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Yora
2017-07-25, 04:48 AM
I've been taking a bit of a break from my Sword & Sorcery RPG work and currently play around with ideas for a Star Wars campaign. And one of the big challenges I see as a long time D&D GM is to really capture the style of Star Wars without making the campaign to be more or less generic with a coat of Star Wars paint over it.

As reference here I am referring to the first three moves. Most people feel that Ep 1 to 3 went rather wrong with this in several ways an in my own view the new movies appear to go off into a completely different direction that doesn't really do it for me.

So I've been thinking about what I would consider to be essential elements that need to be there to properly emulate the style of the old movies. And the really big things I found is visiting these amazing locations and environments and encountering badass larger than life characters. That Used Future look of rust, oil, and dust is also pretty important.
But what certainly isn't a big drawing point of the movies is intricate plots. No, it really isn't the plots. The first movie has a plot that is famously paint by numbers, the second one doesn't really have a discernable plot structure, and the third movie is two completely different stories taped back to back. The story that there is in Star Wars is entirely character driven. Luke has his personal story and Han and Leia have their story that progress through all three movies, but the bigger picture around them is really simplistic. The villains don't have multi-step plans and there are no mysteries for the heroes to explore and solve. With the exception of Lando and Yoda, no new characters are met and estabished a relationship with.

Because of this, I think a Star Wars campaign that tries to go straight to the original source probably wouldn't work by coming up with a villain who has a grand plan that the heroes need to prevent from being completed. That only kind of happens in Revenge of the Sith and in that case the heroes completely fail. Instead I think the true heart of Star Wars adventures lies in amazing action scenes against memorable foes in stunning fantastic environments. But just having a bunch of fights is not going to be enough to sustain a long campaign if there are no stakes. Stakes that I think need to be presonal and can't simply be about pursuing the greater good for the benefit of the galaxy.

How would you even begin to run a character driven campaign and to sustain it over time?

Corsair14
2017-07-25, 07:40 AM
Think big. We ran a campaign for almost a decade. Now ours wasn't exactly cohesive and we swapped GMs fairly often if someone had an idea to run with, so our adventures were often one off adventures led by the characters. Usually they were fairly loosely run. The GM had an idea and presented it at the start of the adventurer as part of the story and we went with it. We had Eric Nightdrifter who was a failed jedi(template) trying for redemption and to figure out how to properly use force powers to correctly handle a lightsaber, I forget the smuggler's name but he started as a "I want to be Han Solo but cooler," character when we were HS freshmen. I played a Twilek gunslinger and pilot working towards freedom of Ryloth from the Hutt slave cartels(at the time there wasn't a lot of info on the subject as there is now). Every adventure kind of moved someone forward in their personal stories but like I said rarely was there a sequence of adventures tied together. We only dealt with a movie character once in the game where we were learning to play and were not expecting to keep the characters. We went through numerous ships, pet droids, used storm trooper bodies as shields, started adventures being woke up tied to poles in the jungle naked surrounded by raw meat, impersonated Imperial admirals and stole a super star destroyer and found weird cults with ancient jedi and sith artifacts.

Because of how expansive star wars is I urge you to consider perhaps an over-reaching story but make the adventures rough outlines. There's no telling what PCs will do and head off to so you want to play loosely with the adventure. Think big. Everything in Star Wars is big. Big giant war machines and stupidly huge ships, awesome planetary vistas and space worms, larger than life characters.

I don't know what your plan for the campaign would be but starting perhaps as privateers vs or for the Empire. Intelligence agents for or against the empire. A young jedi padawon who was overlooked in the Purge and is trying to teach himself jedi abilities while hiding from the ever searching eyes of the Inquisition or like my friends character, a jedi who couldn't take it, earned a couple dark side points and spends most of his time in a bar with a bottle reminiscing about the good old days but is trying to make a comeback.

What system are you using? We played the older WEG d6 system(which is now completely free and downloadable) which allowed for absolute freedom when making characters since it was a classless system. Also very easy to GM since everything is based off a D6 and a simple difficulty system. I looked into the FFG system and found it far too restrictive and complicated for whats supposed to be a fast smooth game.

TheYell
2017-07-25, 08:03 AM
As you say, a challenge even for the owners of the franchise.

Takes me back to the 1980s and watching Episodes IV - VI for the first time...
To begin with, it's a story of growth. Luke starts out a dirt farmer and has to grow into a hotshot pilot. But that's not enough, he has to be a Jedi. But that's not enough; he's nowhere near as badass as Darth Vader. So he becomes a Jedi Knight, but he doesn't conquer Vader in a duel of Force powers. He's got to morally overwhelm him with a sense of principle.

Han Solo starts out as a freewheeling pirate; ends up putting his own neck in the noose on a suicide mission that involves giving away his ship; becomes the steady boyfriend.

Leia goes from being a somewhat helpless pawn of events to being an active combatant with a promise of Force powers.

Your main characters need to change in some way to overcome their challenges.

It's misleading. Luke wins by refusing to use the Force. Vader wins by being a good dad. Han Solo doesn't triumph with his fancy boat. Lando wins by being loyal when the deal goes sour. Figure out what your main characters are best at and deny them their strengths at the climax.


Big-Time Heroes. Only Luke can take out the Death Star. Only Han can stop Darth Vader from shooting him down. Only Luke can turn Vader. Only Vader can stand behind the Emperor's elbow. Only Leia can befriend the Ewoks. Only C3PO can talk to them. Only Han can come up with the plan. Only Lando can keep Akbar from running.

Don't be afraid to make the characters pivotal actors in what is going on. Have others rely on them for major decisions.

In for the duration. Most of the conflicts in the first 3 films are very short term. Blow up THIS battlestation. Escape. Rescue. Blow up THIS battlestation. It's only the presence of the Emperor that makes it a decisive victory at the end.

Have your players carry out mundane task in escalating intensity and importance. Give them a showdown at the end.

Loyalty to the party. Luke disobeys Yoda to show this. It's a sign of Lando's and Han's growth that they embrace this. Don't avoid "sidetracking" the campaign to keep the party together.

Putting it all together: The party will tackle a series of challenges, none of them overtly fatal-- a lot of captures if they're defeated, setting up rescues. The party must develop a sense of loyalty to each other that is seemingly greater than their overall quest. However, they should be looking for dramatic contests with clearly defined adversaries when they have developed to the point this seems possible. However, when the showdown emerges, they should be at a dramatic disadvantage. They should feel pressed to continue anyhow by other forces and by the urgency of the situation. By using their new development in surprising ways they will completely triumph.

Now as to how you do that... if I knew that I'd sell it to Disney for a fat wad of cash.

CharonsHelper
2017-07-25, 08:06 AM
In addition to "what system are you using?" (there are several pretty solid ones now with quite different feels) I'll also ask "what timeline are you using?"

Because if it's during episodes 4-6, I think you'll be a bit limited. While the galaxy is a big place, those plotlines suck up a LOT of the air. Especially if a PC or two want to play Jedi, it limits their backstories. Setting it in The Old Republic might be easier. (I'm assuming that you played KOTR.)

I really wouldn't recommend making them the heroes of the galaxy. The galaxy is a big place and there are plenty of smaller stories to tell with the PCs still being badasses.


Luke starts out a dirt farmer

Doesn't he technically start as a sand farmer? :smalltongue:

Corsair14
2017-07-25, 08:38 AM
It really doesn't limit the jedi greatly. Just means they cant go openly waving around a lightsaber for people to see. The Empire knows there are jedi they missed in the purge thus why they created the Inquisitors to go hunt down rumors of them and turn or kill them. Most surviving jedi are not very powerful and many would have been padawans whose masters took one in order for them to escape. Do they play a big role in the galaxy, nope. Most are struggling to learn the force by themselves while keeping a low profile. I doubt Vader publicized that Luke was a force user. Even if rumors of the Rebels having a jedi knight got out, it would likely take a long time before a low profile padawan would even hear about it. The Rebels too would have wanted to keep the fact they had a jedi in their ranks to a low murmur. It took two years for word of the Endor incident to reach Coruscant(a great deal due to a media blackout on it) so information travels very slow from the rim to the core and even longer from one end of the rim to the other.

It could be the source of a few adventures. There were many types of jedi and not all of them specialized in being combat leaders or knights. In the books there are several mentions of jedi who specialized in agriculture and simply assisted worlds that needed their help and many of them were on far flung worlds doing that job when the Purge occurred. There was a novel I read where a master sacrificed himself along with some commandoes to let his padawan and some useless farmer jedi escape from Vader.

kraftcheese
2017-07-25, 09:04 AM
Doesn't he technically start as a sand farmer? :smalltongue:
I believe that Owen and Beru were moisture farmers, actually. :smalltongue:

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-25, 09:37 AM
Because Star Wars takes place in space, and has blasters and FTL ships and space battles and a myriad alien species, it's very easy to mistake it for science fiction, rather than the space fantasy that it is.

And as such, the game can easily take a left turn into obsessing over the technology and minutia, little details and differences, and become an arms race. Not sure how to avoid that, it happened to me multiple times, but then it's also how I think... worldbuilding is my drug.


Of all the systems I've tried for Star Wars, the old WEG d6 is still the best.

The various d20s aren't really suited with classes and levels, it makes the progression strange and shoehorns the characters into tighter boxes than we see in the source material. FFG's Star Wars system... it has narrative intent and narrative wallpaper, but somewhere in between it got lost up its own crunch; and again, very class-heavy character building. Both are too unwieldy to capture the freewheeling quick-fire feel of the original trilogy.

Bohandas
2017-07-25, 09:48 AM
As reference here I am referring to the first three moves. Most people feel that Ep 1 to 3 went rather wrong with this in several ways an in my own view the new movies appear to go off into a completely different direction that doesn't really do it for me.

Episodes 1-3 went wrong in some ways but were unmistakably Star Wars. What you really want to avoid is Rogue One.

Corsair14
2017-07-25, 10:33 AM
Why would you want to avoid Rogue One? It was the best Star Wars movie since Empires. The Guns of Navarone meets Star Wars. The upcoming movie has a high bar to reach to get past R1. The space battle was right up there with RoTJ if not better even.

By itself it would make a great series of adventures. Just don't have the PCs blown up by the super weapon at the end.

Yora
2017-07-25, 10:53 AM
Think big. Everything in Star Wars is big. Big giant war machines and stupidly huge ships, awesome planetary vistas and space worms, larger than life characters.
While seemingly a trivial statement, I think this is actually really important.


Big-Time Heroes.[/B] Only Luke can take out the Death Star. Only Han can stop Darth Vader from shooting him down. Only Luke can turn Vader. Only Vader can stand behind the Emperor's elbow. Only Leia can befriend the Ewoks. Only C3PO can talk to them. Only Han can come up with the plan. Only Lando can keep Akbar from running.

Don't be afraid to make the characters pivotal actors in what is going on. Have others rely on them for major decisions.

In for the duration. Most of the conflicts in the first 3 films are very short term. Blow up THIS battlestation. Escape. Rescue. Blow up THIS battlestation. It's only the presence of the Emperor that makes it a decisive victory at the end.

Have your players carry out mundane task in escalating intensity and importance. Give them a showdown at the end.


Because Star Wars takes place in space, and has blasters and FTL ships and space battles and a myriad alien species, it's very easy to mistake it for science fiction, rather than the space fantasy that it is.

One of the distinguishing aspects of Star Wars that really makes it stand apart is that it doesn'r work on rational logic but completely embraces a dramatic logic. Star Wars has managed to successfully establish a style of storytelling where it no longer matters whether things are reasonable or plausible as long as they are narratively dramatic. It's always full of stuff that are obviously impossible and can not be, even if you account for the existance of the Force. But it doesn't matter because the stories never go into such questions of how these things can be. (Or at least it shouldn't, once you start going down this path everything would start coming apart very quickly.) That's really the main thing that makes it firmly grounded in fantasy to me.
Star Wars is also pretty famous for its huge amount of amazing coincidences. People happen to meet at the right time at the right place all the time against all odds, and very wisely nobody ever mentions what amazing luck it is and just roll with it.

I think the lesson here is to make use of very improbable things and events a lot but never point out how unlikely or improbable they are, either as a plot point or as a joke. This is just how this setting works.


What system are you using? We played the older WEG d6 system(which is now completely free and downloadable) which allowed for absolute freedom when making characters since it was a classless system. Also very easy to GM since everything is based off a D6 and a simple difficulty system. I looked into the FFG system and found it far too restrictive and complicated for whats supposed to be a fast smooth game.


Of all the systems I've tried for Star Wars, the old WEG d6 is still the best.

The various d20s aren't really suited with classes and levels, it makes the progression strange and shoehorns the characters into tighter boxes than we see in the source material. FFG's Star Wars system... it has narrative intent and narrative wallpaper, but somewhere in between it got lost up its own crunch; and again, very class-heavy character building. Both are too unwieldy to capture the freewheeling quick-fire feel of the original trilogy.

WEG is a really nice system, though currently I am favoring Apocalypse World with Omega Edition Star Wars hack myself. Since things in Star Wars happen not by what would reasonably happen but by what would be most dramatic, I think a system to run a game really needs to be very light about the impact of equipment. It's not math that determines the outcome of a confrontation. Numbers and firepower really matter very little. All the armies lined up in front of the hearoes have as little meaning as the armies lined up behind them. It's their own character stories that matter alone.


Episodes 1-3 went wrong in some ways but were unmistakably Star Wars. What you really want to avoid is Rogue One.
Good to see I am not completely alone on this. Rogue One felt to me like a generic early 2000s war movie that had raided the Star Wars props trunk. Rogue One and also Force Awakens made me greatly appreciate the creative artistic work of George Lucas. While his scripts and directing are still terrible, I can now see what he brought to the production of the first three movies. The creativity and atmosphere that the prequels still had but the new movies lack.

Actana
2017-07-25, 11:09 AM
One thing that I think is a bit understated but still important in Star Wars is the feeling that the Galaxy is a large place. There are countless alien species, places to go, and as mentioned, they're all so very large in scale. Places rarely get reused without reason (Jabba being the unifying factor in Tatooine in the original trilogy - let's not speak of the prequels and how the planet was somehow so important to everything), and there's always somewhere else to go, something else to see.

The Galaxy in Star Wars should be painted in vivid colors and large scale. But, at the same time, each location works their own narrative purpose that is rarely ventured beyond. In a sense, planets in Star Wars have the same purpose as cities or nations in other settings. The distances and scale simply differ.

goto124
2017-07-25, 11:12 AM
One of the distinguishing aspects of Star Wars that really makes it stand apart is that it doesn'r work on rational logic but completely embraces a dramatic logic.

Would Fate be a good base for Star Wars? Or a PbtA system?


All the armies lined up in front of the hearoes have as little meaning as the armies lined up behind them.

Is there a system that models Conservation of Ninjutsu?

CharonsHelper
2017-07-25, 11:15 AM
Is there a system that models Conservation of Ninjutsu?

Lol - doesn't League of Legends do that a bit? For every other of the ninjas on your team you lose 1hp. (pretty insignificant - but still funny)

BRC
2017-07-25, 12:02 PM
Star Wars is one of the best examples I can think of when it comes to setting the precise tone of the piece (My personal favorite is always the short story A Small Room in Koboldtown, which I will gush about if given half a chance).

The Title Crawl is what i'm referring to. You know, This Thing:

"It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire.
During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.
Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy...."

This is the narrative equivalent of the teacher giving you a pop quiz on the first day of class, or of a Rock band rising out of the stage in columns of smoke and pyrotechnics.

It throws a TON of concepts at you, each one understandable enough that you don't get lost, but alien enough that you never feel like you understand the universe, and nor should you,.

Rebel Spaceship, Evil Empires, a Death Star, a Princess, Sinister Agents. You know what those mean in general, but not what they mean HERE. In addition to setting a tone of high adventure, the opening crawl knocks the audience out of the world they know, and into a strange universe full of possibilities.

So that when a guy in black armor with a laser sword stomps onto the ship, you not only accept it, you trust that this is a living universe, not constrained by what it's shown you. The story then becomes one of discovery. Once you accept that you don't know this world, every aspect of it that is revealed becomes fantastical.

The opening moments of the film are then a series of oneupmanship. First you see Leia's ship, and just when you accept that this thing is a starship, the Star Destroyer comes into view, and you are wowed again.
You see the Rebel soldiers readying their blasters, "Woah, Cool, Space Lasers", then they get overwhelmed by the Stormtroopers, who in turn pale before the presence of Darth Vader.


Ironically enough, Star Wars itself is a terrible setting for re-capturing this feel. It's well understood by modern audiences, especially those who would play a Star Wars RPG. They know the universe, when the whole reason it worked so well was that the universe itself was unknown, but implied. When Harrison Ford showed up with a sasquatch co-pilot and was threatened by a green dude who claimed to be working for somebody named "Jabba" it worked. Rather than feeling like the story was failing to give us relevant information about the world (Who is Jabba? What is this green Dude? What's with the sasquatch?), it instead felt like we were peeking into a fully realized universe, like it was on us to understand



Now, you can't QUITE get this same "Sucker-Punched out of reality" feel in a tabletop game. Since the Players need to know enough about the setting to make informed decisions on behalf of their characters, but I think you could get the same effect. I have a purely episodic (It's not always even established which order the sessions are taking place in) Space Opera D&D 5e Hack that I start each session (Since it's a bunch of one-shots) in-media-res in order to provide that gut-punch into the world.


The other way to do it is to leave much of the setting intentionally blank, and encourage the players to Yes-And various aspects of the setting as gameplay emerges.

Zombimode
2017-07-25, 12:52 PM
Episodes 1-3 went wrong in some ways but were unmistakably Star Wars. What you really want to avoid is Rogue One.

That's strange. Rouge One (despite it's weaknesses in characters) was the Star Wars movie I was hoping for.

But I guess Star Wars means different things for different people. For me, I've always projected the more mature and gritty version of Star Wars as seen in the Thrawn trilogy on the setting. Rogue One presented the setting in a similar light, so naturally I liked it.

Corsair14
2017-07-25, 01:16 PM
I concur. I wasn't a fan of the too clean vision the pre-quals presented. I actually wished the characters from R1 were the characters for the new trilogy and Finn, Poe and Rey were the ones taken out by the deathstar. They were much better characters and better developed than junk girl Mary Sue, random stormtrooper traitor(who was raised from birth to be a storm trooper but somehow decided to go rogue) and poor man's Wedge.

