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I'll be honest, I'm fairly new to roleplaying, I've only been playing for less than 5 yrs now. But every group I join and play with has had an amazing distaste for the new Star Wars d20 game. Is it something that I'm missing for are they just upset because they feel Wizards nerfed the Jedi classes that much? I'll be honest, I never got a chance to play in a d6 game of Star Wars, so am I missing something from not having played that? Let me know please!
There are probably several reasons for this, but here are my theories, for what they are worth.
1) Most Star Wars fans probably wouldn't enjoy a game in the SW universe because they would always be worried about conflicting with the movies, or the books or the "lore" "canon" whatever you call it.
2) Most Star Wars fans would probably want to instantly have the power of the movie heroes and characters and would probably be frustrated by the setbacks imposed by low levels and balanced adventuring
3) Most people went to see the Star Wars movies for the special effects and really aren't all that into Star Wars per se. They might collect cards or miniatures or action figures, but they don't care to delve any further.
4) Most gamers probably feel that Star Wars gamers are going to be way too gung-ho about the universe and about keeping it as close to the movies or the books as possible and may (unfairly perhaps) feel that a referee wishing to run a Star Wars game is going to stifle the creativity of the players or force them down a certain "destiny" like the movies tended to do.
5) No Earth--I never liked SciFi that didn't include a future Earth and its descendants and maybe I'm not the only one.
6) Poor and simplistic character development in the movies leads back to thinking that the movies were all about special effects and little else.
Can you tell that I'm one of those who wouldn't want to play Star Wars d20?
Traveler? Yes Star Trek? Yes Babylon 5? Yes
Ringworld? Oh, yeah!!! Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's anything? Yes, baby, yes!!
Battlestar Galactica? No Starship Troopers Movies? No
Starship Troopers Book? Yes
When you break Star Wars down, it's not exactly a "rich" universe. I'm sure that if you read the books and all the side material, you'd find it to be every bit as complicated and well developed as Star Trek, but most gamers are going to have their preconceptions colored by the movies.
Star Wars is what it is--a vehicle for special effects and making money. I see nothing else of value in it, unfortunately.
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I think you are kind of making a broad assumption here. I play in a Star Wars d20 game and enjoy it quite a bit, and as far as changing history or conflicting with canon, I don't worry about it any more than I do in any setting that has an established story line, and now that the movies are done, its even less of a concern.
The worst problem the d20 game has right now is that the contract that WOTC has with Lucas counts the minis as role playing products, and there can only be a certain number of role playing products released per year. After the minis have been released, they have outsold every RPG product and have a much larger profit margin than the rulebooks do. Until the contract changes, it doesn't make monetary sense for WOTC to support the RPG, but unfortunately that lack of support is killing interest in the game itself.
Also, keep in mind Star Wars has to compete against itself in the RPG arena, as Star Wars Galaxies has picked up steam. In fact, this is something that I worry about if D&D Online starts to do well. Having problems finding a gaming group? Look for people at the game store or post ads and meet people you have never met? Nope, I'll just go online and play that way.
I admit it's a broad assumption, but I was trying to answer the original question of this thread.
I would certainly be willing to try Star Wars D20 in the right group, but it would be much tougher sell for me than D&D or another abovementioned universe might be.
Well, from the style side of things, d6 is the more cinematic (less chess-like) system and probably reflects the space opera genera better than d20. Though d20 does a better job of reigning in the jedi, the jedi still rule both games.
As for why the groups you've run into don't like Star Wars d20 I can only speculate. It could be for the reasons you discussed, or perhaps they've had (or had a friend who had) a bad experience with the game. I can't think of too many people who wouldn't enjoy a well done rollicking high adventure game, but one bad experience can ruin a game for people just as one good experience can bring a person back to a game forever (even if the game never tops that one moment).
You might try starting up a new group if the pre-existing ones you know hate the game. Once they see how much fun the new group is having you might win some converts.
