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Yora
2018-06-17, 07:53 AM
Playing a game set in Star Wars? Great idea! That's a setting that really ask for campaigns. However, Star Wars is a very different thing from Dungeons & Dragons, Shadowrun, Vampire, or Call of Cthulhu. Sure, you can do a dungeon crawl campaign in the Star Wars setting. And you can do elaborate heist or detective investigation in the Star Wars setting. And those can be very fun. But transplanting a D&D, Shadowrun, or CoC adventure into the Star Wars setting probably is not going to result in a campaign that has the themes, pacing, and atmosphere as the movies.

If we set out to run campaign that feel like the Star Wars movies turned into a game, instead of a campaign that converting D&D or whatever to the Star Wars setting, how would that be best approached and hopefully accomplished?

Thinking about this so far, I've come up with several points I would love to talk about, but also really like to see any other additional aspects and elements that could also be considered.

Star Wars is epic. Star Wars is always about very important and influential poeple. They may not seem like that at first, but their adventures quickly turn them into major movers and shakers of the galaxy. The challenges they tackle are enormous and the consequences of their deeds are huge and far reaching. Planets and superweapons are getting destroyed, huge battles are fought, galactic governments overthrown, and the heroes are right in the middle of it.
With lots of campaigns there is an instinctive tendency to have the players play as unimportant minor characters in a remote corner of the setting where their actions won't have any real impact on the established setting. But I think to run a Star Wars game that is in the style of the movies, that's just the opposite of what needs to be done. The PCs should be right in the middle of very big events and deal directly with the most powerful people on either side.

Star Wars is heroic. The typical Star Wars heroes are not ordinary people. They are very extraordinary people for which things work out very differently than the average population of that Setting. Stormtroopers are the most dangerous elite soldiers in the galaxy. When normal soldiers are facing a group of stormtroopers that is only half their numbers, they are in huge danger. But heroes can face groups stormtroopers that are twice their number and still don't have to worry too much. And they are like that from the start. Star Wars is not about getting experience and gradually gaining access to new abilities until eventually they are capable of doing heroic things. Right from the start they are quite capable of surviving threats and overcome obstacles that are way over regular people's heads. (Though see also the following two points.)

Combat is not about destroying the enemy. In many RPGs the objective of combat is to kill all enemies. And that is actually kill. Driving them back or capturing them is something I almost never see even considered because having prisoners or still dangerous enemies running free in the area is a huge annoyance. But in Star Wars, killing all the enemies, or even taking them out of the fight, is never really the objective. Combat in Star Wars is pretty much always about getting to something or someone and the enemies in the way are an obstacle to get through rather than being defeated.
Therefor a suitable system for running a Star Wars game should reward players for reaching their goal instead of defeating enemies, or be adapted to do that.

Run, run, run! Star Wars is almost always in motion, and that goes double for all the action. There are exceptions, like Luke being on Dagobah, but one character spending a lot of time talking to one NPC and training his abilities is not much good for an RPG anyway. The first three movies in particular are mostly chases, though at some points the chase is going slower than in other. Vader chases after Leia. The stormtroopers chase after the droid. Luke chases after R2-D2. The stormtroopers chase after Luke. The Star Destroyers chase after the Milennium Falcon. Then on the Death Star, the heroes have to hide from an infinite amount of stormtroopers that are everywhere around them. Then they have to sneak into the cell block to get Leia, and then it's back to being chased by stormtroopers. And then being chased by Tie Fighters. And persued by the Death Star to the Rebel base. And then they are chased by tie Fighters as they do the torpedo run. In The Empire Strikes Back, Han and Leia are on the run for most of the movie and then at the end Leia is racing to get frozen Han back and then racing to save Luke, and then escaping to hyperspace. Then the whole stuff of Tatooine is about getting Han and then escaping from Jabba, and everything on Endor is about getting the shield down before time is running out. It's not as much a chase as in the first two movies, but the heroes are always under pressure to keep movies while under close threat by nearly endless hordes of enemies.
In short, Star Wars is not about sitting around comfortably and taking time to come up with elaborate plans. And it's not about digging in and defending against enemies. It's about reaching places and getting away from enemies. And coming back to the point that PCs should be big heroes, it doesn't mean that they are invincible combat masters who destroy hordes of enemies with ease. PCs should be great at surviving and escaping, but in Star Wars winning more often means getting away with the goal at least partially fulfilled then about defeating the enemy forces. If the enemies are defeated, it's not because their numbers where ground down, but because someone raced around or through them to get to the thing that allows them to land just one important decisive blow.

It's not about visiting places. It's about visiting people. Star Wars is famous for its many amazing locations. But within the structure of the stories, the many different planets are really mostly just pretty backgrounds where the meetings between characters take place. There is almost no exploration of the local cultures, interactions with the natives, or interactions with the environment. The most I can think of the environment having an impact on the plot is Luke getting lost in a snow storm on Hoth. And how much time do we see spend on Han trying to track Luke or surviving the environmental dangers until they are saved the next day? None. The Ewoks would count as interacting and learning about a local culture, but I think that's about it.
What really makes planets interesting is the specific characters who live there. Hoth is where the Rebel Base is. Dagobah is where Yoda lives. Bespin is where Lando lives. Tatooine is where Jabba lives. When you prepare a Star Wars campaign, I would actually not set the stage by making notes to describe planets. I would make notes on important and potentially useful NPCs and describe the specific places where they will be found if the players go visit them. A space port with a dock, cantina, supply store, and major NPCs home is generally all that you need to create and detail a planet.

Plots can be very simple. When setting up an epic campaign, it's very easy to fall into the assumption that you need a big and fancy plot with great twists and mysteries. But lots of people felt that this step was one of the underlying problems that troubled Episode 1 to 3 and it's a criticism about the rebooot movies as well. The great joy and excitement of Star Wars comes from overcoming the obstacles along the way in spectacular and dramatic ways. Once the heroes make it to the other side, the knowledge they gain about what needs to be done next is generally pretty straightforward and does not require any real investigating and riddle solving. When Obi-Wan goes on his investigations in Episode 2 and 3, he's greeted by someone who openly tells him what he needs to know right when he gets out of his ship. Finding a way to destroy the Death Star is easy. All the information is loaded in R2-D2 and once it is delivered some supporting characters convert it to a battle plan in a few moments.

Star Wars is not about stuff. At least not in the way that most RPGs are. There's really a lot of important and iconic pieces of equipment in Star Wars. Light sabers, Han's blaster, the Millenium Falcon, X-Wings, death stars, AT-ATs, the list goes on. But their mechanics are completely irrelevant. What's the actual difference between Han's blaster, Chewbacca's blaster, and a standard Stormtrooper blaster? They all kill a stormtrooper in one hit. How fast is the Milennium Falcon? We're told it's "fast", but when it comes to the actual action, it seems to be about the same speed as a Tie Fighter or a Star Destroyer. Equipment stats don't really matter, and gear customization is actually irrelevant. And so is money, for the most. Han wants an amount of money for the trip to Alderaan that by Luke's reaction is "a lot". Because he has a debt to Jabba that, judging by the way he, Greedo, and Jabba talk about it "a lot".
Combined with my opinion on character power and abilities, I think Star Wars is a setting that really doesn't require much crunch. And given the fast pacing of continous movement, it is best served by rules that require few rolls that are resolved quickly. To make a campaign that feels like the movies, getting deep into mechanics and stats gets mostly in the way.

Darth Ultron
2018-06-17, 11:56 AM
If we set out to run campaign that feel like the Star Wars movies turned into a game, instead of a campaign that converting D&D or whatever to the Star Wars setting, how would that be best approached and hopefully accomplished?

You simply in a general sense can't base a campaign on a movie or a couple of movies. A movie is only a single adventure, not a campaign. And a movie, by it's very nature is fast paced and epic. And that works for movies, as in the movies you can ''blow up the Death Star'', as happens in no less then three Star Wars movies.

To limit a RPG campaign to a couple of movies just won't work, again, unless you just want a short game. It is like saying D&D would be only playing the Lord of the Rings movies. Or Shadowrun is only playing the Blade Runner movies and Johnny Miennoic. Or Vampire is only playing the Twilight movies.



Star Wars is epic. Star Wars is always about very important and influential poeple.
With lots of campaigns there is an instinctive tendency to have the players play as unimportant minor characters in a remote corner of the setting where their actions won't have any real impact on the established setting. But I think to run a Star Wars game that is in the style of the movies, that's just the opposite of what needs to be done. The PCs should be right in the middle of very big events and deal directly with the most powerful people on either side.

This is the first big problem. A movie is epic in the way an adventure is epic, but you can't really have an epic campaign like a movie. Movies are epic as they take place over a very short period of time; Star Wars takes place over what, two days? And in a campaign you can't do an epic 'blow up the Death Star' every day. You can stretch out the 'epic' for a slowly campaign...but not too much or the game will run out of steam and fumble.

Also note that only about half of Star Wars is Epic, as for example the whole Jabba part is very non epic.



