Best Star Wars Era for Play?

[gnomas]

Thinking of running a star wars SAGA game soon, and I was wondering what time period to set it in.

So what's your favourite era?

[MightyTim]

Personally, in a type of game like Star Wars, I'd want the campaign to take place during a period where there's as little info on the historical canon as possible.

Just like there isn't really much point in running a campaign in Middle Earth during the time period when Frodo's destroying the One Ring, because all the major characters have all ready been accounted for.

There isn't much room for the PCs to shine and feel very important when Luke is blowing up the Death Star. I'd prefer something either during the Old Republic (probably in the decades before the Galactic Civil War), or several decades after the Battle of Yavin when it can be safe to assume most of the main characters from the movies had died off.

Doing something like this gives you more freedom as a DM to set the political stage of the story without being hampered by events that are supposed to happen.

Of course, there's the tradeoff that it could be cool to give certain well-known characters a cameo or two.

[Crossblade]

Old Republic or Clone Wars.
Old Republic era is full of jedi up the ying yang, and open to tons of possible random Sith or other baddies.
Clone Wars because there's no real restrictions on classes (jedi are still very possible), the background of the blazing war (granted, war scenes are hard for GMs to work out, but you don't need those)... and I just like Clone Troopers for some reason.

[Marnath]

I like the time period just before the Kotor games, or right during. The idea of a campaign set during the mandalorian wars is appealing to me. I'd set it up to where the pc's are the Exile from kotor2 and his officers when he/she served as a general agaisnt the mandalorians. Maybe this time around Bao-dur doesnt set off the device that destroys Malachor V. I've never played saga though so i can't tell how well that'd translate from the videogames.

[MightyTim]

Prior ranting aside... Isn't this a question you should be asking your PCs?

[Katana_Geldar]

Which Star Wars era is best depends a lot on your preferred campaign style.
Here's a few styles:

Jedi and Regulars in a party: Definitely KOTOR-era, and there's plenty of room to play. Jedi at this time were rather indepenent and late starters.
Military: Can be done pretty much ANY time when there is a war on, but the best times would have to be Clone Wars and Rebellion era, though they are rather different play styles. Clone Wars can get you your big battles and you Jedi waving their glow sticks around as well as the military organisation stuff. Rebellion is usually a bit smaller in scale due to the rebel cell.
Scum and Villainy: Can be done pretty much any time and is by far the easiest to run as you tend not to bump into much canon. I'd say the best time for this is the Dark Times, the TFU era when the Empire is warming up.

And war scenes are hard, but if you master mass combat rules and decide whether your battles are pre-scripted (easiest) or PC determined (harder, and you need the right group), you can do it.

[FelixG]

I am fairly fond of Clone Wars, lots of fun technology, Jedi and Sith about.

As for the canon issues, i tend to encourage my players to do whatever they like. I am fairly good at making up how stories would go if things get changed, though some events are just too big for the players to stop single handedly (order 66 for example)

[Katana_Geldar]

It is fairly simple for you to fly between the canon and even itneract with it, to some point. Some big events are story cues, and the players know when they are.

The best way to avoid barging into canon is to make up your own planet, or take an obscure planet from the Wookieepedia that has hardly anything written on it and go for your life.

[chiasaur11]

If one insisted on Clone Wars, it'd be a good idea to stay away from the main plot for the most part. Too much late era Lucas.

On the other hand, running a Commando squad might be fun times.

[gnomas]

Prior ranting aside... Isn't this a question you should be asking your PCs?

I have, but they're still debating. Besides, I was curious what people thought!

[Katana_Geldar]

What sort of campaign you looking to run?

[Popertop]

I like Old Republic era myself.
I like having independant Jedi, instead of someone that's just a pawn of the council.

[Mando Knight]

Clone Wars and KotOR offer the most variety and highest number of fighting Jedi for most groups, though New Republic and later periods can work as well for a Jedi-yes party. Early Dark Times is good for a Scum & Villainy campaign, especially if you want gritty Jedi hunted by Temuera Morrison's voice and skeletal-white plastic soldiers.

Trying to run anything in the GCW would possibly run cross-purposes to remembering that the whole thing rests on the shoulders of the Skywalker family. Any Jedi there detract from Luke's specialness, and so forth. However, the galaxy's pretty large, so blowing up some Moff's mini-superweapon is quite reasonable.

Shock-troop parties generally want a war. There's always a war going on. Always. Smuggler parties don't like wars themselves, but smuggling is everywhere all the time during a war. Mixed Jedi/not-Jedi groups generally need a major, Jedi-intensive war, such as the Clone Wars, the Mandalorian and Jedi Civil Wars, or the Vong War in order to stick together.

[Yora]

I just love Old Republic to the point that I wouldn't want anything else to play.
And by that, I'm only thinking roughly of the time of the games and the comics, maybe 200 years earlier or later, because I really don't like Revan. So it's more like "some unspecified point in time that has a very similar political situation to the Old Republic era and shares it's technologies and dominant races.

[Aotrs Commander]

Galactic Civil war.

As the Empire.

Based around TIE Fighter. I have actually done that twice (once as a player, once as a DM). Shooting rebels are part of an elite Imperial special ops unit is fun. Also, yay, TIE Defenders...

[hamishspence]

Trying to run anything in the GCW would possibly run cross-purposes to remembering that the whole thing rests on the shoulders of the Skywalker family. Any Jedi there detract from Luke's specialness, and so forth. However, the galaxy's pretty large, so blowing up some Moff's mini-superweapon is quite reasonable.

