Star Wars Outlaws: Kessel Sabacc
Or how I talk way too much about star wars canon and hacking a small card game.
I’ve been playing Star Wars Outlaws and enjoying it a lot, the art direction hit me with a lot of nostalgia, felt like old star wars, and Looking into it the art team leant into the visual style of the sci-fi look’s of era. They also emulated the lenses used (which is cool for a film nerd like me).
Something to be said about about the time and research taken to craft a game to feel new and nostalgic at once.
“Outlaws belongs to the original trilogy timeline, and it's a lot of '60s and '70s designs – with your ship, the Trailblazer, you might see a '70s monorail design is quite apparent in its construction, combined with the very grounded elements that you see all throughout Star Wars.”
“…we worked closely with Lucasfilm Games to get the same exact lens effect that were used on the cameras of the original trilogy.”
Samuel De Vos (Lead concept artist)
Gamesradar Interview
Combined with also reading and playing WEG’s original Star Wars D6, they have re-ignited my childhood love for star wars that I had happily put into a box on my shelf a few years back.
I’m going to write up some thoughts on the D6 Star Wars and the system (I really like it, and how even old a lot of the ideas feel fresh), but I need some more time so here’s some Sabacc and other bits.
My thoughts on Canon and Retconning
Before I get into it, I want to say something on Star Wars, and more broadly on the concept of Canon. Since you can’t talk about Star Wars these days without it cropping up. My personal stance on the concept of Canon is that it doesn’t matter that much and I don’t really care about it.
I’m much less interested in ‘what this line means for the timeline’, or how ‘these lightsabers aren’t accurate to the era’ or ‘the bombers in The Last Jedi ignore basic physics’ (Rian Johnson was referencing the originals using WW2 footage to model the X-Wing/ Tie Fighter shots in the original trilogy, and thats a super fun throwback).
Over time it feels people become more interested in what a piece of media means for the over-arching canon, how it relates back to the earlier stories, and how this changes certain things, than engaging with what the media in front of them is doing, removed from the larger canon.
It’s great that in the modern history of art (I’m using the term to refer to Books, Movies, TV, Comics, Games etc.) that we get these large media franchises that can be explored by so many artists through various different mediums, especially in such universes as old and deep as Star Wars.
You can have a [book/ comic/ game] about your particular special interest in the world, and then one hyper jump across they’re doing Star Wars Dune.
I myself am much less into Jedi now then when I was younger, I want stories about the characters in the fringes, a western set on Tatooine, or a heist on Coruscant. Whereas My wife is a big fan of Sith, especially Darth Bane and Darth Zannah explored in the Rule of Two books by Drew Karpyshyn, which are now, non-canon.
But does it really matter? Those books, those stories still exist, you can go back and read them whenever you want. 20 years ago I randomly found in a newspaper shop the Jedi vs Sith comics by Ramon F. Bachs, Raul Fernandez and Darko Macan, that explore the same idea of the origin of the rule of two and were later retconned for the Drew Karpyshyn books.
Doesn’t mean I can’t re-read them and enjoy that telling of the story, Jedi and Sith being more like warriors of yore, it has some cool ideas.
Both Rogue One and Dark Forces tell different stories about how the Death Star plans made it to the rebels, I like them both for different reasons and I never once think that one existing discounts the other.
In TTRPG’S we deal very much in Anti-Canon anyways, our stories are defined by the action of the players, even if they are set in established worlds they go against canon but that never stops us from enjoying them.
[NOTE] I wrote most of this before travelling for work, and have since binged all of The Acolyte and I’m honestly kinda back in on Jedi and Sith.
What is Sabacc?
If you’ve seen/ read/ played Star Wars, you’ve probably come across Sabacc, it’s the in-world card game (most famously the one that Lando lost his ship to Han in), and has many variants.
Having a single card game with infinite variants works well since it allows writers a way to design their own version of the rules and have familiar ideas built in.
It also shortcuts having to invent a new gambling game from scratch and let’s you have moments where the characters know different rules and creates drama.
“I wasn’t cheating, put the blaster down, you’re just allowed to take extra cards in.. uhh.. Naboo Sabacc”
The Rules of Kessel Sabacc:
In Kessel Sabacc there are 3 main elements in play.
The Card Game.
You have a hand of 2 cards made from 2 seperate decks (Sand & Blood).
The decks each have 8 different cards numbered 1 to 6 with two special cards (Imposter & Sylop).
The aim is to end the round on a pair, the lower the pair the better (1-1 then 2-2 and so on).
At the start of the round you’re dealt 2 cards, then each round consists of 3 turns where you try make a better hand.
There are also 4 draw piles in the centre of the, a face-up and face-down pile for each of the two decks. When someone discards a card it’s placed on the face-up pile.