Star Wars is heroic. The typical Star Wars heroes are not ordinary people. They are very extraordinary people for which things work out very differently than the average population of that Setting.

Star Wars is heroic, but really only when the focus is on the Skywalker family is it extraordinary. Star Wars is about larger then life Heroes and Villains, but also about common folks. And this is one of the big draws to Star Wars: heroes, villains and common folk.

Luke, Vader/Anikin, Kylo/Ben, R2-D2 and Rae do fall under the extraordinary people.
Han Solo, Lando, Chewbacka, Leia, Padmae, Obi Wan Okeobi, Poe, Finn, and Rose are all just common folks.



Combat is not about destroying the enemy. In many RPGs the objective of combat is to kill all enemies. And that is actually kill. Driving them back or capturing them is something I almost never see even considered because having prisoners or still dangerous enemies running free in the area is a huge annoyance. But in Star Wars, killing all the enemies, or even taking them out of the fight, is never really the objective.

This is just wrong, or maybe wishful thinking. Star Wars is all about killing the enemy and has a very ''classic 50's feel'' to it of ''kill the enemy!"

Luke always kills, in a star fighter, with a blaster or with a lightsaber.
Han Solo blasts and kills every armed foe in sight...and SHOT FIRST.
Leia Orgaina also blasts and kills any foe in sight..or strangles them
The Prequels avoid it a lot by having lots of robot foes, but still Anikin, and Obi kill.
Jin and all of Rogue One are killers
Really you need to get all the way to Rae and Finn to get to the goofy 'they just knock people down' and don't kill.



Run, run, run! Star Wars is almost always in motion, and that goes double for all the action.


This is true of all Action Adventure movies: they are fast paced. And you can run a Adventure game session like this, but it's a huge challenge to keep up that momentum forever.

And, really, I am exactly the Run type DM. Should the players waste more then five minutes sitting in a tavern and pretending to drink....I will have the tavern explode, drop the characters in the Abyss and have hordes of demons attack them.

And, of course, a lot of players don't like my Run style. They WANT to sit in a tavern and talk and stuff for like twelve hours of real life.




It's not about visiting places. It's about visiting people. Star Wars is famous for its many amazing locations. But within the structure of the stories, the many different planets are really mostly just pretty backgrounds where the meetings between characters take place. There is almost no exploration of the local cultures, interactions with the natives, or interactions with the environment.

Not exactly. It IS true that Star Wars does not care at all about Role Playing and details...they just go to 'planet x' and stuff happens.

BUT each planet or place IS a mechanical roll playing wonder land of fun. Star Wars is very well known for it's huge 'skyscrapper' like places where characters can move and jump around at lot. They are not just backgrounds, but huge parts of the story.



Plots can be very simple.

This is very true about Star Wars, and movies in general. They have to make movies very simple, so they can get the widest amount of audience(aka money) as possible. This is why you see very few complicated movies.

But this does not work out so well for a RPG adventure. Sure you can do the ''oh it's day one and Lord Doom is being evil in his castle that has a weak spot in the drain..do you guys want to go attack now or wait like thirty seconds?"

But a lot of gamers want a lot more then that from the game. They like the complexity.



Star Wars is not about stuff. At least not in the way that most RPGs are. There's really a lot of important and iconic pieces of equipment in Star Wars. Light sabers, Han's blaster, the Millenium Falcon, X-Wings, death stars, AT-ATs, the list goes on.

THIS is very much a movie thing...and really most movies do it. Everything in the movie, even the stuff, is just plot pieces. Whatever does whatever the plot needs or wants it to do.

This, however, does not work in an RPG with rules. The rules of a game are set and clear. You can't just say ''oh um everything does one point of damage'', games need much more detail then that. And part of the game is say dodging blasts, but you need runs to do that or it's just a free form mess.




Combined with my opinion on character power and abilities, I think Star Wars is a setting that really doesn't require much crunch. And given the fast pacing of continous movement, it is best served by rules that require few rolls that are resolved quickly. To make a campaign that feels like the movies, getting deep into mechanics and stats gets mostly in the way.

Star Wars, like most RPG, requires a HUGE amount of crunch. If you play ''mirco lite'' rules Star Wars, it will not feel like Star Wars at all. Like say everyone has 1-3 hit points, hits a target on a roll of 6 on a 1d6 and everyone does 1 damage. Well, that kinda does not work out so well.

You can run like a Savage Worlds Star Wars...to a point. Once you add Jedi and Technology you really run into the problem of needing more and more rules.

And getting deep into mechanics is more of a Style thing that happens in a lot of games.

So sure you can, and some people will love a short Star Wars adventure ''just like the movies'' where they have to fight Darth Adon and blow up the Death Star III. And you can make that game both fast paced and rules light...but just for that short adventure.

A Star Wars campaign can and should be anything...like any other RPG....and just not be short changed to being ''just like the movies''. Being a bounty hunter or a smuggler can make for a great Star Wars game, but it is sure not ''epic movie levels''.

Yora
2018-06-17, 12:34 PM
You simply in a general sense can't base a campaign on a movie or a couple of movies. A movie is only a single adventure, not a campaign. And a movie, by it's very nature is fast paced and epic. And that works for movies, as in the movies you can ''blow up the Death Star'', as happens in no less then three Star Wars movies.

A movie is epic in the way an adventure is epic, but you can't really have an epic campaign like a movie. Movies are epic as they take place over a very short period of time; Star Wars takes place over what, two days? And in a campaign you can't do an epic 'blow up the Death Star' every day. You can stretch out the 'epic' for a slowly campaign...but not too much or the game will run out of steam and fumble.
Actually, that's a great idea. A cinematic Star Wars campaign might indeed work best if you set out from the start to not drag it out forever. Both narratively and in regard to character advancement, it should work better if you go into it with the expectation of maybe 10 or 12 sessions and then getting a proper conclusion. You can always start a new campaign set at a different time, in different places, with different villains and a new party.


Star Wars is heroic, but really only when the focus is on the Skywalker family is it extraordinary. Star Wars is about larger then life Heroes and Villains, but also about common folks. And this is one of the big draws to Star Wars: heroes, villains and common folk.

Luke, Vader/Anikin, Kylo/Ben, R2-D2 and Rae do fall under the extraordinary people.
Han Solo, Lando, Chewbacka, Leia, Padmae, Obi Wan Okeobi, Poe, Finn, and Rose are all just common folks.
I don't see it. Han, Lando, Chewbacca, Leia, and Obi-Wan constantly get into big fight against enemies that vastly outnumber them and come out with barely a scratch while shoting large numbers of foes. They aren't ordinary. Every one of them is easily worth 6 stormtroopers in a fight, or something like that.


This is just wrong, or maybe wishful thinking. Star Wars is all about killing the enemy and has a very ''classic 50's feel'' to it of ''kill the enemy!"
Star Wars has lots of enemies getting killed, but that's never the goal. At no point do you have the situation where the heroes go from room to room until every opponent is dead and everything of value looted, as you usually have in D&D adventures.
Instead they kill the guards in the cell block to free Leia and then run away from the reinforcements once they have her. Obi-Wan sneaks through the Death Star to disable the tractor beam without attacking any guards. The battle on Hoth is about buying time for the ships to leave and then running away on the last transports. Everything on Endor is about destroying the shield generator. Once the goal is accomplished the heroes fight their way to the exit and leave all the remaining enemies behind.


This is true of all Action Adventure movies: they are fast paced. And you can run a Adventure game session like this, but it's a huge challenge to keep up that momentum forever.

And, of course, a lot of players don't like my Run style. They WANT to sit in a tavern and talk and stuff for like twelve hours of real life.
You don't need to be fast paced all the time. That would probably be a terrible idea. But I would recommend always maintaining the sense that the heroes have to keep moving because there is someone coming after them or they need to reach a goal before they run out of time. The whole stay on Bespin is never about laying low and enjoying the place while waiting for the Empire to forget about them. It's about getting the ship fixed and on their way as soon as possible. When you have quiet moments of leisure, it's while you're waiting for the next opportunity to get moving again.


BUT each planet or place IS a mechanical roll playing wonder land of fun. Star Wars is very well known for it's huge 'skyscrapper' like places where characters can move and jump around at lot. They are not just backgrounds, but huge parts of the story.
To some degree. Tatooine is desert with sand people, and that's a threat Luke has to take into account. The Death Star is full of stormtroopers and that dictates their plan how to get Leia. Endor is a forest and that affects the terrain on which the chase scene and fighting takes place. And on cloud city there's obviously the constant danger of falling. (Which somehow on Corruscant is never reallly used in the movies.) The environment is indeed something that is not irrelevant. But what is relevant tends to be one or two distinguishing features. Which is why we have all these desert planets, ice planets, swamp planets, forest planets, and city planets.
Though given the available means of transportation, I don't see much point for preparing maps, other than what is needed to run individual encounters.