Good luck,
GGG
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the d6 system was better, more heroic, space opera feel. d20 is, for Star Wars, not as much fun to play. The classes are limited (and not just the Jedi) and the entire d20 system plays differently from the d6 system. What works for sword and sorcery does not neccesarily translate over to sci-fi or space opera.
d20 works good for Traveller(low power/sci fi) and Babylon 5 (with some not so minor rule changes), but steals the heroic feel from Star Wars games. d20 has too many mechanics for the Star Wars univers, IMO.
I'm the biggest Star Wars fan in the galaxy. I've DMed Star Wars for a while in the d6 era. You want to know what bugged me about playing it?
1)The d6 system got pretty complicated at times, which made the battles last forever.
2)Almost all fights are RANGED fights. With every NPC holding blasters, nearly every fight became a shooting galery. Only the self-trained Jedi in my group fought in melee attacks. I think this bugged be the most.
I must say, though, that I haven't read the d20 game yet. Maybe the system works better, but even so, it'll still remain a ranged attack game.
Ultradan
I have a theory about playing with backgrounds based in movies, books etc.
These backgrounds have an inherent difficulty if used for gaming: If you stick to the main story told in the movie, etc., the characters just don´t make a difference for the world. If you change the storyline or play in an off-beat area or a different timeframe, it just is not close enough to the story and looses much of its appeal.
Lets take LotR: Re-playing the original story with different characters just would not work (Imagine your typical D&D Party in this story... shudder. Would Gandalf hire them in the Prancing Pony ? ;-)).
Playing somewhere else just has not the appeal (running around with the Blue Mages?), just as playing in the fourth age would be pretty boring (cleaning up after the heroes).
So, either you stick to the story, and keep the background intact, severely limiting choices for the PCs, or you change the story in some way, and have it loose (at least some of) its appeal.
Good stories just don´t make good adventures, and vice versa.
That being said, if someone just has to use an established background, the rules should transport the feeling of the story, if possible. For most of these backgrounds, level-based rules are too limiting in some regard and stand in the way of the story in some way.
An open rule system gives more flexibility in representing the story, as stories are not written with "rules" in mind, but only with the story itself, and the more complex the rules are, the less good the story can be fitted into it.
The old Star Wars d6 was a rather flexible system, and thus more suited to the task. Games like Call of Cthulhu or Stormbringer would not work for me with d20 rules also.
Reliving stories with RPG rules demand flexibility and the possibility to improvise from these rules, and the rather rules-heavy d20 system mechanics just don´t fit the bill for me.
Stefan
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I don't know . . . we are talking about a campaign setting the size of a galaxy here. If you free a planet of a crime lord or stop the Imperials from destroying a population in this or that system, you could still feel pretty important, even while being light years away from the characters and events of the movies. The main issue during the movie timeline is the lack of jedi characters that you can play, though that doesn't bother me that much.
I don't know . . . we are talking about a campaign setting the size of a galaxy here. If you free a planet of a crime lord or stop the Imperials from destroying a population in this or that system, you could still feel pretty important, even while being light years away from the characters and events of the movies. The main issue during the movie timeline is the lack of jedi characters that you can play, though that doesn't bother me that much.
That reminds me of a Star Wars drinking game that I never got to play in college. One of the funniest rules was that you had to drink every time an entire planet was described as having a single climate.
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I don't know . . . we are talking about a campaign setting the size of a galaxy here. If you free a planet of a crime lord or stop the Imperials from destroying a population in this or that system, you could still feel pretty important, even while being light years away from the characters and events of the movies. The main issue during the movie timeline is the lack of jedi characters that you can play, though that doesn't bother me that much.
