to their rebel sympathies. After a harrowing escape, the PCs make it off planet and transport the refugees to a safeworld. There, they are asked to make a return trip to Demophon to rescue the man who helped the refugees escape in the first place—a kind-hearted businessman now likely being held by the ISB (Imperial secret police). From there, the story assumes the players book passage on a passenger ship back to Demophon, do some investigating, then plan their infiltration of ISB headquarters. After the rescue, the PCs must figure out some way off the planet—either by stealing an Imperial shuttle or returning to the transport they arrived on.

Now, in reading this, you may have already seen a few problems. The assumptions that this particular plot makes feel very railroady to me. And neither do I like the fact that the PCs are assumed to be smugglers/tramp freighters. The latter is just kind of a peeve of mine—I always prefer to at least give the option of being freighters OR Rebel operatives (not that the adventure isn't easily adaptable to either). The whole thing where the players book passage on a LINER to go BACK to the doomed planet in the midst of an evacuation just seems goofy to me as well. Because yeah... a bunch of people booking passage ONTO a death world isn't suspicious at all.

To it's credit, however, the last part of the adventure (the break-in to the ISB headquarters) is left pretty free-form. Quite a few options are presented for gaining entrance, and hints are offered at how to handle each. The method of break-in and how the players act inside are all 'unscripted'. There is also a HELL of a lot of information on various NPCs, vehicles and locations, as well as a highly detailed map of the interior of the ISB base—this latter could easily be re-used for other adventures (considering the Empire's fetish for pre-fabricated bases).

Overall, I would say that Infiltration is an 'okay' adventure. It will require some tailoring to mesh with different campaign types and in all honesty, the break-in at the ISB base could be a death-sentence for foolhardy players or even inexperienced characters—so GMs beware (and players) beware.

The Mynock Conspiracy

In this adventure, the players are assumed to be Rebel agents, making contact with sympathizers on a very odd agricultural world (odd because all the farming takes place on floating platforms in the super-fertile atmosphere of a gas giant). Things quickly turn bad when the sympathetic ag platform is found nearly destroyed—evidently by a virus that turns droids homicidal. From there, the party is hired by one of the other ag companies to investigate this apparent sabotage—and stop it from happening again (and perhaps use it against the bad guys).

This adventure has only a very loose relation to any of the others in this collection. It just happens to be in the same sector as the other planet(s) in questin. That doesn't really /bother/ me, but it is a little confusing. Likewise, the fact that the party in this adventure is assumed to be a rebel team, while in the first, they are assumed to be smugglers...well, it doesn't do anything to help the cohesiveness of the collection.

As with the previous adventure, however, this one is rather linear in its design—often making assumptions about how the Characters will act or react. But there are enough options provided for GMs to keep it from being TOO linear (though I wouldn't remotely consider it a 'sandbox' type adventure). The adventure concept is interesting enough, combining various different elements: from the spooky investigation of a 'dead' base; to tense negotiations with suspicious corporate types—trying to convince them of the danger before it can claim them, too; to the possible infiltration of a hostile facility for some 'in kind' payback.

Overall, this is a good little stand-alone adventure. It could easily be inserted into any Rebel or Smuggler campaign and it offers an interesting selection of adversaries and obstacles—not just your typical shootouts and dogfights.

Triplecross

This adventure once again finds the party traveling to the doomed planet of Demophon—this time to the once pleasant domed city of D'larah. The party is assumed to be a freighter-crew, hired to evacuate a family—an apparently simple mission that quickly turns nasty as they encounter a city in the grip of panic. Desperate citizens and criminals attempt to steal the party's ship or their money, or both. Is the hard-pressed police captain really an ally? Or does he have an angle...and the family the party came to rescue isn't exactly innocent either.

Right off the bat, I have a couple minor problems with the set-up of this adventure. First of all, if this IS played as part of the whole 'collection' of adventures in this book, it would come after the PCs (and their ship) have TWICE caused quite a disturbance on the planet Demophon. Yes, I realize that planets are big and that the chaos surrounding the evacuation of a planet can disguise a lot, but it would seem to me that the first adventure (Infiltration) would have made the party number one on the Imperial hit list. It would make more sense to me to have this adventure be the FIRST in the series rather than the last.

