I was just wondering, what have you guys done with the star wars universe? Have you made any major changes to the setting, places, movers and shakers? What about playing in a homebrew setting with the system? While leaving the core system in tact of course.

When I started my game, I told my players that I didn't have any problem with any of the lore from any Star Wars movie, book, comic, or game that they wanted to introduce to the campaign. "Hell," I said, "you can even play a Gungan if you really want to. And I promise to only judge you a little bit".

But, I explained, there is one exception: In MY Star Wars, there is no such thing as a midi-GD-chlorian. They don't exist. The Force, as far as we're concerned, is exactly as Ben explained it to Luke in Ep1. No blood parasites necessary.

Well though the PCs don't know it yet, almost twenty major Sith Lords from the Galactic Cold War are about to be thawed out of carbonite in a session or two. Does that count?

My players saved Bail Organa from Alderaan's destruction. I've got plans for him that can involve the PCs if they want. If they want to do something else, my Organa idea will happen off-camera.

My players know I am a Star Wars nut and am willing to use pretty much all the EU as read (there are no Force users in the group so I don't need to rant at them about how stupid midichlorians are). What they don't seem to get though is that I reserve the right as GM to add anything to the EU that I want to advance the game or make things interesting. In the last session, their ship was hijacked by a homicidal AI virus that can transmit itself through any advanced technology with a computer in it aka just about anything more complex than a gaffi stick. They kept asking each other "there is no AI in Star Wars so that can't be it. Are there computer viruses in Star Wars?". I didn't answer them since they never asked me but if I was honest I would have said "Why would there not be?" The AI left the ship after they delivered it to a new playground (Tatooine of all places)

It has had the brilliant side effect that the PCs are now freaked out whenever they hear elevator music coming from a not elevator, like the song in the movie "Fallen", which will be a reoccuring bad guy for the group.

I've always kept my scale fairly small for my players, meaning they aren't directly involved in the major events of the war, or really the war at all. It's pretty easy that way to simply use the Star Wars universe as background/environment, and not be concerned at all with EU/Legends/Continuity/Whatever, at all. It's a big galaxy.

I've largely thrown out canon from outside the movies, but I've also made clear to my players that I'm willing to work anything in that they want, either from Legends or from their own head-canons. I've even worked in a couple of minor characters for one player's background.

Ultimately, I want room to play, which is why I cast out all of Legends.

History in my universe started at 0.5 ABY. (six months after Yavin), All legends, Cannon, and anything else that happened after that are gone! Fing Midichlorians don't exist, no wookie Jedis... and...

and the Gungans were wiped out by the Death Star simply on principle.!!!!

my players spent considerable time with an Archeologist (rebel) researching and exploring for a secret weapon that was supposedly used during a battle in the clone wars. They were taken to the debris field from the battle which officially does not exist. Eventually they found a hidden clone base in an anstroid inside a highly radioactive nebula in the moddell sector. Upon further exploration they descovered the base was developing force sensitive clones bassed off a Jedi who was in statis at the base. The sole surving ship form the aforementions battle had returned heavily dammaged and radiation exposure in had resulted in the death of all personell at the base. Asuming it had been destroid the few people who know about the base in the frist place removed all mentions of it from the official records.

The party resucited the Jedi who still believed the clone wars were going on and harvested all the weapons they could for sale. The archiologist was a rebel organizer and now the base, and all of its data, are in the hands of the rebellion... or at leat will be at some point.

Right now, we're pretty much thrown everything out and placed our game smack in the middle of the Sith Cold War. No Luke, no Vader, no Star Destroyers - just lots and lots of Sith and Jedi.

In the past we've done a "Rebels before Rebels was a thing" campaign, putting together the alliance during the Dark Times. This was our Black Ops game, where we did all of dirty deeds that Mothma would have a heart attack over.

We've done an All-Padawan game starting just before Phantom Menace (back in 1999, just after the movie dropped) and ran concurrent with E2 and E3. Mind you, we wound up saving Anakin from the fall and left ourselves in a good spot to start our own splinter Jedi order.