Yora
2017-07-25, 01:50 PM
The opening crawl is one of the greatest narrative devices ever used in a movie. Imagine how much time other movies would have taken to explain all those basic concepts through character dialog? It could easily have taken up half the movie and would still have been essentially busywork before the actual story can start. Here the movie simply drops the pretense of other movies that everything is actually naturally evolving and simply has a narrator put all the important facts, which really aren't that many, on the table so we can go straight to the good stuff.
However, this really works so well only because Star Wars, in best Campbellian and Freudian fashion, makes extensive use of archetypes for everything. There are almost no really new idea. It's all a remix of old and very well known ideas of concepts that the audience can instantly recognize. Guy in black armor with a skull mask and a red sword needs no explanation. Everyone understands it instantly. The imperial soldiers wear skeleton armor and the officers a simplified version of Nazi uniforms. This immediately tells you everything you need to know. And what is the military situation between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance? No character ever needs to explain this. You immediately understand it in the very first shot: A tiny ship running away from an unbelievably massive behemoth. Or the bounty hunters in The Empire strikes Back. They need no introduction, their appearance tells everything there is to know. Or giant robot war elephants.
People using the Hero's Journey as a template get regularly criticized, but I think Lucas actually got the idea and didn't mindlessly fill in the blanks.

When trying to bring the Star Wars setting to life, I think making use of archetypes in a similar way can do a lot of work for you, just as it did for the making of the movies. When you create a situation, environment, or character, start with a popular and easily recognizable archetype and give it your own spin. Being truly original is not necessary and in this particular case perhaps not even helpful.
While freeform character creation does have many benefits, I think Star Wars is actually a setting in which classes are already backed into the world. Not explicitly, but implicitly you always have the scoundrels, the jedi, the pilots, the nobles, the officers, and the bounty hunters,
And this is also why I think that the preparation of Star Wars campaigns and adventures has to be about something pretty simple and basic. Simple ideas, as other mentioned. Safe the princess, destroy the death star, escape from Hoth, rescue han, destroy the death star. It also has the side effect of greatly reducing the chance of the players hitting a dead end and not being able to get back on track without intervention by the GM, As in the movies, making the immediate scene great is much more important than making the greater narrative clever.

I regard the amount of detail that is now available about the Star Wars galaxy as somewhat problematic as well. The more information you have the greater the temptation for GMs to weave their own adventures into the greater tapestry and the more likely the assumption of the players that everything is somehow tied together. Which I think is why apparently most GM prefer to keep their campaigns well away from any events from the movies. It just gets too complicated and the presence of movie heroes interferes with the agency of the player characters.
My own preference is to set games in remote regions of the galaxy as a matter of principle, and I also really like the Knights of the Old Republic era for exactly that reason. The KotOR galaxy is a much simpler place than the galaxy of the Clone Wars or the New Republic. Somewhat surprisingly, the time of and up to Episode 4 also works really well for that reason. (There's a new big RPG in development right now that is set in that time, which I think is specifically to avoid getting tangled up in the overlapping and conflicting versions of the Expanded Universe.) For my campaign, I want to not even go with the time of Tales of the Jedi or Knights of the Old Republic but 100 or 200 years later when the slate is pretty clean once more. And it's the reason why I won't even try to learn about all the storylines and development from The Old Republic game.

CharonsHelper
2017-07-25, 02:22 PM
And it's the reason why I won't even try to learn about all the storylines and development from The Old Republic game.

Really - the storylines in The Old Republic are generally smaller than KOTR's. Admittedly I haven't played it since its first year or so, but each base class had its own story which was mostly independent of the overarching world.

The big thing which I felt was a missed opportunity for The Old Republic was the lack of asymmetry between the Sith and Republic sides other than cosmetic differences.

The only other issue I had with it was following MMORPG tropes too much. Overall though a game with 8ish decent KOTR lite campaigns.

Actana
2017-07-25, 03:46 PM
One perhaps interesting thing is the idea of logic versus intuition as factors that decide what people do. Star Wars does a lot of things on the latter. Even beyond the obvious Force explanation where Jedi and those attuned to it can "read" the world better, even characters who explicitly deny the Force like Han Solo "have a bad feeling about this" very often.

On the flipside, cold raw logic is a thing of droids. C3PO calculates the odds of surviving asteroid belts and those odds come up very slim. But it is attempted anyway despite logic saying that things won't go well. And they succeed. The stories very often emphasize feeling instead of thinking.

This can be said for many stories, of course, but I feel it's rather prominent in Star Wars.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-25, 03:53 PM
Grist for the mill -- Jedi Philosophy – The Pop Culture Philosopher (http://popculturephilosopher.com/jedi-philosophy/)

There's a tension between the "Jedi are always right about the Force and moral issues" attitude that many hardcore fans and present-day Lucas himself will push, versus the deep fallibility of the Jedi ideology actually shown in the original trilogy.

Tinkerer
2017-07-25, 04:38 PM
Star Wars is an interesting mix of ideas as I'm sure the rest of these posts made clear. It's futuristic but also retro. It embraces the idea of the big heroes but since a lot of the expanded universe went into the small details. People who were following Star Wars in the 90s probably have a different concept of it as people in the 80s or the 00s. Someone earlier was mentioning that they thought that the prequel trilogy embraced the feel where as Ep. 7 and R1 moved away from it, I feel the opposite. When watching Ep. 7 as I was sitting in the theatre and the fellow at the start pulls out the binoculars and they gave a K-CHUNK sound as they focused on what he was looking at I thought "At least the Foley guy gets Star Wars."

My best advice to you is to just talk to your party and ask them something like "When I mention Star Wars what springs to mind?" I've talked to hundreds of people over the years about it and each one of them gave me a slightly different response, best to ensure that you and your specific players are on the same page.

One really neat thing to check out for the feel of the storytelling of Star Wars is on YouTube. Star Wars Minus Star Wars by Kyle Kallgren. It's Star Wars Ep. 4 retold using entirely clips from other media showing the influence that it had on others and the influence others had on it. Highly recommend it.

Thrudd
2017-07-25, 07:45 PM
The feel of Star Wars - a rag tag group with some snarky banter and humor. A behemoth enemy that can't be faced head-on by conventional means (without consequences). Cool locales with aliens and unique environments to deal with. Desperate missions to infiltrate, escape, rescue, sabotage, smuggle things under the nose of the empire/crime boss, etc. There must be occasional vehicle chases, spaceship dogfights. Vehicles and Starships with character - breaking down, getting fixed, held together with space duct tape and hydrospanners. Occasional environmental hazards like asteroids, space worms, sea monsters, and Saarlac pits that guys can fall into/get eaten by. Huge things getting blown up sometimes.

That stuff should be liberally sprinkled throughout most game sessions and adventures, making sure that it is all flavored according to the characters' motivations and goals and situation in a naturally flowing/emerging nature. When in doubt, throw some stormtroopers or pirates in there and have a good old blaster fight to keep things exciting.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-25, 08:27 PM
Good point -- whatever system you use has to be able to handle vehicle and space combat in a way that makes the ships "cool" but still keeps the characters "in the lead roles".

Bohandas
2017-07-25, 08:47 PM
Why would you want to avoid Rogue One? It was the best Star Wars movie since Empires. The Guns of Navarone meets Star Wars. The upcoming movie has a high bar to reach to get past R1. The space battle was right up there with RoTJ if not better even.

By itself it would make a great series of adventures. Just don't have the PCs blown up by the super weapon at the end.

It's a decent movie but it doesn't feel like Star Wars. The tone is completely wrong and there are numerous retcons and plot holes.

Furthermore lot of the characters are implicitly changed around. Tarkin is no longer the coldly efficient guy who blows up Alderaan to make a statement, it's now clear that he's just a guy who likes to blow crap up for any excuse he can think of. and Leia is no longer on a fake diplomatic mission as a cover, now she's just a terrible liar.

Plus it seems like they made a conscious decision to kill off all the major characters. Like they didn't just tone down the plot armor or something like that, a lot of the characters got killed off in ways that made neither logical nor narrative sense; like a complete diabolus ex machina.

And what was up with that slow moving explosion when they did the low power superlaser test? I think most of the people in Jedha city could have saved themselves by walking away from the epicenter at a brisk pace. This in turn means that the film also has its own internal tonal inconsistencies, because in the middle of what's otherwise the grittiest Star Wars film to date we have a rehash of the central gag from an old episode of Invader Zim (http://zim.wikia.com/wiki/Walk_for_Your_Lives)

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-25, 08:51 PM
It's a decent movie but it doesn't feel like Star Wars. The tone is completely wrong and there are numerous retcons and plot holes.

Furthermore lot of the characters are implicitly changed around. Tarkin is no longer the coldly efficient guy who blows up Alderaan to make a statement, it's now clear that he's just a guy who likes to blow crap up for any excuse he can think of. and Leia is no longer on a fake diplomatic mission as a cover, now she's just a terrible liar.

Plus it seems like they made a conscious decision to kill off all the major characters. Like they didn't just tone down the plot armor or something like that, a lot of the characters got killed off in ways that made neither logical nor narrative sense; like a complete diabolus ex machina.

And what was up with that slow moving explosion when they did the low power superlaser test? I think most of the people in Jedha city could have saved themselves by walking away from the epicenter at a brisk pace.

"Walk for your lives!"

Rogue 1 gets a lot of love for being "gritty" and "different", but it's really a mediocre movie that needlessly undermined much of what we were shown and told in previous cannon material (ANH, TCW series, etc) in the pursuit of being edgy for the sake of edgy.

goto124
2017-07-26, 03:54 AM
There's a tension between the "Jedi are always right about the Force and moral issues" attitude that many hardcore fans and present-day Lucas himself will push, versus the deep fallibility of the Jedi ideology actually shown in the original trilogy.

Since the Jedi will mostly likely be PCs, we'll probably end up with the deeply fallible version :smallamused:

Florian
2017-07-26, 04:31 AM
I tend to agree that the strength of the original "Star Wars Feeling" was the heavy use of easy to recognize archetypes (without having the need to either point that out or subvert it) and the pure focus on the heroes journey/dramatic character development.
Itīs obvious that the answer to anything is never "technologies" or "the Force", but always growths in the face of adversary.

A lot of that got lost with the expanded universe. I can totally understand why some people prefer the more "gritty" approach of Thrawn or R1, but thatīs cold "Droid Logic" and a different appeal then the "Force Logic" of the first trilogy, Force Awakens or KotOR1.

Having played the old WEG Star Wars for quite some time, it became noticeable when talk changed from character to equipment and tactics.

Mutazoia
2017-07-26, 05:34 AM
So you want to make your game character driven. This means your characters are going to have to have back stories that actually get used in some way/shape/form at some point during the campaign. Luke's father was actually a Jedi (which explains his natural affinity with The Force) who was killed by Vader. But WAIT...Luke's father IS Vader! Dun dun DUN! Luke helps rescue Leia...who he learns is his sister (but only after they snog)! You're going to end up writing a mini soap opera.

A good example of a character driven story, is the old BBC Sci-Fi show "Blake's 7". The BBC didn't have the huge budget that US studios had, so they had to make up for the lack of special effects, and basic practical effects, with awesome characters. If you have never watched the show, do so. Now. I'll wait.

Back? Good. Awesome show (despite it's age) isn't it? I agree.

The thing with Star Wars is, the main characters of every movie, have been THE main characters in the Galaxy for one reason or another. You can play your PC's as the B team, the one's who still kick arse but don't get top billing, but they are still going to have to be doing some pretty major stuff...they may not be the greatest heroes of the Galaxy, but they are going to have to be the greatest heroes of their personal, collective, universe.

Or, you can pick a time line that doesn't mesh up with any existing movie/game and make your characters the super heroes of THAT time line. Personally, this is the method I choose. My last campaign took place in the OLD old Republic, and told the events that let up to, and included, the start of the first Sith War. I planned out the subtle yet manipulative things the Sith were up to while trying to secretly weaken the Republic before they launced an invasion, and set the players on a trail that gave them the opportunity to figure out that these seemingly disconnected incidents were all pieces of a giant, sinister puzzle.... I got down right machiavellian with it, and good times were had by all.

Plus, if you set the game in a time before ANH, you can let everybody be a Jedi. Otherwise you either have to let ONE person be the Jedi, or nobody gets to be.

To get that Star Wars feel, you are going to have to try to keep things as fast paced as you can. The WEG D6 version did this remarkably well. Later versions bogged down (in combat especially) and made the game drag a bit too often. Using The Force was straight forward. Use the Force, just double all of your dice codes for that round. Boom...quick and easy.

But what ever system you choose, choose one that you can learn quickly, one that is easy to run "off the cuff", or one that you know VERY VERY well and QUICKLY.

I'm still going to plug the WEG D6 version...not only can a GM learn it quick...but so can the players. When it first came out, our group had characters made, and were knee deep in bantha poodoo in less than 10 minutes from first sitting down at the table.

Darth Ultron
2017-07-26, 06:24 AM
One thing that I think is a bit understated but still important in Star Wars is the feeling that the Galaxy is a large place.

This is one thing Star Wars does not do well. The Galaxy is super small. It's a lot like the Middle Earth problem. How long does it take to get anywhere in the galaxy? A couple of minutes.

Now, if you use Star Wars, you will need to decide quick do you A) Want to shadow the Famous or B) Want to have a more generic space fantasy. And this is a very tricky thing with something as famous as Star Wars. A lot of players won't ''feel'' like it is Star Wars unless you use the famous and iconic characters and places. If you say ''oh it's planet Zembuplly'', some people will say that is not Star Wars.

Altair_the_Vexed
2017-07-26, 06:39 AM
Use the Music, Yora!

Get the sound tracks (from all the movies, not just E4-6), plus some other classical music that was a source of inspiration to Williams (Holtz, Stravinsky, Korngold, Dvorac).

Write an opening crawl for each adventure, and time your delivery to match the opening crawl music - also try to time your description of the following scene to roughly match the sound track that follows on from the crawl music.

Use this technique to create opening scenes for each session - or as many sessions as you're comfortable with. So use Stravinsky's Rite of Spring for an eerie build up to a scary battle. Use Prokoviev's Dance of the Knights for your own scary Sith Lord, and so on.

Search your feelings, Yora - you know it to be true.

Actana
2017-07-26, 07:37 AM
This is one thing Star Wars does not do well. The Galaxy is super small. It's a lot like the Middle Earth problem. How long does it take to get anywhere in the galaxy? A couple of minutes.

Now, if you use Star Wars, you will need to decide quick do you A) Want to shadow the Famous or B) Want to have a more generic space fantasy. And this is a very tricky thing with something as famous as Star Wars. A lot of players won't ''feel'' like it is Star Wars unless you use the famous and iconic characters and places. If you say ''oh it's planet Zembuplly'', some people will say that is not Star Wars.

It's not about the distances, it's about the variety and amount of things. There are hundreds of planets, hundreds of sentient species, thousands of years of history. And while it doesn't take a lot of narrative time to get from one place to another, that only means the journeys aren't the interesting part: it's what's at the end of that hyperspace jump is that matters.

My overall point is probably that you can create the feeling of scale through the use of variety and diversity, not just lengths and distances.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-26, 08:59 AM
Managing the sense of scale in a Star Wars game is a tricky balancing act.

On one hand, the source material tends to skip over issues of distance and time. A lot.

On the other hand, space is big -- really, really, exceedingly big -- and ignoring that entirely can cause some moments of "whut?" on the part of players.

CharonsHelper
2017-07-26, 09:01 AM
How long does it take to get anywhere in the galaxy? A couple of minutes.


That's simply not true.

Remember all of that time spent on the Millennium Falcon? Droids & Chewy playing board games and Luke starting to learn how to use The Force with Han laughing at him? That was while they were in hyperspace on their way to Alderan. It took more than a few minutes. (Now - it's not super clear how long it DID take, but that's because it didn't matter much.)

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-26, 09:06 AM
That's simply not true.

Remember all of that time spent on the Millennium Falcon? Droids & Chewy playing board games and Luke starting to learn how to use The Force with Han laughing at him? That was while they were in hyperspace on their way to Alderan. It took more than a few minutes. (Now - it's not super clear how long it DID take, but that's because it didn't matter much.)

Also true -- a lot of the distance and time is implied, rather than explicit.

Thrudd
2017-07-26, 09:41 AM
Also true -- a lot of the distance and time is implied, rather than explicit.

That's where the WEG Expanded Universe stuff is helpful. They mapped out the galaxy and tell you how long it takes in hyperspace to get places, depending on the quality of your hyperdrive. Now the stuff they babble about in the movies makes sense - why the Millenium Falcon is the "fastest ship in the galaxy" - it's because Han and Chewie have "overclocked" the hyperdrive.

You can tell the players "that trip will take two weeks, what are you guys doing on the ship during that time?" Then the trip is narrated away and they're at the new planet, just like in the movies...or something bad happens on the way and they end up someplace they didn't expect. Either way, verisimilitude is preserved as the players can make decisions from the character's point of view rather than as a storyteller that knows things will happen based on "the Hero's Journey" and movie narrative conventions.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-26, 09:43 AM
That's where the WEG Expanded Universe stuff is helpful. They mapped out the galaxy and tell you how long it takes in hyperspace to get places, depending on the quality of your hyperdrive. Now the stuff they babble about in the movies makes sense - why the Millenium Falcon is the "fastest ship in the galaxy" - it's because Han and Chewie have "overclocked" the hyperdrive.

You can tell the players "that trip will take two weeks, what are you guys doing on the ship during that time?" Then the trip is narrated away and they're at the new planet, just like in the movies...or something bad happens on the way and they end up someplace they didn't expect. Either way, verisimilitude is preserved as the players can make decisions from the character's point of view rather than as a storyteller that knows things will happen based on "the Hero's Journey" and movie narrative conventions.

That's pretty much the best way to handle it, yeah.

Corsair14
2017-07-26, 09:52 AM
No joke, it takes 7 hours to get from Tatooine to the Alderan system and that's because they are relatively close and that's with a standard military grade x1 hyperdrive. I think the Falcon has an illegal .5 hyperdrive so 3.5 hours. Your standard freighter would take 14 hours. Coruscant to Tatooine in a x1 hyperdrive is 22 days and 14hours. There's a reason it took years after Endor for the Rebels to finally take Coruscant. The more recent movies do a great disservice to the distances involved. ANH at least tried to pass the time in Hyperspace by practicing, playing games, and having philosophical debates.

@Florian- Star wars means many things to many people. I have never cared at all for the force in Star Wars. The biggest draw to me was all the cool vehicles, armor and weapons, and of course space battles. My favorite scenes of the franchise are the R1 space fight, battle of Endor, and Battle of Hoth. Lightsaber crouching tiger hidden dragon fights are fairly yawn worthy to me as is all the silly jedi philosophy stuff. It does make a good McGuffin to make things happen in the galaxy though.

