"Heave to and prepare to be- (zap, zap, zap)- Retreat!"

14 September 2006-

Having joined the Rebellion at last, our heroes spent a few quiet weeks (followed by a few very hectic hours) at Yavin IV before shipping out to Fakir sector to actually get a chance to take on the Empire. The first mission we drew was to establish contact with a primitive, backwater planet populated by savage, feudal-level lizardmen, in the hopes that they would allow the Rebellion to trade with them for food, basing rights, and other sundries.

On our way to their planet, we were jumped by a small pirate vessel claiming to be Rebel privateers, who we decided to let board rather than have them ventilate our ship to vacuum. When they proved to be pirates rather than fellow Rebels, though, we (meaning primarily eBill's bounty hunter and Kevin's tough native, but with an assist or two from Brian's doctor) proceded to blast the snot out of them. Within a couple of minutes, we boarded their ship, captured their remaining crew, and yes- seized the treasure chests (literally) from their hold. We're thinking that these might have been taken from the lizards' planet, and so might make a nice opening gift in our negotiations- along with the surviving pirates that took it from them in the first place, of course. After all, we're sure that the lizards' prisons are Geneva Convention compliant.

And if that doesn't work out, maybe we can handle the problem "old school," and make the pirates walk the plank. They can just hold their breaths through re-entry.

Camera... Camera... Action!

7 September 2006-

For the second week in a row, we successfully pulled off gaming from three separate states, as the miracles of modern technology overcame what has been an essentially insurmountable problem in the past. With the help of Yahoo! Instant Messenger for the visuals and Skype for the voice, we've been up and running in less than ten minutes each of the past two weeks. We're so excited, we're hoping to be used as an example in Friedman's next edition of The World Is Flat.

In terms of the plot, we escaped the cantina and met up out back with the Rodian kid (Rodians are the green guys with the spiky heads and black eyes, like Greedo from Episode IV)* as our guide. He started to lead us to our contact's ship, but saw a wave-off sign, and we headed for ours instead. When we got to the landing bay, we were met by a Twi'lek crime boss (Twi'leks are the guys with the two "head tails" seen in Jabba's palace in Episode IV)* and a couple of antique Trade Federation (the stupid, Asian-accented bad guys from Episode I)* droids that he probably picked up cheap after their stunning debut at Naboo (a planet from Episode I)*. They wanted to talk to our Sullustan trader (Sullustans are flustered, mouse-like guys like the one who was Lando's co-pilot in Episode VI)* about some unpaid bills related to his starship. After some quick Con rolls from Craig and Brian, we were able to distract them enough to get the drop on them, and the subsequent shoot-out left us in possession of our ship, several new blasters, and possibly a future droid or two if we can cobble them back together.

We lifted off immediately and headed for the Imperial base on planet, hoping to rescue our contact, since he had the coordinates of the Rebel base. We didn't make too many friends along the way there, since we grazed a building with our ship (oops!) and then proceeded to seriously blow a Starship Repair roll ("Wait! Did you see something just fall off?") to fix the damage the building had done to us. We eventually arrived to see our guy being transferred to an Imperial shuttle, and we set down, blasted the opposition, and then dusted off [almost, kind of, sort of, not really] like the AirCav units our characters will never be. Now we're off to join the Rebels and train at someplace called Yavin IV. Never heard of it, but it sure sounds like a nice, safe, out-of-the-way place to learn the business of Rebelling against an evil empire.

*These clarifications provided on the off chance that there may be some readers out there who feel that this is, in fact, the blog for them, but are frustrated at their lack of basic knowledge regarding the STAR WARS universe. It's just another service that we offer. You're welcome. : )

A Short Time Ago, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

31 August 2006

After the fanfare faded,
we were finally gaming again
in a universe that some of us know
as well or better than our own- the Star
Wars galaxy. Yes, after years of neglect, we
were returning to WEG's Star Wars RPG, one of
the most fun and playable games I've ever had the
pleasure of either playing or running. At last, we would
once again have the fun of blasting our way through hordes
of Stormtroopers while Wookiees roared and lightsabers thrummed.

OK. Sorry; I couldn't resist.

We started a new party for this campaign, since the old one was fairly unbalanced, with some characters having much more experience than others. This had led to some of our players feeling overshadowed, which was probably while we hadn't played Star Wars in so long. Our new party is a weird mix, with two minor Jedi, a crooked doctor, a thief, a Sullustan trader, and a bounty hunter (if the words "Jedi" and "Sullustan" are not meaningful parts of your vocabulary, this may not be the blog for you). If not for the fact that all of our characters want to join the Rebel Alliance and fight the Empire, we would probably not spend two seconds together. Oh, well.

Things started, as they often do, in a small cantina. Our Rebel recruiter contact was running late, and when a young Rodian (if "Rodian" doesn't mean much either, this is definitely the wrong blog for you) burst into the cantina, all heads turned to see what was going on. He made a clumsy drop pass to Bill's bounty hunter, who played it cool and didn't look in the bag. Inside were a bunch of comlinks, one of which was marked for emergency use, but their contents went unrevealed for a while longer.

About this time, a group of Stormtroopers moved into the cantina, announced their intentions to arrest the lot of us for treason, and the nearly inevitable firefight began. From all corners of the room, we opened up on the Stormtroopers, catching them in an impressive crossfire that looked good enough to have been planned that way. With blaster bolts flying everywhere, and more Stormtroopers piling in through the door, most of us decided that it was time to beat feet, although Michael's Sullustan chose this time to check his comlink messages (there were many "Can you hear me now?" - type jokes, as we all envisioned Michael's guy huddled down under the table trying to hear, with blaster bolts flying all around him; the message was to get out of the cantina before the troopers arrived).

Eventually, we all retreated out of the cantina, through holes cut in the wall (lightsabers are great for that) or through the back door. Now we're on the run, in a strange city, with only a Rodian boy for a guide. I'd say we're off to a good start!