Lit The Unofficial Star Wars WEG and WOTC tabletop game thread

I really enjoyed doing my Where I Read (WIR) of the Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the Rim book. It was the book that introduced Inquisitors to Star Wars, Bounty Hunter Guilds, Kina Margath (Rogue Squadron books), and Instinctive Astrogation among numerous other elements of later Star Wars lore. We also have the amazing Adventure Journal thread that details material from it.

Fragments from the Rim: https://boards.theforce.net/threads...k-at-galaxy-guide-9-w-charlemagne19.50042952/

Adventure Journals: https://boards.theforce.net/threads/we-hav-to-go-on-an-adventure-with-jello.50039275/

Timothy Zahn and other early writers were also given copies of supplements so they could keep their size, crews, and technical details of the Star Wars capital ships consistent. Later, Saxon would eventually retcon a lot of those but that's another issue. Characters like Airen Cracken and Pash Cracken also made their debut in supplements.

Star Wars: Rebels was said by many to strongly resemble a WEG RPG and there was even Ezra who resembled the "Kid" archetype, complete with slingshot as well as the Failed Jedi template for Kanan. There was also many an homage to the adventure module Strike Force: Shantinople where the Verpine created the B-wing at the behest of Admiral Ackbar.

I was debating doing a thread reviewing Galaxy Guide 7: Mos Eisley because that was one of my all time favorite supplements but I thought it might be better. Feel free to talk about your favorite literary elements of the tabletop RPGs both D6 and D20. I eventually hope we'll get more material from them added to the world of canon and a new edition for players.

 

Some opening conversation points.

1. While mostly found in the Adventure Journals, I feel like the books were a great source of short Star Wars fiction. I think my favorite character from all of them has to be Alex Winger, who predated the REBELS and RESISTANCE shows for creating the idea of a campaign centered around one small Star Wars world as well as the resistance there. I actually liked her very short relationship with Luke.

2. High Inquisitor Tremayne was an amazing creation because he really did solve the problem of needing a "Mini-Vader" for player characters to deal with, without diluting the terrible power of Darth Vader himself. His role is now taken by the Grand Inquisitor but the legacy of the Inquisition lives on. I choose to believe the Grand Inquisitor is also the WEG's "Torbin."

3. The Pentastar Alignment was probably another all-time favorite creation of the Adventure Journals and RPG. It was basically the idea of a "micro-Empire" for the PCs to fight after the Battle of Endor so they can be the heroes of the story with Grand Moff Kaine as Grand Moff Tarkin's successor. It was extremely well-detailed, competant, and eventually became retconned as the basis for the Imperial Remnant's survival.

4. I liked the Dark Empire sourcebook a great deal as it contained not only most of the information from the original comic notes (that really filled in a lot of gaps) but it also explained the differences between TTT and the comics as well as gave a lot of backstory on the collapse of the Empire, the Sovereign Protectors, the Dark Side Adepts, and other fascinating stuff.

5. One thing I always preferred was the WEG take on Carida instead of Stackpole's. Stackpole's depiction of Carida was a living, breathing world. The version in WEG was a military training facility alone where the Empire had pushed off the local inhabitants. I think it made Kyp Durron's actions more ambiguous.

6. The Imperial Sourcebook was a great source of detail about the Empire and I was always annoyed we didn't see more of COMPNOR, the ISB, and the SAGroup. I think this may have been due to the fact that Bantam and Del Ray were trying to PLAY DOWN the overtly Nazi elements of the GE rather than Disney's decision to lay them out in full display. COMPNOR being the SS was just a bridge too far. Yet, I'm glad they did it and hope they will make a comeback.

7. On the D20 side of things, I liked how well the game scaled things. Darth Vader being 18th level, Yoda and Palpatine being 20th level, gave you a very good understanding of where everyone was in the universe as well as how powerful you were. Mind you, it meant that when they did that big huge campaign that led everyone to 20th level that it suddenly questioned why you weren't the heroes.

(So much so someone said it should end with the heroes celebrating on Alderaan before the planet explodes)

8. I always enjoyed the fact the Dark Side Handbook retconned Kadann and Jedgar in the JEDI PRINCE series into being ISB imposters of the real Dark Side adepts (who died on Byss). It explained their outlandish and ridiculous behavior as well as why they never actually did any Force tricks. It also tied together the Prophets of the Dark Side with the Secret Order of the Emperor I believe but that could have been someone else.

9. I think the Charon are probably the strangest and most bizarre thing to ever be put into the RPG world. They're a bunch of death-worshiping bio-scientist insectoids from another dimension. They also have a not-too-disimilar status to the Yuuzhan Vong. They were so popular that the Otherspace Module got a sequel called...Otherspace II.

