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So I'm thinking of giving the gameplay mechanics from this thread a shot: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/600387.page

I'm thinking of a Star Wars campaign, but I don't have much of an idea of the expanded universe.

Basically, what I'm running into is:
- No idea for antagonist. (might be Sith)
- The characters might start as hired mercenaries. Is there a more interesting way to hook them into the adventure?
- I understand there's an Old Republic and a New Republic. Which would be an easier setting to work with?
- Oh! And ideas for a story hook would be appreciated too.

I can do some research on Wookiepedia (yes, that exists) I just need a few pointers of what to look for to get a better grasp of the basic setting. Any ideas?

I think if you can settle on a time period and a campaign 'style' everything else will fall in to place pretty easily. Do you want to run an overt military style campaign? A thoughtful investigative campaign? A classic space opera? Do you want to try your hand at a kingdom building campaign? Ultimately that choice will come down to which style your players feel most at home with (if you have some in mind already) and also, what sort of sessions you like running. If you hate running combat encounters all the time, it might be best to stay aware from the military campaign!

As for the era, it can be somewhat dictated by style of game you want to run* but really you should go with what you love - or at least, what you know. For example, if you grew up watching the original movies and that IS Star Wars to you, go ahead and play in that period. On the other hand if you like the idea of having lots of Sith and Jedi running around in the universe, the New Republic era is pretty good too.

* I recently ran an espionage-style campaign that initially masqueraded as a straight-up military campaign. For me, the best time period to set that in was the Clone Wars era.

Well, the basic setting of Star Wars is traditional fantasy and TV serials like Flash Gordon. The basic premise consists of a young, idealistic teenager who discovers he is a knight with the help of a wizard, teams up with a thief of a heart of gold and his big heavy sidekick to rescue a princess from a fortress guarded by the Black Knight. A lot of these tropes are subverted, the thief isn't afraid be a bit bloodthirsty, the princess isn't exactly a damsel in distress, she's very competent and so on.

You can play with these tropes displayed in the movies with their subversions. It's very black and white. Good is good, evil is evil, there's no moral quandary or hesitation. You play with primal themes of hope, growing up and family. The action and dialogue flows thick and fast.

You can turn all that on his head and play quite a gritty game as well, as exemplified by many of the books, comics and games, the universe that's hinted at when Han guns down Greedo. Or you can run anything in between.

Star Wars is all about its grand sweeping themes. The original trilogy is about family, the prequels attempt to tackle love. Pick a theme like discovery for example. You could run an Indiana Jones style game with all the trappings of a 30s pulp comic book, or run Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with all its intrigue and deception.

Think big and grand, decide what the game is about. Then decide how you want the game to feel. And as always talk to your players.

Star Wars will run you into the same problem that kills every major franchise RPG that I'm aware of. (On the campaign level.)

It all boils down to this. If you run a game during the rebellion, then why do your characters matter? The most important story in that setting has already been told. And it didn't involve them.

I don't know all the ins-and-outs of the Old Republic, but I think there are time periods in there where the story hasn't already been defined, where you can squeeze your players in and still have them be relevant without changing the story.

Sure, maybe the most important story has already been told, that doesn't mean that there isn't *other* stories out there. I don't see why that's a complaint.

For example, bring your campaign to a distant sector. You're Rebels in an area with very little Rebel presence. The local Imperial Governor or Moff, is a massive jerk, doing all sorts of typically nasty things. The fate of the galaxy may be decided on Endor, but that isn't going to help you, or the people in your sector.

Maybe you're given a mission to take the Imperial Moff out? Maybe you were hired by the Moff's second in command. - Could he just be using you to do his dirty work for him? Maybe he actually is a Rebel Sympathiser. What if he is... And has been forced to do those horrible things?

There's all sorts of play to be had there, even just confined in a small area of space. - A few fully fleshed out planets, for example.

 Compel wrote:
Sure, maybe the most important story has already been told, that doesn't mean that there isn't *other* stories out there. I don't see why that's a complaint.

