Well, Rebellion Day has some and gone. Who all went?

I drove my nephew to San Mateo to play at Gator Games (actually owned by an old friend from my BBS days in the 1980's). They started at 3pm and ended about 5:30, so we got about 2 1/2 hours of play out of it. Thumbing through the adventure afterwards, we probably skipped a bit, but the store closed at 6pm and it couldn't go over that.

Besides my nephew and myself, there was one other guy playing, so we only had 3 in the party. Without going into too much spoiler info, it was a pretty straightforward prisoner rescue, and we ended up causing havoc galore. Here are a few pics:

Anyway, people who played, let everyone else know what you thought! For me, it wasn't a bad little adventure, although I would have liked to have played more of it. We ended up using the "Chewbacca Maneuver" (Don't worry, Chewie, I think I know what he has in mind...) to get the Bothan past the guards. I find this is used quite a bit to get non-humans through Imperial security We could also have used a human PC or two that had Deception, since the one PC that did (the Bothan) was acting as the "prisoner".

Still, I relish any chance I get to play, since I'm always GMing. Oh, and in case anyone's wondering, that's five sets of dice

I went to Rebellion day, at the only store to host it in AR. I enjoyed it quite a bit. We ended up starting shortly after 2 and played until 6:00 or so. I played the spy and other than using up my 3 stun grenades, I didn't roll any other attack roll, but deception and skullduggery sure played a huge part in the detention center.

We ended up stealing some uniforms of the local administration. Apparently the administration agents had no problems hiring non-humans, so it wasn't a big deal to be walking around, but it took some finagling to get to the high-securty area.

By the end of the adventure, we had used up all 6 explosives and still only made it out by the skin of our necks, According to our GM, we were 3 rounds away from you-know-what.

I really liked the adventure and the quality of the book itself was great. Lot of content for new players and one session. I really appreciated the effort put into it.

I was going to be the only GM in my area running it. Sods law that I get taken ill the night before and had to cancel. I was really looking forward to it too.

Isn't Sod's law something to do with Murphy being an optimist?

I ran a session at my FLGS; one player had bought and read the core book but never played, and the other two were pretty new to any RPGs other than D&D. They had the dice mechanics down pretty pat in the first 30-45 minutes and really started getting into the characters.

I'd looked into it ahead of time and brought a couple of the old WotC SW minis game maps, which served well enough for the scuffles in the town proper; they even grabbed at some of the scenery for ideas (hot-wiring a parked speeder bike for a distraction).

The time marks were pretty well spot on - of the 3 parts, part 1 is estimated at 1 hour and parts 2&3 together being 3 hours. I ran all four, and given that it took us 15-20 minutes to really get started, the whole thing was done in ~4 hours total.

The nicest part was I got to keep the adventure materials afterwards - so I can run it for my normal group, or as a one-shot to introduce new folks to it (you know, other than the beginner games and such ).

I attended the store hosting it and we all stumbled through the first half of the adventure.

I picked the Bothan and used deception and skulduggery alot.

The dice were kind and the game was fun I have now volunteered to run it at our local store

I went to an event in Oakland, and found it to be a great one time adventure. We had a full crew plus the GM. I played the Commander and thought he was a really well-rounded character. The adventure itself was fun. I liked the use of an epic deadline to save the prisoners. This also made the team feel like they really needed to get in and out and helped keep everything moving. Good times...

I ended up playing in HappyDaze's group. We were going to GM two tables, but only had a few players show up, so we just ran it with one table. I played Lelsk the Bothan.

It was interesting playing after I'd read in detail through the entire adventure had to play dumb a few times, but all in all it was cool because HappyDaze made some small changes to the module that I didn't expect. So yeah, it was a fun time.

Thanks for playing! I tried to keep the game moving, and I threw a few curves in there to keep you guessing. I'm glad it worked out.

I went to an event in Oakland, and found it to be a great one time adventure. We had a full crew plus the GM. I played the Commander and thought he was a really well-rounded character. The adventure itself was fun. I liked the use of an epic deadline to save the prisoners. This also made the team feel like they really needed to get in and out and helped keep everything moving. Good times...

Was it at EndGame? I wanted to go there, but it was booked. That's why I ended up in San Mateo.

I had the privilege of attending the Rebellion Day event at the Fantasy Flight Games Event Center. It started off with a question-and-answer session between five or six members of the design team and the guests. They weren't allowed to say much about future projects, of course, but they did mention that the license seems secure in the light of Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm.

The highlight of the day, of course, was the gaming session. My table had Fischer for our GM, and he did an excellent job. I have the highlights below.

*WARNING: SPOILERS FOR “RESCUE AT GLARE PEAK” FOLLOW*

The scenario began with the heroes atop a building in the town of Glare Peak, hooking up an illicit device. We witnessed the crash of a Y-wing fighter. On the way to check for survivors, we ran into a squad of stormtroopers. Our Bothan spy tried to lead them astray with a story about seeing someone fleeing in a different direction, and this was the first time that Despair reared its ugly head. They didn't buy the claim, and a lightfight ensued.

