Problems with different eras

It seems that, whatever era of the SW universe you pick to play in, there are problems. So, here are some eras and the problems I've had, and some ideas for solutions. What other problems and/or solutions have you run into?

Old Republic era: The master/padawan/Jedi Council set-up isn't really conducive to a group of more than, well, two players. (Three if someone wants to be a droid, I guess.) How do you explain someone continually hanging out with Jedi? My only solution to this dilemna would be a one-shot or mini-campaign, where the Jedi are interacting with other players who represent people on the planet they're trying to help/negotiate with.

Rebellion-era: The movies kinda cover the important stuff. How do you find interesting stuff for the players without stepping on canon toes?

Post-ROTJ: This is where I usually play (ignoring the EU, especially the NJO), because I feel I have the most freedom, but since I dislike much of the EU, I have to come up with my own explanations of what the Empire is doing, what other groups are doing, etc, and how it will impact the group. A lot of work! And there's always the danger of doing something the players will feel is "not Star Wars" and will jolt them out of the game and out of the enjoyment it should be.

Thoughts?

 

I'm not terribly impressed with the Pre-Empire setting, so I tend to avoid it. I agree with you on the breakdown of players for it. Now, were it not for that whole Master/Apprentice setup, you can probably do something.
In a classic Empire setting I find the entire galaxy is my oyster. There's so much going on the characters can adventure for quite some time without running into a named NPC. They could still be serving important causes for thier respective sides, and the odds of them severely altering the story are limited. All in all, it's very safe.
Would my group make it to post Endor, I'd gladly continue on a post Empire setting, as there's still plenty of mop up or hiding to do. Basically I grab stuff from some of the EU stuff I like, and ignore the rest. As for the NJO stuff, well, lets just say that's an elseworlds type of thing. By the time that stuff rolls around, characters, both PC and named NPC should be retired. Sometimes you have to put the gloves down.

 

I tend to use all of the existing continuity. Why? Because I like it, because i'm a masochist, I don't know, but I do.

I've only found problems with the NJO era (the standard YV are pretty tough for 1st level heroes and I don't want to make them seem less impressive so I have to find different enemies for the PCs).

The Rebellion era has lots of potential. Look at, let's say, Dark Forces or X-Wing Alliance. They introduce new characters, don't mess with the continuity and the story is still epic.

And the Rise of the Empire... For me is:

a) Clone Wars. Jedi are like any other kind of hero, running around and fighting.
b) 100 years before TPM, and do whatever you want.
c) Between TPM and AOTC, without Jedi, showing the part of the galaxy the prequels doesn't show (ie.: the underground)

 

I personally love to run campaigns during the Original Trilogy time period (favorite is the approx 3 years between ANH and ESB).

The conflict between the Rebellion and Empire is really heating up and there are endless ideas you can run with that don't necessarily step on "canon toes".

I've always had the discussion with any players in my games that while what happened in the movies is important... Luke, Han and Leia were not the only heroes the Rebel Alliance had... they were more of the media darlings of the Rebellion because of the actions they happened to be involved in. I always try to explain that the rebel propoganda machine really liked to focus on them.

I've had players reek enough havoc against the Empire to get them listed in the top 50 most wanted (I think a few of them ended up rating somewhere in the low teens of the most wanted by the time of RotJ). They've even had medals pinned on them by people like Mon Mothma and Admiral Akabar.

I've also had them run into and Role Play interactions with Luke, Han and Leia (and the rest) and I played them off as individuals who were no better or worse than anyone else in the Rebellion... they just happened to be singled out by the media... it really made the characters see them as "human" and not some sort of ego-maniacs or "larger than life" figures and how the media/propoganda machine can blow a persons reputation all out of proportion.

I'm currently working on a campaign that will almost entirely take place on one planet during the 3 year period between ANH and ESB... the players are going to be caught in the middle of an Imperial Invasion and will be trapped there... I have all sorts of intrigue, shadey deals and dirty secrets to get them to really hate the Empire... and that will lead them into not only helping to organize the Rebellion on the planet... but they will really get to care for the people of the planet and what happens to them... they may not be saving the galaxy... but hey... a planet of a few hundred million is pretty darn good as well... and just as gratifying.