I agree with KnightErrantJR, and as a (ICE) MERP player/GM I have to disagree with the idea of a books and movies not converting well to the role-playing environment. First of all as KnightErrantJR said, it's a big galaxy and even something as small as Middle-Earth (where it took several months to walk from the Shire to Mordor) is still very expansive and players have all sorts of opportunity to make a difference even without bumping into the main heroes. The only real limiting factor in any table-top RPG is the imagination of the people playing it. Trying to recreate even a single scene from a book or movie is kinda asking for trouble as you never know what your improv troupe will do next.
If you are set on recreating something from a book with the characters as the protagonists mix it up. Using MERP as an example: Have a simple dwarven baker from Blue Mountains stumble on the One Ring. Perhaps the elven master of the Grey Havans istructs him to go by sea to Gondor and seek wisdom there. Now instead of an overland trek you have an epic sea voyage. The ship is sent off course after an encounter with corsairs and makes landfall south of Tharbad. The crew now needs to brave the ancient half-mired ruin of a town to make the main road and from there the Gap of Rohan where Saruman awaits, but trolls and dunman stand in their way and so they make for the ruins Ost-in-Edhil instead. Here they find the ancient forges of the elven smiths who unlocked the secret of ring-making only to be tricked by Sauron into creating the rings of power. Sauron destroyed this land long ago but ancient elven weapons can be found if the characters can get by the "watch dog" Sauron's armies left behind at the end of the Second Age, the terrible dragon Turukulon. Etc.... As for the group the party could be as ad-hoc as the players like with some characters being there because of the strength of their friendship rather than the strength of their weapon arm.
As for level dependence, D20 is far more variable than previous editions of D&D were (what with Feats, skill points, multi-classing, etc...) and therefore the level issue is not as bad as old timers might think. Combat (as always in Star Wars) is still mostly blasters unless you have a compelling reason to fight otherwise, but is doesn't last as long anymore thanks to Vitality and Wound Points. The classes are more balanced than d6's templates so jedi don't always show everyone up anymore although they also can't compete with all the powers ascribed to jedi in books, movies and cartoons. The powers are listed but you'll never get all of them to fit on one character.
As game systems go I would say both 6d and d20 versions of Star Wars where okay. Making them more than okay is the job of the gaming group.
Have fun,
GGG
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Yeah, as far as both Star Wars and Middle Earth are concerned, saying that the heroes of the movies and the books are the only important heroes is kind of like saying that if you were a soldier during WWII you were only "important" if you stormed the beach at Normandy.
Star Wars is what it is--a vehicle for special effects and making money. I see nothing else of value in it, unfortunately.
I have to disagree with you there. A New Hope was a brilliant retelling of the classic mythological hero's journey. Solid world building, strong archetypes, brilliant score, and Harrison Ford. The special effects helped tell the story. And the money came later.
Now I have to agree that the more recent trilogy descended deeply into the territory you mention.
I'm the biggest Star Wars fan in the galaxy.
Awww, he throws down the gauntlet! : )
- rob
Of course . . . part of why the "big evil corporation" ended up with the license is that the guy that owns the license got a big chunk of stock from the big evil corporation. Lucas owns a big hunk o' Hasbro as part of the deal he made with them over the toys, so it only makes sense that he took the lisense to a company that he partially owns now . . .
HK, while I agree that parroting someone without actually understanding what it is you are saying is the height of mob mentality it doesn't always follow that the message is wrong. The original (first release) trilogy (taken as a whole) is better than the new one. And pretty much every professional critic out there agrees. Mostly I think it boils down to writing.
Lawrence Kasdan wrote the screenplays for "Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi". George Lucus wrote "A New Hope" and while it is a fine adventure-packed film the dialogue is a bit of a mouthful and at times doesn't sound natural. I think the only reason "A New Hope" (without Greedo shooting first, or the Slimfast Jabba) flies as well as it does is that the story is pretty simple (by which I mean it follows the "Hero's Path" as outlined by Campbell), and it didn't involve any real romance, something that plays to Lucas' strengths as a filmmaker. In the most recent spate of movies Lucas moved outside light-hearted action and attempted to write something that I would say was just a little bit beyond him. I have the feeling that the people around him where a bit too enamored of the big Lucus to say "this needs a rewrite." where as back in the day they might have nudged him more a bit. As to the acting, with the awkward dialogue and often conflicted and strange emotions that are ascribed to the characters, I'm not sure if anyone could have pulled it off better.