Another issue is that the party is once again classified as a freighter crew, not rebels. Again, this is minor, but the fact that this seems to switch back and forth every other adventure points out quite blatantly that the book was not conceived of as a cohesive 'campaign', but just a collection of somewhat related adventures. Normally, this is fine, but in this case, by making a planet 'too hot to go to' in one adventure, then having the players return in another as if nothing happened, it stretches believability and makes the adventures difficult to run for the same group.

While I am normally all for background material in my adventures, I can't help but feel that the four pages devoted to describing the city of D'larah, its government, politics, organizations, etc., was a bit excessive for a 'disposable' location. I mean, the city, the planet, the entire system is going to blow up. Why do we need ALL of that detail. It isn't as though we can have the players return here for further adventures at a later date.

Though at first glance (and as written) this adventure seems rather linear, I feel the framework allows for a lot of variation. In fact, if I had run this adventure for MY group, I know several major 'events' never would have happened. But that's the way things go when you allow for players to 'jump the rails' of a story line. There is one event in particular that I think most adventuring parties would thwart—the part where the party's ship is stolen while they are out and about in the city. I can't think of many groups who would leave their ships completely unprotected, especially when landing on a planet where people are desperate to get off world—and indeed, someone tried to steal it the moment they landed. The 'assumption' that the ship is just stolen is a big one. The party may have left one person behind to guard it, or an NPC or even droids.

But, for all these negatives, there are things to recommend the adventure. The plot is solid enough, and has some good twists and turns (though the 'triplecross' may be a bit misleading—its not as convoluted as that). The encounters are varied and include moral choices (do you shoot the sweet old couple that is trying to rob you in order to raise money to escape the planet?), which is always a good thing. The NPCs have motivations and secrets, making them more than just obstacles or allies—easier for the GM to hook into and play with a purpose.

Overall, its a good enough adventure, but GMs with healthily-paranoid parties may find that the entire third act (ship theft and recovery), just doesn't happen—at least not as written.

The Evacuation of Jatee

In this adventure, the party (assumed to be working as operatives for the Rebellion) is sent to a remote asteroid in the Demophon system to evacuate a fellow agent and her 'friends' who had been sabotaging Imperial mining operations. Upon arrival, the party's ship is destroyed and they must make use of armed power-suits to navigate the asteroid and find their evacuee. Unfortunately, the party discovers that there are a lot more beings to evacuate than one agent and her 'friends'. Thus begins a quest to recover a suitably large starship and find a safe place to move all of the evacuees.

This adventure is the worst in this book, and probably one of the worst produced by West End Games. It has many glaring plot holes and contrivances intended to force the players into one particular course of action. As far as the plot holes go—you would think that when being sent on an evacuation mission, someone would ask the question "exactly how many people are we trying to evacuate?" and you think that the agent on-site would at least give SOME indication as to how large a ship to bring. But no. Neither Alliance command nor the on-site agent think to ask or provide this information—so when the party arrives, they find themselves woefully unprepared for the magnitude of the task.

And then there is the ship the players are assigned. Setting aside the fact that most PC groups would have their own ships, the one the players are given is barely functional—and yet intended to run a gauntlet of Imperial security droids and the like. The NPC commander says this is because they can't spare any resources. Right. So... why exactly is this barely functional ship equipped with numerous suits of combat power-armor (which, according to the stats provided, are each worth 30,000 credits—more than the cost of a used starship). Why? Because the plot says so—and because the ship will be destroyed and the players will have to use their suits to battle the bad guys. It is one big excuse to (for whatever the reason) use power armor. In fact, once the group gets to the evacuation site, the agent there has even MORE and different suits of power armor for them to use. It is a contrivance and a blatant one at that.

And that's just the first part of the adventure. From there, you have a pretty straight-forward "raid the Imperial base" scenario, to steal a starship. The stolen starship, of course, has a tracking device on it—which it is assumed will not be discovered by the players. Thus, they have to battle their way out past more Imperial security droids. This done, they retreat to a safe planet to offload the refugees—only to immediately find that the planet is being scouted by an Imperial ship (which they need to somehow deal with). And after THAT, the safe planet is attacked by Pirates who think the PCs are after their buried treasure (or some nonsense). There is no real 'flow' to the action in the latter half of the adventure. The climax that should have come when the players escaped from the doomed asteroid is then followed by this string of anti-climaxes that seemed 'tacked on'.