I'm converting alot of the source material on Terra Nova from Heavy Gear to flesh out the world (since Dream Pod 9 has put an insane amount of detail into this world). This will end up being a huge place for the players to run around in since there will be dozens of detailed cities to go to... filled with intrigue and tense situations as they stumble into the plans of various factions that are active during the Imperial Occupation.

I'm working on rough timelines of what the various factions goals are and what effects the other factions will have on these goals and leave it open enough for the actions the players take to influence all of these (who knows... that supply dump they blow up may delay the Imperial offensive that was planned and save some resistance groups in another city that the players didn't know about who could in turn help them in the future).

Of course the set up for this is taking forever since I'm putting alot of work into all the source material. This campaign will have the full gambit of play-styles... from covert infiltrations, commando raids, straight up combat, social interactions... etc.

What time period you play in really comes down to the GMs personal preference and what era they are most comfortable with... you can pretty much make any time period work if you take the time to brainstorm out some concepts (and alot of the concepts will suck... but they get you to the really fun ones that suddenly surface).

 

It says in the RCRB that most of the time in the Old Republic and NJO eras, the master isn't actually around. The master and padawan meet between missions. As for hanging around with others, I figure they meet by happenstance in the first or second mission and become friends.

When it comes to rpgs, I almost ignore continuity. I keep just enough of it to make sure the framework remains. Like Obi-Wan did fight Darth Maul even if a PC actually killed him. Luke Skywalker does do something great to become famous at the Battle of Yavin, even if a PC destroyed the Death Star, and Darth Vader does die on the DS2, even if a PC killed the Emporer. After all, this is my story.

 

The problem of what era to play in is best solved by your player. If your player don't like the idea of playing 100+ years before TPM, then the game does not work.
That being said, the one era I have enjoyed the most playing and running is post-ROTJ. Lots of stuff to do and no movies to answer to. The books and comic (even video games) are like optional sourcebooks to pick and choice form. It's great. Villians like Baron Fel, Ysanne Isard, and the GREAT Grand Admiral Thrawn allow for epic adventures where the PCs are the main heroes not Luke, Han, and Leia. This mains that the furture of the universe is in the PC's hands. And do not follow the books, if you do, it's even more limiting that following the films. The films have years and months of info that are not covered but, the books and comics try to cover every day of the EU.
Old Republic Era only works one way that I have seen. Everyone is so kind of Jedi. This is fun if all the players are power-gamers. If not it doen't.
Rebellion Era has two problems. The first is you have to answer to the films. You can work around it. To do it right you must be a very good GM. Star Wars is all about the EPIC story telling. The heroes (the PCs) must be longer than life with what they do (or do not) can and will chance the course of history. Taht is hard to do when Luke Skywalker is doing all the heavy lefting. I have played in these games with good GMs. They are some of the best RPGs I have ever played.
Pre-ANH: Until EPIII is out, your game may need to change if you are following TPM and AOTC. I would hate to show up one week for a game and be told that the games history had to be changed to match the new movie. I did this with AOTC, it is not fun.
New Jedi Order Era: The Vong are okay villians but, Lightsabers cut anything (even really hard snakes), The Force bind the univerce together (it is not limited to one gallaxy). Thay are to powerful for low level encounters. ( the Peace Brigade must be used to level up). This can (and has)been a fun game to run.
One last note: The idea of using major background characters for the films work great. You anchor your game in the films and/or books while not over shadowing your PCs with the stars of the films.

 

"Rebellion-era: The movies kinda cover the important stuff. How do you find interesting stuff for the players without stepping on canon toes?"

As Han says, "there are a lot of command ships". With a galaxy of a thousand sectors, filled with characters as complex as Pellaeon and dangerous as Vader, there's always something or someone to blow up, convince, subvert or deceive. Eye of Palpatine was brought back to my mind the other day. Now I know it dawdled and would be a pain, but the basic ideas of the Empire eliminating some "peaceful" planet that has "no weapons", whilst brainwashing the innocent into helping with the terracide is still a classic

There are things that only get touched on, too. The Nkllon mining scheme is quite vaguely described as being a Dreadnaught walking on the backs on salvaged AT-ATs. Salvaged from where? Who knocked out that many?

