So, I like humor. It's how I handle pretty much everything in my life, inappropriate or not, and I'm always willing to insert that strategic out-of-place bit of comic relief that refreshes a drawn out fight or serious moment. As a result, I like sharing my strange RPG experiences, and I like reading them from others.

I also am constantly amazed by the emphasis that the narrative dice let us place on evolving storytelling. It's a constant struggle for me, but cool use of those advantages and threats can really tie into the flavor of a moment, and when it's done well it's some of the most interesting bits of encounter design.

In short, please look for something to laugh at here, and post your own funny situations or results for me to get a chuckle out of! Or, failing that, just share something totally bad-ass with me.

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Well, that said, I also know that these threads crop up once and a while, so to avoid "doing the same old thing" again, I also want to share my "review" of FFG's narrative dice system for anyone on the fence about getting into the game.

The thing I love about FFG's take on Star Wars is the wonky dice. I know a lot of people hesitate when seeing them, as the clarity of pure numbers and the nostalgia/experience with other systems drives many of us to games with d#s. Couple that with the difficulty of getting some online systems, like Roll20, to work with FFGs dice and you might not be willing to give the whole thing a shot.

Yes, in those other games, you can assign narrative impact to numerical results, usually 1's and 20's. These bits of flavor tend to group around "awesome ways to succeed" and "hilarious ways to fail". The dice in this game system allow for more diversity in situations to interpret. Sometimes, in the case of more simple dice results for broad actions, this allows you to easily add depth to a game. Suddenly, you can fail but still acquire some positive. You can succeed, but at a cost. These allow you to evolve a narrative by saying "but, ..." in a way that doesn't feel contrived, as well as open the door for some nice mechanical boons and banes.

FFG showcases these situations well in many of the pre-made adventures I've read. In a set-piece boss battle, they might suggest that advantages and setback alter the scene in some interesting way. When traipsing through a particularly backwards piece of wilderness, they give advice on how those same concepts can help the GM give character to the settings while helping or hurting the players. And these symbols are at the core for many cool effects, like crafting and special properties.

In other cases, the dice challenge you. That's mainly what this post is about. Sometimes you're GMing and a set of dice fall in front of you that you have no idea what to do with. I'll admit, I've sometimes just said "you know what, we'll ignore those other bits for right now". But that's a cop out! You grow as a writer and a quick-thinking person when you rise to the challenge of a wonky dice pool, good or bad. If you're not convinced these strange dice are for you, then I hope the stories that (I hope) are collected here give you a better picture.

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My one "really cool" story is when I took a page out of FFG's book and let advantage and threat alter the environment of a big battle. My Force and Destiny group was tracking down the leader of an ill-advised attempted coup against the Empire, the CEO of a shipping corporation possessed by the spirit of a mind-control obsessed Sith Lord and convinced that he deserved to rule a small planet. His machinations involved goading the Empire into tackling a "gang problem" with local resources and crippling them with the combined might of that gang and his private army. That backfired, and the Empire whole-hog sieged the city to make an example.

The party chased him to a hanger where he was planning on loading a Ghtroc 720 with his best troops and attacking the Imperial forward operating base. It's worth noting that the city was built like a large plant, and this particular hanger was a "leaf", hanging out over the chaos of the lower city on basically thin air. Well, the Empire had learned of his location, too, and sent bombers after him! Advantage and threat generally resulted in pieces of the hanger falling down around the party to positive or negative effect as bombers tore the place apart and fighters from nearby dogfights became involved in the scene.

By the end of the fight, the whole hanger was coming loose from the "trunk", slowly falling off the city and sloping horribly as it went. The party escaped by stealing the Ghtroc and taking off just as it was about to slide off what was left of the hanger floor! All in all, a really cool fight that worked its way to a powerful conclusion.

