I was thinking of not following the movies for my campaign. I was just wondering if anyone else was doing the same and what other players thought of not going the route of the movies (Episodes V and VI).

Talking about completely changing the cannon? Or simply not being involved in any big events or dealing with big names?

Changing the canon. After the Battle of Yavin it's all up in the air. Historic battles will still occur, but the outcomes can be wholly different depending on how my PCs deal with the situations. Most player's know from the movies what will happen and know that do or die the outcome is already decided. Just like in Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards when Hitler dies in an explosion....took me by surprise and I loved it! Star Wars is a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away so maybe the canon in the movies is just an interpretation of what occured...for my game's sake anyways.

*shrug* What ever works best for your group. Personally I like being in the universe but not anywhere near the canon.

I like following canon (the new Disney one mostly), but then I don't include the players in any of the major events directly. As a player myself, and a GM, I find it boring to play out events (even if they go differently) that happened in a movie, etc.

Instead, I make up other big plots for my PC's to feel important in.

If I were going to include them in one of the events from the film, I would have them doing their own thing alongside the events in the movie.

BUT, it's your game and going non-canon is certainly an option!

I change canon just before the end of Episode IV. I did big posts on it before, but the short version is that the Heroes of Yavin die heroically destroying the Death Star II. The Rebellion also took some hard lumps that day, and now needs the PCs to step up as big **** heroes.

Hey, playing an Infinities campaign can be a whole lot of fun. Maelora (who seems to have departed for other pastures) had fully planned to run an AltU campaign that largely deep-sixed the Original Trilogy canon for her Age of Rebellion game.

But a large part of it depends on where the divergence between the established canon and your campaign takes place. Some players may not be thrilled to learn that the Death Star is still around because that hick farmboy from Tatooine thought he was too good for a targeting computer, and the Alliance is in a very shaky position due to a number of its top brass having been vaporized when Yavin IV when kaboom. Others might welcome the challenge of stepping up to succeed where the movie leads failed, or perhaps just outright taking their place in things.

One thing to be wary of is that your players might (unintentionally or otherwise) indulge in a bit of meta-gaming in regards to the canon timeline and things that happen in the movies, especially if the PCs are substituting for the roles that Luke, Leia, and Han played in the films.

But it can be a lot of fun to subvert those expectations, such as having Darth Vader be some random Jedi that came under Sith tutelage during the Clone Wars, and that Anakin Skywalker was just another of Vader's victims instead of being Vader himself. Or perhaps instead of Vader, Sidious found himself a more suitable apprentice, or maybe even splits Vader's role between two or more apprentices, using the resurrected Darth Maul as an assassin and a new character as the Supreme Commander of the Imperial military, one that maybe has a better working relation with the Imperial command staff?

Or perhaps Bail Organa wasn't on Alderaan when it went kaboom, and thus was able to keep the peace between Mon Mothma and Garm Bel Ibis, allowing the Alliance to have an even stronger military force? Or that Leia was on Alderaan with Bail having gone himself on the mission to recruit Obi-Wan.

Another thought is that a PC takes the place of Luke, and rather than Obi-Wan simply hanging back until the plot happens, decides to actually be more proactive in the training of this young Force-sensitive, so that when the PC enters play, they've actually got a firm grasp on the ways and ideals of the Jedi, even if they're still a bit shaky on usage of the Force. This would probably be a more viable option once Force and Destiny is out, but there's a few house-rule options for Jedi Careers that could be used in the meantime.

And it'd be easy enough to replace Han and Chewie with a coupe of PCs that have their own ship (though probably not as tricked out as the Falcon was) that could be hired to ferry "an old man, his tagalong kid, and a couple of droids to Alderaan, with no questions asked and avoiding an Imperial entanglements." Perhaps Han is off trying to smooth things over with Jabba, or got offered a more lucrative fare or one that seemed more of a sure thing than a couple of local yokels offering a high fare (really, what guarantee beyond his word did Obi-Wan provide that Han would be paid that extra 15 thousand?)

I only came to this game recently, so I thought this would have been answered before. But, considering how Edge is really Han Solo: The RPG, why aren't there stats for Han, Chewie, etc in the rulebook? Is it a licensing or game design decision. If you're going to follow the movie plots, you could just use the regular movie characters. A Journey to Hoth adventure path forex.

I've been running an infinities campaign as well. It's actually a three campaign saga that started in the d20 RCR, moved to SAGA, mutants and master minds 2nd ed, and finally now to to EotE. It's been a blast. W're currently in the second campaign which is set in the darktimes/rebellion era. My players know a fair amount about star wars so it has been fun to be able to switch things up on them. Characters that they expect to behave a certain way may end up entirely differently as their past was different. Since it is an infinities time line, I'm free to fully explore the consequences of my players actions without worry about the effect it will have on cannonic events. For example, my players had a direct influence on starting what would become the clone wars... and yes you can bet they regret that one.

You should have seen the looks on their faces when Master Yoda was killed during the attempt to arrest/kill Palpatine by the Jedi council... priceless.

The infinities campaign allows my players to be big **** heroes of the galaxy. Sure they can rub shoulders with a young Jedi named Luke Skywalker and his father Anakin Skywalker. Perhaps they will be the one who go toe to toe with Darth Vader. We'll have to see how the story plays out.