Star Wars Fate Campaign Recap 1

On Friday, I participated in my first session as a player in a Fate campaign and it was a mostly positive experience. Game system-wise, I learned a lot just from the two combats we were in. The mechanics are simple enough to master with just a few sessions. Still have a bit to go with the tactics but I'm starting to understand them from a GM perspective.

I think the transition from Dungeons and Dragons to Fate is smoother than the one from D&D to Fate Accelerated. While I enjoyed FAE, I think the skill system of Fate just feels more natural than FAE's approaches. After playing on Friday, I think this using Fate instead of FAE will be good for my Time and Tide Campaign group. When we experimented with FAE on Memorial Day, it was good and fun, just difficult to adjust to, especially for a single session.

We started en route to the Twi'lek homeworld.¹ We're dropping of a cargo shipment of photon torpedoes for the Rebellion to one of Phae's contacts, Tarth Onasi. As we're preparing to exit hyperspace, Liv gets a bad feeling. Cole and her hop onto the turrets while Cal and Phae pilot the ship. We exit to find a star destroyer that hails us. We end up in a dogfight and two other star destroyers are closing to cut off our escape. Cole and Liv manage to take out both bombers and two of the six TIE fighters while getting beat up. Phae keeps bringing the shields up but it's not enough. Our ship gets mauled and we're forced down onto the surface.²

This hot and dusty planet is immediately hostile. We gather what supplies we can and head away from the crash site before reinforcements show up. During our trek, a gang of hunters show up and drop our team pretty quickly, but not before Cole manages to blast one of them dead.³ The two speeders we're imprisoned in get ambushed by the local militia. The speeder without us keeps right on going while our's hits a mine in the road. With the other hostile killed in the mine explosion, Aquila joins our group and we escape the ambush site before the militia can get down into the canyon.

We arrive at a small farming town, Katrial. The Twi'lek leader hides us from the militia and feeds the group before offering us assistance. He asks us to search for his daughter while we're in town. We agree and head into town the next morning.

We need to get our ship fixed, or acquire a new one. Make contact with Tarth and find a way to run the imperial blockade comprised of three star destroyers. We're in trouble.

The odds were a bit overwhelming and it led to a feeling a bit of a railroad but that's okay. The GM has two (maybe three) new players to Fate and one of those players is new to role-playing games altogether. He's doing a good job of trying to cover all the basic mechanics and get the group assembled. I have some concerns about Aquila just not being on the same page as the rest of the characters. I was also careful to make sure I didn't reveal Liv's force power just yet. But to maximize her effectiveness, I'll definitely need to lean on her lightsaber, force powers and Fate points.

I'm also hoping to write one of these recaps a few days after every time we play.