In the past on Fridays, we would scour the holonet and post a detailed list of all the Content put out for the game in the past week. Now we point you over to SWUHolocron who does a much better job than us keeping track of all this content posted daily! You can check this link for videos and this link for articles! They also have a comprehensive list of all Content Creators that have posted content for Star Wars Unlimited found here. There’s a ton of other great resources on their site that I encourage you to look around!

This Friday we take a look at the creator of the biggest deckbuilding site for Star Wars Unlimited, Parker and his buddy Ned who just started a podcast!

The Force Unlimited & SWUDB

Tell us about your team! How long have you known each other, what other games have you played together?

Ned: I’ve known Parker for nearly 8 years now, and we’ve played everything from Sushi Go to Here I Stand: Wars of the Reformation together.

Parker: Ned and I met at new parents class, and our families became fast friends. Then Ned invited me to join a group to play Here I Stand: Wars of the Reformation 1517-1555, and ever since we’ve shared that kind of myopic, obsessive conversation that only true tabletop friendship can engender. We’ve enjoyed multiple tabletop RPG campaigns together, we’ve teamed up for campaigns of Marvel Champions, Arkham Horror, and Frosthaven, and I’ve been subjected to helped playtest a number of games of Ned’s own design.

What is your background/experience in the TCG world?

Ned: I’ve been playing TCGs for a long time. I think my first real one was Magic, back in 1994. I’ve played a lot of the following: Iron Crown’s LoTR CCG, L5R, Decipher’s Star Wars / Star Trek / LoTR, Netrunner, Magic again, FFG’s LoTR, Arkham, Marvel Champions and I think that’s about it (wait, I forgot about FFTCG!). I’ve played a fair bit of competitive Netrunner and Magic (Modern and draft, mostly), as well as some competitive Star Trek / LoTR, but I was awful back then (I may still be awful now).

Parker: I got into TCGs during the 90s heyday, with Magic, Spellfire, Wyvern, Vampire, the Decipher line-up, and my personal favorite, Sim City. I got off the Magic merry-go-round during Onslaught block and stuck to LCGs: Game of Thrones, Netrunner, Star Wars, L5R, Arkham Horror, Ashes, and Marvel Champions. I stuck my pinky-toe into Netrunner competitive play but I’m a kitchen table player through-and-through.

What drew you to Star Wars Unlimited as a game?

Parker: I’m always intrigued by a really good mea culpa (the Dominoes’ “our pizza sucks” commercial is GOAT), so Jim Cartwright’s interview with Polygon where he acknowledges FFG’s previous struggles drew me in like a moth to a flame. I had been prepared to write the game off as “more FFG” but I read that and decided to keep my curiosity piqued.

Star Wars Unlimited’s beauty is its simplicity. All the complexity is emergent: the cards, the sequencing, the resourcing. You can teach the rules of the game in minutes to a small child (I have), yet there’s some real depth there, and the potential for even more. I think a lot of recent TCGs mistake complexity for depth; so far it seems like the Unlimited devs are avoiding that mistake. It’s an incredibly elegant game (for a more civilized age?).

Ned: I like all kinds of card games, and SWU has a couple of interesting features, specifically around the draw 2 and resource system. I think FFG has a reasonably good (but not great) track record of supporting competitive play. I’m here for the ride!

What kind of content do you make for Star Wars Unlimited?

Ned: I do mathematical analysis and make graphs. I’m like a budget Frank Karsten.

Parker: I don’t know who Frank Karsten is, which is why I asked Ned to be my cohost for The Force Unlimited. Also, I’m getting Ned a shirt that says “Budget Frank Karsten”.

Ned and I used to stand by our cars after Frosthaven talking about Star Wars Unlimited’s mechanical complexities and I was like “we should bottle this”. So we record our Star Wars Unlimited conversations for a podcast because it was either that or start brewing beer in my garage and talking about my Traeger. Our stuff aims to be informative if dry; like the BBC Shipping Forecast but for SWU.

What do you envision your average viewers as? Competitive? Casual?
Collector? Etc

Parker: If C3OP is Connect, Collect, Compete, then we’re targeting the secret fourth demographic who want to Consume. Our average listener is currently driving in their car listening to their third podcast breaking down Rallying Cry and is desperate for a conversation about anything else. None of our listeners listen to us first. All of our listeners have heard of DHaus.

Ned: My guess is that we’re in the light competitive space. I don’t think casual players are interested in the deep dives we’re doing (and collectors certainly aren’t). Heavy competitive players are likely to want more detailed metagame and deck analysis, and I don’t think that’s our niche.

How do you see yourself as a player on the Casual <–> Competitive spectrum?

Ned: I’m a bad competitive player, sadly. Too focused on winning to be a casual, but not enough time and focus to be good.

Parker: I’ve always been a netdecking casual (I built a site so the net can bring the decks to me!), but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Star Wars Unlimited is awakening things in me I’ve never felt before about card games. I’m seriously considering trying to win something and spending money to travel and failing spectacularly.

What is one specific archetype or playstyle that defines you?

