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Free games are a blessing. When short on cash, I still can play and review something. The Smugglers Of Naboo is a fast-play game to introduce the Star Wars Adventure Game, which is, in its turn, an introduction to the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. It can be found at http://shadow.wizards.com/starwars/downloads/Fast_play2.pdf. The booklet might be available at your Friendly Local Gaming Shop, but I haven't seen it yet in printed form. It's a 1,30 MB PDF, so downloading it won't be that expensive.

At first glance

The Smugglers Of Naboo is a full colour PDF. The cover uses the same artwork as the cover of the Invasion of Theed game. It's made by Adam Huges in a comic book style and depicts a wookiee, a soldier and a female Jedi kicking battle droid butt. The style is not my cup of tea, but this is a matter of taste. What is important is the fact that the scene has nothing to do with the adventure described inside.
The interior is very well laid out — crisp and clear. Large titles and some text boxes divide the one-column text. There are two small maps. Stills from The Phantom Menace and four character portraits (by the aforementioned Huges) complete the art. Amazingly, the PDF contains one page that is printed twice. This is pretty strange and rather annoying. Not only are the following left pages printed at the right side and vice versa, the character sheets are all screwed up now. The character sheets were meant to fit on two 2-sided pages, with the main statistics on the front and the secondary statistics on the back, but they are now spread out. Let's hope that Wizards of the Coast corrects this.

The contents

The booklet begins with an introduction ("How do we play", "The Game Session"). Here the reader is told what the booklet is, what a roleplaying game is, and how a game session should work.
Next is the real adventure. It's about a Jedi apprentice and his three friends that are to research some reports about smugglers. The story is very modular: the characters enter a room, something happens, the characters go left or right to the next room, etc. The seven areas that can be explored in this way are all clearly defined on the map. This modular structure makes the adventure very easy to handle. Each encounter is described in boxed text and all the obvious options are written out. Each combat situation has a 'Handling the Fight' part, on, well, how to handle a fight. I award bonus points for this, since combat is by far the most confusing part for novice GM's and players. One thing was sorely missing from combat: initiative. The characters are always before the NPC's, but we don't know in what order the players or the NPC's are to act.

The situations provide challenges of all kinds: there's combat, stealth, climbing, computers to be hacked, wilderness to be crossed, a crevice to be pushed into, guns to be fixed, etc. Every character has something to contribute to the adventure, whether it's a combat skill or a force power. This is enforced pretty heavy-handedly. For example, only the scoundrel can disable the locks, because all other characters have a -10 penalty on the Disable Device skill. Not a pretty solution, but it works. The challenges are all reasonable and properly balanced.

The characters are diverse: we've got a Jedi apprentice, a soldier from Naboo, a female scoundrel and a Wookiee scout. One strange thing caught my eye: the scoundrel has as many hit points as the Wookiee. The character sheets are very easy to read and include a short description of the character and his role ("During an adventure, Rann protects his teammates and helps defeats enemies."), some statistics and a strategy blurb on how to handle the character most efficiently during battle. Most rules have a explanation: "If a foe attacks Rorworr, he must roll a 14 or higher to hit."

The Smugglers Of Naboo uses a simplified version of the D20-system. While simplified, it still uses polyhedral dice — the full set: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 and the now-famous d20. This certainly is closer to the real game but provides an unnecessary threshold for the roleplayer-to-be, who is the target audience for this product. Every die that is not six-sided has to be bought. (Another strange thing: the booklet tells us we need a d12, but we never have to use it. Sloppy.)

Conclusion

The Smugglers Of Naboo is a very good product. It's easy to read, easy to play and easy to GM. The hints and clues are very helpful and just the thing novice players need. The page error is very strange, and the choice of dice questionable, but that's about it.

