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I know the Darkstryder Campaign has been around for a while, but since it's such an excellent product, I thought I'd recommend it.

The campaign set itself contains a book of adventures, a book of background, maps, cards and all the other odd n' sods you expect with a boxed set. The background book is well written and lucid, and only reveals enough background to play through the adventures contained in the book. The campaign is expected to be run on a variant of the troupe style of play. The players choose two characters from a large selection of scum, psychopaths, idiots and the occasional straight up good guy. And then they create one of their own.

The available characters cover a very broad range, from fixers to ex-slaves. Most of the characters have a dark secret, generally to do with the background, and it's nice to see some ambiguity in the Star Wars universe. The created characters generally tended to take a back seat to the pregenerated, which may be a damning indictment of my running style, but the pregens had more compelling plots and better stats, so perhaps it's unsurprising.

So overall, the campaign set is nicely written and well done. But at this stage, you may be thinking why is it so good, it sounds normal? Well, yes, a lot of the adventures a fairly normal in the first book, later books are better. But the real fun comes from having a rag tag mob of indigents cruising through space in a beat up ship, constantly looking out for number 1. Generally, my players work together, but here they schemed and plotted with the best of them.. people got arrested for mutiny, others tried to steal shuttles. We used up a hell of a lot of paper in note passing notes. In the end, it's a great campaign.. the intra-party strife, whilst major generally stays non-violent.. and the characters get to go new places and see new things.

One gripe though. There's a section which tells you what encounters you could put in the various adventures. But when you get there, they're already there. There isn't that much space for customization.. But it's still great..

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Darkstryder Campaign
Author: Peter Schweighofer and many others Category: game Company/Publisher: West End Games Page count: n/a Playtest Review by Professional Cynic on 10/04/97. Genre tags: none	I know the Darkstryder Campaign has been around for a while, but since it's such an excellent product, I thought I'd recommend it. The campaign set itself contains a book of adventures, a book of background, maps, cards and all the other odd n' sods you expect with a boxed set. The background book is well written and lucid, and only reveals enough background to play through the adventures contained in the book. The campaign is expected to be run on a variant of the troupe style of play. The players choose two characters from a large selection of scum, psychopaths, idiots and the occasional straight up good guy. And then they create one of their own. The available characters cover a very broad range, from fixers to ex-slaves. Most of the characters have a dark secret, generally to do with the background, and it's nice to see some ambiguity in the Star Wars universe. The created characters generally tended to take a back seat to the pregenerated, which may be a damning indictment of my running style, but the pregens had more compelling plots and better stats, so perhaps it's unsurprising. So overall, the campaign set is nicely written and well done. But at this stage, you may be thinking why is it so good, it sounds normal? Well, yes, a lot of the adventures a fairly normal in the first book, later books are better. But the real fun comes from having a rag tag mob of indigents cruising through space in a beat up ship, constantly looking out for number 1. Generally, my players work together, but here they schemed and plotted with the best of them.. people got arrested for mutiny, others tried to steal shuttles. We used up a hell of a lot of paper in note passing notes. In the end, it's a great campaign.. the intra-party strife, whilst major generally stays non-violent.. and the characters get to go new places and see new things. One gripe though. There's a section which tells you what encounters you could put in the various adventures. But when you get there, they're already there. There isn't that much space for customization.. But it's still great.. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)