Welcome to the world of Going Rogue, a Galactic 2e spinoff where you can create epic tales of heroic sacrifice!
Like its base game, Going Rogue, is a TTRPG that has no GMs or dice. Instead, it uses the Belonging Outside Belonging game system developed by Avery Alder. This system makes use of tokens that can be gained, spent, or passed on to other players through roleplay actions that advance the plot.
Playing the game was an absolute treat. It was difficult it to have to say goodbye to our plucky rebel characters, but knowing how their stories were going to end helped us lean into the high stakes epic scale of the story. It felt very much like this Blade Runner quote: “the star that burns twice as bright, burns half as long”.
Going Rogue is now available in its second edition on Jumpgate Games’ itch.io page for just $10. You can also get hold of Galactic for $15 from Riley Rethal’s itch.io page. Both are currently available as part of a ‘We Have Star Wars at Home’ bundle. This bundle features a number of other TTRPGs that are well worth checking out.
Story – Setting Up Your Epic Tale
Going Rogue’s Influences
To understand the setting of Going Rogue, it’s worth knowing a bit about Galactic and its influences. Galactic is a space opera TTRPG created by Riley Rethal and inspired by Star Wars. Instead of The Empire, you have The Mandate. Instead of The Rebellion, you have The Liberation. And instead of The Force, you have The Space Between. Within this system, you get to craft epic adventures of heroes negotiating a dangerous galaxy.
Going Rogue started out as an expansion of Riley Rethal’s ‘Galactic’, a love letter to Star Wars.
What sets Going Rogue aside is that instead of stories about shiny paragon heroes like in the main Star Wars movies, it is all about troubled martyrs like in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Whilst Going Rogue has the general setting of playing daring rebels fighting against an oppressive empire, there is a lot of room for customizing your story.
Creating Your Own Story Within This World
During game set up, the first thing you are prompted to do is choose a playbook for your character. Like Galactic, Going Rogue makes use of different playbooks which represent different character archetypes. These include The Convert, an idealist character newly recruited to The Liberation and The Leveraged, a character who has been strongarmed into this mission.
You are then prompted, as a group, to set up different pillars with their own desires. Pillars are factions within the game. These include The Mandate, Scum & Villainy (the crime world) and The Liberation. The desires are the values and objectives they hold and will influence their actions throughout the game. It is worth noting is that The Liberation have two more pillars within them. One is The Parliament, the democratic and moral force of the movement. The other is The Intelligence, the more militant, proactive force of the movement. Choosing the desires for these two pillars will heavily influence the story you and your fellow players share, as well as the fateful mission you engage in.
Starting out as a expansion to Galactic 2e, Going Rogue has grown into its own entity.
We were keen to explore the idea of The Liberation building its strength, but not sure how to proceed. In our game, The Parliament wanted to hold fire until they’d gathered more support, whilst The Intelligence wanted to use their strength to sabotage The Mandate.
With the backdrop set, you can now refine your character with a little more context about their place in the world. This also includes the supporting characters in their story, who help further populate your story. I found the ‘ask right/ask left’ questions really effective to build the relationships between the player characters.
By the time, you have finished your setup, you will have a strong idea of your characters and how the interact with each other, the other key characters, the stakes, and a mission.
Gameplay – Letting Your Story Play Out
Players of D20 TTRPGs like Dungeons & Dragons will probably be wondering how a GM-less, dice-less game works. In a word, tokens. In Going Rogue, there is a token economy used to establish obstacles and ways to overcome them. As there is no GM, this is something that every player needs to buy into. It can take quite a bit of getting used to, especially if you are a play to win player. The emphasis in Going Rogue is on creating an epic story of heroic sacrifice, not giving yourself an easy time.
Jess Levine created Going Rogue to explore ideas of war, resistance and heroic sacrifice in dire times.
The Token Economy
The way it works mechanically is as follows. You can gain tokens by performing Vulnerable Moves. The best stories are filled with characters struggling or failing as learning and growing opportunities. These Vulnerable Moves are just those kind of opportunities. They could include putting yourself in danger by underestimating the situation, causing collateral damage or putting down an ally. In our game, I played The Convert, Maxi. He was a naive and idealistic posh boy who wanted to do good. Through careless actions early in the game, he learned how to be a more skillful operative later in the game.