10. I kind of regret that Bevel Lemisk is now non-canon as I always liked the fact that the Death Star's designer was a horrifying mad scientist. We still have Director Krennic but Galen Erso is a much more controversial character, though I suppose he's the Qwi Xux figure.

11. I think Tatooine Manhunt is the best of the Star Wars WEG adventure modules. I am playing an adaptation of it now with Jakku and Jan Dodonna substituting for Tatooine as well as Adar Talon. In this version of the game, the First Order really wants to take out a potential resource for the Resistance. It also introduced Jodo Kast (the mini-Boba Fett to Tremayne's mini-Vader), Zardra, and other IG-series droids.

 

Objectively, Mission to Lianna was the best Star Wars WEG adventure module.

It's the closest we are ever going to get to a Tion Cluster sourcebook (although in that brief window of time when TOS was actually doing cool things, we did get that Tion Cluster map and gazetteer), since it's unlikely that FFG is going to really do anything going forward that isn't directly related to the Disney canon.

From an RPG old timer's perspective, I've found the d20 system to be... well, not good outside of D&D. The concept of 'levels' is horribly outdated. I'm okay with giving stats for movie characters, because I've always felt the old adage of "if you stat it, they will kill it" is only true if let it happen.

 

Actually, I'm going to go with D20 being much better than WEG in a few respects while being dramatically inferior in supplement quality and storytelling.

1. West End Games D6 system is actually a terrible fit for the kind of action packed, heavy-combat Pulpy adventures that Star Wars was famous for. Ditto with Indiana Jones. One of the earliest issues of the game was the fact that in combat, if your newly created characters met any Stormtroopers, it was very easy for them to just get gunned down and killed. Then that was the ending of their adventure. Levels, while horribly outdated, allowed you to blast Stormtroopers and survive. It didn't make sense you were hit and shrugged it off but at least reflected the fact you would probably survive a few sessions.

2. West End Games made the stats for the movie characters ridiculous. In the context that if you made a character that was newly stated like Luke, it would take 30 years of continuous gaming every weekend to match his stats by Return of the Jedi. If you were interested in playing "other heroes of the galaxy" then you were more or less Sith out of luck. It got worse with the Thrawn Trilogy sourcebooks where they were statted with more or less everything possible. I remember Han was given like a "Con" skill of 9d and my response was, "In what galaxy is Han Solo a good liar?"

3. While "if you stat it, you can kill it" is something some people object to, I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing in the Star Wars universe. While you may argue killing Darth Vader is a terrible thing in a game, it is something that can work fine if you're doing an alternate universe. The PCs are now the central protagonists in the universe and the Emperor can only be stopped by them. That was flat-out impossible in West End Games as Darth Vader could kill an entire army but might be possible for the PCs if they're sufficiently advanced heroes.

 

While from a gamer perspective one can argue which system fits better for what part of the Saga, I always prefered D6 for actual gaming. RPG rules are not in stone and can be tweaked with houserules if you like. D20 rules always were alienating to me in comparison to the clearcut and easy to get in D6 systems.

Lorewise the D20 sourcebooks were much like WEGs D6 ones a nice treat heavily expanding the universe, especially later runs that tied directly to KOTOR, Legacy, Clone Wars etc. and eras and pulled in deep dive lore outhors like Abel Pena, Dan Wallace, Jason Fry and John Jackson Miller, etc.

But D20 was more about explaining, retconning and stat-ing the universe, whereas WEG did not stop there and fully went into obscure corners and the everyday lifes of gffa citizens. Whereas Art for D20 book depicted nice scenes from books, comics or movies, D6 WEG art is a treat that each tells a story of its own with a myriad of characters, aliens, mimics and gestics and background details much like the movies had.

I liked how initially we got for every new novel or trilogy its own accompanying sourcebook with stats and lore expansion, short stories and art. I wish that would happen more often. Multimedia projects where you get comics, novels, sourcebooks of the same era/event/story arc each with different focus and tweaks so comic is not verbatim the book etc. much like f.e. TFU had.

A kind of double edged sword is that every player wants to interact or meet the big characters. Thus Yoda got regular visitors and apprentices on Dagobah and so on. Some like playing AU and deviating from canon courses, but I always preferred if a story fit in nicely in between all official stuff, even if a longer running campaign. You can cameo big characters but should not have them stick around for long. Unless you play as them of course or do other gameplay where you need them essentially.

 

Did anyone else do the Tramp Freighter campaign? That was my first SW game. Good times...