After dispatching the stormies, we reached the scene of the crash, in the front of a local cantina. The Imperials had cordoned off the area, but we slipped inside via a secret tunnel. Our Bothan tried another ruse to deceive the technicians and stormtroopers there, but once again Despair reared its ugly head and a lightfight ensued.

Via a captured technician we learned that the Y-wing's pilot had been taken to the local detention center. Armed with fake identification and a speeder borrowed from a local tech contractor, we headed in to stage a rescue. This time my Human lieutenant received the visit from Despair while attempting a bluff, but the Bothan sprang into action and coerced the officer out front to keep his mouth shut. Thus we were able to slip into the cell bay. Our Ithorian engineer took control of the computer terminal, allowing us to free the prisoner we sought. As this was transpiring, we learned that the base was about to receive an important visitor, and he arrived then—none other than Darth Vader.

Knowing we were outmatched, we used the Duro sharpshooter's explosive to make a new exit. The Ithorian bought us some time with a Triumph-ant use of his bellow, the Bothan led our prisoner out to freedom, and the Duro saved my Human by tackling him down the mountainside before Vader could strike. We slipped back into town, arranged transportation offplanet and escaped.

*END OF SPOILERS*

Reflection

All in all, the session highlighted some of the great elements of the game. For one thing, the dice did affect the story, and unexpected complications made for memorable scenes. It's also notable that the first time anybody cracked a rulebook was nearly two hours into the session, when we needed to see what kind of benefits donning stormtrooper armor gave us. Most importantly, though, it really felt like Star Wars.

-Nate

I ran the Age of Rebellion Beginner Game for Rebellion Day, since my FLGS hit a snag and didn't get their kits on time. FFG customer service was awesome, though, and our kits arrived today. I'll be running the Rescue at Glare Peak module at the Fantasy Shop in Florissant Missouri on a Saturday in the near future. Tentatively, the first Saturday in October, but that's subject to change. We'll be promoting it when we settle on a firm date.

Is it me, or did FFG sort of drop the ball on Rebellion Day? They didn't get all the packets out on time, they didn't sign up very many game stores, they didn't get the list out until just a few days before the event, and they didn't seem to have gotten the word out very well. This was a great opportunity to promote the game, but it seems like only the die-hards really knew about it.

Is it me, or did FFG sort of drop the ball on Rebellion Day? They didn't get all the packets out on time, they didn't sign up very many game stores, they didn't get the list out until just a few days before the event, and they didn't seem to have gotten the word out very well. This was a great opportunity to promote the game, but it seems like only the die-hards really knew about it.

For our situation, it may not have been FFG's fault. Apparently their tracking information had marked the kits as "delivered" to our store, but the store never received them. They think the delivery might have been stolen. I emailed them about the kits not arriving, and I received a phone call the next day saying that replacement kits had been shipped and would be here by the end of the week.

Is it me, or did FFG sort of drop the ball on Rebellion Day? They didn't get all the packets out on time, they didn't sign up very many game stores, they didn't get the list out until just a few days before the event, and they didn't seem to have gotten the word out very well. This was a great opportunity to promote the game, but it seems like only the die-hards really knew about it.

Sounds like it probably could have been managed a little better, or promoted a bit more often.

In our case, the local shop here posted about it once and they were taking signups over the phone. With more vigorous promotion and some way of signing up online they might have had a bigger turnout.

That said, we had a great time playing it and introduced the system to some bright new players.

The list FFG posted, stating that my FLGS would run the event, was a lie. Well, a misunderstanding I guess. Due to other events they didn't have capacity to run the event, so they'd actually stressed this when asked about it by the central management thing. Crapalicious.

Of course... today as I popped by the store after work I was basically given their one order of the Rebellion Day thing, not only had they not initially agreed, it also arrived a week late. Ah well. I'll run it at the local con in two weeks time.

Any tips for running this? I'm not big on premades.

A week late? Maybe I should check in with the FLGS I asked at and see if they got anything in.

I live in Scandinavia, shipping isn't great from the US - they still haven't received their order on Far Horizons, although Onslaught at Arda I arrived when it should. Yay...

Of course... today as I popped by the store after work I was basically given their one order of the Rebellion Day thing, not only had they not initially agreed, it also arrived a week late. Ah well. I'll run it at the local con in two weeks time.

Any tips for running this? I'm not big on premades.

Our game took about 5 hours, but we also had 2 players who had never played this game before. If you are worried about time, you can cut out the Y-wing investigation and just have them infiltrate the base.

Of course... today as I popped by the store after work I was basically given their one order of the Rebellion Day thing, not only had they not initially agreed, it also arrived a week late. Ah well. I'll run it at the local con in two weeks time.

Any tips for running this? I'm not big on premades.

Our game took about 5 hours, but we also had 2 players who had never played this game before. If you are worried about time, you can cut out the Y-wing investigation and just have them infiltrate the base.

This is what our GM did and it only took 2 1/2 hours. I was actually disappointed that it didn't take longer.

Before the event, I ran the module with my D&D group to get familiarity with it, and the whole thing took us 2.5 hours, including the Y-Wing rescue and the prison break.

When I ran it on the day, the group I had was more analytical and it ended up taking us 5 hours.