Jedi Academy: Retrospective

Jedi Academy: Retrospective

I had the great pleasure of facilitating GM-less games in May, with the central theme of people connected to a Jedi Academy. Many thanks to David LaFreniere, josh gary, steven watkins, Tony Hahn, Johannes Oppermann, Mikael Tysvær, and Michael X. Heiligenstein; You were all great storytellers!

Our first game was Cheat Your Own Adventure. We managed to tell several very interesting stories in this session. A student tested by his mentor on a jungle planet; a young Jedi experiencing combat alongside soldiers in a desert environment; a soldier faced with Order 66. This was the first time I had played CYOA, and was excited to get this Gauntlet tradition under my belt.

What I learned from CYOA: These games are very fast. The mechanic is absolutely brilliant, in my mind. And, as has been stated before, the most fun you can get out of it is by manipulating the fail state. We had failure mean that you turn to the dark side, or that you follow Order 66. It was very compelling to play in this fashion. I would wholeheartedly recommend this game to anyone trying to introduce story games to players for the first time. It’s pretty hard not to have fun playing this game.

Our second game, Follow, did not make, unfortunately. This was due to a confluence of forgotten Mother’s Day obligations, miscommunication, and technological difficulties. I was looking forward to trying this game out and hope to still have a chance soon! Apologies to Keith Stetson and Megan Bennett-Burks; I hope we have a chance to play together again.

What I learned from Follow: Check the calendar for holidays before posting a game. This can be easy to forget when games are scheduled in advance. Don’t rely on Hangouts messages to relay information; not everyone gets these for some reason. Additionally, try to communicate through multiple technological channels. This may seem redundant or obnoxious, but it’s the best way to make sure none of your communications slip through the cracks.

Our third game was Boy x Boy. BxB is a game that has historically been difficult to fill on the Gauntlet Hangouts. I was very lucky to have the perfect number of players! Now, BxB is a game about cute anime boys going on adorable dates. “What does that have to do with Star Wars?” Well, at the back of the book, there is an example of how you might hack the system; a game titled “Jedi x Sith” where an “internal affairs” Jedi searches for Sith corruption within the organization.

What I learned from BxB: Sharing the spotlight in a game with multiple narrators is a challenge. Playing over Hangouts, even more so. All that being said, this game was a blast! The players all agreed that despite the issues of latency, etc. the game was enjoyable. There was a bit of mental gymnastics trying to figure out how to play our roles, but once we got into the groove things really synced up. I particularly enjoyed tempting the other Jedi into using their dark side powers and exploring the moral ambiguity of the Sith philosophy.

Our fourth and final game was Shooting the Moon. I’ve played StM with two players (with David LaFreniere) and this time we played with five. We had two teams of two players portraying a prospective Jedi yearning to earn the apprenticeship of our fifth player, portraying a Jedi Master. StM is at its heart a game about romance. I and my fellow players did not feel comfortable with teenagers being in a romantic relationship with an older teacher. Collaboratively we made an older Jedi Academy where the students were college-age as opposed to younglings. This way, romance as a subject matter did not have to be removed from the table. (Additionally, as is always the case for Gauntlet games, the X-Card was made available.)

What I learned from StM: Character creation was my favorite part of the experience. Our characters came out nuanced and surprising. After playing with two and five players, my current hypothesis is that the best way to play StM is with three players. At the least, the best way to play over Hangouts. Sharing the mic time was hard enough in BxB – when two players are sharing one character, this challenge really was an obstacle for our fun. Framing the scenes ended up taking more precedence than actually playing through them, possibly because only one person needed the mic at that time. There was some confusion over the roles of each player as well. I would like to try StM over Hangouts with three players again. I would also like to try sharing the portrayal of a single character again as well. Bluebeard’s Bride was my first taste of that, and I’d like to see what else is out there.