When I think Star Wars, I think big, loud, grandiose, action, and huge stakes. I think of big monsters and big ships getting blown to bits. It's an epic story and I want my games to be on the same scale.

However, the published adventures, both FFG and fan made, seem to be much smaller in scale than any Star Wars movie I've seen. I understand that this is Edge of the Empire and that the big conflicts are coming in AoR.

Still I'm curious, how big are your stories? Are the stakes personal, galactic, or both?

In the story I'm attempting to tell (hah!), the stakes are starting off small, but I hope to be able to keep the story active and interesting long enough to get to a 'save the galaxy' stage.

I go for escalation. Adventure 1 is small potatoes, Adventure 12 is the all you can eat lobster buffet.

Define "story."

If you're talking overall "campaign" meaning the story that is going to span months (maybe years) across dozens of play sessions, then yes, it will be huge, If you mean a single story arc, the size varies, but some of them span several sessions and are pretty epic. If you're talking about an adventure or "module" that can fit into a single session, they're going to be fairly small comparatively speaking.

I have a separate plot thread for each of my four players based around their motivations and obligations. Three of them are fairly small, personal stories but the fourth is a mind-wiped droid with a more epic plot line.

I started off with Trouble Brewing and Debts to Pay to familiarize them with the rules, moved into two of the personal threads. When we just hit the Droid's story arc they decided to follow that arc and not introduce the last player's arc. Eventually they will go back to it I suppose, assuming they want to.

So I suppose the simple answer is both based on the desires of the players.

MY campaign is based around Mas Amedda and the missing "Palpatines Eye" Station.

In our first game we got the playes settled in,

in upcoming games we will be branching the published adventures and free form adventures revealin the hidden nemessis of Mas and eventually culminating in the party discovering the lost Station, Mas has discoverd in his hunt for sith artefacts and plans to use it to care out his own part of the galaxy..

It really depends on the campaign. Some tend to lend themselves of building to bigger than life climaxes. My Prequel Era All-Jedi game had bits and pieces come together for a big ol' Order 66 Showdown. I purposely built the last 6 months of my old "formation of the Rebellion" game to culminate in a massive showdown with the Empire - that "won their first victory" victory.

Right now, however, with a tramp freighter crew with no agenda to join the Rebels and a strong desire to stay out of the line of fire, we're just drifting along. There might be some personal story arcs - but saving the galaxy in one big hullabaloo? Probably not. And you know, I'm find with that.

That has been an issue with any game set at the same time as the original trilogy. You can't really have a 'save the galaxy' campaign when that story has already been told and we know how the galaxy is saved. We also know that when Ben says 'He's our only hope', and Yoda says, 'No, there is another', that he's not talking about Ham Salad the force sensitive smuggler/thief from your campaign.

For my campaign I set it a few years before the first Death Star is blown up. That gives the players a chance to do the Han Solo origin type of adventures without much thought of the Rebellion. My plan is to have the players reluctantly enter the fight against the Empire around the time that the Rebellion source book comes out. That will give me some time to have the characters feel like the outsiders who got swept up into the Rebellion. I plan to have them take part in getting the first Death Star plans to Princess Leia and to barely miss getting blown up on Alderaan. I'll come up with more adventures as the campaign progresses, but I'm going to be careful to avoid having any direct involvement in the story we saw in the movies. I don't want the characters to be overshadowed (or overshadow) the main characters in movies.

By the time we get the third book it should be time for them to start becoming Jedi and help defend the new Republic. I've not been much on the Star Wars extended universe, so until the next movies I don't have much knowledge of what is 'canon' for the post Empire universe.

Probably my biggest failing as a GM is I cannot do large single story arcs. Seriously, I've tried, they always fall apart or are so trope ridden the players already know what’s going to happen and the sessions turn into parody before being inevitably side tracked to other things or a new game. The long term planning required to make a cohesive story line, have it remain interesting and flexible enough for unforeseen events due to player action or inaction is simply beyond my capabilities. More or less I can plan effectively for 4 to 5 sessions (with the average session lasting 2.5hrs), and as such I can do "mini-arcs." These tend to be about the same length, or perhaps a less than, the published adventures FFG has put out. After that it’s onto the next session, which may only have tangential links to the previous (same employer for example or recurring issues due to a bounty gained during a job.)

This is also helped by my current set of players don't seem to have any galactic spanning ambitions. They're not eager to try to join or take down either the Empire or Rebellion. They have no real desire to root out or take over criminal organizations like the Hutt cartels or Black Sun, though the pilot does rope them into assisting slaves when they can. While they have ties with various organizations, they enjoy their freelance status. It allows them to do something different every few sessions if they so choose, whether its taking the odd mercenary job for some action or scouting out Wild Space for a while (AKA hiding from the fallout of the former.) It also allows them to follow what they're characters goals are without them getting caught up in the larger machinations of an over arcing campaign. It seems to work, so no Macguffins or 'Save the Galaxy" campaigns for me.

