Ever since I started playing X-wing (which was when it came out) I have wanted to try to combine it with one of my other great loves, role playing. It has taken until recently to be able to make the idea come to pass, but it was worth the wait. If you don't like role playing then you probably won't care to do something like this but if you do like role playing I think this is something you might have liked.

If you want to know the details of how I did it I can post them later, but here I wanted to talk about a very fun surprise.

The player has some control over their builds but a lot of it comes down to the story, as does the forces that they face. I use point values to make sure the fights aren't too difficult. I don't tell them this but my players usually have about 50% more points than whoever they are fighting. A lot of what you do when you set a battle in a role playing game flies in the face of what you would do in a competitive play environment. But this has opened up a lot of play options that don't really show up in competitive play, specifically combinations that aren't that competitive, but might be very narrative.

I have had so much flying all sorts of combinations that I would never take to a tournament. I feel like I get to play with 100% of my ships and upgrades, because I can always work them into the story, while in competitive play I only really want to fly the best stuff.

I have read a lot of stuff on this forum in the past few weeks about what you have to do to play at the top tear. What ships are "viable" vs "not viable" if what you want to do is win tournaments. Some people have complained about how narrow the meta is, or that you can't win if you do such and such or how you have to do one thing or another. Basically if you want to win you have to play top tear, well that is pretty obvious. And the answer I have found isn't to change the meta of fix the X-wing (though these aren't necessarily bad ideas) is to take the competitive part out. It has been a ton of fun.