And the one story arc I was most proud of, where one itty-bitty change (Saving Luke on Hoth before nightfall) resulted in the near victory of the Empire over the New Republic under Thrawn. That one was fun.

When I run my games, I tend to stick very close to canon and draw heavily upon the EU (so does Fantasy Flight so hey why not?). I grew up on the old books in the 90s and read Wookieepedia a ton so I can drop in some obscure places and species to give the galaxy some depth and granularity. That said, I've almost always set my adventures either just after A New Hope or 1-2 years before it. Most pre-Imperial eras (besides Tales of the Jedi) bore me and I'm rather fuzzy & ambivalent on events occurring more than 10 years after Return of the Jedi.

That said, I've got two campaign ideas simmering on the back-burner while I play instead of GM:

1) Age of Rebellion campaign set 6 months after Return of the Jedi, focused on a portion of the New Republic fleet tasked with destabilizing the Empire's control of part of the Outer Rim. This will actually involve multiple groups of PCs run by one or more groups of players: the Command group consists of high-ranking generals, intelligence directors, naval commanders, and the like, which the players will roleplay to present and outline missions for their operatives to perform. The Operative group will then be assembled as regular PCs to perform the missions as outlined.

Basically whoever has an idea for an adventure they want to GM or just throw out a story hook can present it as a group of commanding officers and everyone contributes to devising preparations for it, including which PCs to use. The bonus is we could come up with missions and set them aside for other groups to play (I have a few people I game with at home or at the FLGS) but still contribute to the story/war effort.

2) Force and Destiny campaign set nearly 11,000 years before the movies. This would be right after the crusades and the galaxy is still picking up the pieces. Many of the races out in the Expansion and Rim has effectively seceded from what they still see as a human-centric Republic. Numerous petty alliances fight with each other, defend against pirates whose civilizations were fragmented by the crusades, and resist Jedi attempts to restore order. I want to depict a version of the Old Republic wit ha strong feeling of old fantasy, like a Frank Frazetta painting. Lightsabers with power cables, dark Jedi shamans instead of Sith lords, jetpacks and magic talismans, leather-clad babes riding dinosaurs, that whole shebang.

I've been meaning to write them up for others to view and utilize, but I'm not sure which to focus on. it may depend on which one I start running.

And the one story arc I was most proud of, where one itty-bitty change (Saving Luke on Hoth before nightfall) resulted in the near victory of the Empire over the New Republic under Thrawn. That one was fun.

How did Thrawn end up running the New Republic?

I rewrote the Clone Wars and Dark Times history to recreate a Firefly like Star Wars. The Clone wars are more like the rumours we heard growing up before the prequels, the Dark times were like the unification war of Firefly. There are a lot of browncoat wearing tramp freighter captains out in the Outer Rim Territories.

In a previous Savage Worlds game the campaign ended when the characters started up their own version of the Jedi order, killed Vader and destroyed the Death Star.

In the current FFG campaign (using all core books and F&D beta) the new characters are members of the original character's Jedi order, that is allied to but independent of the new Republic.

I've left the system mechanics 100% in tact.

Setting wise, I focused on a small area of space near Hutt and Bothan space. I created my own system/sector out of thin air. The players can go anywhere in the universe, but this game is set take primarily take place in that area. There is a specific set of things going on that play very well towards the Edge of the Empire setting (criminals, scoundrels, trade, etc.). The area plays more towards those elements and less towards the elements of Age of Rebellion.

For my Edge of the Empire campaign (upcoming) I intend to keep the scope very small. We're starting a few months ABY, but hey, who believes in a giant planet-destroying laser anyway? Must be propaganda. Alderaan? Dunno, never been there. Boring place I heard.

There are plenty of extremely entertaining ways to challenge a party without interacting with galaxy-changing events. That said, I'm reminded of one of the EU short stories where the Mystral stumbled across some pieces of the DS2 super laser... That the little crew of my players could peripherally be involved is remotely possible. They won't be major players though.

If I was running an AoR campaign, it would be similar. For all the Rogue and Wraith squadron pilots, there's also dozens of nameless squadrons that just do their job. Cracken and Paige's commandos aren't the only ones out there. And sometimes the biggest heroes are the crews that smuggled in dinner to the secret base.