That has been an issue with any game set at the same time as the original trilogy. You can't really have a 'save the galaxy' campaign when that story has already been told and we know how the galaxy is saved. We also know that when Ben says 'He's our only hope', and Yoda says, 'No, there is another', that he's not talking about Ham Salad the force sensitive smuggler/thief from your campaign.

I agree that your PC's can't save the galaxy from Vader and the Emperor, especially if you want to follow canon. I'm not sure that means your story has to be on a small scale. It's a big galaxy. There are lots of bad guys that have nothing to do with the Empire and the Empire itself is so large, I'm sure there were more than a few groups of criminals they were chasing.

I was mostly curious about this because so many people I've talked with are running some sort of Firefly/Star Wars hybrid. There's nothing wrong with that, I like Firefly as much as the next nerd.

Do you guys think the ruleset, is geared towards this style of play or is just player and GM taste?

Do you guys think the ruleset, is geared towards this style of play or is just player and GM taste?

I think the ruleset is geared towards that, partly because there are only a few Force options, and the PC specializations are geared towards "outlaws".

My own campaign is hopefully going to grow to the point where the players have enough assets or pull to bring down (or cripple) the Zyggerian slave trade. That's the very long goal, but currently they are in the early throes of this, since they just got captured by said Zyggerians...

That has been an issue with any game set at the same time as the original trilogy. You can't really have a 'save the galaxy' campaign when that story has already been told and we know how the galaxy is saved. We also know that when Ben says 'He's our only hope', and Yoda says, 'No, there is another', that he's not talking about Ham Salad the force sensitive smuggler/thief from your campaign.

A GM can make anything happen in these games. You don't have to follow the movie scripts or even the general plot.

Why all the focus on the Death Star and what happens in canon? You can have a very epic story that doesn't go anywhere near the movie plot. The Empire had all sorts of other weapons, plans, and schemes that could be made into an epic chronicle. Heck, you could even give them another super-weapon that the players need to destroy.

Why keep the galaxy small?

Plus, this is the Edge forum If we were in the AoR subforum, well, I could understand it!

In my game, Bindi'ana and her crew are delving into history best left untouched. The fact that there was a Death Star and a rebellion might never even enter into the story. It's a huge galaxy, after all, and the rebels are doing their best to hide. I could put my players on Hoth (and probably will), and they'd never be anywhere near the base or the assault.

For my ongoing group, the stakes are mostly personal with larger ramifications. Things are building up towards an epic conflict however. Over the course of the first two seasons, the group has come to discover that the previous owners of their ship were archaeologists. They had discovered the hidden data left on the navicomputer and since decrypted it. They haven't managed to correlate the data to modern era starcharts yet, but they did accidentally find one of the worlds. There was something on it best left undisturbed. Basically things are ramping up towards a shadow war to save the galaxy from a threat that few realise is happening because they're mostly focused on the Galactic Civil War.

Any GM can backdoor a major Big Bad into their stories if they want. The galaxy is huge and if you care about canon, then you can just have your epic stuff happen far away from the trilogy locations. If you don't give a crap about canon, then the skies the limit.

The scope of my game will depend largely on the charchters. I have several key gifures mapped out as well as a coupple specific encouters but it will up to the players how they interact with each person and deal with each encounter. If they go for the grandiose it will be grandiose if they are happy with a more inconspicuious campeign though it will be more simplistic. I will just keep it adapatbale and see where it goes.

As far as length goes, my current D&D campeign is already going on 60 hours of game play and I anticipate it going for at least 150 hours. Our tipical session is 8-12 hrs long. I have not finished outlining our Edge campeign which I hope to begin after D&D but I anticipate anywhere from 100-150 hrs on the campeign. That being said the D&D campeign is already spawing ideas for a follow up and will likly be revisited. I anticipate the same thing from starwars. In the end it will last as long as the group does... luckily 4 of the 5 players and myself are related so it is unlikly we will loose contact.

... luckily 4 of the 5 players and myself are related so it is unlikly we will loose contact.

That reminds me of being fourteen, maybe younger and laying on my cousins bedroom floor playing WEG, using a stolen stop sign just laying on the ground as our table.

Good times.

Now that my wife and I live in the same state as the rest of my family we foudn out that my sister and Brother in law like D&D also. Once we knew that I just had to convince my wife to try it an wa-la a pre made group. Add to that my 15 year old nephew and it makes for some great games. Also his little brother (3) has an honarary charchter, the little god of chaos. The little god of chaos can do what ever he wants and has made for some interesting scenarios such as colapsing a cave on the party, summuning a purple worm, oh and truning his brother into cake. It is imposible to be more random than a 3 year old, and it is nice he can be a part of the game for 3-5 minutes before he gets board.

