Fantasy Flight are publishing a Star Wars RPG

[Lago PARANOIA]

Okay, we have sufficiently different definitions of "exciting", "macguyvering", "interesting", and "fun" that further conversation on this topic would not be productive. Our tastes are apparently too different. Fair enough.

If you don't use Jedi in a Star Wars game, you have to use the technology and action aesthetics as a selling point. Which isn't a bad idea on the surface, because Star Wars technology looks pretty damn awesome.

Why is Star Wars technology awesome? Because Star Wars tech is visceral, simple, highly dependent on personal action hero badassery to use, dependent more on snap decision and tactics than grand strategies, and divisible such that the whole isn't much better than the sum of their parts.

Those design decisions are why Star Wars video games rule even when there aren't any Jedi in them. However, those same design decisions are also why I'm skeptical that you could make it work for a multiplayer pencil-and-paper TTRPG that can't rely on visuals or action. A sufficiently talented pilot or infiltrator can take on something as hardcore as the Death Star without much outside help or planning. That's exactly what you want for video and/or single-player games. Multiplayer traditional games? Not so much.

[Whipstitch]

They lost me as soon as I heard it was WHFRP system. Boba Fett doesn't slip in the bath tub and dies. PERIOD.

I enjoyed this post because it seems so at odds with Boba's history of accidentally getting schooled by blind dudes.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So, in summary, here are the things that I think that the Star Wars universe does very well -- either potentially or what has been shown in big properties. I have mostly the six movies and big name spinoff properties (KotOR, SWU, Shadows of the Empire, etc.) in mind. I'm willing to expand this to the EU for relatively famous books like the Thrawn trilogy if the audience for them gets into the mid hundreds of thousands.

[*] Low-level personal combat action hero combat. Regardless of how you feel about Jedi, there's no denying that Star Wars combat is not unsuited for a team of mundane plucky young heroes to take on a squadron of Bad Guys of the Week and win without too much sacrifice.
[*] Personal vehicles. I said that Star Wars does vehicles 'worse' than WH40K or Star Fox but that's only in a massed or strategic sense. If you're looking at the perspective of a handful of dudes jacking landspeeders and taking potshots at Sand People or a dude flying an X-Wing into a Death Star trench then Star Wars kicks the ass of competition.
[*] Personal equipment. You're totally spoiled for choice with Star Wars stuff. I could totally see people doing a 200-page hardcover book with nothing in it but non-vehicle, non-droid technology available for Star Wars people.
[*] The Used Future aesthetic. It's really hard to be gritty without being grimdark, but Star Wars does deliver on this point.
[*] Emphasis on personal badassery. Like many (hough certainly not all or even most space opera settings, you can outright have a single gun or lightsaber battle and save the damn galaxy. Unlike most space opera settings, you can do this without having phlebtonium in your corner pocket.
[*] Space Kung Fu monomyth and culture. This isn't the only selling point of the Star Wars-verse but as I've said it's the selling point of the entire franchise and is why the OT will be a permanent cultural touchstone for as long as we can see.

Those are huge selling points for a Star Wars game. However, to leverage all of that into a TTRPG is a beast of a task.

There are also some downsides that aren't just inversions of the above points in the Star Wars franchise, too. Enough downsides so that if you aren't doing the Space Kung Fu monomyth I think that you have to do some deep soul-searching to figure out why and if you want to do a Star Wars TTRPG (assuming you just don't want to do a cash-in) at all. but that will be a different post.

[Neurosis]

I like the phrase "terrible, terrible shenanigans" but am indifferent to everything else in this thread.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Frankly, I'm baffled as to why there's so little interest in making a Star Wars multiplayer wargame in the style of Fire Emblem / Advance Wars.

Star Wars transitions pretty easily and smoothly between individual PC action, wargame-style squad action, and massed vehicle action. While the setting can be beat in individual categories by other series, I can't think of many games that beat it in EVERY category. It scores above-average in all three broad categories. And I personally think that there is an audience for a style of gaming where in one battle you're a near-faceless ship operator not much more powerful than a generic NPC but in another battle you're effortlessly mowing down Jabba's hired goons. After all, Star Wars does do that all of the time.

A game that specifically caters to that gameplay impulse I can definitely see; I'd even say that you wouldn't even necessarily need Jedi as a selling point if you were going to structure your game in such a way.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Revisiting my previous post from two month ago:

Can anyone think of any TTRPGs/wargames that do the three broad goals I mentioned reasonably well? I can think of games that do two of the above but not all three.

After playing some Shining Force and Fire Emblem, I fervently believe that there is a market for a game which has all three phases of gameplay. And if there's a setting which can serve as a stalking horse to deliver on this point, Star Wars would be at the front of the list. For example, a campaign would go something like this:

