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

[Weiley31]

It literally was. One of the storylines starts from the premise that Luke's shot goes into the exhaust port, but doesn't make it all the way to the reactor. It causes a temporary power loss so that the Death Star's first shot at Yavin IV is at low intensity, causing massive earthquakes but not destroying it. Han has barely enough time to double back, pick up Leia, and get outta there before the Death Star recharges for a killing shot.

I don't recall the details of the subsequent story, except that it concludes with Yoda taking out Palpatine by using the Force to drop the Death Star on his palace on Coruscant.

Oh yeah, I think that was the one where Leia and Luke duel against each other on the Death Star II, Royal Guards with Darth Maul double bladed lightsabers, and, like you said, Yoda doing a self sacrifice by dropping the death star on Palpatines home address while they are both in there and watching the Battle of Endor or something. Or was it Moff Tarkin and Yoda in the Death Star watching everything? Can't remember.

 

[Weiley31]

Star Wars does not have to only be the Epic Skywalker Saga.

Honestly, the best Era where you can best do that is the Knights of The Old Republic era and Post New Republic/Legacy era.

Games set during The Old Republic MMO is probably another great one

The Clone Wars and it's nature means pretty much "everybody" contributes, depending who you are fighting for, with Order 66 being the doorstopper.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

This thread has me thinking about writing up a Sci-Fi homebrew for HERO with some SW elements- like jedi of some kind- as well as drawing from other franchises (Dune, Doctor Who, Firefly, Niven’s Known Space, etc.) but without going full on kitchen sink a la RIFTS.

 

[Zardnaar]

Honestly, the best Era where you can best do that is the Knights of The Old Republic era and Post New Republic/Legacy era.

Games set during The Old Republic MMO is probably another great one

The Clone Wars and it's nature means pretty much "everybody" contributes, depending who you are fighting for, with Order 66 being the doorstopper.

KoToR kind of covers from the Tales of the Jedi through to Old Republic era.

Alot of references and locations from Tales of the Jedi make it into KoToR 1&2.

New canon post Endor around Mandalorian isn't to developed and there's enough imperials left over to blast.

Legends was set 130 years after Jedi and was probably the last of the good EU to be made. Still had a Dkywalker but he was a deathstick addict and was right on the edge of lightside/darkside.

They had lots of interesting ideas though in that era.

 

[MarkB]

The Clone Wars and it's nature means pretty much "everybody" contributes, depending who you are fighting for, with Order 66 being the doorstopper.

Except that you have to live with the OOC knowledge that, no matter how great your contribution (to either side), Palpatine will find a way to balance the scales behind the scenes and keep the war going.

 

[macd21]

Except that you have to live with the OOC knowledge that, no matter how great your contribution (to either side), Palpatine will find a way to balance the scales behind the scenes and keep the war going.

I think that’s not really a problem, unless you make it one. You don’t have every mission be an attempt to win the war at one stroke. You make it about individual victories - lives saved, allies won, enemies thwarted. Not everything needs to be about saving the entire galaxy.

Like, people playing the 40k RPGs know they’re not going to save humanity, reform the Imperium into a utopia, slay the Chaos gods etc. But they still manage to have fun anyway, same with Star Wars.

 

[Eltab]

Except that you have to live with the OOC knowledge that, no matter how great your contribution (to either side), Palpatine will find a way to balance the scales behind the scenes and keep the war going.

OOC I also know what Palpatine is really up to. If the rest of the group is interested, our campaign can be the process of building up the resources to mess with that.

 

[MarkB]

I think that’s not really a problem, unless you make it one. You don’t have every mission be an attempt to win the war at one stroke. You make it about individual victories - lives saved, allies won, enemies thwarted. Not everything needs to be about saving the entire galaxy.

Like, people playing the 40k RPGs know they’re not going to save humanity, reform the Imperium into a utopia, slay the Chaos gods etc. But they still manage to have fun anyway, same with Star Wars.

True - but there's a difference between knowing that your actions are insignificant on the larger scale and knowing that there's a shadowy force actively working to counterbalance any victories you achieve, which you have no way of knowing about in-character.

 

[macd21]

True - but there's a difference between knowing that your actions are insignificant on the larger scale and knowing that there's a shadowy force actively working to counterbalance any victories you achieve, which you have no way of knowing about in-character.

I really don’t think there is. Like I said, there’s plenty of potential in a clone wars campaign, and I don’t think it would bother more than a handful of people. So what if the Empire is going to rise? Those refugees you saved have still been saved. You still deposed the Separatist tyrant of Mintsssa 3. You still stole the prototype starship that you now get to fly around in.

And if your players are amongst the small number who would be annoyed by this - you just play in another period.

 

[aramis erak]

If a other company picks up the licence I wonder if just redoing SWSE via the OGL or D6 which is now open source would make sense.

Skips the whole we need to design an RPG from the ground up phase.

SWSE wasn't OGL.
D6 has gone OGL, but the OGL d6 isn't quite the same. It's a major edition number difference.
But that's irrelevant.

Any company proposing that would need to convince Disney it's a good idea, and then could likely just literally reprint that edition. Why? Because both LFL and Disney had the sense to demand ownership of the copyrights as part of the license fees. So WEG, HasBro, or FFG/Asmodee have no ability to stop reprints once their licenses end.

As can be evidenced by the reprint of WEG 1E... FFG merely had to convince Disney, and they got to reprint the original.

Star Trek licenses likewise - except it's CBS, rather than Disney. Most license work the same way.