This, however, does not work in an RPG with rules. The rules of a game are set and clear. You can't just say ''oh um everything does one point of damage'', games need much more detail then that. And part of the game is say dodging blasts, but you need runs to do that or it's just a free form mess.

Star Wars, like most RPG, requires a HUGE amount of crunch. If you play ''mirco lite'' rules Star Wars, it will not feel like Star Wars at all. Like say everyone has 1-3 hit points, hits a target on a roll of 6 on a 1d6 and everyone does 1 damage. Well, that kinda does not work out so well.

You can run like a Savage Worlds Star Wars...to a point. Once you add Jedi and Technology you really run into the problem of needing more and more rules.

And getting deep into mechanics is more of a Style thing that happens in a lot of games.
This depends entirely on the system you are using. While I think Saga Edition is the neatest variant of the d20 system, I still don't think it's suited for the Star Wars setting.

But my main point is that I see no real value in having one type of blaster do +1 to damage or another type of blaster having +10% to maximum range. A blaster is a blaster, it shots things dead when they are hit. If you have mechanical differences between pieces of equipment, make them big and significant differences. I think having "blaster pistol" and "blaster rifle" is sufficiently granular. No need to let players pick from a list of 20 different customizable blaster pistols. It won't really change how they will behave in fight scenes and plan their tactics, but its a break on the pacing.

Pleh
2018-06-17, 12:40 PM
This doesn't seem like it will tend to be a productive thread.

You are proposing to have advanced knowledge and authority on what makes for a good or bad star wars game.

More likely, the topic is subjective and not objective. Star Wars and games set in the mythos aren't just one thing to all people.

It's one thing to write up a list of your own personal experience about what has worked for you as a guide to helping others understand your perspective. It's another to presume that everyone else is going to have the same set of experiences.

A thread intended to guide people as a reference will likely generate more debate and less helping people who are just starting out.


You simply in a general sense can't base a campaign on a movie or a couple of movies. A movie is only a single adventure, not a campaign. And a movie, by it's very nature is fast paced and epic. And that works for movies, as in the movies you can ''blow up the Death Star'', as happens in no less then three Star Wars movies.

To limit a RPG campaign to a couple of movies just won't work, again, unless you just want a short game.

I disagree entirely. A campaign can be a set of interconnected adventures the way an adventure can be a set of interconnected encounters.

Let's examine the (saga) movies for example:

"Campaign: Star Wars Saga Canonical Story."

Adventure 1: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.
Chapter 1: The Lucrehulk
Encounter 1: A team of heroes board a Trade Federation vessel leading a blockade over the planet of Naboo in the hopes of negotiating an end to the blockade. The Federation Viceroy betrays the heroes and ambushes them with droids. The heroes must find a way to survive the attack.
Encounter 2: Getting out of the crosshairs
The heroes are fighting endless waves of droids, which they have little trouble defeating but are gradually running out of combat resources. Obvious choices for stopping the waves of foes is to either defeat the Viceroy or escape the ship.
COMPLICATION! The heroes' vessel has been destroyed. Whether they defeat the Viceroy or flee, they will have to find another way off the ship.
Branching Path 1: The Heroes flee. Likely, they will stow away on a Trade Federation landing craft and sneak off into the swamps of Naboo to escape the droids. Resolve the adventure through the Naboo Rescue arc.
Branching Path 2: The Heroes confront and defeat the Viceroy. Remove Nute Gunray from his role in the following adventures and replace him with a subordinate. The remaining members of the Trade Federation blockade assume control of the droids on the planet and take Naboo hostage. The heroes must stall for time and minimize casualties until the Republic can send backup.
Conclusion: The heroes resolving Naboo Rescue take damage in their escape from Naboo and are forced to stop at Tattooine for repairs. If they took control of the Lucrehulk, their success is evaluated by how much they were able to mitigate any collateral damage. Go to Chapter 2

I probably don't need to outline the entire saga, but I'll highlight the structure from here:

"Chapter 2: Padme Amidala."
"Chapter 3: Return to Naboo."
"End Adventure 1."
"Adventure 2: The Clone Wars."
"Chapter 1: Hit on the Senator."
Etc.

Point being, you can absolutely do a campaign with the movies. If you call it short, I'll say it's a matter of perspective that depends a good deal on how much free time people have to play games. A lot of my games might never make it all the way through the Phantom menace before life changes the group and makes us start over.

paddyfool
2018-06-17, 01:10 PM
I had a great time last time I played a star wars d20 game, in which a prison break heist to free a bothan spy inadvertently led to our assuming command of the entire imperial prison complex... at least until a dark jedi showed up, and my libertarian shapeshifting lizard alien hacker rogue with a laser uzi decided to set *all* the prisoners free to cover our escape.

(Our attempt was eventually successful, and we were even able to bring a few of what seemed like the more benign prisoners along for the ride, but it ultimately merely resulted in being sold out by one of our own party to a local crime lord).

Thrudd
2018-06-17, 02:39 PM
I feel that these are not all always required for a great Star Wars campaign. Making the game focus on cinematic action-narrative conventions is not necessary for it to feel like Star Wars.

The most important thing for a Star Wars campaign, to me, is that it brings the Star Wars universe to life. It does not need to be in the middle of big events of Galactic Importance. In fact, I think doing so might take away a bit from the players' experience of autonomy. They should be doing things of great importance to the characters, and it can be fun to drop references and cameos of well-known characters and places, but it doesn't need to be in the middle of movie-scale events.

I want a campaign where the players feel like they live in the world of Star Wars. I do want them to feel that Storm Troopers are dangerous, and that they need to run when they see a Star Destroyer. They will start out better than the average person in a couple areas and be able to participate in lots of action and excitement, but that doesn't mean they need to be able to stand up to a whole brigade of storm troopers or to singlehandedly shoot down a flight of tie fighters in a dog fight. A part of the "run run run!" excitement is that the characters actually ARE in danger.

Combat should be about whatever it is about in the narrative. I don't think this is a thing you can make a generalization about like "it isn't about killing people". Sometimes it's a shootout that isn't going to end until someone is dead. Sometimes it's a battle and you're trying to protect or destroy something. The reward for reaching the goal is that you reached the goal, the game mechanics describe the results of characters' actions in the pursuit of their goal. The goal is it's own reward - like, your characters aren't dead, or you've saved the capital ship, or you've destroyed the shield generator. Yes, a Star Wars RPG usually isn't a combat minis game, where you just have a sequence of battles trying to defeat increasingly difficult groups of bad guys (not that there couldn't be such a thing.) In any RPG, I think any combat situation has a reason for happening and the characters have a goal or objective apart from the fighting itself- even if it is just that you are in a place where monsters live and your objective is to survive and find some treasure.

People and places - both are important. Any good GM is going to immerse the players with good descriptions of where their characters are and what they see. Also, sometimes the environment of a planet can be really important. On Dagobah, you can't see through the clouds and might crash your ship into the swamp. On Hoth, your vehicles could freeze up and stop working, so you need Tauntauns, and if you get trapped outside at night you'll freeze to death. Some planets might have ferocious native wildlife that is a constant threat, others might just have a unique feature that makes things work differently than other places - like an atmosphere that requires everyone to wear masks (the place where those alien species that you always see wearing masks come from). Sure, you want to know who the important people are on those planets, too, and some important NPCs can be on rather non-descript planets - but interesting locales are really important, too.

Stuff - This actually isn't irrelevant, or shouldn't always be irrelevant. The mechanics of how the Millenium Falcon works are not irrelevant to Han and Chewie, that is their entire life. They know exactly how much money they have and how much they need to pay off Jaba and are looking for places to get it while trying to keep the Falcon flying. They know what parts they need, they need to worry about repairing their weapons and upgrading the engine and the hyperdrive and the ship's armor. If someone is going to play a character like this, those things are going to be important to them. Technical characters are going to want to tinker and repair and upgrade things. They are going to want to know if they have enough money to pay for things and how much they need to pay off the boss and how much they should ask for to take on passengers.

The setting requires some crunch. If you want to run a cinematic game with a narrative flow like the movies, you may not need to pay attention to a lot of it. But the setting has lots of technology and characters that talk about it and interact with it, people are concerned about money and fuel cells and how fast their ships are and how long their shields can hold out against a star destroyer. The setting is all the stuff in the background of the movies, all the incidental things characters talk about and their rationale for how things work and why they do the things they do. The narrative structure and plot pacing of a movie is not same thing as the setting.


Running a game the way you talk about may feel like a movie, but it won't necessarily feel like the characters live in the Star Wars setting, when you brush over all the details.

Plots can be whatever you want them to be, that's also not a thing I think can be generalized like "plots are simple and things aren't hard to figure out". There is nothing that says there can't be layers of activity going on, which the players might or might not get involved with. You can run Star Wars like any other open-world RPG with lots of potential plots and points of involvement for PCs.

An open world Star Wars can still have scenarios that play out like exciting movie action scenes. There should be vehicle chases and starship battles and shootouts in interesting locales, and on-the-fly decisions made under pressure. It'll feel like Star Wars, but it might be more like a long running TV series than a movie.

