The Inside Scoop on Gaming

I chose this adventure as the introduction to the Star Wars Roleplaying Game for both my players and myself. As it turns out, aside from a few bumps along the way, I chose well.

I'll cover this adventure by episode. Note that I began running my players through the first printing, then switched to the reprint in Classic Adventures: Volume Two; I'll make mention of the differences between the two where applicable.

WARNING: Spoilers!

Episode One: Bazaar

The adventure begins with the characters having just arrived on a mammoth jungle-filled "herdship" of the Ithorians. (Those are the "Hammerheads", for those of you who know Star Wars races solely from action figures. :) By default, the characters are members of the Rebellion on a mission to pick up droid parts, and the adventure will require some serious rewriting to allow for purely mercenary PCs.

The herdship, Bazaar, is much like the Star Wars equivalent of AD&D's Village of Hommlet, and as such can be used well beyond this adventure. The main level consists of an Ithorian-cultivated jungle split by a river and dotted with multiple deceptively primitive-looking villages. The PC's quest leads them into one village in particular, which by itself features many shops, lodgings, eateries, and NPCs galore. A shootout with a murderous droid and the mystery posed by its victim gets the action rolling; sandwiched between this incident and a battle with a beautiful assassin in the Ithorians' sacred Mother Jungle, the characters will have plenty of time to snoop, shop, and interact with the locals.

The one drawback to this chapter is its dependence on the characters being mistaken for Luke, Leia, and the gang, and, further, on the supposition that they won't realize what has happened or else won't attempt to correct the misunderstanding. Luckily, some intrigues within the group led some of the characters to assume that this was part of the other characters' "top-secret mission", and they ended up going for the hook with minimal grumbling.

Episode Two: Walking in the Graveyard

The evidence discovered at Bazaar leads the Rebels to an asteroid mining outpost in the shattered remains of Princess Leia's home planet of Alderaan, where they hope to discover the location of an intact portion of the Royal Palace of Alderaan, and perhaps even Leia's father.

On the way, they nearly collide with a ghost ship that appears and then quickly vanishes - a ship that looks for all the world like an Alderaan War Frigate from the planet's militaristic past in the days of the Old Republic.

Once at the outpost, the Rebels must search the computers for the information they require. In the process, they find that the miners have all been replaced with Imperial agents, and that they're in deep trouble.

It's here that I discovered just what pushovers stormtroopers really are - even more so than in the movies. I'd planned on the group having a dramatic fight to escape the outpost, but they blew through the squad of ten troopers and their commander in no time. Rather than have them wipe out the Imperials at their leisure, I ended up throwing in a second squad, plus the entire contingent of false miners.

The chapter ends rather quirky fashion, using a mini-boardgame rather than the standard space travel mechanics to simulate the heroes' trip through the asteroid field in search of the Palace with some unscrupulous scavengers in hot pursuit. It played very much like a vintage video game, complete with a wraparound "screen" and wandering battle droids from nowhere in particular. The consensus of our group was that this sequence was just silly.

Episode Three: The Secret of Alderaan

The heroes arrive at the asteroid containing the remains of the Royal Palace, only to find themselves the victims of a trap intended for Luke, Leia, and the other Heroes of Yavin! A hologram of Darth Vader himself welcomes them into the trap, and a group of Imperial officers in a hidden room torment the group with ghostly holographic images of Luke and Leia's past "failures" and of the dead of Alderaan. I had a wonderful time with this, since my players were never quite sure whether they were seeing holograms or actual ghosts.

The players must then fight their way across a crumbling staircase-turned-bridge while facing an attack by the scavengers. This was a very big stretch that my players thankfully didn't question - there wasn't any way for the scavengers to have gotten where they were without having been intercepted by the Imperials. But, at any rate, it was a good fight. :)

The episode ends when the players meet a member of the Alderaan Council of Elders, defeating the Imperial officers in the process. The Council member tells them that the ghost ship they saw, the Another Chance, is the storehouse for the weapons Alderaan abandoned when it became a planet of pacifists, and that he's come to retrieve it for the Rebellion.

