May the Fourth Be With You

A long time ago, on a silver screen far far away… or maybe on your television at home… or maybe on YouTube… or a book… anywho, I’m getting carried away with a mediocre joke. “Star Wars Day” has, of late, become a sort of holiday in the Star Wars fandom, and in the cultural zygist as a whole. For the uninitiated, it is celebrated on May the Fourth as is a play on the phrase “May the Force be with you” in Star Wars.  With it being on a Sunday this year, you can expect to see people in unusual costumes waving fake blasters and lightsabers for fun and advertising. Don’t panic, just give them a friendly waiver and either join them or keep going about your own business. If you are so inclined, you could even take the opportunity to have a fun gathering with your friends.  

That’s the route I’ll be taking; gathering friends together for a day of Star Wars games. What games you play will likely be determined, in part, by what sort of games you play the other 364 days of the year.  For example, there are affordable Star Wars editions of most mass-market games like Uno, Scrabble, Clue, and even (gasp) Monopoly. You can get dozens of themed playing cards, and even Sabacc shaped standard playing cards. I’ll talk more about Sabacc in a minute, but what if you or someone you know are “a gamer” and want more than mass-market skins? Well, if it’s you likely won’t be surprised by what I’ll suggest next. If it’s someone else, Here’s some ideas:

Star Wars: Villainous by Ravensburger Games – Villainous is a series of games in which the players act as the villains rather than as the heroes in a game. The original game was based on Disney villains. That was followed up by Marvel, and Star Wars. Star Wars: Power of the Dark Side includes Darth Vader, Asajj Ventress, Kylo Ren, Moff Gideon, and General Grievous; with expansion sets that bring Darth Maul and Captain Phasma or Boba Fett, Seventh Sister, and Cad Bane into the game. It’s a fun, family friendly, game that opens the door to many other new opportunities. 

Star Wars: Unlimited by Fantasy Flight Games – Unlimited is a Trading Card Game, or TCG, in which two players duel using individual self constructed decks. Other games in this genre would be Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and the granddaddy of them all; Magic: the Gathering. One of the nice things about Unlimited is that it comes as a two-player starter set. The two decks are prebuilt and completely playable out of the box, and with the addition of more cards, the decks can be fine tuned or completely constructed from scratch. New sets of cards are released regularly allowing the game to constantly refresh itself both in gameplay and theme. The first release of 2025, Jump to Lightspeed, focuses on starships, pilots, and epic space battles. The new rules that have been brought in with the set have actually made the previously very separate space and ground strategies more harmonized. New Pilot cards can be used on their own as ground units or used to enhance ships in space battles. There are good reasons why Star Wars: Unlimited is widely considered one of the best new TCGs of 2024.

Star Wars roleplaying by Edge Studio – Maybe a TableTop Role Playing Game is more to your liking. You’ve probably heard of Dungeons & Dragons, yes? Like that, just not exactly that. Edge Studio has not one, but three Star Wars TTRPGs, each covering a different era and area of the Star Wars Universe. Titled: Age of Rebellion, Edge of the Empire, and Force and Destiny, each game uses the same mechanics and dice, and each game has a Starter Set making it super easy to get into. There is also a fourth Stater Set, The Force Awakens: Beginner Game. So again, it’s super accessible to get into. Most games would bundle all of this into a single game,  but by separating it out like this, Edge can more easily support each game with more books and accessories tailored to that game specifically.

Now, those three games are by no means an exhaustive list, But they do cover some of the major tabletop gaming areas, a board game, a card game, and a roleplaying game. All of them are very easy to purchase from your Friendly Local Gaming Store. The next two are a bit different. For starters, they are games that come from within the Star Wars universe. As opposed to being about the Star Wars universe. They are also less common to find in your Friendly Local Gaming Store and thus may take some looking around for. 

Sabacc is the game that Han Solo was playing when he won the Millennium Falcon. It is largely analogous to poker in the real world, with some versions being closer to blackjack. To be perfectly unclear, there are numerous versions of the game and even more house rules within that. There are four main ones: Traditional (or Classic), Kessel Sabacc, Coruscant Shift, and the Corellian Spike. Corellian Spike is the version that Disney markets as “official” when they have Sabacc games available for sale. I would always suggest talking to your local store first, as they might have the official Disney version in stock, or know a local or online artisan, like Hyperspace Props, who creates unofficial decks, dice and accessories. The most recent version of Sabacc is the Kessel Sabacc variant introduced in the video game Star Wars Outlaws. It removes most of the “gambling” aspect (to make it more family friendly), uses a smaller card deck, and adds Shift Tokens that can cause fun and chaos into the game. 

Sabacc has an interesting history, both in the Star Wars universe and in the real world. Well, here are some fun facts: Sabacc first appeared in the 1983 novel Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu by L. Neil Smith and the first physical Sabacc game came as part of the 1989 Crisis on Cloud City supplement for the original Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game published by West End Games. Since then it has appeared in all sorts of Star Wars related media. 

Dejarik is commonly referred to as “holo chess” as it is played using holographic pieces in the films. The most important rule of Dejarik is that if you ever play against a Wookie, let the Wookie win if you value your limbs. There are definitely commercially available versions of the game made by Disney, but you may need to look for an unofficial adaptation online. Offworld Exports, for example, offers a free print-and-play version that’s perfect for learning with before you invest in a higher quality set.

There is a bit of a high learning curve in Dejarik. Each player has four different pieces, and each piece moves and captures differently. Similar to how chess pieces each move differently, but without the numerous generations of knowledge to draw on. Disney manufactures two versions of the game. The first is a wooden version, that includes a Rebels vs Empire themed checkers set on the reverse side. The second is a larger, electronic, version of the game that lights up making it look somewhat like the original holograms.

So there you have it. A wildly incomplete list of ideas on how you and your friends and family can celebrate “Star Wars Day” together. May the Force, and the Fourth, be with you.