fatefully

opening match 4: Changeling: the Lost vs Star Wars: Force and Destiny

the last few weeks have been full of traveling and sunshine, so this halfway mark of the opening round is a little later than planned. will I get through the next 4 before summer is over? hopefully yes.

I've been excited to write about these two-- they're unique, and they make an interesting pair. on one side, the first (2007) edition of White Wolf's Changeling sits in all its alluring glitter. on the other, we have the somewhat more austere yet still very colorful and fun Star Wars: Force and Destiny, from 2015.

Changeling enchants me with its concept alone. all that old lore come to life, wrapped in the shadowy politics of World of Darkness-- it seems like a perfect combination, reminiscent of the fairytale retellings and urban fantasy novels I used to love from Robin McKinley, Holly Black, Liani Taylor and the like. in writing this review I also remembered the handful of chapters I recorded for a LibriVox edition of Mr. Wirt Sikes 1880 folkloric anthropology book, British Goblins:Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions. there are so many small and mystical stories wiggling around in the history and culture of every place humans have ever lived. the source material for anything based on fairytales is pretty infinite, I imagine.

and who doesn't love Star Wars, right? it's got equally enchanting heroism and adventure threaded grandly throughout a seemingly endless galaxy. it's a place where one might encounter shiny droids and rugged smugglers in equal measure. a chance to be part of that galaxy is gonna be pretty cool, in any case.

I've mostly followed the same outline for this match-up review: a quick table of metadata, summaries of past characters I've made in each system, thoughts on the books' aesthetics, mechanics, and approachability, and finally a note on my brand new/tournament-specific characters. the uniqueness of these two systems just seemed to warrant a discussion of mechanics before diving into details about new character concepts. and so, onward...

SYSTEM	Changeling: the Lost	Star Wars: Force and Destiny
back cover tagline =	"A storytelling game of beautiful madness."	"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."
publisher =	White Wolf	Fantasy Flight Games
pub. date =	2007	2015
original cost =	$34.99	$59.95
length =	7 major sections / 349 pages	13 chapters / 444 pages
my exp. level =	some	a bit more than some

---

previous characters

I've created and played two characters each from these two systems. both Changeling games were short and sweet. for one, little Synthia Starling, a birdlike young woman with a Beastly seeming in the Winter Court, explored derelict buildings and made deals with otherworldly creatures in just a couple one-on-one sessions; and then, Liv, another Beastly seeming (this time snakelike), joined up with two other lost souls to bravely infiltrate the Hedge and take down a twisted carnival ringleader. this was around Halloween time, so the short three-session game had a lovely autumn coziness mixed with spookiness underneath.

my Star Wars characters were created for longer campaigns, though the first didn't last all that long in the end. a friend in Louisiana was running a sort of mashup of Stars Without Number using templates from the Star Wars RPG books for some things. so I made a pink Twi'lek-- very rich and spoiled (or at least that's what she wanted people to think), also a talented enough smuggler. her name was Luura'blen and she had a sparkly pet vulptex (one of those crystal-fox-looking creatures). designing her was pretty fun. pink skin, darker pink/red freckles at the ends of her headtails, lots of shiny, pearly jewelry, and silky clothing. technically I must have used the Age of Rebellion core book for her stats (Force and Destiny doesn't have a smuggler path in it), but we'll call that close enough; it seems relevant to write about her here anyway.

some years later, we played an online Star Wars roleplaying game specifically with the Force and Destiny book. all four of us created young padawan characters who would ultimately live through the infamous Order 66. mine was Yahla Sota, a Togruta with golden coloring and a strong Jedi heritage in her family. for young Yahla, it was a privilege to be sent into Jedi training. she wanted so badly to prove herself worthy of that privilege. but in the end, after all the suffering and loss she endured, she couldn't always hold onto that happy trust in the Force. everything got more complicated than she ever thought it could.

the whole story was epic indeed, following us through training, building our lightsabers, surviving shipwreck, facing betrayal, and eventually fighting against the Sith directly. I wrote out a few segments of our adventures, centered on Yahla's perspective, over on this other blog of mine. that campaign was one of the longer and most satisfying I've ever been part of. and Yahla was a character I felt (increasingly, over time) that I could play quite distinctly and purposefully different from any vaguely-alternate version of myself. she was braver, steadier, yet more impulsive and almost vengeful at times.