As for the RPG versions of Star Wars, I give my opinions on those in a post above.
GGG
Thought this was about the role playing game. Just because some of us prefer an older system, it doesn't mean we hate d20 or the "Establishment". It is an opinion. A question was asked and we responded.
As for the movies, c'mon, did you really watch them because the acting was good? Because the story was great? Any of them? The movies are awesome, in spite of their own shortcomings.
HK
I think some of your post might have been sort-of tongue-in-cheek but I thought I'd actually answer some of your complaints over the original movie trilogy...
The Leah-Luke twin "surprise" was indeed contrived. Lucas did NOT originally plan for them to be twins, although he's been vague over issues whether they were intended to be siblings or not. Original collective cards are other "canon" released back in the 70s had Luke and Leah two years apart!
The tie-fighters in the asteroid field are not dropping "bombs", which is why they don't seem to be having much effect. They're flares. They are trying to see down in the holes to reveal the hiding Falcon.
There is never an assertion that the mynochs are *eating* the power cables or gaining any sustinence from them whatsoever, only that they are "chewing" on them. Big difference. When I was a kid I had a pet rabbit that we couldn't keep from chewing on power cords (silly rabbit!!) and although I don't claim to understand its motivations, it certainly wasn't trying to gain nutrition. I've had friends who owned cats that displayed the same behavior.
There are indeed a lot of inconsistencies and just poor design/writing/acting/conception in the original trilogy, but none of it kept them from being great. The problem with the more recent series (apart from being faced with inflated expectations they really never had a prayer of meeting), is that in our current culture and age of technology most fans expected a lot better from Lucas and his associates who, thirty years ago, created an entire genre and reshaped the movie-making process in unfathomable ways. Personally, I was appalled by how poorly-written and contridictory the screenplays were and felt that much more attention was given to special effects (which to today's audience, versus 1976 when no such things even existed, are nice but almost secondary to a "good" movie) and so little concern for what is almost considered "inspired scripture" plot of an interesting mythical storyline with compelling characters.
In my experience, published Star Wars RPGs have always made the mistake of focusing too much on the period of time covered in the films. They are filled with things like big blocks of stats for Luke Skywalker, and so on. This is a mistake because it actually intimidates many potential players by emphasizing the knowledge that their adventures will never be the "real story" that takes place during this time. Like a Lord of the Rings game set during the War of the Ring. Players like to be the center of attention and the most important, and there is simply no bigger, more important story than getting that ring to Mount Doom. Hence, unsatisfied players.
A much better approach would be a game set many years before or after the films, where none of the principal movie characters exist. There's no "real story" to contradict, so you scare a lot fewer potential players off.
But in the end, I still have to contend that most criticism that is being applied to today's trilogy can be applied, in earnest, to the original, therefore it is further my contention that most critics are longtime Star Wars fans whose real complaints are that the Star Wars films did not mature along with them (Episode III not-withstanding) and less about the film's merits (or lack thereof). I have a strong suspicion that the children who are growing up with this trilogy will love it just as strongly as we love the original; and in 20 or so years when an aged Lucas decides to make Episodes VII, VIII, and IX, there will be a similar controversy taking up space on some messageboard in some obscure corner of the web.
I feel that you are 100% right. Why do I say this? Because I didn't see any of the films until I was sixteen (around 1995-1996), and I tend to like them all pretty equally. I think that this is mostly because I don't have a nostalgis perspective born of seeing the older films as a younger, more impressionable and less critical child.
I have to agree with two earlier sentiments.
