Darkstryder

[cheshire]

Has anyone run the Darkstryder campaign? I just snagged all of the Darkstryder books off of eBay for about $11.00, and was considering giving it a try with some newbie roleplayers. What are your impressions and thoughts?

[Gry Sarth]

I never actually ran it, but in making my Stats books I got to have a good look at it. From what I gathered it seems like a very solid and well though-out campaign. The only thing is that towards the end things start to get a bit too... weird for a Star Wars game for me. With those bio-constructs and alternate magic, and whatnot. It seems to skew towards Otherspace a bit, which don't really please me. Myself, I would use the bones offered by DarkStryder and build something a bit different for my group...
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[PsiberDragon]

Run? No.

Played? Yes... very well thought out game, and it does get a little peculiar. Good way to get Jedi powerful, then pull the rug out from under them...

I'd recommend it.
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"Love like you will die tomorrow. Hate like you will live forever." - Unknown

[Farlight]

I just started running this campaign with my group last month.

It is very well done but VERY complex. I would definitely not recommend it for new players or GM's.

It also helps to have a large group (6 or more). Mine is usually around 4 routinely.

It helps to read through the entire campaign once or twice before running it. To make it work as WEG planned, certain things need to happen each session. (I started a check list of important ones)

Problems I have had;
-It recommends the PC have multiple characters. 1 from the command staff (which the adventure centers around), 1 from support staff, and 1 you generate as your own. The problem here has been that some of my players have been having trouble getting into the role of the pre-gen central characters. To make things work out (as WEG indicates in the character development) I have to take control behind the scenes and make them do certain actions. Even after explaining this to my players from the beginning, they still don't like having characters they control do things without their permission. (understandable)
They do best with their own self made PC's so I have tried to recenter the adventures to them and keep the central command staff as important background.

-Scale
As this is a campaign is set on a large scale, you really need to be familiar with a group combat system to avoid being slowed down. As WEG wrote it I think the first adventure has 48 Tie Interceptors, 12 Bombers, and some support all attacking at once. Unless a PC is directly involved, I've kept the die rolls to a minimum(secret from my players) and relied more on story-telling for these situations.

When you do run it, I recommend using the first session as a way to get your players familiar with their situation, the staff characters, and the ship in general. After the this session, I gave mine a 'player handout' of photocopys (with gm important facts deleted) of the details of the ship, npcs, and facts they would now be accustomed to after being onboard for several weeks. This worked out fairly well and didn't slow down our gaming as much for explanations.


(as you can see I'm rather new to this board. Very glad I found it . Some very good fan made resources here! I'm a long time player and GM of the SW WEG d6 system since it first came out in 1987. Most of my books are 1st ed as I never bothered buying the 2nd edition revised reprints except the core rules and interesting looking adventures. Hope I can be of some help here )

[Gry Sarth]

Yeah, I can see how handling multiple characters to he players, and in top of that "forcing" them to perform certain actions which are pre-scripted could be quite a turn-off to the players. Players will always identify and invest more on a charecter they themselves created, and one which they feel they can fully embody and control. I think you're right in trying to change the campaign's focus to these characters instead of the command staff. I'd try to phase out the command staff and leave the players just with their own characters.
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[Orpheus]

I never really dug the whole multiple-PC thing either. Some like to do that with Call of Cthulhu but that is mostly because of high "turnover."
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"He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative."-G.K. Chesterton

[Wisconsin Wookie]

"It also helps to have a large group (6 or more). Mine is usually around 4 routinely."

If our group consists of 3 players and the gm, is that too few in your opinion?