Did roleplaying games get you into Star Wars or did Star Wars get you into roleplaying, or have you always been into both?

Are You a roleplayer first, who decided to check out these new Star Wars Games?

Or are you a Star Wars fan who decided to try roleplaying when these FFG books came out?

Is it a mix of the two?

For me, it`s roleplaying first and SW second, but I have always been a fan. But after playing these games, I have learned a lot more of the setting than I ever did, names of species and things about the Galaxy.

.. Don`t these forums do polls?

I started playing rpgs about a year before Star wars premiered, when a guy in my 6th grade class introduced me to D&D. Before that, I had a copy of Avalon Hill's board game Panzer Blitz, but the concepts were so foreign to my family that no one was interested in helping me learn to play. So I have been into gaming since about '75.

Roleplaying Star Wars is a fairly alien concept to me. Sure, I've always wanted to do it, and even played a session or two in a friend's GURPS Star Wars game about 25 years ago, but this is my first real foray into the SW universe.

I saw “Star Wars” in May of 1977, about a month after I had turned 11.

I didn’t start playing RPGs until I got into D&D, early in the school year of 9th grade (1980-81).

I didn’t start combining the two until West End Games came out with the first “Star Wars Roleplaying Game”, which I think was in 1987.

So, in a sense, Star Wars came first for me.

But I never considered combining Star Wars with RPGs until WEG came out with their game.

These days, I would say I’m a role-player first, but Star Wars is still my favourite movie, and it’s still my favourite “Universe”.

Did roleplaying games get you into Star Wars or did Star Wars get you into roleplaying, or have you always been into both?

There's a fourth option: I saw Star Wars in 1977 before I'd even heard of roleplaying. When I heard of roleplaying in '78, it was all about medieval/fantasy stuff. For most of my friends, that's where it remains to this day. It's only when games like Space Opera, Rolemaster: Space, and Traveller came out that I wished for Star Wars rules...even wrote some of my own. Never found anybody interested in playing WEG. Only started really playing SW with Saga. It's a testament to the quality of this game that my non-SW-fan friends find it fun and don't ask "why can't I play a dwarf?"

I saw Star Wars in the theater several times in '77. I was introduced to AD&D in 6th grade in 1980. So, Star Wars came first, but I didn't engage in any SW RPG until 1993 when a buddy ran the old West End Games stuff for us at the gaming store I owned back then. (That was a fun game that just kind of faded away with no conclusion.)

In the late 90s and early 2000s, I was asked time and again to run Star Wars, but it never felt right to me. There were so many novels and comics and such out, but my knowledge of the Star Wars was really limited to just the movies and things I had seen in the WEG books. So my lack of knowledge of the EU made running it a little intimidating for me. Also, I didn't own any of the WEG RPG books, and I didn't want to hunt them down and buy them all. Star Wars d20 wasn't appealing to me either.

I tried using the Alternity RPG to run it at one point, but that was turning out to be a lot of work, and my heart wasn't in it.

Between Disney's proclamation that the EU is not canon until it is canon and FFG's SW RPG, the door has really opened up for me to run it.

I'm definitely a gamer first. But the FFGSWRPG is definitely in my top three RPGs, and is the only one I'm doing anything with of late.

I was into Star Wars waaay before I got into roleplaying. Well, roleplaying games, I guess. I'd still pick up a lightsaber and pretend to be Luke Skywalker's future apprentice when I was 8, which is pretty much roleplaying. Saw the movies when I was 6 or 7; I don't really remember.

(To make you old folks feel even older, I pretty much grew up on the Special Edition VHS tapes. That's right: Han has never shot first for me.)

I got into D&D 3rd Edition during middle school, when my friends and I would make the weekly pilgrimage to Active Imagination. A few years later in high school I heard about the d20 Star Wars, but much like RLogue, I was cowed by the sheer volume of Expanded Universe stuff I didn't know. I read X-Wing, Rogue Squadron, and the Thrawn trilogy, but that was about it. (Oh, except for Glove of Darth Vader and Junior Jedi Knights. Are you spinning in your graves yet?) I totally would have played in a game had I been invited, but none of my friends were as interested as I was.

