Star Wars RPG

I agree with you, Fulminata. Most RPGers who want to play Jedi just aren't mature enough to handle it. The same thing happened with Star Wars Galaxies. The designers intentionally kept the path to becoming a Jedi secret because they knew that players would abuse the Jedi class. When it finally went fully public and anyone could do it, what happened? The servers were overpopulated with powerful Jedi who were in game and out-of-game idiots.

I've been playing Wizards Star Wars since it started, in that time I played one jedi. I ended up killing the character off because I did not have fun with him.

When I ran games, I always ran in the Rebellion era and warned players that if they built Jedi that they would in fact be hunted.

In my experiences the best time to play a Jedi is in a Jedi group. We played an openly Jedi group in an Old Republic setting and it was so fun. Now if one of the characters would have been say a noble, I could see where he would feel a little left behind.

crossbonesx11 wrote:

In my experiences the best time to play a Jedi is in a Jedi group.

This appears to be another common solution, as is playing in the Rebellion era with no Jedi. I think it all comes down to the GM and the players in the group and what they can handle.

Wildeyedjester: Luke does fall to the Dark Side a few years after the Battle of Endor in the Expanded Universe, and is eventually pulled back with the help of Leia. I don't think that had anything to do with any proposed plot to any films. It was actually one of the sillier stories I felt, and was a factor in my ceasing to follow the Expanded Universe. The writer was so bereft of original ideas that he couldn't even come up with an original villain, instead cloning the Emperor. In retrospect, it was so silly that it could have come from the pen of Lucas, except there was nothing in it that would have been very marketable to kids ;-)

Ahhh! That's it! It was probably 15 years ago that I remember reading about Luke falling, and Leia trying to save him (Jedi, I think?). I also remember something about these very large vehicles that would descend on planets and more or less strip them. That's about it, though. At least I know i'm not going crazy now.

Yeah, closer to 20 years now, actually. It was a comic series called Dark Empire and first came out in '91 and '92. It's still apparently part of Expanded Universe canon, even though parts are apparently contradicted by the prequel movies, and it's one of the more criticized works among fans. Naturally, Lucas reportedly liked it.

I have heard that a GM should have either an all Jedi party or a no-Jedi party and not mix the two in the d20 Star Wars.

I have also heard that West End Star Wars was not like that at all.

I am only regurgitating what I have heard a reliable source say who ran and played both games.

While it had its own set of game issues, ICE's Space Master handled Jedi Powers as Psion powers with their own power point costs and lists that have to be learned similar to Rolemaster's Spell lists.

I have GM'd Space Master with Psionic player characters and they certainly never unbalanced the game in any way. While Psions were spending their development points on Psions other characters were spending their points on how to fix things, shoot weapons, and pilot space craft. The system always seemed to have characters balanced with each other. A Psion never outbalanced an Armsman in the game.

The system could be used to run a Star Wars campaign but I always ran my own homebrew campaign. That way I could follow my own canon and didn't have to take my cue from Lucas.

The original d6 Star Wars handled it by not having real Jedi. It was set solely in the Rebellion Era when the only Jedi were Kenobi and Yoda, so they simply didn't allow full Jedi PCs. Plus, the game was done prior to the prequels and all the expanded universe stuff showing more powerful Jedi. When you limit things to just what's seen in the original trilogy, then Jedi aren't that powerful, but when you add in the stuff shown in the prequels it's a lot harder to balance them.

Even with all that, Force using characters could get unbalanced as the game progressed.

Wildeyedjester wrote:

I'm going from memory here, but isn't Luke supposed to fall again to the dark side after the sixth film, in what would have been the next trilogy?

There never was going to be another trilogy of movies. There was only the one story of Anakin turning to Vader.

With the success of the Clone Wars, there has been some speculation that they may make some of the Expanded Universe stories into animated movies, the Thrawn Trilogy to more specific.
If you haven't read this series, it is REALLY GOOD!! While you can find them in graphic novel form, I recommend the novels.

Whether or not there was ever another trilogy planned is debatable. Lucas has changed his story so many times now that it's difficult to tell without going back and digging up old interviews. There was definitely a rumor going at least as far back as the early eighties that at one point Lucas had considered doing a trilogy of trilogies. That rumor was never denied by Lucas until he began work on the prequels, which is when he started to claim that he'd always planned on a six movie arc. This was patently a lie given what he said between the release of Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, when he told how he hadn't even planned on more than one movie until after the success of the first one. That's when the rumors of a trilogy of trilogies began to circulate.

He's backed off a bit since then, saying that he planned the cycle after the first movie, which is more believable. It's still unclear whether or not he ever planned more than six movies, and like most things about the whole issue, some of his statements are inconsistent.

Personally, I suspect that at one point he did indeed plan a trilogy of trilogies, but at some point decided that a six movie arc would be better. I'm just not sure if that point was before Empire or after work began on the prequels.

I had heard as early as 1979 that there were supposed to be a series of 9 movies in all. This was a rumor that was cultivated by Lucas, as far as I know. Even back that far the story was out the Vader fell into a volcano and that is why he was so messed up.

Of course; the story got embellished quite a bit and turned into a big fight scene but Obi-Wan was supposed to be involved in the volcano-diving.

I personally never read or watched any interviews with another trilogy planned. As for the unsureness of any after the initial movie, that is related to the fact that every major movie company passed on the idea of making star wars. They said that noone wants to watch a sci-fi fim, that fad is over. So FOX decided to "take a chance", and well, the rest is history.
The whole third trilogy nonsense came about because everyone assumed that Luke was the centralized figure of the story. And since the first movie had Episode IV in the title sequence, everyone assumed that there would be a trilogy before and after.

