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Prospective Star Wars
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I like both the Rise of the Empire time and the Old Republic – for very different reasons. RotE is rife with opportunities to punch space-Nazis or play people who decide they don’t want to be Space-Nazis and to play rebels (and Rebels) in an oppressive galaxy (and Force users don’t/shouldn’t dominate because they’re being hunted to extinction). TOE has tons of Force Users, more open-ended canon, and an actual full-out war going on large portions of the time.
And the posts from everyone (including me) talking about their favorite eras is exactly the problem with Star Wars games: everyone wants to play in a different era for different reasons, and some people have absolutely zero interest in playing in certain eras.
Formerly known as Seraphim73 (he/him)
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@Roadspike said in Prospective Star Wars:
And the posts from everyone (including me) talking about their favorite eras is exactly the problem with Star Wars games: everyone wants to play in a different era for different reasons, and some people have absolutely zero interest in playing in certain eras.
I don’t really consider that a problem, though, any more than any other MU* has its audience. People always want to play on different games. In reality, gamerunners should build their setting with a large deference to what they’re passionate about, because that will give them the most inspiration for running things. And then players can self-select as needed.
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@GF said in Prospective Star Wars:
Star Wars fans tend to treat the canon like an orthodox religion which must be violently defended against any heretical deviation.
Yeah, it’s a major hurdle. I think there’s a lot of crossover with the kinds of players who like canon Supes games, where the core rule is that you can deviate a bit but at the end of the day nothing ever really changes the characters or world people are familiar with. You pretty much have to declare that this is an AU setting from the get-go, and that alone turns a lot of people off for some reason, I dunno.
@DrQuinn said in Prospective Star Wars:
There was a Star Wars game that I don’t remember the name of that basically fell apart once the triology events were done and it was SUCH a shame because to me that was the interesting part. The Empire is gone, did the Rebellion have a plan for keeping the economy up? Since there was a war going on did each planet have a plan for how to keep things going depending on the outcome? Do crime families come into power? Who fills the gaps? How do you continue every day life when payments systems break down, etc etc. Like it could’ve been really cool!
But it just died.Ugh, it is a shame! One of my favorite parts of Andor was that scene where Forrest Whittaker’s character starts ranting about all the different conflicting factions and cells involved in the Rebellion and imagining how they would have resolved all of that is exactly what set my mind racing. It’d be such a fun setting, but you’d need mature, invested, interesting players and that seems…well, hard to come by, lol.
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@Roz said in Prospective Star Wars:
In reality, gamerunners should build their setting with a large deference to what they’re passionate about, because that will give them the most inspiration for running things. And then players can self-select as needed.
In that vein, let me know if you decide to set your game in the post-Order 66 Jedi Purge era with PCs allowed to choose concepts as Inquisitors, Emperor’s Hands or Dark Jedi.
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I’d love an Andor-themed or post-RoTJ game.
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picking the setting you most like, as a gamerunner, can’t be emphasized enough.
in my experience, trying to cater to the majority of voices you see pre-creation often just…well, it doesn’t make those voices happy enough unless that too is your jam, it’s easier to get burnout from dealing with the inevitable whiners on pub or other ooc channels “oh I hate X, this is okay but i’d just be soooo much happier if it were Y instead,”. There’s lots of people who can perfectly enjoy a 2nd place setting for them. And a lot of people (like me) who don’t really give a shit, if the premise of the game (like the real one, not just that it’s star wars) grabs 'em.
I will totally enjoy any genre/time period of any game better if it’s in a far flung/outpost/redneck/potential discovery/colonial politics setting the most, even over my FAVORITE genre or system where it’s not. (and i’d happily play no matter what if there’s ooc nice people there).
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@Wizz said in Prospective Star Wars:
I was so obsessed with the mood and themes and feel of Andor I was very nearly convinced to start my own game up a while back in the “dawn of the Empire” era, and I think I would still kill for one, lol. But Old Republic is just as good to me.
I swear, picking a time period is one of the hardest parts. The movies span less than 70 years, and some of the time frames you can pick from there even managed to not get retroactively made dumb by events and implications from Rise of Skywalker.
(fight me)
… FATE …
I DID go all-in on the FATE kickstarter, and also have all the Dresden FATE rules (unless new things came out while I wasn’t looking). So it is good and neat.
