|
Post by Finarvyn on May 4, 2014 20:24:00 GMT -6
I was watching STAR WARS today in honor of May 4th (known as "A New Hope" to the youngsters) and I had a bizarre thought that might make for an interesting SW RPG campaign, or at least an interesting discussion.
It starts with Obi-Wan telling Luke about his father, and the later knowledge that Obi-Wan says that this scene is true "from a certain point of view" and I wondered: what if Obi-Wan is really the bad guy in all of this?
The winner writes the history, right? So what if the "truth" is that the Empire is actually a well-meaning Police force trying to protect its citizens from the terrorists who call themselves "the Rebellion"?
Perhaps the rebels are actually thugs who sabotage the legitimate government and disrupt shipping and miliary operations and the like.
Perhaps the "Sith Knights" are actually the guardians of the galaxy and always come in pairs -- one knight and one squire -- while the dark Jedi are underhanded and are willing to gang up in packs to try to overcome the Sith Knights with their numbers. And Obi-Wan is in hiding on Tatooine because he tried to overthrow the government and kill off the Sith Knights, and when he lost he fled into hiding like the coward and the liar that he really is....
As did dark Jedi Yoda who also wasn't brave enough to stand up to the glory of the Sith when things got tough. Yoda who tried to seduce young Luke to the dark side of the Jedi while hiding from Luke that he had a sister. A sister that Yoda helped steal from his Sith Knight father Anakin.
What do you think?
|
|
|
Post by Vile Traveller on May 4, 2014 22:12:07 GMT -6
I love role reversals, playing with the idea that everything is always based on "a certain point of view". I've quite often run games placing the players in the "opposite" role, and it makes for an interesting change.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 5, 2014 8:10:01 GMT -6
I was thinking about Obi-Wan. It seems that he lied about Luke's father and later got himself killed for no reason, simply to ensure that Luke didn't join up with Vader and overthrow the Emperor. He's not lying to protect Luke, he's deliberately planting the seeds of hate.
|
|
|
Post by Finarvyn on May 5, 2014 14:01:12 GMT -6
I was thinking about Obi-Wan. It seems that he lied about Luke's father and later got himself killed for no reason, simply to ensure that Luke didn't join up with Vader and overthrow the Emperor. He's not lying to protect Luke, he's deliberately planting the seeds of hate. See ... he's the bad guy! Just like I guessed! Obi-Wan is trying to subvert Luke to the "dark side" of the Jedi. He's turning Luke against his own father, the glorious Sith Knight Darth Vader, defender of the known galaxy!
|
|
|
Post by Falconer on May 7, 2014 9:58:07 GMT -6
You know this isn’t true because Leia is pretty and Tarkin has a British accent.
|
|
|
Post by barrataria on May 7, 2014 20:43:57 GMT -6
The winner writes the history, right? So what if the "truth" is that the Empire is actually a well-meaning Police force trying to protect its citizens from the terrorists who call themselves "the Rebellion"? Perhaps the rebels are actually thugs who sabotage the legitimate government and disrupt shipping and miliary operations and the like. I think you have committed a great heresy, and the Fanboy Police should be along any minute now to get you. How dare you make the black and white of the SW Multiverse grey! I like your ideas generally, although I don't like carrying the idea too far in the other direction. In designing my SW campaign, the three movies are basically Rebel propaganda films. And as you say, the victor writes the history, so the man on the street on Bespin knows "the story" of the farmboy that saves the Princess and how they teamed up with a roguish smuggler to throw down the evil Empire. But yes, the Rebels most certainly must have broken some eggs to make the omelet of freedom celebrated by the joyous furry wonderful happy ewoks on their forest moon. And of course the Empire itself is an oppressive institution and the Dark Siders are evil. But the trains ran on time, the space supplies zoomed all over the galaxy, and some pretty nasty, scary things worse even than the Empire were kept bottled up in dark corners of the universe. I don't know what Disney intends for the aftermath of the Galactic Civil War, but I think it would look a lot more like the MegaTraveller "Hard Times" campaign than a happy ever after universe where all beings are somehow "free" even while being ruled by an interstellar government.
|
|
|
Post by Finarvyn on May 8, 2014 17:32:09 GMT -6
By the way -- have I ever mentioned my theory that using the force makes you ugly? Yoda is a force master. He's ugly. The Emperor is a force master. He's ugly. Luke learns about the force and starts out pretty normal but by the end of the third movie he's getting ugly. (Okay, the actor had a car crash. I get that. Don't let facts get in the way of a good theory. )
|
|
|
Post by The Semi-Retired Gamer on May 26, 2014 14:04:06 GMT -6
I was watching STAR WARS today in honor of May 4th (known as "A New Hope" to the youngsters) and I had a bizarre thought that might make for an interesting SW RPG campaign, or at least an interesting discussion. It starts with Obi-Wan telling Luke about his father, and the later knowledge that Obi-Wan says that this scene is true "from a certain point of view" and I wondered: what if Obi-Wan is really the bad guy in all of this? The winner writes the history, right? So what if the "truth" is that the Empire is actually a well-meaning Police force trying to protect its citizens from the terrorists who call themselves "the Rebellion"? Perhaps the rebels are actually thugs who sabotage the legitimate government and disrupt shipping and miliary operations and the like. Perhaps the "Sith Knights" are actually the guardians of the galaxy and always come in pairs -- one knight and one squire -- while the dark Jedi are underhanded and are willing to gang up in packs to try to overcome the Sith Knights with their numbers. And Obi-Wan is in hiding on Tatooine because he tried to overthrow the government and kill off the Sith Knights, and when he lost he fled into hiding like the coward and the liar that he really is.... As did dark Jedi Yoda who also wasn't brave enough to stand up to the glory of the Sith when things got tough. Yoda who tried to seduce young Luke to the dark side of the Jedi while hiding from Luke that he had a sister. A sister that Yoda helped steal from his Sith Knight father Anakin. What do you think? When are you writing up the campaign supplement?
|
|
|
Post by blackbarn on Sept 10, 2014 22:37:50 GMT -6
I personally think it'd be too weird for me to do it as a full campaign, being so used to the real version. But what might be interesting is to do something like Star Trek's "Mirror Universe" and have the Alliance PC heroes wind up in another dimension where the roles of Rebel and Imperial are reversed as you say. And then you can have them meet bad guy versions of the heroes from the films, and good guys based on the villains, to see how the PCs react. Team up with Darth Vader to stop the bad guy Rebels? Fun! You can also use these major film characters (ie: have PCs kill them off) without worrying about what "really" happened in the movies, which is also interesting.
(Reminds me a little of a switcheroo game we once did where the battle of Endor resulted in Alliance defeat and victory for the Empire, and where the story went from there...)
|
|