Lit A/V The Force Awakens and the EU [TAGGED spoilers.]

Only reason? I beg to differ. The EU effectively began because of the roleplaying game. And FFG's version is excellent because of its largely inclusivist approach. I do, in fact, enjoy them even without playing the game, and this is speaking as an avid roleplayer. (And I'm not a particular fan of a system where you are hamstrung unless you buy dice unique to the game).

The setting damn well better be something I want to play in, otherwise I'd go get GURPS Space or something and play that instead. If they decide they have to pull the map and the description of the galaxy, for instance, from future material because the NU novels don't want to be hampered by definitive descriptions, I've got Deadlands, Shadowrun and Call of Cthulhu waiting for me.

 

Jen Heddle's recent tweet was taken out of context: "you should probably ignore anything I've said because I don't know what I'm talking about."

 

Well, the actual tweet isn't much better:

"Like seriously you should probably ignore anything I've said about video games because I don't know what I'm talking about. LOL."

 

The backpeddling Schrödinger's canon suddenly all makes sense now...

And that will become my new term.

 

Reassuring. Really.

 

Yes. I appreciate people buy them for stats and fluff, but that's not the purpose of the games. ANd I remember people in this very forum complaining because of the apparent damage output of an ISD being underpowers, when at capital scale it was without peer in terms of capital ship combat. All the info has to support the game, so if a ship cannot replicate its feats in novels, games, or on screen because of balance issues... so be it.

Fans who don't play the game fail categorically to understand that the RP books are designed to support the RP, not their reading habits.

And honestly? Buy the die-roller app if you want to spend less on the FFG dice. The starter box has some dice, but it's often not enough, so the app can be a handy compromise. Compared to GURPS, WEG, Pathfinder, any version of D&D, Saga Edition... this is probably my favourite game system yet. You're missing out hugely by not playing it.

 

To be fair, Schrödinger's canon is pretty much how I understood EU canon to work anyway: things exist, until something new happens to contradict them, at which point the new stuff takes over. Maybe things get integrated later gracefully, maybe they don't.

This is just making it explicit so no-one cries foul when the ST overwrites the NJO or something.

 

This is the brave new Disney world we're in: anything they can't sell to five-year olds in their Disney stores they basically don't give much of a damn about.

 

True. I can't imagine them Legending the novelizations, though; how would you do it without declaring the movies non-canon?

 

Well, Chee is his usual helpful self. Here's his comments so far on Facebook and Twitter:

....

Thanks, Leland! Hopefully Pablo, with his tactful mannerisms and way with the fans, will come along to explain it all....

 

We're all going completely bananas. You can't help that. We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.

 

For those keeping score at home:

HTTE: not canon

Hunt for Ziro: CANON

 

The phrase "Schrödinger's canon" is the best thing to come out of this mess. I hope it sticks.

 

Leland has been awol for the past month.

 

True, though I don't know why they wouldn't have mentioned TFU being (maybe?) canon then, along with the films and TCW.

And I suppose the Mara thing might be a sign of The Mouse's priorities. Starkiller and Revan were from games that take place before RotJ, while Mara is mostly known from Heir to the Empire and after.

 

Suddenly Leland deleting his Twitter account makes total sense!

 

I will make it stick.

 

Think of it, all the things we've all taken for granted like Bane, Korriban, Bastila, Qel-Droma's....all suddenly silenced.

 

Yknow, I've always felt the size of the setting implyed by the films is a lot smaller than the one in the EU.

The Rebel Fleet. The Rebel base. The number of platforms in the senate. I never felt it fitted with the millions of worlds in the old EU.

I wonder if they can fix that.

 

No different from collectors of anything, really, and with the sales figures of RPGs in general I wouldn't be surprised if a significant portion of the purchases are for exactly that.

Absolutely not, I'm an "old school" RPGer, and loathe electronic dice in all its forms - my group as well. I do, in fact, have the starter kit with the dice, I was echoing a (legitimate) complaint among RPGers. As far as playing it, that's certainly a possibility - but my group is already backed up with Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy, TSR's old Dark Matter, Firefly, Dresden Files and my current pet project, a revised version of WEG's old TORG game. I'm the only Star Wars fan in the group, at least relatively speaking, so any running of the game would be far in the future, if at all.

 

Bane and Korriban/Moraband are still canon. Qel-Droma and Bastila will be too if SWTOR is said to be canon eventually since they or their clothing at least appear there.

 

Probably uncertainty. They probably haven't sorted out anything that wasn't a direct product from Lucas. Yes, he had some hands in TFU, but not nearly as much as TCW. So stuff that has a much better leg to stand on (TFU, TOR, Clone Wars micro-series, the novelizations) will probably be figured out later.