In the first edition, he sends the heroes to the craft via a walk-through warp gateway, a bit of tech far more suited to Star Trek than to Star Wars. The reprint in Classic Adventures: Volume Two is far more dramatic, requiring the group to win the Royal Family's hidden escape craft, a formidable Skipray Blastboat, from the stormtroopers who've just discovered it. They blast out of the hangar and must fight their way past a squadron of TIE fighters while the Councilman attempts to call Another Chance out of hyperspace. The resulting space battle through the asteroids was every bit as exciting as the trip to the Palace should have been, except for the fact that the blastboat is a capital-scale craft. That meant that the TIE fighters had very little chance of damaging it. My players even gave up bothering with the shields.

Episode Four: Another Chance

The heroes dock with the armory ship, only to discover that the power surge from the destruction of Alderaan by the Death Star has severely damaged the controls. They must travel to various locations throughout the ship to manually bring the systems back on line. The reaction of my players to this prospect was something to the effect of: "You're trying to drag this out, aren't you?" And, as they feared, the repairs did drag a bit, despite combats with some wandering droids to spice things up.

Once they gain control of the ship, it drops out of hyperspace just in time to be spotted by an Imperial blockade. The Rebels must out-maneuver a star destroyer seeking to capture the armory ship with its tractor beams while fighting off the destroyer's entire contingent of TIE fighters. The heroes must also find a way to warn away the Heroes of Yavin, who drop out of hyperspace in the Millenium Falcon at the same time as the PCs do, unaware that they're flying into a trap. Dramatic stuff, all the way around.

Summary

Despite a few logical leaps and a misfiring action scene or two, my group and I thoroughly enjoyed this adventure. It really drew the players in, making them feel as though their characters were a vital part of the Star Wars universe without having them trip over the feet of the movie heroes. More importantly, Bazaar gave them a chance to get to know their characters through interaction, something sorely lacking in the blaster-fest introductory adventure in the rulebook.

The writing is moderate to good throughout, although the "script" the GM is expected to give the players to read to get their characters into the action was weak and went unused. The illustrations and maps are all top notch.