For example, bring your campaign to a distant sector. You're Rebels in an area with very little Rebel presence. The local Imperial Governor or Moff, is a massive jerk, doing all sorts of typically nasty things. The fate of the galaxy may be decided on Endor, but that isn't going to help you, or the people in your sector.

Maybe you're given a mission to take the Imperial Moff out? Maybe you were hired by the Moff's second in command. - Could he just be using you to do his dirty work for him? Maybe he actually is a Rebel Sympathiser. What if he is... And has been forced to do those horrible things?

There's all sorts of play to be had there, even just confined in a small area of space. - A few fully fleshed out planets, for example.

Players who don't feel like they are the stars of their own stories have a tendency to become disillusioned. It's like an omnipresent weight in the back of their minds, reminding them over and over again that no matter what they do, they're never going to be as important as Luke and Han. Otherwise the movies would have been about them.

You could try to shoehorn your characters in, of course, but in epics (like Star Wars) you run the risk of having this isolation seem contrived.

I'm not saying don't run the game during the Rebellion. I'm just saying that it IS a legitimate thing to be wary of, and to prepare for. As a DM, it's something that has to be used or worked around.

Ennui is probably the #1 killer of RPG campaigns, at least in my experience. A good DM will plan for how to stave that off, and in RPG's based around sci-fi or TV franchises (especially epic stories like Star Wars) can be especially prone to it, so it's something to watch for.

On the other hand, many franchises do pull it off successfully. Ben Sisko doesn't get any less awesome because Picard exists, who doesn't get any less awesome because Kirk existed.

Even in Star Wars, you have dozens and dozens of stories that aren't about Luke and Han. - The Rogue Squadron series barely features them, and they're amongst the most popular books. Ditto for the classic Jedi Knight games.

The most important thing, in my view, is to give the players their own setting. Sisko has the Gamma Quadrant, Voyager has the Delta Quadrant.

If you make a setting with boundaries, like what I suggested for the 'Remote Star Cluster governed by Moff Jerkface' you let your players carve out their own niche, irrespective of what Luke, Han and buddies are up to.

Even Star Wars themselves are doing it now, with their independent Yoda and Boba Fett films that are being planned. Oh, and, of course, Star Wars: Rebels.

Wow. Very interesting ideas. Thanks!

@Siygess: Good idea! That will help a lot. I've thought about it for a bit. I'm thinking of something from a more space opera angle. I might be able to incorporate Mass Effect's War Assets system with a bit of tweaking.

@Zond: I'm sort of aiming for the usual tropes in this one. The common Good vs Evil should work nicely. Inversion of them would certainly work in my favor though.

@Jimsolo: Yeah, that's why I was still debating whether Old Republic or New Republic would work best. I was thinking of an age after the events, say the republic was restored to its former glory. That way, not only can the campaign start fresh, but can allow for some creativity for the setting and some liberty to what it can look like (ex. Jedi temple restored, small remnants of the Empire still linger, etc.)

@Compel: That can be a good way to start. Let's say four people are hired to hunt a corrupt governor and realize there's a bigger plot at work?

Thanks again guys!

Since this is for my game, I suppose I'd better give some suggestions and experience (and thanks for giving it a shot, by the way. Have you got the V2 updated rules from the OP of the thread? There's a few slight tweaks to the EXP system and testing).

Anyway, for the initial campaign I've been running, I've gone with the following:

It's set in the immediate aftermath of the Jedi-Sith war, in the Old Republic, and so force-users as a whole are distrusted by most. I set it in the city of Mos Eisley (think Wild West with lasers; as Obi-wan says, 'a more wretched hive of scum and villainy you'd be hard pressed to find), and the 'first leg' so far has revolved around the characters trying to escape the city.

When they landed, they were met with the guy whose ship they had stolen, and he demanded they pay the cost of it (3000 credits) by sunset or would have to find alternative transport off-world and a bounty would be put on them. I also offered them a very direct way of getting those credits; there was a 3000 credit bounty on a suspected Sith in the city, alive or dead (you can see the Wild West influences here).

And a summary of how it's gone so far, which might give you a few ideas:


Hope that gives you an idea or two; the reason I did a SW expansion as the first was because you can do western-style stuff, espionage, combat, adventurey quests, and all sorts of other stuff.

