It’s interesting to remember that the name of our fandom is Star Wars. This emphasis on conflict makes for interesting writing and reading, but has been treated unevenly in the past both in canon in RPing.
Much like the Force there are two basic ways of approaching war, conflict and battle.
The first is the ‘background noise’ school of thought typified by most games, comics and some novels too. This view of things boils down the conflicts in their story to the tale of individuals whilst warfare occurs around them. Usually this warfare is nebulous and ill-defined. It doesn’t exactly matter which terms are used as the conflict is decided by the actions of a few important individuals. It is basically an amplification of the ‘Great Men’ theory of history, but magnified further. The best examples of this can be found in the Clone Wars TV series, where terms like ‘battalion’, ‘company’ and even ‘fleet’ are bandied around with little real understanding on behalf of the writers as to what this means. In the circumstances of a cartoon it’s not really required to get too indepth, but for a show about a giant war there are surprisingly little details other than ‘charge the enemy and lightsabre/blast them’.
The other option is what might be called the ‘in-depth’ school of thought. This was best shown in the X-Wing novels, some of the original Clone Wars novels and oddly enough in Fatal Alliance. This style of storytelling relies on a broader picture, telling of the action through the eyes of characters, but getting into some fairly close details of the matter. This could be seen as the ‘Great Masses’ theory of history.
There are strengths and weaknesses to both, the primary being that not everyone is particularly interested in such military details when they want to read about Jedi and Sith! This is why these stories have usually been cordoned off and left to their own series and stories, whilst a broader middle ground pervades the more mainstream stories.
How does this relate to SWRP? I think everyone knows where my opinions lie in this regard. However, I completely understand that not everyone who wants to participate in an invasion wants to have to think tactically, any more than I would want to have to do math problems in my training threads.
The current compromises in the invasions are working well, though regrettably there is still the option that a dozen people can take over a planet of one trillion. Should this change? Does it need to? Probably, but what is the alternative? How do we turn Star Duels into Star Wars without making it inaccessible to a considerable number of people?
Much like the Force there are two basic ways of approaching war, conflict and battle.
The first is the ‘background noise’ school of thought typified by most games, comics and some novels too. This view of things boils down the conflicts in their story to the tale of individuals whilst warfare occurs around them. Usually this warfare is nebulous and ill-defined. It doesn’t exactly matter which terms are used as the conflict is decided by the actions of a few important individuals. It is basically an amplification of the ‘Great Men’ theory of history, but magnified further. The best examples of this can be found in the Clone Wars TV series, where terms like ‘battalion’, ‘company’ and even ‘fleet’ are bandied around with little real understanding on behalf of the writers as to what this means. In the circumstances of a cartoon it’s not really required to get too indepth, but for a show about a giant war there are surprisingly little details other than ‘charge the enemy and lightsabre/blast them’.
The other option is what might be called the ‘in-depth’ school of thought. This was best shown in the X-Wing novels, some of the original Clone Wars novels and oddly enough in Fatal Alliance. This style of storytelling relies on a broader picture, telling of the action through the eyes of characters, but getting into some fairly close details of the matter. This could be seen as the ‘Great Masses’ theory of history.
There are strengths and weaknesses to both, the primary being that not everyone is particularly interested in such military details when they want to read about Jedi and Sith! This is why these stories have usually been cordoned off and left to their own series and stories, whilst a broader middle ground pervades the more mainstream stories.
How does this relate to SWRP? I think everyone knows where my opinions lie in this regard. However, I completely understand that not everyone who wants to participate in an invasion wants to have to think tactically, any more than I would want to have to do math problems in my training threads.
The current compromises in the invasions are working well, though regrettably there is still the option that a dozen people can take over a planet of one trillion. Should this change? Does it need to? Probably, but what is the alternative? How do we turn Star Duels into Star Wars without making it inaccessible to a considerable number of people?
