[Closed] (FKR) Star Wars Order 66 Survivor

This sounds like a great concept, and I’m definitely interested—especially if it leans into a pure freeform or FKR (Free Kriegsspiel Revival) style. I'd love to play in a game with no rules at all—just GM interpretation, maybe with some hidden rolls or decisions behind the curtain, and everything driven by fiction first. If you’re GMing, vagueGM, I’d be excited to join under those terms.

That said, if you're planning to use an actual system—even something as light as 2400—I’ll probably step back and let others take the spot. I’m happy to wait for a more rules-minimal opportunity. I feel you or someone will try it, someday, in Gamersplane. =)

As for Star Wars familiarity, I’ve seen all the films, read over a dozen novels from both the old EU and the Disney canon, and watched several of the series (including Ahsoka and Andor). I’ve also GMed the FFG Edge of the Empire RPG for a couple of years and I’ve spent a lot of time exploring the setting both as a player and GM.

Looking forward to seeing how this develops!

Here is my suggestion for "rules"

Species
Same as vagueGM wrote above.

Characters
Characters will be mainly narrative, the thing I am suggesting is not a mechanical game. To create your character, you write a backstory and choose 3-4 relevant traits, skills or aspects. Purely textual, no dice equivalent.

Dice
The GM may throw some physical dice behind the curtains. Or not. We will never know and it won't matter. We will trust them and they will trust us.

What about...
We will talk about it, make a specific ruling for this specific situation and move on. We will use your traits and the NPC traits to resolve the situation. The GM has the final word. You will have to trust them.

Fine by me. How does everybody else feel?

But FKR generally has some random dice element, for those times when none of us know if you can or can't succeed at something. Drgwen, you know that, even in heavier systems, my games tend to roll dice only rarely. :)

I was proposing 2400 as this resolution mechanism since it is just a simple 'how good are you at this' and a simple dice mechanic that says how well you did it. In 2400 you 'only roll to avoid risks'. So most of the time you don't need to involve the dice except as a reminder of what you are good at.

We can skip the numbers in character creation, and rely purely on our shared understanding of the world and the problem we face to resolve all situations.

If the 'no dice' resolutions ends up taking too much discussion, then we can revisit this issue.

FKR is not about the amount of rules, it is about everything else, the stuff that is not rules. FKR is not about the rules, it is about the mindset. (Though opinions vary.:)

I will not be rolling dice to decide, they are your characters actions, you roll their dice (if they have any). :)
I don't do anything 'behind the curtain', if dice are involved everyone will know. Sometimes I may 'keep my hand over the result for a minute' so players don't know the number till after the resolution, but that is the extent of my 'behind the DM's screen' rolling, and players can always see that, in this one instance, they are being kept in the dark, this is an exception.
Open dice aid trust. Why hide anything (once it happens)?
Exactly. Be those 'traits' defined by dice, or numbers, or just ... what's the popular word these days? ...: 'vibes'.

We only need to define enough to be able to resolve questions of if you can do a thing. And only when it is not clear from the context.
Well, yes. That is always the case. But it should seldom be a question. It should be clear to everybody, from the fiction (which includes the characters and their 'sheets') how a situation is likely to turn out. There may be unknowns that have not been taken into account by your characters, but they players should be vaguely aware that they are not 'fully prepared'.

I have no strong feelings towards a system, as long as it's consistent

I have not chosen players yet, but I am liking the group we see here and the dialogue we are having.

Despite the lack of a game, we can start by describing our characters. Work together to form a group that fits (in terms of Concept, Aim, Tone), but don't worry about forming a 'balanced party'. It is natural for people to tackle tasks they are suited for, so most of the game will involve you doing the things you made your character good at, those are, presumably, the things you find interesting (the 'character sheet' is flags for the GM, they are a fan of your character). Sometimes you will be put in situations you are not equipped to deal with (the principle of: "find where they are weak and push there"), but it is still about your character, and we are all eager to see how they get out of that nest of gundarks. :)

Basically, the game shapes itself around your characters.

Based on the descriptions, we can see what we need to define. One approach could be:
• Define three things you are good at, and one thing you are not good at.

Give your characters strengths and weaknesses. These can change as we play.

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I will probably decide on the roster and make a game based on the character discussion, but we can start a game and take that discussion there if we prefer.

I like this plan. I suppose it would make more sense to conduct our character discussion in a game, rather than here in the games tavern?

I have not fully invested in my character yet. It is always a bummer to love a character and then not get on a game.

But my general idea was to be a daughter from some high-up family from Alderaan. Found and recruited at young age. Trained in Coruscant, but still drawn to the beauty of Alderaan and the privileged position she got to know in her early years.

Understood. Likewise I don't want to bring people into the game only to find their character concept or idea for the game does not fit, this is an especial concern when there is no rulebook to establish basic things. That's why we are chatting before games and invites.

That said, I like this group, and I will make a game, hopefully later today, and invite: runekyndig, Balthazar, Drgwen, and Owlbeer, all based on engagement in this thread. Delta and htech, I would like to hear more from you, and may extend this to 5 or 6 players, though that can get unwieldy.
Character Creation should be a collaborative process, so we can't really invest too much into them till we hear from everyone and see how things are shaping up.
We should look at the canon details of when Jedi are harvested, I think it is young enough that our family backgrounds don't matter too much, but we probably have some memories of home (seems they Jedi encourage us to forget about our mothers, though). I don't think you get to 'go home for the holidays' or visit after you join, it seemed a pretty severe severing.