Oh, I didn't see the updated version. I'll go look for it in a bit.

I guess I should say this in advance. Since it's more or less for testing the mechanics, I'm going at it alone (Well... that and I have nobody to do it with too. I'm thinking of coming up with a player "AI" to play with. Allows for a bit more liberty at least)

The start you proposed Paradigm, should work nicely! I can certainly work out something from this. Thanks!

No worries about going it solo, I've only had one player and a bunch of NPCs and it's worked ok. Let me know what you think of it.

Oh good. I was worried you would be a bit disappointed. I'll let you know on your thread after I test it out.
Thanks again!

there are a lot of star wars books out their in the expanded universe and single internet search of what are the best books could give you a bunch of ideas about what your

campaign could be about. Also if you want to do something that is during the timelines of the movies there is plenty of stuff that happens of screen. like how the Bothans

got the plans to the death star in return of the jedi, also between the the 4th and 5th movies the rebels had to relocate to Hoth maybe your group could have been the

people who found the planet for the rebels that could be and interesting campaign. For campaigns that have ideas from the expanded universe my pick would probably

be Outbound Flight here's the link to the summary http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Outbound_Flight_(novel). a campaign about a exploration team going into unexplored

space could be very interesting and possibly a way to make you own alien race.

Heck, why not flip it around completely. Set it in the time between Clone Wars and Rebellion. Your players are an elite Imperial unit assigned to go undercover and operate with minimal support to eliminate threats to the Empire. Here's your gear, here's your unmarked credit cards, now go hunt some Jedi!

A plucky band of heros tries to overthrow an evil galactic menace, perhaps even an "Empire" controlled by a dark and mysterious magician.

dementedwombat wrote:Heck, why not flip it around completely. Set it in the time between Clone Wars and Rebellion. Your players are an elite Imperial unit assigned to go undercover and operate with minimal support to eliminate threats to the Empire. Here's your gear, here's your unmarked credit cards, now go hunt some Jedi!

Or play in the Legacy era and enjoy an exciting new geopolitical setup in a gritty post-war galaxy!

I've been running Star Wars games since junior year of highschool... um.. a long time ago. I 've had multiple campaigns and multiple groups and set them all in multiple eras. Star Wars is wide-open enough that you can do just about anything with it, if you take the time to plan it out.

One of my favorite campaigns was an Imperial Navy spec-force campaign set during the Rebellion era. I had everyone make characters and decide on their political affiliation (pro-Empire, pro-Palpatine, in it for themselves, secret Rebel sympathizer) and only reveal it to me in private. Then I made sure to put missions in front of the players that would conflict with at least one person's beliefs/agenda. Of course, the players had to work together to survive, but the whole time they had the internecine politics of the Empire running as an undercurrent through the game. It was probably the best eight months I've ever run in any game.

I ran a smuggler/independant game set in the Rebellion era. That one neatly avoided the problems of players feeling that their characters weren't important, because their characters weren't interested in overthrowing the Empire. They were interested in money and good times, and avoided politics completely. Lots of bounty hunters, lots of Hutts, some stormtroopers, and no Force shenannigans at all.

Currently, I'm running a campaign set during the Clone Wars era, but I am ignoring 95% of everything from the Prequels. My players were willing to let me reconstruct the whole era from the ground up, and so far things seem to be going well. I haven't made the focus of the campaign the war, though. I've put the party through dungeon crawls into ancient ruins, set them on scavenger hunts for forbidden Sith relics, had them match wits with a pirate queen, hunt down escapees from death row, and let them hang out with the coolest Jedi Knight ever; BRIAN BLESSED.

TL;DR Star Wars is a setting that you can put any kind of story into. You can run a western, a horror story, a pulp adventure, a gritty war drama, a swashbuckling (space) pirate epic; anything. Find out what your players want to do and then translate that into Star Wars.

