Playing Star Wars with Principia
Principia is a good system for games where the characters are embedded in a social order under stress. I've been playtesting Principia in it's default setting a lot. I was thinking about alternate settings for a game at Go Play NW, and Star Wars just kind of jumped out at me.
When you set out to run Principia, your first job is to find a pressure point on the current world order and push. Make sure the pressure point encompasses something the characters care about. Finally, pose a question that ties them together.
So I'm thinking about Star Wars Episode 2. The Jedi Order, the Senate, and the Republic are all under stress. Let's take the Jedi Order. That's our pressure point. We'll decide it's fate through play. We'll assume the characters care about the fate of the Jedi Order. This is Star Wars after all.
Now we need a question. This is the question we're going to answer at the end of play. "Does the Jedi Order deserve to survive?" is a good one. How about "Is the Jedi Order hypocritical?", or "Can balance be restored to the Force (without destroying the Jedi order)?"
So for characters we can have a group of Jedi, or a mixed group of heroes, or even Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Palpatine. That sounds pretty cool--a game where we can play some of the principal characters on both sides of Episode 2 and decide the ultimate fate of the Jedi order.
When you set out to run Principia, your first job is to find a pressure point on the current world order and push. Make sure the pressure point encompasses something the characters care about. Finally, pose a question that ties them together.
So I'm thinking about Star Wars Episode 2. The Jedi Order, the Senate, and the Republic are all under stress. Let's take the Jedi Order. That's our pressure point. We'll decide it's fate through play. We'll assume the characters care about the fate of the Jedi Order. This is Star Wars after all.
Now we need a question. This is the question we're going to answer at the end of play. "Does the Jedi Order deserve to survive?" is a good one. How about "Is the Jedi Order hypocritical?", or "Can balance be restored to the Force (without destroying the Jedi order)?"
So for characters we can have a group of Jedi, or a mixed group of heroes, or even Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Palpatine. That sounds pretty cool--a game where we can play some of the principal characters on both sides of Episode 2 and decide the ultimate fate of the Jedi order.
Labels: go play nw, Principia
