Quandry: using a beloved setting that's highly restrictive

[Sydney Freedberg]

Sydney -- yeah.  that's a hell of an idea.  I'd be all over it.  However, knowing my group, I think that it would sink the game.....That being said, I could get them hooked on the story, and then spring the "new reality" on them, in a very definitive, clear fashion.  Perhaps their attachment to the game would overcome their concern over "rewriting history".

Yeah, that's a tricky one. Either you'd get them past their initial resistance ("Gee, we've been playing non-canonical all along... and it's okay!") or they'd feel betrayed and nauseated -- kinda like a bunch of observant Jews and Muslims whose host tells them after dinner that what they just ate was pork. My preference would be to tell 'em up front, "we're screwing the canon," or not do it at all; but I don't know these people and you do. You want to roll the dice in real life with real people's reactions to you, I applaud your courage -- and urge you to post whatever happens, good or ill, in Actual Play.


EDIT for afterthought:

Just in case I haven't scared you enough...

[Here follow STAR WARS SPOILERS for anyone reading this thread who actually hasn't seen all the original movies 10 times]

To really make this work, you need to come up with a substitute for "I am your father." It's the moral pivot of the entire original trilogy, the moment when Good looks Evil in the eyes and realizes they're related, but it doesn't matter if there's no Luke. So Darth Vader -- or the Emperor -- or a new villain you invent -- needs to turn out to be somebody significant to some or all of the player characters: their dad (not Luke's), their former Jedi mentor, their long-lost brother, their sister, their son ("No -- you are my father" -- works if someone's playing an older Jedi).

And you can't decide exactly what this I-am-your-father replacement is until all the players have created their characters, and quite possibly until you've seen them roleplayed enough to get a sense of what would really hit them hard.

[Doctor Xero]

Sydney -- yeah.  that's a hell of an idea.  I'd be all over it.  However, knowing my group, I think that it would sink the game.  It really comes down to a simple matter of how much work will it be for me to overcome the players' dislike of my monkeying with canon (tweaking is "ok" -- but that sort of wholesale tossing is generally frowned on).

Not necessarily.  Ask them, explaining to them the reasons why you want to change the canon.

I once ran a highly successful Original Series Star Trek campaign, and the first thing I did was sit down with the players and tell them that there would be no Kirk, Spock, McCoy, etc. in this campaign because, quite frankly, they had done everything already and so, with them around, there would be nothing new for players to do.

We knew we wanted to include Klingons and Romulans and that it would be cheesy to have our heroes discover them in the game, so I made up a chart of past episodes I knew we had to include, and we rolled on the chart to see which player-characters had been involved in which key episodes.  Voila'!  Instant character backgrounds keyed into the campaign universe!

It worked quite well, and it provided the players with a tangible sense that continuity lawyering would have no meaning in this campaign!

[Here follow STAR WARS SPOILERS for anyone reading this thread who actually hasn't seen all the original movies 10 times]

To really make this work, you need to come up with a substitute for "I am your father." It's the moral pivot of the entire original trilogy, the moment when Good looks Evil in the eyes and realizes they're related, but it doesn't matter if there's no Luke. So Darth Vader -- or the Emperor -- or a new villain you invent -- needs to turn out to be somebody significant to some or all of the player characters: their dad (not Luke's), their former Jedi mentor, their long-lost brother, their sister, their son ("No -- you are my father" -- works if someone's playing an older Jedi).

Well, if you really want to surprise them, run the campaign such that the Empire are the good guys and the Jedi Knights are the bad guys.

This is not the stretch you might think : as it is, in the United States, I have friends who are no longer comfortable with playing members of a devout religious group who ram their flying craft into a highly populated symbol of an empire's authority and thereby encourage the empire to institute controversial anti-terrorist laws which are not welcomed by all its citizens.

Doctor Xero

[greyorm]

Props to Sydney for pointing that out -- that pivotal "I am your idolized father" has to be chosen by the player(s). That means, whomever they latch onto in their own backgrounds, whomever they write about in their histories -- blood relative or not  -- is the person to go with.