Thrudd
2017-07-26, 10:40 AM
No joke, it takes 7 hours to get from Tatooine to the Alderan system and that's because they are relatively close and that's with a standard military grade x1 hyperdrive. I think the Falcon has an illegal .5 hyperdrive so 3.5 hours. Your standard freighter would take 14 hours. Coruscant to Tatooine in a x1 hyperdrive is 22 days and 14hours. There's a reason it took years after Endor for the Rebels to finally take Coruscant. The more recent movies do a great disservice to the distances involved. ANH at least tried to pass the time in Hyperspace by practicing, playing games, and having philosophical debates.

@Florian- Star wars means many things to many people. I have never cared at all for the force in Star Wars. The biggest draw to me was all the cool vehicles, armor and weapons, and of course space battles. My favorite scenes of the franchise are the R1 space fight, battle of Endor, and Battle of Hoth. Lightsaber crouching tiger hidden dragon fights are fairly yawn worthy to me as is all the silly jedi philosophy stuff. It does make a good McGuffin to make things happen in the galaxy though.

7 hours? I'm pretty sure my book had pretty much all hyperdrive trips in days, weeks, or months. Did it change in different editions or post-prequel material?

Knaight
2017-07-26, 11:11 AM
Themes have been fairly well covered, but there's been less in the way of aesthetics. Star Wars (particularly the original series) is in a lot of ways a setting which emphasizes the rural. There's the way Luke is a literal farm boy and we see his farm, there's the fairly high prevalence of draft animals, there's the way that the rebellion tends to show up in isolated areas, there's the several groups of rural nomads, etc. The empire is a major exception to this, with the Death Star being among other things a moving city, and this gets muddied in the prequels between Coruscant and Naboo, but even in that case the more rural environment still shines through. Getting across the sci-fi rural aesthetic really helps get across Star Wars.

Bohandas
2017-07-26, 11:45 AM
Use the Music, Yora!

Get the sound tracks (from all the movies, not just E4-6),

but not Rogue 1. John Williams stuff only.



plus some other classical music that was a source of inspiration to Williams (Holtz, Stravinsky, Korngold, Dvorac).


Possibly chopin as well. There's distinct hints of the funeral march in the imperial march

hamishspence
2017-07-26, 12:00 PM
7 hours? I'm pretty sure my book had pretty much all hyperdrive trips in days, weeks, or months. Did it change in different editions or post-prequel material?

The earlier books had the Empire only occupy a small portion of the galaxy as a whole. Later, they ended up being portrayed as occupying most of it - with the travel times being unchanged (so, the ships going faster than previously specified). By the time of the prequels, hyperspace travel was being portrayed as very fast, very short timeframe.

The maps also portray Coruscant as being fairly close to Alderaan - both are in the Core, whereas Tatooine is in the Outer Rim.

Magic Myrmidon
2017-07-26, 12:03 PM
I feel like Adam Koebel's Balance of Power showed a great way of capturing the feel that I never considered before: describing the "camera".

Take small moments to describe the scene cinematically, rather than describing the character's perspective.

Character perspective: "You see the planet as it zooms toward you through the ship's viewing screen. Upon landing and walking down to the surface, you see an empty expanse of desert."


Cinematic: We get a far away shot of the planet, showcasing the lack of life and barren deserts. The shot fades out, and we see the ship landing far off, with your characters as dots as they leave the ship and take in their surroundings. We slowly zoom in on the character's faces, sweat pouring down."

CharonsHelper
2017-07-26, 12:06 PM
I feel like Adam Koebel's Balance of Power showed a great way of capturing the feel that I never considered before: describing the "camera".

Take small moments to describe the scene cinematically, rather than describing the character's perspective.

Character perspective: "You see the planet as it zooms toward you through the ship's viewing screen. Upon landing and walking down to the surface, you see an empty expanse of desert."


Cinematic: We get a far away shot of the planet, showcasing the lack of life and barren deserts. The shot fades out, and we see the ship landing far off, with your characters as dots as they leave the ship and take in their surroundings. We slowly zoom in on the character's faces, sweat pouring down."

That's an interesting perspective.

Do you think that that would translate well to other RPGs, or primarily Star Wars because 99% of everyone first experienced it through a camera lens?

Beleriphon
2017-07-26, 12:08 PM
Use the Music, Yora!

Get the sound tracks (from all the movies, not just E4-6), plus some other classical music that was a source of inspiration to Williams (Holtz, Stravinsky, Korngold, Dvorac).

That's a great suggestion. Star Wars has some amazing music, I mean The Imperial March or just the theme are some of the most iconic music in movies.

Corsair14
2017-07-26, 12:25 PM
I have the rulebook on my phone and read it when I posted that. It makes sense when you put it in perspective of the first real movie, ANH. But yes looking at a map I just pulled up online has Alderan much closer to Coruscant than Tatooine. Which just proves that flight time in SW is whack. Yavin too is half way across the galaxy from Tatooine and almost as far from Coruscant as Tatooine is in the galactic north east way out in the Rim. The Deathstar if I remember right had a fairly slow hyperdrive so how did it get there so fast. They could have spared the pilots, evacuated the base and been halfway to the otherside of the galaxy before the DS arrived. Then you have the question of why Princess Moron didn't just email the plans in the first place saving everyone the trip.

Which then brings the question, why was the Tantive 4 caught near Tatooine? Scariff is relatively close by but there is no reason for the Imperials to be even in that area since it is Hutt territory. That and it would have been faster to catch the Corellian Run and sailed North or jumped to Rodia and caught the back road Transnebular run to get to Yavin. Even if they were running through the Tatooine system(and yes the galaxy seems to revolve around Tatooine for some reason) why did they stop to get chased by Vader in the first place. They were on the run and should have just stayed in hyper on the Treillis Trade Route all the way to Centares half way around the galaxy and then back roaded to Yavin. Unless the Empire stuck an Interdictor somewhere along the way there was no way they could catch them or even know where they were going to catch them.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-26, 12:28 PM
In the movies, Lucas has travel occur at the speed of plot. It doesn't matter how far apart things are, it matters how long it "needs" to take to get there. "Narrative causality".

Some gamers are going to be OK with that, some are going to want a bit more internal coherence/consistency.

goto124
2017-07-26, 12:30 PM
Cinematic: We get a far away shot of the planet, showcasing the lack of life and barren deserts. The shot fades out, and we see the ship landing far off, with your characters as dots as they leave the ship and take in their surroundings. We slowly zoom in on the character's faces, sweat pouring down."

Would the GM be literally saying the camera does this and that?

CharonsHelper
2017-07-26, 12:33 PM
Which then brings the question, why was the Tantive 4 caught near Tatooine? Scariff is relatively close by but there is no reason for the Imperials to be even in that area since it is Hutt territory. That and it would have been faster to catch the Corellian Run and sailed North or jumped to Rodia and caught the back road Transnebular run to get to Yavin. Even if they were running through the Tatooine system(and yes the galaxy seems to revolve around Tatooine for some reason) why did they stop to get chased by Vader in the first place. They were on the run and should have just stayed in hyper on the Treillis Trade Route all the way to Centares half way around the galaxy and then back roaded to Yavin. Unless the Empire stuck an Interdictor somewhere along the way there was no way they could catch them or even know where they were going to catch them.

I always figured that they were going the long way around to both avoid blockades and try to keep The Empire from tracing them to The Rebellion's base, and while they were in the neighborhood Leia was already planning to stop by Tatooine to pick up Obi Wan (or they chose that particular backwater route for that reason).

Yora
2017-07-26, 12:38 PM
So you want to make your game character driven. This means your characters are going to have to have back stories that actually get used in some way/shape/form at some point during the campaign. Luke's father was actually a Jedi (which explains his natural affinity with The Force) who was killed by Vader. But WAIT...Luke's father IS Vader! Dun dun DUN! Luke helps rescue Leia...who he learns is his sister (but only after they snog)! You're going to end up writing a mini soap opera.
For a character driven game you need to tailor the main story to the characters while at the same time the players have to tailor their characters to the main story. That's a bit of a problem, but Apocalypse World presents a pretty decent way to deal with this. At the start of the first session the players simply generate the stats for the characters and then play just starts with having the players describe where they are and what they are doing and the GM in turn answering their questions of how certain things the players would like would be possible in the setting of the campaign. You just play for a while without any real goal in mind while everyone is throwing ideas into the pot and building on what others have said so far. At the end of the first session the GM should have enough information about the PCs to be able to prepare situations that are tailored to the party and the players have characters that are connected to each other.

I'm not too much of a fan of completely making up the whole world and the adventure as you go, but for the first session to get your bearings it sounds like a smart approach.


Write an opening crawl for each adventure, and time your delivery to match the opening crawl music - also try to time your description of the following scene to roughly match the sound track that follows on from the crawl music.

An opening narration is absolutely mandatory. As is beginning the game with a ship in space. And being the start of a campaing where the players don't know each other's characters yet, I very much advocate to make it an action scene.

What I am considering to actually do is to start the game simply with "You're on a transport that is being attacked by space pirates." (And the hyperdrive is out of action if anyone tries it.) And in that situations players can make up whatever facts they want to. Why are they on the ship? Who is the capatain? Is it one of the PCs? Why are the pirates attacking? Do they want something from one of the PCs? And what do you do while the ship is getting blasted to pieces?!
Pretty much any outcome is possible. From defeating the pirates and having to land on a nearby planet to repair the hyperdrive to crashing on the planet with escape pods or getting captured by the pirates. (Or repelling the boarders and capturing the pirate ship instead!) The exact outcome does not really matterat this point. The pirates and the planet may be completely irrelevant after the first session and never appear again. Though they also might if that option seems compelling at the end of the session. The important part is to get the players to interact with each other's characters and establish some facts about their own PCs.


The thing with Star Wars is, the main characters of every movie, have been THE main characters in the Galaxy for one reason or another. You can play your PC's as the B team, the one's who still kick arse but don't get top billing, but they are still going to have to be doing some pretty major stuff...they may not be the greatest heroes of the Galaxy, but they are going to have to be the greatest heroes of their personal, collective, universe.

Or, you can pick a time line that doesn't mesh up with any existing movie/game and make your characters the super heroes of THAT time line. Personally, this is the method I choose. My last campaign took place in the OLD old Republic, and told the events that let up to, and included, the start of the first Sith War. I planned out the subtle yet manipulative things the Sith were up to while trying to secretly weaken the Republic before they launced an invasion, and set the players on a trail that gave them the opportunity to figure out that these seemingly disconnected incidents were all pieces of a giant, sinister puzzle.... I got down right machiavellian with it, and good times were had by all.

I find that neither playing second fiddle to canon characters, nor surpassing them is really an elegant option to run a campaign. Not having their adventures overlap in any significant way always seems the best option to me.


To get that Star Wars feel, you are going to have to try to keep things as fast paced as you can. The WEG D6 version did this remarkably well. Later versions bogged down (in combat especially) and made the game drag a bit too often. Using The Force was straight forward. Use the Force, just double all of your dice codes for that round. Boom...quick and easy.

But what ever system you choose, choose one that you can learn quickly, one that is easy to run "off the cuff", or one that you know VERY VERY well and QUICKLY.

I'm still going to plug the WEG D6 version...not only can a GM learn it quick...but so can the players. When it first came out, our group had characters made, and were knee deep in bantha poodoo in less than 10 minutes from first sitting down at the table.

I am still somewhat hung between WEG 1st Ed and Apocalpyse World. Both seem like great matches for Star Wars because of their simple rules that encourage fast paced and very flexible game. I am tending towards AW because WEG still seems a bit on the crunchy side to me, but there's definitly a lot of great stuff there.


No joke, it takes 7 hours to get from Tatooine to the Alderan system and that's because they are relatively close and that's with a standard military grade x1 hyperdrive. I think the Falcon has an illegal .5 hyperdrive so 3.5 hours. Your standard freighter would take 14 hours. Coruscant to Tatooine in a x1 hyperdrive is 22 days and 14hours. There's a reason it took years after Endor for the Rebels to finally take Coruscant. The more recent movies do a great disservice to the distances involved. ANH at least tried to pass the time in Hyperspace by practicing, playing games, and having philosophical debates.

7 hours? I'm pretty sure my book had pretty much all hyperdrive trips in days, weeks, or months. Did it change in different editions or post-prequel material?
I recently watched the movie again and when Han comes from the cockpit while R2-D2 and Chewie are playing his lines make it very much sound like they just made the jump to lightspeed and he spend only a few moments setting the ship to autopilot before joining the others. And the rest of the scene is 15 minutes at the most before they all rush back to the cockpit because they are at Alderaan. So the jump from the Outer Rim to a Core World apparently takes only 20 minutes.
And again in Revenge of the Sith, the Emperor going from Coruscant in the Core Worlds to Mustafar in the Outer Rim to pick up Vader and bring him back to Coruscant before getting him any medical treatment also doesn't seem to be taking any longer. I've never seen the EU treat hyperspace as that fast, but the movies seem to be very consistent in making hyperspace jumps across half the galaxy look like a matter of minutes.

And from a GMing perspective I don't see much of a point to make durations much longer than that. With the exception of interdictors lying in ambush, there is no possibility of random encounters during a jump. Whether you say 20 minutes are passing before coming out of hyperspace or 20 hours makes no difference at all for the players. Any hyperspace jump will conists of one conversation that isn't going to be in real time either.

It's certainly an aesthetical choice to make hyperspace jumps take longer or shorter, but from a gameplay perspective I think it's irrelevant.


Themes have been fairly well covered, but there's been less in the way of aesthetics. Star Wars (particularly the original series) is in a lot of ways a setting which emphasizes the rural. There's the way Luke is a literal farm boy and we see his farm, there's the fairly high prevalence of draft animals, there's the way that the rebellion tends to show up in isolated areas, there's the several groups of rural nomads, etc. The empire is a major exception to this, with the Death Star being among other things a moving city, and this gets muddied in the prequels between Coruscant and Naboo, but even in that case the more rural environment still shines through. Getting across the sci-fi rural aesthetic really helps get across Star Wars.

I agree. Corruscant really is the one notable exception and even when you look at the EU there's Nar Shaddaa, Corellia, and... really not much else.

Even the homeworlds of most major species tend to be described as mostly wilderness with small scattered towns. Settlements are small and the environments are wild. And the only way to get anywhere is to have a spaceship with a hyperdrive. If you don't have one, like most people, you're stuck in the middle of nowhere like Luke. Of course, the heroes of a Star Wars campaign have to have one most of the time but they really are the exception. They are the heroes after all. For everyone else, going to the stars is a distant dream and the only feasable option is to buy a ticket on the space bus. Not nearly as glamorous as cruising the galaxy in your own ship.

GloatingSwine
2017-07-26, 12:43 PM
That's simply not true.

Remember all of that time spent on the Millennium Falcon? Droids & Chewy playing board games and Luke starting to learn how to use The Force with Han laughing at him? That was while they were in hyperspace on their way to Alderan. It took more than a few minutes. (Now - it's not super clear how long it DID take, but that's because it didn't matter much.)

A short enough time that nobody needed a change of clothes, even Han who could reasonably be assumed to have them.


Travel time in Star Wars is fast. The Emperor could get from Coruscant to Mustafar in less than the time it took Anakin to burn to death on the shore of river of lava.


Anyway, the way you capture the feel of Star Wars is that you do a pulpy heroic fantasy iiin spaaace. Because that's what it is.

hamishspence
2017-07-26, 12:52 PM
I recently watched the movie again and when Han comes from the cockpit while R2-D2 and Chewie are playing his lines make it very much sound like they just made the jump to lightspeed and he spend only a few moments setting the ship to autopilot before joining the others. And the rest of the scene is 15 minutes at the most before they all rush back to the cockpit because they are at Alderaan. So the jump from the Outer Rim to a Core World apparently takes only 20 minutes.

Han says "We'll be at Alderaan at 0200" - which might suggest hours rather than minutes of total journey time.

CharonsHelper
2017-07-26, 12:53 PM
A short enough time that nobody needed a change of clothes, even Han who could reasonably be assumed to have them.

Then all of the movies from the tail end of episode 3 until the end of 6 must have only taken a few hours since Vader never changes clothes.

Florian
2017-07-26, 01:11 PM
It's not about the distances, it's about the variety and amount of things. There are hundreds of planets, hundreds of sentient species, thousands of years of history. And while it doesn't take a lot of narrative time to get from one place to another, that only means the journeys aren't the interesting part: it's what's at the end of that hyperspace jump is that matters.

My overall point is probably that you can create the feeling of scale through the use of variety and diversity, not just lengths and distances.

The old WEG Darkstryder campaign was extremely good with the whole "sense of scale" thing. A trip into the the unknown, following a fragmentary map of hyperjump lanes.... Better come equipped with a capital vessel, a large crew and supplies to last for months....

Thrudd
2017-07-26, 03:32 PM
For a character driven game you need to tailor the main story to the characters while at the same time the players have to tailor their characters to the main story. That's a bit of a problem, but Apocalypse World presents a pretty decent way to deal with this. At the start of the first session the players simply generate the stats for the characters and then play just starts with having the players describe where they are and what they are doing and the GM in turn answering their questions of how certain things the players would like would be possible in the setting of the campaign. You just play for a while without any real goal in mind while everyone is throwing ideas into the pot and building on what others have said so far. At the end of the first session the GM should have enough information about the PCs to be able to prepare situations that are tailored to the party and the players have characters that are connected to each other.

I'm not too much of a fan of completely making up the whole world and the adventure as you go, but for the first session to get your bearings it sounds like a smart approach.



An opening narration is absolutely mandatory. As is beginning the game with a ship in space. And being the start of a campaing where the players don't know each other's characters yet, I very much advocate to make it an action scene.

What I am considering to actually do is to start the game simply with "You're on a transport that is being attacked by space pirates." (And the hyperdrive is out of action if anyone tries it.) And in that situations players can make up whatever facts they want to. Why are they on the ship? Who is the capatain? Is it one of the PCs? Why are the pirates attacking? Do they want something from one of the PCs? And what do you do while the ship is getting blasted to pieces?!
Pretty much any outcome is possible. From defeating the pirates and having to land on a nearby planet to repair the hyperdrive to crashing on the planet with escape pods or getting captured by the pirates. (Or repelling the boarders and capturing the pirate ship instead!) The exact outcome does not really matterat this point. The pirates and the planet may be completely irrelevant after the first session and never appear again. Though they also might if that option seems compelling at the end of the session. The important part is to get the players to interact with each other's characters and establish some facts about their own PCs.



I find that neither playing second fiddle to canon characters, nor surpassing them is really an elegant option to run a campaign. Not having their adventures overlap in any significant way always seems the best option to me.