Since I am generally an optimist, I CAN see the kernel of goodness amidst this mess. The idea of a 'full-scale' evacuation is an interesting enough one. And the plight of those being evacuated is a poignant one—because not everyone is going to be able to leave. Thus, there is a bit of drama when the players realize the magnitude of what they're doing. I remember actually running this adventure for my group. But unlike other adventures, of which I have very vivid memories, I don't really remember much of this except that it fell kind of flat because I was using it as a 'last minute' adventure—one I hadn't prepared for and one I didn't realize was as big of a mess as it is.

As a GM, I would be wary of using the adventure as written. It could be made to work, but it would take effort to do so. I would also consider cutting out the whole power-armor angle, as it just makes NO sense in the context of what is going on. At least not to me. This is ironic, I feel, since the armor seemed to be the whole point of the adventure from the author's point of view.

The Beginning of the End

The final chapter in the Supernova collection, this adventure has the players making one final run to the doomed world of Demophon, this time to recover a lost rebel agent. With the situation growing ever more critical, the players must infiltrate the city of Byrne and follow a trail of clues to find the lost agent. Along the way, they will be faced with the apocalyptic chaos of a city on the edge—looters, desperate survivors looking for a way off planet, ruthless Imperials striving to keep order with the last few evacuees (and get off the world themselves) and even a band of bloodthirsty (and greedy) pirates.

In rather stark contrast to the previous adventure, this one is probably the best in the collection. Here, we have a true sense of desperation and doom. The epic scale that is so much a part of Star Wars is on display here—with an entire world and millions of people going to die. And the players are actually flying INTO this mess. Though there is a trail of clues to follow in order to find the lost agent, the encounters along the way are rather open ended, offering a 'flexible' storyline.

Unfortunately, the story makes one very bad 'assumption'. It isn't a deal breaker, but it is annoying in an otherwise solid adventure. This assumption is that the players are going to just land their ship at the starport and, when demanded by the Empire, simply turn it over to them. In a situation as desperate as this, I would imagine that MOST PC groups would choose to land their ship outside of town and try to sneak in. I also imagine most groups would NOT simply surrender their ships. And yet, the author seems to take this as something the PCs will just do in order to facilitate his story. This point could easily be cut out of the adventure and it would work just as well (though it may make the final encounter with the pirates a bit less desperate, as the PCs will have their own way off planet and wont have to rely on 'acquiring' one as the adventure outlines).

Overall

It has taken me quite a while to get to this review of Supernova. This is partly because it was one of the later books produced by West End Games. But it was also because of the personal dislike I have for this collection. Honestly, I can't tell you why I have this prejudice—perhaps it stems from my running of the Evacuation of Jatee (which left a sour taste). In re-reading the adventures, I have found some things to like, and yet still I am left with an overall 'meh' feeling towards this book that isn't entirely warranted. Perhaps if I had gone into it knowing that some of the adventures within were crappy, I would have had a better time dealing with it—and could have prepared better. Consider this fair warning, and GMs out there reading this. As Luke said: "There is good in you. I can feel it." It is just going to take some work on the GM's part to bring that good out.

Sail Barge

As mentioned in my previous post, I was doing some research into the Sail Barge to see just how big it was. Official size was listed as 30m in length. Wrong. Its more like 45—this judging from the size of people on it's deck in shots from the movie. This revamping in size moves it from the 'Large' to the 'Very large' size category—which seems to make sense.

Hammering Out the Details

In organizing my Star Wars Rules compendium (yes, I do start all posts this way- at least, recently...)...

I have found that putting things down 'on paper' has made me rather paranoid. No. Not paranoid—anal retentive. Considering all the inconsistencies I have found in various source materials, I am now skeptical of just about every source there is, from West End Games to Wookieepedia to the various Guides and Cross-Sections books about Star Wars. There are often conflicting stats and specifics given for things (as I've discussed before). So what I'm doing now is trying to filter all of this down into something that 1) Goes along with what we see in the movies (this is almost always #1), and 2) Works for me logically (since this is MY take on the Star Wars universe).