So, let's say you have one player who is just ga-ga over Mace Windu, and so is his character. Master Windu is Jedi perfection to this person, the ultimate "what it is to be a butt-kicking Jedi warrior do-gooder in complete harmony with the Force" to them.

Who ends up being the evil Emperor, or at least his horribly corrupted servant?

Oh...oh...oh...FUCK NO! NOT MACE WINDU!?

Yep.

As to the "no Jedi" issue. Hasn't that been gotten around in fan films and even canon books for years now? I mean, I swear the number of Sith apprentices running around serving under Lord Vader, and opposed by a few hidden stalwarts of the Jedi Order, is practically

For real kicks and shits, the Jedi in your game might be former Sith apprentices -- renegades from one of Darth Vader's (or whomever) breeding progroms (or training academy). No Jedi? No. No Jedi ORDER.

[Darcy Burgess]

Wow.  That'll teach me to wander away from my computer for...oh, an hour (grin!)

Ron -- I find the underbelly concept intriguing.  I also concur with Alan -- making it workeable seems like an awful pile of work.  It's not that I don't believe that the game is worth the work -- I just need to keep things realistic.  Unfortunately (for me), my play group is tricky when it gets into things like agreeing not to monkey with backstory -- it's not that they're contrary, it's just that they're likely to get caught up in things and forget themselves.

You make some pretty strong assertions in that post (Ron Edwards? Strong assertions?  Get out!).  I'm curious -- do you believe that underbelly is the only way to make a situation like this "work" (whatever that means), or have you revised your opinion since writing the underbelly post?

Also, doesn't playing underbelly by definition reduce the grand feel of the game (not the backstory)?  Sure the characters are contributing...but are they doing so on an epic scale?

Finally, I'm having a hard time factoring jedi characters into an underbelly campaign.  Perhaps you can see a way that it could be done that I can't.

Alan -- just to be clear, d20 advancement rates aren't an issue.  The mechanic is a home-baked conversion using the Riddle of Steel engine.

Errath -- intellectually, I agree 100% with your assessement of the "galaxy is too big" issue.  I can't put my finger on it, but something just doesn't "feel" right about it.  Maybe it's the passion the Guinness uses when delivering his "Vader helped the Emperor hunt down and kill the Jedi" speech -- I just can't shake the feeling that if they were accessible, they were killed.  This, of course raises the interesting question of why did Ben and Yoda survive?  Was it Anikin's respect for his former masters?  Or was it something else?

As a side note, as we (my group) aren't very fond of Episodes I or II, we have no compuction about tossing anything out of them that we dislike -- we're fickle that way.

Madeline -- I'm not tied to an Ion storm.  All I need is a device that cuts the characters off from the galaxy until its purpose is served.  Ion storm merely was the first thing that popped into my head.  Re: ftl travel.  Sorry, hard science has no place in Star Wars.  I don't want to start dealing with relativistic physics in space opera.  However, some of your other suggestions have great potential.  I never considered "conventional" stranding as an option.  Perhaps that's an even better way to introduce the empire to the game -- instead of the lure of a resource, some junior officer finds evidence that "all that time ago" some Jedi were lost in that part of the Galaxy.

anonymouse -- see my concerns over einstein, above.  However, actually having a school set up on the planet is a nice idea -- especially if it's now ruined.  That might tie in nicely with the "empire paper trail" concept.

Sydney -- yowza!  that's some heavy analogy you're whipping out there!  To paraphrase Kirk, "Don't mince words, Freeberg, tell me what you really think."  :)

It is a dangerous path to tread, but knowing my guys the way I do, I think it's probably safer to spring it on them later once they're attached to their characters than tell them up front.  They're sort of contrary/lazy guys, so if they think it's going to be "easy", then they're all for it.  Once they're in, they don't want to give up all of the "work" they've done... :)

re: "I am your father".  Abso-friggin-lutely.  Oddly enough, I'd already started working on that angle as a side plot.  But as you say, it's so critical to make the struggle have personal weight for the characters.  This is made trickier by the fact that in SW, Luke was the main protagonist, so the event centered around him.  It would be nice to think that whatever I did could be more inclusive -- rope in all of the main PCs.  In that respect, an old Master may seem the immediate choice, but just about anything is possible.  Doubly so if I choose the revisionist history angle (the films are New Republican Propaganda) -- what if the "horrible revelation" is that someone they've held in high regard (yoda?) is in fact not all he seems?