I've been planning a Star Wars game based on the intertwining story lines from SWTOR. The guys that I would run that game with haven't played it so they don't know how the story goes. It is mostly a framework with them having having different stories for each class on each planet and how they unfold it depends entirely on who they talk to and when. I was planning on skipping over the starting planets and just give the players a hand-out that listed why they are where they are and how they are all tied together. The Knight and Consular have been assigned to solve a mystery, the trooper to find some traitors and help the Jedi. The smuggler is an old friend of one of the other characters there to find their ship, clear their name, keep from being a carbonite statue, and maybe make a little money.

 Jimsolo wrote:
It all boils down to this. If you run a game during the rebellion, then why do your characters matter?

You can always turn that knowledge around on them though. I ran a game during the lead up to the Clone Wars. My players were tracking a Jedi who had gone rogue, force visions having driven him mad. His end goal? Eliminating a certain senator who was a threat to the entire galaxy (dot dot dot).

Basically in the end the characters were fighting one of their own to protect Senator Palpatine, even as the players themselves knew they were digging their own eventual graves. Good times.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Star Wars will run you into the same problem that kills every major franchise RPG that I'm aware of. (On the campaign level.)

It all boils down to this. If you run a game during the rebellion, then why do your characters matter? The most important story in that setting has already been told. And it didn't involve them.

I don't know all the ins-and-outs of the Old Republic, but I think there are time periods in there where the story hasn't already been defined, where you can squeeze your players in and still have them be relevant without changing the story.

I can see your point, but fundamentally, I disagree! Sure, Luke, Leia, Vader, etc were the movers and shakers at the core of the struggle, but we're talking about a Galaxy here! So the Empire fell on Endor, but does that mean every Imperial outpost simply packed up and went home? Who were those Bothan spies that gave their lives to get those Death Star secrets? There's such a wealth of story opportunity within Star Wars I don't think your fears are founded! Only the most disruptive and unimaginative players would feel they need to be more important than Luke or Vader, and let's face it, are those the kind of guys you really want to roleplay with?

But is all the story told? We see the major events from the perspectives of the core characters yes, there are plenty of aspects to that story that we don't see. Some are mentioned with single lines to bring the audience up to date or just not touched upon.

Who where the Bothans who died to bring the rebellion information about the 2nd Death Star? How did they do it?
Who was the Bounty Hunter Han ran in to on Ord Mantell, which made him decided to leave the Rebellion at the start of Empire?
What happened between the battle Yavin and Rebels settling on Hoth?
Where did Lando and Chewbacca look before discovering that Han had been sold to Jabba the Hutt?
How did the rebellion go from being a shattered and demoralised force after Hoth to being one capable of an assault on the Death Star by the time of Jedi?

Those are just a few off the top of my head, there must be loads more.

Some of these questions have probably been touched upon by the Expanded Universe stuff, though I’ve not read much of it. But there is nothing to stop a player filling in the gaps.

Exactly. It's like those people who complained to BW it wouldn't be Mass Effect if it wasn't about Shepard. Whut? A setting's background is about the world(s), not just a handful of characters.

You don't even have to touch the rebellion at all in a Star Wars campaign, even if you play during the Rebellion Era. There was an entire galaxy full of people who just wanted to get by! Merchants, smugglers, pirates, mercenaries, colonists, miners ... hell, how about a campaign in the independent entities of the Corporate Sector, or the Hapes Cluster, or Hutt Space, just to get away from the Civil War? Go pick a fight with the CSA Espos, Hutt mercs or Hapan nobility!

Imho, Star Wars does not necessarily mean it has to be about lightsabers and X-Wings.

To give another example, think of the Galactic Civil War/Star Wars as being like WW2.

You've seen a few movies showing the key Events, say Battle of Britain, Stalingrad, The Longest Day and Downfall. You might have a idea from those as to how the general course of the war unfolds, but just how much about an entire war can you possibly know from a handful of two hour films?

Very little, that’s what. For every bit of action on the screen there will be hundreds more bits of fighting, scheming and secret missions that went on during the war that haven’t been covered by those films.

Even the end of the Return of the Jedi doesn’t signify the end of the war, the Emperor may be dead and a huge power vacuum in place, but the apparatus of the Empire is still largely intact and the Imperial Navy is still massive.