I am still somewhat hung between WEG 1st Ed and Apocalpyse World. Both seem like great matches for Star Wars because of their simple rules that encourage fast paced and very flexible game. I am tending towards AW because WEG still seems a bit on the crunchy side to me, but there's definitly a lot of great stuff there.



I recently watched the movie again and when Han comes from the cockpit while R2-D2 and Chewie are playing his lines make it very much sound like they just made the jump to lightspeed and he spend only a few moments setting the ship to autopilot before joining the others. And the rest of the scene is 15 minutes at the most before they all rush back to the cockpit because they are at Alderaan. So the jump from the Outer Rim to a Core World apparently takes only 20 minutes.
And again in Revenge of the Sith, the Emperor going from Coruscant in the Core Worlds to Mustafar in the Outer Rim to pick up Vader and bring him back to Coruscant before getting him any medical treatment also doesn't seem to be taking any longer. I've never seen the EU treat hyperspace as that fast, but the movies seem to be very consistent in making hyperspace jumps across half the galaxy look like a matter of minutes.

And from a GMing perspective I don't see much of a point to make durations much longer than that. With the exception of interdictors lying in ambush, there is no possibility of random encounters during a jump. Whether you say 20 minutes are passing before coming out of hyperspace or 20 hours makes no difference at all for the players. Any hyperspace jump will conists of one conversation that isn't going to be in real time either.

It's certainly an aesthetical choice to make hyperspace jumps take longer or shorter, but from a gameplay perspective I think it's irrelevant.



I agree. Corruscant really is the one notable exception and even when you look at the EU there's Nar Shaddaa, Corellia, and... really not much else.

Even the homeworlds of most major species tend to be described as mostly wilderness with small scattered towns. Settlements are small and the environments are wild. And the only way to get anywhere is to have a spaceship with a hyperdrive. If you don't have one, like most people, you're stuck in the middle of nowhere like Luke. Of course, the heroes of a Star Wars campaign have to have one most of the time but they really are the exception. They are the heroes after all. For everyone else, going to the stars is a distant dream and the only feasable option is to buy a ticket on the space bus. Not nearly as glamorous as cruising the galaxy in your own ship.

I don't consider the prequels as having any authority in terms of how the setting works. I will consider no examples from those movies as relevant. :) You may have a point about the Alderaan travel scene, but I still like the travel times being a little longer. I think it makes a difference for the game because travel time is a convenient downtime period during which you can justify healing, learning new skills and practicing things (reflected by the expenditure of character points in WEG).

ImNotTrevor
2017-07-26, 05:48 PM
Wipes. (https://youtu.be/cGqAu9gj_F0)

Every time you change scenes, describe the wipe transition.
It sounds silly but it actually works pretty well.

Thrudd
2017-07-26, 06:01 PM
I recently watched the movie again and when Han comes from the cockpit while R2-D2 and Chewie are playing his lines make it very much sound like they just made the jump to lightspeed and he spend only a few moments setting the ship to autopilot before joining the others. And the rest of the scene is 15 minutes at the most before they all rush back to the cockpit because they are at Alderaan. So the jump from the Outer Rim to a Core World apparently takes only 20 minutes.

I think my real problem with that interpretation is that it makes no sense why Luke is so attached to Obi Wan by the end, and in ESB. If we basically saw their entire relationship in real time in the movie, Luke's reactions don't really make sense. Spending a couple weeks or a month every day together training gives them a stronger relationship. Same with Yoda in ESB. My interpretation is that it took Han and Leia at least a few months to get to Bespin without hyperdrive, enough time for them to fall in love, and enough time for Luke to get in some decent training with Yoda (such that by RotJ Yoda says there is nothing more to teach him- although I know there could have been time in between movies for him to go back to Yoda once or twice).

kraftcheese
2017-07-26, 07:13 PM
I think my real problem with that interpretation is that it makes no sense why Luke is so attached to Obi Wan by the end, and in ESB. If we basically saw their entire relationship in real time in the movie, Luke's reactions don't really make sense. Spending a couple weeks or a month every day together training gives them a stronger relationship. Same with Yoda in ESB. My interpretation is that it took Han and Leia at least a few months to get to Bespin without hyperdrive, enough time for them to fall in love, and enough time for Luke to get in some decent training with Yoda (such that by RotJ Yoda says there is nothing more to teach him- although I know there could have been time in between movies for him to go back to Yoda once or twice).
I always thought it was implied that Luke knew Old Ben back on Tatooine? Like he was a family friend, I gues? I mean he mentions him as soon as Leia's message says "Kenobi", wondering if they're the same guy, and he recognizes him as soon as he wakes up after the Tusken raider attack.

Also, Kenobi's the last connection he's got to his home after losing his family; it always made sense to me.

TheYell
2017-07-26, 07:23 PM
I don't consider the prequels as having any authority in terms of how the setting works. I will consider no examples from those movies as relevant.

When you wish upon a staaaaarrrr....

Thrudd
2017-07-26, 07:45 PM
I always thought it was implied that Luke knew Old Ben back on Tatooine? Like he was a family friend, I gues? I mean he mentions him as soon as Leia's message says "Kenobi", wondering if they're the same guy, and he recognizes him as soon as he wakes up after the Tusken raider attack.

Also, Kenobi's the last connection he's got to his home after losing his family; it always made sense to me.

I didn't get the impression he knew him very well. Owen tells him to stay away from "that crazy old hermit". It sounded to me like Luke might have met him once or heard about him but doesn't really know him. IMO He doesn't refer to him in a very familiar way, he just recalls the name.

goto124
2017-07-26, 09:02 PM
Every time you change scenes, describe the wipe transition.
It sounds silly but it actually works pretty well.

Complete with hand movements.

Mutazoia
2017-07-27, 03:13 AM
I don't consider the prequels as having any authority in terms of how the setting works. I will consider no examples from those movies as relevant. :)

Unfortunately, the ONLY things that are truely canon, are the films....including the prequels. All of the EU stuff, is just crap that a ****load of fanboys made up in their mommy's basement. It carries no more weight than anything you make up yourself.

Arguments can be made that things like the novels and any game material (RPG or video) can also be considered canon, as they all had to have Lucas Arts (and thus George himself) sign off on them.... but then you would have to accept "Splinter in the Mind's Eye" as canon. (The book where Vader falls in love with Leia...)

Yora
2017-07-27, 04:05 AM
Facts not always lining up lies just in the nature of Star Wars. Arguing over which contradictory facts take precedence or cancel out others is a futile task. The only Star Wars canon is headcanon.

For describing fantastic environments, I would simply go with the same method as novels do and do a one paragraph narration of the looks and feel of the places. Again, using familiar images and adding some new touches should make it very easy for players to imagine what it looks like. Planets lacking any internal diversity in environments comes handy here.
Since visiting new planets or major buildings usually doesn't happen completely unexpected, this description is something that can easily be prepared in advance. If the party just goes into a shop or office the description doesn't need to be that elaborate, though of course it's nice if you can think of a few mood setting touches on the spot.

I think even if you run a character driven campaign that starts without knowing what the story will be for the next few adventures, there's still some decent amount of preparation you can make in advance. I believe most of the time the players won't be saying "We fly to Tatooine" out of the blue. They will decide to visit a person or a specific place based on what just happened previously, and then it's up to the GM to tell them on what planet they will find these. This means that you can prepare just a couple of space ports on maybe half to one dozen planets. When the players want to see a person or get a thing, you just have to prepare one building and plop it down on one of those planets. You don't have to make up a whole spaceport and outdoor environment on the spot.

What also seems like a good idea to me now is to also prepare a good cast of interesting NPCs. Crime bosses, imperial officers, sith lords, bounty hunters, smugglers, jedi, nobles, ship store owners, mechanics, medics, admirals, whatever. You don't need to know what role they will be playing, but you can come up with a name, a look, and a personality for them. When the players decide to do something where they would encounter one, you already have some pretty well developed NPCs at hand and only need to make a few last minute tweaks to have them ready to appear.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-27, 06:36 AM
Unfortunately, the ONLY things that are truely canon, are the films....including the prequels. All of the EU stuff, is just crap that a ****load of fanboys made up in their mommy's basement. It carries no more weight than anything you make up yourself.

Arguments can be made that things like the novels and any game material (RPG or video) can also be considered canon, as they all had to have Lucas Arts (and thus George himself) sign off on them.... but then you would have to accept "Splinter in the Mind's Eye" as canon. (The book where Vader falls in love with Leia...)

The status of "canon" was shuffled when Disney acquired the properties.

At that point, the six existing movies and the CGI Clone Wars animated series were made canon, everything else become "legends", from which the writers were free to draw going forward. Since then, several novels, both new films (ugh), and the Rebels animated series have been canon per Disney. So Thrawn is canon, but not the Thrawn in the Zahn novels, but the Thrawn in Rebels. Multiple items from the WEGd6 era of RPG material (which actually added a TON of naming and detail that people take for granted even if they only think the movies count) have also been seen on-camera now, making them official. Such as, the Interdictor cruisers.

Corsair14
2017-07-27, 06:58 AM
I would hardly call big name authors like Timothy Zahn and Stackpole, fan boys in their mom's basement. And seeing as it was their books and the actual fanboys who paid money to read them that kept Star Wars alive through the nothing years I find your lack of respect... disturbing. Seeing as the original Thrawn trilogy is perhaps the finest written trilogy to date for Star Wars I think you are extremely off base. Even Vector Prime by itself was an awesome book, cant say much for the rest of the long running series, but then Zahn didn't write them either.

NRSASD
2017-07-27, 08:58 AM
Something that's very important to the whole Star Wars aesthetic is more than just the "used future" look, but also the lack of standardization of... everything. With the exception of the Empire and Princess Leia's ship, almost nothing is standardized. Clothing, droids, ships, weapons, and armor all vary from person to person. Some equipment appears to be locally produced from shoddy materials, while some seems to be salvage from more advanced races that passed through the area. Some even seems to have been part of a standardized line once, but there are no other pieces from the same manufacturer. Star Wars isn't just a used future, but a hundred thousand used futures, all left to crumble and gather dust together in relative obscurity.

I for one enjoyed Rogue One, and I think there's one thing it does well that's very important to conveying a proper Star Wars game/film/etc.: The final scene with Darth Vader. A Jedi or a Sith in their prime is an unstoppable force of nature on the battlefield. No amount of conventional training, equipment, soldiers, or hardware stands even a snowball's chance in hell of stopping a trained force user that is determined to kill you. Against such a foe, you can only try to flee because standing and fighting won't even slow them down. The only way to even imagine fighting one is with another force user, because anyone else will be dead before they even know why. While I believe that Darth Vader makes an excellent villain as a commander, it was nice to see what happens if he does take the field.

GloatingSwine
2017-07-27, 09:04 AM
Then all of the movies from the tail end of episode 3 until the end of 6 must have only taken a few hours since Vader never changes clothes.

Sure he does, what do you think he does in that privacy pod he's in in ESB. We actually see him getting dressed so he can execute an admiral or two.

CharonsHelper
2017-07-27, 09:23 AM
Something that's very important to the whole Star Wars aesthetic is more than just the "used future" look, but also the lack of standardization of... everything. With the exception of the Empire and Princess Leia's ship, almost nothing is standardized. Clothing, droids, ships, weapons, and armor all vary from person to person. Some equipment appears to be locally produced from shoddy materials, while some seems to be salvage from more advanced races that passed through the area. Some even seems to have been part of a standardized line once, but there are no other pieces from the same manufacturer. Star Wars isn't just a used future, but a hundred thousand used futures, all left to crumble and gather dust together in relative obscurity.

I agree - but I'd like to point out that there does seem to be an in-universe reason. (or at least in-universe rationalization)

Technology in Star Wars is pretty much stagnant. Technology in KOTR was essentially the same as in the movies despite taking place millennia before.

In our world, I replace my electronics every few years because it becomes obsolete. In Star Wars, it never does. So sure, a new company starts producing droids of a new design, but they're not any better than the old droids, and so most of the time you'll fix the old instead of just replacing it when it breaks.

In addition, since everyone knows that tech won't improve, people will buy stuff to last. In our world, I doubt that anyone would pay double for an IPhone which would last even 4x-5x as long before wearing out, but that's because it'll become cheap and outdated before it wears out anyway. That isn't true in Star Wars.

So the old will mix with the new models in the world rather than the new replacing the old as they do when tech is improving at the rate it does in our world. When that takes place over centuries or millennia, (with exceptions such as The Empire producing standardized equipment for their newish army) that's the sort of look that you'd expect.

Yora
2017-07-27, 09:28 AM
While I agree, this seems to be very difficult to make visible in an RPG. Star Wars handwaves technical details completely so it's not like there would be any practical differences between using different devices.


I for one enjoyed Rogue One, and I think there's one thing it does well that's very important to conveying a proper Star Wars game/film/etc.: The final scene with Darth Vader. A Jedi or a Sith in their prime is an unstoppable force of nature on the battlefield. No amount of conventional training, equipment, soldiers, or hardware stands even a snowball's chance in hell of stopping a trained force user that is determined to kill you. Against such a foe, you can only try to flee because standing and fighting won't even slow them down. The only way to even imagine fighting one is with another force user, because anyone else will be dead before they even know why. While I believe that Darth Vader makes an excellent villain as a commander, it was nice to see what happens if he does take the field.

Which I find very problematic for storytelling in general, but for RPGs in particular. Going by this approach you really have to go with all Jedi or no Jedi.

I think it also cheapens the Jedi. "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the powers of the Force."
And then of course there is Yoda with "A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack." and "Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things." And perhaps most importantly "Your weapons, you will not need them."

I enjoy a good lightsaber fight just as anyone else, but I think the Force has much more potential to be a mystical influence that elevates the stories to a deeper meaning than as a superpower for combat. Jedi are commonly referred to as knights, but I think their mystique and wonder comes much more across when thinking of them as space monks.

kraftcheese
2017-07-27, 09:51 AM
Something that's very important to the whole Star Wars aesthetic is more than just the "used future" look, but also the lack of standardization of... everything. With the exception of the Empire and Princess Leia's ship, almost nothing is standardized. Clothing, droids, ships, weapons, and armor all vary from person to person. Some equipment appears to be locally produced from shoddy materials, while some seems to be salvage from more advanced races that passed through the area. Some even seems to have been part of a standardized line once, but there are no other pieces from the same manufacturer. Star Wars isn't just a used future, but a hundred thousand used futures, all left to crumble and gather dust together in relative obscurity.

I always liked the ideas that a heap of tech in Star Wars was modified or retrofitted from how it came originally; of course there's the Falcon, with its souped up hyperdrive and backup hyperdrive, patchy hull and battleship-sized turbolasers...and tendency to break down since its been overclocked.

There's the (i think EU?) idea that Y-Wings have a bunch of armor plating off the factory floor, but work better for the Rebellions purposes without it slowing them down.

Even the amount of times "scrap" and "parts" are mentioned, and the Jawas selling all the old parts you might need to repair your 100 year old speeder or droid really adds something for me.

CharonsHelper
2017-07-27, 09:55 AM
Which I find very problematic for storytelling in general, but for RPGs in particular. Going by this approach you really have to go with all Jedi or no Jedi.

While not a perfect system, I thought that Saga Edition did a good job there linking the mechanics & fluff.

In the mechanics the VAST majority of NPCs had NPC classes. They kept up on attack & defense, but they didn't get much HP and no abilities.

PC classes in general were special. And ALL force-users were PC classes. And until level 8ish, someone in the Jedi class was (per the fluff) only a padawan. The standard advanced class for them was "Jedi Knight" and entry involved the testing. To be a Jedi master you needed to be 12-13ish.

So from a fluff perspective, non-force users with PC classes are rare, but every Jedi is a badass because he has 8+ levels in a combat class.

So, unlike in other Star Wars RPGs, Jedi are both special & powerful (in comparison to the galaxy) but not overshadowing to the other PCs. Which frankly, fits the fluff. ex: Jango Fett killed a few Jedi and gave Obi Wan a run for his money.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-27, 09:59 AM
I agree - but I'd like to point out that there does seem to be an in-universe reason. (or at least in-universe rationalization)

Technology in Star Wars is pretty much stagnant. Technology in KOTR was essentially the same as in the movies despite taking place millennia before.

In our world, I replace my electronics every few years because it becomes obsolete. In Star Wars, it never does. So sure, a new company starts producing droids of a new design, but they're not any better than the old droids, and so most of the time you'll fix the old instead of just replacing it when it breaks.

In addition, since everyone knows that tech won't improve, people will buy stuff to last. In our world, I doubt that anyone would pay double for an IPhone which would last even 4x-5x as long before wearing out, but that's because it'll become cheap and outdated before it wears out anyway. That isn't true in Star Wars.

So the old will mix with the new models in the world rather than the new replacing the old as they do when tech is improving at the rate it does in our world. When that takes place over centuries or millennia, (with exceptions such as The Empire producing standardized equipment for their newish army) that's the sort of look that you'd expect.

One of the odd things in Star Wars is that there's a lot of talk about new experimental weapons and ships and gadgets all the time, storylines might hinge on it, but for all that, nothing changes in the long run... there's superficial 21st-century technological surge, but no actual impact beyond the immediate plots or the fluff text.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-27, 10:02 AM
So, unlike in other Star Wars RPGs, Jedi are both special & powerful (in comparison to the galaxy) but not overshadowing to the other PCs. Which frankly, fits the fluff. ex: Jango Fett killed a few Jedi and gave Obi Wan a run for his money.


Yeah, aside from the system issues,... the idea that being a Force-user of any skill makes you an unstoppable godling... has more to do with some of the outlandish EU material and fan-worship of the Jedi and Sith, than it does with the core concept of the Force.

CharonsHelper
2017-07-27, 10:09 AM
One of the odd things in Star Wars is that there's a lot of talk about new experimental weapons and ships and gadgets all the time, storylines might hinge on it, but for all that, nothing changes in the long run... there's superficial 21st-century technological surge, but no actual impact beyond the immediate plots or the fluff text.

See - I always got the impression that there was just a lot of losing & rediscovery in military tech. No major wars for a few generations and their military tech suffers. A major war breaks out and all of their "new" and "better" starships & weapons are really just variations on old stuff being rediscovered.

But - that might be me projecting my own rationalizations.

Thrudd
2017-07-27, 10:32 AM
While I agree, this seems to be very difficult to make visible in an RPG. Star Wars handwaves technical details completely so it's not like there would be any practical differences between using different devices.



Which I find very problematic for storytelling in general, but for RPGs in particular. Going by this approach you really have to go with all Jedi or no Jedi.

I think it also cheapens the Jedi. "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the powers of the Force."
And then of course there is Yoda with "A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack." and "Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things." And perhaps most importantly "Your weapons, you will not need them."

