"Star War RPG" Topic

I'm just about to embark on an new session of GMimg and as someone else is currently running D&D 3.5 I wanted to do something different and perhaps a bit of fun (but using the same mechanics as not to confuse a couple of the gamers).

Now my question is has anyone played the Star Wars RPG (new version from WIZKIDS) as I have a load of minis and now have access to the rulebooks (handy having someone who job involves selling gaming stuff )

Now will everyone want to be a Jedi?

How do the adventures pan out?

What do you think will be the best era to start out in?

I was thinking in getting them together as sort of a ships crew maybe in the employment of someone else asked to go various places.

But the biggest question is it both fun to play and DM.

I should add I looked at Stargate but is just didn't seem as much fun to run.

not played in ages and I played the old west ends games versions I think they were, the new films had not come out when we played so we played post EST pre ROTJ. Was good fun, no jedi's in our games, too rare.

Played the old West End also. Mostly as the small band of smugglers/pilots/bounty hunters – running around, causing trouble, occasionally working for the Alliance. Most people stayed away from Jedi – it was really hard to be a good/skilled Jedi.

The newest version by Wizards (not Wizkids) is the SAGA edition and it is excellent I think. I've thought of using it for other non-D&D types of roleplaying. I think it's better than even d20 Modern.

Jedis are still powerful, but not as much so as in the earlier editions of d20 Star Wars. At the same time, they're more powerful in that they're not spending their hit points to activate their powers. But most powers are only useable one or two times per encounter.

In our campaign (which we haven't played in awhile) I've got a gunfighter character is who a lot tougher than the party's jedi. He can do more damage with his fists or guns than the jedi can do with his lightsaber. Of course, he's really specialized that way. My other character (we each play two) is a scoundrel/crime lord, and is pretty much hopeless in combat, unless it's vehicle combat, but a real smooth Lando type in role-playing encounters. He's tons of fun. The other characters are a jedi (defense oriented) and an astromech droid.

The starship crew idea is always a good one. SAGA edition makes it easier for everyone to get involved during a ship encounter instead of just the pilot.

Personally, I'm all about the rebellion era, but our campaign is post-clone war / pre-rebellion. So our jedi is on the run from the empire and we're involved in the original formation of the rebellion.

I am currently playing in a Knights of the Old Republic campaign and am having a great time. Starting Jedi characters are Padawans. We have two Padawans, a Republic Soldier, a Noble, A scoundrel, and a pilot in our group.

Agree with Hexxenhammer. SAGA edition has Jedi toned down a bit and the other characters rarely get relegated to back seat drivers. I prefer the early/rise of Old Republic era myself, I feel there is much more freedom for the GM to make things up and you're less likely to get "cannon hammered" by someone more knowledgeable about SW than you. Plus, Sith still active (although a mere shadow of their former selves) = awesome.YMMV of course.

I am currently in a Star Wars Saga edition campaign and I think it does a good job providing the flavor of the movies without over or under powering Jedi characters. You could play an entire party of Jedi but they would probably rely on NPC's for non Jedi related skills. A mixed party definitely works well though the Jedi are often bound to leap into hand to hand combat. ;) :)

Our group is currently in the phantom menace era… lends itself well to mystery type adventures…

I would think the clone war era would revolve more around combat, infiltration etc…

Plenty of mischief to get into during the Rebellion era. No Jedi but you could have force users… we are hoping to replace our menace campaign with one in the rebellion era this era in the new year…

I'm running a Knights of the Old Republic campaign using Savage Worlds. Runs fine and smooth. We ended up making our own Jedi powers and abilities for the game.

This period gives you a lot of freedom, without running in the way of movies and other established stories.

I am ruuning a SAGA edition campaign with my daughters, they are both playing Padawans during the Clone wars, which A) allows them to wander about the galaxy without their Jedi masters in tow, and B) allows whatever support they need (meat shields, pilots, medics, etc.) to be readily available in the form of clone troops. Granted, our games tend to be more combat oriented, but what do 8- and 6-year old girls want to do more than carving up Separatists with lightsabers?

As an aside, I got them the deluxe build-your-own-lightsaber kits for Easter, and I have woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of lightsaber fights from their room. They really do want to be Jedi Padawans…

I played in a couple of campaigns with the d20 Star Wars (3.0, and revised for lack of clearer language).

In a group of 5 people, 2 were Jedi, and 1 was a force adept.

The Jedi were "under control" since only one was a saber wielding amputation machine… The other was a Consular, and did most of our critical thinking. Our force adept was essentially a cleric.

This is not to say you won't have a party of people who are all gung-ho combat wombats…. but we had a fine time.

Later, this same group of people got together to play the new Saga edition. There is about half the amount of dice rolling due to simplifications in the system. Instead of 5 minutes of tense "Oh no, they're right on our tails!" we ended up with one die roll to determine a fast resolution.

If your crew are folks who like to have complex contested rolls, saga feels "too simple". It can all be corrected with "Rule Zero: It's not broke if I can fix it", but if your players aren't okay with you "saying so" and making it so, then either fudge the die rolls, or take a look into the slightly older system.

All of that being said…. Star wars is still a fun setting in which to Role Play… We did a Post Return Of The Jedi Campaign (every other week for 2 years… a Knights of the Old Republic campaign(4 times… ), and an Episode one campaign (every other week for 1 year)

To more directly answer your question:

Fun Times in the Galaxy:

Knights of the Old Republic – If you like Jedi, Sith, and Mandalorians, then this is a truly heroic time for your group. Every jerk with a bathrobe tends to have a special force power… but if you like superheroes, this is your time frame.

Rebellion Era – When we played this, we were smugglers and mercenaries operating under the radar. It had a much gritter and less heroic feel. Jedi are hunted, and are likely to succumb to the temptation of the dark side.

