Theme in SW LCG

Greetings, followers of both sides of the Force from all the corners of the galaxy. Today, for the first time, we have a guest writer from the Outer Rim. We sincerely hope this to be the start of many more collaborations and the landmark of a future full of guest writers, readers and, of course, players from all across the galaxy meeting here.

Thanks for being the first, Anton.

Hi, everyone!

I’m Anton, aka Darth_bs on the forums, and host of Frozen in Carbonite Redux podcast.

This is my first attempt at writing an article and the apologist in me apologises now if this is a little rough around the edges. Anyway, enough waffle and let’s get into what I’m here to write about today.

A few days ago I was shown a post about how the marketing for this game (Star wars LCG) pales in comparison to the rest of FFG’s Star Wars games. It got a reaction out of me which spurned a passionate rant like post which you can read here.

However, the positive outcome of this is it has spurned me on to write and produce more content for the game. There are many content creators for this game and many specialise in the strategy, breakdown of decks and mechanics in the game so, for this article, I have decided to talk about something completely away from how the game plays:

I want to talk about theme.

Theme plays a rather large part in the Star Wars LCG and even more so with the objective set system. In theme terms, each objective set is designed around a particular theme from a part of the Star Wars universe.

An example of this is the objective set named ‘Running the Trench’, themed around one of the final scenes in A New Hope. It starts with the objective which the art depicts Red Five’s approach down the death star trench. It’s followed up by Luke Skywalker and Red Five in all their glory. The theme doesn’t stop there though, it continues with the enhancement of R2D2 and goes even further with an event based on an iconic moment of the scene uttered by the ghostly Obi-Wan: ‘Use the Force Luke’. To finish off the set we have a fate card ‘I have you now’, the ill-fated words spoken by Darth Vader before he’s thwarted by Han Solo.

So there you have an objective set where the whole set is themed around that one moment.

However not all objective sets can maintain a theme throughout. Some sets have 3 or 4 of the 6 cards themed and the others are filler, closely related but not an actual part of the moment. Also in some cases the art doesn’t match the moment but when there’s so much cool FFG art in the game it is only a small complaint.

An example of this is the very first objective set (1) ‘A Hero’s Journey’. Once again a set that depicts Luke on the beginning of his quest. However while it contains Luke, a lightsaber and ‘trust your feelings’ depicting Luke receiving said lightsaber in Obi Wan’s hut. It also contains a Twi’lek Loyalist and a Dagobah training grounds, two cards while still relevant to the game don’t really have a place in the theme of the set. Also the art depicting Luke shows us a Luke from RotJ instead of ‘A new Hope’, but as I said before these are only minor complaints on theme in a set which is still very playable to this day.

So now that I’ve explained a bit how theme features in the objective set system, it’s time to look at the bigger picture. We are now several cycles and expansions into the card game and the card pool is quite extensive, however, you might be surprised to know how the theme has been spread throughout the game.

For this, I created some statistical data based on my own interpretation of how I think a set is themed. This gave me six categories in which I judged each set upon. This is based on where they feature in the universe i.e. films, TV and the EU.

My Six categories were Hope, Empire, Jedi, Rebels, EU and Trilogy (this encompasses the original trilogy but with no particular film affiliation).

Out of 226 objective sets surveyed by myself (I shall add a disclaimer here as my views of where an objective set sits may differ to others) the results of where they featured based upon theme are as follows.

This initial run of data shows that nearly half of the games theme is based upon the Expanded Universe.

The rest of the sets are spread evenly across the 3 original trilogy films with a few featuring in ‘Rebels’ and ones I could not pin down and placed in trilogy.

Out of the 3 films ‘A New Hope’ appears to be the least represented in terms of theme. However this is likely because the card game has had cycles based on Hoth and Endor, which feature in the other two movies.

What can we take from this? As I look at the numbers I am surprised that the numbers for the 3 OT films is quite low. I’m sure I can think of many more areas to explore from each film that could easily boost these numbers. Especially with ‘A New Hope’.

This is telling me that the designers haven’t even scrapped the surface of content they can get out of the 3 films, so there’s plenty of design space left to play with.

It’s also of no surprise that the EU has such hold over the game, there is so much content out there that the game has many avenues to explore. However without trying to get into a debate about the New Canon and what this all means for the game (as that has been discussed on the forums many a time), it means that there is the potential for much more EU related content.

Also to note that we now have some ‘Rebel’s’ working their way into the game, so that’s another theme which looks like it may be explored in the next cycle.

So there’s plenty to think about.

I decided to go a little bit deeper and break down each faction.

Below shows a graphical breakdown of where each faction objective sets fit within my categories

First up is the Light Side factions

I think it’s quite clear that because the Jedi and Rebels feature heavily in the films that the spread is pretty even across the 3 films for both factions. With the Rebels a large focus in RotJ and the Jedi a large focus in ESB with Luke’s training by Yoda.

The smugglers only ties to the films are mainly through the likes of Han, Chewie and Lando which is why many smuggler sets have to delve into the EU because there is not much thematic space for them to use within the main movies.

Is this a problem? Well, many forum participants have stated their issues with the smugglers detachment from the main movies and the possible issues Jedi may have with filling out further sets considering there are only a few Jedi about during that era.

I think more could be done to bring smuggler sets back into the theme of the original movies, not all the characters were bad guys in the cantina scene from A New Hope and there were many of them. Also the term spies in ‘Smuggler and Spies’ has only been loosely used so there’s potential to explore that area which many have griped about.

