No more Star Wars RPG - It's Official

[Garnfellow]

So, what does this mean for the website content?

I don't just mean web enhancements and such. Colums like Jedi Counseling, and the recent articles on Episode III were absolutely great. Does this mean that no articles will be written anymore? Will existing ones be taken down?

I would expect that once the license expires, not only will there no longer be any more new articles, but all the old articles will be taken down, as with the Call of Cthulhu pages. Then the Internet Archive will be your friend.

(Yeah, I know there are still rogue copies of the Cthulhu stuff up on the Wizards server, but they aren't easy to find.)

 

[philreed]

Ditto. That product line ruled

I have a hard time arguing with this point of view. After all, my first professional work in the game industry was writing for WEG's version of the Star Wars RPG.

 

[Psion]

It is quite a shame. I got more enjoyment out of the d20 version than I ever did the d6 version.

 

[Breakdaddy]

I know that many of us saw this coming, but it is no less dissapointing to actually hear. I own a copy of every SWD20 book they released, so I have years of gaming ahead of me before I lament the lack of new source material. I have already begun the process of converting a good portion of the revised rules over to the Spycraft 2.0 engine.

 

[LostSoul]

It is quite a shame. I got more enjoyment out of the d20 version than I ever did the d6 version.

Our experiences with the two systems have differed. But do you think that you could continue to play Star Wars d20 by gathering rules material from other d20 sources, fluff material from other Star Wars sources, and never miss a beat in your game?

My gut reaction is that it would be possible (albeit more difficult, because you'd never know where to look for good new Star Wars PrCs or Force rules).

 

[philreed]

Our experiences with the two systems have differed. But do you think that you could continue to play Star Wars d20 by gathering rules material from other d20 sources, fluff material from other Star Wars sources, and never miss a beat in your game?

My gut reaction is that it would be possible (albeit more difficult, because you'd never know where to look for good new Star Wars PrCs or Force rules).

I know that a lot of the Future PDFs I've written -- especially some of the starships -- have seen use in D20 Star Wars games.

 

[Digital M@]

The problem w/ SW and LotR worlds is that game companies can only publish what they get permission for and that usually equals only what is in the books and movies. Since the story in the books and or movies is only a snap shot of the world as a whole and there is already an epic struggle going on, it makes the worlds difficult or dull to play in.

 

[Crothian]

LOL!!! If that isn't the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.

I'm the pot???

 

[delericho]

To be honest, I feel somewhat relieved by this. I'm not sure exactly why, but I guess it's something to do with my gut feeling that we weren't ever going to see any more support for the RPG, and this just removes that last lingering hope.

I don't think there's really any need for more support anyway. Granted, they never did that book on space stations, and I think we would have benefitted from updated Starships of the Galaxy and Arms & Equipment Guides, but that's about it. As mentioned earlier in the thread, there is material for d20 Future that can be easily converted, and there is quite a lot of fan-made material out there that can be used. So, despite the lack of ongoing official support, I doubt this will see the end of Star Wars roleplaying.

I also agree with comments earlier in the thread about the rules never really gelling correctly. The first edition suffered from starship combat rules that didn't do what they should have done. The second edition cleared up a lot of problems, but it remained very flawed (IMO), in addition to being released too soon after the first edition (also IMO). I think, had WotC been inclined to continue support, it might well have been prudent to do a third edition before too long, taking the system apart and rebuilding it from scratch to solve the issues people still had. And I'm quite certain that it's too soon for a third edition of that particular game.

 

[tsadkiel]

I'm the pot???

Absolutely. I worked on the official Crothian d20 rpg, and the licensing process was awful. That's why it failed.