I enjoy a good lightsaber fight just as anyone else, but I think the Force has much more potential to be a mystical influence that elevates the stories to a deeper meaning than as a superpower for combat. Jedi are commonly referred to as knights, but I think their mystique and wonder comes much more across when thinking of them as space monks.

That's why I like OT period for the game, or slightly pre or slightly post movies - full fledged jedi knights in their prime are rare to non-existent. There are weaker jedi/force users that were able to go under radar, there are fledgling prodigies who picked up a trick or two by natural talent or padawans who lost their masters at the beginning of their training, but nobody even close to the power of Vader or any Jedi that is seen in the prequel movies. You can easily have those low-powered force users (Luke in Ep IV/V) in a group of non-force users without throwing anything off (especially in WEG, where creating a character that can use the force reduces the number of dice you can spend on other stats and abilities).

Magic Myrmidon
2017-07-27, 10:34 AM
That's an interesting perspective.

Do you think that that would translate well to other RPGs, or primarily Star Wars because 99% of everyone first experienced it through a camera lens?

I've tried it with one of my groups for a Star Wars session, and they said they really liked it, but that they wouldn't like it as much for non-Star Wars RPGs. I haven't tried it with anything, but I do think it has potential there, too.


Would the GM be literally saying the camera does this and that?

Yeah, pretty much. It's like describing a movie for blind people, I guess?

Lord Raziere
2017-07-27, 10:49 AM
Basically?

Jedi Knights are paladins, to do them right ignore everything prequels say about their code and just have them be awesome psychic space warriors for epic goodness. So just like regular paladins. their lives are epic destinies full of spiritual journeys and battles for the fate the galaxy.

everyone else lives in a vast space age world war 2, with dog fights between starfighters and blasting away at big space battleships. cybernetics is just there for medical uses. droids are just whatever servant extra you want around in case you can't come up with anything else, there is no super-AI that can outthink everyone, there isn't really an internet so communications are mostly space radio based, and computers are just big things that calculate big stuff but aren't connected to a wider galactic network, unless it is for the sake of the story it isn't really consistent, but try to assume that its a pre-internet space age but not pre-radio or pre-skype call if the holgorams are any indication. hyperdrives have certain hyperlanes that you need to go through...

for planets its less about getting the whole "multiple biomes" thing right and more about establishing a proper mood and tone of the scene, making it feel as if people live there and do stuff, and star Wars is great at doing this, just imagine that time Luke and Obi Wan first go into Mos Eisley. prime example. because a thing to remember is that Star Wars has to feel as if its a living world, that you can imagine tons of things going on in the background of the protagonists. moisture farmer is a job, its not exactly a plausible job for Earth, but while its fantastic its still a reasonable job for a planet like Tatooine that you can see someone doing for reasons, because water is important and your on a desert world.

but don't focus too long on all that, focus on the protagonists and make their adventure exciting. Don't let it be too safe, but don't be cruel about it. make them act, take risks and have moments where all the caution has gone out the window and things need to be done now, decisively. many of Star Wars best moments are when the fighting is in full swing.

Starbuck_II
2017-07-27, 11:17 AM
It's a decent movie but it doesn't feel like Star Wars. The tone is completely wrong and there are numerous retcons and plot holes.

Furthermore lot of the characters are implicitly changed around. Tarkin is no longer the coldly efficient guy who blows up Alderaan to make a statement, it's now clear that he's just a guy who likes to blow crap up for any excuse he can think of. and Leia is no longer on a fake diplomatic mission as a cover, now she's just a terrible liar.

Plus it seems like they made a conscious decision to kill off all the major characters. Like they didn't just tone down the plot armor or something like that, a lot of the characters got killed off in ways that made neither logical nor narrative sense; like a complete diabolus ex machina.

And what was up with that slow moving explosion when they did the low power superlaser test? I think most of the people in Jedha city could have saved themselves by walking away from the epicenter at a brisk pace. This in turn means that the film also has its own internal tonal inconsistencies, because in the middle of what's otherwise the grittiest Star Wars film to date we have a rehash of the central gag from an old episode of Invader Zim (http://zim.wikia.com/wiki/Walk_for_Your_Lives)

True, there was no reason the last ones couldn't get away from the blast, but no, they look at the beach.

NRSASD
2017-07-27, 11:18 AM
I don’t think Obi Wan and Yoda from the OT and Vader from Rogue 1 are mutually exclusive. Force users can be weapons of mass destruction, but the Jedi code emphasizes and reinforces exploring peaceful applications. Old Ben Kenobi preferred to talk, trick, or intimidate rather than fight his way through problems; not because he can’t fight, but because he doesn’t need to and his code encourages non-violence.

The important thing about Jedi (to me at least) is that a Jedi is sooo much more than just a magic guy who’s really good with a sword. Only a Jedi can fight another Jedi. Sure, a lucky shot can down a padawan, but against a fully fledged Sith the only thing one can do is flee (unless you’re a Jedi). In a New Hope, Luke’s only interaction with Darth Vader is trying not to be blasted out of the sky. In 5, Luke fights Vader for the first time and gets butchered, surviving only because Vader let him live. It’s not until 6 that Luke is able to stand up to Darth, despite the fact that Luke routinely dispatches rancors, wampas, and Stormtroopers like it’s nothing throughout the series.

I’m not saying Sith or Jedi should be regularly slaughtering hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the battlefield in your game. I’m saying both the Rebels and the Empire should know there’s no point in even trying to fight or interfere with a skilled force user. The second Vader steps onto your ship, your only options are to jump into a life pod, change your name, and become a moisture farmer, or surrender unconditionally and hope he’s in a good mood. Anything else is just a painful form of suicide.

CharonsHelper
2017-07-27, 11:28 AM
In a New Hope, Luke’s only interaction with Darth Vader is trying not to be blasted out of the sky.

Yes - but didn't Han blow him away enough to keep him from messing with the rest of the rebels?

NRSASD
2017-07-27, 11:32 AM
Han only got that shot after most of the rebels were dead, and only because Vader was distracted at the time.

Edit: hmmm, that came out way more combative than I intended. Sorry.

Lord Torath
2017-07-27, 11:59 AM
The question shouldn't be why the Death Star target explosions are so slow in Rogue One, but why they're so fast in the other movies.

The destruction of Alderaan took what, a quarter of a second? Less (https://youtu.be/L7n9eK_v2ZM) (3:05 in the video)? Maybe they over-corrected a bit for Rouge One. How far was their ship from Jedda City? Thirty miles would not be unreasonable. That's 2 minutes and 30 seconds at Mach 1. Assuming the shockwave moves at mach 5 (much more likely than mach 1), that's still 30 seconds before it hits. Which is about what you get in the movie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=danEFEB7XJ4). The death ray hits Jedda City at 10 seconds, the Heroes are on board their ship and fleeing at about 45 seconds, and the shockwave hits at about 50 seconds. So about 40 seconds from impact to shockwave/debris arrival.

Mutazoia
2017-07-27, 12:02 PM
Yes - but didn't Han blow him away enough to keep him from messing with the rest of the rebels?

Han shot the TIE fighter next to Vader. The second TIE pilot panics and clips Vader's TIE Interceptor, causing him to spin out of control for the few seconds it too Luke to make the shot. By the time Vader regains control, the Death Star is blowing up and he's out numbered by at least a few dozen to one (probably more, given the scope of the attack). Even he doesn't stand a chance at those odds. So he bugs out.


The question shouldn't be why the Death Star target explosions are so slow in Rogue One, but why they're so fast in the other movies.

The destruction of Alderaan took what, a quarter of a second? Less (https://youtu.be/L7n9eK_v2ZM) (3:05 in the video)? Maybe they over-corrected a bit for Rouge One. How far was their ship from Jedda City? Thirty miles would not be unreasonable. That's 2 minutes and 30 seconds at Mach 1. Assuming the shockwave moves at mach 5 (much more likely than mach 1), that's still 30 seconds before it hits. Which is about what you get in the movie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=danEFEB7XJ4). The death ray hits Jedda City at 10 seconds, the Heroes are on board their ship and fleeing at about 45 seconds, and the shockwave hits at about 50 seconds. So about 40 seconds from impact to shockwave/debris arrival.

In Rogue One, if I remember correctly, the Death Star wasn't firing at full power at any point during the movie.

Bohandas
2017-07-27, 12:19 PM
Unfortunately, the ONLY things that are truely canon, are the films....including the prequels. All of the EU stuff, is just crap that a ****load of fanboys made up in their mommy's basement. It carries no more weight than anything you make up yourself.

Arguments can be made that things like the novels and any game material (RPG or video) can also be considered canon, as they all had to have Lucas Arts (and thus George himself) sign off on them.... but then you would have to accept "Splinter in the Mind's Eye" as canon. (The book where Vader falls in love with Leia...)

It's my understanding that Splinter in the Mind's Eye was superceded by The Empire Strikes Back. Like they were both written as possible next installments, wih Splinter being explicitly a fallback if they didn;t have the budget to do Empire. The Splinter in the Mind's Eye novel is therefore roughly equivalent to if someone did a novelization of Lucas' unrecognizable first draft of Star Wars (http://www.starwarz.com/starkiller/the-star-wars-rough-draft/)

TheYell
2017-07-27, 12:34 PM
A Jedi or a Sith in their prime is an unstoppable force of nature on the battlefield. No amount of conventional training, equipment, soldiers, or hardware stands even a snowball's chance in hell of stopping a trained force user that is determined to kill you. Against such a foe, you can only try to flee because standing and fighting won't even slow them down. The only way to even imagine fighting one is with another force user, because anyone else will be dead before they even know why.

What I want to see is the Death Star Corellian staff drawing straws to piss off Vader:

'you got it! you got to do it!'
"Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways Lord Vader"
'omg he's doing it'
Your sad devotion to that failed religion hasn't enabled you to recover those plans
'no way! omg!'

CharonsHelper
2017-07-27, 12:36 PM
What I want to see is the Death Star Corellian staff drawing straws to piss off Vader:

'you got it! you got to do it!'
"Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways Lord Vader"
'omg he's doing it'
Your sad devotion to that failed religion hasn't enabled you to recover those plans
'no way! omg!'

Either that or they just pretend he can choke them to death and then put on a goofy mustache disguise so he doesn't realize they're not dead. (anybody get the reference?)

Bohandas
2017-07-27, 12:36 PM
In Rogue One, if I remember correctly, the Death Star wasn't firing at full power at any point during the movie.

We know. We're not debating why the whole planet wasn't destroyed, we're debating why the part that was destroyed was destroyed so slowly. A squadron of stormtroopers with sledgehammers could have destroyed the city faster.

Yora
2017-07-27, 01:09 PM
Any ideas how to make any of this relevant to running a campaign?

TheYell
2017-07-27, 01:25 PM
Well, I guess you could embrace the Rule of Cool. If something makes a dramatic impact, don't squash it because you feel the setting restricts it.


but don't allow it to derail the narrative flow of your story

the way you didn't allow us to derail this thread ...

Lvl 2 Expert
2017-07-27, 04:28 PM
I think the point of Star Wars is in some way that there is no complete collection of canon things.

This is a whole universe, and most people live out their life on a single planet. They're shopkeepers, farmers, fruit pickers, construction workers, slaves, thieves and even a sports hero here and there, but they rarely if ever leave their world, even with the ease of travel in this setting. It's mostly an upper crust of politicians and royalty that moves about, plus military forces, trade convoys and all sorts of guerrilla movements, smugglers and gun runners. An "episode" of Star Wars, much like one of Star Trek, will often deal with a planet or ship or installation or person from a world completely new to your crew of characters. And if they like that culture, keep it around.

That said, there are a couple of things that give every planet and ship more of a Star Wars feel.
1 Designs in the Star Wars universe only survive the most superficial of lookings over. An ATAT is awesome, until you start looking for flaws in its design. Pod racing is also one of the most Star Wars thing ever. And don't forget those weird movement and vision limiting armored suits every bad guy wears. Try to make things not make sense. Slow vehicles traveling on flat surfaces hover above the ground rather than using wheels, vehicles parked on mountainous planets are one big wheel.
2 The whole universe misses several layers of technology. There is not really such a thing as a targeting computer. You can use an astromech droid, but those work so bad that most people work with turrets turned by one or more operators, often even moved manually. Paper officially does not exist in the universe, and in the pod racing scene (yes, it is a good example) there is not a single pair of sunglasses in the crowd. Star Wars is like a homebrew setting whose main ingredients are the standard science fiction setting, WW1, Arthurian legends and ancient Greek mythology, and the way they don't make sense together is a feature, not a bug. And the whole universe is remarkably uniform in these matters. If a kind of technology cannot be found on one planet, it's probably not available anywhere.
3 Bigger is better. Star Wars will never tell you about a tiny alien ship that could wipe out a fleet of star destroyers. You can see how scary things are supposed to be. Sure, a dozen rebel fighters can blow up the death star, but in universe that's a military miracle. Bigger objects are still the preferred method of doing things. Your gun has become too big to even turn? Get more people to push! Because it's clearly the best thing. And because of this things in Star Wars tend toward the big side, whether they're walker tanks or spaceships.
4 Jedi. Just that, don't forget them. There may at most times only be a handful of them in an entire galaxy, but it's easily the most recognizable thing in the whole canon, the one thing that really feels like Star Wars on its own rather then being a variant of something from just any space opera setting.

Bohandas
2017-07-28, 10:53 AM
This is one thing Star Wars does not do well. The Galaxy is super small. It's a lot like the Middle Earth problem. How long does it take to get anywhere in the galaxy? A couple of minutes.

Now, if you use Star Wars, you will need to decide quick do you A) Want to shadow the Famous or B) Want to have a more generic space fantasy. And this is a very tricky thing with something as famous as Star Wars. A lot of players won't ''feel'' like it is Star Wars unless you use the famous and iconic characters and places. If you say ''oh it's planet Zembuplly'', some people will say that is not Star Wars.

Well that's because that's more of a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy style planet name than a Star Wars style planet name. Names in Star Wars tend to sound like they coukd be pharmaceutical products

Yora
2017-07-28, 03:13 PM
Using Jedi and especially Sith in a campaign seems to be a particularly difficult challenge to me. If the party is a group of dubious characters of questionable morals (as I think the average group should start out as), you probably don't want Jedi NPCs to come across as wise infalable paladin elves.
No scoundrel wants to have to deal with a preachy know it all who also has superpowers that makes him unbeatable. You can have some of them, but I think it's generally better to have them be more flexible at dealing with other people than expecting everyone to conform to their own standards. Like Obi-Wan is making great efforts to talk with Han on Han's level. They are still constantly arguing, but Obi-Wan is game to do it in a way that comes across as somwthing Han can respect.
Serene monks of infinite wisdom only works if the party also consits of such characters.

But Sith seem a much harder nut to crack. Does it even make sense to have them appear in a campaign in which there's only one or no Jedi in the party? I could imagine a one off encounter in which scoundrels outsmart a Sith leading a group of stormtroopers and successfully make their getaway, but as a regular villain it seems a poor fit.

Thrudd
2017-07-28, 03:21 PM
Using Jedi and especially Sith in a campaign seems to be a particularly difficult challenge to me. If the party is a group of dubious characters of questionable morals (as I think the average group should start out as), you probably don't want Jedi NPCs to come across as wise infalable paladin elves.
No scoundrel wants to have to deal with a preachy know it all who also has superpowers that makes him unbeatable. You can have some of them, but I think it's generally better to have them be more flexible at dealing with other people than expecting everyone to conform to their own standards. Like Obi-Wan is making great efforts to talk with Han on Han's level. They are still constantly arguing, but Obi-Wan is game to do it in a way that comes across as somwthing Han can respect.
Serene monks of infinite wisdom only works if the party also consits of such characters.

But Sith seem a much harder nut to crack. Does it even make sense to have them appear in a campaign in which there's only one or no Jedi in the party? I could imagine a one off encounter in which scoundrels outsmart a Sith leading a group of stormtroopers and successfully make their getaway, but as a regular villain it seems a poor fit.

Yes, unless it's an all Jedi game in Old Republic or Clone Wars era, Sith are not really great to have unless it's one single big bad guy behind the scenes of stuff. If they ever face the Sith, they'll either be running or figuring out how to kill him in a clever or roundabout way - like catching him while he's on a ship and blowing up the ship.

A weaker force user could possibly delay or help the party escape an encounter with the Sith, but like Luke in ESB, will not last long either. Such an encounter may be an excuse for such a character to seek to improve their force skills, however, or try to copy a trick they saw the sith using.

CharonsHelper
2017-07-28, 03:27 PM
Yes, unless it's an all Jedi game in Old Republic or Clone Wars era, Sith are not really great to have unless it's one single big bad guy behind the scenes of stuff. If they ever face the Sith, they'll either be running or figuring out how to kill him in a clever or roundabout way - like catching him while he's on a ship and blowing up the ship.

A weaker force user could possibly delay or help the party escape an encounter with the Sith, but like Luke in ESB, will not last long either. Such an encounter may be an excuse for such a character to seek to improve their force skills, however, or try to copy a trick they saw the sith using.

I'd disagree.

Remember - Vader was tougher than the average Sith, just like back when he was a Jedi he was tougher than the average (hence the Emperor targeting him for recruitment).

Jango Fett took out multiple Jedi before Mace Windu (who was mentioned as being an especially badass Jedi) chopped off his head. I don't see why non-Jedi PCs couldn't do the same to lesser Sith, especially during The Old Republic era before The Rule of Two took effect so there would be plenty of lesser Sith running around.

And even less than full-fledged Sith, there were even weaker dark-side force users in the fluff. Dark Side Assassins & whatnot.

Thrudd
2017-07-28, 03:36 PM
I'd disagree.

Remember - Vader was tougher than the average Sith, just like back when he was a Jedi he was tougher than the average (hence the Emperor targeting him for recruitment).

Jango Fett took out multiple Jedi before Mace Windu (who was mentioned as being an especially badass Jedi) chopped off his head. I don't see why non-Jedi PCs couldn't do the same to lesser Sith, especially during The Old Republic era before The Rule of Two took effect so there would be plenty of lesser Sith running around.

And even less than full-fledged Sith, there were even weaker dark-side force users in the fluff. Dark Side Assassins & whatnot.

yeah, that's a good point. There can be weaker dark-side force users who would be tough enemies but not unbeatable. Especially in WEG, deflecting blaster bolts is a pretty advanced skill that isn't as easy or reliable as the prequel movies make it look. But still - it's not as though Sith must be the primary enemies of any Star Wars game. You also have the Empire, crime lords, or some other new belligerent faction you invent.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-28, 03:48 PM
If you look at the SWTOR MMO as any sort of grist for the mill... 99th percentile characters eat mooks for breakfast and come back for lunch, dinner, and snack. Force-or-no-Force isn't the dividing line. In that era, there are plenty of low-grade Force-users, and competence, determination, savvy, and gear can combine to overwhelm the Force-using rabble just like it can the non-Force-using rabble.