I can highly recommend this adventure to anyone running a group of Rebel characters, especially if it will be their first Star Wars session. So, if your group's in the mood for some real Star Wars heroics, send'em to the Graveyard.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Graveyard of Alderaan
Author: Bill Slavicsek Category: game Company/Publisher: West End Games Line: Star Wars Cost: $10.00 Page count: 66 Playtest Review by Dan Davenport on 09/20/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Science_fiction Space	I chose this adventure as the introduction to the Star Wars Roleplaying Game for both my players and myself. As it turns out, aside from a few bumps along the way, I chose well. I'll cover this adventure by episode. Note that I began running my players through the first printing, then switched to the reprint in Classic Adventures: Volume Two; I'll make mention of the differences between the two where applicable. WARNING: Spoilers! Episode One: Bazaar The adventure begins with the characters having just arrived on a mammoth jungle-filled "herdship" of the Ithorians. (Those are the "Hammerheads", for those of you who know Star Wars races solely from action figures. :) By default, the characters are members of the Rebellion on a mission to pick up droid parts, and the adventure will require some serious rewriting to allow for purely mercenary PCs. The herdship, Bazaar, is much like the Star Wars equivalent of AD&D's Village of Hommlet, and as such can be used well beyond this adventure. The main level consists of an Ithorian-cultivated jungle split by a river and dotted with multiple deceptively primitive-looking villages. The PC's quest leads them into one village in particular, which by itself features many shops, lodgings, eateries, and NPCs galore. A shootout with a murderous droid and the mystery posed by its victim gets the action rolling; sandwiched between this incident and a battle with a beautiful assassin in the Ithorians' sacred Mother Jungle, the characters will have plenty of time to snoop, shop, and interact with the locals. The one drawback to this chapter is its dependence on the characters being mistaken for Luke, Leia, and the gang, and, further, on the supposition that they won't realize what has happened or else won't attempt to correct the misunderstanding. Luckily, some intrigues within the group led some of the characters to assume that this was part of the other characters' "top-secret mission", and they ended up going for the hook with minimal grumbling. Episode Two: Walking in the Graveyard The evidence discovered at Bazaar leads the Rebels to an asteroid mining outpost in the shattered remains of Princess Leia's home planet of Alderaan, where they hope to discover the location of an intact portion of the Royal Palace of Alderaan, and perhaps even Leia's father. On the way, they nearly collide with a ghost ship that appears and then quickly vanishes - a ship that looks for all the world like an Alderaan War Frigate from the planet's militaristic past in the days of the Old Republic. Once at the outpost, the Rebels must search the computers for the information they require. In the process, they find that the miners have all been replaced with Imperial agents, and that they're in deep trouble. It's here that I discovered just what pushovers stormtroopers really are - even more so than in the movies. I'd planned on the group having a dramatic fight to escape the outpost, but they blew through the squad of ten troopers and their commander in no time. Rather than have them wipe out the Imperials at their leisure, I ended up throwing in a second squad, plus the entire contingent of false miners. The chapter ends rather quirky fashion, using a mini-boardgame rather than the standard space travel mechanics to simulate the heroes' trip through the asteroid field in search of the Palace with some unscrupulous scavengers in hot pursuit. It played very much like a vintage video game, complete with a wraparound "screen" and wandering battle droids from nowhere in particular. The consensus of our group was that this sequence was just silly. Episode Three: The Secret of Alderaan The heroes arrive at the asteroid containing the remains of the Royal Palace, only to find themselves the victims of a trap intended for Luke, Leia, and the other Heroes of Yavin! A hologram of Darth Vader himself welcomes them into the trap, and a group of Imperial officers in a hidden room torment the group with ghostly holographic images of Luke and Leia's past "failures" and of the dead of Alderaan. I had a wonderful time with this, since my players were never quite sure whether they were seeing holograms or actual ghosts. The players must then fight their way across a crumbling staircase-turned-bridge while facing an attack by the scavengers. This was a very big stretch that my players thankfully didn't question - there wasn't any way for the scavengers to have gotten where they were without having been intercepted by the Imperials. But, at any rate, it was a good fight. :) The episode ends when the players meet a member of the Alderaan Council of Elders, defeating the Imperial officers in the process. The Council member tells them that the ghost ship they saw, the Another Chance, is the storehouse for the weapons Alderaan abandoned when it became a planet of pacifists, and that he's come to retrieve it for the Rebellion. In the first edition, he sends the heroes to the craft via a walk-through warp gateway, a bit of tech far more suited to Star Trek than to Star Wars. The reprint in Classic Adventures: Volume Two is far more dramatic, requiring the group to win the Royal Family's hidden escape craft, a formidable Skipray Blastboat, from the stormtroopers who've just discovered it. They blast out of the hangar and must fight their way past a squadron of TIE fighters while the Councilman attempts to call Another Chance out of hyperspace. The resulting space battle through the asteroids was every bit as exciting as the trip to the Palace should have been, except for the fact that the blastboat is a capital-scale craft. That meant that the TIE fighters had very little chance of damaging it. My players even gave up bothering with the shields. Episode Four: Another Chance The heroes dock with the armory ship, only to discover that the power surge from the destruction of Alderaan by the Death Star has severely damaged the controls. They must travel to various locations throughout the ship to manually bring the systems back on line. The reaction of my players to this prospect was something to the effect of: "You're trying to drag this out, aren't you?" And, as they feared, the repairs did drag a bit, despite combats with some wandering droids to spice things up. Once they gain control of the ship, it drops out of hyperspace just in time to be spotted by an Imperial blockade. The Rebels must out-maneuver a star destroyer seeking to capture the armory ship with its tractor beams while fighting off the destroyer's entire contingent of TIE fighters. The heroes must also find a way to warn away the Heroes of Yavin, who drop out of hyperspace in the Millenium Falcon at the same time as the PCs do, unaware that they're flying into a trap. Dramatic stuff, all the way around. Summary Despite a few logical leaps and a misfiring action scene or two, my group and I thoroughly enjoyed this adventure. It really drew the players in, making them feel as though their characters were a vital part of the Star Wars universe without having them trip over the feet of the movie heroes. More importantly, Bazaar gave them a chance to get to know their characters through interaction, something sorely lacking in the blaster-fest introductory adventure in the rulebook. The writing is moderate to good throughout, although the "script" the GM is expected to give the players to read to get their characters into the action was weak and went unused. The illustrations and maps are all top notch. I can highly recommend this adventure to anyone running a group of Rebel characters, especially if it will be their first Star Wars session. So, if your group's in the mood for some real Star Wars heroics, send'em to the Graveyard. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Graveyard of Alderaan