When I heard about the Edge of the Empire beta, I jumped at the chance to get in on the ground floor of a new Star Wars RPG experience. I badgered my friends and family to play, won over a couple of people, and have been happily playing and running games ever since.

Got into Star Wars about four years before I started roleplaying. WEG Star Wars was my first Tabletop RPG though.

I was into Star Wars first (1978) and got into RPGs later (1982). Most fantasy RPGs (well mostly D&D). I did try to emulate SW some with Star Frontiers, but never really played SW RPGs until a few years ago when I played some Saga and now this game.

Always Been a RPGer

Watched Star Wars (that's Ep IV) when I was around 6-7.
Started playing Mutant (a Swedish RPG akin to Gamma World) when I was around 8.

So, Star Wars came first, but only by a short margin.

After seeing Star Wars on the big screen for the first time, I remember I added a lightsaber to my Metamorphosis Alpha game. Somewhere among my ancient gaming stuff I think I even have a drawing of it.

I saw “Star Wars” in May of 1977, about a month after I had turned 11.

I didn’t start playing RPGs until I got into D&D, early in the school year of 9th grade (1980-81).

I didn’t start combining the two until West End Games came out with the first “Star Wars Roleplaying Game”, which I think was in 1987.

So, in a sense, Star Wars came first for me.

But I never considered combining Star Wars with RPGs until WEG came out with their game.

These days, I would say I’m a role-player first, but Star Wars is still my favourite movie, and it’s still my favourite “Universe”.

Pretty much the same as Brad, here. Except, I was a mere 6 when I saw the movie in '77.

I was a kid of the '80s so I watched the original trilogy on VHS tape, cable television and the occasional broadcast. I liked the visuals but as far as story-telling goes, I preferred Star Trek. I got into RPGs in the early '90s with Shadowrun, 2300AD, West End Games Star Wars and AD&D 2nd edition. Shadowrun was my favorite and I played that for about 20 years.

I'm a fan of Star Wars but having gamed for so long and having actually worked on titles like Shadowrun and Traveller, I consider myself a gamer first.

Another '80's kid here. Star Wars was always fun, but I grew up in a family of Trekkies. My first prolonged exposure to sci-fi was watching ST:TNG. I guess technically, Star Wars came first for me because I've only started playing pen and paper RPGs in the last few years.

Another '80's kid here. Star Wars was always fun, but I grew up in a family of Trekkies. My first prolonged exposure to sci-fi was watching ST:TNG. I guess technically, Star Wars came first for me because I've only started playing pen and paper RPGs in the last few years.

There weren't any other sci-fi fans in my house when I was growing up. I was a huge SW fan as a kid but never really got in ST until TNG came around. I focused more on ST in the 90s until the release of Ep I.

Saw the movie in '77... I was 8. Had no concept of roleplaying, though my action figures got to do things. Experienced D&D in '81 and got the basic and expert boxed set that year for Christmas from my parents... the same day I got my Bear Compound bow. Understandably, I have strong feelings for Rangers. I graduated high school the year West End Games released their version. I had it. I knew no one else that did. I was not a good salesman. It sat on the shelves next to my D&D books, which I also knew no one that played. Most of mine lived in my imagination with all the books I read. Only after I was married did I find others that played and have since played many different RPGs. Only recently has anyone ever played one set in a Star Wars realm with me.

SW movies came first for me in 1977. But it was only a few years later that I started playing D&D at a local library (yes that happened back then). My first SW RPG campaign happened before WEG existed using Traveller rules.

Star Wars first for me. Saw it as a kid in '77 when I was 6. Fell in love with it! I grew up in a Christian home and was told D&D was "evil" so I didn't get introduced to it until I was well out of high school. When WEG released Star Wars my friends and I played the crap out of it! RPG + Star Wars = Awesome! So for me Star Wars first but I am a huge gamer....

I grew up in a Christian home and was told D&D was "evil" ...

