My love of first edition X Wing is well documented here.
Old games are what they are, familiar, sometimes dated and often abandoned by their maker, if not their fans, but some are so well conceived, they deserve to be played on their merits, age and edition changes aside. Chess anyone?
Early 1e was well balanced, had a huge amount of depth and options from the start and did it’s job as it should simulating Star Wars-like dog fights without the need for too much cruft or density.
It went wrong as these things often do, as power creep and competitive evolution killed off the main players, making almost unheard of ships more popular than even the titular one and the current “Meta” became all. Action economy became the catch word, with older ships falling behind seemingly unable to be fixed, I feel the upgrade paradigm even became too much of a bandaid fix-all to be taken seriously.
There is no doubt that 2e is a cleaner, smarter game, but that is with the benefit of hindsight and it’s changes are evolutionary, not revolutionary in nature.
Looking at the core of the 1e game, there is a lot to like.
The Tie Advanced and X Wing are both good enough, their pilots as printed often make them outstanding.
The original game is one of prediction and maneouvre. The basic ships, the A,B,X,Y Wings, the Falcon, Lambda, Tie Interceptors, Fighters and Bombers and a few others (even Scum if wanted) have a feel that fits the game mechanics so well and take us to a Galaxy……...
They have 4 basic Actions, which are the things that define their differences and the base tactics of the game. You commit to a maneouvre based on your own needs and in an attempt to predict your opponents, but your Action, which is taken after you execute the mandatory move (assuming your Pilot does not change this), may allow some wiggle room, an ability to adjust or adapt.
No ship in the basic game has all 4 actions available to it out of the gate (a very few do with Pilot skills or Elite Pilot Talents and Modifications). In the later game and if all mods and upgrades are allowed, many ships can achieve all 4 and some can even manage repeats.
If these are reduced to more thematic and manageable choices, the true brilliance of the ships and their pilots comes through and the game becomes one of familiarity with tactics and play dynamic than the ship building sub-game.
These are specifically Elite Pilot Talents, Titles and Modifications.
EPT’s are handled well enough as pilot talents, which become far more outstanding without EPT’s to muddy the water. EPT’s are often the game breaking culprits, often at odds with the pilot themselves or if not, tend to exaggerate the pilot.
Mods fix things that do not need fixing. Ship limitations are what they should be, limitations.
Titles often make little sense. The people that fly them make them special, so why add another free evade? Generic titles are often just poorly disguised re-balancing attempts.
The Tie Interceptor is now the undisputed king of manoeuvre, the A Wing is the speed monster, the Bomber packs the most secondary armament, while the sluggish Y Wing has a turret, a Droid and ordnance, but must choose between a Droid for manoeuvre or other capabilities.
Action economy, which defined both the later 1e game and the re-design of the 2e version, is kept under control. Those with more or better Actions are stand-outs as they should be. The ability to use actions when stressed, to add an action not available on a ship are gold now, not just upgrade point savers.
This form of 1e, we like to call “Bare Bones”, sometimes Classic (with movie ships only), or even “Skeleton Crew” with fewer ships and upgrades, depending on the mix.
It limits ships to the basic 4 Actions and a reduced upgrade landscape, ordnance is often reduced or faction limited.
Vader, Wedge, Jake, Han etc are all top end pilots with special and quite powerful abilities. Remove EPT’s and they shine as such, often offering a skill no-one else comes close to having and one that defines them.
Wedge is the instinctive Predator (= reduces target Agility) , Vader has Force powered reflexes (= 2 Actions) and Luke has a survival instinct borne of a burgeoning Force awareness (= guaranteed Evade from Focus). Allow EPT’s in and they lose that uniqueness.
The designers did such a good job on one level to give us the feel of the individual pilots, then (to my mind), diluted that with less thematic upgrades for gaming purposes only.
The A Wing, B Wing, Interceptor and Advanced also have their unique characteristics, which again with Mods removed, allow them to be undisputed specialist. Use Mods and the all too rare Boost is attainable to most, as is the Roll or Evade. This makes most ships blend into the others.
Actions are the currency of X Wing, so any game level is fine as long as all ships fare equally, but in a reduced format, the feel of the ships becomes more succinct, more authentic and other upgrades gain in power. Running an Ordnance laden Bomber actually makes sense in a squad dynamic.
Jake can Boost or Roll, Soontir adds a Focus and Tycho can take Actions even when stressed and Focus, Lock or de-stress sharing is strong. Powerful, clean and easy to understand from the get-go, which is important in a heavily player reduced landscape.
The rock-paper-scissors elegance of the game is retained, the clean and inspired system is left to it’s original balance, which is good and enough.
Another benefit is the heightened feeling of accuracy to the original stories and the value of team work and tactics.
As an aside, I just ordered the 30th anniversary Star Wars d6 RPG and Source book, which is in alignment with this thinking.