Cited it before, but one of my favorite moments in SWTOR comes from the Bounty Hunter story, when an NPC Jedi tries the mind trick:

"You will lay down your weapons and surrender" -- complete with hand wave.
"You will realize what a complete idiot you are" -- mimicking hand wave.


As for Vader and Palpatine being tough... meh, they've kinda been deified by the EU material and fandom... they're nothing that special as far as Sith go, they're just scary as hell in their own era because they're unchallenged by those who would have been their equals. They took down the Jedi and seized the Republic by subterfuge, and manipulating the presumptions and blind spots of the Jedi, and pandering to the fears of the public and military alike.

Tinkerer
2017-07-28, 03:54 PM
Very few things in Star Wars can make you feel more badass than taking out a force user as a non-force user. "Your team is impressive but it is insignificant compared to the power of the Forc-OH GOD I'M BLIND! NOW I'M ON FIRE! BALL BEARINGS??? WH-WH-WHOA!"

FreddyNoNose
2017-07-28, 05:16 PM
Has anyone suggested adding to the mix brothers and sisters kissing?

Dragonexx
2017-07-28, 06:12 PM
Very few things in Star Wars can make you feel more badass than taking out a force user as a non-force user. "Your team is impressive but it is insignificant compared to the power of the Forc-OH GOD I'M BLIND! NOW I'M ON FIRE! BALL BEARINGS??? WH-WH-WHOA!"


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ToztqqDcaY

CharonsHelper
2017-07-28, 06:33 PM
As for Vader and Palpatine being tough... meh, they've kinda been deified by the EU material and fandom... they're nothing that special as far as Sith go, they're just scary as hell in their own era because they're unchallenged by those who would have been their equals.

I didn't mean that they were the most powerful Sith EVER, but they were definitely way above average, especially if you include all of the lesser Sith before The Rule of Two.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-28, 07:12 PM
I didn't mean that they were the most powerful Sith EVER, but they were definitely way above average, especially if you include all of the lesser Sith before The Rule of Two.

True, you're right... I just have a twitch reaction on that subject.

goto124
2017-07-28, 11:14 PM
you probably don't want Jedi NPCs to come across as wise infalable paladin elves.

On the other hand, Jedi who think they're wise infallible paladin elves when they're actually just sticks in the mud are exactly how they're supposed to be played :smallbiggrin:

Yora
2017-07-30, 09:00 AM
I watched some videos today on how the prequels and the new movies are copying moments and lines from the classic movies all the time and there's actually way more of those than I spotted myself over the years. While I don't think that you can make a good movie with only that, the Star Wars setting works by using lots of things that feel familiar to people. Not just referencing inspirational material but also themselves.

What things do you think are iconic elements that GMs should try to get into a campaign?

One that I had not thought about so far, approaching a campaign from a Jedi and Scoundrel perspective and ignoring the military aspect, which I think doesn't work so well for open-world adventures, is the presence of space battles. Spaceship action is kind of a big thing in all the movies. Even if it's just getting chased by Tie Fighters in an armed transport. And I'd also look for ways to somehow get the party involved in bigger space battles as well. Maybe not as fighter pilots necessarily, but maybe some boarding actions as part of a larger space battle.

Another one I have not thought much about is monsters. They play a pretty small role in movies, but there's always fights against monsters. The trash compactor, the wampa lair, the space slug, the rancor, the sarlac, and so on. While they don't play big roles in the story, they are a pretty substential element of a setting mostly dominated by people, driods, and ships, even if it's much less frequent than in fantasy games and books.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-30, 09:27 AM
I watched some videos today on how the prequels and the new movies are copying moments and lines from the classic movies all the time and there's actually way more of those than I spotted myself over the years. While I don't think that you can make a good movie with only that, the Star Wars setting works by using lots of things that feel familiar to people. Not just referencing inspirational material but also themselves.


It's funny you should mention that... one of the big knocks on TFA is that it's less a new movie than it is a hacked-up nostalgia-pandering rework of ANH, as presented by JJ Abrams (aka Captain Lens-flare).

That it's simply an exercise in pandering to nostalgia, with no regard for advancing the story or setting -- everything is warped by the drive to tap the vein of love for the IP.


https://www.vox.com/2015/12/21/10445616/star-wars-hollywood-nostalgia-problem
https://www.vox.com/2015/12/17/10383876/star-wars-episode-vii-the-force-awakens-review
http://www.rogerebert.com/far-flung-correspondents/plagiarizing-star-wars-the-problems-with-the-force-awakens
https://moviepilot.com/posts/3863094
http://www.looper.com/6702/ways-force-awakens-remake-new-hope/
https://www.wired.com/2016/01/geeks-guide-force-awakens/
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-george-awakens
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/the-force-awakens-review
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/12/21/star_wars_the_force_awakens_ending_is_the_only_par t_that_doesn_t_feel_like.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/post/dear-hollywood-nostalgia-is-not-a-business-model/2010/12/20/gIQA91b9dR_blog.html



I guess the lesson here is to draw a line between capturing the feel, and retreading the same ground.

Yora
2017-07-30, 10:21 AM
Yes, and I completely agree that this is what keeps it from being better than Episode 1 or 2. But the problem with the movie is not that it reuses familiar images. The problem is that it doesn't really have anything else. The device of using recognizable elements is still perfectly valid. If you use it in addition to actual content.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-30, 10:45 AM
Yes, and I completely agree that this is what keeps it from being better than Episode 1 or 2. But the problem with the movie is not that it reuses familiar images. The problem is that it doesn't really have anything else. The device of using recognizable elements is still perfectly valid. If you use it in addition to actual content.

Even the story wasn't original, it was largely a rehash of ANH.

Just retelling the same story over and over again to pander to nostalgia, regardless of the excuses given, isn't storytelling... it's just crass marketing.

ImNotTrevor
2017-07-30, 11:45 AM
Even the story wasn't original, it was largely a rehash of ANH.

JJ talked about exactly why that is the case. The decision was a conscious and deliberate one:

Write a loveletter to the original trilogy to make it clear that these guys know the formula for a Starwars movie before they take it somewhere new.

Essentially, they took the lesser of two evils. Had they gone into completely new territory from the beginning, the reaction would have been 10 times as bad. They HAD to do something mostly adherent to the old formula or else drown in backlash.

Then, they symbolically parted with the old movies at the end in a way that was so blatantly obvious that it felt like I was being clubbed over the head with it. For those who missed it:

Han solo is shishkabobed and drops into a dark pit while the two new MCs watch on, SPOTLIGHTED BY THE LIGHT OF A DYING SUN, and then the villain later on says "NOW IT'S JUST US."
If you missed this, I don't have any idea how you did. The only way they could have been more obvious would be to put MLG airhorns over the soundtrack and a big flashing bit of text that said "GOODBYE OLD STARWARS, HELLO NEW STARWARS"

The next one will prove or disprove that if it really departs, which early looks suggest it does.

TheYell
2017-07-30, 11:58 AM
I like the boarding mission aspect. Or maybe repelling boarders, see if you can do better than those poor Alderaan troops.

Maybe their ship gets grappled by a Star Destroyer, and they have to repel boarders, sneak onto the SD, release the grapple, and then find some other transport off the SD while their ship escapes to complete its vital mission...

Because the Empire has bitten off more than it can chew, that's also from the movies, it just can't be everywhere at once like it pretends

GrayDeath
2017-07-30, 12:32 PM
A lot of tips have already been given, so I`ll concentrate on something not yet mentioned (ind etail): Decide which side you`re on.

The best Star Wars Campaign I have ever played was one where we played on the side of the Empire (actually the empires remnants and Thrawn, see Zahns Trilogy for the intro, though the actual plot was much different).

Are your players/are you hooked to the extremely classic "Underdog Hero" flair of SW or not?
If not, both Empire-supporters and completely "mercenary" Group can be great fits for the Universe. It all deends on the dosage of Lightsabers and paladins you require. ;)

Faily
2017-07-30, 06:55 PM
I've been mulling it over, as I want to try running a Star Wars game soon too, as in "what truly makes a game feel like Star Wars". And I look back at the Star Wars games I've been in... from the very first one being WEG, then d20, and later a heavily homebrewed version of d20 made to resemble the KOTOR-system more, and lastly the FFG-system.

And the more I think about it, the more I felt like the FFG-system helped to give, what is at least to me, that real Star Wars feel: that the protagonists (PCs) are *the* story and that their story is the kind of stuff that is touched by luck and destiny. It's kind of hard for me to put that feeling properly into words.

So that's where I find the Destiny-mechanic of FFG Star Wars to truly help to drive the narrative from both sides of the table. The GM using Dark Side Destiny to drive the story, as well as the players using Light Side Destiny to really make a dramatic event or really push an interesting narrative. The FFG SW games I've played in have been set in the Old Republic period (a few years prior to the timeline of the MMO), and it's been tons of fun. The odd dice were rather intimidating at first (I found character creation to be pretty easy though, unlike I other game-systems I'm currently testing out these days *side-eye to SIFRP*), but I am very much inlove with the Destiny-system, especially with a group that utilize it very well. And I think that system has worked very well in how the GMs have been working up amazing stories around the PCs, rather than making the story and then putting the PCs in it.

Lentrax
2017-08-02, 07:51 AM
I started a SW campaign here not too long ago, set in the galaxy a thousand years after the Jedi lost the ability to use the Force. Without their guardians, the Republic fell pretty quick, and left the entire galaxy under the heel of the Sith.

Which left me having to bring together a party composed of not only non human characters but characters supposedly loyal to the Sith Empire.

I did this by giving the non Sith an entire cruiseliner to traipse about in, and told the Sith players that they were going to be boarding a ship to find a smuggler their Sith Lord was very interested in finding.

Then, as I bring them together, I completely turn the scene on its head, and use a second Star Destroyer to attack the liner they are on. But I don't describe it that way. I merely describe the ship being under attack, and with the characters deep inside, they don't immediately have that context so that when they finally do, they get this:


Imperials

"Tell you what, trooper. If you think you know so damn much, why don't y-"

The commlink squeals and squelches for a second, then pipes static into your ear.

At the same time, a massive explosion rocks the ship.


***

Everyone

Making your way forward, toward whatever destination you have in mind after the destruction of the docking bay (any terminal will display a schematic of the damage, revealing just how badly wounded the ship is, i.e. very) you pass an observation lounge.

Through the large transparisteel windows, you see a massive battle taking place.

A second Star Destroyer has appeared, and is apparently engaged in combat with the other. They are exchanging broadsides of turbolaser fire, and smaller brief flashes of light in the space around and between them indicate ongoing starfighter dogfights.

You aren't sure of what is happening, or why, but you also see another group of TIE fighters looping around for another run against the Starliner.

Its only a couple of lines of text, but it is a visual that we all know, and can easily visualize in our minds. It also leaves a story driven mystery, as well as cue players that the world their characters thought they were in is about to change.

Bohandas
2017-08-02, 08:58 AM
Even the story wasn't original, it was largely a rehash of ANH.

Just retelling the same story over and over again to pander to nostalgia, regardless of the excuses given, isn't storytelling... it's just crass marketing.

To be fair so was Return of the Jedi. Possibly moreso with Jedi. In Force Awakens they needed to stop a giant long-range deathstar powered (implicitly as of Rogue One) by kaibur crystals from the heart of a star; in Jedi they had to stop the same basic deathstar as the first time except this time with a grate over the exhaust port

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-02, 10:27 AM
To be fair so was Return of the Jedi. Possibly moreso with Jedi. In Force Awakens they needed to stop a giant long-range deathstar powered (implicitly as of Rogue One) by kaibur crystals from the heart of a star; in Jedi they had to stop the same basic deathstar as the first time except this time with a grate over the exhaust port

RotJ was a different story with a nearly identical doomsday device, destroyed in a different way.

TFA was the same story with different wallpaper and the "doomsday device" cranked up to 11 for EXTREME IMPACT.

Thrudd
2017-08-02, 10:34 AM
To be fair so was Return of the Jedi. Possibly moreso with Jedi. In Force Awakens they needed to stop a giant long-range deathstar powered (implicitly as of Rogue One) by kaibur crystals from the heart of a star; in Jedi they had to stop the same basic deathstar as the first time except this time with a grate over the exhaust port

Welp, the empire is nothing if not consistent. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, that's what the emperor always said. I mean, the death star's a great weapon right, they just need to iron out the kinks. That first one had too big of an exhaust port, apparently. The second one was going to be great, but the rebels got there before they were done building it. Not their fault! The third one should have been impossible to destroy unless someone else had a death star of their own, it was an entire freakin planet! But there's apparently no accounting for maintenance guys with a grudge - next time, we've gotta be more on top of vetting personnel with proper security clearances/mind wipes. HR has been notified. Next time, those dang rebels won't have a chance...

GrayDeath
2017-08-02, 10:41 AM
Welp, the empire is nothing if not consistent. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, that's what the emperor always said. I mean, the death star's a great weapon right, they just need to iron out the kinks. That first one had too big of an exhaust port, apparently. The second one was going to be great, but the rebels got there before they were done building it. Not their fault! The third one should have been impossible to destroy unless someone else had a death star of their own, it was an entire freakin planet! But there's apparently no accounting for maintenance guys with a grudge - next time, we've gotta be more on top of vetting personnel with proper security clearances/mind wipes. HR has been notified. Next time, those dang rebels won't have a chance...

I am laughing SO hard right now....and seeing as I am at work (albeit in break for food consupmtion purposes)....he^^

Corsair14
2017-08-02, 10:42 AM
In theory they were mass producing Death Stars since with a space of what 3 or 4 years between ANH and RotJ the second DS had construction already underway when the first one blew up for them to already be as far along as they were when they rebels blew it up again. With that kind of redundancy one would think there was a third one elsewhere under construction too. It was the size of a moon, even with limitless labor you are talking a decade or more to build even if the second one was basically living quarters, power, Emperor's throne room, big pit of doom, massive framework, and a BFG. In this line of thinking we could in theory have a new movie about the same exact thing every couple years in story line time.

Thrudd
2017-08-02, 10:46 AM
In theory they were mass producing Death Stars since with a space of what 3 or 4 years between ANH and RotJ the second DS had construction already underway when the first one blew up for them to already be as far along as they were when they rebels blew it up again. With that kind of redundancy one would think there was a third one elsewhere under construction too. It was the size of a moon, even with limitless labor you are talking a decade or more to build even if the second one was basically living quarters, power, Emperor's throne room, big pit of doom, massive framework, and a BFG. In this line of thinking we could in theory have a new movie about the same exact thing every couple years in story line time.

Totally. Ep 9 will need to be the rebels finally finding the super secret death star factory/production yard and blowing all of them up at once.

Corsair14
2017-08-02, 12:02 PM
They might even have to rescue one of the B team who gets captured by some shadowy underworld character and have the coolest looking character in the new series scream like a little girl when someone accidently turns his jet pack on. There may even be cute cuddly creatures that want to cook them. I think I should write this movie.

On a sad note, with Han dead to Ben, we will never get the final encounter between Boba-Fett and Han. :(

Starbuck_II
2017-08-02, 12:37 PM
They might even have to rescue one of the B team who gets captured by some shadowy underworld character and have the coolest looking character in the new series scream like a little girl when someone accidently turns his jet pack on. There may even be cute cuddly creatures that want to cook them. I think I should write this movie.

On a sad note, with Han dead to Ben, we will never get the final encounter between Boba-Fett and Han. :(

We can always clone him... we have the facilities. Or did I forget if the clone production ability was destroyed.

Corsair14
2017-08-02, 01:28 PM
Nope, in Dark Empires they find a secret base with the Emperor's fallback plan which included multiple clones of him. I forget if Thrawn was trying to do the same thing when he was on his rampage through the New Republic or if he just wanted C'boeth(sp?)(crazy dark jedi guy) and Luke under his sway. Been a while since I read that one.

Mutazoia
2017-08-03, 02:25 AM
In theory they were mass producing Death Stars since with a space of what 3 or 4 years between ANH and RotJ the second DS had construction already underway when the first one blew up for them to already be as far along as they were when they rebels blew it up again. With that kind of redundancy one would think there was a third one elsewhere under construction too. It was the size of a moon, even with limitless labor you are talking a decade or more to build even if the second one was basically living quarters, power, Emperor's throne room, big pit of doom, massive framework, and a BFG. In this line of thinking we could in theory have a new movie about the same exact thing every couple years in story line time.

In one of the novels (can't remember which one off the top of my head) Han (I think) flies to the center of the Maw (a cluster of black holes) and finds a crap load of Death Stars in various stages of construction.

hamishspence
2017-08-03, 05:25 AM
In one of the novels (can't remember which one off the top of my head) Han (I think) flies to the center of the Maw (a cluster of black holes) and finds a crap load of Death Stars in various stages of construction.

Jedi Search. He finds one Death Star Prototype and 4 ISDs. Later he discovers that they've built a starship with star-killing torpedoes (the Sun Crusher). He steals it (with help) and flees back to the New Republic.


The Death Star Prototype, having no hyperdrive, is harmless on the galactic stage - it can only attack Kessel itself. However, it's possible that this was revised slightly (or the New Republic are afraid that a hyperdrive could have been installed on it) since they worry a lot about it being taken on the attack into New Republic space, in the third book (Champions of the Force).

Beelzebubba
2017-08-03, 05:56 AM
Has anyone suggested adding to the mix brothers and sisters kissing?

That, and give all Evil-aligned archers Disadvantage on all ranged attacks.

goto124
2017-08-03, 10:23 AM
That, and give all Evil-aligned archers Disadvantage on all ranged attacks.

Something about the Stormtroopers intentionally missing because they want the targets alive.

CharonsHelper
2017-08-03, 10:29 AM
That, and give all Evil-aligned archers Disadvantage on all ranged attacks.


Something about the Stormtroopers intentionally missing because they want the targets alive.

Well - on The Death Star in ep IV they actually wanted them to get away to lead them to the rebel base.

Maybe just give Ewoks abilities similar to Pugwumpy against their foes? (That was the only other time that Stormtroopers seemed especially inept.)

GrayDeath
2017-08-03, 10:52 AM
Info in the Jedi Academy series states the Maw was the Emperors secret Developement hole (overseen by Admiral Daala, most stupid of all Admirals). With at least one mobile DS Prototype

But then again, that was the series of novels that had the Sun Crusher, ergo the Deat Stars Fire power times 20 (exploding suns) in an indestructible Starfighter, so ...yeah.