Right now, all of my paranoid-retentiveness is focused upon scale. Just how different vehicles and critters relate to each other size-wise. And THIS all stemmed from revamping the scale system for the Star Wars game. I had never really thought about it before, but in that system, the Millennium Falcon (30m x 26m) is on the same Scale as an X-Wing (12.5m x 11m). While I realize that the larger things get, the less the difference in scale really matters (is it that much harder to shoot a 1000m long ship vs. a 1600m long ship?), it is a matter of 'relativity', especially in smaller-scale vehicles that could easily be entering direct conflict with player characters during the game. When you bring it down to THAT level, it IS a lot more easy to hit a Freighter like the Falcon than it would be to hit an X-Wing.

And so, geek that I am, I embarked on making a spreadsheet of the various vehicle sizes, trying to get at least an idea of what is bigger than what and what things are kind of the same size. From there, I could group them into more coherent categories that work for me. Of course I couldn't just base things on length, width and height—'bulk' had to play into it as well. Not really liking math, the system I used was crude, but...seems to be effective enough. In the process, I discovered some pretty interesting things (well, interesting to me at least).

Apart from the size discrepancies I mentioned in my last post (of which there are a LOT), I found many vehicles and critters just aren't the size I thought they were. One thing that surprised me was the overall size of a TIE fighter as compared to an X-Wing. I had always though the TIE was quite a bit smaller than an X-Wing in terms of total mass. This is not the case. They're actually pretty much equal in size. And the AT-AT Walker, which I had always thought was the largest of vehicles, is actually a good bit smaller than your average YT-1300 transport in terms of overall bulk.

And so, armed with this new information, I think I've come up with a pretty good scaling system for vehicles, divided into 5 main sizes (just as there are 5 main difficulty numbers in the game—neat, huh?).

Very Small Vehicles — These are things like Speeder-Bikes, STAPs and your smaller swoops.

Small Vehicles — This includes things like small, civilian landspeeders (like Luke's) and airspeeders (like the ones in the Coruscant chase scene in Episode II), as well as your more exotic things like "vulture" droid fighters, small podracers (like Anakin's) and AT-RTs (those small, 'ridable' walkers).

Medium Vehicles — This is the broadest category, ranging from the compact Snowspeeders and Jedi Starfighters through AT-STs, X-Wings and TIEs all the way up to the heavy-hitters like repulsortanks, the ARC-170, B-Wing and TIE Bombers.

Large Vehicles — This category includes most of the big combat vehicles—AT-TE and AT-AT walkers, Juggernaut Tanks, the LAAT combat gunship airspeeders (introduced in Episode II). It also includes smaller starships, like Boba Fett's Slave-I and Lambda-Class shuttles. Gunships like the Skipray and Starwing fall into this category as well—significantly larger than the fighters they often duke it out with. I was also surprised to find Jabba's sail barge fit in this category. But the given dimensions seem accurate, making it actually smaller than the Falcon and other 'light' transports (I'm still looking into this as we speak).

Very Large Vehicles — For the most part, this category includes only freighter starships. The YT-1300 (like the Falcon) is at the lower end of the category, with bigger Ghtroc and Barloz ships in the middle and the Luxury-3000 yacht at the top. The Sandcrawler is the only ground vehicle to make it into this section, being a LOT larger than I thought it was. Yeah, it's about as tall as an AT-AT, but it is SOLID all the way to the ground, meaning a lot more bulk.

Now, I won't go into a lot of detail (yet) about the exact mechanics of scale, and how they work in the game system I am writing up, but suffice it to say that size WILL matter. Ahem. At least in terms of combat. Yeah, your big old YT-1300 may be souped up with all kinds of guns, but it AINT a fighter. It presents a much bigger target. In a way, this is kind of a relief to me, as in my own gaming experience, freighter 'gunships' seemed always to make more 'sense' than your typical fighter. They were just as fast, more durable, had a lot more firepower, etc. Now? Well, they're going to be 2D more easy to hit than a fighter. Oops. That's mechanics. More on that later.

