Classic Star Wars as the OSR

There is a parallel between Classic Star Wars and the OSR. We have a game, the Edge Studio 2012 Star Wars RPG, still licensed and in print, that feels like it comes from a time before the sequel trilogy. It does, and even though the books have Disney on the covers, the game predates the era, and to be honest, Disney did make a few good Star Wars movies and shows. I would put Rogue One up at the top, and something worthy of being considered canon.

I have to be fair and honest.

The feeling I get when I play the Edge Studio Star Wars game is the same as when I play an OSR game. The memories come back, the feeling is there, and that magic happens. Tooling around the universe as my smuggler, letting the dice fall where they may, and getting myself into all sorts of story trouble feels great, and it comes from a time before modern "story gaming," which has gone so far down the road of an artificial, curated experience that today's narrative games feel manipulative and far too controlling.

Sure, the Star Wars game uses special narrative dice, but they have a charm and mystery that add to the experience without detracting from the narrative flow. I am still interpreting results here, which can get tedious, but the results are up to me, and the game isn't getting in the way and telling me "what happens." There are suggestions, but the decisions on narrative flow are still up to me, and the game has not taken them out of my hands, unlike some narrative games today.

Nor is there a pool mechanic tracking different types of narrative currency. Cypher System has its XP, and Daggerheart has hope and fear. The dice stay a creative tool, up to interpretation, and the results are up to you to determine. Every roll is like an oracle helping you determine the next cinematic result.

Also, this is not a D&D-like game where monsters and NPCs throw their lives away. Like a movie, there is always something else to a fight, and the narrative flow and push-and-pull of the active situation are the real fun here, not killing everything in a room and looting the bodies. Playing a D&D-type dungeon crawl with this game would be less than ideal, while playing a D&D fantasy movie based on characters, a module, or a setting would be a lot more fun.

There is a generic version of this system called Genesys, ideal for other settings with the same rules but slightly different dice. This one is also still in print and great fun for simulating that classic "Hollywood" movie experience from the 1920s to about 2010. There is an innocence to this game that many other generic narrative-driven games lack. The dice are intended to be "tools of imagination" like a set of oracle dice, and most everything from that point is left up to you.

You are not pushing and pulling narrative-currency pools against a referee. The game isn't telling you exactly what happens. You are not triggering boss abilities by rolling badly. You are not asking the players to "take an intrusion" in exchange for narrative currency.

You roll the dice.

They produce a result.

Your imagination takes it from there.

The rules stop here, and the narrative outcome remains in-game, feeding into the next situation. You are not tracking pools or stepping out of the game, into player or GM-mode, and making narrative flow choices based on an artificial rules framework. Oh, something cool happens: my blaster hits a nearby stack of clay pots, and they collapse onto the group of stormtroopers, allowing us a chance to make a break for it. Nothing in the pools has changed. No rule is activated. No special encounter ability has been triggered. Nothing on my character sheet is activated by my good-guy narrative pool. No player intrusion needed to be triggered by spending an XP.

Genesys uses the same dice, but with slightly different symbols. The Star Wars game comes with loads of "Star Wars toys," so it is a better experience for playing in that universe and for having classic, OSR-style throwback stories and adventures based on movie-like experiences.

I don't have to drop out of my character's head a moment and figure out what rule or ability was triggered. This is key. This is what keeps Genesys and Star Wars a cut above many other modern narrative games. You play the game with oracle dice, and you are not dropping out of character to reference the narrative flow rules.

The dice give me direction on what happens in the world.

And it happens.

I stay in character.

We move on to the next scene.

Playing classic Star Wars stories with the special dice feels like an old-school game to me. I am firing blasters, evading enemies,  shooting the controls to a blast door to try to get it to close, and doing all sorts of other "space hero" stuff that I can't get in a traditional OSR game. The OSR has this spreadsheet math going on when combat happens, and combat is typically a failure condition, so combat is punishing and to be avoided whenever possible. The moral and reaction roll rules in the OSR mitigate the "to the death" combat math.

In Star Wars? Combat is dangerous, but also a part of the film. In many ways, combat is fun and cinematic, as my character runs across a street with blaster bolts flying by, trading shots with stormtroopers, and figuring out "how to get out of this mess."

This is clearly in the realm of "combat is fun" narrative action games. If I want realism, I have GURPS. To live in this "movie reality," then Star Wars and Genesys work very well and provide that curated, action-oriented, popcorn-gaming experience.

And I can keep Classic Star Wars apart in my mind from the modern era, and in fact, treating the Classic era as an OSR-type experience helps me return to the fun, and put the not-always-so-good present in perspective. I still need to be fair and give new things a chance, since this is a licensed game and it will never replace new stuff that happens to be good.

But for classic throwback Star Wars romps and tales of two-fisted and blaster-firing adventure that bring me back to my childhood? This is good stuff. It makes me happy the way the OSR and BX do.

Gaming should transport us to a different world, a feeling, or a moment in time when times were good and the world looked infinite and full of possibilities.

This does that for me.