The main difference I did from the booms was set my campaign 10 year before BY. The Empire is at its highest point and trying to consolidate power. So now X-wings A-Wings or B-Wings. TIE advanced and defenders don't exist and the scars from the clone wars are still there. What is fun is creating a bunch or initial rebellion factions to build the start of the rebellion.

Salcor

I dropped episodes 1_3 entirely and went back to the EU version of what happened during those times. so the force, not midI but mystic. clones? horrible monsters that fought against the republic army. how did Palestine take over the republic? he just did.

how did Palestine take over the republic? he just did.

I’m tempted to make a joke here about Israel, but I’m not sure how that would go over.

When I started my game, I told my players that I didn't have any problem with any of the lore from any Star Wars movie, book, comic, or game that they wanted to introduce to the campaign. "Hell," I said, "you can even play a Gungan if you really want to. And I promise to only judge you a little bit".

But, I explained, there is one exception: In MY Star Wars, there is no such thing as a midi-GD-chlorian. They don't exist. The Force, as far as we're concerned, is exactly as Ben explained it to Luke in Ep1. No blood parasites necessary.

Yup. Here is everything you need to know about the Force as far as I'm concerned.

I've changed quite a bit in a custom era and setting. Well... "change" is a poor choice of words. More like "made it so I don't have to deal with interfering with known lore." My era is about 5,000 ABY - so there is a lot of time to allow for a blank slate. Basically, here is what I do:

- I ask my players at the end of each session where they want to go in the NEXT session. I give them a choice of 3 options, all relevant to the overall story I've constructed.

- They tell me, and then I hold them to it.

- I then spend the next couple of weeks researching the planet or place they are going. So, if they decide they want to go to Dathomir, I go balls deep in the research of that planet. I study its geological, cultural, and political histories. I study the agriculture and wildlife. If there are any important cities, I study those and how they are structured from an economic sense. I get down into the population demographics. I really do the research.

- I then rewrite everything that doesn't fit within my story or setting. I don't change its history - I just add to it to explain how it might have changed from what the player knows from official lore, to what they don't know in my setting. It's not as difficult as it might seem, as I only have to rewrite things that are relevant. It usually has a lot to do with the organization of government. Since there is no "Empire" or "Republic" in my setting - I spend a lot of time writing about different Corporations and how they have privatized military power to safe-guard their investments.

- Then when next session comes, there will be no "We've changed our mind." We all discussed it last session, and that's what I have prepared. If they really change their mind and really want to do something else, like go to an entirely different planet - I have no problem BSing a session that has nothing to do with anything. But if I end up saying something that doesn't make sense, or perhaps doesn't have as strong an explanation as they would like - then it's their own fault.

- I also have a slew of impromptu adventures for such occasions. They might randomly receive a distress call. Maybe they come across a derelict ship. Perhaps they've been grounded on their current planet and have to figure out a way to escape. All sorts of stuff to - not "punish" the players for changing their minds - but run interference so I can at least have time to prepare for what they want to do until the next session.

Also my players really wanted to explore planets and places that they never see important content happen in. So, this makes it so I have to do a lot of research anyway trying to find them something to do in a new place. I can't just fall into a normal go-to excuse like "Oh, Tatooine! It's Hutt Space. The Hutts are gangsters and are vile and untrustworthy." or "Coruscant... it looks like it does in the movies, and there's a lot of government stuff, etc. etc."

No... I usually have to write entirely new crime organizations, governments, the history of organizations, who their allies are, who their enemies are, and a lot of times, I really have to go into what each planet or place actually looks like. There is a lot of information on everything, but sometimes, it isn't enough to satisfy my own curiosity.

I also really enjoy making notable places of a planet the epicenter of story telling. I weave the official history of these special landmarks into my story. And, it goes a long way for making the story and characters more epic. This is actually one of my favorite parts about being the GM. Writing a way for some really cool, official place with some renown to have an impacting M. Knight Shamalan twist within my narrative... and then have it actually make sense only at the end of the campaign. My players get a big kick out of it.