 

Knowing Lando he probably won them off some drunken Imperial comander. I agree that movie canon is a difficult thing to walk around, but it can be done. I perfer the NJO era, there are tons of un-named people fighting the Vong and a lot of un-named Jedi, there is suppost to be around 100 fully trained Jedi by the time the Vong role in, but only a dozen or so are named. There are massive roles to be filled, there were many worlds taken by the Vong that could have contained Jedi. I am curently running a campain where a jedi master and his padawan are sent by Luke to investigate Belkidan and another jedi student stows away in the transport. While on Belkidan they meet a pair of Chiss mappers looking for inhabatible worlds, they are attacked by the Vong and form a fragile truce. The Chiss agree to help the jedi gather info about the Vong and now that the Vong have attacked the Chiss, a small part of the Chiss millitary now oppose the Vong invasion. See you can twist canon to suit your needs, the Chiss (acording to the books) dont get involved until much later.

 

I haven't played in the NJO Era, but I like the insights into the difficulties for "low level encounters" when dealing with the Yuuzhan Vong.

I guess the Peace Brigade is a good way to get around that . . . but there has to be other options as well. Perhaps something taking place in the Fringe, where more pirates or criminal organizations (lawlessness) might come into play . . . or a hostile environment where a YV Intendant has already riled up a faction of the locals to hate machinery or Jedi and the rpg's are brought into the mix (i.e., like the Red Knights (?) on Rhommamool in VECTOR PRIME or the "bad" Duros in BALANCE POINT). Hmmmm. This is an interesting situation. The only other route that I can think of off the top of my head is to merely ignore the YV and have a scenario that could pretty much fit into any Era. How weird. I'll have to think more about it.

Ana V

 

Of course, there is another reason I ignore continuity. I don't want to diminish the magic of Star Wars. When I make way for the continuity, it seems like I'm adding to the story and by extension taking away part of the mystique about it. This particularly happens when I see the characters on screen fail at something my character managed to pull off. It's as if I've bettered a hero and taken him down.
One easy example I can think of is that when I read Vector Prime and found out that Chewie died, I couldn't remove his death from my mind as I watched the movies again even though I take pains to split canon from the EU.

 

a lot of the things brought up here make a lot sense... still i have run in just about every era (( haven't done muck NJO )) but i can tell you it all starts with story..

if you are worried about continuity.. make a story that sets apart form it.. also i often have problem with the whole master/ padawan situation... IMHO.. i found that i gives me a chance to throw in some bigger challengesand bigger story elements

 

Make the galaxy your own, Luke doesnt exist unless you say he exists, though personally, I try not to mess around with the main characters too much. In the most recent campaign I ran, there is no such thing as Superweapons like we see in the EU and on the movies.

I have the main characters trying to foil The Death Star Project. The Death Star isn't a giant Christmas ornament in my galaxy, it is a laser mounted on stripped down Star Destroyers that is capable of ripping other capital ships in half in just one shot. Tarkin and his lover Admiral Daala (also the commander of his personal Star Destroyer) are trying to adjust it to allow it do planetary bombardments that can penetrate shields. Luke, Leia, Han and Chewie are out trying to stop this as my players are out in the fringe of space having run ins with Pirates, pathetic Imperial commanders hoping for a promotion to get back to civilized space and trying to make a buck.

The Rebellion is still a thorn in the Empire's side and is a little bit more organized. Mon Mothma, Garm Bel Iblis, Padme, Ackbar and several others are leading the council to restore the Republic.

 

interesting take on things.. keep us up to date on how it goes

 

I nearly killed my entire group in the first game *LOL* I had them attacked by 6 TIE fighters, the worst of the worst. I rolled 6 D20, rolled 3 20's; 2 19's and an 18! That roll was one in a million, I will never roll like that again, needless to say I was forced to bluff the roll, although the damage previously done to the ship was minimal, there is no way it would have survived all those crits.

