To date I run the scenario ten times. Next month is GenCon so the big weekend has not come. Still some clear lessons have emerged. 1. For some reason the players tend to choose non main characters. Which leads to a lot of Star Wars games where it is a struggle between the locals and the Imperial garrison. 2. When Luke is run, invariable Darth Vader is called into the game. Fortunately I have one. They can not kill one another since the game is set between the 2nd and the 3rd movie. But they can have a dramatic inconclusive fight. 3. The dogs always start shooting someone - green things, CNN reporters. Which forces the troopers to try to enforce the law. This leads to a morass of local politics. Though on the surface a Star Wars game, it is in fact a game about an army of occupation of a Balkan country. The local hatreds are real and deep. Stepping on the wrong rock can cause factions to switch sides in an instance. The storm troopers while militarily strong have to walk a very narrow path. If the imperial players act like Nazi SS then they will make enemies with everyone and likely lose the planet. If they are cagey and diplomatic they can hold the city for the Empire, even if they lose the secret plans. In one game the imperials spent all their time killing bugs. In the previous game a player took on the role of the bugs and caused them to swam the city and eat everyone. So the game was all about public health! Of course the rebels got the secrets but who cares? At least no one was eaten by any bugs! On several occasions the unarmed populous rose up in rebellion against the Empire. They of course didn't stand a chance but after quelling them the garrison were in a quandry about what to do with them. They could not jail everyone. The locals could go home but they rebelled while unarmed once - so why no do it again. There was always killing them all but that would leave the city empty and thus useless to everyone. It showed how impotent military and policing powers can be in the fact of a determined civil opposition. Kill them and they come back as martyrs let them go and they organize further resistance. Terror doesn't work if people are not afraid to die. The possible stories from this set up are still untapped. I invite you to try it out. Back to Table of Contents -- Matrix Gamer #6 To Matrix Gamer List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Chris Engle. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com