Yora
2018-06-17, 02:54 PM
The most important thing for a Star Wars campaign, to me, is that it brings the Star Wars universe to life. It does not need to be in the middle of big events of Galactic Importance. In fact, I think doing so might take away a bit from the players' experience of autonomy. They should be doing things of great importance to the characters, and it can be fun to drop references and cameos of well-known characters and places, but it doesn't need to be in the middle of movie-scale events.

The story needs to be about the PCs. And here I really mean need, not just should. There are plenty of adventures for Pathfinder and most infamously Vampire, that are mostly about NPCs, with the players having to overcome obstacles to essentially get the next cutscene to play. I think that's weak adventure writing in general, but it's precisely what I mean when I say the PCs need to be heroes. They are the stars on which things depend and who define what is important to the developing story and what isn't. If they want to make things personal with one specific mid-rank villain, then their conflict with him should become the focus of the campaign, with his bosses stepping more into the background.

Thrudd
2018-06-17, 04:27 PM
The story needs to be about the PCs. And here I really mean need, not just should. There are plenty of adventures for Pathfinder and most infamously Vampire, that are mostly about NPCs, with the players having to overcome obstacles to essentially get the next cutscene to play. I think that's weak adventure writing in general, but it's precisely what I mean when I say the PCs need to be heroes. They are the stars on which things depend and who define what is important to the developing story and what isn't. If they want to make things personal with one specific mid-rank villain, then their conflict with him should become the focus of the campaign, with his bosses stepping more into the background.

well of course it's about the PCs. That's a general rule for all RPGs, bad adventure examples notwithstanding. But that isn't the same as "the PCs are always very important epic heroes doing things of Galactic Importance," which is what your post sounded like. The PCs have goals and desires and do things that are important to them, and the game revolves around what they are doing. They and their goals might not be of importance to the Galaxy at large. I think to put them right in the middle of big events, dealing with people from the movies like Darth Vader and the Emperor or whoever, would have the opposite effect you're talking about. They would be bit-players or observers in events that are already determined - they certainly couldn't kill Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker, or change the course of a famous battle (unless you're planning on going into alternate universe territory like the Infinities comics.) Conversely, you can put them in a time period or in a part of the galaxy that isn't going to interfere with movie events, and have an almost blank canvass to work with. There could be "big stuff" that doesn't need to be "the entire Galaxy in is danger" big.

This also isn't the same as "the players decide how the plot develops" in the sense that they get to choose what NPCs are important and what ones aren't. I mean, you need continuity and consistency. Just because a powerful NPC exists doesn't mean the game is all about them - but they can still be an obstacle and a driver of events. If they owe money to a powerful boss and try to run away, the boss is going to send people after them. They might never decide to deal with the boss again, and just put up with occasional bounty hunters showing up, but they don't just get to decide that the boss isn't important anymore.
You may choose to begin the game without the PCs owing anything to anyone, no allegiances or debts, and let the players decide what they're about and what to get into - but you do need some kind of conflict scenario as a backdrop to prompt the action, whether that conflict comes from more powerful people pushing them around, or their organization sending then on missions, or something else.

Of course, you don't have "cut scenes" where untouchable NPCs talk to one another and reveal the plot. That is also RPG 101, not just Star Wars.

Darth Ultron
2018-06-17, 10:58 PM
I don't see it. Han, Lando, Chewbacca, Leia, and Obi-Wan constantly get into big fight against enemies that vastly outnumber them and come out with barely a scratch while shoting large numbers of foes. They aren't ordinary. Every one of them is easily worth 6 stormtroopers in a fight, or something like that.

This is more plot railroading then anything else. And where do you see 'vastly outnumbered' fights? Are you like counting Han vs every Stormtrooper of the Death Star?



Star Wars has lots of enemies getting killed, but that's never the goal. At no point do you have the situation where the heroes go from room to room until every opponent is dead and everything of value looted, as you usually have in D&D adventures.

True, but then just about no movie has greedy murderhobo characters like typical D&D ones.



Instead they kill the guards in the cell block to free Leia and then run away from the reinforcements once they have her. Obi-Wan sneaks through the Death Star to disable the tractor beam without attacking any guards. The battle on Hoth is about buying time for the ships to leave and then running away on the last transports. Everything on Endor is about destroying the shield generator. Once the goal is accomplished the heroes fight their way to the exit and leave all the remaining enemies behind.


As it's a movie they do have Railroad Plots...but of course people don't like them in role playing games, right?



You don't need to be fast paced all the time. That would probably be a terrible idea. But I would recommend always maintaining the sense that the heroes have to keep moving because there is someone coming after them or they need to reach a goal before they run out of time. The whole stay on Bespin is never about laying low and enjoying the place while waiting for the Empire to forget about them. It's about getting the ship fixed and on their way as soon as possible. When you have quiet moments of leisure, it's while you're waiting for the next opportunity to get moving again.

Again, movies are fast as they often have less then two hours to tell the story. A game can last for years. So unless your doing a game of like only a couple weeks, you can't do fast pace.



But what is relevant tends to be one or two distinguishing features. Which is why we have all these desert planets, ice planets, swamp planets, forest planets, and city planets.
Though given the available means of transportation, I don't see much point for preparing maps, other than what is needed to run individual encounters.

Star Wars, like most movies is very skimpy on details. And really, travel is a bit silly as they cross the galaxy in like a minute.




Point being, you can absolutely do a campaign with the movies. If you call it short, I'll say it's a matter of perspective that depends a good deal on how much free time people have to play games. A lot of my games might never make it all the way through the Phantom menace before life changes the group and makes us start over.

Like I said, you can do one adventure a movie. The plot will always be short, as it's simple. Adventure one is ''save Naboo'', and once that is done the adventure is over.

Pleh
2018-06-18, 05:01 AM
Star Wars is a great example of why you can't turn movies or books into good RPGs. Almost all the points you raised are the details of why. They make fantastic stories, but crappy games.

I disagree.

They do make great games, though they need to be altered and adapted for interactive play. I like keeping the changes minimal; even minimal adaptive changes take a lot of work.

Yerok LliGcam
2018-06-18, 10:52 AM
the answer is simple:

use 7Dsystem for your rules.

go buy the essentials guide to star wars books for content!

and throw them in somewhere in a timeline everyone wants to play in, and GO!

it'll be great!

actually starting this very soon, thus my interest in the forum post.

if anyone is curious how its coming, well maybe i'll update this now and again.

using some EU legends material, some canon material, and just winging it! it'll be awesome!

but i definitely have my bad guy planned with their evil plan, but like any TTRPG, gonna go with the flow and make the characters lives the highlights.

Darth Ultron
2018-06-18, 02:29 PM
To have the Movie Feel of Star Wars in an RPG, you would need to have:

A Tight Railroaded Plot- Movies have this, so if your doing a game based on and around a movie you must have this too. The DM(''writer'') make a plot, and the game will be played by that plot.

Simple and Linear-The game story plot just moves from one point to another...no matter what anyone does, but everyone will do the right thing to move to story plot forward anyway.

The Players Must Willing Follow the Plot-The DM says the plot with be X, and the players will do it. The players can only improvise a tiny bit, and must willing stick to the plot.

The Players Must Role Play their Character-The player can't ''be themselves'' and can't be a ''typical PC'', they must at all times be the character. This might require the DM's approval for the character to take any action, as that would be a good way to keep each character ''on track''.

Plot Armor-Really to such a point that its not much of an adventure game. There simply is no chance the main PCs will be hurt or killed...unless it's a Very Special Plot Arc.

Storytelling Over Mechanics-The Story and the Plot are all that matter, so mechanics can and often must be ignored. Things happen or don't happen as the plot story needs.

Storytelling Over Randomness-Simply put, no dice or any other chance of failure. Things happen or don't happen as the plot story needs.

No Equipment-Star Wars folks don't have stuff. Maybe like one blaster. Mostly they run around with nothing but their clothing. Though, of course, if the Story Plot has a need for it...they will have anything they need in their pocket.

Duex Ex Machina-The story plot pretty much requires a NPC that can grant wishes...otherwise known as a driod that can do anything needed.

Simple and Bland Details-No technobabble or culture words or even anything above like middle school reading level. Everything must be kept so Ma and Pa Kettle can understand: So the way into the base is by the ''back door'' and there is never, ever any talk of ''fuel''(until the 2017 movies....)

All of the above would be needed to get a Star Wars movie feel, but not everyone will like most of them and want to play in such a game.

Yora
2018-06-18, 02:34 PM
If you don't like the idea, then just don't post here. No need to crap over everything.

Thrudd
2018-06-18, 02:39 PM
I disagree.

They do make great games, though they need to be altered and adapted for interactive play. I like keeping the changes minimal; even minimal adaptive changes take a lot of work.

That's why West End Games is so great. They developed the expanded universe and made an effort to establish explanations and mechanics for some of the technology, so you could actually role play in the setting. It became more than just a world that works purely on narrative convention/convenience.

