Drunksabers: A drinking game for irresponsible Jedi

by Coaster

Objective: Have the longest lightsaber by the end of the night.
As you complete missions, you get shot glasses. Tape these glasses end to end, creating a neon “lightsaber” of your chosen color. Longest one wins!

Materials:

• Fantasy Flight Games’ Edge of the Empire RPG dice.
• Plastic shot glasses in assorted colors, preferably neon.
• Some scotch tape.
• A pitcher of Blue Milk: A mixed drink of your choosing that looks vaguely like, well, milk that’s blue. I used rice milk, hawaiian punch, and vodka. Nothing fancy, but perfectly drinkable!
• A pitcher of Sith Spit: A mixed drink that’s red or dark red, preferably a bit stronger than the Blue Milk and not quite as tasty. I used Redbull, red Gatorade, and vodka.
• Mission card deck: A small deck of cards (or slips of paper, whatever) that have missions for players to complete.
• Character sheet cards: Very basic pre-rolled stats that determine the number of green dice a player may use for a given roll.

Character sheets:
4 attributes: Agility, Strength, Charisma, Intelligence.
Each sheet has a total of 10 points, split between the four attributes according to the archetype. Each individual attribute has a maximum of 4.

Gameplay:

• All players pick a character sheet card (Scavenger, Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, etc), or use a blank one to build their own character.
• On their turn (a turn order is probably not necessary, people will just play when they feel like it, but ymmv*) players choose a random mission, read it aloud, and explain how they would complete it. They then declare which attribute they are using to do it (Charisma to flirt with someone, or Strength to punch them, for example).
• The player rolls a number of green dice equal to their points for that attribute, as well as the number of purple dice designated by the difficulty for the mission (for my game, I just made every mission 2 difficulty by default, for simplicity’s sake).
• Optional: If you want to include another player’s character in your story, and they agree to help you, you may add a blue boost die to your roll. Or, if a player tells a REAL good story, the audience may give them a boost die.
• Decipher the roll!
  • A successful roll with advantages or no threats: Drink a shot glass of Blue Milk and add it to your lightsaber.
  • A successful roll with threats: Drink a shot glass of Sith Spit and add it to your lightsaber.
  • A failure with advantages: No drink, but you do get a blue boost die on your next try!
  • A failure with threats: No drink, and you get a black setback die on your next try. 😦
  • A failure with no net advantages or threats: A whole lotta nothing happens. How boring!
• Next player picks a mission. Rinse and repeat.

*ymmv = your mileage may vary. Basically any of these rules can be tweaked depending on the preferences of your group.

Example Missions:

• The Annual Iloh Beach Fashion Show is in two weeks and the planning commission has contracted you to obtain Jabba the Hutt’s infamous hostage bikini. How do you get it?
• Rathtars are loose on the ship! How do you contain/escape them?
• You’re at GUNS GUNS GUNS 2 and you need weapons, but you don’t have any credits. How do you get them?
• Bake Sale! You need the top secret Imperial chocolate chip cookie recipe to win. How do you get it?
• You are on a diplomatic mission with Jar Jar Binks and Queen Julia of Bardotta. Your room shares a wall with theirs. How do you drown out the noise of their raucous love-making and get some sleep?
• Han and Leia are at each other’s throats again. The sexual tension is unbearable. How do you get them to smooch?
• The Kaiburr Krystals (an infamous Rebel glam punk band, obvs) is missing their keyboardist. How do you save the show?
• You are attacked by a pack of vornskrs! How do you survive?
• You’ve been captured by the enemy and locked in a room guarded by a single trooper. How do you escape?
• You’re lounging in a cantina when your best friend’s ex walks in. Your friend is still pretty broken up about it. How do you keep them from seeing each other?
• You’re attempting to evade stormtroopers in a crowded shopping plaza. How do you escape detection? (+1 blue die if you include kissing.)
• Your partner has been acting strange lately. You suspect they are turning to the dark side. What do you do?
• You’ve entered a hunger games-style competition to earn a bounty hunting license. How do you win?
• Directly in front of you, one of the galaxy’s leading Empire apologists is giving a live interview on the holonet. You are armed only with your fists and your wits. What do you do?
• Your best bro just broke bad, and the heretofore perfectly healthy mother of his children just up and died for some reason??? What do you do with these adorable twin babies?
• Your ex just showed up asking for help out of the blue. Unfortunately for them, Darth Vader showed up 5 minutes earlier threatening your city with annihilation if you don’t sell them out. What do you do?
• You’re on a planet where the native population doesn’t speak basic, and you don’t know their language. You desperately need to use the restroom. What do you do?

Notes:

You’ll notice that the odds are generally stacked in favor of the players. This is largely so people, especially those not as familiar with RPGs, don’t get bored or frustrated by multiple failed rolls. Feel free to tweak the difficulty to the taste of your group. I had at least one RPG veteran in my group who went out of his way to make his turns harder, just for fun.

I’d also recommend not making the Blue Milk and Sith Spit traditional “shot” strength. I thought it was nice for people to be able to drink what they wanted (beer, cider, wine, etc) and just play a round of Drunksabers when they felt like it, so having each shot glass be closer to the equivalent of about ¼ of a mixed drink ensured everyone was imbibing at reasonable levels. Again, tailor the alcohol content to the preferences/habits of your group!

Finally, this game was partially inspired by my partner’s game, Inventory Management, which is a storytelling card game, sort of like D&D meets Cards Against Humanity/Apples-to-Apples. You can find it here: http://inventorymanagementgame.com

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Coaster can usually be found on Twitter @coasterchild posting embarrassing fanart and generally having a lot of feelings. I also run the One Shot Podcast Network kink meme, which you can find at ospnkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org.