Evidently it’s “Star Wars Day”, as determined by the Intarwebs at large. It’s fairly logical – “May the Fourth” sounds far too much like “May the Force…” to ignore. So, as a bit of a celebration of such, I’m going to run a Star Wars play-by-post RPG. Right here on this blog.

Play by blog? I must be crazy. There are VTTs (virtual tabletops), forums, and all sorts of tools out there to do play-by-post. Why a blog? Well, check this out: @MilwaukeeJoe‘s Grind4e Play-by-Blog, and @CStevenRoss‘s DMG42 Play-by-Blog. Freakin’ awesome! I was privileged enough to have the chance to play Joe’s run of @saveversusdeath‘s C1: Crucible of the Gods, and it was an eye-opening experience, both in gameplay and in presentation.

One of my greatest failings as a GM, at least with the long-running Elemental Heroes campaign, was that I went totally “Tolkien” with it. The railroad was clear and present, and the story details were put in by me, for me. A parting comment from one of my players was “Well, why do you even need players? You’ve already got the story all planned out.”

I may be over-correcting here, but I’m going full sandbox with this game. I let the players pick the era (very early New Republic). I’m letting the players set the mood. I’m simply going to play the part of the Galaxy reacting to what they do. And it’s going to be a blast!

Right now, (and you can check out my Wiki for up-to-date details) we’ve got a Jedi, a pilot, a droid, a gunslinger, and a Blazing Chain. I’m having the players form connections with two other PCs a la Fiasco, and the first adventure is going to write itself from there.

I’m thinking of basically having canon stop at Endor – I will happily include NPCs, ships, and locations from the EU, but it’s all up in the air. One of the issues with sandbox style play that has always kept me from running it in the past is that I have a lot of trouble dealing with changes on the spot. One of the things that I have been loving about play-by-post is that there’s no need for instant reaction. I can take ten minutes, an hour, to come up with NPC reactions. To come up with new story direction due to surprise PC actions. I have a small cadre of lurkers I can bounce ideas off of.

In short, the story is going to be fun, character-driven, and actions will be rewarded with informed, thought-out results. I can’t wait!