Non-Illithid Brain Sucking or "How To Import Ideas"

By Fred Palpatine, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Its obvious that we can import ideas and plots from previous RPG's set in the Star Wars universe but how about material published for other games?

High on the list are probably games like Firefly, Shadowrun and Leverage but that's just a guess since I have no experience with any of them. Does anyone else know if they'd work out? I'd buy up those offerings at DriveThruRPG if they'd work out... or any others for other games, for that matter. I tend to write my own stuff or at least heavily adapt published adventures so that they best fit my players, the PC's and our ongoing campaign but I love having a huge library of sources for inspiration.

I've used 1st ed. AD&D for creatures like the Algoid. I just, put a sci-fi twist to it. I am also an avid reader, so quite a bit pops into my game from sci-fi literature. It's probably best if you can get a look at the contents before making the purchase.

It's probably best if you can get a look at the contents before making the purchase.

Peeking would require doing some shady stuff. I'm way too far from any gaming stores to waste my time putting L in the FLGS (although the nearest one does pile on the F).

And... I was hoping to have something to do for a while. I have an eye condition that is making the world look like I'm seeing it through a funhouse mirror... well... TWO funhouse mirrors since both eyes are seeing two different warped images. No one wants me driving with the current state of my vision! Fortunately, it's temporary and I have a laser procedure scheduled for next week and things should return to normal over the weeks that follow. But I wanted to use my "in the meantime" time to pull together lots of ideas for when things get back to normal and free time becomes a commodity... again.

Probably TMI but, meh... You all seem a friendly lot.

Edited by Fred Palpatine

I've used 1st ed. AD&D for creatures like the Algoid.

This definitely works for creatures but I was on the hunt for plot ideas and such. I suppose I could threaten them with an EotE version of Tomb of Horrors, though...

Edited by Fred Palpatine

I recommend Warren Hammond's Kop series for noir intrigue. Pulp noir and pulp sci-fi magazines that publish short stories,too. I don't have much in the way of sci-fi RPG stuff, so I can't be much else for help.

Indiana Jones is a good one for pulp action. Replace religious artifacts with ancient Rakattan technology, and exotic country locations with different planets, and you are half way there.

I recommend Warren Hammond's Kop series for noir intrigue. Pulp noir and pulp sci-fi magazines that publish short stories,too. I don't have much in the way of sci-fi RPG stuff, so I can't be much else for help.

Read Kop. Elements I could borrow:

  • planetary economy in shambles... maybe it was a Separatist world.
  • Fairly harsh world considering flora, fauna, climate... but it was successfully colonized. Colony is now being overrun by nature because of the economy
  • a dirty cop with a reason to want a crime solved... perhaps someone that could be a useful contact to the PC's if they'll help... beyond potentially assisting with some Obligation Management.
  • Even dirtier cops surround him so he can't go to them for help... why? Maybe the crime could implicate him. Or maybe it involves one of the dirtier cops who is above him...
  • Nearby group of fabulously wealthy living off the labors of the poor dirtside dwellers.... someone other than Imperials, I would say... maybe carpetbaggers.

This definitely works!

Indiana Jones is a good one for pulp action. Replace religious artifacts with ancient Rakattan technology, and exotic country locations with different planets, and you are half way there.

Borrowing from the movies would be a problem. If there's a gaming table with a player that can't spot an Indiana Jones reference, I'd eat a fedora with a side of bullwhip. But maybe something from one of the various Indiana Jones rpg's? I actually own the old TSR and the WEG Masterbook boxed set Indiana Jones RPG's... but no adventures. Would any specific materials come to mind?

You can absolutely, unequivocally take things from other games [edit: and movies, TV, books, radio dramas, stories I overhear on the train, etc.] I do it all the time, and I have been for decades. This GM advice is as old as GMing itself.

I would exercise caution bringing in new rules, but settings, themes, technology, all that is fair game. You are doing yourself a disservice if you discount elements that excite you and/or your players. I just use the aspects I like and ignore the rest, it's usually worth the $5 I pay for the pdf these days.

Edited by themensch

You can absolutely, unequivocally take things from other games [edit: and movies, TV, books, radio dramas, stories I overhear on the train, etc.] I do it all the time, and I have been for decades. This GM advice is as old as GMing itself.

I would exercise caution bringing in new rules, but settings, themes, technology, all that is fair game. You are doing yourself a disservice if you discount elements that excite you and/or your players. I just use the aspects I like and ignore the rest, it's usually worth the $5 I pay for the pdf these days.

