Star Wars and railroading

[Demonspahn]

Hi all,

Since there seem to be a number of Star Wars threads popping up, I just wanted to get some outside thoughts on the seemingly inherent railroading of the game.  

About the time AotC came out, my group and I got that old urge to make lightsaber humming noises, so I dusted off my _old_ WEG d6 books and we made the switch (from Dreamwalker).  

Now, I refuse to play d20 Star Wars.  Not because I hate the d20 system or WotC or anything, it's just that I don't feel the d20 rules fit the setting very well.  Also, we have a lot of house rules that make up for some of the holes in d6.

I am currently running a game set a year after Episode I.  The characters are Jedi Knights.

I usually like to run a loose game, throw out a few adventure seeds and let the players choose which ones they would like to explore.

My problem is that as far as I can tell, the Jedi don't really do anything without being told to by the Council.  So rather than have them sit around the Temple practicing on remotes, meditating or reading in the library, you have to send them out on missions.

I quickly learned that you have to plan the mission and lay out the possible course of events if you want to keep momentum going in the game.   You also have to have a concrete idea of what signals the "end" of the adventure.  

For those of you who have never played Star Wars, individual adventures are supposed to mimic the movies to some degree in that there should be at least one definable climax (rescuing Princess Leia, blowing up the Death Star/Droid Control Ship, facing off with Darth Vader, etc. ).  During these climactic scenes, the characters are encouraged to use "Force Points" to make sure they accomplish the task.  In fact, the only real way to gain another Force Point is to do something "heroic at the dramatically appropriate moment".  

This always seemed too much like railroading to me although it wasn't a problem in our previous games because then we played in the time of the Rebellion and there was always some trouble or plan of the Empire to foil.  Maybe its just that in the age of the Republic things are more orderly and there seems to be less strife.

Take for instance the basics of our first session:

Setup:  An Interstellar Mining Company is raping a primitive planet of its resources.
Mission:  Stop the company's actions.  
Complications: Company has a huge freighter ship in orbit---on board they have set up a powerful jamming signal that prevents communication from outside the galaxy.  Their droid starfighters police the galaxy.  The Company has taken over the planet (and its one trade city) and police it with battle droids.  The natives have gone into hiding, and taken to sabotaging the company's equipment.  
Planned/Possible Events: Attacked by Company fighters.  Land (crash?) on planet.  Avoid patrols.  Meet native "resistance" and member of a rival (and law-abiding) mining company who tells them if they can knock out the jammer his own company can arrive in number and order them to desist until the Senate makes a ruling.  Cause diversion with native saboteurs?  Sneak on ore transport ship and ride it to freighter.
Climax: Destroy the jamming device.
What they Did: Were attacked by fighters and landed on planet.  Walked straight to the planet's trading port (under Company law).  Met with rival company employee (who they immediately did not like or trust because he was a Rodian and they all thought of Greedo from the cantina scene in ANH).  Busted up some battle droids to demonstrate they were Jedi, then went to the office of the guy in charge of the planet.  Took him and his ship up to the freighter.  Met with the head of operations and ordered him to cease the mining, which he did after some negotiation.  Went to comm room and turned off jamming device so they could radio the council and tell them the situation, then turned it back on so that the Rodian could not radio his company.  
My Amusement Factor: High---when they went to the planetary office the they did not have an appointment and the secretary made them wait in the waiting room.  The thought of three Jedi sitting in a room reading magazines and listening to muzak just makes me grin.  :)
My Thoughts OK, admittedly it wasn't the most well thought out or exciting adventure to begin with and I have absolutely no problem with the way they went about handling things (IMO, the movie Jedi seem akin to cops or perhaps government agents and it would be foolish for the company to try to kill them out of hand).  It's just that the way the players did things was very dull and un-cinematic with no "climactic dramatically appropriate event" for them to use a Force Point.  Nor could I come up with a sensible one on the fly.  

So, they solved the problem but not in a very Star Warsesque fashion and I feel the fault is mine somehow.  The game lost a lot of momentum after the fight with the battle droids and never got going again.  

For the second adventure, I decided to take a more direct approach, gave them a more definite mission (capture a bounty hunter) and sent them right into the action.  It worked out well, but I don't want the game to dissolve into a giant saberfest.