But also I really like my weird rainbow dice from FFG, and it has those cool narrative rules.
crunch and simulation
I mean, it’s less crunchy than Dahan’s Skill System on AoA/Serenity MU, and probably less crunchy than Saga Edition?
UNTIL SOME MAD LAD GIVES ME SPACE TRUCKING, but even then, that’s just going to be for bored piloting and OOC fun; any combat or IC relevant things will go with dice rolls, so people who don’t use the simulator will be on the same page as people who do.
…
Obvious solution to the Era issue that everyone else is also bringing up is ONE MU, DIFFERENT TIMELINES! Make a character for whichever one! But that means multiple alts and/or shutting off whole sections of the grid to people who will only want one character.
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I don’t think dividing your playerbase into eras is going to work out well. But if you wanted to run multiple eras you could try something like The Network that changes up the setting on a regular cadence.
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I have seen multiple simultaneous times games before (or vastly different planets too where people couldn’t travel easily). One time it was very very clear that was the runner’s jam and something he was super excited about, and it seemed to work (I mean it looked like it was a LOT of work, but it was clearly playtime for him and it was really kind of cute on an ooc level to see that honestly, and charming).
The other two I saw it was /clearly/ a matter of trying to make loudmouths happy or just inability to focus or say no. In one case, it wasn’t a total disaster because everything died off except for the area that the runners were into rather than the spinoffs they felt they needed to say yes to. (the loudmouths were never as in to actually running stuff or being proactive as they were complaining that they couldn’t have what they wanted, what a surprise). The other one people just left over time because the runners were stretching themselves so thin and having to sink so much energy trying to do all things for all folks including areas they just really didn’t have enthusiasm for that it made everything slow and bland, and people just were also spread too thin amongst sub-games and so it fell apart quickly (but not due to blow up, just people getting hooked in better elsewhere).
So i’m not saying it can’t work, just really take a moment to sit with what is exciting and fun to you first.
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Taking a second to think about it, having primary game with metaplot, but then maybe little sandboxes for people who want to shoot off into a different era… as long as it’s self-contained… sounds like an idea to eat your cake and have it too.
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The space trucking really turned me off of AoA (plus all the other stuff…) Asking “Do you want to RP?” only to be replied back with “I can’t until X” or “I’m on Y and you’re on Z, can’t sorry” made me want to put my head through a wall.
I just want to play! I would happily hand wave times and places as wibbly wobbly time.
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@junipersky said in Prospective Star Wars:
The space trucking really turned me off of AoA (plus all the other stuff…) Asking “Do you want to RP?” only to be replied back with “I can’t until X” or “I’m on Y and you’re on Z, can’t sorry” made me want to put my head through a wall.
I just want to play! I would happily hand wave times and places as wibbly wobbly time.
Yeah, it would very much be an opt-in side game for those who want to do it. It kind of encourages crew-level play, just gotta make sure you’re on the ship before it leaves/don’t log out without getting back on… but in practice, it’s like that to balance the trading sub-game, which… since I’m leaning towards FFG rules, that would be more scene or +request based, rather than interact with an object with a timer.
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Gonna echo @mietze and say that whatever @Jennkryst is INTERESTED in is the best idea; my preference is TOR, but I am giving that preference only because it seemed like it was up in the air / there wasn’t a way leaning yet. Please do ignore.
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I think you really need to consider what kind of RP you want to focus on, which in turn will influence the setting. Want a lot of high-level intrigue and politicking? Set it on Coruscant for all the bickering Senators and politicians. Want more crew-focused and frontier politics stuff? Set it on some podunk planet on the Outer Rim.
Now, you could have several different planets for different RP interests, but as others have said that’ll just split up the playerbase just like having different eras would.
My preference for era would be for either the Old Republic or Birth of the Empire settings (with a close third being some Clone Wars shenanigans), but in the former case I’d like something set on Coruscant primarily while in the latter some podunk Outer Rim world would be preferable.
The Old Republic always seemed like a nice hotbed for high-level political stuff, considering there was a MASSIVE Senate, an actual Republic military, megacorporations, and of course the Jedi all with differing agendas yet somehow needing to work in some semblance of cooperation, especially with the Sith Empire a constant danger.
In the Birth of the Empire case, setting it on some useless Outer Rim world would give more flexibility to the playerbase (there’s a lot of Jedi that managed to go into hiding out there) and allow things like the Hutt Cartel having a big influence while the long arm of the Empire can still influence, but not dominate things. The Outer Rim is perfect for people who want to escape their pasts. Plus, lots of Space Pirates!