I kinda know that I can. FFG isn't going to send Stormtroopers after me if I borrow stuff from some other game (unless it's F.A.T.A.L. but that would be justified). I wasn't asking for permission. I'm looking at Firefly, Leverage and Shadowrun thinking they'd be very good sources for an EotE game and would like to know if anyone else had done the same. But, while we're at it, I wouldn't mind hearing where others have borrowed from and how they might have gone about it and what their favorite sources were. Seems like you might have some ideas to share so... pretty please with all your favorite toppings?

I kinda know that I can. FFG isn't going to send Stormtroopers after me if I borrow stuff from some other game (unless it's F.A.T.A.L. but that would be justified). I wasn't asking for permission. I'm looking at Firefly, Leverage and Shadowrun thinking they'd be very good sources for an EotE game and would like to know if anyone else had done the same. But, while we're at it, I wouldn't mind hearing where others have borrowed from and how they might have gone about it and what their favorite sources were. Seems like you might have some ideas to share so... pretty please with all your favorite toppings?

Ahh, sorry, I read that as asking for permission as much as howto, and I wanted to encourage you.

For FFG Star Wars, the only mechanics I've borrowed from other games thus far are Bonds and Fronts, from DungeonWorld. I do have a number of random sourcebooks from other systems that are useful (Distant Vistas, An Echo Resounding, Stars without Number and Suns of Gold for that system, Red Tide) for mining ideas. A group might enjoy building the setting in a very compartmentalized Microscope game!

I'd be interested to see how elements of Shadowrun would play out, it seems really counter to the technology in the Star Wars setting, but it makes sense that some planets like that might even exist (like the Gank homeworld?) Eclipse Phase might have some excellent ideas on how to perform such a merge, as it's often described as Shadowrun in Space.

You could run a Firefly-esque story and it might just be right at home. A vagabond crew of outlaws by necessity - scraping by, moving system to system in a small freighter? That's what my players do right now.

I've never played Leverage and I only know of the Cortex System, but a 30-second google makes it sound like a treasure trove of ideas for running underworld schemes. I don't know if I'd adopt any mechanics, but an elegant codification can be translated with some care, I bet.

Illithid could be acheived with a geonosian queen and her brain worms infesting an Anzati colony.

I borrow shamelessly from various outside sources. It's pretty easy to adapt almost any material to EotE, especially since any given SW world can range from an advanced ecumenopolis like Coruscant to a backwater world inhabited only by a primitive species with stone axes and clubs, or anything in between.

Since my players are practically the crew of Firefly anyway. I plan on having their ship crash and one of the other wrecks they will find available for salvage is a Firefly-class freighter and a smuggler's coat (a long brown trench coat for the captain). They've already landed on one world that was basically the wild west, saloon and all.

They're running through an adventure based off of Alien right now. They responded to a distress signal from a decommissioned Imperial prison barge turned into an exploration vessel. Of course, this exploration vessel has picked up a few other strange life forms in its journey, including some D&D-inspired creatures like the Gelatinous Cube (in this case a land-based amorphous creature but the crew put it in a storage crate and froze it, giving it the cubic shape). And the exploration was sponsored by the Empire, which very much wants to capture this creature intact rather than killing it.

If the party ever decides to journey into the Unknown Regions, they will find even more strange and monstrous creatures, such as a species remarkably similar to Illithids.

I have a villain named Carmen Seregar, and no one knows where in the galaxy she might be. They have to find her and her WL-D0 droid (which happens to be red and white) by following a series of clues about what planet she is hiding on.

I have an adventure that starts off like Pulp Fiction (complete a guy named Jules who throws out a few modified Sammuel L. Jackson quotes like "Imperial Basic, do you speak it?").

And an over-the-top action adventure that takes place in the Bay of Mykal, a place that is heavily polluted with flammable chemicals which will lead to frequent "splosions!" And with the plethora of droids out there, who's to say that some don't have some strange designs, like the ability to disguise themselves as mundane objects and vehicles?

I've used some WEG stuff pretty much as is, which obviously isn't difficult at all. Any sci-fi or cyberpunk stuff would fit right in. Westerns are easy to adapt since SW already includes elements of old westerns anyway. A lot of the movie scenes were also inspired by WWII movies, so that would be another good source of material.

Edited by bonenaga

I'd be interested to see how elements of Shadowrun would play out, it seems really counter to the technology in the Star Wars setting, but it makes sense that some planets like that might even exist (like the Gank homeworld?) Eclipse Phase might have some excellent ideas on how to perform such a merge, as it's often described as Shadowrun in Space.