Pleh
2018-06-18, 02:39 PM
To have the Movie Feel of Star Wars in an RPG, you would need to have:

A Tight Railroaded Plot- Movies have this, so if your doing a game based on and around a movie you must have this too. The DM(''writer'') make a plot, and the game will be played by that plot.

Simple and Linear-The game story plot just moves from one point to another...no matter what anyone does, but everyone will do the right thing to move to story plot forward anyway.

The Players Must Willing Follow the Plot-The DM says the plot with be X, and the players will do it. The players can only improvise a tiny bit, and must willing stick to the plot.

The Players Must Role Play their Character-The player can't ''be themselves'' and can't be a ''typical PC'', they must at all times be the character. This might require the DM's approval for the character to take any action, as that would be a good way to keep each character ''on track''.

Plot Armor-Really to such a point that its not much of an adventure game. There simply is no chance the main PCs will be hurt or killed...unless it's a Very Special Plot Arc.

Storytelling Over Mechanics-The Story and the Plot are all that matter, so mechanics can and often must be ignored. Things happen or don't happen as the plot story needs.

Storytelling Over Randomness-Simply put, no dice or any other chance of failure. Things happen or don't happen as the plot story needs.

No Equipment-Star Wars folks don't have stuff. Maybe like one blaster. Mostly they run around with nothing but their clothing. Though, of course, if the Story Plot has a need for it...they will have anything they need in their pocket.

Duex Ex Machina-The story plot pretty much requires a NPC that can grant wishes...otherwise known as a driod that can do anything needed.

Simple and Bland Details-No technobabble or culture words or even anything above like middle school reading level. Everything must be kept so Ma and Pa Kettle can understand: So the way into the base is by the ''back door'' and there is never, ever any talk of ''fuel''(until the 2017 movies....)

All of the above would be needed to get a Star Wars movie feel, but not everyone will like most of them and want to play in such a game.

It's amazing. Everything you just said was wrong.

None of these limitations apply to star wars games that simulate the movies.

Xuc Xac
2018-06-18, 02:41 PM
This is the first big problem. A movie is epic in the way an adventure is epic, but you can't really have an epic campaign like a movie. Movies are epic as they take place over a very short period of time; Star Wars takes place over what, two days?

Episode 1: Anakin Skywalker is a small child.
Episode 2: Anakin is a young man.
Episode 3: Anakin has two children.
Episode 4: Anakin's children are young adults and he's an old man.
Episodes 5&6: Everyone is several years older.
Episodes 7&8: Anakin's children are older than he was when he died and his grandson is a young man.

Not counting "Solo" and the ewok movies or the Old Republic video games, "Star Wars" is a story that spans 3 generations. That's epic.

Thrawn4
2018-06-18, 03:20 PM
It's amazing. Everything you just said was wrong.


Funny. I was about to say that.

By way of explanation:
The idea is to use the premises of the movies without reenacting them, e. g. the initial situation and maybe some intermediate goals, like escaping to Naboo, finding the princess, travelling to Coruscant and so on... No need for plot armour or the other things mentioned.
Also, OP mentioned the feel of the SW movies, not the actual movies.

Anyway...
Yora, I basically agree to most of your points, but as someone else already pointed out, the "no crunch needed" idea is a matter of taste (although personally I agree with you).
Also, I am not sure a campaign has to have epic impacts. Although it would certainly suit the SW atmosphere, I can see myself having fun as a small-time smuggler just trying to survive.

Darth Ultron
2018-06-18, 03:55 PM
If you don't like the idea, then just don't post here. No need to crap over everything.

I'm not trying to.

I'm pointing out what you would need to do to get the Cinematic Star Wars feel.

I know it sounds bad for an RPG, but everything I listed is an important movie element. You can not have a ''star wars sandbox'' that has the feel of the movies....it will have the feel of a space opera sandbox.


If you just want to run a generic RPG adventure and change 'orc' to 'stormtrooper' and 'ninja' to 'Jedi', then that is your choice. Though it will ''feel'' like a generic adventure, of course.

ProphetSword
2018-06-18, 03:57 PM
That's why West End Games is so great. They developed the expanded universe and made an effort to establish explanations and mechanics for some of the technology, so you could actually role play in the setting. It became more than just a world that works purely on narrative convention/convenience.

All the things that the OP is asking for is in the Star Wars D6 game by West End. It is a narrative game with a cinematic feel and gives great instructions for how a GM can make the games feel exactly like the movies. I have run so many Star Wars campaigns over the last 30 years in D6, and they were all epic.

Thrudd
2018-06-18, 06:27 PM
All the things that the OP is asking for is in the Star Wars D6 game by West End. It is a narrative game with a cinematic feel and gives great instructions for how a GM can make the games feel exactly like the movies. I have run so many Star Wars campaigns over the last 30 years in D6, and they were all epic.

Oh yeah, me too. I think I interpreted the OP as going a step beyond what WEG does. D6 is more cinematic than D&D, and maybe that's all that was meant. But I think WEG does include slightly more granularity in ships and equipment than was suggested, and gives you rules for hyperspace travel time and credits and other such things.
Also, an epic-feeling cinematic game does not necessarily mean the characters are "very important people" in the context of the setting.

Yora
2018-06-19, 12:11 AM
If you want to, Star Wars d6 allows you to have extremely customized weapons and ships. But I think it's probably not worth all the work to create a huge catalog of blasters and ships of all sizes to let players pick one that fits exactly their performance requirements. And certainly not to use as stats for their opposition. When you have stats for the four rebel fighters and the three Tie models, I think that's a broad enough range to pick from to use for whatever starfighters the players will be going against. Their own skills in using the equipment should already make a big difference
Now in a game like Shadowrun for example, I think that it's still an important part of roleplaying to have the players pour over big catalogues of equipment that basically exist in-universe. That's part of the setting. But in Star Wars, my impression is more like characters grabbing something at hand and doing heroic stuff with it, whether in-universe it's a piece of junk or state of the art high tech equipment. I wouldn't want to spend too much play time in gun stores and machine shops.

Xalyz
2018-06-19, 02:37 AM
So I have been playing/dming FFG's Star Wars system for a few years now. It is far more narrative than d&d and favors social/city exploring than actual combat and space combat is a convoluted mess. But the characters are unique and colorful and it is super easy to make the campaign on the fly when dming. It might be too simple though...

Faily
2018-06-19, 06:27 AM
So I have been playing/dming FFG's Star Wars system for a few years now. It is far more narrative than d&d and favors social/city exploring than actual combat and space combat is a convoluted mess. But the characters are unique and colorful and it is super easy to make the campaign on the fly when dming. It might be too simple though...

I've been playing that system too for a few years with a long-running campaign, and the system works really well for the SW feel, imo. The system was a bit daunting at first, and a few weeks ago I tried space combat for the first time (introduce Snap-Roll talent for pilot characters), and I think I got the hang of that too on the first try.

I think the only negative thing I have to say about it is that it can quickly become tedious to scour for the best gear, but that is easily fixable by simply limiting things available.

Yora
2018-06-19, 11:55 AM
So I have been playing/dming FFG's Star Wars system for a few years now. It is far more narrative than d&d and favors social/city exploring than actual combat and space combat is a convoluted mess. But the characters are unique and colorful and it is super easy to make the campaign on the fly when dming. It might be too simple though...

That's interesting. The impression that I got from reviews was that it is too complicated.

Corsair14
2018-06-19, 12:17 PM
I never liked that the later systems forced you to pick classes. I think the Star Wars universe is far to random and varied to make restrictions like classes, thus preferred the character system of the D6 system. As to gear, heavy blaster pistol 5d damage, blaster pistol 4D. Really good quality manufacturer, simply add a +1 or +2. Other than that most blasters and weapons are very broad on purpose since likely there are hundreds if not thousands of manufacturers out there. The other added benefit is availability. All 25ish years of the D6 system is available for free.

Thrudd
2018-06-19, 01:14 PM
If you want to, Star Wars d6 allows you to have extremely customized weapons and ships. But I think it's probably not worth all the work to create a huge catalog of blasters and ships of all sizes to let players pick one that fits exactly their performance requirements. And certainly not to use as stats for their opposition. When you have stats for the four rebel fighters and the three Tie models, I think that's a broad enough range to pick from to use for whatever starfighters the players will be going against. Their own skills in using the equipment should already make a big difference
Now in a game like Shadowrun for example, I think that it's still an important part of roleplaying to have the players pour over big catalogues of equipment that basically exist in-universe. That's part of the setting. But in Star Wars, my impression is more like characters grabbing something at hand and doing heroic stuff with it, whether in-universe it's a piece of junk or state of the art high tech equipment. I wouldn't want to spend too much play time in gun stores and machine shops.
I agree, Star Wars shouldn't be about shopping. But I still like to have a list of ship and vehicle models and weapon manufacturers, because it gives more life to the setting. IE, Its not just a light freighter ship, it's a corellian YT-1300, and this is what it looks like. And if players want to save up for a newer ship or to make improvements, I think that is a reasonable thing characters who make a living by their ship would want to do. It's not a "stop at a planet after every job to buy better equipment" situation, like you said there's basically only a few categories of blaster weapons, and most ships and vehicles of the same type are basically identical. But the rules for ship combat and travel do provide room for mechanical differences to have impact. And investing in technical skills should have some impact in the sense of being able to modify and improve equipment (like the Millenium Falcon and Han's modified heavy blaster).