As for one of my most memorable funny stories? It takes place moments later, as the party tries to fly their newly acquired space turtle to safety. Near the tail end of their attempt to fight their way out of the city, a TIE Interceptor is hot on their tail. One of my players is an avid slicer, and she spent her turn trying to access the Interceptor's systems hoping for the Triumph that could shut off its ridiculous Linked 4 weapons. Imagine our surprise when she got a heaping of Successes and TWO Triumphs. Obviously we were going to shut down the weapons, but what to do with the second result? There wasn't much more we could "turn off" without breaking the ability. Inflicting system strain, however, felt a bit too boring a result for two Triumphs. So, following my rule that humor is to be substituted for reason when nothing else seems to work, we decided that her character didn't just shut off the TIE's weapons, but replaced the function with a sound file of a really annoying laugh (found with a quick search using Roll20). Enter a tense "I have you now" moment where the TIE lines up his perfect shot and thinks he's got an easy kill, only to hear an extremely off-putting "HA HA HA HA" instead of the usual streaks of green laser. The look at that poor bastard's face as he desperate tried to fix his weapons and inevitably died to return fire from a flying turtle must have been priceless.

My group had a fun session this past week thanks to the narrative dice. I am the GM, and I converted the group over from Saga Edition while running them through the Dawn of Defiance campaign. We're currently in Episode II, and they are trying to get information about Darga the Hutt's dealings with the Empire. The group consists of an astromech/assassin droid (a hired gun marauder droid who masquerades as a really terrible astromech droid), a male human smuggler pilot, a male human smuggler gunslinger/Force Sensitive Exile, a female Clawdite smuggler charmer, and a male Kel Dor bounty hunter gadgeteer.

The group infiltrated the Hutt's palace with the Clawdite masquerading as their contact's twin brother. At one point, the group is attending a meeting in Darga's throne room when a group of slavers storm in, complaining about the quality of the slaves that Darga is selling to them. The PCs all tense up to support the Hutt in the argument, putting hands on weapons and the like. The Hutt intimidates the slaver leader into backing down, and then declares that bygones will be patched up by bringing out drinks and hors d'oeuvres. His servants begin bringing them out, and one of the slaver group's "dancers" slips something into a tray of drinks headed for the Hutt's area. I let my players make Perception checks, at which only one succeeds while the others get threats. I let the successful player (the gunslinger/FSE) attempt to warn his companions as he sees that tray heading for them, and he attempts to do it surreptitiously (shakes his head to warn them from drinking it, gestures, etc), The bounty hunter and pilot catch on without a problem, but the Clawdite's rolls just are not working out for her this evening. So, she drinks one of the poisoned drinks, and I upgrade the difficulty of her Resilience check (because at this point, the group had ONE light side destiny point remaining, and DESPAIRS in this situation seem ripe for narrative fun). She rolls her check, and ends up with a Despair! She collapses, and the FS gunslinger yells out, "The Slavers did it!", prompting a fight in the middle of the throne room with a lot of onlookers around, and the first Triumph of the combat goes to knock out the lights, imposing significant penalties.

It was a hilarious fight, with the pilot managing to kill the Wookiee slaver with his pistol as the Wookie tries to rip his arms off, the FS gunslinger (who had acquired a lightsaber along the way) being charged by three slaver minions with force pikes - the gunslinger killed two of them and scared off the third, yelling "Yeah! You don't mess with Darga's Jedi!" as the final human slaver ran away, and the bounty hunter stunning one of the two dancers before taking down the Zabrak slaver leader with his blaster carbine on stun. Next session opens with the Clawdite, the Zabrak, and the Twi'lek dancer all imprisoned together in the Hutt's dungeon area, and the Clawdite's player has already stated that her intention to explain things is to admit that she's an Imperial double agent (her Obligation involves Imperial Intelligence holding her family, and has already triggered twice so far this episode) sent to spy on the PCs.

I found the entire session hilarious, and most of my players seemed to find the humor in the absurdity, as well.

No hilarity to share (would take too long, and a lot of them are "you had to be there"), but here are some thoughts on the narrative dice and how it's changed my GMing:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/188406-running-a-freeform-plot/

We had what I would call a humerous moment today. The team landed on Abridon on a mission to liberate some old R-22 Spearheads from the local Abridon defense force since the planet is about to transition to being protected by the Imperial Military, and the Alliance need those Spearheads to make 'A-Wings' as they are being called.

They were trying to find a reason for them to sell their ship in exchange for resources to use and were all arguing. During the argument, the Spy asks the Starfighter Ace for his blaster. The Starfighter Ace looks curious but complies as the group continues to argue. The spy takes the pistol, shoots three shots into the nav computer and announces "The ship is now busted, we have a legitimate reason to sell the ship." before handing the blaster pistol back to the pilot.