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Star Wars Prequels Role Playing (Games)

'Star Wars'-Inspired Tabletop Games Bring Rebellion and Glory (without Disney) (aftermath.site) 40

Posted by EditorDavid from the attack-of-the-clones dept.
"I am a huge fan of Star Wars," opines an article from the gaming Aftermath. "As every Star Wars fan knows, being a Star Wars fan means you hate Star Wars as much as you love it."

But fortunately there's Going Rogue and Galactic — two tabletop games "inspired" by the Star Wars universe (which just successfully crowdfunded a printed illustrated hardcover edition). They're described as "war among the stars" role-playing games, where members of The Liberation dedicate their lives to the war against The Mandate — "rebels, soldiers, spies, and criminals, or perhaps someone who simply picked up and blaster and said 'enough is enough.'"

The article notes that Going Rogue was a way for the game's designer to work out their issues with Star Wars: "You can re-skin Going Rogue to be all the original stuff [from Star Wars]. I prefer, at this point, to play it not in canon Star Wars," Levine said. "And also, there are things I hate about canon Star Wars. I think it sucks that the Jedi are child kidnapping, sexless acetics!" In particular Going Rogue is a remix of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which depicts the lives of a group of rebel agents who give their lives for the rebellion before the original trilogy. "I love Rogue One and I hate Rogue One," Levine said...

But Going Rogue aims to do more than just allow players to "fix" Star Wars's narrative problems. It also allows players to explore this narrative of rebellion without having to interface with an evil entertainment empire: Disney... Going Rogue is an opportunity for Star Wars fans to make the story of Star Wars their own, including making it more in league with their own politics by taking Disney out of it. "Something I like about tabletop role playing and adaptational tabletop role playing is it says, 'Actually, fuck them. They don't get to own this thing,'" Levine said. "We can't fully divest from the connection to Star Wars. Obviously, we are downstream of it in certain ways. But we are also trying to say, fuck [Disney's] ownership of this thing that you love."
Aftermath adds that the game Going Rogue "intrigued me specifically because it was inspired by Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Andor — in particular, Going Rogue has a mechanic baked into the game where your character is more or less guaranteed to go out in a blaze of glory for the cause." [The game's designer says] "I wanted to design the game in a way that, as your character realized that they were willing to voluntarily sacrifice their life for this, you were narratively guaranteed by the mechanics that that sacrifice was worth it. You get to see, after they die, how it transforms the galaxy. I wanted you to get that feeling because you don't get that certainty in real life." They didn't make this game to convince anyone to become a socialist, but instead to create an emotional tool that serves as a mirror for the players' own feelings about what it means to devote your life to a political cause.

'Star Wars'-Inspired Tabletop Games Bring Rebellion and Glory (without Disney) More | Reply

'Star Wars'-Inspired Tabletop Games Bring Rebellion and Glory (without Disney)

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  • The article makes clear that part of the motivation of the game authors is to stick it to Disney. because Disney is on the "BDS list". This is a list of companies that the maintainers claim are supporting "Israel's genocide in Gaza". I'm not Jewish, but screw these guys. And I hope Disney sues them.

    • And I hope Disney sues them.

      It seems like they've changed enough not to be sued. But from what I saw, their efforts have landed in the tacky uncanny valley of originality, where it feels more like "Star Wars from Temu" rather than a creative reimagining inspired by the Star Wars universe. Not that I'm accusing them of using a LLM, but it sure seems similar to what you'd get if you prompted ChatGPT to make something Star Wars inspired without violating copyright law.

    • The trolls that made this game really want you to bring up their political views. This isn't an article. This isn't news. This is an ad.

      Why not just call this what it really is in objective language? This is marketing. This isn't "News for Nerds" this is an ad. That's entirely indefensible and grounds for it to be removed from this website without us ever having to shift the conversation to a wedge-issue.

      Everyone hates ads and this garbage is an ad. Why make it anymore complicated than that?

      • Re:The people behind this are BDS assholes (Score:4, Informative)

        by EditorDavid ( 4512125 ) Works for Slashdot on Sunday May 25, 2025 @05:10PM (#65403491)
        You're right that this really doesn't need to be about politics. But (as the editor who selected this story), I just want confirm that no, it's not an ad. (When there's a story about one specific product, I often see comments complaining it's an ad... But Slashdot really, truly doesn't work that way.)

        For over 25 years Slashdot has had dedicated topic icons for both "Role Playing Games" and for "Star Wars". So "a role-playing game, based on Star Wars"... has to be doubly News for Nerds.

        No politics. No advertising. Just.... Star Wars fun. It's a three-day weekend in the U.S. Why not chill with some good geeky conversation about Star Wars and role-playing games?