Yora
2017-08-04, 12:35 PM
Is the super arms race something that would be smart to continue with a campaign?

On one hand, superweapons seem to be a thing in the Star Wars setting. However, always trying to out-awesome whatever super special awesome super weapon came before can't lead to anything good. Star Wars runs on ridiculously unrealistic stuff, but the idea is that these are establishing the maximum of what is possible within the setting. By keeping to go beyond that you are constantly moving goalposts. It's the standard shonen anime problem.

While superweapons are a major element in Star Wars, I think I'd rather keep my hands off those. The repercussions of outdoing death stars seem too volatile to me.

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-04, 12:46 PM
Is the super arms race something that would be smart to continue with a campaign?

On one hand, superweapons seem to be a thing in the Star Wars setting. However, always trying to out-awesome whatever super special awesome super weapon came before can't lead to anything good. Star Wars runs on ridiculously unrealistic stuff, but the idea is that these are establishing the maximum of what is possible within the setting. By keeping to go beyond that you are constantly moving goalposts. It's the standard shonen anime problem.

While superweapons are a major element in Star Wars, I think I'd rather keep my hands off those. The repercussions of outdoing death stars seem too volatile to me.

I'd treat the planet-busting superweapons and myth-level arms races and such as things that happen outside the PCs sphere of experience. Make their stories about other elements of the setting.

Tinkerer
2017-08-04, 01:26 PM
Well - on The Death Star in ep IV they actually wanted them to get away to lead them to the rebel base.

Maybe just give Ewoks abilities similar to Pugwumpy against their foes? (That was the only other time that Stormtroopers seemed especially inept.)

The time which really stands out to me was the shoot-out in the Mos Eisley spaceport. I mean they were right there, they weren't trying to let them get away that time, the stormtroopers were kinda running around without a plan, Han took his sweet time getting into the ship, one of the stormtroopers falls over dead without getting hit... twice (same trooper), really that was the scene that stuck with me. But even that one was understandable since it only went on a few seconds and I don't think they were expecting Han to start shooting back.

But yeah, smart choice staying away from the super-weapons. Honestly I've found that without those Star Wars almost feels like Firefly with aliens (Assuming you're playing when the Empire is around). You've got a massive government that you're trying to stay off their radar, most planets are either rural or urban, you've got a ship with character, granted you've generally got a bit more money but that could change at the drop of a hat. Of course this is assuming you're playing independent characters. If you're playing a Rebel then you're more of a Browncoat :smallbiggrin:

Corsair14
2017-08-04, 02:05 PM
You could also go with lesser weapon systems. New ships or fighters. Throw in the plans for the Eclipse or Twilight classes of Super Star Destroyers, especially if you aren't going to run Dark Empires storyline. Either stopping them or having the players side with the Imps to stop the rebels.

Cosi
2017-08-04, 02:20 PM
Is the super arms race something that would be smart to continue with a campaign?

Star Wars isn't about the super arms race, really (that's more a Lensman thing). The Rebels don't ever come out with Death Stars of their own to counter the Imperial ones, they just keep deploying fighters and winning engagements because those are tactically superior to what the Empire is doing.

The Superweapons in Star Wars are basically equivalent to the evil mage in a Sword and Sorcery story threatening to raise one of the Great Old Ones. Most of the screen time during Star Wars is dedicated to things that aren't "slug it out with the Death Star and destroy it", but the fact that the empire has the ability to blow up planets is an important part of making them threatening.

Bohandas
2017-08-04, 03:07 PM
Jedi Search. He finds one Death Star Prototype and 4 ISDs. Later he discovers that they've built a starship with star-killing torpedoes (the Sun Crusher). He steals it (with help) and flees back to the New Republic.


The Death Star Prototype, having no hyperdrive, is harmless on the galactic stage - it can only attack Kessel itself. However, it's possible that this was revised slightly (or the New Republic are afraid that a hyperdrive could have been installed on it) since they worry a lot about it being taken on the attack into New Republic space, in the third book (Champions of the Force).
You know, I just realized why the last 2 films don't really seem like Star Wars. It's because they are, in retrospect, unmistakably knockoffs. They're made of plot elements and character backstories from Jedi Academy and Legacy of the Force but with the serial numbers filed off and that have been jumbled up and put back t0gether wrong

hamishspence
2017-08-04, 03:45 PM
You know, I just realized why the last 2 films don't really seem like Star Wars. It's because they are, in retrospect, unmistakably knockoffs. They're made of plot elements and character backstories from Jedi Academy and Legacy of the Force but with the serial numbers filed off and that have been jumbled up and put back t0gether wrong

That description sounds very much like TFA - but it doesn't sound like Rogue One. A case could be made that Rogue One was a knockoff of Dark Forces - but aside from the basic "get Death Star plans" outline, none of the characters are much like Kyle Katarn.

Bohandas
2017-08-04, 04:37 PM
Yes, I suppose Galen wasn't executed and resurrected like Lemelisk was (at least not as far as we know) (which is disappointing in a way because the prequels did indeed hint that Palpatine might be able to do that sort of thing)

hamishspence
2017-08-04, 05:18 PM
Yes, I suppose Galen wasn't executed and resurrected like Lemelisk was (at least not as far as we know) (which is disappointing in a way because the prequels did indeed hint that Palpatine might be able to do that sort of thing)

Finn might end up having some Kyle Katarn traits - he's a stormtrooper, who defects to the Resistance (rather than the Rebels) - and going by his reaction to the destruction of Hosnian Prime, he's likely to be Force Sensitive. Maybe he, like Kyle, will become a Jedi?

daniel_ream
2017-08-04, 11:59 PM
<cracks knuckles>

Man. I could write a small book on this, but many people already have. If you can get a hold of the WEG core book, they cover a lot of the themes and how to express them in an RPG there (sense of scale, humans over technology, hope, etc., etc.).

What always gets me about this topic is that it's been studied to death by film students and What Makes Star Wars Feel Like Star Wars has been known for forty years. Somehow, this has just never found its way into the gaming/geek community. In all fairness, this hasn't been helped by Lucasfilm allowing any random space opera novel to use the Star Wars marque in the 1990s.

The original Star Wars trilogy is simple to decompose. Episode IV is a mashup of four things.


Flash Gordon serials from the 1930s-40s
Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress
John Ford's The Searchers
The WWII film Dam Busters


In short, it's the films Lucas watched down the local movie theatre when he was a kid plus Kurosawa, because if you're a film student in the 1970's you think Kurosawa is God.

Episodes V and VI are the same structure, although their sources are different. Hoth is Stalingrad, the battle for Endor is Midway, Bespin is Casablanca, etc., etc.

So if you want to recreate the Star Wars OT feel, pick the following:


The Flash Gordon serials
A Kurosawa film
A John Ford Western
A WWII film from the 1950's - 1960's


...and smash them up.

Incidentally, this structure broadly holds true for all the Star Wars movies. In the prequel trilogy the Jedi aren't philosophical samurai any more, they're wu xia fighters because if you're a filmmaker in the late 1990's, you think Yuen Woo-Ping and John Woo are God. And the WWII films have been swapped out for Vietnam (or did you not notice that the Republic Gunship is a Huey sans rotors?)

Even the new crop of films are following the structure, but Disney is splitting the films by genre: Rogue One is the Dirty Dozen, Han Solo is going to be the frontier Western.

The big takeaway from all this is that Star Wars is not, and has never been about worldbuilding. It's wildly, deliberately inconsistent in its setting. Things are there because they are elements of one of the four sources with a Ralph McQuarrie/Flash Gordon gloss, not because they make any internal sense (this is why you never see any technology in Eps IV-VI more sophisticated than WWII-ish, and why distances, astrography and technical capabilities are vague and handwavy. Also why TIE fighters go WAAAAAAHHHH in airless space).

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-05, 08:46 AM
Which is why it's been said (by me and others) that Star Wars is space fantasy, not science fiction.

If you're going to run a Star Wars game, you either have to accept the just-so as-is aspects of that fictional reality, or abandon absolute fidelity to the fiction in order to pursue coherence and consistency.

Knaight
2017-08-05, 10:31 PM
So if you want to recreate the Star Wars OT feel, pick the following:


The Flash Gordon serials
A Kurosawa film
A John Ford Western
A WWII film from the 1950's - 1960's


...and smash them up.

This just pushes the problem back though - now there's a matter of how you get the feel of these four things across.

daniel_ream
2017-08-05, 11:40 PM
This just pushes the problem back though - now there's a matter of how you get the feel of these four things across.

Well, yes. But rather like saying "building a house is simple, you just need a hammer, nails and some lumber", you're still closer to your end goal than if you have, say, a socket wrench, zipties and a pile of old tires. Knowing what Star Wars is and is not at least reduces your list of elements to something that's in the ballpark.

For instance, large megacorporations and computer hacking don't belong in Star Wars, because they're not on the list[1]

Star Wars isn't all that complicated a structure once you break it down this way; case in point, multiple episodes of The Clone Wars have done exactly this (with Yojimbo, The Seven Samurai and Fort Apache). Try it some time: just grab a movie that fits each slot, take the scenes that really stand out, wrap them in some Ralph McQuarrie mechanical designs and go nuts. You'd be surprised how well it works.


[1] Yes, I know later authors have added both of these to the "canon", but the OP was about Episodes IV-VI, and I think we can agree that cyberpunk genre conventions are not a Star Wars thing.

Fearan
2017-08-06, 02:38 AM
Here's a note. A lot of people say Star Wars is space fantasy, not sci-fi. Let me disagree on that point. Star Wars is not even fantasy per se - it's space wuxia. Think Crouching tiger, Hidden dragon instead of Lord of the rings. Bullet points incoming:

There is no "gear" - only person. Seriously, how did the Ewoks beat a modern army with cutting edge jungle camouflage(lol) blasters and tanks? Simple - their kung-fu was better
There is no "global" - only personal. Luke initially had no beef with the Empire - he was going to become an imperial pilot, Academy and such. When suddenly skeletons from his family closet arrived. Tarquin didn't blow up Alderaan because of politics, economy, yadda, yadda. It was for Leia to break
There is no "reasonable" - only heroic. Nah, we're not taking on the whole station to save a girl. Remember that one? As don't I.
There is no "grey" - only black and white - And here is where Rogue-1 got it all wrong.

Yora
2017-08-06, 03:01 AM
Wuxia is just Chinese Sword & Sorcery. :smalltongue:

But I agree that the narrative style of fantasy that is in Star Wars is much more Sword & Sorcery than Epic Fantasy, even though you have the massive battles to destroy a Dark Lord who is ruling the (seemingly) entire galaxy.

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-06, 09:03 AM
Here's a note. A lot of people say Star Wars is space fantasy, not sci-fi. Let me disagree on that point. Star Wars is not even fantasy per se - it's space wuxia. Think Crouching tiger, Hidden dragon instead of Lord of the rings. Bullet points incoming:

There is no "gear" - only person. Seriously, how did the Ewoks beat a modern army with cutting edge jungle camouflage(lol) blasters and tanks? Simple - their kung-fu was better
There is no "global" - only personal. Luke initially had no beef with the Empire - he was going to become an imperial pilot, Academy and such. When suddenly skeletons from his family closet arrived. Tarquin didn't blow up Alderaan because of politics, economy, yadda, yadda. It was for Leia to break
There is no "reasonable" - only heroic. Nah, we're not taking on the whole station to save a girl. Remember that one? As don't I.
There is no "grey" - only black and white - And here is where Rogue-1 got it all wrong.



I'd say wuxia falls firmly in the fantasy category, just with different cultural details. "Fantasy" is not defined by the European medieval trappings that have become somewhat standard in fictional settings.


On a few of your points:


There's no excuse for the Ewoks, and that's roundly considered one of the weakest points of the OT.
Luke's beef with the Empire started out personal because he saw the murders of the Jawas and then his own aunt and uncle. But other characters had broader reasons to oppose the Empire, and Luke's grew broader as he grew as a character.
Why do people seem to forget how "grey" a character Han Solo was in ANH and even somewhat into ESB?

Bohandas
2017-08-06, 06:52 PM
For instance, large megacorporations and computer hacking don't belong in Star Wars, because they're not on the list[1]


[1] Yes, I know later authors have added both of these to the "canon", but the OP was about Episodes IV-VI, and I think we can agree that cyberpunk genre conventions are not a Star Wars thing.

Doesn't R2D2 hack into some of the Death Star's maintainence systems in ep 4?

As for the Trade Federation they were implemented well for the setting. They seemed at least as much like an overgrown guild, a crime syndicate, and/or an alliance of corrupt nobles as they did a modern corporation. Plus they were an interplanetary shipping concern, which ties in nicely with another of Star Wars' obvious influences, Frank Herbert's Dune series.


<cracks knuckles>

Man. I could write a small book on this, but many people already have. If you can get a hold of the WEG core book, they cover a lot of the themes and how to express them in an RPG there (sense of scale, humans over technology, hope, etc., etc.).

What always gets me about this topic is that it's been studied to death by film students and What Makes Star Wars Feel Like Star Wars has been known for forty years. Somehow, this has just never found its way into the gaming/geek community. In all fairness, this hasn't been helped by Lucasfilm allowing any random space opera novel to use the Star Wars marque in the 1990s.

The original Star Wars trilogy is simple to decompose. Episode IV is a mashup of four things.


Flash Gordon serials from the 1930s-40s
Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress
John Ford's The Searchers
The WWII film Dam Busters


In short, it's the films Lucas watched down the local movie theatre when he was a kid plus Kurosawa, because if you're a film student in the 1970's you think Kurosawa is God.

Episodes V and VI are the same structure, although their sources are different. Hoth is Stalingrad, the battle for Endor is Midway, Bespin is Casablanca, etc., etc.

So if you want to recreate the Star Wars OT feel, pick the following:


The Flash Gordon serials
A Kurosawa film
A John Ford Western
A WWII film from the 1950's - 1960's


...and smash them up.


And Dune (which I would remimd everybody was originally a book and predated Star Wars by a good decade). It's got it all: desert planet. Feudalism in space in which one of the estates of the realm consists (or consisted) or people with psychic powers. Interplanetary shipping controlled by a huge conglomerate with undue governmemt influence but otherwise not run in the style of a modern corporation. "Spices" that have to be mined. etc.

Thrudd
2017-08-06, 07:27 PM
Here's a note. A lot of people say Star Wars is space fantasy, not sci-fi. Let me disagree on that point. Star Wars is not even fantasy per se - it's space wuxia. Think Crouching tiger, Hidden dragon instead of Lord of the rings. Bullet points incoming:

There is no "gear" - only person. Seriously, how did the Ewoks beat a modern army with cutting edge jungle camouflage(lol) blasters and tanks? Simple - their kung-fu was better
There is no "global" - only personal. Luke initially had no beef with the Empire - he was going to become an imperial pilot, Academy and such. When suddenly skeletons from his family closet arrived. Tarquin didn't blow up Alderaan because of politics, economy, yadda, yadda. It was for Leia to break
There is no "reasonable" - only heroic. Nah, we're not taking on the whole station to save a girl. Remember that one? As don't I.
There is no "grey" - only black and white - And here is where Rogue-1 got it all wrong.


Meh. The only thing that is slightly "wuxia" about Star Wars was Darth Maul's fighting style in Ep 1 and the general idea of magic swordsmen having duels. A plot with heroic actions and personal stakes is not the definition of wuxia. Nor is black and white morality something which exclusively describes wuxia.

Star Wars in general, removing plot-specific elements of the movies (since an RPG should be creating that "star wars" feeling without mimicking the plot of the movies) is:
western-style blaster shoot-outs,
occasional war-movie style battle sequences with tanks and troops and anti-aircraft weapons and explosions,
spaceship dogfights/naval battles,
fast moving chases and races with flying vehicles,
occasional swashbuckler style heroics like swinging on things, leaping on platforms or across dangerous ravines,
swashbuckler/samurai sword duels with magic powers (the only slightly wuxia thing in the mix),
pulp sci-fi style planets/environments, robots and aliens and creatures that are sometimes hazards,
and a plucky group of characters, often from diverse and divergent backgrounds, that have sometimes witty banter and team up to face adventure.

Bohandas
2017-08-06, 07:46 PM
There is no "global" - only personal. Luke initially had no beef with the Empire - he was going to become an imperial pilot, Academy and such. When suddenly skeletons from his family closet arrived. Tarquin didn't blow up Alderaan because of politics, economy, yadda, yadda. It was for Leia to break

Unless we take Rogue One into consideration as well, in which case the destruction of Alderaan was part of an established pattern of being a deranged sadistic maniac who likes to randomly blow stuff up

daniel_ream
2017-08-06, 07:54 PM
Doesn't R2D2 hack into some of the Death Star's maintainence systems in ep 4?

That's not computer hacking, it's safecracking. No, I'm quite serious; the reason R2's probe rotates like that instead of just plugging in like every data connection ever is that it's supposed to look like he's cracking a safe. I'll have to dig up my copy of Hidden Fortress to be certain, but I'm almost positive that scene's a swipe with one guy watching for guards while the other crouching down, picks a lock.


As for the Trade Federation they were implemented well for the setting. They seemed at least as much like an overgrown guild, a crime syndicate, and/or an alliance of corrupt nobles as they did a modern corporation.

I was about to mention exactly this: in a world based on samurai cinema with a dash of WWII, you can still have large interstellar organizations, they're just organized like Renaissance merchant princes or Hanseatic trade guilds.

Again, though, the prequel trilogy is drawing on a different set of sources so it's wise not to conflate the two.


[...] which ties in nicely with another of Star Wars' obvious influences, Frank Herbert's Dune series.

There's some cosmetic stuff there, true, but not as much as you think. The actual list of things Lucas was ripping off was much, much longer than four movies, but the Dune influence is limited to a couple of offhand references during the Tatooine scenes.


Star Wars is not even fantasy per se - it's space wuxia.

In the prequel trilogy, the Jedi are patterned after wu dong fighters, so you're correct there. But the OP was about the OT, which is drawing from Japanese films, not Chinese. They're very different. The different portrayals of Yoda is probably the starkest indicator.

goto124
2017-08-06, 07:59 PM
That's not computer hacking, it's safecracking. No, I'm quite serious; the reason R2's probe rotates like that instead of just plugging in like every data connection ever is that it's supposed to look like he's cracking a safe. I'll have to dig up my copy of Hidden Fortress to be certain, but I'm almost positive that scene's a swipe with one guy watching for guards while the other crouching down, picks a lock.


That... explains a lot.