 

I only used 2 settings: 80 years befor ANH (and consequently before TPM and Clone wars) or "Classic" era ANH to RotJ. Pre-clone campaign is pretty much my take on the universe. Characters have died and been replaced. Jedi are around, and can be played, but mostly aren't (some people who play the best jedi are the ones you'd think least capable).
Classic campaign I use either "You're all members of the Rebel Alliance." or the Tapani sector detailed in "Lords of the Expanse."

 

i'm currently planning on starting a new SW game. i've been going back and forth on what era and setting i want to set it in, so i narrowed it down to 3 and i'm going to let the players pick (i'm looking at getting 3-5 people into this game).

TotJ/KotOR era: i'll probably start everyone at 7th level and have it set about 5-7 years before KotOR. 1 or 2 of the players will play Jedi who are asked by their master when they become knights to go bring peace and order to a newly-settled sector of the galaxy on the fringe of the Republic, butting up against Hutt space. the others will be locals from that sector wih an interest in keeping order and building a working sector (scouts, fringers, scoundrels, soldiers, maybe even a noble out from the Core...). it'll basically be like "here are some credits and a ship. go fix that broken sector" and it'll be like a Western ("ah reckon ah'm the new lawman in this here sector..."). they'll have to deal with Hutt crime syndicates and corrupt merchants and Sith agents and Mandalorians and they'll be basically on their own. i hope to eventually make them heroes of the upcoming Mandolorian War.

Prequel Era: i'll get an even number of players and split the group into knights and padawans (by agreement - i've already had people wanting to play padawans). the knights will probably be 8th-9th level and the padawans will start at the bottom. it would basically be a roleplaying-intensive game set about 25 BBY with lots of political intrigue and such as the Clone Wars start looming on the horizon and the players struggle with the responsibilities of being a Jedi in an era where the Republic you serve is hopelessly corrupt and collapsing under its own weight. lots of terrorists and assassins and dirty Senators and reformers and backstabbing and such all around the players while they struggle to stay on the Jedi path.

NJO era: Characters are the new Wraith Squadron (to hell with continuity in that regard), a mixed group of Jedi and non-Jedi working for New Republic Intelligence. Only a select few highly-placed people in the upper reaches in the NRI even know they exist. All their records have been erased. They're sent out on a deep cover mission to infiltrate a Hutt kajidic, pretending to be various scoundrels, smugglers, etc. in order to bring down the crime organization. They're still undercover, deep in Hutt Space, when the Vong come barelling through the GFFA like bulls in a china shop, and their lines of communication with their superiors are cut off. Of course, they're sooooooo top secret that no one even knows they work for the New Republic at all, so no one's coming to save them, and travelling on their own just got a lot harder...

So, here they are, a bunch of spies knee-deep in the biggest nest of criminals, gangsters and hoodlums in the GFFA, when this new enemy shows up out of nowhere and turns the world upside down. they'll have nothing but their wits and their cunning to make allies and either help the Hutts against a common enemy or fight their way across a galaxy at war. Lots of Hutts, bounty hunters, Peace Brigaders, Vong, etc to fight.

 

I'd love to play that KoTOR-era game. Shame you don't live in the NYC metro area...

 

Problems with the Old Republic and Rebellion Era campaigns caused me and the group I play with to make up our own EU (AU?). This way we do what we like and run the story the way we want. It's worked for many years (9+ real life, almost 30 in game).

 

KotOR setting is working out pretty well for me..

i have been posting my opening crawls on the " WHAT IS YOUR STAR WARS RPG ABOUT" thread..

i helps quite a bit because metagaming is a bit more difficult... the world is not as defined as classic, prequal, NJO, and HttE time periods.

 

I've got the perfect group to get around metagaming. Literally, they use fuzzy logic and giant leaps of faith to come to often hilarious similarities to the EU. For example, did you know Vader was anti-slavery? Because the Black Sun has a sizable interest in slave running, my group has decided it's wrong. And since they work for Vader, he probably thinks it's wrong as well, as he want's to cripple the Black Sun. Also, Vader freed one player from a life sentence on Kessel in exchange for servitude, and that's almost as good as emancipation! So my groups next step is to start forming Vader Emancipation Teams (VETs for short), consisting mainly of feline races and wookies. They've even got a patch made up for thier uniforms. A red lightsaber cutting through shackles. Talk about screwed up logic.