Oh, and in case you're wondering where critters fall in this scale? Well, I have to use different terminology to describe their sizes, but below is an example of how they fit in if they were measured against 'vehicle scales':

Very-Small — Womp Rats and other 'human sized' critters

Small — Kaadu (Gungan mounts), Eopies, Wampas, Tauntauns and even the Dewback

Medium — Banthas, Rontos, Rancors and the Gungan's big 'Fambaa' pack beasts

Large — The Opee Sea Killer (Crustacean-lookin fish from Episode I) and Krayt Dragons

wrong! Wrong! WRONG!

So in my rulebook revamping I have been working on vehicle and critter sections. I have always known that a lot of the game stats given for things were a bit wonky. Well, in my 'research' I have found out that a LOT of things are wonky, not just the stats found in gaming books. The biggest thing I've noticed are dimensions. Maybe its just men and their tendency to exaggerate.. lengths. But more likely, its just folks not bothering to check made up numbers with the.. made up things they're trying to measure. My god. Am I really this geeky? Yep. I am. But.. let me give you a few examples:

The A-Wing Starfighter. It's official stated length is 9.6m. Unfortunately, that just does NOT jive with the various visual representations I've seen of the thing—and just how small it seems to be in relation to the pilot. In 'reality' the A-Wing is probably closer to 5 and a half meters. That's a pretty huge difference. And there are a lot more like this- like the Super Star Destroyer, for instance, which has been sized at anywhere from 8km to 19km.

But one of the most glaring mistakes I found was in the size of the Rancor. The 'official' height of the beast is listed at 10 meters. Looking at the movies, you'll see this aint even close. It seems more plausible to me (and was borne out with a bit of 'research' that the Rancor is actually about 10 FEET high. Oh, us silly Americans and our misunderstanding of the metric system.

Anyway, it is just an observation—one I discovered while trying to (for the first time ever) try and really get an idea of how the sizes of different vehicles and critters relate to eachother (still fine-tuning the various 'scales' in my game). It has been an eye-opening (if incredibly geeky) exercise.

Page Examples

Here are a couple of example pages from the book. One of my pet peeves as a GM was having information organized in an easy-to-use format. For the sake of consolidating pages and the like, I understand why things were done the way they were in the last 'revised and expanded' rulebook, but I always disliked it when a planet file or alien race description would either run unevenly between two columns of the same page or (worse) cut from a page on one spread to a page on the following (meaning you have to flip pages). When I want to use information in a game, I want it all readily available. This is the reason for the column format I am adapting. While I admit it may not be as dynamic or even aesthetically pleasing as the 'flow' of the last D6 rule book, I feel it is a lot more reference friendly in these self-contained blocks.

You will also note that I do not go into extreme detail on any subject—planet or alien. I give what I consider the basics. If a GM wants or needs more, he can delve into online information sources or just make things up based upon the information given.

You may also note that some of the information presented diverts from canon. That is intentional, as this is MY take on the SW universe. I do not contradict things shown or spoken about in the movies. The one exception to this being the omission of midichlorians. Which are stupid. Very stupid. In any case, enjoy. And if you have feedback, hit me with it.

Writing is a Challenge

Even when you know what you want to do and have plenty of examples to base your 'rules cyclopedia' off of, writing is difficult. For me, it isn't 'writer's block' or anything like that. Rather, it is a matter of constantly having to pull back from a much, much larger work than the one I originally intended. Editing things DOWN is the name of the game, and very difficult for a completionist like myself.

Therefore, I have to keep reminding myself that this is meant to be a more 'succinct' rulebook, incorporating all the various house rules I've been using. It is not supposed to be a mega-encyclopedia. That having been said, I find myself enjoying writing everything BUT the rules section. Ironic. Or, if not ironic, just kind of amusing.

The chapters on Alien races and planets and equipment are all so much fun to write. Detailing the basics of how the D6 system is less so—because I already KNOW the system. But then, this is kind of necessary (to me anyway) in case the book ever falls into the hands of someone who's curious but has never played before. So this weekend, I finally buckled down and got through a chunk of the rules. They're like the 'healthy veggies' I don't want to eat. The rest of the book is the delicious steak.