All -- the more I think about it, especially within the framework of the Riddle of Steel's SAs, the "epic" nature of the conflict will naturally flow from the PCs.  I need to taylor the game to their SAs (which may require some coaching during chargen, but that's another issue).  Perhaps saving their planet is the epic scale for this story.  After all, that's pretty big.

This is really helpful -- keep it coming.  I think that I'll be able to start actually working up plot threads and important NPCs soon.  If I didn't give your post the attention it deserves, my apologies -- I've been writing this response in between diaper changes.  (not mine!)

[Darcy Burgess]

Xero & Greyorm --

you must have posted while I was writing my last reply.  I will get to your posts ASAP, but now, I've gotta go to bed.

[Itse]

Well I always thought that this makes perfect sense.

Of course then again I'm one of those people who think that the SW saga has things turned all upside down.

We have the old republic, which seems to be mostly ruled by one sort of nobility or the other. You know, princesses, counts... Hardly sounds like the epitome of democracy and equality. Of course it isn't. It's highly ineffective and corrupt, concerned only with keeping themselves in comfort, but never wanting to d damn thing to upset anyone, especially where it might have negative economical influences. (For example the Trade Federation is free to enslave all they want, as long as they keep do it at some more backwater places and help pay for the luxurious lifestyle of the senate.)

We have the jedi's, who just love to play mind games with people, who similarly refuse to do much anything except sit on the sidelines for most of the time. I mean they could get killed or something, that wouldn't be fun. And oh, what a fucked up religious sect the jedi's are, with all the "emotion bad, posture good". It seems what they're teaching is basicly "it's best not to care". Wipe out those sick bastards? I'm all for it. I mean come on, guys who after they die show up as creapy ghosts? How twisted is that?

Then we get the empire. They make things work. Okay, so maybe that takes some hardhanded police action somewhere along the line, but is this because they really like it, or is just because of the unrelenting warfare and terrorism of the rebellion against the empire? Let's look at some events from the POV of the actual good guy, Palpatine, who cleansed this old system and kicked the fattened and corrupt no-good senators back to their place, creating a new way of effective governing.

Unfortunately the old nobility had a surprisingly strong support, which was further strengthened by the flat out lies and propaganda they spread of the new empire. (Tricks they had all learned to master at the old senate.) Palpatine has no choice but to put down the rebellion with force. Unfortunately, by the time he can bring himself to wage war, the rebellion has grown too strong. The war goes on, and the rebels flat out refuse to negotiate peace, which causes more and more of the empires power to be concentrated on warfare, which then causes the empire to lose focus on their real aim; to make the universe a better place for the average Joe. (Palpatine himself comes from very humble beginnings.)

Palpatine sees that the universe is not ready to accept his ambitious new order, and that he is losing power to the local governors and to the officers (most of whom had already learned nasty tyrannical habits during the old republic), even though his friend and ally Anakin has tried to keep control and has even personally executed some of the most ruthless officers.

The war must stop, but the rebels will not quit or negotiate peace, so palpatine decides the only way out is the destruction of the empire. He orders the reconstruction of the immensely unpopular Death Star, a symbol of horror and over-the-line military operations, in a calculated move to ensure the rebellion gets a huge boost in popularity. For it's protection he orders a fleet that looks credible as a threat, but isn't really strong enough to stand against the newly grown rebel fleet. As the fight of the fleets seems to reach a pivotal point, he then blows up the death star, ensuring the rebels victory and at the same time killing the most ruthless and corrupt of his officers. (The rest of them of course 'happen' to be in the doomed-to-lose empire fleet.)