Maybe- but there are a lot of fallen Jedi, partially trained children of Jedi, and so on, in the EU, in this period. True Jedi might be a bit out of place- but just Force Users make a bit more sense.

[Bharg]

I considered playing in the Legacy Era since there all the stuff from the previous eras exists. Mandalorians are back, the K.U.S. droids etc.

But I can't think of a good fringe plot line...

[KiltedGrappler]

I've always perfered the Rise of the Empire era or early Rebellion for StarWars. Much less is written about that time period than almost all the others, and other than key people at the galactic level (Vader, the Emperor, Bail Organa, etc..) there are very little canon to step on.

[hamishspence]

The Force Unleashed would be the campaign book for this period.

While there isn't all that much for that era, it is beginning to grow.

The Force Unleashed
Death Troopers
The Adventures of Han Solo
The Adventures of Lando Calrission
The Han Solo Trilogy
The Rise of Darth Vader
The Coruscant Nights Trilogy
501st
Death Star

These are a few offhand examples.

[Katana_Geldar]

Rebellion era is where you can get that WEG feel.

[ShaggyMarco]

I ran a long-ish Legacy Era game: It was awesome.

The thing about it, PCs can play just about anything and all be on the same side:

I had an Imperial, a couple Jedi, a Mandalorian, and 2-3 fringe characters. They were all unified against the Sith. I easily could have had a couple of PCs from the Rebellion as well.

Plus, that far forward, there is no future timeline to concern yourself with, and PCs can tie their characters to families from long past without stepping on Cannon toes (well, there Are Skywalkers and sort-of-Solos running around...but you can still go other directions).

Anyway, it has everything, but in interesting places and proportions.

[Force]

Remember that the Star Wars galaxy isn't just big, it's frickin' enormous. You have thousands if not hundreds of thousands of inhabited planets to play with. Even at the height of the Rebellion era, for example, the Rebellion itself consists primarily of resistance cells with a very small capital ship fleet and a few holdout bases, mostly in the outer rim. Even if Luke's shining by blowing up the DS, the characters can be the big bad dudes in a different sector. Luke might be awesome, but he's not here. Your characters will be.

If you want the characters to actually save the galaxy or a similar stunt that would interfere with "canonical" events in a specific time period, though, you probably want either Legacy or KotOR era.

[Alleran]

I'm particularly fond of the Rebellion era. To me, it's where everything all started, and still has the most "draw" for a campaign.

[Katana_Geldar]

My players are currently running a criminal organisation on Nar Shaddaa. Took a lot of work to get them there and as a good GM, I am going to take it all away.

[Hawriel]

Classic Star Wars. You can do any thing you want during the period of the first movies. The 'canon' is not an obstical. You only need to have three things happen, and then you can get by with just a mention.

1) Alderaan is blown up.

2) The 1st Death Star is blown up.

3) The Empire's defeat at Endor.

Thats it, the consiquences of thoughs events add enviornmental flavor. You can do any thing. You can be a rebal, an imperial, a smugglar, a correlian policemen, a freedom fighter in the corporate sector. It doesnt matter, the events of the movie are for setting flavor.

Thats why I love WEG (rip). They put so much thought into expanding the star wars galaxy it expanded story options well behyond the events of the movies.

[Alleran]

Thats it, the consiquences of thoughs events add enviornmental flavor. You can do any thing. You can be a rebal, an imperial, a smugglar, a correlian policemen, a freedom fighter in the corporate sector. It doesnt matter, the events of the movie are for setting flavor.

Very much true. My players are currently working as a Rebel SpecOps team (Link). It fit the "group of PCs" context perfectly. Not only are they horrifically prone to shenanigans of the absolute highest order, they're cocky while at the same time being quite talented at what they do. I've only had to really put in restrictions on Jedi (i.e. needing to find a teacher if you want to be one), and amusingly enough, just rolling with some of the zany plans they invent reminds me of the Wraith Squadron books by Aaron Allston, too. There was one time in particular where they engaged in a bank heist, stealing several million credits from the Imperial Bank at Fondor shipyards. SpecOps teams are often used to cover the existence of existing Alliance Intelligence operations, and this group turns that up to eleven.

[Kiero]

KotOR, either during or shortly after the Mandalorian Wars. Or for something a little different, rebuilding the Republic in the aftermath of the Dark Wars.

[IdleMuse]

I must admit, a lot of the KOTOR era interest seems to be because of the games. Not having played them myself (as have few of my players), we just tend to skip that entirely, it just seems dull and blank. Sure, if you want an era where there's nothing going on, post-KOTOR pre-Ep1 is a good period, but I like the specific flavours you get in the Clone Wars, or the Rebellion era. My favourite at the moment has to be late-Unleashed, early-Rebellion era, although I run most plots in the Clone Wars era.

My next campaign will probably be a slightly Infinities extension of a 'You are the 501st' one-shot I ran, playing through A New Hope from the POV of the 501st.

[hamishspence]

What about the "gap periods" not mentioned much in the novels or comics?

Instead of playing in the KOTOR era, you could play somewhere between then and the Clone Wars era. In the time of Darth Ruin, or Belia Darzu, Sith Lady and creator of Technobeasts (A bit like Borg).

Or go right back to the dawn of the Jedi and the wars against Xendor, one of the first Dark Jedi, and his lieutenant Arden Lyn?

[IdleMuse]

I must admit, pre-Great Hyperspace War stuff would be very interesting to play.