 

That's nuts!
I love it.

 

thats beautiful trem

 

Tremaniac I love it, it works for me!

 

I'd love to play that KoTOR-era game.

why, thank you! that seems to be the one the players are favoring...

a friend of mine summed up the main advantages of that era as "you can do pretty much anything you want without worrying about bumping into the established story and there's a steady supply of lightsaber-wielding bad guys."

Shame you don't live in the NYC metro area...

funny you should mention that. i'm typing this in an office in Jersey City. i'm back east visiting my family at the moment...

 

I think you need to do some more reading if you think any of the eras lack a veritable gold mine of play options. In particular you might want to pick up Tales From Jabba's Palace, Tales of the Bounty Hunters, and Tales From Mos Eisley. All of the stories concern the lives of small characters affected by large events. TFJP is all about minor characters in Jabba's palace up to and after his death at the Sarlacc pit.

Old Republic Era: Be creative with Jedi based games. Yes the Master/Apprentice relationship can be a limitation but it doesn't have to be. Play the masters as NPCs and group the padawans together as the player party. For example, if you've got several padawans reaching the point they need to build their lightsabers have their masters send them off as a group in search of some Adegan or Ilum crystals. Everyone gets to play a Jedi, some with their master's lightsabers and some with only their wits.

Non-Jedi games have even more options. Before the Clone Wars the Republic had little in the way of a standing military. There's the official Republic Security force which is little more than federal marshals that aide the Jedi. As such individual sectors, planets, and corporations had private mercenary armies and navies to defend against pirates and other external threats. Player groups could be contracted as part of these forces or have to fight against them. If you're playing between TPM and AotC the players could encounter parts of the Separatists droid armies.

Space based gaming is fairly easy as well. Spacers could run afoul of the Trade Federation or the Hutts which can lead to all sorts of epic adventuring. During the clone wars the players could get caught up in major naval engagements between the Separatists and the Republic. Being in the wrong spaceport in the wrong time could make for some pretty awesome battles.

Rebellion Era: Come on, be creative. Just because Luke, Leia, and Han get the glory doesn't mean there isn't a ton of epic adventuring to be done. There's roughly 18 years of Imperial rule between Luke and Leia's birth and the battle of Yavin. There's going to be a lot of rebellious activity in the Outer Rim where Imerial rule is harshest and communication scarcest. Worlds can be bombarded to dustballs by Star Destroyers and Dreadnauts without so much as a whisper in the Core Worlds. Involve the characters in a Moff's grand schemes, either aiding or foiling them. Get on the ISB's hit list for sabotaging an Imperial shipyard or supply facility.

After the battle of Yavin and before the Emperor's fall at Endor there's four years of open galactic civil war. That means open conflict between Imperial and Rebel forces on scores of worlds. The WEG Rebel Alliance sourcebook made a great example with the Atrivis sector. It was the description of a fairly average Outer Rim sector with lots of rebel activity. Make up a sector with an evil Moff, some dastardly navy Admirals, and lots of evil Imperial henchmen. Being a thorn in the side of a Grand Moff can make an epic adventure that never needs to directly touch the canon works.

I had an entire campaign based around the destruction of the first Death Star. A few of the NPCs survived the battle of Yavin but most of the story dealt with the repercussions of its destruction. The Death Star housed over a million crew and passengers. All of the troops, pilots, and gunners assigned to it were the best in the Empire. Hundreds of thousands of the Empire's best soliders were lost with the Death Star. That's hundreds of planetary garrisons worth of troops vaporized. That had to have a huge effect on the rest of the military. Garrisons on Outer Rim worls would have seen their bases manned with skeleton crews. Rebellious locals would be much harder to deal with. Most of the adventures in the campaign were a direct result of this problem.

The same goes for space based adventures. With the Imperial fleet on the hunt for the Alliance's fleet and resources from the Death Star floating in orbit around Yavin there would be a significantly reduced presence i