Any thoughts or suggestions, especially on the climactic event thing?  I'm interested to see how others have/would have handled the same situation---by making a different one up on the fly if the characters deviate from the storyline or just leaving it as is?  

Thanks a lot,

Pete

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Pete,

It strikes me that you are enforcing (and perhaps even creating) the railroading by confounding the in-game mission with the adventure.

That's like saying Titanic is about whether the ship will sink, or whether Aliens is about whether the "team" can blow up the alien hive.

Best,
Ron

[Clay]

Pete,

Part of your problem is that Star Wars itself is pretty railroady, especially episodes 1 and 2.  My advice for creating an interesting story is to present the characters with real moral choices that they must make at the climax of the adventure.  In episode 4, our hero (Han Solo) has to choose between serving his very real personal interests (paying off the Hut to keep his hide intact) or helping his friends who are knee deep in trouble.

I've experienced similar problems with Star Wars myself. Frankly, I only participate in Star Wars games for social reasons.  The problems with the game world have been enumerated elsewhere, so I won't go into them here.

I do have this query though:  Is anyone playing Star Wars under either system in a game with characters that you care about and meaningful stories coming out of your adventures?  Tell me what it is about your game that's generating meaning and interest.

[Mike Holmes]

A problem with creating themes in settings such as SW, is that players tend to drift to what's already been done in the source material. Which only makes sense as we know that the setting supports such themes, and that they can be effective. The problem is that it all seems cliche then when it happens (oh, no, not another powerful Jedi swayed by the dark side). This is why I prefer not to use such settings. In a similar setting of my own design, such themes will seem new again, and can be reused more effectively.

Mike

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I do have this query though:  Is anyone playing Star Wars under either system in a game with characters that you care about and meaningful stories coming out of your adventures?  Tell me what it is about your game that's generating meaning and interest.

I did play Star Wars once with characters I cared about.

I often talk about my best role-playing experience being in a Star Wars game I was in. I'm loathe to talk about it too much, because it sounds over-the-top, but it was definitely my first real Narrativist experience, and it changed how I've played from then on.

I'll describe quickly:

The group was one GM, one other player and myself. Both the other player and I played Jedi during the very early days of the Empire, as Palpatine's Dark Jedi were hunting down Jedi and slaughtering them. There was a very "on-the-run" feel the entire game.

My character was an ex-Imperial assassin turned Jedi. He was of some odd race that had dark grey mottled skin, making them incredibly stealthy in urban situations, and good assassins. However, he'd balked at killing someone and the Empire killed his family. He'd discovered his ability to use the Force, but was much more anti-Empire than pro-Light Side.

As the game progressed, we had all sorts of adventures, but no matter what was happening, the real story was the relationship between these two Jedi. My character grew more and more powerful, but less and less Light, going so far as to whip out Force Lightning against one group of Dark Jedi. The other character grew more and more towards the Light - near the end of the campaign, we'd found a small resistance movement, and we trained Jedi there. He taught meditation and healing, and I taught combat.

The two most exciting things in the game were:
- When first coming to the school, we staged a mock fight in the courtyard. We parried around for a while, even taking to the air with our highly developed telekinesis. If you've played the original Star Wars, you'll remember the three Force skills - Control, Sense, and Alter, with Alter being the "Darkest". My Alter was highly developed, and I ended up smashing the other character into a wall when struck - it was foreshadowing for later.
- At the very end of the campaign - this is where it gets over the top - we managed to trap Palpatine, putting an end to the Empire. I smote Palpatine with the last blow, killing him - and we both immediately knew I would replace him, as my hubris told me that I could run the universe better, and that I should. The other character and I had to fight again, but this time for real, and to the death. It struck me as the most powerful moment I've had role-playing.

[damion]

Various comments:
1)3 Jedi, ouch. In WEG Jedi were quite powerfull, esp after getting some EP. I have a friend who's been running a game for about 4 years and he eventually sent the characthers into another universe where the rebellion failed.

2)In Starwars evil is fairly unwilling to negotiate. Consider episode I. I'd say the corperation would have tried to kill them. Then your adventure would have involved them trying to get a ship.  I think your problem here was having the corperation behave in a rational manner... :D

3)As for the Jedi councel...have them give fairly broad missions. Say 'Resolve the conflict between these two planets'.  There could be multiple layers here, Why is there a conflict? Are the two apparent sides the only ones involved? Ect.