Parker:

I’m a simple man with simple needs. My ideal deck is just 10 ramp cards and 40 Star Destroyers.

Ned: I love recursion and self-discard strategies. We haven’t seen too many of those yet, but I’m hopeful!

What led you to creating SWUDB?

Parker: I originally registered swudb.com because I wanted to be involved in the conversation; I wanted to make sure that whoever built the db was helping to build the kind of community I would want my kids to be a part of. I had some inkling that maybe I’d do something myself with it, but mostly I just instinctively snapped it up because every FFG game has a [game]db.com, and I thought I could help, and I wanted to make sure it was a welcoming place.

A few weeks later I was hit with the perfect storm of having some downtime, needing a portfolio project, and feeling curious about a new web technology. After I put the kids to bed I had a kind of Thanos-esque “Fine, I’ll do it myself” moment, and now, uh… I’m in way over my head.

What is one feature you hope to add to the site in the coming months?

Parker: This is a hard question to answer because I’m writing this before the official website stream but people are reading it after. The FFG devs have been under-promising and over-delivering so far, and they’re pretty hyped about their site, so I think the smartest “feature” might be to pivot and focus my energies on The Force Unlimited.

That being said, my wife doesn’t know how much TCGs cost, so I’d love to build in singles pricing. I’d like to see that a card costs $6, or a deck costs $130, or a deck costs $42 taking into account the cards I already have in my collection. I’d like to know exactly how much trouble I’m in before I commit to that janky Iden deck.

Oh, and people keep asking about cube support. I don’t know much about cubes but they sound fun and I want to do that.

What is your favorite thing about making content for SWU so far?

Ned: I love how positive and supportive the community has been!

Parker: Look, there are a lot of things I like about making content for Star Wars Unlimited. The people have been an absolute delight (and I was nervous about feeling like an outsider since so many seemed to recognize each other from the Destiny days). Anytime someone gets a joke in our videos I do a little fist pump. It was really exciting seeing my stuff show up in other creators’ videos (though that’s admittedly rather bittersweet right now). Making stuff is fun. Sharing it is fun.

But my favorite thing about making content? Hanging out with Ned and introducing Ned to the Star Wars Unlimited community. I’m an enthusiastic, caffeinated bloviator who gets aggressively pedantic on Discord, which feels pretty generic for a TCG content creator. But Ned’s really great at breaking down and explaining concepts, and is insightful in a way I haven’t encountered a lot, so recording the shows is a blast.

What do you hope for content to look like for you once the game releases?

Parker: Mostly the same? If you put a statistician and a lawyer into a room and ask them to break something down into its most component parts, we’re just going to keep splitting the atom. We’re probably going to celebrate our hundredth episode by talking about the statistical mean for damage you can expect to do with Overwhelm to a Red Villain player if you limit yourself to Blue Hero cards. Or maybe Ned will explain to me what “egg” and “rock” mean.

Honestly, I’d love to do stuff like deck tech videos, and analyzing tournament performance versus what people are seeing at Showdowns. Does the international Star Wars Unlimited community have a different metagame than the US community… Things like that. I want to have guests on our show, and I want Ned to do his My Name Is Monday Segment on another show.

Ideal, pipedream scenario: I want to do a Judge Judy segment where other content creators debate things in SWU Court.

Ned: I feel like the structure of our content isn’t going to change too much, but from the larger community, I’m really going to be interested in decklists for tournaments and metagame reports. Can I hope for a “17 Lands” for SWU limited?

What are each of you most excited about for SWU?

Ned: I’m really excited to see how the game develops and how the game itself is going to change the theory I’m bringing to it. It’s really easy to talk about things in a vacuum, but when the tools are put to the test is when they’re going to develop the most.

Parker: Playing with people? Right now the community is mostly talk talk talk; I can’t wait until I can make new friends at my FLGS, meet people I’ve only talked to online and actually play the game. Also, my son’s chomping at the bit to go play against people who are not his dad, so I’m really excited/nervous about unleashing that.

What has been your favorite community experience in Star Wars Unlimited thus far?

Ned: I haven’t had a lot of community experience, I’m kind of a shut-in (ha ha), but for me, the response to having to re-do my fishing math after Jabba was spoiled the morning after we recorded our episode was a lot of fun.

Parker: Too many to count! Those early leader reveals that just blew everything wide open, and everybody’s response to that early scope. Winning signed GenCon promos from Wampa Radio, as someone who never wins anything. Josh handing over the hosting reins to Xander felt like an old guard “do you remember when”  defining moment. When you folks (Garbage Rollers) had enough cards to start running drafts was absolutely a watershed moment. Every time one of the FFG staff chimes in on Discord and someone new learns that they’re watching.

I think that’s the thing that elevates a “group” to a “community”: a community is one long string of favorite moments.

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Be sure to keep up with the The Force Unlimited on YouTube and Twitter! SWUDB has been a valuable resource to the community, and I imagine we won’t be the only ones using it for years to come!

That’s it for today. We hope you got a good introduction to Parker and Ned, and you learned a little bit more about SWUDB & The Force Unlimited!