the Changeling games I've played were small in scope, with relatively tiny, cozy stories. on the other hand Star Wars is built for sweeping space epics, and that's what Yahla's story grew into. big or small, both systems have given me very neat opportunities to explore ideas and circumstances and reactions outside my own experience.
  

aesthetics

underneath its vibrant, shiny, mottled deep-green cover, the Changeling book evokes a bit of creepiness-- it's not a hedge of glinting leaves, but one of menacingly sharp thorns. splintered bones. spiky antlers. every interior page is bordered with a Celtic-ish chain of thorns or vines. fancy drop capital letters stretch and curl ostentatiously at the beginnings of the interstitial vignettes. the tagline for this game invokes the idea of "beautiful madness," and there is beauty indeed, tinted with World of Darkness grime. 

parts of it feel ancient and mythic. other corners are more Grimm, marked with the well-worn wheel ruts of once-upon-a-time. all of it is a little bent, a little rusty-- unpolished and unpredictable. the ancient clocks of this enchanted place are looming and wrong somehow. time in the fae realms cannot be contained or measured like the mortals pretend. nothing works the way a scientist might insist it should. and those untouched by the wrenching trauma of an otherworldly kidnapping couldn't know just how evenly, how deceptively the glitter is mixed with the shadow, the darkness with the sparkle. inbetween-ness is a big theme in this system. you've been taken, lost, and you can't ever really go home. you've seen too much. your soul and your skin will always be a little twisted. a line from chapter 2 says it rather succinctly: "To survive is to carry scars" (p 98).

this game is a blood-stained alley leading to a hidden courtyard, a gleaming estate with endless gardens, where the most intoxicating music drifts through the air, where beautifully manicured topiary might dance with you if you ask nicely... but the overgrown path and tiny doorway only appear on Mondays during a new moon, only if you come alone.

this game is a dusty old cobwebbed attic with antique lace handkerchiefs wrapped around mysteriously half-burned scraps of sepia photographs, where your eyes chase imps and pixies around your peripheral vision, where your weeping waxy candle in its old-fashioned brass holder could betray you to the monsters at any moment.

 -

the vibe of Star Wars is more straightforward, I want to say. the book is colorful but understated, its type and layout mostly boxy and tactical-looking. but it's also got marvelous art folded in at almost every opportunity. chapter breaks come with gorgeous action scenes across a full spread, each of them with dynamic and cinematic depth. the end papers are panoramic landscapes of Tatooine's desert, and in one of the later chapters is a very awesome map of the whole galaxy. 

as you might expect, dichotomies of light and dark pervade this system. good vs. corruption, honor vs. selfishness. these tensions provide the core of Star Wars generally and of this book, Force and Destiny, in particular-- it's all geared toward Force users like Jedi or Jedi-in-training. the art and the tone of the rulebook contribute to a sweeping sense of destiny: every decision may echo with epic importance. we're all connected, after all. the Force will guide you like steady stepping stones across a muddy field, if only you trust it.

this is fairy tales in space after all. it's dramatic in a futuristic way, but the brushstrokes of action, adventure, and fantasy form familiar shapes with comforting trajectories: everyday people touched by something marvelous and huge that changes their lives, heroes-to-be discovering their destinies while navigating seedy hives of villainy and drudging through some version of a dark, despairing swamp, holding on to their light as best they can. 
 

mechanics

the mechanics of Changeling build on the World of Darkness system with added twists of whimsy and magic. we're using d10s again, with the same basic stats, merits, Virtues, Vices, and your character's attributes and skills will inform most of the dice rolls made to measure success at any given action. on top of all that, a changeling comes from one of 6 "seemings"-- the archetypes of faerie-ness (Beasts, Darklings, Elementals, Fairest, Ogres, or the Wizened) that influence how their looks have supernaturally changed-- and one of 4 season-themed Courts (5 if you count the Courtless as a Court, I suppose). Changeling-specific advantages include Glamour and Wyrd, both used to fuel some pretty cool magical abilities, like manipulating luck or disguising your face as someone else's.

as you progress and learn to control the wyrd powers instilled within you as a changeling, you'll learn more and more powerful Contracts and forge useful Pledges with others in changeling society. at character creation you get a certain number of these, and thereafter use XP to purchase more. 

choosing Contracts and thinking up Pledges feels, to me, a little like the rotes (pre-made spells) and improvised magics (anything you can think of and describe convincingly) of Mage. thankfully there seem to be fewer Contracts to choose among, most of which are limited by the seeming and the Court you belong to, which makes things a little simpler. Pledges, though, still intimidate me. they seem pretty hardcore in terms of all the levels of binding and consequence that can be built into them.

instead of human Morality, changelings measure Clarity-- how strong is your mental hold on what is real? how much has your magic use degraded your sense of self and continuity? living with knowledge of both the normal world and the Fae can be treacherous, but changelings know that the thorny paths inbetween-- the twisty Hedge that grows and shifts around the edges of reality-- those spaces and paths are useful, too. finding safe(ish) ways in and out is part of cultivating and maintaining magical power. the Hedge and the thorns are in large part what irrevocably changed you; you may as well bend that to your own benefit, and your allies, if you can.