Just some thoughts.

[Buddha Nature]

So why not...

A) Use Bangs and Kickers and Relationship Maps - All the Jedi have some kind of connection to the world outside of the Jedi order.  The huge stuff that happens in AotC is from Anakin's family connections.  The same is in the other movies - Luke's connection to his father and sister.  Have the characters come up with some backstory about their life before the order, then have them come up with a Kicker (possibly linked to the familial backstory) - something personal that has just happened that has pushed them into action (maybe there has been a horrible accident in their "hometown" and they are sent to investigate)

Also, the Jedi don't work in "teams" per se.  They either work alone or possibly in a Master/Apprentice pair, rarely more.  This can lead to more interesting path crossing and connections.  Say you have four players - either have them on four "seperate"missions or pair them off and have two "seperate" missions.  Then through their kickers get them mixed up into a relationship map that crosses the galaxy, leading them to find their "seperate" missions aren't really "seperate."

If things start getting slow throw in some Bangs - pirates try to take down their transport, there is an attempted kidnapping of them or someone they near, etc.


B) Pull an Inspectres - Not sure if you have played it, but here what ends up happening is that the GM starts with a mission concepts - few real details.  From there the characters investigate and figure out what has happened, but there is a certain mechanics flip that changes this from your normal adventure:

Jared (the guy who wrote it) switched the "narrative" power after a roll to the player instead of the GM - an example:

Normal:

Player: Okay I want to check the Jedi archive for info on planets that might be home to the lifeform we encountered.

GM: Okay, roll your ___________

Player: Okay, I got ___________

GM: You find that there are two or three planets that could be the home, but one looks most promising...

Inspectres style:

Player: Okay I want to check the Jedi archive for info on planets that might be home to the lifeform we encountered.

GM: Okay, roll your ___________

Player: Okay, I got ___________

GM: Okay, so what did you find out?

Player: Well it turns out that this lifeform is found on three planets, but because we encountered it here I am betting we can disregard the planet of _____ but that still leaves us with two.  Lets check with a xenophologist...

Well the GM normally would have railroaded them to a certain planet and they would have head off towards it.  The Inspectres style one changes that completely (the three planets might be three totally different ones - the character created them).  Plus the GM now has a new NPC to play...  It keeps the GM on his feet, but it places the "mystery" in the hands of the players.  Less work for the GM.

I will be honest, I have not run Inspectres nor have I morphed any other game to act this way, but I think it is wholly feasible if your group is willing to try it.  Shoot you could even just play it with the Inspectres system with your own hacks to make it Star Wars-y.  To be honest this might be the best way because there are some built in limits/pacing elements that keep the "adventure" moving (Franchise points).

Actually as far as I can tell Jared's system mechanic is just an extension of the Fortune in the Middle idea.

Anyhoo...  SW does not _have_ to be railroady.  The only reason people think that is because it is a system based on a series of railroady movies so everyone thinks that they have to follow suit.

Okay, long post, but hope it helps...

-Shane (who was thinking of running SW via The Pool - far from railroady)

[Eric.Brennan]

My Star Wars campaign, which I wrote up for this forum, finally reached a nice stopping point a month or so ago.  I was very into the railroading feel, in so far as I had "setpieces" in mind--showdown in the town square, argument in the Jedi Council chamber as the Sith walk out, flight from the planet, the attempt to sneak back to the planet, and the final battle at the Planetary defense center.

Railroading can be done in such a way that it's not railroading--you just have to make sure that no matter what the PCs do, they arrive at the setpiece.  The "basis" for that arrival may change, the situation at the setpiece may have to be tweaked, and so railroading in that sense doesn't have to be negative or discordant.  But that's not really what we're talking about, because the action scenes are the "gimmes."  Everybody wants the flash and the drama and the force powers and the lightsaber duels--but the heart of Star Wars style gaming is the /inner/ conflict.

Luke's big test wasn't the showdown with Darth Vader or the rescue of Han Solo, IMO, it was resisting the lure of the Dark Side.  Han's big test was, as someone earlier pointed out, returning to help Luke destroy the Death Star.  You can railroad to setpieces all you want, but make sure that the decision to go one way or the other during the inner-test is all up to the PC.  

