Which leads to that now classic line from that comedy zombie movie :

 "You mean the movie Lied??!!??"


- Ed C.

I'm planning a Jedi campaign using the Paladin system, and I was having the same problem. Ditching the stuff I don't know is good advice I just hope I'm not playing with dickheads either!

Quote from: laffingboyWhen I ran WEG's Star Wars back in the day, my setup was that nothing other than the first five minutes of the first movie happened. You remember that seen where the two R2D2 and C3PO fly away in the escape pod, and the gunners on the star destroyer don't bother to shoot it down because there are no life signs on it? In my game, they were bored, and needed to 'zero the targeting system' or some such shit, and pasted it anyway.

After that, it was all blank slate. Ran great. Ignore the novels and comic books and all that other crap.

We approached it this way too, unburdened by HIStory.

The EU sources contradict each other and each time a new film was released, a big chunk of EU was invalidated.

So AFAIAC, EU is not holy writ. It's a useful resource, but were I to run SW again, I'd let players know that they shouldn't assume anything for EU is true, but it might be if I decide to use it.

Then I'll just use the SW Visual Dictionary as my principal resource and dip into the few other compiled encyclopedias and illustrated guides as supplements.

Quote from: KoltarThis player, Trina the Swimmer, suggested that I set such a campaign during the really old Republic - because aren't tjhat many books written about that time period...but she knows there were Jedi knights then...and Sith. (This was the same player that wants to be a female Daniel Jackson researcher type if we do a FarGate campaign .)

This is pretty much carte blanche to do as you will, provided you have a good chat with the players to ensure what you think Star Wars is about is the same as what they think it's about.

In particular, pay close attention to the dangers of running Star Wars as though it were Traveller. To some people, Star Wars is more about the pulp/fantasy elements than it is the "futuristic" setting.

Otherwise loot Wookiepedia mercilessly for anything you find cool.

Quote from: KieroThis is pretty much carte blanche to do as you will, provided you have a good chat with the players to ensure what you think Star Wars is about is the same as what they think it's about.

I'm tellin' ya -- samurai, pulps and hot rods.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!I'm tellin' ya -- samurai, pulps and hot rods.

What about the people who are most interested in the WW2 analogues (uniforms, big battles, daring commando raids)? Or the wire-fu influences in the prequels (contrasted to the chambara influences of the OT)? Or the grand, sweeping, galaxy-spanning events of the KotOR games? Or the grimy smuggler-style games?

Star Wars is a mish-mash of several different genres, and it's easy for different people to read completely different things into it when you say you're running a Star Wars game.

Quote from: KieroStar Wars is a mish-mash of several different genres, and it's easy for different people to read completely different things into it when you say you're running a Star Wars game.

Yes, and that's my reading.

And the prequels can take a hike.

Go for it, I say. You've chosen the best era for someone with no knowledge of the Expanded Universe stuff. Even the movie era has some of that going on, fans being what they are, which screws up movie and post-movie era stuff if you're wanting to be accurate. As mentioned before, there's the KOTORs for source material but assuming you don't have that 40 hours free (yes I took that long. I'm slow.) there's good news. The KOTOR games stress that what happens in them is forgotten and becomes almost legend. Even the main characters you play with and as are forgotten, obviously to save the sequel the problem of "knowing" who you played as. So wiki readings of the game plot should be all you need. It's more than the usual "after KOTORs, before movies" SW inhabitant would know anyway. I'm sure there's some pre-movies fanon around but I haven't seen it and anyway, fuck 'em.

Quote from: KoltarSO,....is it possible for me to run a STAR WARS game and basicallly just make shit up??

I have a couple of responses to this, one specific and one general.

The specific one first.

Yeah, it's possible. However, I'd suggest that you find out what aspects of the setting appeal to the player and be sure to include them. Otherwise, the game just won't "feel" like Star Wars to her.

Years ago I ran Pendragon because my younger brother really, really, wanted to play it. Whenever there was a discussion about what our gaming group should do next, he always suggested that we play Pendragon. He didn't want to run it, but he really wanted to play it. Eventually, I gave in and agreed to run it and the other players were happy to go along with it.

While chatting to my brother, I asked what it was about Pendragon that he liked and the answer was: Knights. He liked knights. He wanted to play a knight -- wear armour, be Sir somebody-or-other (the "Sir" was important), have a coat of arms, live in a castle. And he'd heard that Pendragon was a game about playing knights. So he wanted to play Pendragon.

Of course, this made it easy because I could do whatever I wanted with the background, so long as the focus remained on knights. And Pendragon is a game about knights. This was third edition, so there wasn't even the possibility within the published rules of playing anything other than a knight.

It even influenced the way I ran the game. All the player characters started off as squires. I figured that since knighthood was important to him, my brother would really enjoy the whole process of actually getting knighted. The ceremony, the change in status, the whole thing. And he did. My brother loved it. The other players enjoyed it as well – even the couple who grumbled about starting off as squires -- "Being someone's assistant is what I do in real  life; it's not what I want in my gaming!" as one of them oh-so-delicately put it.

So, find out what the player wants and be sure to include that.

The more general response.

I've never really understood the desire to use an established setting, such as Star Wars, and not go with the canon. I mean, what's the point? Why not just do a space opera game and incorporate those bits of Star Wars you like?

The only reason to do Star Wars that I can see is:

• you don't have to create the details of the background yourself, you just take them from the source material;
• the players' familiarity with the source material lets them get into the world of the game that much more easily.

