D&D General Settings with Story

[Xamnam]

Like Faolyn, I also enjoyed those ads. They were a pretty good reminder that there is room for a lot more stories in the Star Wars setting than the main Skywalker narrative. And the proliferation of shows, particularly the Mandalorian, just underscores the idea that there is a lot of room for parallel stories.

I will say, I imagine that if I had gotten into the expanded universe, and become familiar with more of the non-film material, perhaps the Skywalker story wouldn't feel so definitional, and I'd be more excited about exploring other corners. There's definitely plenty of room in that universe! The less iconic one singular story is in that world, the more attractive telling my own is, and that's always going to be a function of my personal relationship with a setting.

 

[Laurefindel]

I like to fill out the blanks

Star Wars is giving us a bunch of example of this with the Clone Wars animated series between SW2 and SW3, the Mandalorean between SW6 and SW7, and Rogue One between SW3 and SW4. A rebel-era period that always interested me was the few years between SW4 and SW5 when the rebel alliance was hunted down by the Empire and frequently had to change base and look for new ones, recruiting more members at the same time.

I though The One Ring (1st ed) proposed something very interesting by exploring the Wilderlands presented in The Hobbit but absent in LotR , 5 years after the death of Smaug and 60-ish years before the Fellowship. We know from canon sources that the Bardings and Elves and Dwarves fought during the War of the Ring and that the #2 Nazgul was holding Dol Guldur during that period, but details are open to interpretation.

So even if we know that the metaplot goes from A to B, what happens in between is fun to explore

 

[Umbran]

How about other folks? Are you interested in storied settings for their own sake or only interested in the iconic stories from those settings or a mix of both?

I am generally not interested in playing through an adventure that's already been covered in other media. I have no interest in replaying the actions of Star Wars: A New Hope, or the adventures of the Companions of the Lance as detailed in the original Dragonlance trilogy. Or, how I liked the Cortex-based Marvel Super Heroic RPG system, but didn't play it beyond a couple of tests because the support beyond, "Play this iconic storyline with these iconic characters" was basically non-existent.

So, my interest in a setting based on a media property is entirely based on how much information we have beyond the original media. If we were limited in information to what was on screen in Star Wars Episodes IV-VI, I'd have little interest in playing in the setting. But, with Expanded Universe, my position changes. One of the most interesting and engaging campaigns I've ever played in was a Star Wars Saga Edition game.

Similar with Dragonlance - a ton of books, and sufficient world to work our own stories in. Star Trek, tons of canon to frame a game - I'm there.

The Alien franchise? No so much. I have little interest.

 

[Tonguez]

I must be one of the few who liked the Caravan of Courage and would enjoy playing more adventures on the Moon of Endor. I’d love to swing through the trees of Kashyyk and having now read parts of The Last Ringbearer I could see myself playing in that version of Mordor on the brink of an Industrial revolution.

 

[Faolyn]

• What's with the pattern of "13-1" in the setting? (There are 13 countries in Khorvaire, one of them blew up. There were 13 "true" dragonmarks, one of them got genocided thousands of years ago. There were 13 moons, the giants destroyed one of them. There were 13 planes of existence that could create manifest zones, the giants cut off one of them. And so on.)

Personally, I like the out-of-game reason so much I don't want there to be an in-game reason.

 

[Lanefan]

Poof, your PC's are now the center of the story and we can fold, spindle and [***] maul the setting to our heart's content.

Shouldn't there be a "Darth" in there somewhere?

 

[Stormonu]

Back when the West End Star Wars RPG came out, we played in a campaign set between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, playing mostly the modules that came out. We had a blast, and even had an adventure at one point where we ran into Luke Skywalker while we were undertaking a mission (we were delivering something to him - we didn't know it was him though, until we met). We had a blast with it, and when I run such games, I tend to set them in the same time frame - though I did do one with the PCs being surviving padawans just after Order 66.

I've also run an Aliens one-shot that's taken place in some unspecified time between Prometheus and Aliens. It was a blast, and the players have told me they'd be in for a follow-up. It was a game that took place in that universe, but had nothing to do with the movie events.

I've run a Firefly game set somewhere before the events of the Serenity movie, and the players enjoyed it. One of the missions had them in a race to pick up and complete a delivery run before the movie ship beat them to it. The players had a lot of fun, and managed to succeed over Mal and his group (there was a chase at one point, and a stand-off. Wouldn't say it ended amicably, but both sides walked away alive - and it just felt right for that universe).

Conversely, I've tried to run the DL adventures with the PCs being the Heroes of the Lance and had them be dismal failures.

I don't mind playing in an existing universe, but playing as the story heroes of that universe isn't my cup of tea.

 

[Dioltach]

Shouldn't there be a "Darth" in there somewhere?

Darth Spindle? Sounds like the least intimidating Sith ever.

(Although that reminds me of a Blackadder quote: "Turnip isn't a rude word." - "It is if you sit on one!")

 

[Hussar]

This premise makes you , but it feels hollow to me and makes me because it's asking me to pretend that the story didn't happen the way that I know that it did. So there is absolutely no fun for me in your premise because at the end of the day, I know that Luke doesn't die in Mos Eisley Cantina. If I sat at your table to play a game of Star Wars that was set in the Star Wars Universe, and you told me this premise, I would probably walk away from your table then and there. No joke.

And that’s totally fair.

Different strokes and all that. I get that the baseline for the “story” of a setting will mean different things to different people.

 

[Hussar]

.

The Alien franchise? No so much. I have little interest.

See now the Alien franchise I’d have no problem with. All we have is one encounter with the Aliens - Ripley’s story. But since Ripley do any actually resolve anything beyond that very local encounter in each movie, there’s no problem in having more.

Heck simply setting it after the fourth movie would be easy enough.