As an example, In my game, the inner test was that the Jedi felt the call to turn to the Dark Side just as the Sith had done, for good, just reasons.  Do the PCs turn to the Dark Side to save the planet, or do they risk the planet's destruction and yet stay true to themselves?

--Eric

[Eric J.]

Star Wars is not railroady.  It is roads to romey.  Sample:

1.  You are a security officer protecting a metting between a councilmember from your neutral planet and the Republic.  The meeting is attacked and the deligates are trapped behind the forcefield designed to protect them.  You are a Jedi Knight and an ambassidors aide.  A blaster shot is fired at the council member (foreign deligate) and the repubic deligate you're assigned to protect.  Who do you save?  [First campaign]

2.  You are a Jedi teacher or student at a Jedi academy.  How do you deal with the peer rivalship or student corruption that is mysteriously affecting the academy? [second campaign]

I find Star Wars to be my favorite universe for many reasons.  It isn't bogged down by empires, like Star Trek, and has the greatest versatility of powers of any thing.  Humans can be special through the power of life force, and this is one of the focuses of my admiration.  If you need more non-railroaded campaign ideas, I have a million more.

[Demonspahn]

Thanks for all the feedback.  I will try and address as many comments as I can and I hope I don't miss anyone's point.

Ron,

I may have misused the terms missions and adventures.   So far for the most part, the in-game missions have coincided with the adventures re: climactic moments (although this was not the case this past weekend when the characters got sidetracked and began to pursue a new adventure on their own).  

In your example of the movie Aliens, for game purposes I would consider the entire movie the adventure.  Some dramatically appropriate heroic moments would have been 1. Ripley smashing through the wall to rescue the team 2. The Marine rescuing Ripley and Newt from the two face-huggers and 3. Ripley returning to the hive to rescue Newt.  Is that what you were getting at?

Clay and Mike,

My players have only seen the movies and never read the books so I don't really have to worry about source material.  We do end up as walking cliches sometimes, spouting off movie quotes, doing bad lightsaber or Yoda impressions, etc.  but that has been part of the fun.  This game has been interesting so far for a number of reasons.  

One player started out with a Dark Side point that no one but he and I know about and he fully plans to be seduced by the Dark Side.  I was originally reluctant to allow such a concept but the more I thought about it the more I began to envision some of the possible outcomes of his descent---either he would turn to evil and have to be hunted down by the "good" characters setting up an epic battle between the three, or he would grow attached to his character and try to atone rather than lose him to the Dark Side.  

Another player, somewhere along the line of his 10+ years of gaming, decided he was going to play the beefed up, uncontrollable, short tempered tank in _every_single_game we played.  This was no real problem in games like D&D, Vampire, Shadowrun and Werewolf but it hurt him badly in games like Dreamwalker and Little Fears (especially after he got sent to a nasty juvenile hall for trying to shoot his father after a spanking).  Watching him struggle as a Jedi has become such a treat that I have to resist the urge to push his buttons more often.  Of course he refused to play anything other than a Jedi because lightsabers deal the most damage in the game.  :)   Oh, hey don't get the wrong idea, I'm not a malicious anti-player GM.  This is a friend of mine outside of the game so we have fun giving each other a hard time and everyone is usually amused.  

In regards to meaningful SW games see my GGSONITAOTG (gratuitous gaming story of no interest to anyone outside the group) at the tail end of this post.  


Clinton,

That sounds like an "old school",  "I killed three Tiamats and two Platinum Dragons" to me.  Coming from someone who _singlehandedly_ killed Lolth and then used her spider ship to lead her/my new armies to conquer the universe, I'm impressed.    :)


damion,

1. Yes, three Jedi are very powerful.  All I have to say is House Rules! House Rules!.  Seriously, we toned down their capabilities a bit.  Force users are still the most dominant single people in the universe but a Jedi with a lightsaber is far from invincible.

and

2. The company was made up of living beings except for the security force.  Most of them were law-abiding wage slave citizens who were only doing what they were told.  Only the leaders really knew the illegality of it and after the "battle" betweem the Jedi and the fields of wheat....err, I mean battle droids, it was obvious that they could not win a fight.  Also, the players were very careful about traveling around until help arrived.  There was a lot of Jedi *waves hand in the direction of the head of operations* "Why don't you accompany us to the surface of the planet?"  