If someone is going to change big slabs of the background material, then they loose both of those advantages in return for no real gain. Doing an original space opera game let's you tell players "There's a galactic empire like the one in Star Wars," and the players have a reference point, but don't expect everything to be as they saw in the movies or read in the books or comics. It's only like the one in Star Wars, so if you say this bit or that bit is different, it's only to be expected.

Of course, if you're doing it for someone else, that creates a slightly different dynamic, but I know my by-now quite extensive collection of books on King Arthur and the Arthurian cycle all stem from me running Pendragon all those years ago. I figured if I was going to run a game based on the Arthurian mythos, I should know more about the source material than Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Finally, a convention that has existed in pretty much all the games I've GMed.

Back in the early-to-mid eighties, I was running SuperWorld, Chaosium's superhero game. Something came up in a session -- I think I was describing Heathrow airport and got some detail wrong. One of the players corrected me and, since I didn't want to get into a discussion, I just answered "Not in my world". One of the other players immediately responded with "Oh, you mean on Earth Z?" -- referring to DC Comic's then current practice of having various parallel worlds: Earth 1, Earth 2, Earth X, Earth S and so on.

Everyone liked the suggestion and immediately adopted the term -- all the games I ran took place on Earth Z, a parallel world where things were the way I, as GM, said they were. If something differed from the real world or some canon source, that was because it was Earth Z.

That means when the following happened (as it did occasionally):

Quote from: RPGPunditHowever, be prepared for one major problem: inevitably, geekdom being what it is, you'll have some drooling fanboy in your group claiming that what you're doing isn't correct because Crap Star Wars Novel #9823 says that actually Planet xy has bluish-green clouds not greenish-blue ones.

One of the other players (never me) would automatically answer "Not on Earth Z" and -- with the point having been addressed and answered -- the game would carry on.

I don't if that would work for you, but you could try.

...by-the-way , find myself loving that acronym KOTOR - because its so close in look to my Klingon house name and the name of the Klingon cleric I portray when I do marriages.


 - Ed C.

Quote from: Zoran BekricI've never really understood the desire to use an established setting, such as Star Wars, and not go with the canon. I mean, what's the point? Why not just do a space opera game and incorporate those bits of Star Wars you like?

The only reason to do Star Wars that I can see is:

• you don't have to create the details of the background yourself, you just take them from the source material;
• the players' familiarity with the source material lets them get into the world of the game that much more easily.

If someone is going to change big slabs of the background material, then they loose both of those advantages in return for no real gain. Doing an original space opera game let's you tell players "There's a galactic empire like the one in Star Wars," and the players have a reference point, but don't expect everything to be as they saw in the movies or read in the books or comics. It's only like the one in Star Wars, so if you say this bit or that bit is different, it's only to be expected.

Simply because there's a difference between wanting to "play the movies", and wanting to "play in the Star Wars universe". A licensed setting contains a lot of easy touchstone material to make sure everyone's on the same page. But different people have different comfort zones about how far you stray from that source.

Pastiche means you can't even be sure what aspects of the original inspiration hold true, and which don't.

Case in point which disproves your assertion that you can't muck about with the canon and still be Star Wars: the Knights of the Old Republic games. No Skywalkers in sight, no Galactic Empire, pretty much nothing in common with the events established in the movies. Yet it still feels like Star Wars.

There are some fundamentals which if they're present can still feel like Star Wars, regardless of what elements of canon you're using. Furthermore there are elements which if absent or subverted can stop it feeling like Star Wars, no matter how closely you stick to canon. For added complication, what those fundamentals are seem to vary from person to person.

Quote from: Koltarbecause its so close in look to my Klingon house name and the name of the Klingon cleric I portray when I do marriages.

You know, Koltar, there are moments when I think "you know, Koltar's pretty cool, just a regular guy."  And then you go and say things like this.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditYou know, Koltar, there are moments when I think "you know, Koltar's pretty cool, just a regular guy."  And then you go and say things like this.

RPGPundit

I'm still a regular guy. These days, I only do that stuff for charity events or when I'm requested to . Pretty much disgusted or dissapointed with most of STAR TREK "fandom".


Back to the original gist of the thread.....


 One of the toughest things in some games is trying to come up with maps or starship deckplans quickly.

 The same night were brainstorming possible ideas, I asked if I could use the deckplans of the SERENITY in an Old Republic game. She was resistant to the idea. Said that it belonged i the "Firefly" universe.
 I pointed out that We'd just be using the deckplans....the ship would have a STAR WARS-universe appropriate FTL drive of some kind.


 HeQ, years ago I did a homebrew Sci-Fi universe with a psionically activated hyperspace drive. What did I use for the ship's deckplan?  My Old Empress Marava   deckplan photocopies from classic TRAVELLER - of course!


- Ed C.

Quote from: KoltarOne of the toughest things in some games is trying to come up with maps or starship deckplans quickly.

 The same night were brainstorming possible ideas, I asked if I could use the deckplans of the SERENITY in an Old Republic game. She was resistant to the idea. Said that it belonged i the "Firefly" universe.
 I pointed out that We'd just be using the deckplans....the ship would have a STAR WARS-universe appropriate FTL drive of some kind.

Um, unless it's really material to an assault on a capital ship or something, deckplans are largely irrelevant in a Star Wars game. I mean come on, did you see anything remotely like planning when Luke, Han and Chewie "rescued" Leia?

But again, it's a style of playing Star Wars thing.