First, running a game in an established fictional setting can be very hard. Whereas Eberron is set up to let the PCs run rampant, Star Wars is a little harder to deivate. Not only because of the setting, but because of loyalty to the story. I am having similar problems with my A Song of Ice and Fire game.
Second, too much focsuing on time periods hurts. I ran a 4-part game in the earlier republic, with less established time period, and we had a blast. Getting away from established periods helped.
Interestingly enough, alot of D&D players like Star Wars, but are not Star Wars fans. Many of them enjoyed the movies, but do not care to look more into the universe. A few of my players fell in here.
My few cents, anyways.
To answer your question: I don't know. There are merits and flaws to both the D6 and D20 systems; the likes of which are certainly better answered by others than myself. I simply love the material and could not really care what dress its wearing, as long as it comes to the dance with me.
But, if you like the SW universe to game in but don't grok the rules, you could always try finding a system (ie. GURPS, Fudge, Savage Worlds, Adventure!, etc.) that clicks with your people and just go from there. I daresay there exists, in some form or another, either conversion rules or created ones that use your system of choice.
I think the lack of interest in SW as a roleplaying vehicle somewhat mirrors the (seeming) funk in science-fiction RPGs in general, or perhaps the publics' dislike for liscensed properties as RPGs.
Actually I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that some of the biggest events in Star Wars licencing came and went with no support from the RPG deptartment. Knights of the Old Republic gets hailed as an awesome CRPG . . . KOTOR era sourcebooks? Nope.
Star Wars: Clone Wars generates some awesome buzz for the upcoming end of the trilogy, any Clone Wars era information, perhaps a sourcebook tied to the cartoon series? Nope.
Star Wars Episode III comes out . . . hey, perfect time to put out an episode three or perhaps even a Prequels Era sourcebook update, right? Nope.
WOTC has the game on life support, since they publish some books, but lets some of the better books for the line (Starships of the Galaxy, Heroes Guide) go out of print and never issue a new edition of them.
Of course, I think we hit on some of this above. With the limit on the number of RPG products coming out, and the sales of the miniatures line, and with the miniatures line counting as part of the RPG, all of the new releases are going to be minatures products. This is as much Lucas' fault for the contract considering the RPG and the miniatures game the same as it is anything WOTC did, since there are whole sourcebooks written but never apporoved for publication yet (Ultimate Battlestations anyone?)
After talking to several SW d20 haters, The Koga has come to a few conclusions as to why people didn't dig it..
Vitality:
Vitality was alot more complex then HP, simply being cut wasn't enough, stressful activity such as running for one's life, using The Force, even just being scared out of your mind could lower vitality conceivably, it was alot more realistic, but more work then most gamers wanted to go through, The Koga liked it though, and never had a problem with it.
The Force:
The Force is crap, at your gaming table, compare the ratio of "jedi" to "spellcasters" in a normal d20 game, (besides d20 modern..) and you'll find people play jedi alot less, it's not only the skill-based checks and the probability of failure that turns them off, but the fact that the temptress that is "the darkside" is hardly worth the effort, the penalties are too harsh, to quickly, The Koga agrees the darkside should've been kicked down a notch in aggression, being apart of the darkside himself, he can tell you the darkness is alot more subtle.. Infact, with D&D introducing flaws, (much like Deadlands) flaws would've served as excellent penalty for darkside characters, they begin to develop personality quirks and become obsessive-compulsive in some form or another. The darkside aint going to just suck your blood and laugh about it, it'll just mess with your head, that's how the darkside works. It's deceitful, it's hard to see, it engulfs you.
The fact that it's d20:
Just like rock music, roleplayers sometimes fall into this category of if it's mainstream, it's uncool, no matter how good or bad the game in itself is, though in some respects, The Koga agrees, d20 has helped make rpgs a household name, but GURPS and Whitewolf have a much more fun dice mechanic. Sure you have to roll a "bucket of dice" but that increases the anticipation, the level of chance, the exsitement.. In d20 you either suck or you 0wN, there is no inbetween.
