Knights of the Hidden Sun: Inspired by Star Wars Done Right

It started with a Star Wars game. I loved the old West End version of the RPG but had always run and never played. I was ecstatic when I found a handmade poster in my LGS requesting players for a local game. I was so elated a friend ordered me to “stop beaming.”  The next week, I met up with this new group and that session changed the way I saw RPGs forever.

Before Star Wars, my modules worked much like a standard Knights of the Dinner Table session. The PCs would be a group of strangers who united under some nebulous pretext. We’d find a dungeon filled with traps and monsters. We’d avoid the traps, kill the monsters and take their stuff. Along the way the PCs would try to outdo each other in carnage. Crits were politely applauded, fumbles would be met with mocking scorn. I’ll admit it was fun and besides, I had no idea there was any other way to play.

The Star Wars game I walked into was a new kind of beast. The GM ran it like a movie. He had a soundtrack, celebrity portraits for NPCS and detailed maps that were drawn to look like something out of  an official supplement. What truly stood out however, was his pacing. He kept the game moving. Our characters ran from one scene to the next at breakneck speed. He didn’t give us time to argue rules. We didn’t measure out 5 foot blocks on dungeon maps in order to calculate the volume of our grenade explosions – we threw and prayed. An action round involved more than move, hit and damage. We had to weave through traffic, leap across rooftops and dodge explosions in the thick of the fight. The GM seemed intent on using the universe to kill our characters. We loved it.

The players in this group were amazing. Something happened with them that I had never seen before. Near the start of the first session our characters had to chase down a rebel leader on a monorail. It was leaving the station when we arrived. Every character but mine succeeded on the roll to jump on the train. My ended up clinging to the side for dear life. In my old group she would have just died. Everyone would laugh and the game would continue while I found a new sheet. This time, without hesitation, a player informed the GM that his character was smashing through the window, grabbing my character, and pulling her in. I was floored by the idea of a party where PCs looked out for each other. Of course, the GM had given us a good in-character reason to work together form the start. We were an Imperial Special Ops team who had worked together for years.

Needless to say, it was one of the best gaming experiences of my life.

This has coloured how I run my games since and it’s also heavily influenced how I’ve written Knights of the Hidden Sun. I want my game to play like a movie. I want Knights to look out for each other, and I’ve designed tools to help other GMs do this:

• I’ve added a Hazard System to the Ready 2 Run core rules (used in Aeternal Legends) so that characters can jump through windows, pull innocent civilians from harm and run through an exploding dreadnought in the midst of combat.
• Characters start the game knowing each other; they’ve trained together for five years before starting their first mission.
• The reward system is designed to encourage teamwork, not  showboating. Of one person does something cool, everyone wins.

If you can easily run this game like a high-octane action flick then I’ll consider this project a success.