Shane,

I like the idea of using Bangs, Kickers and Relationship Maps (as far as I understand them).  The problem is that according to the sourcebooks, the Jedi are taken in as 6 month old infants and thus have very little ties to their biological family (which might explain why for 10 years no one was overly concerned about rescuing Anakin's mother---they just didn't "get it").  

Also, I like to develop in-game ties that I can come back to later.  It seems to give the players more motivation when the girl who actually helped them escape on Planet X is now in trouble on Altair 4.

I know it bends the rules a bit to have 3 Jedi traveling around like a gang of thugs but I always try to avoid splitting the group up except in certain situations.  

As for the shared player/GM play I hate to sound defeatist, but that would _never_ work with these players, as a group.  Not to sell them short but only one player has experience GM'ing and he would be the only one I can expect to take that style of play seriously.  The others would exploit the system too much to be enjoyable.  

I know this because I took a similar more freeform approach with a session of Dead Meat (whatever happened to that _excellent_ game?) and they found all sorts of hidden weapons storage caches, flamethrowers, a secret "Hangar 18" type military base complete with alien ray guns and weapons, etc.  I tried not to inhibit their roles but rather tried to balance out their finds with more/powerful zombies, radiation from the ray guns, etc.   After a while it just seemed like we were trying to one up each other and I don't think anyone really had a good time.  Maybe I just didn't handle it correctly.  In any case, the next session, we went back to playing Dead Meat the "right" way and had fun again.  

Which makes me wonder, as long as they seem happy enough with the standard player/GM roles, why try to change it as long as everyone is having fun?

For the record I would love to participate in a Star Wars game like you describe, if anyone plans to start one online.


Eric,

I usually jot down a preset series of planned/possible events.  One or two key events usually have to be adapted like you say to advance the "mission".  In my example, the meeting with the Rodian was supposed to take place with the natives, but had to be moved into an alley in the city since the players did not try to make contact.  

I guess perhaps it was just poor planning on my part in regards to the climactic event.  I envisioned the Jedi bursting into comm room fighting off a few battle droids stationed there and then taking care of the jamming device with a mighty slash.  What they did was walk down to the comm room with the head of operations, flick a switch and turn off the machine.  Oh well.  It was our first Star Wars adventure in a while so I guess I really should cut myself some slack, especially since our last few sessions have gone so well.  

But, thanks for all the input so far,

Pete


GGSONITAOTG coming up

Our last Star Wars campaign took place after the events of Return of the Jedi and started in a remote part of the universe.  The characters were force using creatures whose ancestors were Jedi.  They were being trained by a Failed Jedi who was trying to atone.  One of their fellow students was highly skilled but could not overcome his aggression and anger.  When the master refused to train him, he killed him (with an exolosive device) and then killed all of his fellow students except the two players.  

They lost his trail somewhere and started traveling around doing good deeds.  They came across several strange black obelisks on different planets until finally one character tried to use his Sense on one.  His spirit was sucked into a dark vortex and he got a glimpse of some horrible things.   The spirit of Luke Skywalker rescued him and told him basically if they wanted to become Jedi they must go to the A'Shaggoth system.  (ahem...ripoff, cough cough)

No one had ever heard of the system before but finally they picked up a few clues and the closer they came to the system the more they felt the pull of some powerful Dark Force.  They still did good deeds and helped people whenever they could.  Also along the way they began running into more Force using creatures who were feeling the same pull.  

The game ended about this time but I thought I had the basis for a pretty neat campaign.  You see the A'Shaggoth system was a huge black hole and within the black hole lived a huge living ship/entity dedicated to the Sith and the Dark Side.  The entity contained a part of everyone who had ever begun to turn to the Dark Side.  This included the dark part of Luke Skywalker, who had actually been the one to "save" the character within the obelisk.  It also included part of one of the characters who had once gained a Dark Side point (but had since atoned).  The ship was a proving ground from which the new Sith masters always emerged.