Sylop Card: This card duplicates whatever the other card in your hand is, giving you a quick set of Sabacc. Having two Sylop cards is Pure Sabacc and the best hand you can have.
Imposter Card: At the end of the round you roll a 2d6 for each imposter card you have, you pick one of the two die and the card is now that number.
The Gambling Game:
You start each game with a set number of tokens (between 4 to 8), that are used buy cards, as well as determine the winner (a la blackjack). Any player who runs out of tokens at the end of a round is eliminated.
During your turn when you want to draw a new card from either the face-up or face-down piles it costs 1 token.
At the end of each round the winning hand get’s all their tokens refunded, any losing hands of sabacc get back 1 token and any losing hands are taxed tokens equal to the difference in their hand.
A hand of 1 - 3 would lose 2 tokens, whereas a hand of 2 - 6 would lose 4.
The Meta Game:
There are also Shift Tokens involved, tokens that can be played once per turn that affect the game in different ways:
All players are taxed 1 token.
One player is taxed 2 tokens.
Free Draw.
Switch hands with another player.
All Sylops equal 6 for the round
Reverse Sabacc, get the highest pair to win.
And those are the rules of Kessel Sabacc, the video game also has an extra element of cheating but that isn’t available to other Sabacc players, so we won’t count that for now.
Check out Hyperspace Props for a better explanation and also the custom deck their are making for Kessel Sabacc.
Kessel Sabacc Hack
If you want to add some Kessel Sabacc to your game, I got some rules here for you.
Each player need 4d6, two each of different colours (if they are all the same just lay them on some paper for Left & Right).
The GM needs a few more than the players
Some tokens or something to use as a token (4 each, more if you want to play longer)
A list of Player Abilities (only 2 can be used per game and must be declared upfront before starting)
All players roll 2d6 in secret, one for the Left Die(LD) and one for the Right Die(RD).
The GM then rolls 2 dice face-up and passes play to the First Player.
The Player may then:
Play an Ability (1 per round)
Choose to re-roll a die:
This costs 1 token, you roll your extra die in secret then discard one into the corresponding pile (LD or RD) in-front of the GM.
Take one from a GM pile:
This costs 1 token and you have to take the last die placed, and then your discarded die becomes the last placed.
Play then shifts clockwise. After 3 turn players starting with the First Player reveal their hand, the lowest sabacc (1-1) wins.
Players with the winning hand have all their tokens refunded, players who lost but have a higher sabacc (2-2,3-3 etc) can refund 1 token.
Players who lose pay tokens equal to the difference in die.
The First Player then shifts to the next person along and you start the next round.
d8 Sabacc Hack
If you want to have Sylop and Imposter cards, use d8’s, the 7 is an Imposter, if you end the round with one, roll 2d6 and pick a number to replace it.
The 8 is a Sylop, at the end of the round the 8 is now whatever the other die is, the best hand is now 8-8 then 1-1.
Hacking it for non-Star Wars.
The thing I like the most about Kessel Sabacc is that you have a simple resolution (pair on the Sand and Blood Card’s) and then a gambling element on top, and then Meta-Rules on top of that.
These could be used for a basic resolution system in an RPG, and then built on.
When a challenge arises, players take 2d6 and roll them looking to get a pair. If you roll a pair you succeed in the test, if you don’t have a pair you can then spend stamina/ stress/ willpower to re-roll, choosing to either take the new roll or not.
You can then add other systems on top:
Double 1’s are a critical success.
The Higher the pair the lower the degree of success:
2-2 is a great success, whereas a 6-6 is only just succeeding.
Distance between die can be how big the failure is, like a 2 (1&4) is a small complication but a 4 (1&6) is a large complication.
Have Stamina and Health pools damaged by the difference, and can also be spent on a re-roll.
You could roll different sized die based on difficulty, 2d4 for an easy task, 2d12 for a very difficult one.
Attributes are die sizes, STRENGTH(2d4), CHARISMA(2d10), FIGHT(2d8).
Skills give you more die to roll. You have a 3D in Lockpicks so you get to roll 3DX and pick the 2 you want.
Or Skills step up and down the die.
Traits let you re-roll once for free on certain tests.
So I wrote a small one-page game about Space Couriers: 12 PARSECS OR LESS it’s CC-BY-SA 4.0, and it’s very silly.
I think I’ve rambled on long enough, but if the ideas presented sparked something, post them in the comments or write something and let me know.
If you do want to talk more Star Wars, Outlaws, The Acolyte, or your thoughts on canon I’m open.
See you next time as I add more stuff to my own Digital Wasteland.
Oh god I need to get my hands on Lords of the Expanse!!!