Why Doesn't Star Wars Hold More Mind Share in the RPG Market?

[Eltab]

I have to think that the last movie Trilogy was no friend to its own franchise. You've heard about the Heroes and their legendary Deeds since you were a little kid, you finally get to "meet" them yourself (watching the new movies) and see what they do to face new challenges - and find out they are washed-up has-beens. Sure, the special effects are cool, but the new characters are just ... ordinary.
Disappointed would-be fans do not go out to find a game that lets them "be inside" the movie too.

And the problem of finding a game (due to licensing &c) has been covered above better than I can cover it.

 

[Undrave]

I’d say it’s a similar problem Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time. The strength of the source material is also its main problem.

Creating relevant characters and situations that feel like Star Wars / GOT / Middlearth / WOT seem to usually do this by referencing characters and events in the films/TV/Books. So how do you make it your own and not be overshadowed by the main storyline.

I think Star Wars does better than most with the huge body of spin off material. But to a lesser extent this suffers from the same problem.

Star Wars rpg products are something I love to read, but when it comes to running a campaign I find ideas become either totally derivative or so unlike Star Wars to make it pointless.

We played a campaign once where one player was a Jedi and the rest of us were clone troopers with different specialities. Life got in the way but it was fun.

 

[wingsandsword]

Vampire, Traveller, GURPS, and others. Sure, they were far FAR behind D&D in sales, but you still seemed to notice people playing them and their products were on shelves.

For the record, it's my understanding that, at least briefly in the late 1990's, Vampire was outselling D&D. This was both as TSR's collapse was imminent and they were mismanaging D&D, and World of Darkness stuff was extremely trendy and popular.

 

[TheSword]

We played a campaign once where one player was a Jedi and the rest of us were clone troopers with different specialities. Life got in the way but it was fun.

I’m sure a lot of people play the game the same way. A lot of fun for a short to medium term but probably not a game to build you gaming group around.

I’m sure there are lots of groups that buck the trend and play exclusively Star Wars RPGs but I suspect proportionally it’s less. Though that’s a gut feel.

I feel the same about Middle Earth. Nice place to visit, lousy place to live.

 

[Undrave]

I’m sure a lot of people play the game the same way. A lot of fun for a short to medium term but probably not a game to build you gaming group around.

I’m sure there are lots of groups that buck the trend and play exclusively Star Wars RPGs but I suspect proportionally it’s less. Though that’s a gut feel.

I feel the same about Middle Earth. Nice place to visit, lousy place to live.

The other one, with the aforementioned house rule, where I was a Duro pilot lasted for quite a while and actually concluded. Then we took some of the players and did a Mutant and Mastermind game which also had a conclusion.

 

[Wolfram stout]

Hello,

It may well have more mind share than you give it credit for. I bet if you put up a poll, the vast majority of players here have played a Star Wars RPG at some point. There may not be a lot of Star Wars talk here, but there is huge communities elsewhere. I know FFG has very active forums for Star Wars as well as many places to talk D6.

Without a unified RPG tradition (As others have mentioned) it can be hard to see.

 

[Bravesteel25]

Hello,

It may well have more mind share than you give it credit for. I bet if you put up a poll, the vast majority of players here have played a Star Wars RPG at some point. There may not be a lot of Star Wars talk here, but there is huge communities elsewhere. I know FFG has very active forums for Star Wars as well as many places to talk D6.

Without a unified RPG tradition (As others have mentioned) it can be hard to see.

You definitely correct, but I guess the more pointed question would be why any one Star Wars RPG, during the time it was being published, did not have more mind share than they did/do?

Certainly, I know of many great Star Wars RPG Communties via Reddit, Facebook Groups, and other forums.

 

[Deset Gled]

I have to think that the last movie Trilogy was no friend to its own franchise. You've heard about the Heroes and their legendary Deeds since you were a little kid, you finally get to "meet" them yourself (watching the new movies) and see what they do to face new challenges - and find out they are washed-up has-beens. ...

I think this is a true statement for different reasons.

First, the bigger Star Wars gets, the harder it is to make an RPG for. When the WEG D6 game was out, there were basically 3 Star Wars eras: Pre-Yavin, Trilogy Adjacent, and Post-Endor. It was easy to make RPG books that were explicitly in one of these three categories, and they all played together pretty well. Currently, there's the Old Republic (and a few eras you could break that down in to), Prequel Era, Early Empire, Original Trilogy Era, Post Original Era, Sequel Era, and Post-Sequel. That's a lot of eras. What's worse, a lot of material published for one era won't work in another; modules for the Clone Wars won't work with the First Order, etc. It's like the fall of TSR when they had too many worlds spread too thin.

Second, any Star Wars RPG is all about the EU, and the EU is kind of a mess right now. There's a lot of material that is essentially in limbo. WEG had a lot of free reign to build the EU (lot of people don't realize how much of the EU came from the game). I can't pretend to have industry knowledge, but I imagine FFG has a lot less freedom. Even doing something as simple as a Mos Eisley splat book would become a game of "Whose history is canon now? What am I allowed to reference?"

I think both of those things are huge hurdles before you even start discussing whether or not people liked the sequels and the toxicity of the fanbase.

 

[Bravesteel25]

I think both of those things are huge hurdles before you even start discussing whether or not people liked the sequels and the toxicity of the fanbase.

I think these are only hurdles because people are making them hurdles. You can easily make an adventures that are pointed at a specific era and then have a sidebar with suggestions on adjusting them to different eras. Much like WotC does with their adventures. Want to use this in Eberron? How about doing this. Want to set this in Greyhawk? Place this here and adjust this.

In terms of supplemental materials, they don't have to be so era specific. Star Wars is a universe where technology changes slowly if at all and advancements that are made tend to be lateral rather than vertical ones.

I won't get into the reception of the movies, although there is merit there.

 

[Umbran]

I figure there's also a strong tendency for a game that is setting-specific to have a lower cap of player interest than one that is more setting-agnostic. If you want to run a Star Wars game, you need an entire group that's into playing Star Wars, specifically, where i don't need a group that all wants to play in one specific setting to play D&D - I can more easily craft my setting to fit player desires with D&D than Star Wars.