Upon Palpatine's death, the ship sent the obelisks out to different parts of the universe in an effort to entice creatures to come to the system.  Once upon the ship the characters would be separated and isolated (via the ship's mutable organic walls).  They would then be forced to explore the ship, learn more about the Sith and be subjected to different moral tests designed to bring them closer to the Dark Side. The characters would also have to meet up with or face off against the other Force users who had also been drawn to the ship.  At some point, the character who had gained a Dark Side point would also have to defeat  a version of his darker self.  Of course, I planned for the final showdown to be a match between themselves and the student who had killed their master.

If they won, the ship would have kept the former student's spirit alive and sent it out to train someone else (possibly an old ally of the characters) in the ways of the Sith.

Anyway, there was a lot more to it.  The ship was huge and like I said the walls mutated around the characters so I didn't have to lay out every corridor, just the encounters.  There were some other neat surprises, like the Hall of the Sith with towering statues of all the past Sith Lords (with the character's being the last).  There was a semi-sentient hive of "Aliens-like" predators that would stalk the characters from time to time.  Groups of confused humans who had been brought here by the ship to use as bait in some of the moral dilemmas (these people gave me food and water, should I save the them from the Mixoplic or chase after my old enemy?).   Also, some of the other Force users were not evil and might even team up with the characters for a while.  Some neat situations would arise from this---"the floor is dissolving beneath your feet and there is molten lava underneath.  You can leap to safety, but your companion was caught off guard and will certainly fall to his death.  Do you a.) leap to safety b.) try to help her, endangering you both or c.) come up with some off the wall player scheme that I didn't even think of (you always have to allow for that)  :)

The game was pretty meaningful in that we all had a lot of fun and the players still think longingly of their old characters.  

I'd like to hear anyone elses Star Wars GGSONITAOTG.  I'd also like to hear any thoughts or ideas on some neat Republic based Jedi adventures if anyone has any.  

Thanks,

Pete

[Michael S. Miller]

I would say that one of the things touched on in this thread is the difference between playing Star Wars "like the movies" and playing "in the Star Wars Universe." I'd say that both the WEG and d20 games are pretty firmly entrenched as "in the universe games." What I mean by that is the implicit assumption that "Han, Luke, et al. are saving the galaxy in the stories we've all seen, go amuse yourself in some other corner of the galaxy." This is a problem with a lot of licenced material.

To run stories that are like the movies, I'd say that one should use a Situation-In-The-Middle approach. Start with a fundamental assumption: "These particular player characters are vital to the success of the Rebellion / survival of the Republic / continued existance of the galaxy, etc." Then, figure out why. Using Kickers and Relationship Maps will help, as will the old cliches of family troubles, old flames, etc. that they are usually filled with.

In short, it's great that Wedge is in the movies, but I don't think playing Wedge is what Star Wars is all about.

[Mike Holmes]

I would say that one of the things touched on in this thread is the difference between playing Star Wars "like the movies" and playing "in the Star Wars Universe." I'd say that both the WEG and d20 games are pretty firmly entrenched as "in the universe games." What I mean by that is the implicit assumption that "Han, Luke, et al. are saving the galaxy in the stories we've all seen, go amuse yourself in some other corner of the galaxy." This is a problem with a lot of licenced material.

I think that you missed my point Mr. Milller, as did Pete. What I'm worried about is that players will end up playing characters and themes that are like the movies. By source material I meant the movies; I've never read any of the books. The fact that we've all mostly only seen the relatively small amount of source material leads even more to the potential problem. That the plots will become parodies by imitation.

Already in this thread we've heard yet again about a player who had a character who they intended to get seduced by the Dark side. This habit of following the Annakin Skywalker career path seems really prevalent. And Clinton's destruction of Palpatine. Seems I've seen that somewhere before. Not to say that these aren't powerful themes, but as I said they've been done before in the movies. And that's the problem. The games support this so much that it isn't likely that anything else will happen. You have to break out of the SW universe so that you can do other themes, or so that if you do go ahead and do those SW themes they'll look a bit different with the different background.

That's what I ws trying to get at. Clinton's Paladin would be a fine game to try these themes out in a setting of your own design.


I agree with your assessment of the "licensed property problem". In the Dune game they set the game events prior to Paul leaving Caladan. How can you take anything seriously knowing that soon the entire universe will be turned upside down by the messiah?

Mike

[Buddha Nature]

Well I will chime in here and say that "other" stories can be done in the SW universe.  I think the biggest problem is that people latch on too much to the idea that anything that we do has to be galaxy shaking otherwise, why do it?  This is a bad mindset to be in.