Before the final moments, Palpatine makes an effort to bring together a broken family, by summoning young Luke Skywalker through the use of Force, to meet his father, Anakin. Palpatine makes a last, desperate attempt to make Luke see through the falsehood of Yoda's teachings and the old Jedi way. "Oh, no, my young Jedi. You will find that it is you who are mistaken... about a great many things."

He tells Luke he's quite aware of the rebel attack, as he himself has manipulated it into action. He explains to him how this is all for the best, and tries to explain to him why after the rebellion it's important that the rebel alliance is disbanded as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately the Skywalkers are not really known for their reason and open-mindedness, and Luke, the young fanatic that he is, refuses to understand a word, and decides Palpatine is trying to trick him into betraying the alliance. After a while, Vader and Palpatine realize such a raving fanatic, hopelessly mesmerized by Yoda's mind tricks and blessed with such immense powers, could become a terrifying menace, and would be extremely dangerous as a leading figure of the new republic. They try to kill Luke, but Anakin hasn't the heart to kill his own son, and Palpatine is unable, due to the fact that he came unarmed, hoping to win Luke's confidence. Palpatine, an old and broken man, who understands that all his efforts will go to ruin, and fearing that the new republic will be just the same as the old one, if not worse, decides to end his life in a way that ensures that his spirit is destroyed. He does not want to eternally watch mankind fight itself. But alas, he is too weak to walk, and so in an emotional moment his old friend Anakin carries out the final request of his mentor, and drops him down to the reactor core. The following electrical discharges seriously disrupt Anakins life support systems, and he too dies.

Afterwards, Luke gives his own version of what happened in the Death Star ("at the last moment my father repented, he was a hero after all"), and the rebellion, desperately trying to figure out what happened to the Death Star, create on official version of the events out of some battlefield boasting, reasoning that what happened to the first Death Star must we what happened to the second. (Yeah right, like they hadn't prepared for that after the first time.)

After the war, the new republic write a typical winners history, describing Palpatine as a monster and the empire as an oppressive military regime.

And so and and so forth. Makes more sense than the original storyline :)

[Sydney Freedberg]

....I'm one of those people who think that the SW saga has things turned all upside down....

Gee, and I thought I was subversive.

The downside of a campaign where the good guys turn out to be the bad guys and the bad guys turn out to be the good guys -- or there's some kind of moral ambivalance, which is actually more complicated than a straight reversal -- is that you get away from the mythic quality at the core of the original trilogy. Which is essentially the same "evil Winter King rules, his son (or younger cousin, or whatever) must overthrow him and restore summer" that you see in Norse mythology about Ymir and Odin, the pre-Hindu Mahabharata, a lot of Krishna myths, and a buncha other places.

[greyorm]

Unfortunately, rewriting the Empire as the "good guys" requires a serious rewrite of canonical history. Otherwise, it's nothing more than saying, "Hey, the Nazis really were the good guys!" and trying to justify that stance based on existing history. The Empire, despite any professed noble intentions, was inarguably evil in any number of behaviors, choices, and undertakings.

As an example, much of the rampant corruption within and ineffectiveness of the Senate towards the end of the Old Republic was engineered by the Sith -- prior to that, things were sailing along smoothly and well, the Republic was a shining beacon of enlightenment, etc. -- so while the Empire might make the claim that they were improving the galaxy, they were also directly (and consciously!) responsible for those very problems in the first place.

I bring this up as, if the route of "Rebellion: evil; Empire: good" is followed, very definite changes would have to be made to the canon regarding how the Empire has behaved since its inception as well as during its birth.

Otherwise, it's just "good" by justification, usually along the lines of the ends justifying the means. As an example, blowing up planets full of innocent men, women and children just to make a point -- even if, say, there was a superweapon hidden there -- is not the act of a non-evil individual or entity. Even given the latter "explanation", there's simply no possibly way the majority of the population were responsible for the supposed crime (whether it be a superweapon or a government inciting rebellion), and thus deserving of such an execution.

