32 BBY: Duel of the Fates

Back in June of 2012 I did a write-upon The StarfighterTrap, a forgettable story by Steve Miller.  Most of that post was about my World of Warcraft addiction and how I had just recently beat it.  When I originally read the story I had only an e-source I pulled from the internet, and not the actual print copy found in Star Wars Gamer #1.  I’m sorry I didn’t try a litter harder to get my hands on the original source material.  Star Wars Gamer Magazine (after the Star Wars Adventure Journal) is now my favorite print anthology of Star Wars short stories.  This magazine is absolutely phenomenal.  I regret not collecting them when they were first released in 2000.  I’ve since remedied the situation as I’ve got almost the entire collection minus issues 2 and 3 (thank you eBay). 

That I enjoyed Star Wars Gamer so much is not surprising; it’s the natural heir to the Star Wars Adventure Journal.  I’ve mentioned before in this blog that I’d love to revive the Adventure Journal, and it seems that Star Wars Gamer Magazine was a tacit attempt to do so.   Both works are essentially the same animal.  Last summer I made a few frivolous attempts at looking at how I would go about doing such a thing, creating my own unofficial Star Wars short story / RPG magazine (I talked a little about this in my post on The Tenebrous Way).  Like anything it’d take a bit of work, and more importantly funding, but I honestly think I could get something like this going.  Maybe I should start using AdSense in my blog, and with the money I raise direct it towards my secondary dream of creating a Star Wars fanzine?  I genuinely wonder how Disney would react to such an endeavour – if I actually got it going.  Would they sue the shirt off my back, or would they react like Lucas Licensing did in the late 70’s to the Star Wars fanzines that popped up and turn a legal blind eye to them?  Funnily, even though Lucas Licensing turned a blind eye to these magazines, they still demanded that the fanzines submit their pages for archival purposes.  Though I never read or was familiar with Polyhedron, I suppose I’d like to get something like this going, but just with short stories and D6 stats instead of D20.

Honestly, how does one start to put a magazine together – anyone have any input on this?

Anyway, enough of my crazy schemes.

Duel of the Fates, an RPG scenario from Star Wars Gamer #1, gives fans of the Star Wars d20 system a breakdown, round by round, of the final battle between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul. As an old D6 gamer I often watch the films and try to correlate the actions of the heroes with what I imagine their role-playing-game stats to be.  Before I even saw Han Solo’s character sheet, I knew he had a blaster skill above 7D (It’s actually 9D+1 – super impressive!).  When he tried to tell the Imperial Officers in the Death Star that there was a “slight weapons malfunction” in the detention block, I knew he failed his roll at his con skill.  As me and my old GM used to joke, he rolled a 1 on the uncertainty dice. 

Duel of the Fates gives us gamers those nitty-gritty details we wonder about when we watch the films.

Two things struck me in this source.  Firstly, I was surprised at how out-gunned Kenobi was in this fight.  He’s only a level 6 Jedi Guardian with 38 vitality available (of 52), whereas Maul is a level 12 Jedi Guardian with 63 vitality points (of 120).  On paper, Maul wins this fight 98% of the time.  Secondly, Kenobi makes an awesome roll to win the day.  Even though Kenobi was out-gunned on paper, the Force played a cruel trick on the Sith acolyte, and stood by Kenobi in the end.  Jumping from the pit of defeat, and grabbing his fallen Master’s lightsaber:

“… (Kenobi) then attacks the flat-footed Maul, scoring a critical hit and rolling maximum damage (18 points).  This is enough to reduce Maul to zero wound points.  Adding a bit of flavour, the GM rules that this attack severs Maul at the waist and sends the body tumbling down the shaft” (Star Wars Gamer #1, pg. 47)

The Force was with Kenobi, and always will be.

For my next post I’m going to look at the historical missions of Naboo and Kashyyyk from the Star Wars Battlefront video game.  Until then my friends, may the Force be with you.