 -

to create a character for Force and Destiny, you choose from among 8 species (including human) and 6 careers, each of which offer 3 unique specializations. these options will grant custom bonuses to your basic stats, which comprise 6 base characteristics, not too different from those outlined in many other RPGs, and 34 skills in which you'll rank from 0 to 5. there's also a spot for custom skills, just in case there's something your character might know or learn that isn't already represented on the character sheet.

whichever career and specialization you choose will guide your character's progression along a skill tree, kind of like the ones they have in video games. all the Force powers have skill trees too, with prerequisite skills leading up to more potent or more efficient options for each type. there are Force powers involving speed and balance, some for mind control or sensing into the future, and others for telekenetics. it's all really fun to see these in actual gameplay.

the skill trees may seem overly structured, but there are enough options among the species, backgrounds, and careers to keep it feeling open-ended and full of possibility. you've got plenty of choices for what to spend XP on, and plenty of in-game story reasons to guide those choices.

the custom dice are the weirdest part of the Star Wars RPG system. you can buy a custom set along with your rulebook, or you can use regular d6s, d8s, and d12s in place of Boost dice (d6), Ability dice (d8), Proficiency dice (d12), Setback dice (d6), Difficulty dice (d8), Challenge dice (d12), and Force dice (d12). that is a lot of different kinds of dice, with not-so-normal symbols on all the different sides. during structured play (like combat or other risky contexts where you need dice to decide outcomes) it's common to roll a combination of all 6 of the main types for any given attempt. and the dice aren't just measuring success or failure-- they also indicate advantages and threats from the situation or environment, along with moments of triumph and despair. you can fail triumphantly, or you can succeed with a touch of despair. I like all the narrative possibilities of that, and the creativity it encourages. 

in addition to Force dice and the points of light or dark Force energy  they generate for each player to use, there's also the mechanic of Destiny points. at the beginning of each session, players roll one Force die and add its result to the Destiny pool. light side Force points are shared by the players, and dark side Force points are given to the GM. each time either side spends a point to upgrade their dice or trigger something beneficial for their characters, that Destiny point ebbs and flows into the opposite side-- light side points become dark side points, and vice versa. it's a pretty fun and dynamic way to represent the balance of the Force.
 

approachability

I rate the approachability levels of these books and systems as average, and just about equal. both books are neatly organized and consistently designed, though the newer publication has a cleaner style that seems easier and more accessible for the average reader. but Star Wars wins a few more aproachability points, simply because of its mainstream-ness and because the book is self-contained, rather than an extension of a larger set of RPG worlds.

surprisingly, I found that the core rulebook for Changeling barely mentions its World of Darkness base. there's a few lines about it, but it almost seems like they expect readers to know and already be in on that half of the system. maybe that's a fair assumption. if you're picking up Changeling and you don't have the core World of Darkness book already, you won't get too far with it. it's also fairly dense, just in terms of tight line spacing.

the popularity and ubiquity of Star Wars content in the media today does potentially make this RPG system a bit easier for the average person. but while its overall themes and stories may be more accessible, that may or may not matter in terms of the heavy levels of detail and technicality offered by this rulebook. it's got like a million tables and charts for everything, from a 100-point morality ranking system with strengths and weaknesses at each level, to fiddly weapon stats and dice conversions. there's a lot going on just with the dice, too! during our long campaign, we had a Discord bot handle dice for us and it wasn't so tricky to get the hang of... but you've still got to know which dice are for what and why, plus how to read the results. it's math with symbols instead of numbers, which some people might find more fun that regular math.

thankfully, the design and structure of the Force and Destiny book offset the nitty-gritty technicality of it for the most part. a detailed table of contents, headings and subsections in a really smooth Q&A format, plus the more relaxed and open page design make the towering expanse of the system feel pretty digestible.