I wouldn't try to make a world that was like what we see in Shadworun. I'd just mine Shadowrun for ideas and plots that could be converted. I've seen EotE described as "Shadowrun and Firefly hd a baby in the Star Wars universe," after all. An EotE group could easily be a mix of Firefly crew and Shadowrunner team. They could also easily go on adventures where they're deniable assets used by one entity against another. Maybe it's a Hutt looking to steal from Black Sun or even the Rebels looking to swipe something from the Empire...

Even stranger Shadowrun adventures might work. The old "Queen Euphoria" adventure had an insect shaman looking to kidnap a simsense starlet named Euphoria so that she could play host to a powerful insect queen spirit because doing so would allow the shaman to summon many more insects spirits into the world.

Replace "insect shaman" with "cyber-obsessed madman" looking to chop up a famous celebrity and replace as much of her body as he can with cyberware because he's sure that doing so will somehow make people understand that droids are a higher form of life. She will be a demonstration of how a biological can get as close to being a droid as anyone can. She will inspire them all to strive to reach the same goal as she ushers in a new age... because his BIG PLAN is to use her and her vast influence to release his special creation. He has written self-replicating code that is pretty much like an anti-restraining bolt, giving greater freedom and independence to the droids it affects so that they are no longer controlled by the inferior biologicals that have forced them to subservience with artificial constraints and limitations...

Maybe we've already seen the results of an early stage of that code in "Debts to Pay"

Edited by Fred Palpatine
And... I was hoping to have something to do for a while. I have an eye condition that is making the world look like I'm seeing it through a funhouse mirror... well... TWO funhouse mirrors since both eyes are seeing two different warped images. No one wants me driving with the current state of my vision!

A one hundred percent accurate artist's representation of Fred Palpatine:

tumblr_nblyh3ttjQ1sj67gjo1_500.gif

(subtitle: Marty Feldman from Young Frankenstein)

I have run several Firefly episodes as Star Wars adventures including Train Job and Heart of Gold. My Star Wars universe is very Firefly.

I have run cyberpunk themed adventures, ones based on ideas from Aliens, Warhammer 40K, Babylon 5, Call of Cthulhu, Westerns and fantasy. Lots of West End Games adventures too. Done several adventures based on songs and a few based on movies such as Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon etc.

Several players have pointed out one of the great things about Star Wars is that it easily swallows up stuff from other genres with no difficulty.

From a GM point of view it is just a matter of altering a few details and coming up with EotE stats for NPCs and stuff.

bonenaga, that's awesome. A simple like was not enough to show my appreciation for your ideas.

And... I was hoping to have something to do for a while. I have an eye condition that is making the world look like I'm seeing it through a funhouse mirror... well... TWO funhouse mirrors since both eyes are seeing two different warped images. No one wants me driving with the current state of my vision!

A one hundred percent accurate artist's representation of Fred Palpatine:

When did you sneak in to my house? And are you the person who steals socks from the laundry?

And... I was hoping to have something to do for a while. I have an eye condition that is making the world look like I'm seeing it through a funhouse mirror... well... TWO funhouse mirrors since both eyes are seeing two different warped images. No one wants me driving with the current state of my vision!

A one hundred percent accurate artist's representation of Fred Palpatine:

tumblr_nblyh3ttjQ1sj67gjo1_500.gif

(subtitle: Marty Feldman from Young Frankenstein)

Don't get me started!!

PS: I can only imagine what Marty Feldman looked like but I read the link. Considering it mentions his appearance was the result of other surgery but he was a comedian, I'm guessing whatever he looked like worked for him! I sure hope, if that's Fred's issue, that it's working for him, too.

bonenaga, that's awesome. A simple like was not enough to show my appreciation for your ideas.

Thanks. I wasn't sure at first how some of that stuff was going to work out but like DoctorWhat said, Star Wars seems able to absorb pretty much anything else very easily.

One thing I will add is that I've found doing horror can be difficult, not due to any problems integrating it within the story or the SW universe, but because the players have a tendency to treat every creature as if it's just another enemy. For my alien adventure, I had to make the creature nearly impervious to hand-held blasters while still giving it other weaknesses that the party could exploit. I also had to make it dangerous enough to send a signal that the party was outmatched but not so dangerous that the party would get killed during their first encounter with it.

I also found that throwing in other complications helped. My players seem to get distracted easily. They will give up on bug hunting to check out a malfunctioning droid or try to fix the engines, only to get ambushed later when the xenomorph drops out of the air vent behind them.

Never, ever, borrow anything...

Great artists steal.