SW GM Campaign Part 1 Rules and Setting

Star Wars – Game Management

Campaign Creation – Part 1 – Selecting Rules and Setting

Side Note: There are a few player complaints in this post, but like all games no group is perfect. No games master is perfect. And no player is perfect. As a games master I give players a lot of benefit of the doubt. But I do have my limits and feeling those limits pushed I am unwilling to continue to bend. Expressing my thoughts here helps take away the anger and frustration at the players in question and lets me deal with it thinking clearer instead of caught up in the emotion at the time. This is based on my views and experience and I try not to take it personally, and try to give players the benefit of ignorance. Repeat offenders should know better.

Rules and Setting Choices

When I look to start a new Star Wars campaign I have a few steps I go through before I am happy to look at characters:

• Agree on the Storyline
• Get an Overview of the Storyline
• Make Character Creation Limitations
• Have a Character Creation Session
• Determine Character Advancement and Story Modifications

There are three different choices when looking at Star Wars rulesets.

• d6 system – West End Games released three versions of their SW RPG line that went from strength to strength. The last version is still comparable to todays games.
• d20 system – Wizards of the Coast got the licence next and released three versions of the game, two around 3rd edition D&D and the last Saga has more of the feel of 4th edition with its encounter based powers and abilities.
• Genesys system – Fantasy Flight Games has released three version of their rules, and unlike the other companies, these were complementary systems and not replacement systems. By chance or design, it can also run most of the d6 system adventures with only the mechanic replacement as all the difficulties seem to match.

Agree on the Storyline

Besides the storyline there is the concept of how you will do the story. I have run a few different storylines concepts.

• Run the beginner games – As fantasy flight have released a set of teach you to use their games adventures, with expansion storylines to give players and introduction to the setting and rules.
• Run the published adventures – You can run a series of individual stories, linking them based on how it is played, and adapt them to suit the players. This is a good option depending on your preparation time as it does most of the work for you.
• Run a set campaign – There are a few campaigns in the various game systems, and by running a set campaign, you can specify an overall storyline upfront that the players are trying to achieve with there characters. This is the easiest game to run long term as it lays out the main stories that the characters are expected to do over the game. With a beginning, middle and end to the storyline.
• Run a character driven storyline – The last style talked about here is one based on the character backgrounds, which is the most work, but can also be the most rewarding. I generally only do these when I have the time to invest in the game and feel I have enough player investment in playing the game to make the effort worthwhile.

Get an Overview of the Storyline

Now that you know when the game is set, and what style of game storyline you are willing to run, it would be a good time to work out some other basics for the players before making characters.

Where will the game start, what faction will they need to have some alignment with, what resources will they be starting with, what is the current organisation of Sith and Jedi for a force user.

Make Character Creation Limitations

Now that we know when and where they characters are, listing what sources are available depends on the rules used.

• West End Games – D6 System – This is a favourite of many people still as the rules are very loose and they have the most resources released for the classic and expanded universe era’s. There are three editions of the game, 1st, 2nd and 2nd Revised and Expanded.
• Wizards of the Coast – D20 and Saga Systems – This was aligned with D&D and while a fun game was not a hit with the old guard (who were happy with no class levels). It also covered various era and its books were quite useful with their varied information. There are also three editions of the game, 1st, 2nd and Sage editions.
• Fantasy Flight Games – Genesys System – Unlike the other editions, they released three separate systems that work together. A Edge of the Empire for fringers and scoundrels, a Age of Rebellion for the rebels, and lastly Force and Destiny for the force users. The rules have since been released as a generic Genesys system. As a rules system this is my favourite as it is a cooperative narrative system that gives more power to the players, if they are willing to play within the system.

Now that you have the rules, what’s next:

• What Source-books are allowed – This is a hard one as you will get players who just use everything anyway and object to be told they are cheating when you discover them using forbidden source-books. When starting a campaign I prefer to start with Core books and only open up the others based on the game-play.
• What Races are allowed – Giving a breakdown of what races are available is usually as easy as saying which source-books are allowed.
• What Character Build Options are allowed – So what level for a level based game, what points to build from on a points system, what classes, templates or careers are available at character creation can set the tone of the adventure and campaign as much as the story. Not having force users at the start is very different from everyone being a force user.
• What equipment is allowed – This is also usually from the source-books.

Negotiation between games master and players is fine, as long as the game masters gets final say on what is allowed or not allowed. Any player who takes it upon themselves to use rules from books not permitted in the game is cheating. So if you are in one of my games, and you want to use a rule, gimmick or option from another book, you had better run it by me before the game session or your likely to find that your ability to play in the game is called into question.

I have put up with player bulling of the games master enough over the last ten years that enough is enough, and will no longer tolerate blatant cheating in my games under the guise of “I didn’t know that books was not allowed” even though I have it all covered before anyone creates a character.