• Basic Campaign Outline
• The Old Republic is collapsing and the Empire is demanding tribute and political subjugation from a populous but relatively technologically undeveloped planet. The call for a planetary militia goes forth, with people who have access to vehicles getting assigned emergency ranking. The PCs are one of them.
• The first set of battles is against an amphibious (or whatever the space equivalent is) force of Storm Troopers trying to land in the capital city. You and your PCs have a spaceship battle to shoot down APCs and gunboats. You are faced with the choice of concentrating your attention on the APCs and more hardcore completign the mission objective or playing it safe and attacking the gunboats. The GM makes a weighed roll to determine whether they capture the city or not.
• If the Stormtroopers do capture the city, the PCs are engaged in a 'bonus' mission where they get in a bunch of improvised vehicles and have a Stalingrad-style street fight and get one last chance to drive the Imperial Army out before they retrench.
• After the battle, the Empire is planning on reinforcing their battle lines with a Star Destroyer armada. The PCs are selected for a Suicide Mission where after getting covering fire from what remains of the militia they're to storm the bridge on foot to disable the craft. If they do exceptionally well (i.e. have a tricked-out techie) they might even get control of the Star Destroyer so that when the crew is captured and replaced with ground forces they get to battle in the follow-up assault. If the PCs fail here they can bail out.
• In the third wave, the planet does a last-ditch attempt to fend off one last squad of Imperial ships. Depending on how the previous two missions went the Empire will either be at a disadvantage or will have a massive advantage. If the PCs failed but survived all of the previous three missions they have a really high chance (75%) of failing the third one. All of the chips are laid on the table for the final mission.
• Epilogue: If the PCs win the final battle then the Empire runs away with their tail tucked between their legs and forges an emergency truce for a few years. The PCs get medals and accolades like at the end of SW4. If the PCs fail the final battle then the Empire gains a foothold.
• Next Campaign: If they won every previous engagement but failed the Final Battle the DM might elect to do a Bonus Mission where the PCs gather forces from adjacent efforts to do a last-ditch attack on the forces. Or the campaign from then on might be to organize a rebellion. If the PCs win the final battle then they might be selected to help clear the Empire from sister planets.

• Complications/Bonus Objectives
• As hinted by the word 'militia' the starting vehicles and equipment kind of chew. Since this is a total frontier-ish BYOB kind of military, the PCs are highly encouraged to dip into their personal finances, get some kick-awesome gear from the black market, or even steal a kickin' rad ship of their own.
• The squad commanders for one of the battle is a politically popular dipshit with their second-in-command a traitor. The PCs can elect to follow the first's orders at the cost of putting themselves at a disadvantage or they can ignore or even frag the first guy. This may cause later problems depending on how future battles go.
• Because of the high level of disorganization and low morale of the militia, the PCs might be involved in a diplomatic minigame in which they rally the troops. Or they might dissolve that the high command are idiots and elect to become the elected leader of this breakaway movement.
• The PCs get an extremely juicy offer from the Empire if they curbstomp the first couple of engagements in a way that shines the spotlight on them.. If they turn on the planet's militia they get a bunch of money, field promotions, and even a governorship if they play their cards right. Particularly crafty players may in fact use this leverage to set themselves up as planetary dictators.
• If the PCs turn down the above offer there's a high chance of them getting attacked by changeling and droid mercenary assassins between missions.

• Example Party
• Tass Brook is a former Twi'lek mercenary who did a lot of stealthy wetwork for the Empire until a lieutenant decided that she and her squad knew too much. She barely escaped with her life and the possessions on her back. She's accompanied by a raggedy protocol droid equipped with a ton of sensors and tech skills that she often has to repair owing to its lack of combat skills.
• Sgt. Grel'sak -- a Wookie that uses an electronic communicator to make his voice heard in Star Wars English -- was one of the few people that took their militia duties seriously on the old planet, which did not make him very popular among the weekend warriors. He's never been battle-tested but has a strict military bearing and inside-out knowledge of squad tactics. He is a crack shot with his Sonic Crossbow, a skill which makes him deadly accurate with any vehicularly-mounted weapon.
• Jedi Acolyte Oppa Karr was one of the few survivors of Darth Vader's slaughter of the younglings, probably because he used his changeling abilities to make his side-wound look more grievous than it was. While his training was aborted he was already showing much promise in force persuasion and super Jedi technical skills that they're known for. His skills have plateaued without proper force training and these days he's more known as an oddly successful civil engineer than a nascent Jedi warrior. No one expected him to volunteer for the planetary defense, but he sees it as his chance to stick it to the Empire.
• Genosian war profiteer Ze Ten-Ka'nna was never one to let the disintegration of the entire Trade Federation stop his ambitions. And with a keen eye towards politics predicted that the conflict would eventually reach his 'new' home planet. To this end, he's built up a miniature black-market empire and has squirreled away whatever weapons and survival gear with an intent on making a killing. Unfortunately for him the government confiscated most of his goods to distribute among the militia and offered him a 'deal' of serving in the regular militia and getting his goods compensating or being imprisoned for 60 years for conspiracy and smuggling. Fortunately for him, he kept some of the best goods for himself... and still has some favors to call in. He doesn't have a real specialty, but the 'whims of the Force' as he calls it makes it so that good equipment and the best of deals somehow keep falling into his hands.

Something like that.

[Red_Rob]

Those styles are so different that I think you'd be better picking three existing games that do those things well and shifting between them. You'd need to come up with some basic conversion rules, but it shouldn't be too difficult. You could use, say, Warp Cult for the RPG bits, VOR for the squad fights, Ogre for the mass land battles and Full Thrust for space fleet combat.

Because you are zooming out each time only certain information needs to transfer across. Converting an RPG character to a skirmish wargame character really only keeps the toughness, combat skills and equipment. Converting a skirmish wargame character to a vehicle or spaceship only keeps their piloting and gunnery skills.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Because you are zooming out each time only certain information needs to transfer across. Converting an RPG character to a skirmish wargame character really only keeps the toughness, combat skills and equipment. Converting a skirmish wargame character to a vehicle or spaceship only keeps their piloting and gunnery skills.

That would be a total deal-breaker for most genres, but it's my contention that by-and-large the archetype of 'poor close-range personal combatant, great pilot' or 'great pilot, poor close-range personal combatant' just plain doesn't exist in Star Wars for characters that A.) are major characters B.) have been exposed to both types of action sequences and C.) aren't comic relief. This applies to the video games, too. If you're badass in a blaster then chances are you're at least decent in vehicular combat. And vice-versa.