The Smugglers Of Naboo
The Smugglers Of Naboo Playtest Review by Jake de Oude on 22/07/01 Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty) A nice fast-play introduction to roleplaying in the Star Wars universe with some strange errors. Product: The Smugglers Of Naboo Author: Owen K.C. Stephens (design) Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Line: Star Wars Cost: free Page count: 24 Year published: 2001 ISBN: SKU: n/a Comp copy?: no Playtest Review by Jake de Oude on 22/07/01 Genre tags: Space	Free games are a blessing. When short on cash, I still can play and review something. The Smugglers Of Naboo is a fast-play game to introduce the Star Wars Adventure Game, which is, in its turn, an introduction to the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. It can be found at http://shadow.wizards.com/starwars/downloads/Fast_play2.pdf. The booklet might be available at your Friendly Local Gaming Shop, but I haven't seen it yet in printed form. It's a 1,30 MB PDF, so downloading it won't be that expensive. At first glance The Smugglers Of Naboo is a full colour PDF. The cover uses the same artwork as the cover of the Invasion of Theed game. It's made by Adam Huges in a comic book style and depicts a wookiee, a soldier and a female Jedi kicking battle droid butt. The style is not my cup of tea, but this is a matter of taste. What is important is the fact that the scene has nothing to do with the adventure described inside. The interior is very well laid out — crisp and clear. Large titles and some text boxes divide the one-column text. There are two small maps. Stills from The Phantom Menace and four character portraits (by the aforementioned Huges) complete the art. Amazingly, the PDF contains one page that is printed twice. This is pretty strange and rather annoying. Not only are the following left pages printed at the right side and vice versa, the character sheets are all screwed up now. The character sheets were meant to fit on two 2-sided pages, with the main statistics on the front and the secondary statistics on the back, but they are now spread out. Let's hope that Wizards of the Coast corrects this. The contents The booklet begins with an introduction ("How do we play", "The Game Session"). Here the reader is told what the booklet is, what a roleplaying game is, and how a game session should work. Next is the real adventure. It's about a Jedi apprentice and his three friends that are to research some reports about smugglers. The story is very modular: the characters enter a room, something happens, the characters go left or right to the next room, etc. The seven areas that can be explored in this way are all clearly defined on the map. This modular structure makes the adventure very easy to handle. Each encounter is described in boxed text and all the obvious options are written out. Each combat situation has a 'Handling the Fight' part, on, well, how to handle a fight. I award bonus points for this, since combat is by far the most confusing part for novice GM's and players. One thing was sorely missing from combat: initiative. The characters are always before the NPC's, but we don't know in what order the players or the NPC's are to act. The situations provide challenges of all kinds: there's combat, stealth, climbing, computers to be hacked, wilderness to be crossed, a crevice to be pushed into, guns to be fixed, etc. Every character has something to contribute to the adventure, whether it's a combat skill or a force power. This is enforced pretty heavy-handedly. For example, only the scoundrel can disable the locks, because all other characters have a -10 penalty on the Disable Device skill. Not a pretty solution, but it works. The challenges are all reasonable and properly balanced. The characters are diverse: we've got a Jedi apprentice, a soldier from Naboo, a female scoundrel and a Wookiee scout. One strange thing caught my eye: the scoundrel has as many hit points as the Wookiee. The character sheets are very easy to read and include a short description of the character and his role ("During an adventure, Rann protects his teammates and helps defeats enemies."), some statistics and a strategy blurb on how to handle the character most efficiently during battle. Most rules have a explanation: "If a foe attacks Rorworr, he must roll a 14 or higher to hit." The Smugglers Of Naboo uses a simplified version of the D20-system. While simplified, it still uses polyhedral dice — the full set: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 and the now-famous d20. This certainly is closer to the real game but provides an unnecessary threshold for the roleplayer-to-be, who is the target audience for this product. Every die that is not six-sided has to be bought. (Another strange thing: the booklet tells us we need a d12, but we never have to use it. Sloppy.) Conclusion The Smugglers Of Naboo is a very good product. It's easy to read, easy to play and easy to GM. The hints and clues are very helpful and just the thing novice players need. The page error is very strange, and the choice of dice questionable, but that's about it.