Have a Character Creation Session

Now that you have the base rules, and have been warned what you can and can’t select for the new game, it is best to have all the players together and discuss what it is they want to play. This is a good and a bad thing.

The good is that the players can work as a group and build a bunch of characters that compliment each other and have an interesting and and cohesive back story about why they travel together and trust each other.

The bad is that you will get some players who will default with, “I will take what no one else takes” and have no personal stake in the process, as well as players who after the character creation session, discard their character and bring in an surprise new character the next game session.

Another option is that characters being their premade characters to the game session and you work out the details of integrating them as the character creation session.

The good parts of this approach is you have ready made characters who can use roleplaying elements to get their characters to work together. You can get straight into the gameplay and work a narrative into how they met, why they trust each other and what they have as their first objective.

The bad parts of this approach is they can all be the same concept, built mostly the same way, or be conflicting enough to not work together such that they want to kill each other on sight. Plus there are always the characters that are just stats, not able to play if their rules gimmick that the player has deemed essential is not allowed to be played (or their unique interpretation of the rules involved) so when its not ruled in their favour they ditch the character.

Determine Character Advancement and Story Modifications

Each session could have a set advancement, such as experience assigned to it, or upon completion of a story-line gain your advancement with bonus experience based on how well you achieved your objective.

This can also be personal for each character, or the same for all characters. Personal can feel a little like favouritism, where as the same for everyone can feel like someone who role-plays well is penalised, while someone who does not is rewarded. It can be a hard balance.

Concluding Thoughts

For my next Star Wars campaign I will be doing the following:

• Running the Fantasy Flight Rules
• Set at the rise of the empire era
• Character options will be Core book and the Career book for their career
• They will start on Coruscant
• They will have a freighter as the party ship
• They will know at least two other characters to the point of trust, and got their backs
• Players who create a character with the group and brings a brand new character the following session without clearing it with the games master will not be welcomed to the table. (The precedent has been made – will not be tolerated again)
• Characters will be created and run their first session during character creation.
• The campaign will be character background driven.
• Characters cannot be considered evil

This will give me a good grounding for what campaign I will run, though it will require the players to figure out what they want to do as a story beyond leave Coruscant… This is planned for third or forth quarter this year.

Content Updates

• 2021-07-31 – Updates to structure, spelling and links.
• 2020-05-12 – Expanded the rules choice section.
• 2020-04-26 – Structure.

Star Wars RPG

SW Menu: Adventure, New Rules, Adversary, Companies, Droid, Equipment, Galaxy Map, Location, Vehicle

Campaign: NPCs, Side Stories, Timeline

Game Management: Annotated Stat Block, Character Creation, Choosing a New Campaign, Creating a Galaxy Map, Ending three year campaign, GM’s Luck Roll, Running Games over Skype, Tracking Experience, 2016 Campaign

Character Builds: Bounty Hunter (Karlid – Assassin, Vanna – Gadgeteer, Kyanna – Martial Artist, Jed – Operator, Theya – Skip Tracer, Cadkia – Survivalist), Smuggler (Ebaya – Gambler), Technician (B1-337 – Droid Tech)

References: for Characters, for GMs, Dice, Items (Lightsabers, Modifying, Purchasing, Qualities), Knight Level Play, Mechanics (Awareness, Duty, Morality, Obligation), Movement (Personal, Planetary, Vehicles), Roles (Bounty Hunting, Investigations), Secrets (Empire, Jedi, Mandalorians, Rebels, Sith)

Creating a Campaign:
(1) Rules and Setting,
(2) Characters and Timeline,
(3) Fringes Storyline,
(4) Rebels Storyline,
(5) Force Storyline,
(6) Mandalorian Storyline

SW Adventures

Campaigns: 2011 West End Games Edition, WEG to Fantasy Flight Games

The Star Wars Beginner Games: Overall Review, EotE – Escape from Mos Shuuta, This includes: The Long Arm of the Hutt, AoR – Takeover at Whisper Base, This includes: Operation: Shadowpoint, FD – Mountaintop Rescue, This includes: Lure of the Lost, FA – Discovery on Jakku , This includes: A Call for Heroes

The Published Adventures Campaign: Character Creation

The Beta Rule Adventures: Crates of Krayts (EotE), Operation: Shell Game (AoR), Lost Knowledge (FD)

The Core Rule Adventures: Trouble Brewing (EotE), Perlemian Haul (AoR), Lessons from the Past (FD)

The Game Master Kit Adventures: Debts to Pay (EotE), Dead in the Water (AoR), Hidden Depths (FD)

The Published Adventures: Beyond the Rim (EotE), Onslaught at Arda I (AoR), Chronicles of the Gatekeeper (FD), The Jewel of Yavin (EotE), Friends Like These (AoR), Ghosts of Dathomir (FD)

(EotE) Edge of the Empire, (AoR) Age of Rebellion, (FD) Force & Destiny, (FA) The Force Awakens

Library of Books

B5, d20 System, Pathfinder, SW

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