The other issue that has come up isn't about writing...it's about art. I'm a visual person. But it was my original intention not to use any artwork in the book. I have since abandoned that plan. Again, since I never plan to 'market' this book, or even post it anywhere online (its going to friends and friends of friends), I don't feel quite as guilty about using art that has been posted elsewhere online—namely, on Wikipedia and Wookieepedia.

In any case, for those interested, I'm going to be posting a few example pages in future posts.

Episode I Notes

As I delve further into my 'rewrite' of Episode I, I've noticed a few trends emerging—things I am going to want to pay attention to as I continue. As with the rest of this project, this all stems from my personal views on the movie, so I know its all very subjective. But this is my blog, so...subjectivity is the name of the game. In any case, here are some major things I'm concentrating on:

1) Portray the Jedi as badass, yes, but also as 'human'. To me, this entails a bit more humor in their dialogue and a bit less mystical BS. There was one part in the movie where Qui Gon was talking about how the Force would 'lead them' through the unknown, underwater caverns of Naboo. I was like...huh... how does THAT work? I would hate for the Force to become this nebulous deus ex machina—a thing that suddenly provides hitherto unknown 'super-powers' whenever a situation calls for it. Likewise, I would like to think that however philosophically-minded the Jedi are, they would also appreciate common sense and make use of helpful technology. To me, this makes them more 'approachable' as characters and easier to feel for.

2) Jar Jar. As I have stated before, I'm not against comic relief in a movie. But there are a couple caveats to that: a) comic relief should actually be funny, b) funny should entail more than just slapstick, and c) even the comic relief should turn out to be likable and occasionally competent. To have someone who ALWAYS screws up tends to make me dislike that character. Thus, one of my biggest challenges is to balance Jar Jar as both laughable and likable.

3) Give the normal guys a chance. Part of what I enjoyed about the Original Star Wars trilogy was the fact that the Heroes were in it with 'normal guys' who actually seemed to know what they were doing (Wedge, Biggs and Red Leader, for example). In the Early parts of Episode I, we see Naboo Soldiers just standing around as the Jedi battle all around them. I remember thinking to myself...come on, guys, do SOMETHING. Tackle the droids at least, you outnumber them! Later in the movies, Characters like Panaka do seem to come into their own, but if they were given moments earlier in the film (even background moments), then they would have a bit more depth to them.

4) Give the bad guys teeth. In Episode I, the rank-and-file villains are exceptionally non-threatening. Viceroy Nute Gunray and his compatriots are all cowards. That's fine, or would be if it wasn't for the fact their soldiers all look like banana-headed marionettes. Villains should not be used as the main source of comic relief (at least not in my book). All the 'roger roger' crap is annoying. Yes, the droid army itself is kind of creepy when we see it at the end of the movie, but up until then? Meh. Why couldn't the battle-droids be threatening instead of goofy? But overall, this is a minor issue, because the Sith in the film do a VERY good job of being bad. You get a true sense of how evil and manipulating Sidious/Palpatine is and Darth Maul is like nothing we've ever seen before—a seething engine of destruction and hate. He deserves a much better death than the one given to him at the end of this movie.

5) Angst and Romance. These were things decidedly lacking in Episode I. Anakin being a 'sweet little kid', while a poignant contrast to what he would later become, was something that quickly wore thin. It also wasted a lot of opportunity for the development of a relationship between him and Padme—which had to be rushed so much during Episode II that it just didn't 'feel right'. It is my intention to introduce Anakin as a teenager (perhaps 16 or so) and to give a hint at a connection between him and Padme so that there is something to build off of in the Second movie, rather than just starting from scratch.

6) Character moments. My favorite moments in the Original trilogy were those brief times when the action paused and the characters talked—often trading clever one-liners. I realize that in an action movie, you never want to slow down TOO much, but I felt these moments were lacking overall in Episode I. It is my intention to try and revitalize those moments in Episode I, and maybe even inject a couple new ones.

Well, anyway, that's it for now. More later.