Some racial profiling:
Don't know any other way to describe it, but it just seems fairly stupid that ceartain races can't become ceartain classes, ok, so jawa are generaly little psycho midgets that want to bleed you out of money and life, but raised by non-jawas, or undergoing jedi training, they couldn't learn to act differantly? That doesn't make any sense, or alternatively, they'd make good canidates for sith jedi because that's precisely how the sith want you to act.. But instead, jawa can't use The Force, and they don't even have a good excuse like they're Force-resistant so it makes it harder to manifest The Force, and yet meanwhile, hutts who ARE Force resistant CAN become jedi, and they're just as "evil", and infact, more powerful because there two-ton slugs with an appetite for destruction. (Well maybe not destruction, but ceartainly something foul..) Infact, jawa are like the kobold of Star Wars..
So in conclusion, SW is a flawed system, however, The Koga likes it more then he hates it, with magick being far less onimpetant, and number crunching not making you impervious to defeat, you ceartainly have to be clever, a good roleplayer, and have atleast a little patience if you hope to survive. Just like it would be in real Star Wars. You think Vader would putup with some maniac who went in there wailing a longsword? He'd either have you killed, or be told by Emperor Palapine to send you over the edge..
Hey!
We've had a great time playing the Star Wars D20 RPG. This would be the 3.0, mind, not the update. Ourgroup felt all those extra movement rules really killed the spirit.
Anyways, we love it, and although we've not played in a while, are always up for it. Not sure why fans would be against playing it though. Hmm...
*
We have an interesting and fun house rule in our Star Wars games I advise you to try out. If you can quote from the (original) films in context and in character you get to hold the Lightsaber, until someone else quotes. Holding the Lightsaber (a plastic green one I bought) gives you a +1 'quote' bonus to whatever you're attempting.
*
Peace,
tfad
Vitality:
The Force:
The fact that it's d20:
Some racial profiling:
Don't know any other way to...
Well, I made some experience that showed it otherwise. The Vitalty point system worked very good, indeed I use it for my D&D group as well. The Game mechanic behind it, does not make so much difference to hit points, but to secondary effects like poisons.
But one of the things that made the game less enjoyable, was that there were the Jedi and nothing else. They have the most vitality points, the highest BAB, the melee weapon with the highest damage and low level magic. With players who are creative, the little less skillpoints don't make a difference.I can't remember that in the Ultimate Alien Anthology stood that Jawas can't use the force. In my group we had a Jawa Force Adept 'Hooditi!!'
If you ever tried to use mathematics on the White-Wolf dice system you really have to cry, esp. since the NWoD. More Dice more fun??
One of the problems in SW D20 and SW in general is that technology is not evolving. Thousands of years and the technology is basically the same, sometimes there are technologeis that are forgotten, like the stealth shield.
Well I'm new to these boards but I guess the question becomes do people in general not like playing in movie or TV based games? if your answer is yes then I think people need to realise that this is there own difficulty or style of play. Some DM's or GM's like to create their own mythos. But If your answer is No then perhaps the fault lies in the kind of game you like to play. I have been gaming a looooong time. I have seen the West End version and the others and I believe that if a D/GM can come up with a good plot then damn the cannons. Err is that the wrong end of the the....Booom! Sorry Mr Lucas but it's true.
I've played the West End games version and the D20 version and I have to say that D20 rules are more coherent, easier to use, and in general more fun.
Despite this, no one in my group (including me)really likes the game that much (but we all love the setting). I don't think that the touble with Star Wars D20 has anything to do with the merits/problems of the movies or of playing in an established world. I think it's a mechanical problem. Other than the Jedi (and everyone in the party can't be one), there really aren't any 'sexy' character classes to play (by sexy I mean cool and interesting with neat-o abilities). If you're coming into this game from D&D (which we were), every class in the PHB has 'sexyness'. The Star Wars classes just seem a little drab (and are given strange combinations of Class skills - like why don't Nobles have the Bluff skill?)
