Don’t worry–that title isn’t serious. I’d probably call this “Gatewalkers” or “Gate to the Stars” or “Stardoor” or “XTREME WORMHOLE” (yes, that’s in reverse if you get the reference). Something I’ve wanted for years now is a good Stargate wargame. For the uninitiated, Stargate SG-1 is a TV series from the late 90’s/early 2000’s. It revolves around US Air Force personnel who explore the universe via a TOTALLY NOT MAGIC wormhole gate that they can use to dial into other planets. Enter the code, step through the event horizon, land on a whole new inhabited world that has its own gate.

It’s fun, schlocky, B-level science fiction at its best. Sometimes we question who the real monster is, then other times we agree it’s the weird little snake species that possess human hosts and uses them to enslave most of the galaxy so we go shoot them a bunch. It includes the McGuyver guy as a sarcastic military colonel leading a misfit team of two super nerds and a former enemy turned ally. Did I mention it’s fun?

It’s also a great idea for a coop game! Setup a board and step through your gate. Roll for the mission:

1. You need to explore the ancient ruins on this planet to find an artifact.
2. You need to meet with the locals and establish diplomatic relations.
3. You’re here to sabotage evil alien stuff.
4. You’re here to explore the board and see what happens. Roll in each zone.
5. You’ve stepped through the gate to discover it’s landed you on the wrong world and the dial back device is missing. Explore, find the device, and return to the gate to get back home.
6. You arrive to find the local populace suffering from a disease. Get your scientist into position and try to resolve a cure.

These are just a few examples. I have around 20 worked out so far. You start off by executing the above missions, then when you’ve completed your first listed Story Trigger, you roll again for the episode twist:

1. No additional twist (rare, but it can happen!)
2. Goa’uld attack! Enemies are pouring in from the edge of the map to capture you. Get to the gate!
3. Knowledge of the ancients–one of your heroes accidentally touched the wrong artifact and now he’s comatose. Drag him off the map to safety while fending off enemies closing in on the energy pulse!
4. Betrayal! The local citizens aren’t what they seem. Capture one of them and drag them back through the gate.
5. The big fish. A major boss character shows up on planet but doesn’t know you’re there. You need to take them out for the good of the galaxy! (note that this is a very difficult twist by default as you haven’t prepared)
6. You’ve come across serious alien technology capable of changing the way we fight the war. Secure it and get it off world.

I have less of these, honestly. Just thinking back on the show it was almost always “Stuff hits the fan! Shoot the guns! Get out of there!” I intend to go through episode by episode and pull out some of the old plot points while producing a few of my own.

That’s the loose sketch of the missions system: arrive on planet to do something, have something else happen on top and resolve that, too. I will likely force combat into every structure one way or another, but I’m not entirely opposed to the occasional peaceful resolution mission. It’s harder to produce (you need an engaging system for it) but I think it would be a fun change of pace.

I’d try to set these to be 30-60 minutes long, such that two people could do a “Story arc” in an afternoon or two. Basically it would be a game you pick up and play for maybe 10-15 total matches and then put away. You could use any modern miniatures for your forces and any aliens you want for the big baddies. Personally, I plan to 3D print the obvious totally-not-Stargate stuff I’ve found on MyMiniFactory (www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-february-2023-release-star-entrance-273322).

I’d also add different enemy types to reflect those seen in the original series, but that doesn’t add much. You’d have the humans belonging to the Goa’uld, then the replicator robots, then… uh… yeah, that’s about it.

So what about the mechanics and systems? Funny enough I’m still not settled on this. Usually, a mechanic inspires me to write a system, not the other way around. I’d want to reflect the heroes being protected by the plot to some degree–you should be hard to kill. In my mind, the major way to get at this is shock and psychology. The Goa’uld famously use their staff weapons to inflict terror, so instead of them just doing damage, they should cause a negative status effect (suppression, more or less). At a certain point the shock/suppression builds up enough that you get captured and fight a jail break mission next. A lot of your battle will be using your limited troops (just 1-2 teams, so 4-8 miniatures) to help each other stay in the fight while accomplishing the mission.

Given the variety of problems to solve, I’d probably do a stat system based around a core stat line that includes something like Combat, Science, Archeology, and Diplomacy. You’d be able to customize your team by spreading the stats between them. You could have two okay scientists or one amazing scientist, for instance. Neglect combat and you may just get captured.

Or maybe I’d do the dice selection system I described previously in my cyberpunk article. You have to make choices about how to allot your time, represented by having different dice available to use in each of your actions each turn. You get a move and two dice actions with a D6, D8, and D10 to spend. If it’s something you’re good at, you get a bonus. The dice you don’t use gets kept as your defense dice to represent how much you’re keeping your head down. This adds a good layer of decision making to each turn which would help to feel more engaging in a coop game–but it also runs against my earlier notion of the games being pretty fast.

So what’s causing me to run off with this idea? Well, the resin printer is. I have it set up in my shed now and while I still haven’t solved the printing process 100%, I’m hoping to print off some of the above miniatures and play this game with my son. He’s getting a little fatigued with our recent competitive gaming, so I thought a “Season” of a coop game would help. In the mean time, I hope to hammer this into a little demo ruleset or maybe even put together the dreaded “event game” I keep talking about.

Worst case it’s a fun excuse to paint some cool miniatures! Lord knows I never mind that. You can file this entire concept under the “Getting a resin printer was a mistake” category. It’s, uh, it’s gonna be a big category…