I’m just gonna cut right to the poodoo. Cartel RPG from Magpie Games is what I would use to run a game inspired by The Book of Boba Fett. In fact, my friend Rich Rogers of Plus One Forward fame runs a hack of Cartel called Hutt Cartel where he reskins the playbooks of Cartel for Star Wars characters and re-locates Durango, Mexico to Coruscant level 1313. I’d re-re-locate to Tatooine and done!

Cartel, especially one-shots, is a game of hot potato using a hand grenade with no pin. It has PBTA heritage. The playbooks cover a range of archetypes, including my favorites: the CIA agent and the Rat. I spoke with Cartel’s game designer Mark Diaz Truman and I assure you, you don’t have to be Mexican to play this game. It’s a solid game, I‘ve run and played it. Yet in real talks with folks, there is a reluctance to play Cartel out of fear. Fear of “getting it wrong”, or abusing stereotypes, glorifying the drug war, etc. Shiraya's word! Look, play this game straight with a trusted table. Trusted means with folks you know and are comfortable failing around as you all try out a new thing. Use what you’re comfortable with. No accents or slang if that’s new for you. Talk about the areas that you are unsure of or uncomfortable with. With a table of high-trusted folks, you’ll be fine.

Rich Rogers is famous for taking a game system and converting it so it can be played in a Star Wars setting. In some cases, like Monster of the Week RPG, he has made deep cuts to the rules to make it work. In other cases, he has only changed the surface of the game, like in Cartel where he used Star Wars tropes to re-skin Cartel's playbooks. His efforts have also made Cartel accessible to those who might otherwise be reluctant to play the core rules. Here’s Rich running the first session of a Hutt Cartel game.

I’d reach out to Rich Rogers and ask for his Hutt Cartel hack for starters. Having already played and run this, I’d get caught up on any changes from both Cartel RPG and the Hutt Cartel hack since my last go at it. Then I’d review his playbooks with the season one characters from the Book of Boba Fett. The game I want is about underworld life sans Jabba and no Boba as daimyo. I’d want strong playbook analogs for the daimyo of Mos Espa and a major-domo. The remaining playbooks should be solid characters that bring their own baggage of Krayt spit.

I’d reset things from the show so that the Tusken Raiders, Pyke Syndicate, and the mayor of Mos Espa are all still in play. Crimson Dawn is a thing, so are the Hutt twins. We’re playing to find out if the characters can run Jabba’s old territories.

I’d figure out how to make Grogu a problem, so I can bring in an adversarial Luke Skywalker. For sure there’s got to be a bounty on someone in the player’s group for Mando to come and claim! Like shooting Rancors in a cage!

Cartel | Hutt Cartel delivers the experience I want for The Book of Boba Fett: Playing in a criminal underworld to find out how we stack up to Mos Espa’s history of daimyos.

There are other roleplaying game options, but the table experience will be different.

Blades in the Dark is a solid, obvious pick. IMHO, this means the experience becomes more crew-focused and mission-oriented; some GM-lift can make those missions about keeping or gaining control of Mos Espa. It has more mechanical bite than Cartel and that appeals to me.

Fantasy Flight Games’ Edge of the Empire is a strong suspect and easiest option. This delivers on the Star Wars experience out-of-the-box and a more traditional tabletop gaming experience. You’ll have lots of source material from the FFG star Wars sourcebooks left in print to support your play.

Apocalypse World is also a strong but nuanced contender. There’s some fictional work on the player’s and MC’s part to color the mechanical bits to fit the Star Wars setting. Your experience will be more rated R, for sure not Disney+ material! But the effort here is fictional skinning and new moves, but Apocalypse World is all about new moves.

Cartel is the way, specifically the Hutt Cartel hack. It delivers on running Jabba’s empire experience I want to have at the table.

GauntletCon Open Gaming Weekend is coming up, I’m planning to give this a go using Cartel/Hutt Cartel. I think it runs pretty hot for a one-shot. I haven’t gone beyond two sessions in a series, I’d love to play longer to see what the resulting fiction looks like and how the character advancement cycle holds up.

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