With the potential explosion of ‘Rebels’ content and possible more from upcoming movies to come, I hope to see these even out a bit more in the future of the game. So it’s not all doom and gloom. Rebels look to have the best opportunities going forward with ‘Rogue One’ on the horizon. I can’t wait.

So what about the Dark Side…?

Below shows the breakdown of the dark side objective sets by theme.

The first thing that is quite striking is the difference compared to the LS factions. I put this down to how the movies actually work. The Light side being the protagonists would feature more heavily than the antagonists.

The empire feature heavily in all the films and the EU so it’s not surprising to see them have the most evenly spread results out of the dark side factions.

Like the smugglers, Sith and Scum only featuring at key points in the movies and so have to delve into the EU for more substance.

This however I agree less with, I feel scum feature a great deal more within the original movies than the stats show which means to me that the designers haven’t done enough yet to get the most out of the scum faction. I’m hoping for a lot more to come from the scum faction. They have been given a bad rep since their release and it’s slowly starting to turn as I’m seeing a lot more scum being played but scum would be my guess at being the ones to explode with theme in sets to come.

Sith now as far as theme have relied heavily on the EU, I guess there’s only so much that Vader and Palpatine can bring to the faction by themselves so it’s understood where they had to go. But now with ‘Rebels’ supplying them with more avenues to explore I think it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing the inquisition in full force and other unsavoury characters… cough… (SPOILER ALERT) Maul!!

And lastly to show that I haven’t forgotten about them are the neutral sets.

So far neutral sets only make rare appearances and many came during the Hoth cycle hence the high numbers for empire. The future is unknown for neutral sets but having seen them come back for the Endor cycle makes me think that there’s always a possibility for more.

So I’ve talked about how theme works in objective sets and I have given you the breakdown of theme and where I think there could be some improvements going forward.

But now we come to the crux of the discussion: Is theme holding the game back?

It sounds an odd question but it is one question that is being discussed now and has been discussed for a long time.

The argument currently in the game is that due to the Disney acquisition that took place a few years ago the LCG has been stuck in a hard place.

Before the acquisition happened FFG decided that this rebellion era game would take steps into the current EU at that time. The Echoes cycle was the first step into this where we saw a lot of content from the Dark Forces EU stories, but after that Disney made the acquisition and made the decision to start a new canon for the Star Wars Universe and label the old canon as Legends.

At first this was hard to take for many fans who had grown up with the Star Wars EU during the 90’s. The consequences it had for the game were odd. Not knowing how the inner dealings worked with licensing of the game none of us were sure what was going to happen to the LCG.

In the end FFG did nothing. They made no announcements and just continued making the game. Nothing was relabelled as Legends. It was like nothing had changed. At first this was easy and simple to carry on with until we got to the point a year down the line where ‘The Force Awakens’ was made and released.

Star Wars at this time was once again big news, it was in a revival period. Everyone was going crazy for Star Wars content. For players of the LCG, we thought this is it this is where this game can now take off and start attracting new fans of the film.

But then the question was asked: How do we fit ‘The Force Awakens’ into the game? Further questions were asked about the prequels too. It seems that there was a split between the community about how they wanted the wider universe of Star Wars included in the game.

Once again it came down to theme. How could it be done?

Now the other FFG Star Wars games had already made plans and paved ways forward on how to do this.

X wing was the first. Being a miniature combat game didn’t have an asymmetrical game play. To not restrict the playability FFG made it so that two players could fight with any faction they wanted which meant you could have Rebels vs Rebels and Imperials vs Imperials. Also to not restrict tournament play there was no unique restrictions between players. For example both players could run a Darth Vader if they wished. The game still maintained a rebellion era theme until the point at which it introduced ‘The Force Awakens’ content. Now your Luke Skywalker could fly with Poe Dameron. The game was no longer restricted by keeping with theme, different factions were merged together.

It is now one of the most played miniature games in the world and is gaining new players all the time.

Imperial Assault is also very similar, while they have not introduced other era content into the game as yet, they have made rules as to restrict certain eras to time frames for their campaign mode. The skirmish mode side of the game looks like it will follow the x wing route which means players will have less restrictions in what they can play.

Now what about the LCG?

Well the LCG was made an asymmetrical game, Light will always play Dark and that will never change. So what about the factions?

This is where it gets tricky. Like I said at the start, theme is a very big thing in the game. We have six factions all with their place within the rebellion era of the universe. If the game was to break its boundaries like X wing and use new content how would it do it?

This is the point where things start getting heated as everyone has their own view and answer as to how it could be done and I have lost count how many discussions I have seen about it. Now I’m not here to give an answer, what I’d like is some action.

What I want to say is FFG needs to decide and decide soon about what they want to do about this, because the longer it takes it is only going to hurt the game in the long run.

Very similar to the decision that Disney had to make with the old EU, FFG must now make a call on how they proceed. Once that decision is made then we can move on.

It’s now that I circle back to what started this all in the first place. I want to see more people play this game and make turnouts to events a great and fun experience to share with many of you. The only way this can happen is we have to grow but they have to decide what way this game should grow.

Either you break the chains of theme and open the card game up to all eras of the universe giving you so much content that cards could probably be made forever but giving you play scenarios which probably don’t feel right or you embrace the themes that you already have, maintaining a clear distinction between eras and market it as so.

As I said earlier I feel this game has only scratched the surface of what it has already done with the original trilogy source material, it can go much deeper. As for the old EU themes there is a market of potential players longing to play cards with the favourite characters they grew to love. And there is a market for new fans going forward with new canon material.

There has to be a way to combine these yet keep the core of the games theme intact.

I can only put my faith that FFG make a choice soon.

Help us FFG, you’re our only hope!