The only recourse players have is to look for a cool 'sexy' race. Of course since Star Wars D20 doesn't use level adjustments the power levels between the nonstandard races (from that aliens sourcebook) varies widely and leads to unbalanced gameplay (which ruins the fun for everyone).
That's just from the players perspective. As the GM there are other problems. I don't know why they didn't use the CR system like other D20 products but for some reason they adopted a vague letter coded system that makes it difficult to design adventures with the right number and power level of encounters to challenge the party without destroying them. Oh yeah, that's really easy to do (destroy the party). Just wait until a fire-fight starts up and one of the baddies rolls a critical (which statistically happens to the PC's more than the enemy).
I may seem overly harsh, but these problems led to some bad experiences, and hey, I still think that its a better system than the D6 system. I guess I just wanted it to be better than it was. Hmmm, didn't someone say something to that effect about the prequels earlier? :) Maybe my expectations were too high, or maybe I just love the new edition of D&D too much.
-Dave
farewell2kings wrote:
5) No Earth--I never liked SciFi that didn't include a future Earth and its descendants and maybe I'm not the only one.
Ah, yes--but remember that the Star Wars Universe is set "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away"--so it'd be a prehistoric earth, if anyone did come to visit, but the implication is the Star Wars Universe is in the same setting as our humble planet.
Interesting thread.
First off, my opinion on the movies: The original trilogy, despite its flaws, was excellent. The prequels, despite some great moments (Yoda!), are terrible. The great virtue of the original trilogy was its simplicity; the prequels are needlessly complicated, from body doubles to midoclorians (?!).
Moving on...I'm not familiar with d20 Star Wars, but I did play the d6 version when I was in high school. And my games were terrible. But all my games in high school were terrible, because I was a terrible DM. At the time, my AD&D game was DragonLance, and it shared two huge problems with my Star Wars game. 1) Me. 2) Both campaign settings share a common source: heroic fantasy. And what makes heroic fantasy great as fiction is the same thing which makes it unsuitable for gaming. First, it's predictable (the heroes will be betrayed from within, the lovers are torn apart, the final battle with the dark lord will be epic, cool monologues, etc). Second, it's heroic. And what makes gaming great are the moments beyond the DMs control, when the players act unpredictable and unheroically. Trying to match the tone and spirit of heroic fiction such as Star Wars or DragonLance to the unpredictable nature of gaming requires a better DM than me -- now or in high school.
Also another thing that sucks about Star Wars d20 (both the PC games and tabletop) is The Koga is incapable of evil, no, litteraly, everytime he tries to be evil he's either considerd doing something neutral or just being misunderstood. Take for example his tabletop rpg character.
He was a soldier class trying to become a proffessional bounty-hunter, why? To clean up the galaxy of scumbag spice smugglets and underground crime rings, sure that sounds all well and good, but The Koga went for "judge dredd" type, and would not do any illegitamate bounties, this meant he could easily be manipulated by the corrupt goverment, but still he was considerd good, he was cruel, abusive, rash, arrogant, offenssive, mean, and reckless, but they STILL considerd him good! >: \
And it didn't help when there was this cute girl who fealt the need to play a canniving theif, The Koga, letting heart get in the way of logic, made her a pact that she would earn 75% of the earnings if she joined him in the pursuit of justice and gaveup her crime career, knowing she was only interested in the money just so she could be around him, the GM litteraly said "awww, that's so sweet, I gotta' give you three lightside points" The Koga was thinking "DAMNIT! Whatever happend to the jedi code of nothing worse then love?!"
The Koga was actually more lightside then any of those stupid n00bs parading as jedi..