I make finding parts or ships a part of the game- there aren't just shops where you can get anything in the book for a set price. There's use of social and perception skills, haggling, random determination of what is available at any given place, usually very limited selection and no guarantee of anything. And being stuck on a planet for a period of time while you make repairs and modifications can lead to all sorts of adventures, maybe even directly connected to finding the equipment in the first place. I use rules for stuff breaking down, too, connected with the wild die- so you can lose gear and need to find more or settle for less than optimal stuff. That's how I like to treat it.

Corsair14
2018-06-19, 01:51 PM
In our 4 year campaign gear was a minor thing. Couldn't tell you how many ships we went through, how many blasters we lost, our jedi rebuilt at least three lightsabers when he had the parts. We really didn't concern ourselves with it since many adventures would start off without gear in the first place. I fondly remember one adventure that started out with us naked, tied to a pole, surrounded by raw meat, in the middle of a jungle with no clue how we got there. Each episode was like a TV show and the story was almost totally character driven and the GM simply laid out the world with a rough outline of what he wanted accomplished. We really didn't worry too much about having the best gear possible since it could be gone from one day to the next. The whole idea was to develop our own characters and push our goals further within the constructs of what the GM gave us to work with.

Yora
2018-06-19, 02:02 PM
I like to see upgrades handled the way I like magic items to work in other games. If you get one, it doesn't slightly increase some odds, but should change the way you play.
And I like the idea of meaningful upgrades not being off the shelf products. Buying five upgrades that each give a 5% speed boost over the course of a campaign isn't going to be much memorable. Getting one new custom engine that provides a boost of 25% will be much more impressive. Especially when you stole it or salvaged it from a villain's ship after defeating him in a dramatic battle.

I agree that it's no good to have the players fly around the galaxy in "generic light freighter". Their ship needs to be distinguishable. They need to identify with it. Some backwater planet customs officers can fly around in "generic starfighter", but for PCs or major enemies that won't do. They need to fly X-Wings, Tie Interceptors, or StarVipers.

It surprises me a bit to say that, but I think Star Wars is actually a case where "style over substance" applies to full effect, and it adds greatly to the enjoyment of the whole thing. Not just with ships and weapons, but also in regard to the appearance of planets, which I mentioned earlier. It has to look impressive and memorable, but the action adventure genre makes character skills and player decisions much more important for what actually happens and how things are playing out.

Faily
2018-06-19, 03:45 PM
That's interesting. The impression that I got from reviews was that it is too complicated.

The *dice* are what's complicated at first, but I find the rest of the system to be fairly straight-forward most of the time.

I struggled much much more with learning the WESG d6 system back in the day.

Thrudd
2018-06-19, 04:22 PM
I like to see upgrades handled the way I like magic items to work in other games. If you get one, it doesn't slightly increase some odds, but should change the way you play.
And I like the idea of meaningful upgrades not being off the shelf products. Buying five upgrades that each give a 5% speed boost over the course of a campaign isn't going to be much memorable. Getting one new custom engine that provides a boost of 25% will be much more impressive. Especially when you stole it or salvaged it from a villain's ship after defeating him in a dramatic battle.

I agree that it's no good to have the players fly around the galaxy in "generic light freighter". Their ship needs to be distinguishable. They need to identify with it. Some backwater planet customs officers can fly around in "generic starfighter", but for PCs or major enemies that won't do. They need to fly X-Wings, Tie Interceptors, or StarVipers.

It surprises me a bit to say that, but I think Star Wars is actually a case where "style over substance" applies to full effect, and it adds greatly to the enjoyment of the whole thing. Not just with ships and weapons, but also in regard to the appearance of planets, which I mentioned earlier. It has to look impressive and memorable, but the action adventure genre makes character skills and player decisions much more important for what actually happens and how things are playing out.

That's basically how it will happen in D6, anyway, regarding upgrades. The jump from 3D to 4D, or 4D to 5D is a significant change, and even a couple pips will make more difference than 5%.

There is a lot of style, but there's a bit of substance, too. Maneuverability dice, hull rating and shields are significant for defense, move rating is meaningful for getting into attack range or for escaping pursuit. Your starship skills are the greater part of it, but your ship's statistics can make a big difference- if someone can add a die to their shields or to the maneuverability, it's going to be a big benefit. These are the equivalent of items that might be the objective of an adventure, either to find them or to afford them, or both.

Planets are the backdrop that provide interesting action scenarios. It's always about the PCs skill, but the application of skill is relative to the environment they are in. You shouldn't be able to apply the same skill solutions to all situations. Some places provide different and harder challenges than others.

Solaris
2018-06-19, 04:30 PM
One of my biggest problems is coming up with plotlines and adventure hooks. Not surprisingly, one of my best Star Wars campaigns was essentially a sandbox campaign where I set the players loose to do what they wanted in the Galaxy. Good times were had by all, except for the unfortunately-potable Rodians.


But my main point is that I see no real value in having one type of blaster do +1 to damage or another type of blaster having +10% to maximum range. A blaster is a blaster, it shots things dead when they are hit. If you have mechanical differences between pieces of equipment, make them big and significant differences. I think having "blaster pistol" and "blaster rifle" is sufficiently granular. No need to let players pick from a list of 20 different customizable blaster pistols. It won't really change how they will behave in fight scenes and plan their tactics, but its a break on the pacing.

There's no need for it, sure, but it offers a way for a player wanting to play a Hollywood scientist to contribute without being another soldier.
While looting rarely sees a lot of play in my Star Wars games (accomplished mainly by making it difficult to sell off loot and informing the players that I'd rather they didn't loot every stormtrooper they killed), the same is not true of equipment. Han Solo's blaster may not have a lot of screen time spent on it, but it's iconic of the character. Leia's blaster, same to a lesser extent. I see no reason to deny players the same thing - especially when we're dealing with a medium that makes it even easier to manage than the screen. We don't need to spend screen time on shopping and modifying characters' gear (outside of plotlines and quests - one of my favorites is Jedi characters questing for crystals), but the variety of options does add to the setting.


It's amazing. Everything you just said was wrong.

None of these limitations apply to star wars games that simulate the movies.

That's one of my new favorite Star Wars lines.

Yora
2018-06-20, 12:19 AM
Story is indeed a bit of a challenge when you want to make it both about the players and about big events. In the common kinds of adventure design, these two are somewhat in opposition to each other. To get both these things, I think you need to at least partially make things up as you go, which is something I usually don't like to do when running a game.
When the players are driving the action, you can't be working with a fixed script. Which means you don't know what will happen in advance. But if you want to make it a campaign in which the players are important and central characters in big events, then a straight sandbox is probably not going to achieve that. What could work, and what I want to try out next time, is to prepare some main villains who have their own plans that they are working on during the campaign. And then during the campaign you make it so that their paths are crossing with the players' multiple times until the players take the initiative to go against them.
Which obviously is something that requires some really careful adjustments depending on how each session plays out. If the players really don't want to engage with a villain, trying to force it won't be going well. It will be frustrating for the players and soon smell like bad railroading, which quite quickly it can become to be. But this might be mitigated by having not just one potential main villain prepared at the start, but three or maybe four. Then you can alternate between clashes with each of them until eventually the players decide to take on of them. And then you just can have the others quietly fade into the background as the campaign becomes about the conflict the players have chosen to engage with.

Pleh
2018-06-20, 05:54 AM
Story is indeed a bit of a challenge when you want to make it both about the players and about big events. In the common kinds of adventure design, these two are somewhat in opposition to each other. To get both these things, I think you need to at least partially make things up as you go, which is something I usually don't like to do when running a game.
When the players are driving the action, you can't be working with a fixed script. Which means you don't know what will happen in advance. But if you want to make it a campaign in which the players are important and central characters in big events, then a straight sandbox is probably not going to achieve that.

The key for me is less about "big events vs sandbox" and more about me (as DM) doing the groundwork to understand the world and its events well enough to actively adapt to changes the players make.

The difference between "big events" and "sandbox" (as you're using them) seems to be only whether the DM or the players are setting up the moving parts of the game. Either can work fine, but both have to be intimately understood to accurately interpret changes on the fly.

So your ideas about a villain driven campaign is a good one. I just advise that you do a lot of solo playtesting during prep time. That is to say, when creating and detailing the encounters and NPCs, pause frequently to place yourself in the players' shoes and imagine what kind of solutions you might come up with. Even after you know your preferred solution, consider the other ideas you had that you might have not chosen to pursue. Then take more time to brainstorm solutions that didn't quickly occur to you ("if I ignore the solutions I've come up with so far, what else can I think up?")

