I've done something different

[strongarm85]

I started a Star Wars game on another forum that uses the same set of rules we all know and love.

Now the thing about this forum is its attracts the kind of players who are genreally turned off by Dice games. So what I did is I hid the rules from them, completely.

Essentially the players have a short form to fill out for their character information that actually covers what areas they want their character to be skilled in along with their general attribute information and any force powers they want and there is plenty of places for them to fill in as much or as little information about any of their characters as they wish.

The players never lay eyes on their character sheets, and I make all the dice rolls. If the players are curious enough I'll provide them a link to the 4 page hand out for new players in the Revised Core Rulebook. And if they want to learn the rules further I'll tell them what book I'm using and leave the rest up to them.

I am currently up to 12 players and about 20 characters with 2 deaths so far. About 5 of those characters are Imperials.

The game setting takes place in Alternate Universe where the Dark Side ending of Force Unleashed has taken place. The game picks up six months after an event I call "The Massacre of Hoth", where the Rebellion was completely annihilated due to Starkiller sneaking into the Rebel Base undetected and taking out the shield generator, Ion Canon, killing Obi-wan Kenobi who lived to this point because Vader wasn't around to sense his presence on the Death Star, and capturing Luke Skywalker.

The fleet that was originally commanded by Vader was present at the battle as well. But without Vader there to command the fleet the responsibility fell to Grand Adrmiral Thrawn who served as the commanding officer. The fleet hid the Astroid field and remained undetected until the rebels tried to launch the transports, this Imperial fleet micro jumped from the asteroid field to Hoth and interdicted the transports destroyed them completely. Only a handfull of Rebels, mostly those flying Star Fighters, made it off Hoth alive. The remaining Rebels and local resistance cells across the Galaxy are being systematically destroyed.

The Starting point of the Story is the Calna Mun on the Planet Agamar where Keyan Farlander returned home to met up with the local resistance.

[Raven Redstar]

Sounds like an interesting style to take on. It definitely gets rid of the metagaming number crunching style that some players take up.

[Akari]

Reminds me of one of my favorite campaign ever! We played a superhero game called "Champions". The players never got to touch any dice or character sheet, just creatively described what they were going to do, while the GM rolled all the dice. Along with the exaggeratedly cliched characters, that was roleplaying at its best, cause we really had nothing to hang on but our imagination. That was very difficult at first, but worked out splendidly in the end!

At one time, when the GM couldn't come, we spent an entire evening (10+ hours) roleplaying among ourselves, furthering the inter-character plotlines we thought up. Soap Operas were nothing against us!

However, when we tried another campaign like this later, after the GM moved away, we failed spectacularily. It just didn't work out at all. I believe this is because the original gamemaster managed to describe everything so vividly that our characters really became alive in our imagination, while the replacement just couldn't spark that feeling.
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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.--Benjamin Franklin

[Esoomian]

I've always wanted to play/GM a game in this style, after all I don't have a character sheet or myself so I can't work out what my dicepool is for any given situation.

Come to think of it though I have also always wanted an accurate character sheet for myself.
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Don't waste money on expensive binoculars.

Simply stand closer to the object you wish to view.

[mdlake]

I'd like to try that experiment some time! At least one of my current players wouldn't stand for it, alas. Come to think of it, I'd have mixed feelings about that approach as a player; I can cheerfully relinquish control of the in-play mechanics, but I'd want control over defining my abilities. Still, it would be an interesting experiment.

As a GM, I could only pull off something like this with a rules-lite system, something like OtE or Risus or SHERPA. My hat's off to a GM who can make it work with Champions--how did he keep the players from nodding off while he rolled and counted all those dice, phase after bloody phase? How did he get past players trying something creative that they thought they could do, when he hadn't spent points for it on their behalf (e.g., using a light-beam EB as a Flash to sight)? (M&M could pull that trick--but only once in a session. Players might get even more confused to learn they couldn't do something twice when the GM couldn't explain they'd run out of hero points.)