Coming from a recognisable family will add extra wrinkles. It might give you access to some resources that can help, but can also add the risk of your being more easily identified, or your family being used against you. Two-edged-swords are the best. :)

Would this translate into higher 'social' skills? Or just a little more 'refinement' when it is called for?

Nah. As you said, kids get recruited early and probably cut quite hard. I am more thinking a spoiled/bratty attitude :)

Vague, that actually sounds exactly like what I’m hoping for.

My concern with using even something as light as 2400 at this early stage was just that it might signal to players that dice resolution will be more central than intended—like in most traditional RPGs, where it's expected rather than exceptional. The real novelty and appeal for me here is the chance to play in a truly minimalist, narrative-first, FKR-style game—where we resolve almost everything through shared understanding, and dice only come in when none of us can reasonably say what happens next.

If those edge cases are rare—and I fully expect they would be under your GMing style—then I don’t think we need to frontload a resolution system. Even something as lightweight as "roll a d6 and interpret a result from a GM-created table for that specific situation" once in a year would feel totally in line with the spirit of FKR for me. And I’m also totally fine with rolling that dice—whatever supports the fiction best.

That said, I’m aware this isn’t how most games run, including mine. I usually have predefined mechanics and resolution systems in place too. But I’m genuinely excited to commit to something more freeform. That’s the kind of creative energy I’m looking for.

Lastly, I’d love to hear what the rest of the potential players think. I know Drgwen mentioned a similar interest, but this only works if the whole table is on the same page. It's definitely not the norm, and it takes buy-in from everyone to work well. Staying here or in a "pre-game" forum works for me until we get this sorted out. =)

So... I will create a draft version of a character background, post here three things they are good at, and at least one thing they are not good at and see how things go. OK? =)

Oh, joy! :)

Your classmates must have looved you. /s
It is up to y'all if any of you trained together, or if you meet/met for the first time in these dire straits.

I had exactly the same concern, agonised a bit over even mentioning it.

We can easily bring dice in when we need them. So I will leave that out for now.
Which is how I run most games, anyway. So moving to actually calling it FKR (with all the baggage that comes with names) makes sense.
When it comes up, we can work out what dice need to be rolled. It could be as simple as: "Are you good at doing this? You are? Cool, roll a d8. Vs, oh, you're really not good at this at all, roll a d4." And we can think about recording that on your sheet for next time... but next time you may have gained some skill and those numbers don't apply, so we have that conversation again.
All that is needed is some way to answer a question of if we can succeed at something, and only when we all genuinely don't know what the outcomes should be. "Can you do it? Not sure? Roll a dice: low is 'bad', high is 'good', both are fun." We only roll when it is both risky and interesting to fail... just like in all RPGs...
Agreed. We can treat my 2400 discourse as 'just an example of how it could work'. That way everyone has some idea of what to expect when we are expecting random results.
Something very rough, keep it flexible so we can shape it around the other characters, and them around us.
Those specifics can also come after we see the sort of character. They are less important than the character story, and can be worked out as we play.

I have run DnD with newbies (who 'don't read') where I made characters by asking them questions: "Your carriage is attacked. What do you do? Do you grab your sword and shield, or stop to study the situation? (i.e. are you a 'fighter' or a 'magic user' or 'sneak') ... What does your armor look like? Shiny metal or leather? (i.e. are you a 'Paladin'/'Cleric' or a 'Ranger'/'Rogue/Thief')", or Oh, yes? What spell do you use? What does it do? Go ahead: Make something up. (i.e. 'Wizard' vs 'Cleric', 'blaster' vs 'support') and so on, how they approach problems defines their 'attributes'. That is for people who need the hand-holding, though, so not for this group.

When it comes to what you are good at, we can work that out as we see how the characters move through the world. Those 3/1 numbers are a thumbsuck.

That all sounds great—and it’s reassuring to see we’re in sync so far. Framing the 2400 rules as just an example of how resolution could work really helps clarify where you were coming from. I’m glad we had the chance to talk it through early, and I’m feeling even more confident about the tone and direction of the game now, if the other prospective players agree.

I’ll post something else about the character a bit later—thanks again for the thoughtful responses!

Right back at you.

Mutter, mutter... I guess we are up to five players now. I wonder if we will end up "The 6 after 66" or some stupid name. :)

When I am thinking of an interesting padawan survivor, I think of one who was badly hurt in the Order 66 culling. Cybernetic lim replacement, and such. I'm currently contemplating if having both legs and right arm replaced with cybernetics is to much.
Lots of resentment towards the imperials.
Lots of guilt for being a burde to her friends.
And a good pile of stress for not being able to let those feelings go

Of course. I hadn't even considered that. That might put a bit of time between the Order 66 and where we are at the start. Unless you want to start with us playing out how your friends help you with that (if we are together). Or we can play that out in backstory-flashbacks if you want.

But, this is Star Wars, so it probably does not take all that long to get a cybernetic limb.

One wonders how you paid for it.
"Be mindful of your feelings, you must!"

Great stuff.

I had an idea for a padawan who’s not all that special, either in ability or background. Like a teenage Alan Tudyk lol

Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal! XD