Contributor
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Ah, yes--but remember that the Star Wars Universe is set "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away"--so it'd be a prehistoric earth, if anyone did come to visit, but the implication is the Star Wars Universe is in the same setting as our humble planet.
Or it might just be 1960s Earth. ;D
Imagine what Darth Vader would think about tie-dyed t-shirts! ;D
Darth Vader would see them as simply distractions from the primary mission to destroy the jedi and fufill his master's quest..
Darth Maul however would probably wear them, along with rastafarian hats and speak in a Jamacian accent..
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I ran Star Wars d6 a long time ago (har har). It's just difficult. You almost HAVE to railroad when people have hyperspace drive that can take them anywhere in a galaxy.
One guy wants to go to Tatooine, no lets go to Nal Hutta...
Okay...we're going to Endor. What do you have for us there?
Well, I have this adventure on Kessel. No we don't want to go there, we want to go to Dantooine. They're on Dantooine. Okay, I'll see you guys next week; I'm going to go make up a world for Dantooine. Shoot, maybe I can convert that Kessel adventure to Dantooine. Yeah, the spice mines of Dantooine. So next week you come back with a Spice Girls of Dantooine adventure and lo and behold, they want to go to Corellia and find Han Solo's home town.
Never played the d20 version. I had a whole slew of d6 books that I saw nothing wrong with; ergo no impetus to buy a whole slew of d20 books. D6 was okay, just hard to run and do justice original trilogy style.
If The Koga remembers correctly they WON'T be producing anymore d20 Star Wars products because LucasArts broke thier contract or something..
Which may be for the best, Star Wars would probably be better under GURPs..
The only reason we don't do Star Wars d20 is time. There's not enough time for us to play two games these days. I ran a few Star Wars games a couple of years ago after the d20 rules came out and we really enjoyed them.
M@
Well, to answer the question in this thread: I am currently a player in a d20 starwars game, and I'd rather be playing d&d, or some other d20 product. I think. May be that we don't really know all the rules well, so gameplay is a bit too slow to have tons of fun, but maybe not.
And Darth Vader was no beatnick or hippie--that dude, in his plastic body suit, is obviously a psycedelic hippster that likes to go to the Goth club on 80's night.
I thought StarWars was only out in d6 format?
Is there a free rules quickstart?
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I hope to god you're kidding. Nothing can justify thread necromancy on this level. Not even ignorance about the state of the property.
After West End lost the license, it went to WoTC. They did two versions, one more or less compatible with the original 3.x d20 system, the other a precursor to 4th Edition D&D, and sharing many traits with that game.
A year or two ago now, they let the license lapse. Fantasy Flight has it now, and are currently Beta testing Edge of the Empire, which is a unique system. The current rules include some use of the Force, but do not feature Jedi as a playable class.
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It's just as baffling as not wanting to play 3.5e even when it's just as good if not better than Pathfinder.
Some people just don't get that there are good games out there. One should certainly not judge a book by its cover.
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To answer the OP, who I'm sure is still looking for posts seven years later, I love SW d20! I don't know why it has such a bad rap.
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My group actually tried out Star Wars d20, and despite two character deaths it was one of the most fun campaigns I had so far.
It's up in the Top 3 along with that awesome 3.5e Disgaea campaign I played online, and the Kingmaker that I am currently running as DM.
I like Star Wars d20 just fine. I only played it in the relatively early days and not after the saga rules or whatever they're called. It was kind of kludgy, they were trying to sort of make Star Wars fit the D&D d20 mold too much. Without getting into the nuts and bolts, there are some design choices I wouldn't have made.
That said, I've also run D6 star wars. I LOVE the d6 system...but it was a point based progression system and breaks down at a certain point as they all do. I got to the point where I was such a crack shot I couldn't miss anything and was taking like 5 shots a combat round.
They're both good but different. I have spent far too much time playing d20 based games and the break from it was nice, I will say that, which is probably the only reason I favor the d6 system.