I remember buying the AD&D PH, with that demon statue on the cover, took it to work to read at lunch. The little old ladies in the office who had been so nice to me up to that point suddenly became hostile and frigid. Finally one of them spoke her mind:

"I never took you for a Satanist!" she says.

"What do you mean?"

"That book, it teaches you to worship the devil!"

"...? It's just a game..."

"Oh, just a game, just a game!" and she stalked off giving me "the eye". Good thing I left not long after that.

I grew up in a Christian home and was told D&D was "evil" so I didn't get introduced to it until I was well out of high school.

Fortunately I never encountered any of that. I graduated in '82, which I believe was about the time the backlash started. By then I had been playing for roughly six years, and my parents knew better than to believe any of the anti-gaming hype. Also, D&D was just one of the games my friends and I played. In the early days I ran just as much Traveller and Metamorphosis Alpha as I did D&D, or Empire of the Petal Throne (which was more eyebrow raising than D&D, that's for sure).

I was a kid of the '80s so I watched the original trilogy on VHS tape, cable television and the occasional broadcast. I liked the visuals but as far as story-telling goes, I preferred Star Trek.

The storytelling, huh? Then you mean Next Generation of course.

I grew up in a Christian home and was told D&D was "evil"

Are you american? This only seems to be a thing in America for some reason(I could be wrong). The christians I know here in Norway(as rare as they are) play dnd, support gay rights and are pretty cool. Why are christians so crazy in other parts of the world?.. I guess it`s the same with other religions too, some people and places are crazier than others. Yea, yea, whatever, didn`t mean to offend anyone. Mat the Force be with you all. And no, the Force isn`t Satan.

Did roleplaying games get you into Star Wars or did Star Wars get you into roleplaying, or have you always been into both?

Are You a roleplayer first, who decided to check out these new Star Wars Games?

Or are you a Star Wars fan who decided to try roleplaying when these FFG books came out?

Is it a mix of the two?

For me, it`s roleplaying first and SW second, but I have always been a fan. But after playing these games, I have learned a lot more of the setting than I ever did, names of species and things about the Galaxy.

.. Don`t these forums do polls?

You're asking the wrong questions. Liking Star Wars doesn't lead one to Roleplaying. Liking Roleplaying doesn't lead one to Star Wars. As many others noted, RPGs in general came first and depending on the age demographics, one might have started with one before the other just due to how old one is and who they hung out with. For example, the movies haven't always been available, so someone in the mid to late 80s might not have even seen any of the movies, but found one or another RPG (GURPS, Traveler, RIFTS, D&D, and many, many more).

I like Roleplaying. I like Star Wars. But neither led me to the other.

I watched Star Wars before getting into RPGs, and it took me a decade of RPG'ing before I played my first Star Wars RPG (WEG back then). So, neither did Star Wars lead me to RPGs, nor the other way round. Both just fit my general preferences.

Did roleplaying games get you into Star Wars or did Star Wars get you into roleplaying, or have you always been into both?

Are You a roleplayer first, who decided to check out these new Star Wars Games?

Or are you a Star Wars fan who decided to try roleplaying when these FFG books came out?

Is it a mix of the two?

For me, it`s roleplaying first and SW second, but I have always been a fan. But after playing these games, I have learned a lot more of the setting than I ever did, names of species and things about the Galaxy.

.. Don`t these forums do polls?

You're asking the wrong questions. Liking Star Wars doesn't lead one to Roleplaying. Liking Roleplaying doesn't lead one to Star Wars. As many others noted, RPGs in general came first and depending on the age demographics, one might have started with one before the other just due to how old one is and who they hung out with. For example, the movies haven't always been available, so someone in the mid to late 80s might not have even seen any of the movies, but found one or another RPG (GURPS, Traveler, RIFTS, D&D, and many, many more).

I like Roleplaying. I like Star Wars. But neither led me to the other.

I`m just asking the people on this Star Wars roleplaying forum if Star Wars got them into Roleplaying or if Roleplaying got them into Star Wars (add "more or less" if you feel like). The answer to both of these two questions can of course be no.. Or even "kind of"..