Once you have tokens, you can then spend them to do Strong Moves that will help your mission. These can include using a surviving an explosion, trying something new and succeeding or finding a crucial piece of intelligence.
You can also transfer tokens between players in Lateral Moves. These encourage good co-operation and communication between players. Lateral moves include evoking someone’s sympathy, asking them for advice or providing them protection. These created some lovely moments in our game as Maxi sought advice from his more cynical allies and in turn reminded them about their own strengths and talents.
Collaborative Storytelling
Whilst Going Rogue is referred to as a GM-less game, you could describe it as a game where everyone’s the GM. Throughout the game, players can describe the setting, play non-player characters (NPCs) or narrate the consequences of an action.
This made for some very exciting emerging storytelling. Players might have a seed of an idea, which other players would add to, taking it in new and unexpected directions. In our game, we had this incredible powerful artefact we didn’t know what to do with. A player took on the role of a helpful NPC, who told us we needed to take it to a site to unlock its power. At the site, another player described this ornate cave with iridescent runes. Another brought in time travelling wizards who could posses characters through these runes. It was a wild ride!
The token economy described earlier also allowed us to act on behalf of different pillars. They each have their own moves they can do to gain, spend and move tokens. For example, we had a Mandate dreadnaught show up, which allowed The Mandate to take a token for foreshadowing a larger threat. Rather than having each NPC have an individual token pool, they would simply act based on the faction they belonged to. For example, a crime lord offered us information in exchange for a favor. That allowed us to gain a token from them in exchange for our characters being indebted to them
Taking Characters to Their Ultimate Fate
We had a good run with our characters, but we knew that our game of Going Rogue could only end with the heroic sacrifice of our characters.
Mechanically, you do this by having a player character ask the others to follow them into a mission with impossible odds. The characters don’t have to know the odds are impossible, but the players do.
All games of Going Rogue are headed to the same destination. What will you learn and achieve on your journey?
Once this has been activated, players will use a four segment clock to countdown to the end of the mission. In each segment, there is a narrative move that sets the gravity of the situation and guides players towards their ultimate fate. When a player character dies in the final segment, they pass their tokens on to another player. For me, this signifies how their sacrifice helps the rest of the party complete their mission.
Our Final Act
In our game, we had a desperate race across a battlefield in a beat-up shuttle to reach a mystic power source before The Mandate could. Rhyseo and Dash put their differences aside and ram their ship into a Mandate dreadnaught while the others escape in fly-suits. Corvus commandeers a pursuing fighter and dies heroically fighting off other approaching ships. Maxi and Tarsi are left to perform a ritual to destroy this power source. Through their tokens and their commitment to the mission and each other, they succeed and fall to the planet below knowing their sacrifice has lead to a safer world.
After a pause to take everything in, we start sharing our favorite moments from the game. We praise each other’s characters and discuss what kind of world they’ve left behind. What does this mission mean for The Liberation? Did Scum and Villainy put their differences aside? Was that helpful NPC secretly wanting that power for herself?
Presentation & Layout – Your Guide for Creating Your Own Tale of Heroic Sacrifice
Reading the rules for the first time, there is a lot of new information to take in, especially if you are new to GM-less TTRPGs. To facilitate this, a lot of care has been put into the layout and the accessibility of the game for newcomers. Whilst it might be tempting to dive straight into choosing your character, I would highly recommend reading the introduction and setup sections first. This will really help you get to grips with the game and understand how to do your stories justice.
Throughout there are tips to help you make your first game as smooth as possible. There are also tips for using the playbooks. This can be very useful if you’re used to looking through actions or spell slots when choosing what to do next. These tips also include helping you create non-player characters through the traits system near the end.
When you get to the playbooks and the pillars, there is a really nice structure that quickly allows you to find where the different moves, tips and other character prompts are. It can get confusing keeping track of your character, NPCs and pillars all at once. Appreciating this, there is also a cheat sheet of pillar moves towards the back of the book so that you can easily pick something to add to the mix.
There is also some stunning artwork from David Bednar to help set the mood for your own dark and gritty story. You can see examples of their work in the cover art of this article.