My group ran a GURPS Star Wars game (seriously hacked - there was a d8 used) that really had no "galaxy shaking" consequences.  Lets see, there was  an assasin working for Jabba, a bounty hunter, the requisite Jedi, another bounty hunter, and a tech wiz kid.  All it really was was Jabba sent the Assasin and crew (minus the Jedi) to get a package.  The Jedi asked to come along - for transport.  The Empire wanted the package as well.  We got it, then they took it, then we got it back and hid it on Tatooine.  There was alot more too it (including some seriously f-cked up sh-t) but that is the gist.  Definitely not "galaxy shaking."

It was a ton of fun and damn intrieging.  There was character development and plot twists aplenty, but it wasn't EPIC.  I think that is really where people go awry in SW games.  Everything has to be vitally important to the whole of the galaxy - it can't just be important to a small part.

Why can't you do a whole campaign re: trade wars between huts?  What about life in a community on Tatooine - protecting it against sand people and such?

SW is a great setting, especially if you go for space opera, but it is also great for great personal stories.  The only limit is that we assume that the only action going on is that which is in the films - bad assumption.

-Shane

[Blake Hutchins]

I dunno.  With the Dune example, I think there's a lot of room to use the impending jihad as a tragic backdrop against which the characters can build stories, plant seeds that might bear fruit down the line.  The power of choice versus the weight of prophecy sounds like a cool starting point for generating premise.  I'd try it, anyway.

Star Wars is trickier.  It's a big universe, but the major characters are so intimately linked with one another and the fate of the galaxy, that it feels (at least to me) like a much smaller cast and narrower focus than Dune.  Completely subjective, I know, but Star Wars comes off a lot more like Lord of the Rings.  Playing characters during the War of the Ring epoch seems like being bit players on the sidelines while the main event/metaplot goes on out of your reach -- that is, if you stick with the established continuity.  Star Wars is all about epic, galaxy-spanning adventure, so much so that I can see how if your group isn't going after the Death Star, Vader, and/or the Emperor with the understanding they could change movie canon, you could feel relegated to minor status in the overall scheme of things.

Depends, I suppose, on how much you want to focus on personal stories and smaller-scale, less sweeping victories.   Do you have to be the main heroes in the setting?  Take Glorantha.  Another big world, though with a less bright-line, good v. evil conflict.  Lots of powerful heroes there, but it leaves the characters able to have an impact on the mythology, minor or major, depending on what the scope of the campaign covers.

Ramble off.

Best,

Blake

[Mike Holmes]

I agree Shane that this is where you can probably be most effective in the SW universe. But it's not what the game encourages, unfortunately. I think that intuitively, and compellingly, players come to believe that the only thing to do is to play the epic out. I haven't read the SW text in years, but I think I remember it encouraging a certain epic nature to the game (it certainly has all the stuuf about play being adventurous and dramatic). And the rules probably do a bit as well.

Even if they do not, most player's association with the subject matter (the movies) tells them that the epic is what it's supposed to be about. I mean how many players are probably first attracted to the SW universe thinking, "Well, I'll just stake out a small corner and play a little drama there."? No, they all are thinking, "Woo-hoo! I get to play a rebel or a jedi and fight against the evil empire!"

So it's no surprise if most haven't seen the light of your argument, Shane. OTOH, if I am not going to get to be engaged with the most powerful (emotionally) parts of the game universe, then why play there (this includes the Force)? If the players want epic, then it's easy enough to give it to them by just using your own universe. Or a published one like Fading Suns or Traveller. These games provide plenty of data and universes as rich or richer than the SW universe*. So it even makes sense to play there on the small scale simply to avoid that phenomenon that Blake points out where you are constantly feeling sidelined by what you know is happening in the Metaplot.

It just seems so much easier to play in another universe entirely to me.

Mike

* Much richer, actually. Wenever I read about the SW plots people put together, I always know about the elements just from the movies. I know who Jabba is, for example, who doesn't. So when I see him in plots repeatedly, it makes me wonder if there is enough depth to the SW universe to get away from all the epic elements. From what I understand, the literature even suffers from this. So any claim that the Universe is well know to the players is also not valid. It's mostly unrevealed, I'd speculate.