With some advanced prep on this level, it should start to help you understand the approximate number of different directions each branching path can take and how many of them will ultimately have substantial changes to the story.

Corsair14
2018-06-20, 09:57 AM
We had a couple recurring villains in our 4 year continuous campaign. Other than that only really major events in the campaign were planned in advance by each DM. The four of us randomly DM'd and each had his long term plan for where we wanted our part of the story to go. So each time we played we would follow along that arc. Sounds confusing but it worked really well. We did everything from survival in a jungle Naked and afraid style to impersonating a Grand Admiral and temporarily taking command of an Imperial fleet. We never actually ended the campaign and when one of our guys married a prominent Disney SW writer, all the characters have made appearances in her books as bit roles...and they all died ingloriously, finally after 23 years :P

Familiarity with the SW universe and a big imagination is really all that's needed to run a player driven campaign. The D6 system makes it stupidly easy and fluid to run along with the massive amount of sourcebooks out there. Come up with some cool places, make some memorable characters and be sure not to let them get killed until you are ready. You can have cool ships too but we found they were kind of pointless in our campaign since we lost them so often and spent half our time getting out of trouble on other peoples ships.

Yora
2018-06-20, 01:52 PM
That is to say, when creating and detailing the encounters and NPCs, pause frequently to place yourself in the players' shoes and imagine what kind of solutions you might come up with. Even after you know your preferred solution, consider the other ideas you had that you might have not chosen to pursue. Then take more time to brainstorm solutions that didn't quickly occur to you ("if I ignore the solutions I've come up with so far, what else can I think up?")

One thing that sets Star Wars apart from other fantasy settings is that everyone as radio. This allows you to have enemy reinforcements arrive at pretty much any time. A new group of stormtroopers comes around the corner or the Star Destroyer launches another flight of Tie Fighters. If an encounter doesn't feel sufficiently dramatic enough, you can always drop in more enemies as needed.
Though my personal hunch is to only use it to make the players appear more awesome. Making them face an unlimited number of enemies because you want them to get a hint and give up their attempt to storm a place wouldn't be fun for anyone and they might quickly catch on to the railroading.

Also: Relevant link is relevant. (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/39958/roleplaying-games/scenario-structure-challenge-2-star-wars-underworld)

Pleh
2018-06-20, 03:00 PM
One thing that sets Star Wars apart from other fantasy settings is that everyone as radio. This allows you to have enemy reinforcements arrive at pretty much any time. A new group of stormtroopers comes around the corner or the Star Destroyer launches another flight of Tie Fighters. If an encounter doesn't feel sufficiently dramatic enough, you can always drop in more enemies as needed.
Though my personal hunch is to only use it to make the players appear more awesome. Making them face an unlimited number of enemies because you want them to get a hint and give up their attempt to storm a place wouldn't be fun for anyone and they might quickly catch on to the railroading.

Also: Relevant link is relevant. (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/39958/roleplaying-games/scenario-structure-challenge-2-star-wars-underworld)

Actually, that's another neat feature of star wars. There are radio jammers, so everyone has radio until someone starts scrambling it. There's no reason to scramble radio until you're about to strike. Reaching out to talk to someone and finding the lines scrambled is a great way to tip the players off that they are about to be attacked.

It's more or less the same with starship shields. They drain a lot of power, so no one runs around with their guard always up. Only maximum security space stations typically bother with permanent shields. So when you meet another ship in space and they have their shields up, you know they expect an attack.

Yora
2018-06-21, 01:22 PM
What would you say are iconic things in Star Wars that every GM should try to somehow get into a campaign at the very least once, and if possible every other adventure?

Somehow the first thing that comes to my mind is Sneaking around in Industrial Facilities. Like rescuing Leia from the Death Star (though technically not industrial), Luke sneaking around Cloud City, Obi-Wan sneaking around on Geonosis, and half of all levels in the Jedi Knight series.

More obvious one is Fighting Large Numbers of Stormtroopers. Bonus points for doing it during a heroic escape.

And its little brother: Getting chased by Tie Fighters. If you have a ship with sufficient guns to give most players something useful to do.

Pleh
2018-06-21, 05:23 PM
What would you say are iconic things in Star Wars that every GM should try to somehow get into a campaign at the very least once, and if possible every other adventure?

Somehow the first thing that comes to my mind is Sneaking around in Industrial Facilities. Like rescuing Leia from the Death Star (though technically not industrial), Luke sneaking around Cloud City, Obi-Wan sneaking around on Geonosis, and half of all levels in the Jedi Knight series.

More obvious one is Fighting Large Numbers of Stormtroopers. Bonus points for doing it during a heroic escape.

And its little brother: Getting chased by Tie Fighters. If you have a ship with sufficient guns to give most players something useful to do.

Having a bad feeling about this

Escape to Hyperspace

A Shady Cantina

Large Alien Predatory Garbage Disposals

Fluent Bilingual Conversations

Spontaneous Gunfights that surprise both sides

ProphetSword
2018-06-21, 05:55 PM
What would you say are iconic things in Star Wars that every GM should try to somehow get into a campaign at the very least once, and if possible every other adventure?

Somehow the first thing that comes to my mind is Sneaking around in Industrial Facilities. Like rescuing Leia from the Death Star (though technically not industrial), Luke sneaking around Cloud City, Obi-Wan sneaking around on Geonosis, and half of all levels in the Jedi Knight series.

More obvious one is Fighting Large Numbers of Stormtroopers. Bonus points for doing it during a heroic escape.

And its little brother: Getting chased by Tie Fighters. If you have a ship with sufficient guns to give most players something useful to do.


Even though you already mentioned some of these, here is a list of rules I have for whenever I run STAR WARS campaigns (going from memory, since I'm at work while typing this):

Chase Scenes:
The heroes are being chased by something (Star Destroyer, AT-AT, Speeder Bikes, etc) or are chasing something (a fleeing TIE Fighter, a spy running through a marketplace, etc). It's especially good to find a way for every character to be involved in the chase and to make it take place in an exotic location (through deep desert canyons at high speed, an asteroid field or even the halls of a massive space station).

Blaster Fights:
Whether the heroes are battling it out with enemy droids, space pirates or Imperial agents, it's essential that some blasters become involved at some point in the game to properly capture the STAR WARS feel. Shooting things is fun.

Space Battles:
Like blaster fights, STAR WARS will need ship-to-ship combat. Whether it's small fighters (TIE Fighters vs a squad of A-Wings) or large capital ships (Imperial Star Destroyer vs Rebel Blockade Runner), there's a lot of excitement to be had when you include them.

Lightsabers and The Force:
While you can do stories without these two things, it's nice to have something in a campaign that touches on these if possible. They are a big part of STAR WARS and they help with the atmosphere. Whether you've got a story about Jedi vs Sith or just a section of a campaign where heroes encounter someone wise with the Force, it does a lot to make the game feel like it belongs in the universe.

Large Scope Danger:
Stormtroopers are fun. But, what's even more fun is dodging fire from an AT-AT, taking on a Star Destroyer, or blowing up a huge Imperial facility. Make the targets big and the danger even bigger and players will have a ton of fun. If your garrison should have 20 Stormtroopers, stock it with 60 instead and throw in a squadron of TIE Fighters just for kicks.

Fast Pace:
STAR WARS shouldn't crawl. Keep things moving. The faster you can make things move, the better. Get players to make faster decisions and not worry too much about being tactical. ("Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?")

Have fun:
Best rule of all.

Yora
2018-06-22, 02:36 PM
Spontaneous Gunfights that surprise both sides

Somehow I did not think of this, but it's definitly true. :smallbiggrin:

Yora
2018-06-23, 12:43 PM
So I got this idea to start a new campaign.

First I read out the opening crawl. Then I describe the establishing shot in space. And then I tell the players to make characters that are on the ship that has come into view.

I think that's actually much more interesting than having the players create characters first and then making the proper introduction of the adventure. Though it most certainly will help if you're running a system where characters can be created in 10 to 20 minutes and it's not an hour or two before the first scene can begin.

With Star Wars d6, I think you can actually have the players start with only their attributes and not yet bothering with the individual skills. This makes them substantially weaker but the characters are ready to play and you can have them assign their skills at the end of the first session after their characters have already done some things and are no longer blank slates. Or a bit more experimental, allow them to assign their skill points at any time during the first session. If something needs fixing and a player decides that he want's to be the guy who fixes it, he can put some of his skill points into the right skill just there and then. Though I think this might make things perhaps more complicated than less for first time players.

ProphetSword
2018-06-23, 08:15 PM
You could do what I did. Download a program that allows you to create a realistic looking Star Wars opening crawl, complete with actual Star Wars music, and then show it to the players each session as the game begins. I updated it every session.

Here’s an example someone else did...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=05mzZH1nm5c

Yora
2018-06-24, 10:57 AM
That's always a fun option to do, but I think it probably works best when sending a link of it to the players as a kind of trailer than trying to somehow show it at the table.