 

new characters

given my prior experience here, I simply made one new character for each system as part of my tournament process.

starting with the base World of Darkness stats of Briella Jameson (outlined in opening match #1, in case you missed it), I had to remold her concept quite a bit more than I did for either Werewolf or for Mage. in those games, a fully formed person meets their magical transformation with their eyes more or less wide open, even if they don't have a choice about it. but in Changeling, there's no choice and much of the time no awareness of this transformation until it's already happened. the Fae steal away children, babies, and shape them into whatever they may want to play with in or control out in the absurd expanse of Arcadia. the child might not realize until eons later that there's something wrong, that there's a somewhere they were stolen from and could, with enough effort and luck, get back to.

so for Briella, I rewound the clock of her life and imagined her as a plucky 9-year-old on a family vacation. alongside her mom and dad and older brothers she goes out hiking, learns some basic bouldering, scrambles up red rocks without fear, all along the way collecting sunburn stripes and mosquito bites in total innocence... 

until she falls...

...and the malicious, arbitrary, hungering Fae spirits of a mirrored mountain domain push her down even further, through the plane of our reality and into another. they let her fall through the normal earth and into a broken alternate world. the Fae contrive to put a cobbled-together replacement daughter, lifeless, at the bottom of the trail for her parents to find, and Bri herself is trapped away from them, groomed by her Fae keeper to climb and climb and climb, up and up and up and up, endlessly traversing an Escher-esque mountainside that extends forever into the corroded sky. 

when she eventually, painstakingly, barely sane, crawls her way out again through a mere splinter-crack in that magical mirage, it's impossible for her to tell how long it's been. through the horrible purposelessness of endless climbing, she has become like the earth and sandstone, her skin baked into a bright tan, her eyelashes and brows the color of sagebrush, her pale hair like bleached desert grass. I gave her an Elemental seeming (earth, if you couldn't guess) and membership in the Summer Court. she's forgotten her true name, but the echoes of it bleed into what she calls herself now: Jamie Scree.

 -

for Star Wars, I created a Zabrak named Proxa Tonaullu. she's from the planet Iridonia, where in ancient times the Sith had close ties with Zabrak high council. she's heard these legends and wondered what they may mean for her once she feels the Force awakening in her own life. I made her a Warrior with the Shii-Cho Knight specialization. Proxa feels called to greatness, ambitious to the point of obsession, but also merciful and kind when circumstances dictate. she's just 18, strong in mind and body, with green eyes, bark-brown facial tattoos in her family's traditional design, and two small polished horns at each of her temples. she is still learning to channel and use the Force, but she knows she'll be an absolutely unrivaled fighter for the Jedi soon enough.

preliminary verdicts

this is another difficult one.

like I mentioned, our Star Wars campaign from a few years back was above and beyond one of the most excellent games. it's a unique system and it was hugely fun to play. largely that's down to the other players being marvelous and of course dearest Jeremiah being great at running such things.

but then I've always felt drawn to the intricate ins and outs of all the faerie magics and mysticalness in Changeling, and I get pretty excited about the character design aspects of the system. I could spend hours and hours daydreaming, imagining all the cool looks you could give a Changeling character with this or that seeming, sketching and spinning little vignettes about all those little details and how they show up. 

yet I'm highly aware that, just as with Mage, my enchantment with the concept and aesthetics vs my actual experience with the roleplaying system might not balance out in the most practical or fun way. character design is one thing, but cool imagery in my head all by itself doesn't mean much for roleplaying unless I can fit it into the world of the game. the actual playthroughs I have done came with more brightness and whimsy than I expected (though perhaps I should have expected more). the wild, improvisational nature of RPGs strikes again, I suppose.

I haven't played as long or as much within the world of Changeling yet, so I don't feel like I can properly measure how well it lives up to what I think I want it to be. someday... if we can find the right roleplaying group and the right stretch of months for meetups, I might try to run a Changeling campaign. I have half a notebook full of setting notes and NPC ideas already. when I started brainstorming, I took inspiration from the show Killing Eve mixed with the film Primal Fear... who knows if that'll still work out if I ever go back to it. I should probably aim a bit lower and run some World of Darkness one-shots first.

so if I had to finalize this judgement today, based on gameplay alone it would tilt towards Star Wars. simple and mainstream though it may be with all that overarching light vs. dark dichotomy, its lore and world do still make room for plenty of depth and nuance. and even if the dice are pretty weird, that's part of what makes it so fun and unique.

 

next new one-shot: The One Ring

next match-up review: The One Ring vs. Scion: Hero