So, last week I thought this was a good idea, but it's turned out less interesting than I thought it would be. So, don't be surprised if it's a bit on the short side.
My first published Star Wars adventure was called Milk Run. It was for the original Star Wars RPG by West End Games, written as an RPGA adventure. These were the days when the RPGA catered to all systems, not just Wizards of the Coast. I planned to run it at ShaunCon, and hoped it would premiere there. It didn't. Instead, when we requested it, the RPGA said something to the effect of, "Well, we want to use for GenCon." Um. OK. So, it became RPGA's official Star Wars GenCon adventure. I ended up running it something like 6 times myself. Might have been 7, or one was cancelled, or something. Anyway, the following year, the RPGA published it in Polyhedron, their newsletter/magazine. Sans characters, but it was there.
Beyond GenCon, I ran the adventure at other times as well. Suffice to say, I ran it a lot. So when the Rebellion Era Campaign Guide came out, I decided to update Milk Run for use with Saga, and run it at KC Game Fair / ShaunCon twentywhatever that year. I had the adventure on hand, but had to dig out the old characters out of a file. Fortunately, my writing skills and selection of Star Wars appropriate character names have advanced since then. I figured out the approximate level of the bad guys, based on their activities in the adventure, then used that to determine the PC character levels, which was 5th.
I was curious how it would compare. Turns out, it wasn't as different as you might think. This, of course, is partly because I'd run it the same way in many places no matter the system. But there were some differences:
- There was no grid or minis used in the d6 version, so I had to create tactical maps in certain locations. Sometimes, the map area would have been bigger than the tabletop, so those got reduced. Generally, the maps covered more area than a Saga encounter, but focusing on the main area of activity worked well enough.
- A scene that involved the arrival of Imperial speeder bikes that turned into a combat or chase (or both) was a bit tricky, mainly transitioning from the grid of a single encounter area into the chase.
- Combat ran about the same length of time in each version, but to be fair, this adventure didn't have a pitched battle encounter. It involved Rebels running away from overpowering Imperial might most of the time, so they had no incentive to slug it out with anyone for long. This was a primary theme in the original RPG.
- In the original version, no one played Rock Band constantly, over and over on the same song in the next room for like 20 minutes driving us all nuts. We took solace in the thought that the host of the Rock Band event would be equally traumatized, only to discover he wasn't in the room, hence the child (and only player) playing the same song over and over and over......fortunately, I forget now what it was.
Anyway, it is always a challenge to adapt an adventure between versions. I'm increasingly of the opinion that playing a given adventure in the original system works the best (no matter what game genre), and that has nothing to do with my experience above. There are plenty of good reasons to convert, not the least of which is experience great old (or new) adventures with your current gaming group.
Hmmm...San Diego ComicCon is upon us, so I forsee new Star Wars announcements to discuss next week...