Bohandas
2017-08-06, 08:30 PM
There's some cosmetic stuff there, true, but not as much as you think. The actual list of things Lucas was ripping off was much, much longer than four movies, but the Dune influence is limited to a couple of offhand references during the Tatooine scenes.

What about the fact that one of the estates of the realm was psychics (the Jedi [and later, in the time of the empire, the sith, though they were more akin to royalty] in Star Wars and the Bene Geserit and Spacers in Dune)

Mutazoia
2017-08-06, 11:42 PM
Unless we take Rogue One into consideration as well, in which case the destruction of Alderaan was part of an established pattern of being a deranged sadistic maniac who likes to randomly blow stuff up

Not quite. If we take Rogue One into consideration, the base was destroyed to keep it from falling into rebel hands/stop the transmission of stolen data. Why he targets a point far enough away from the research base that they had time to complete the transmission is purely cinimatic. If he had zapped the base directly, they would have created a(nother) time paradox, in that the plans were never stolen.

Yes, Tarkin destroys Alderaan partially to break Liea, but he is well aware that her "father", and most of Aldaraan supports the rebellion. He's essentially killing two birds with one stone. Three if you consider that demonstrating that the Empire can blow up an entire planet if they don't like the way you are running business is intended to keep other planets from supporting the rebellion. The fact that it backfires and the Death Star is destroyed just illustrates Tarkin's overconfidence and gross underestimation of his enemy.

goto124
2017-08-07, 12:51 AM
If he had zapped the base directly, they would have created a(nother) time paradox, in that the plans were never stolen.

Hey, this isn't the chronomancy thread! :smalltongue:

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-07, 12:54 AM
Rogue One is like a lesson in why to avoid immediately contiguous prequels.

daniel_ream
2017-08-07, 05:04 AM
What about the fact that one of the estates of the realm was psychics (the Jedi [and later, in the time of the empire, the sith, though they were more akin to royalty] in Star Wars and the Bene Geserit and Spacers in Dune)

The original name for the Jedi was jedi bendu, which is a portmanteau of samurai geddai and bindu. Bindu is a term from Buddhism; the Force is nothing more than Zen Buddhism filtered (erroneously) through Jungian philosophy (it was the 70's. Jung was huge in pop psychology at the time).

You'll probably notice that prana-bindu is also from Dune, the name for one of the Bene Gessirit arts. But if you look at the script drafts for Episode IV, it's pretty clear they're both pulling from the same source (Hindu Buddhism). Lucas was certainly aware of Dune, the references to spice and the sandworm skeletons are dead giveaways, and I'm sure some of the ideas of the Kwizatz Haderach leaked in there a bit. But the Jedi aren't Bene Gesserit and certainly the Sith aren't either.

If you look at the original script drafts (http://www.starwarz.com/starkiller/category/star-wars-scripts/star-wars-star-wars-scripts/) you'll see how these ideas developed over time.

Bohandas
2017-08-07, 09:27 AM
Not quite. If we take Rogue One into consideration, the base was destroyed to keep it from falling into rebel hands/stop the transmission of stolen data. Why he targets a point far enough away from the research base that they had time to complete the transmission is purely cinimatic. If he had zapped the base directly, they would have created a(nother) time paradox, in that the plans were never stolen.

The plans were already transmitted before he even gave the order

Yora
2017-08-07, 11:59 AM
Rogue One is like a lesson in why to avoid immediately contiguous prequels.

These problems with Rogue One come down to excessive fan service. Which still doesn't come close to how bad it was in Force Awakens.

It's not a story that stands on its own feet but is entirely about referencing Episode 4.

Star Wars in general is a lesson in why to avoid any prequels.

daniel_ream
2017-08-07, 03:53 PM
Star Wars in general is a lesson in why to avoid any prequels.

The worst thing that can happen to any beloved cult IP is for it to fall into the hands of its fans.

Mutazoia
2017-08-07, 11:52 PM
The plans were already transmitted before he even gave the order

He didn't know that. It's not like the rebels called him up and said "Oh, hey...so we're done transmitting your plans now, could you call off the attack?"

Bohandas
2017-08-10, 05:28 PM
The original name for the Jedi was jedi bendu, which is a portmanteau of samurai geddai and bindu. Bindu is a term from Buddhism; the Force is nothing more than Zen Buddhism filtered (erroneously) through Jungian philosophy (it was the 70's. Jung was huge in pop psychology at the time).

Does "ashla" mean anything in real life? IIRC they were the Jedi Bendu Knights of Ashla

daniel_ream
2017-08-11, 03:29 PM
Does "ashla" mean anything in real life? IIRC they were the Jedi Bendu Knights of Ashla

Not that I'm aware of. At one point in the script rewrites, "Ashla" was the name for the light side of the Force. I assume it was lifted from somewhere, but it's likely been corrupted or misspelled.

Varon
2017-08-15, 04:19 PM
I think one of the biggest things about the feel of Star Wars is that it's supposed to be fun, maybe even cheesy, high dramatic adventure in space. Think Indiana Jones. They take these crazy, impossible concepts, and don't necessarily run them super seriously, but at least takes the story itself seriously. So, perhaps a more tongue in cheek view might be helpful. But I guess the important thing is that you create the feel of the story that you want to tell.

Beleriphon
2017-08-16, 03:05 PM
Unless we take Rogue One into consideration as well, in which case the destruction of Alderaan was part of an established pattern of being a deranged sadistic maniac who likes to randomly blow stuff up

In fairness, I'm pretty Tarkin was just that as of ANH as well. Rogue One just takes what he does in ANH and does it before(?) Alderaan. Remember, the reason he blows up Alderaan is because Dantooine is too remote to make a good example. It would be like blowing up Tokyo because Boise Idaho is too small a target in comparison, even if you really, really needed to blow up Boise.

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-16, 03:15 PM
In fairness, I'm pretty Tarkin was just that as of ANH as well. Rogue One just takes what he does in ANH and does it before(?) Alderaan. Remember, the reason he blows up Alderaan is because Dantooine is too remote to make a good example. It would be like blowing up Tokyo because Boise Idaho is too small a target in comparison, even if you really, really needed to blow up Boise.

Tarkin was an evil SOB, but of the cold, ruthless, utterly calculating variety -- not the deranged madman variety.

Lacuna Caster
2017-08-20, 08:24 AM
The worst thing that can happen to any beloved cult IP is for it to fall into the hands of its fans.
I guess I'm butting into the discussion a bit late, but can you expand on that? I mean, the default impression I get is that the 3 films coming from the original author were excoriated, and the 2 films coming from ascended fanboys have been well-received?

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-20, 09:40 AM
I guess I'm butting into the discussion a bit late, but can you expand on that? I mean, the default impression I get is that the 3 films coming from the original author were excoriated, and the 2 films coming from ascended fanboys have been well-received?

The original three movies were good movies. Not great, but very good. Lucas wasn't flying solo with those movies, however. There were a lot of people cleaning up his ideas.

The three Lucas prequels were garbage. Those were entirely his, and it showed.

TFA was just another JJ Abrams movie, with a Star Wars veneer... "JJ Abrams redoes A New Hope".

Rogue One... I like the idea, but the execution ended up hamfistedly cramming itself too closely into the start of ANH.

Lord Raziere
2017-08-20, 11:04 AM
.......Is it any worse than the franchise being taken by execs and constantly trotted out doing the same things over and over until its undead for money?

Beleriphon
2017-08-20, 01:24 PM
The original three movies were good movies. Not great, but very good. Lucas wasn't flying solo with those movies, however. There were a lot of people cleaning up his ideas.

This. Lucas didn't direct ESB or RotJ, and he isn't the sole writing credit on any of the originals. While the new trilogy are Luas' sole writing and directing, and they unfortunately fell into kiss ass types not trying to correct or improve errors in judgment from George Lucas.

daniel_ream
2017-08-20, 01:31 PM
I guess I'm butting into the discussion a bit late, but can you expand on that? I mean, the default impression I get is that the 3 films coming from the original author were excoriated, and the 2 films coming from ascended fanboys have been well-received?

Sure. It's a general statement, not about Star Wars specifically.

The problem with many fans is that their fandom for a property is based on a deep emotional attachment to it that has nothing to do with the property itself, but rather that the property serves as a crutch for their own insecurities or identity issues. This goes right back to "Fans are Slans" in the 1940's. Fans obsess over minutiae like how many parsecs the Kessel run is, or seize on some minor throwaway detail like Figwit or Boba Fett and blow it up into a vastly more important element than it was intended to be. Sometimes it's simple nostalgia; everyone sees their childhood through rose-coloured glasses.

When fandom is based not on the actual property per se but the emotional dysfunction of the fan, then they drag that emotional dysfunction into any fan work they create while overriding the original themes and tropes of the original work. They focus on those elements of the fandom that soothe their dysfunction while ignoring the rest of it. This tends to produce cringe-worthy work that says more about the author's psyche than the original property's themes and ideas.

I see elements of this in TFA; it certainly has Abrams' stamp all over it. R1 is a trainwreck of author-insert agitprop, but I can't detail that here without violating the forum rules.


.......Is it any worse than the franchise being taken by execs and constantly trotted out doing the same things over and over until its undead for money?

I would argue that it's "worse", inasmuch as there's any objective "worse". A competently executed by-the-numbers sequel is at least an enjoyable 90 minutes. A cringe-fest of fanwank is painful to watch. YMMV.

daniel_ream
2017-08-20, 01:35 PM
While the new trilogy [...] fell into kiss ass types not trying to correct or improve errors in judgment from George Lucas.

If you watch the now-infamous Mr. Plinkett reviews (http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/) of the trilogy, he makes the point, based on the body language of the production crew in the behind-the-scenes features, that they aren't kiss-asses. They're afraid of George. It's an interesting thesis.

Lacuna Caster
2017-08-20, 02:19 PM
The three Lucas prequels were garbage. Those were entirely his, and it showed.

TFA was just another JJ Abrams movie, with a Star Wars veneer... "JJ Abrams redoes A New Hope".

Rogue One... I like the idea, but the execution ended up hamfistedly cramming itself too closely into the start of ANH.

When fandom is based not on the actual property per se but the emotional dysfunction of the fan, then they drag that emotional dysfunction into any fan work they create while overriding the original themes and tropes of the original work. They focus on those elements of the fandom that soothe their dysfunction while ignoring the rest of it. This tends to produce cringe-worthy work that says more about the author's psyche than the original property's themes and ideas.

I see elements of this in TFA; it certainly has Abrams' stamp all over it. R1 is a trainwreck of author-insert agitprop, but I can't detail that here without violating the forum rules.
I should preface this by saying that I never really clicked with the original trilogy*, so this is kind of like forensic investigation to me, but it may account for why I liked Rogue 1 so much- precisely because it overrides tropes and themes of the original films than I found questionable. (Hey, a strong robot protagonist who isn't mindlessly servile or secretly malevolent! A guerilla resistance movement using guerilla resistance tactics! And glory be, Imperial troops that feel legitimately threatening!) Sure, Leia and Vader are pointless and half the characters are dispensible one-note cyphers, but while I can't speak to author-insert qualities I felt like I agreed with what the author had to say.

By contrast, TFA was a movie so intensely derivative and focus-group-constructed that I barely saw the point to making it. However, I can't say that it didn't appeal to the intended audience and even a large portion of critics, all while making pots of money. It's hard to call that a failure, exactly?

* EDIT: Except Empire. Empire was mostly good.

daniel_ream
2017-08-20, 02:25 PM
By contrast, TFA was a movie so intensely derivative and focus-group-constructed that I barely saw the point to making it.

That was the point. TFA was essentially Disney playing it extremely safe after the prequels. They needed a movie that said "see, we get what you like about Star Wars and we're going to give you that, except with everything turned up to eleven."

Based on the fan reaction, I'd say they weren't wrong.

Lord Raziere
2017-08-20, 03:09 PM
I would argue that it's "worse", inasmuch as there's any objective "worse". A competently executed by-the-numbers sequel is at least an enjoyable 90 minutes. A cringe-fest of fanwank is painful to watch. YMMV.

???

I have no idea what your talking about. I have never heard of either. you'll have to do better than "YMMV" like you do on tvtropes.

daniel_ream
2017-08-20, 04:25 PM
I have no idea what your talking about. I have never heard of either.

You've never heard of a competently executed by-the-numbers movie sequel? Do you not watch a lot of movies, then?

Lord Raziere
2017-08-20, 04:29 PM
You've never heard of a competently executed by-the-numbers movie sequel? Do you not watch a lot of movies, then?

I've never heard of one that was enjoyable or competently done. nor have I heard of a "cringefest of fanwank".

as for the second question: do you? in my experience, the sequels are always bad because they're by the numbers.

Beleriphon
2017-08-20, 04:52 PM
If you watch the now-infamous Mr. Plinkett reviews (http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/) of the trilogy, he makes the point, based on the body language of the production crew in the behind-the-scenes features, that they aren't kiss-asses. They're afraid of George. It's an interesting thesis.

Kiss ass from fear, or otherwise nobody was willing to step up and say, "George that sucks, you really shouldn't do that."

All that said, yes men don't make a game feel like Star Wars. Unless those yes men are telling Darth Vader yes, then its completely in line with Star Wars. At least if Vader chokes them to death from half way across an asteroid field.

Anonymouswizard
2017-08-21, 02:42 AM
In all honesty, the prequels weren't that bad, if you were the intended audience. Adult fans weren't, the target audience was kids the same age as those who had got excited by the original Star Wars.

I was one of those kids, and I still like some bits of episode 1. Heck, I liked Jar Jar back when I first saw the film, although kid Anakin was still annoying. I certainly don't rate it as the worst SW film (it's certainly better than Attack of the Clones), although I'll admit it's probably not as good as the original three where people were willing to slap Lucas when he did something stupid.

On the other hand, I still get a massive meh at some bits of the OT because it's so much fantasy in space, whereas some bits of the PT make me feel like it's trying to be science fiction.

Oh, and TFA is weird. There's a lot of people who seem to adore it, but I got a meh from it. It's main draw was being fun, but not the kind of fun that makes me interested in The Ultimate Jedi, but I did get a lot of the rehash and it seemed to have more focus on the boring character, cutting an interesting one out of the plot in order to give her more to do.


So in answer to the thread's question, you obviously run three good sessions, followed by three mediocre sessions, followed by redoing the first session but with everything bigger (superweapons, planets, dice...)

Mutazoia
2017-08-21, 03:17 AM
So in answer to the thread's question, you obviously run three good sessions, followed by three mediocre sessions, followed by redoing the first session but with everything bigger (superweapons, planets, dice...)

No, no, no.

You run 3 good sessions. Next, you do a short, stand-alone session in Endor, where the PC's are all children. Then you wait a while and then re-do the those first 3 sessions and replace the special effects. THEN you do 3 mediocre sessions that take place before your first 3 sessions, but ignore most of the established facts that you laid down in your first sessions, but make some of your NPCs (and a character or two) from the first sessions do cameo's, just to kinda force a tie-in with the prequal sessions, THEN you run a session that takes place long after your first 3 sessions, that uses the same basic plot elements from your first session, but use more lens flair. And make your players create new characters.

Lacuna Caster
2017-08-21, 05:48 AM
That was the point. TFA was essentially Disney playing it extremely safe after the prequels. They needed a movie that said "see, we get what you like about Star Wars and we're going to give you that, except with everything turned up to eleven."

Based on the fan reaction, I'd say they weren't wrong.
Oh, I totally see the logic. I was just so annoyed by the tone of slapdash nostalgia and Rey's mary-sue attributes that I left the theatre muttering complaints about 15 minutes before the credits. (Then again, phasma has the opposite problem (https://sleepinggeeks.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/captain-phasma-vs-traitor.jpg?w=470).)


Anyway, as for capturing the feel of the original trilogy- probably lots of RP-derived metagame currency, like Artha or Inspiration or Hero Points or what have you, plus twists and complications as a failure mechanism.

daniel_ream
2017-08-21, 01:14 PM
Oh, I totally see the logic. I was just so annoyed by the tone of slapdash nostalgia and Rey's mary-sue attributes that I left the theatre muttering complaints about 15 minutes before the credits.)

One of the friends I attended the film with said afterwards "there was certainly a lot of audible face-palming coming from your side of the theater". Which I admit, although it was mostly dismay at how hard they were recycling every Star Wars thing ever, including random bits from the first draft scripts.

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-21, 02:42 PM
Oh, I totally see the logic. I was just so annoyed by the tone of slapdash nostalgia and Rey's mary-sue attributes that I left the theatre muttering complaints about 15 minutes before the credits. (Then again, phasma has the opposite problem (https://sleepinggeeks.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/captain-phasma-vs-traitor.jpg?w=470).)


Since you're someone I trust not to just throw "mary sue" around carelessly, what specifically did you see as "marysueish" about her?

Lvl 2 Expert
2017-08-22, 12:45 AM
Anyway, as for capturing the feel of the original trilogy- probably lots of RP-derived metagame currency, like Artha or Inspiration or Hero Points or what have you, plus twists and complications as a failure mechanism.

And half of all complications are some variation of "you slice off your own hand".

Lacuna Caster
2017-08-22, 04:53 AM
Since you're someone I trust not to just throw "mary sue" around carelessly, what specifically did you see as "marysueish" about her?
Broadly speaking, she didn't show any discernible flaw or weakness? She was at least competent, often outstanding, at any particular task she was given, especially when it comes to Force proficiency, when even Luke had to go through substantial mentoring before he could tap his latent abilities. And she has no dislikable qualities. In fact, I'd have trouble describing her personality or motives at all. Finn has something- he feels guilt about his role in Imperial atrocities, and Kylo Ren is obviously a big mess of daddy issues- but Rey... just seems to have stuff happen to her, gets told she has a manifest destiny and kinda goes along with it? And then Leia gives her a hug, because she's honorary family after five minutes' acquaintance?

I don't know. It's possible I'm being a little harsh, given my recollections of the film are a little fuzzy, but... that was my impression.

Dragonexx
2017-08-22, 01:38 PM
Rey's not a Mary Sue. She's close but she hasn't crossed the threshold yet.

Anonymouswizard
2017-08-22, 02:09 PM
Rey's not a Mary Sue. She's close but she hasn't crossed the threshold yet.

Eh, Mary Sue is a subjective thing.

Whether she is or not doesn't matter to me at the moment, she's BORING. Even if she isn't a Mary Sue, I wasn't interested in her struggle for the entire film. I was invested in Finn's struggle, because Finn seemed to be a decent character and to develop throughout the film. Ray was mildly interesting in her first scene, and then became 'generic competent strong woman'.

Disney, female main characters are allowed to have flaws, that's what makes us invested. Do you think we'd like Finn if he hadn't had the entire 'continually lying about his alliegence, unsure of himself, blah blah blah'.