Examples of other Super Weapons/Projects:

Dark Trooper Project: Clone/Storm Troopers augmented by cybernetics that evolves into a full blown droid with special armor

Sun Crusher: Indestructible Star destroying ship.

Zsinj experiment: Aliens implanted with different things and turned into spies. One was hypnosis and the other was installing certain implants to make them sleeper agents or assassins in aliens.

Krytos: A deadly disease designed to target all non-humans unleashed on Coruscant

These are examples of experiments the Emperor and those that followed him, however, you could make things based on this saying that your research is what causes them to be discovered or it could be the exact same thing that just disappeared through the actions of your players before someone takes the ball and runs with it.

Other ideas:

Cloning the best of the best: much like how the clone troopers were formed however this would be on a much smaller scale. Your players take on the templates and wreck the labs before they get going.

Order 66: Your players are bounty hunters and explorers seeking out new jedi and blasting them. Sounds cruel but remember by this point and time Jedi are criminals and most don't live long enough to prove or dispute it.

Anti-Order 66: Your players are smugglers and explorers seeking out new worlds for the Jedi to hide on until the time comes to strike back. This could also include any kids of Jedi to help the story along.

Holy Destroyers: The players come across a secret shipyard designing next gen star destroyers and they steal or destroy most of them. (Think frieghter sized star destroyer. Could be scary.)

Blast from the distant past: The Ebon Hawk reappears after centuries lost in the unknown regions. What ungodly god like light/dark siders have come back from the black to wreck havoc on the now? Your players are hired to stop the rampage of possibly your players former video game personas lol.

Or you can run with the suggestion of canon can go right out the window. My storyline going to be what if the players were given the plans to deliver and not Leia. The whole OT has just been shifted extremely to the point of didn't happen for most of the movie cast. So what happens? You can check out my thread here with my thoughts on how I plan on running it.

As others have pointed out the Empire is a big entity and the Rebellion wasn't small either nor solely alone as you had Garm Bel Iblis, Black Sun, and Zann Consortium causing a ruckus in random places. You could even have it where your players are leading a more subtle or aggressive branch of any of those trying to root out the evil that is the Empire or has taken root in the Empire (if they are pro-Empire). Just ideas and my humble opinion.

I am keeping the scope focused on one sector right now. Players are just now starting to travel to different planets and figure out the sector. Not going much further then that. Once they start a popular uprising against he Empire in the sector they will move on to the DarkStryder campaign

I'm trying to let my players dictate the scope of the story. I'm running Trouble Brewing and Debts to Pay back to back, then letting them do their own thing for a bit before recruiting them for Jewel of Yavin and letting the inevitable fallout of that dictate what happens next.

That said, I've also laid the groundwork for something bigger in scope while working with my players on characters' motivations and backgrounds when we got started. I won't *force* things to that end, but there's a high probability it will go where I want it to naturally.

I think it's a combination of GM taste and the nature of the "Edge of the Empire" setting, perhaps, versus the Rebellion or Jedi-focused storylines.

I know when I have roleplayed Star Wars in the past I enjoyed playing stories that were important to the characters, but not necessarily the most galaxy-spanning epic adventures ever.

In our campaign I have escalation in mind, where it begins more low-key and becomes bigger as it goes on.

Early on, the players will hear about the destruction of Alderaan. Several sessions later they will run into Vader's newest protege, a hotshot young pilot named Lord Skywalker. At this point they get to decide whether or not to get involved (which, IME, is always "yes please").

Our overall campaign started off humbly enough, with a small group struggling to make ends meet. As the campaign has moved forward (18 3+ hour sessions so far) me and my co-GM have started to seed in hints of bigger elements that may or may not expand the scope of the campaign (but knowing us, absolutely will expand the scope into something more epic in time).

The setting is 19 BBY, during the Reconquest of the Rim.

My campaign started with most characters aboard a Prison Shuttle that went down during an escape attempt from another prisoner.

They happily ratted the same prisoner out to a couple of Bounty Hunters in order to get their first money and some loot from the dead minions of said prisoner. The BHs were generous and also left them the keys for the convicts ship.

Now they do delivery jobs in the outer rim for everybody throwing enough money their way in order to get new IDs (they are presumed dead in the shuttle crash) and gear all around.

Running jobs for Jabba, Separatist survivors and such so far went rather well, but the Empire is closing in and will make certain jobs impossible.

How big they get will be their responsibility, i run a very sandbox-type of game.