It was more than just rumors. A more extensive summary can be found on wikipedia but basically the idea of three trilogies has been reported in multiple sources, including Time magazine, and was referenced in at least one quote directly from Lucas himself. Lucas is a master of revisionism when it comes to the history of the films, going back at least to the Return/Revenge fiasco surrounding the naming of Return of the Jedi. Also, the first movie didn't have Episode IV in the title sequence when it was released. That was actually one of the earliest revisions.

Fulminata wrote:

It was more than just rumors. A more extensive summary can be found on wikipedia but basically the idea of three trilogies has been reported in multiple sources, including Time magazine, and was referenced in at least one quote directly from Lucas himself. Lucas is a master of revisionism when it comes to the history of the films, going back at least to the Return/Revenge fiasco surrounding the naming of Return of the Jedi. Also, the first movie didn't have Episode IV in the title sequence when it was released. That was actually one of the earliest revisions.

wikipedia, meh. Show me some hard proof. A link to an interview where it actually came out of his mouth. Until then, I'm going with what I know he said, both in a TV interview(many years ago, between Empire and Return.) and a one out of a magazine, Playboy. Which has been a trusted source of good literature for some time now.

When I first saw Star Wars in 1977 the name of the movie was....Star Wars. I never saw the title "A New Hope" until I got the VHS box set of the first three movies. Then I had to rewind about three times when I saw the "New Hope" thing. I kept saying "WTF?!" So Lucas is definitely a revisionist when it suits him.

At least Star Wars never dealt with time travel; at least in the movies it didn't. I never read any of the books. I am collecting the KOTR series by Dark Horse but I have never read one of them yet....

Verminlord wrote:

Fulminata wrote:

It was more than just rumors. A more extensive summary can be found on wikipedia but basically the idea of three trilogies has been reported in multiple sources, including Time magazine, and was referenced in at least one quote directly from Lucas himself. Lucas is a master of revisionism when it comes to the history of the films, going back at least to the Return/Revenge fiasco surrounding the naming of Return of the Jedi. Also, the first movie didn't have Episode IV in the title sequence when it was released. That was actually one of the earliest revisions.

wikipedia, meh. Show me some hard proof. A link to an interview where it actually came out of his mouth. Until then, I'm going with what I know he said, both in a TV interview(many years ago, between Empire and Return.) and a one out of a magazine, Playboy. Which has been a trusted source of good literature for some time now.

There's a link to the Time article in the Wikipedia article. The quote from Lucas is also cited, but it's from a book, so I can't send you a link. I think I'll have to take those over your personal recollections of things heard and read years ago.

In any case, Lucas himself simply is not a reliable source. He has a proven habit of changing his story to match whatever he currently wants to do. Today he's happy with six movies so it's "I always planned on six movies." If he changes his mind tomorrow and decides to do another trilogy then he'll be saying "I always planned on nine movies." That's just the way he is.

In any case, Lucas himself simply is not a reliable source.


And wikipedia is, when any joe schmoe can change the data, please. It's pure entertainment as far as I am concerned.


Chris, you should read the Dark Horse stuff. It is really good. Dark Empire is one the best stories they have done. I have the tradepaperback somewhere, you're welcome to borrow it if I can find it.

Verminlord wrote:

In any case, Lucas himself simply is not a reliable source.


And wikipedia is, when any joe schmoe can change the data, please. It's pure entertainment as far as I am concerned.

Wikipedia is a source that should always be verified, which is why the citations are there. I guess any Joe Schmoe can go rewrite old Time magazine articles too. I've provided solid evidence that three trilogies were indeed planned at one point, or at least discussed enough to have made it into print in a major news magazine, and not "just a rumor." You've provided vague personal recollections from an alleged TV interview from twenty years ago, and then dismissed my evidence out of hand for no reason.

Believe whatever you want, it's not really that big a deal, but I think we're destined to disagree on just about everything dealing with Star Wars, except that we like it, because I think Dark Empire is probably one of the worst things in the expanded universe

And... discontinued by WotC:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75862/22320337/Wizards_of_the_Coast_announcement

bsimon wrote:

And... discontinued by WotC:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75862/22320337/Wizards_of_the_Coast_announcement

Well, glad I have been working on finishing sets of the minis. Now just have to wait and see who picks up the liscence.

John, how can you not like Dark Empire? It's the only comic to be referenced in the novels, Luke actually turns to the dark side and there is clones of the emperor! C'mon, what's not to like?

Verminlord wrote:

John, how can you not like Dark Empire? It's the only comic to be referenced in the novels, Luke actually turns to the dark side and there is clones of the emperor! C'mon, what's not to like?

Heh, pretty much everything you just described. It's been close to two decades since I last read it, but from what I remember the author failed to sell me on the idea that Luke would ever do that. It seemed completely out of character from what we knew of the character up to that point.

Cloning the Emperor was even more lame. It reeked of "I can't come up with a good villain, so I'll just reuse an old one."

I also thought that the droid army was lame... who knew that droid armies would eventually become a staple of the universe?

Also, which novels do you mean? I'm pretty sure that events from both the Rogue Squadron comics, and the Tales of the Jedi comics have been referenced in novels from the expanded universe, although I can't be sure since I stopped reading most expanded universe stuff a long time ago.