I was thinking more about the idea of treating individual adventures as episodes, which means each should conclude with some kind of big final confrontation. Which is actually somewhat different from what is usually seen in ongoing campaigns. But I actually really like having big decisive showdowns every four to six sessions instead of building up to the big finale over months or years.
It does however raise the question of how to deal with villains. In the movies, the great villains actually do a great deal of their awesome villainous stuff out of sight of the heroes. I've heard that some people like to narrate cutscenes during campaigns, but that's something I always found to be very odd to imagine. I feel that players should experience the campaign from the eyes of their characters, not as outside spectators.

To build up great villains, I think players have to spend several scenes with them spanning over multiple sessions so their presence has time to really settle in. Narrow escapes are a big staple of Star Wars, so that certainly works in our favor. While it's not terribly menacing, this also goes for the villains. If they are getting in a fight with the heroes and get beaten, I think it wouldn't feel out of place to have them make an escape. But that raises the faint shadows of railroad tracks, which in all fairness, this totally is. But perhaps this could be mitigated by establishing some villains as people who avoid fighting in general and always make their escape very quickly when things aren't completely in their favor. I think in that case players might only hate that villain but not dislike dealing with him. But when you have a big bad juggernaut, having him run away doesn't feel right. I guess when you can't think of any good reasons why such a villain would survive a losing fight, then have him not survive that fight. If he's going down easier and earlier than you expected, then so be it. But I wonder if there's any good ways to get more use out of such villains than that.

One option that I occasionally see in movies and videogames is to have something suddenly separate the heroes from the villains so that they no longer can continue their fight. But I don't know if that's something that would go down well in a campaign. Maybe if it happens sufficiently early in a fight when the players still have doubt if they can win, but I think it would really suck once the players start believing that they got this one in the bag.

ProphetSword
2018-06-24, 02:26 PM
It’s not hard to show at the table if you have a tablet or phone. Doesn’t require a full size movie screen.

Yora
2018-06-25, 01:49 PM
Come up with some cool places, make some memorable characters and be sure not to let them get killed until you are ready. You can have cool ships too but we found they were kind of pointless in our campaign since we lost them so often and spent half our time getting out of trouble on other peoples ships.


Chase Scenes:
The heroes are being chased by something (Star Destroyer, AT-AT, Speeder Bikes, etc) or are chasing something (a fleeing TIE Fighter, a spy running through a marketplace, etc). It's especially good to find a way for every character to be involved in the chase and to make it take place in an exotic location (through deep desert canyons at high speed, an asteroid field or even the halls of a massive space station).

Space Battles:
Like blaster fights, STAR WARS will need ship-to-ship combat. Whether it's small fighters (TIE Fighters vs a squad of A-Wings) or large capital ships (Imperial Star Destroyer vs Rebel Blockade Runner), there's a lot of excitement to be had when you include them.

One neat thing about vehicle chases and space battles is that you have a great cost for defeat that doesn't automatically kill the PCs. If you can get the players to become attached to a ship, then the threat of the ship getting destroyed could be a great way to create tension in a fight.
http://78.media.tumblr.com/0789a36631026df9b0bbd49ccb3b2543/tumblr_mnp6jloURa1qj3996o1_250.gif
Alternatively, you can have the ship getting disabled and pulled in. Then after the players have escaped somehow, they will have to come up with plans to get the ship back or get a new one.
I think about starting my campaign with the party crashing their ship on a wilderness planet and their first task is to somehow get a new ship. Of course they don't have money to buy one, because buying one would be boring. And doesn't create any attachment to the new ship.

As someone mentioned earlier, letting the players make cool upgrades to the ship probably increases their attachment even more. What might also work is to have villains directly taunt the players by announcing to take or destroy their ship. Nothing makes you more clingy of something than knowing a jerk wants to take it away from you.

With chases on foot, failure doesn't have to mean death either. If the dramatic tension of a scene requires it, maybe one PC gets killed, but getting taken prisoner is something Star Wars heroes do. As Harrison Ford said in another role: "This happens to me all the time." And then you can have wacky escape hijinks. If they are under time pressure, you instantly get extra tension.

PairO'Dice Lost
2018-06-25, 02:55 PM
It does however raise the question of how to deal with villains. In the movies, the great villains actually do a great deal of their awesome villainous stuff out of sight of the heroes. I've heard that some people like to narrate cutscenes during campaigns, but that's something I always found to be very odd to imagine. I feel that players should experience the campaign from the eyes of their characters, not as outside spectators.

One tactic I've used to good effect in previous games, which gives you a different perspective from the PCs but avoids the omniscient-third-person effect of cutscenes, is to cut away from the PCs and have the party play a group of what would normally be background characters, and have the outcome affect the party afterwards. For instance, the last Star Wars campaign I ran saw the party playing a Wraith Squadron-style group of New Republic pilot-commandos, and at a certain point they were getting a bit jaded; stormtroopers weren't a threat individually and they were good at avoiding large groups of them, they could outfly non-heroic TIE Fighters easily, and so on. So after one session when they were tasked with stopping Imperial forces from launching an assault on New Republic shipyards but let a handful of Star Destroyers escape, at the start of the next session I handed out stat blocks for engineers, security guards, and maintenance techs and said "You're workers on the bridge of a nearly-complete star cruiser at the Mon Calamari shipyards. Suddenly, a squadron of Star Destroyers drops out of hyperspace nearby, and you see boarding shuttles headed for your ship. All the other employees are looking to you for guidance. What do you do?"

The party had to run around to bring systems online, encourage panicking workers, set traps to delay boarding parties, and the like, and I really played up how the stormtroopers were incredibly scary and deadly and the Imperial forces seemed unstoppable. They managed to hold off the attack long enough for the main party's forces to jump in, and they got to roleplay being relieved that the New Republic Navy was coming to save them before getting back to their PCs and saving the day, and that gave the party some perspective and made them respect rank-and-file Imperial troops again.

So you could showcase the villain that way. Have the players play Rebel soldiers who get captured for interrogation by Moff Disra, a merchant crew that gets extorted by minions of Zorba The Hutt, inhabitants of a city that gets invaded and conquered by Warlord Zsinj, and so on. Or even have them play Imperials under Vader who let the heroes escape and get Force-choked for their failure, thugs working for Black Sun who get hung out to dry by their vigo as part of a larger plot, or the like if your players like to play morally-dubious characters every so often or just want to ham up the "bumbling stormtrooper" or "backstabbing mercenary" tropes. They do their thing, the main villain(s) make an appearance, and the party can see the villains be awesome firsthand and perhaps learn about their plans from the villain monologue, the questions asked during interrogations, which items are taken from the characters' ship, and the like.

Yora
2018-06-28, 03:04 AM
Something I often wondered about but have not tried yet is to have villains seem threatening by showing other NPCs being afraid of them and having their minions do evil stuff on their orders, which the players then experience first hand. Could get a bit telly instead of showy if NPCs insist that the villain is super terrible but the players don't see anything that makes them feel concerned.

PastorofMuppets
2018-06-28, 10:24 PM
Don’t forget betrayal is a big part of the Star Wars universe; Palpatines manipulations, Lando turning in Han and friends, the trade federation intro to episode one, the creation of Jar Jar and both the creation and redemption of Darth Vader.

I had a game running a while back where the players ended up discovering ( a little sooner than I anticipated) that their resident Jedi expert was actually trying to turn them in to the emperors purge forces. (A game set a little past the midway point between trilogies during the closing of the Imperial Iron Fist. They got to help set up the Rebellion by bringing together the various empire resistance groups.)

They pieced together that the guy was an actual Jedi that survived Order 66 while on an archeological expedition. He gave into despair and just hid in the outer rim until he met the force sensitive players when he became sure they were going to be caught anyway( they were not exactly a low key group), and figured he could at least know when it would happen so he could escape at the right time.

The funny thing is I was doing some bravery tests for him during those sessions. If they had ever realized he was a force user too they might have saved him from his fears, but with the messy trails they kept leaving behind his fear turned into the dark side.

Rakaydos
2018-06-30, 01:06 AM
Clone Wars has a slightly different feel than the mainline movies.


Clone Wars: Traitor of Arda Base

Newsreel anouncer:
Militia Training base on Arda I… ATTACKED! Jedi Master RAHM KOTA, wounded! Survivors are rallying on Jagomir, as Padawon Quinn brings evidence to the temple that the militia may have a TRAITOR among them…

Opening: Jedi temple landing pad on Corusant. Master Plo Koon accompanies the Padawon Quinn toward the consular class cruiser, as Jedi Knight Kehel Gufrai, Padawon Airkann, and Captian Scholf disembark.

The Jedi Master opens the discussion. “Thank you for coming. I apologize for the terse summons, but this is a matter the Chancellor would prefer kept quiet. I’m sure you have questions. Please, come with me.” The Master turns back toward the temple, inviting you to talk as you follow.