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I am the worst kind of Star Wars fan in that I am not actually a Star Wars fan and instead I just really want to be a badass bitch with a laser sword.
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@Sammich said in Prospective Star Wars:
I am the worst kind of Star Wars fan in that I am not actually a Star Wars fan and instead I just really want to be a badass bitch with a laser sword.
That’s a weird way to spell ‘the BEST kind of Star Wars fan’.
@IoleRae said in Prospective Star Wars:
Gonna echo @mietze and say that whatever @Jennkryst is INTERESTED in is the best idea […]
I remain interested in the late High Republic Era, because I’ve never seen anyone lean in to Phantom Menace ‘everything is SHINY, but darkness looms… a little far away’. It’s always been ‘IMMANENT DARKNESS LOOMS! The Clone Wars are about to break out in the next week’, or sometime after WAR were declared.
Coruscant to be the focus, since Jedi and Senate and politicking; WARS more likely to be organizational disputes (ala Trade Federation vs Naboo) when the HARDCORE NEGOTIATION TACTICS fall through. There is a fast-mobilization navy, but nowhere on the scale of the Grand Army… most planets rely on their own Defense Forces. Pirates, Privateers, Criminal Orgs, and systems that have not joined the Republic to be potential sparks for EVENTS. Dark Side Cults will totally spring up regularly enough for players who want to
fellate lightsabers…bully Soapboxers… be the cool kids. Exploring options will be open to people who want to pave new space lanes or find new planets to maybe recruit into the republic (or maybe do a space capitalism and exploit those resources). Folks who don’t want to live on Coruscant permanently can visit or travel for work… or maybe even find a farm to settle down on.
I’m sure I’m forgetting RP hooks and plot potential and junk. But that’s the primary idea! Now to trick into coding it all.
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So long as I can be a Jedi School dropout, I’m in. Or, rather, out. Y’know, because Jedi are squares.
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@Sammich said in Prospective Star Wars:
So long as I can be a Jedi School dropout, I’m in. Or, rather, out. Y’know, because Jedi are squares.
You know, that’s something that isn’t well explored in canon. How exactly does someone during the High Republic Era actually leave the Jedi? How does the Jedi deal with a Force Sensitive that got through the cracks or their parents somehow refused the Order to gib the goods?
After all, the Jedi Order expends huge amounts of resources to identify babies with Force sensitivity and then
abductsforciblyrecruits them from their parents before they have a chance to get attached to grow up in the Order.Ahsoka left the Order with little fuss (she only had to give up her lightsaber, right? No KOTOR2-esque Force Sealing) after being disillusioned, so it looks like it’s fairly easy for someone to do, but at the same time the Jedi Order in this era is absolutely paranoid about the Dark Side (thus the finding babies to snatch away so they can be raised in a controlled environment), so it seems weird they would just let former or partially trained Jedi go off willy-nilly. Maybe there’s some secret Jedi Spy Force that keeps tabs on dropouts to make sure they don’t start Darksiding it up. That would also make sense for the Jedi to have for kids who are considered too old for training, but were still Force Sensitive enough to be a danger. Just assign them a secret Jedi Keeper.
Ahsoka didn’t have to deal with that because of the pressures of the war. Jedi James Bond was too busy dealing with the CIS to worry about some errant Jedi punk.
I don’t know, maybe I’m thinking too much on this.
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@STD said in Prospective Star Wars:
No KOTOR2-esque Force Sealing
The Exile shredded her own connection so the Jedi didn’t seal her off, she unintentionally did it herself.
But this goes into the unending debate about what one considers canon in Star Wars. Which is a nightmare to leave open to debate, so I’d recommend any Star Wars game quickly, and as simply as possible, establish what is and isn’t canon as far as their game is concerned.
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@Wizz said in Prospective Star Wars:
.Ugh, it is a shame! One of my favorite parts of Andor was that scene where Forrest Whittaker’s character starts ranting about all the different conflicting factions and cells involved in the Rebellion and imagining how they would have resolved all of that is exactly what set my mind racing. It’d be such a fun setting, but you’d need mature, invested, interesting players and that seems…well, hard to come by, lol.
That was a very aware People’s Front of Judea vs. Judean People’s Front moment. I do like that though along with they very real in-character beefs Saw had about Separatists and the like.