Episode One (Rise of the Empire) – This campaign was a little too political for us… we're all for good roleplaying and hard choices for our characters, but we ended up involved in supporting factions of the imperial senate….

Adventures for us usually ended up with:
The Jedi quickly gains an overly powerful nemesis,and is given sith crystals/training/artifacts that are a temptation for him

Everyone else winds up with a bounty on their heads for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A droid joins the party to prove that machines are more competent than any of the regular party members. Doubly so if it only speaks in beeps and whistles.

You may wish to just slap together a couple of one-off missions with higher level pregens, and put your players through those. There ~were~ at some point quite a lot of RPGA (Role Playing Gamers Association) Star Wars modules available for download, though I'm not sure if you had to jump through hoops to get them. They were pretty formulaic, but provided a good enough time if you didn't get a chance to pour your soul into a story arc.

"You get involved in the fight between aliens/ranchers/the empire and sociopolitical elitists/Illegal arms dealers/wookie freedom fighters by saving their leader from a highway robber/Stormtrooper meter maid/runaway droid. He lets you in on their plan to gather information/smuggle ewoks/Assasinate Jar Jar. You greedily/righteously/helplessly agree to assist in this plan. You take a garbage scow/corellian corvette/interplanetary bus to a droid factory/secret base/Sith Temple and bluff/fight/sneak your way past heavily armed Imperials/Mandalorians/Force Sensitive blind bikini babes.

Now that you're in, you use your computer skill/waterboarding/clever disguise to get the information files. You set off the alarm and are met by a slightly tougher security force. You are pursued in your starship/hover buggy/high tech sedan chairs, but in the end get away.

Upon returning to your initial contact, the big bad boss, who is a renowned fallen jedi/cyborg tax assessor/interior design school dropout decides that he will kill you, rather than allow you to deliver the stolen data file/recipe for space rat surprise/pizza.

You fight a terrific and desperate battle, just barely surviving to complete the mission/hear the enemy swear vengance/get a ticket for going faster than the speed of light.

Pygmalion, that's hilarious. Way back in college when we were playing the WEG Star Wars all my friends made fun of my adventures with the comment, "Here's the big stormtrooper fight at the end."

Impala, are you going to Order 66 your own children!?!?!?

Great Pygmaelion, there goes all of my "original" ideas…:)

Hmm, I think I may have those RPGA adventures lurking around on one of my hard drives…as well as all of the Jedi counseling articles by J.D. Wiker.

Combine Serenity and Star Wars. Include the force if you like, include jedi but let those who are not in the order and under the thumb of the Empire being hunted much like PSI users in Babylon 5.

Or let them be jedi if they wish, it is just a game right?

I ran a number of games many years ago. It was also post ESB and pre RotJ. I only ever had one person wish to have force powers and then they were limited. Everyone else wanted to play the rogue.

The only advice I can give in regards to setting up games or campaigns is to look at old westerns or 50's pulp movies. They can give great story arcs that you can fit nicely into the Star Wars realm.

Most of the games were similar to Firefly. A crew trying to fly under the radar, but getting into scuffles with both the empire and alliance.

Great Stuff.

@Hexxenhammer: I have mixed feelings about this. They have discussed out of character that they know it is coming, but I think rather than have a batch of clone troopers turn on them, I will have them off investigating some other force tradition or a similar "away from it all" scenario. Of course, since they usually only have an entourage of 5-10 Clone Troopers, there is a very good chance they will be able to weather even a competent abush from that group, especially the way they have an almost Force-like knack for rolling critical hits… but truthfully I have not decided yet. It isn't going to happen until after they are actual Jedi instead Padawans, and I would really like to segue it into a Dark times campaign with them.

I'm guessing they are watching the mostly-excellent Clone Wars cartoon? The fact that I know Order 66 is coming makes the fact that the clones are so likable on the show disconcerting.

I rationalize it by assuming that Order 66 was a hypnotic implant put there by the aliens that created them on Palpatine's orders. They never knew they were going to betray the Jedi until they were already doing it.

Twi'Lek falling sickness……

I played the D20 version. There is very little reason to not be a jedi. The soldier and scoundrel (?) classes were also reasonably good -- after that -- nothing. Things that I didn't like besides the above:

Use once abilities. They don't recharge. These were all the rage in art house type RPGs for a while.

There was this template AOE stun weapon in one of the tech books that is crazy good.

We're running a saga edition campaign. I'm a fringer/Bounty who's got in with a scoudrel who part owns a ship he flys me round to the jobs and helps out with them. In the process we've picked up a fringer 'Blue elephant' (I can't remember the species name) whos writing a book 'travelling the outer fringe on 80 credits', a soldier who's seeking a good fight (he adds firepower to the group) and a freaky red guy (again the alien race name has escaped me) who the rest of us suspect is a jedi, but we don't know yet.
We have some very entertaining games, me and the scoundrel being a duo that get into a lot of trouble together with the rather cowardly blue elephant and the highly suspicious red freaky guy. If you can keep the group away from creating jedi then it becomes very enetertaining.

Thanks for all the replies, had a good read through the book now (plays exactly as D&D 3.5 so should be easily for everyone to pickup) and will let the players read the back bit and decide which era to play in before we start rolling for characters.

I'm guessing they are watching the mostly-excellent Clone Wars cartoon? The fact that I know Order 66 is coming makes the fact that the clones are so likable on the show disconcerting

Agreed, of the episodes I've caught the clones are by far my favorite characters.

I also like the hypnotic implant suggestion, but according to the Star War wiki (Wookiepedia) it seems like it was just part of the standard Contingency Orders for the GAR. This depresses me for two reasons:
1) It means the clones executed the order willingly
2) It means the Jedi must be illiterate to have not noticed it before

-Will