Comments on: The Concept of a Star Wars RPG Should Die in a Fire

By: Methimachos

Methimachos — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 19:46:22 +0000

I'm not necessarily opposed to a star wars rpg, I just wish there was some way to round up all these fanboy reenactors in one game, and let the rest of us enjoy actually role playing in the setting. As it ended upp, we rolled with it and tried to work around the GM as much as possible. Not the ideal, but we had the most fun we could and got a story to tell for it.

By: Methimachos

Methimachos — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 15:03:05 +0000

That guy - as a GM in a Star Wars Saga con one-shot - was actually my girlfriend's seccond ever experience with roleplaying, at a con. Thank God it wasn't her first or she might have never wanted to play again, she damn near suffered an anxiety attack after he also tried to explain the ENTIRETY of the d20 engine pre-play, because she wasn't familiar with it (seriously, all of it). And then at the end Darth Vader shows up, and the guy was all, "What, you're running? You don't want to face Vader? Guys, this is your chance to face Vader!" But nah, we ran.

By: Designer Interview: Martin Ralya from Gnome Stew & Engine Publishing | Game Knight Reviews

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 15:38:22 +0000

[...] all by surprise, and brought us as close as we’ve ever come to banning someone from the Stew: http://www.gnomestew.com/hot-buttons/the-concept-of-a-star-wars-rpg-should-die-in-a-fire. He didn’t write it for hits, though, which is why it [...]

By: Voodoomancer

Voodoomancer — Sun, 30 May 2010 22:11:17 +0000

You know what i think works best? Don't let the Übergeek know you're playing.

By: AvatarArt

AvatarArt — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 06:49:55 +0000

What's offensive about the title is the lack of a Star Wars reference- i.e. ...'Should Be Thrown Into the Death Star's Trash Compactor.' But on a + side, Ewoks have garnered much-needed street cred.

By: Katana_Geldar

Katana_Geldar — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 10:15:38 +0000

Came across this blog post in a search of your site and I feel I had to respond to it as I GM a Star Wars RPG. What it looks like is not because it's Star Wars but bad GMing.

By: Am I too much of a fan? « Level 1 GM

Am I too much of a fan? « Level 1 GM — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 09:54:07 +0000

[...] was recently browsing Gnome Stew when I by chance came across this article and it got me thinking. I have addressed at length the concepts of canon and gaming, but not in [...]

By: links for 2009-03-17

links for 2009-03-17 — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:23:49 +0000

[...] The Concept of a Star Wars RPG Should Die in a Fire (tags: starwars rpg) [...]

By: Tacoma

Tacoma — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 23:59:38 +0000

Add Jedi and Mon Calamari to Traveller. Lock all the Star Wars RPGs safely in the local libraries where people can read them if they really want ... but they'll just gather dust there.

By: Nefandus

Nefandus — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:23:05 +0000

The issue here is not the setting, but a kind of fan who tries to GM from the player's chair. I play with a "mature gamer" group of folks who've been SW fans since 70's - I've never had this problem, as a GM, and I kind of think it's a player management and GM management issue. 1. I assume that the players have only seen the movies. 2. The campaign I run puts a reasonable amount of space between the "canonical" events and characters of the movies, and any way to derail them. 3. I take some reasonable effort with Wookiepedia research to ensure that my additions or flair are either rooted in Wookiepedia, or don't contradict it. For example, when I needed a droid crime lord, I looked up droids and found a good type for it. I didn't have a deep background for it - meticulously researched - but I did have a bit of information there in case players pressed farther into its history. This didn't take any more effort than thinking up new stuff, and helped me out a bit. 4. I don't hinge game-changing plots on minutia 5. I describe the flavor of a locale and any pertinant plot points related to character knowledge from the character's perspective. I don't rely much on player background.

By: fnknd01ds

fnknd01ds — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:29:37 +0000

Agreed I admit to being one of those GM's. I was so up on myself that no one else had fun. And... I tried too hard to make everyone else do exactly what I wanted... yup... I have learned to chill out and have a little fun. I was trying to balance a couple peeps who just wanted to be super super heroes, and I wanted the more downtrodden side of the SW universe. Oh well. It's all about fun now.

By: troy812

troy812 — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 23:34:10 +0000

Yea that's it ..."the burden of heroism". That is the core problem I have with Star Wars RPG (in fact the current direction of Wizards' RPGs). I like the idea of an ordinary "Joe spacetrucker" stumbling into a mess much bigger than he knows and working his way out of the problem. I like the idea of playing the common man and not the star quarterback. Also SWRPG is nice but I think I would much rather play in a generic universe. I find having to play in the SW realm restricts my creativity. Also as a GM, it makes me feel like I have to defer to a player who knows his SW trivia. Finally, I hate the Skywalkers. I really do. I hate ‘em. If I run SW again. The first thing I would do it have the players take out Anakin, then have fun seeing where the game takes us.

By: BryanB

BryanB — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:45:39 +0000

@DarthKrzysztof - The burden of heroism. I like that. That is why I set my games in the post-KOTOR period. If someone is going to save the Republic, it isn't going to be anyone other than the PCs. The PCs are the iconic characters of our Star Wars games. I wouldn't have it any other way. But your right, the same thing can be done in tangency stories as well.

By: DarthKrzysztof

DarthKrzysztof — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:48:17 +0000

I try to appease the canon-minded, including myself, by establishing a fork point. "Here's where the timeline of this campaign splits off from the canonical one." If that event shifts the burden of heroism from the movie characters to the PCs, so much the better.

By: barasawa

barasawa — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 06:36:05 +0000

Years ago (late 80s) we had a Star Wars game that would make canon nazis scream themselves hoarse. We had fun with our Crazy Pilot and his ship with a brain wired into it. A Renegade Jedi. A Boba Fett Hating bounty hunter (claims boba copied him...). An old sage we could never figure out. And a machine form force wielder that's always being mistaken for droid. We even caused lots of trouble at Nexus Station. The prototype mobile science arcology that was used as a template for the Death Stars (After deleting the labs, parks, etc, and adding big freaking weapons.). We had fun! But I have to agree, the purists and canon nazis tend to wreck any setting/game. "Hyperspace doesn't have monsters in it.", "That can't be Elminster, he's still trapped for another 2 years and besides, that's the wrong pipeweed.", "There's no city here, you can't put a city here.", "Oh, I tell the guardian the secret password from the second novel, chapter 14.", etc... Yeah, those types suck and trash any game.