Just a couple things to consider working within if you decide to go that route or try it out as the basis of the setting.

[ErrathofKosh]

WARNING:  DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING IF YOU AVOID SPOILERS  (for Star Wars EpIII)

In any case, I'll put it white and and push it to the bottom of the box to make it harder to accidentally read.  Highlight the text for an easier read...


























There have been rumors of Anakin (in EpIII) going to the Jedi temple and turning on a signal of some sort that calls all of the Jedi back to Coruscant.  Later, Yoda is purported to reverse this message and signal a galaxy wide warning to Jedi.  If these rumors are true, there would be Jedi in hiding other than Yoda and Obi-wan...

[Doctor Xero]

Itse, while as a folklorist I agree with Sidney in disputing your interpretation of the original Star Wars cycle (it fits Lucas's new cycle perfectly, however),

I WANNA PLAY IN THE CAMPAIGN YOU JUST DESCRIBED!

Playing heroic normals and hunters who take out those evil terrorists led by their World-of-Darkness mages (who later become wraiths) and their lineage-is-everything hierarchy!  Defying their pseudo-science that claims Force abilities are part of a blueblood aristocratic legacy and their metaphysics which valorizes apathy and teaches that a fallen Jedi can be forgiven for billions of mass murders simply by murdering another Jedi to save his heir apparent son!  Working against birthright as the foundation of moral and metaphysical worth!  Hurrah!

Who says canon is sacrosanct? *grin!*

Doctor Xero

[ErrathofKosh]

The myth is shattered for me...

I see the truth now.  Luke is just another whiny aristocrat bastard, trying to work his way into the upper echelons of the bureaucracy-in-exile by becoming the "tribal shaman."  And Han, he's nothing but a "privateer" and mercenary, who is trying to gain power through marriage and feats of daring terrorism against the new regime.

Of course, Errath of Kosh always knew this to be true...

I have one more suggestion. (Yes, I remember what this thread was originally about.)  One of the campaigns I played in took place in the Outer Rim.  There were plenty of unimportant Imperials about, who thought they were important and made life difficult for us.  We faced other challenges as well, but none included lords of the Sith.  (Though we faced a few minor dark siders...)  This works well in a huge galaxy, full of many strange things. I don't know how well it would work in Middle Earth or Glorantha...

Just some thoughts...

Feed your agressive feelings,
Jonathan

[Darcy Burgess]

Ok.  I think the best way for me to redirect this thing is as follows:

What I want to Play on Summer Vacation, by Darcy Burgess
- Star Wars Game, Riddle of Steel engine
- "Rebellion Era"
- Character-driven story of epic scope
- Jedi PCs an option -- players' choice
- Respect SW Canon's spirit
- Build on RoS's strengths--the SAs

For all intents and purposes, "Canon" is defined as SW, Empire, Jedi.  Comics, Books, Phantom & Clones are all "resources" -- to be mined for ideas, but nothing else.  This most closely approximates the emotional involvement/attachment my play group have with the SW universe.

I'm going to phrase my ideas & responses within the framework of these goals.

Xero -- cool idea for trek.  That would certainly work, especially when basing something on an episodic master.  It's a tricker trick to pull with SW, though, isn't it.  The canon is one big plot with a few side-plots (not many, really -- death star run, training sequence, saving Han are the important ones.)  However, I am eager to eliminate continuity lawyering by any means possible.  Good term.

greyorm -- I think I'd rather have the goofy jedi with the snake neck as my big bad villain.  Not "wooden-face Windu".  Sheesh.  :)  But as you say, the big villain's got to come out of character attachment.

The trick will be either:
1) blindsiding them with the revelation in a believable manner or,
2) building to it in a way that they know its coming, but enjoy the ride

Itse -- the yoda link was priceless.  If I go down the revisionist history route, however, I can't go that far.  The propaganda needs to be a question of degree and fine details, not wholesale fabrication.  The rebels still need to be the good guys.  But maybe the shine isn't as bright as it appears...and maybe a few things happened slightly differently.