        • Even if it's not directly about politics, it's still amusing to think that this could've been about actual Star Wars characters, had copyright length not been extended multiple times (something Disney has also had a hand in). Under the original law (14 years with an additional 14 year extension), the first Star Wars film would've entered public domain in 2005.

          Ironically, had Star Wars gone into public domain, Disney would've saved all that money they'd spent on Lucasfilm (roughly $4 billion dollars). Disn

          • Perhaps they were actually a bit shortsighted when they lobbied for extending copyright law, when what they actually needed was more expired IP freely flowing into the well of public domain.

            What they actually need is control, so that someone less ham-handed can't come along and make the same story, but without making it suck.

    • What could Disney sue them for? You can't trademark tropes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      The article makes clear that part of the motivation of the game authors is to stick it to Disney. because Disney is on the "BDS list". This is a list of companies that the maintainers claim are supporting "Israel's genocide in Gaza". I'm not Jewish, but screw these guys. And I hope Disney sues them.

      This is a list of companies that the maintainers claim are supporting "Israel's genocide in Gaza". I'm not Jewish, but screw these guys. And I hope Disney sues them.

      Thanks, I'll look into buying their game more seriously now.

      Just like a lot of American Jews https://www.pewresearch.org/sh... [pewresearch.org] I'm not fond of countries that openly target hospitals https://www.bbc.com/news/artic... [bbc.com] and intentionally starve 2 million civilians. Or how about using Palestinian as human shields https://apnews.com/article/isr... [apnews.com] as Israel's own soldiers are reporting is happening? Or any number of other war crimes they're currently committing.

      Hama's attack against Israel was horrible but it's n

  • How much do slashvertisements actually cost?
  • In my experience, spite is a poor motivator for a quality product.
  • It doesn't even take a Star Trek alternate universe to say there are serious questions regarding which entity has more mistreated a beloved franchise.

    • It doesn't even take a Star Trek alternate universe to say there are serious questions regarding which entity has more mistreated a beloved franchise.

      If you're a fan who'd like to immerse themselves some real-world pretend version of the fandom, let's compare:

      Star Wars
      Has entire theme park sections dedicated to the franchise, with rides, interactive experiences and food (green milk FTW!, sorry blue milk fans).

      Harry Potter
      Ditto, but located at Universal Resort (no, you're not funny if you ask a Disney cast member for directions to Harry Potter land). Also, the butterbeer ice cream is pretty good, too.

      Star Trek
      It closed. [wikipedia.org]

      Stargate
      *crickets*

  • aren't they praying (Score:4, Funny)

    by Growlley ( 6732614 ) on Sunday May 25, 2025 @05:18PM (#65403507)
    the evil house of mouse doesn't alter the deal further?
  • But the art style is going to trigger the shit out of the old farts here. It looks like something from Steven universe or adventure Time. And that is not going to gel with the kind of Star wars nerd who grew up on greeble all over the spaceships and Han Solo the rouge.

    They are one blue-haired girl away from triggering half of slashdot into a frothy rage.

    It's basically just a much much more modern art style that's going to appeal to the kids these days. Hell the only reason it doesn't trigger me as I

    • space lesbians.

      Nobody ever complained about space lesbians even back in the day (Star Trek DS9 did it, IIRC). There's always been that big double standard where straight dudes imagine themselves as being so alpha that they could turn them both straight (or at least bi), and then get it on with two girls at once. Which for some reason, is supposedly a common fantasy for straight men despite the extreme rarity of diphallia.

      But put two dudes kissing in your TV show? Out come the pitchforks.

      • There's also a lot of gender fluid stuff in general in the show. At one point a boy and girl fuse together to a single being that's half boy and half girl. I can't even imagine the shitstorm that would trigger nowadays with the moral panic going on over trans kids.

        I can see it now, Tucker Carlson staring intently into the camera telling me why I need to be both terrified and concerned about all these space lesbians turning my kids trans...

        Fun fact though about the double standard. The reason the Bib

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Looks a bit like the animated SW cartoon from some years back. I forget which one it was, Clone Wars?

      The only good SW stuff is the stuff that Disney isn't so closely involved with, where they just let creators have the freedom to make something good. Andor is the latest example, by far and away the best of all the TV shows, and showing the least Disney influence.

  • Some may take this as blasphemy, but IMHO Rebel Moon kicks ass all over Star Wars, especially the directors cuts.

  • You know that The Mouse will try and put this down as hard as they can.

  • Just what we need, more death cult adherents. Do you know that is just what MAGA are? So you'd fit right in there with the premise for this game.

    Go out with a boom for the cause! Jihad! Yeah, no.

    I'd rather survive to do it again.https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/05/25/1955216/star-wars-inspired-tabletop-games-bring-rebellion-and-glory-without-disney#

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