Lit The Essential Atlas and Galactic Cartography: Official Discussion

I wouldn't hold my breath for any map that has Lwhekk on it.

 

To be clear....podjazd says the game in the video is canon...all I did was post a link to the map after the guy in the video review mentioned it.

 

The map from the video appears to be the exact same map FFG has used in their other Star Wars RPGs, but with TFA locations added.

http://reddicediaries.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/WP_20150812_001.jpg

Wether its canon or not, that's tough. Before Wookieepedia was just declaring all FFG RPGs non canon, but then the books started including canon stuff like Lothal. They solved this by making a Legends page for Lothal, but from looking at the Nexus of Power talk page they're not sure what to do about the Jedi Temple being made into the Imperial palace being listed in that book, since that never happened in Legends.

 

The problem that the Wook is having with figuring out the canonical status of FFG's RPG products is that StoryGroup doesn't seem to know either.

 

I feel like this is more on Wookieepedia trying to slot everything into clear-cut categories than on either Story Group or FFG. Though that's not to say that there isn't some genuine confusion going on.

 

The problem we have on the Wook is that we can't just ignore the FFG content. But how to label it? That's a real conundrum... It was supposed to be simple, remember? Everything was supposed to be canon.

 

If only.

"The war is over! Lord Lucasfilm promised us canon! We only want--"

 

I'm still not seeing it as FFG or anyone else's responsibility to do what they do with Wookieepedia in mind. "It's a game, play it, don't worry about canon" seems like a perfectly reasonable attitude.

The odd thing (as mentioned before) is that there still seem to be some restrictions on what they can do even with that attitude, which is a little silly.

 

I understand that attitude to an extent. But it's hard not to be able to use the lore inside of those RPG sourcebooks anymore, since we've always done that in the past. Not being abgle to do so seems like a waste. Dang, our only canonical depiction of the Imperial Palace's outside comes from a book that is neither canon nor non-canon!

 

And ROTJ:SE.

 

True. We don't have a real good shot of it, though--Iand I still find it hugely disappointing that it's basically the old, unmodified Jedi Temple.

 

One Canon to rule them all; one canon to find them; one Canon to bring them all, and in the Denningverse, bind them.

 

I would be so happy if a Lego Jedi Temple became the header pic for the canon Imperial Palace article.

 

I think the idea is that most of what's coming down now in FFG needs to be consistent with Canon, but not establishing canon. Especially since the earliest FFG books were released and developed prior to The Great Divide. So FFG needs to be consistent with A) Its previous Game Line products, and B) New products coming forward are being Story Group approved.

Force and Destiny explicitly notes its histories of Jedi and Sith (including ideas of 'the Qel-Droma Epics' and 'The Revan Mythologies', with one being potentially an intentional re-writing and crafting of the other for didactic reasons) are by no means to be treated as canonical authentic truth, but treated as IU historical epics along the lines of Illiad or Odyssey or the Aeneid or some of the epic traditions in the Hebrew Bible and other ANE traditions. LSG approved that perspective. It's flavor for launching storytelling. (I mean, the point of these books is to launch seriously non-canonical stories that could be as consistent with canon as possible).

I like how in the entries on, for example, Ylesia, it gives the general history of what went down without feeling the need to namecheck Han Solo or Bria Tharen. In my game, I can approach those things as having generally happened as a fun setting, without needing to tie it in with those specific characters for any reason. I think that's a cool idea - having certain events happening, but then acknowledging that in the past, people put prominent heroes in the roles of the REAL actors in the historical events. A bit of propaganda for those Heroes that grew in the re-telling. (So even if new Canon material makes clear Han was never involved in Ylesia, it doesn't mean canonically, a Ylesian Exultation Cult didn't once exist, and was raided). It's a cool way to allow for historical depth without needing to shoehorn THE BIG CHARACTERS in all of the Important Events that happened.

Anyway, in my game, I'm also going to put a Force vergence somewhere on Ylesia too (ex cultists and addicts learning there's legitimate religious power on the planet? Yup.), so I'm not being bound by what Canon has revealed. Neener Neener.

 

Taalcon....

This is what the new canon should establish...all these planets exist and all these events happened...in the broad sense. Without superimposing the characters into them until the new canon actually establishes that.

 

Eh, maybe. In the most broad sense, and not without some key exceptions. I think Story Group would likely think, "There's no reason to think this concept couldn't have happened on this planet called Ylesia", and allow it for game/universe flavor, but hold in reservation ideas that involved worlds or socieities or characters that have more of a stronger influence in the Big Picture Story, that they'd rather other storytellers get more freedom developing.

But I actually like how Canon stories HAVE gone with, "Something really bad and dark-sidey happened on Malachor a long, long time ago". "During the Clone Wars, there was a devastating event on Haruun Kal", "Witches of Dathomir", etc.

 

No it isn't, but it's absolutely amazing! I love it.

There's a lot of fan activity on a number of different platforms that are trying to create an astro-graphical experience of the SW Galaxy. I have my own, but there's another guy who created an awesome vector graph map, which is available here.

Sure, there's deep IP issues with anything being imported from these fan-based projects (we obviously don't own any of the IP, and Disney/LFL/LSG, will be extremely hesitant to bring any fan outsiders in, because lawyers) but there's a clear thirst for a deeper understanding of the SW galaxy, and I think that Disney/LFL/LSG are missing an opportunity by not developing it more.

Regarding the freedom for content creators, it seems to me that a deeper understanding of the SW galaxy would help them in the framing of their stories more than it would hamper their creativity. I remember talking with Timothy Zahn at an author signing once, and he says that back when he was writing the Heir to the Empire trilogy, West End Games sent him all their stuff, which made it easier for him, because he didn't have to invent all kinds of stuff, and - instead - could use their things off the shelf.

 

Zahn's experience with using WEG material for TTT and beyond is an excellent example of why the way the new canon operates has disappointed me so much.

 

It was a response to the last part of what Mikael was saying, and what I was getting at was the stark contrast between Zahn both using existing locations and creating several new ones, often through Tuckerization, to facilitate the story he was telling, while TFA managed to only create new locations.

 

Maybe if someone creates a "Reasons the New Canon Disappoints Zeta" thread that'll contain him.

 

Don't tempt me, I'm halfway considering proposing it to the Mod Squad. I'm a big fan of threads that consolidate topics, Zeta's disappointment may qualify.

--Adm. Nick