What’s the point?

I have been dabbling a bit in writing for a few years in addition to working on RPGs and campaigns, and the main problem that kept my stuck with writing something compelling and that’s always been the hardest part about campaigns is to come up with a plot. I am always doing great thinking about worlds and characters, but these aren’t any good if there is nothing interesting happening.

But now I’ve finally come across a great piece of advice. Plot is not really about conflict. Plot really starts with a goal.

Conflict is what follows from the goal not being easily reached and that conflict is what makes up the plot. But the reason why the protagonists are doing anything and how they approach the challenges they encounter result not from the conflict but from the goal.

Instead of trying to come up with a plot by picking a cool and exciting conflict, the process really begins with picking a goal. And then thinking about circumstances that get in the way of the goal, from which you get a conflict. This even holds true when your initial idea starts with a cool villain. The hero does not simply want to oppose the villain just because. He opposes him because he’s an obstacle to reaching his own goal. A villain does not make a conflict. The goal that the villain is blocking creates the conflict and in turn the plot.

Knights of the Old Republic: The Sith Empire Strikes Back

Knights of the Old Republic

THE SITH EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

Fifty years have passed since the returned Sith Lord Darth Revan has been destroyed for a second time in the Battle of Chandrilla, bringing an end to his seemingly unstoppable invasion of the GALACTIC REPUBLIC. With the death of their master, the surviving Sith forces were driven back to the Outer Rim.

Under the leadership of the mysterious SITH EMPRESS the Empire has been rebuilding its fleets and recovered its strength, slowly conquering many of the small independent systems in the Rim. Many fear the threat of a new great galactic war on the horizon.

Concerned by reports of recent activities in ruins of the Great Sith War, the Jedi Council has dispatched a group of its agents to the burned remains of the Jedi Enclave on the remote planet Dantooine.

  • 5000 BBY (1098 years ago) – Great Hyperspace War: The Sith Empire discovers the Galactic Republic and tries to invade corruscant but is defeated and almost entirely wiped out, but the Dark Lord Naga Sadow escapes with his followers to Yavin 4.
  • 3996 BBY (94 years ago) – Great Sith War: The Dark Jedi Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma declare themselves the new Dark Lords of the Sith and attempt to conquer the Galactic Republic with the help of the Mandalorians.
  • 3976 BBY (74 years ago) – Mandalorian Wars: While the Sith had been defeated, many of the Mandalorians had survived and dispersed throughout the galaxy. Mandalore the Ultimate united them again as the Neo-Crusaders and started another war against the Galactic Republic, causing Revan to gather an army of Jedi against the will of the Jedi council.
  • 3958 BBY (56 years ago) – Jedi Civil War: Revan and Malak declare themselves Dark Lords of the Sith and create a second Sith Empire. Revan is defeated by the Jedi but Malak escapes.
  • 3955 BBY (53 years ago) – The Dark Wars: Darth Malak returns with a new fleet from the Unknown Regions to attack the Galactic Repubic. Revan kills him in the Battle of the Star Forge and then turns on the Republic Fleet, completely destroying it and killing Admiral Dodona and Master Tokare. Shortly after the disappearance of the Republic Fleet in the Unknown Regions a Sith force attacks the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine, wiping out most of the Jedi in the Outer Rim.
  • 3952 BBY (50 years ago): Revan is slain in the Battle of Chandrilla and the remains of his fleet flee to the Outer Rim. The Republic Fleet are in no shape to pursue and both sides decide to focus all their resources on strengthening the defensesof their worlds, for the time being.
  • 3902 BBY: Sith Desciples send by the new Dark Lord start poking around on Dantooine.

I didn’t post much this month so far because I was busy. With work on my Ancient Lands setting being pretty much complete but the launch of a new campaign still being a while off, I once again turned to my other hobbies for fun. Videogames from the early 2000s (being already old enough to prefer stuff from when I was 16-20 to new releases) and Star Wars.

And I always wanted to run a Knights of the Old Republic campaign, but never got around to it. And just having discovered the Apocalypse Engine games and also started replaying the KotOR game, I simply have to do this now! I am actually getting new inspirations for refining the Ancient Lands all the time these days and don’t expect to be able to stay away from it for long. But for the time being, expect a good amount of Star Wars material around here.

I have a dream!

An Apocalypse World hack based on WEG Star Wars d6 1st Edition and running a Knights of the Old Republic campaign.

I’m not really sure why, but Star Wars seems to be really well suited to the way this game is structured and how it is described to be played. In particular, pretty much everything that involves Han Solo seems to perfectly fit the procedure of the player making a move and the GM responding with a move in turn. Han’s encounter with Greedo in the cantina, his attempt to impersonate a stormtrooper in the detention area, and of course the whole scene in the trash compactor. “It could be worse.” *roar* “It’s worse.

Or the whole ordeal with getting the Milennium Falcon to hyperspace in The Empire Strikes Back: Stormtroopers arrive; they start assembling a heavy blaster; hyperdrive doesn’t work; there’s an asteroid field; they send Tie-Bombers to flush them out; there’s mynocks in the cave; it’s not a cave; there’s a bounty hunter hiding in the trash; Darth Vader already arrived just before them. A long, long string of the GM throwing move after move at the hero who keeps failing his rolls.