All -- I'm bordering on chucking my original premise...but it still holds appeal for me (probably because it's been bouncing around in my head so much).  I'm also still toying with definitely ending the canon storyline (the "blow up tatooine option).  However, doing that within a "propaganda film" theory is tricky -- that's just a different form of wholesale fabrication.

[Sydney Freedberg]

...the big villain's got to come out of character attachment...

Two words:

Relationship map.

Build one out of your character's backstories -- encourage them to help explicitly, even, if they're up to it -- and then see if you can find the non-player character who's smack in the center of everyone's emotional and familial attachments. That's your bad guy.

(And there are tons of threads on the Forge explaing relationship maps way better than I ever could).

[Doctor Xero]

Ok.  I think the best way for me to redirect this thing is as follows:

What I want to Play on Summer Vacation, by Darcy Burgess
- Star Wars Game, Riddle of Steel engine
- "Rebellion Era"
- Character-driven story of epic scope
- Jedi PCs an option -- players' choice
- Respect SW Canon's spirit
- Build on RoS's strengths--the SAs

All right, here's another tactic.  It has a bit of cheddar on it, but overall it's fun, and it definitely fits the space opera feel!

Have players build characters in the time after the final film.  Let them be related by blood to Luke and Leia and Han and Chewbacca and Ackbarr and even Grand Moff Tarkin if it amuses them (I would enjoy playing a player-character trying to live down an embarrassing bloodline).  Tell them that the Star Wars film are not the absolute truth but rather the legends they have heard about that long-ago era.  Let them interact a few times with older, amused, enigmatic versions of the heroes we'd loved.  Emphasize the energetic, lively relative utopia of their time.

However, remnants of the old Empire are trying to find ways to reverse the successful rebellion, and one of them has come upon a means of temporal displacement.  (See where I'm heading?)

Then have them displaced back in time to the Rebellion Era, in the process accidentally replacing young Luke and Leia and Han while the remnant forces have displaced Grand Moff Tarkin.

The problem now is that, although they know what happened the first time around to bring about the utopic era they knew, they are not the same people nor with the same abilities as Luke and Leia and Han, and they are facing adversaries different from Grand Moff Tarkin.  So how do they fill the void created by their displacement?  What do they do in Luke's place, knowing what he did, having different abilities, having different foes, and uncertain exactly what he did because they know only the legend?

I think a Star Wars campaign can be fun!

Doctor Xero

[Doctor Xero]

Here's another possible solution.

We know that Luke with the help of Han and others took out the original Deathstar, and we know that he convinced Darth Vader to take out the Emperor.

But surely the entirety of the Empire is not controlled by this one ship and this one figure, however powerful!

The only way the Empire would fall without the Emperor is if all the possible evil replacements for him were already out of the way.

The end of the Deathstar only weakens the Empire's military might, but surely they have other means of enforcing their domination, and those had to be taken out as well.

For all Darth Vader's power, was he truly the only fascinating villain in the entirety of the Empire, or is he simply the only villain with whom Luke and company joust?

There is no reason not to have an entire group of Star Wars heroes taking care of the other end of the Empire while Luke and company take care of their end.  Hell, you might even want them to coordinate with Luke and friends, Ackbarr telling them, "You lead the charge to take out the Empire's Retroactive Extinction Tachyonic Laser Cannon while Luke and Han lead the charge to take out the new and improved Deathstar!"  And while Luke and company take out Darth Vader, they can take out Barak Kuror, Vader's mad dog apprentice!

As for Jedi Knights: perhaps what makes Luke special is NOT that he is the last Jedi but rather than he is the Son Of The Traitor Jedi and that he is the Most Powerful Jedi.  This would be a minor change, really, preserving Luke's singularity as a Jedi Knight yet allowing others to have Force powers.

As I wrote before, I think a Star Wars campaign can be fun!

Doctor Xero