On another forum I posted for help on a Yuuzhan Vong campaign and got nothing but "Oh you shouldn't do that" "EU is no longer canon" and all this, no help at all with adventure ideas, stats or anything, just arguments about how I and my players were 'wrong' for wanting something different.

Clearly you are a terrible person and you should be ashamed of wanting to use the Vong. You sit there and think about what you've done.

On another forum I posted for help on a Yuuzhan Vong campaign and got nothing but "Oh you shouldn't do that" "EU is no longer canon" and all this, no help at all with adventure ideas, stats or anything, just arguments about how I and my players were 'wrong' for wanting something different.

I'm not surprised. I wouldn't have helped you either directly. What I would have done is linked you to a path of inquiry that can properly address what you want: Warhammer 40k and Tyranids. The Vong are almost a 1:1 'nid rip-off and the Warhammer fanbase has developed considerable material for it and actually LIKES the 'nids/Vong/Bugs/whatever. In contrast, expecting a Star Wars forum to be helpful about one of the reasons people are glad the old EU is gone is a bit too optimistic for the internet, I'm afraid. Literally, go look for Tyranids, translate it back to Star Wars and you'll have more material than you'll even want.

and this demonstrates why I don't bother asking the questions I want to ask, because people aren't helpful. I know nothing about Warhammer, absolutely NOTHING. How is linking me to something I know nothing about going to help me? I know a lot about the Vong, its simply working them into coherent adventures and statting them out that I wanted to discuss and bounce ideas off to work something out for my campaign, but apparently...being sent to look at something I know nothing about would help.

Don't worry too much about it -- there are as many differences as there are similarities between the Tyranid and the Vong. It's certainly not the perfect parallel that some people have tried to make it out to be.

(I've seen the comparison made before... always in a snide and derisive way.)

Wasn't there a novel released between IV and V where Luke & Leia 'got it on'?.... awkward..i'm defo kepping THAT as canon.. (epsecially if Han recorded it for the Imperial 'Late Night-Red Light' Holo Network)

EDITED: spullink Mostikes

On another forum I posted for help on a Yuuzhan Vong campaign and got nothing but "Oh you shouldn't do that" "EU is no longer canon" and all this, no help at all with adventure ideas, stats or anything, just arguments about how I and my players were 'wrong' for wanting something different.

Clearly you are a terrible person and you should be ashamed of wanting to use the Vong. You sit there and think about what you've done.

Shouldn't he be punished by having to stay after the other kids go home and write 100 times "The Yuuzhan Vong will not be part of my campaign" or something?

Wasn't there a novel released between IV and V where Luke & Leia 'got it on'?.... awkward..i'm defo kepping THAT as canon.. (epsecially if Han recorded it for the Imperial 'Late Night-Red Light' Holo Network)

EDITED: spullink Mostikes

I prefer to treat the EU/Legends stuff as exactly that. Legends. Stories that are told that may or may not be true. Part of the fun is trying to find out what -actually- happened and how/why it's being portrayed in the way it currently is.

Talk to Lando about what happened during Episode V and you'll hear a different story than what Han or Leia says. Or Luke, for that matter. Everyone has a different perspective on things and, depending upon the source, things might be relayed differently than the way they "really" happened.

For myself, I have more fondness for some Legends material and stories than the new canon. I don't have any problems with new canon, for the most part, but it hasn't excited my imagination as much. And if I need an explanation or a backstory or a location, there is far, far more stuff to draw on in Legends.

I like to view it as "alternate continuity" or "alternate universe" than non-canon or apocryphal. Which is kind of what official sources have stated in the past anyway.

Meh, the Vong are nothing like the Tyranids, aside from the fact they both use bio-weapons. The Tyranids don't have language or culture or interactions with anything - they are thinly-disguised Xenomorphs from the Alien films. Now, if anything, the Vong are more similar to a sci-fi version of the Githyanki from D&D, as reimagined by (pretentious emo hipster) Mark ReinHagen... then made into a really bad Japanese anime...

The Vong have speech, culture, some sort of civilisation, as horrible as it is.

I dimly recall we had a decent thread on them on these Boards once. The upshot was that while they had potential (Star Wars had grown pretty stale when they came along and needed a new threat beyond SuperWeaponOfTheWeek) they were largely disliked because the whole 'emo-kid pain aesthetic' was dialled up to 11 instead of being just a small part of the race as originally intended.

Ebak, here's the thread:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/126227-where-are-the-yuuzhan-vong/

I'm always going to be a big fan of the Brian Daley Han Solo books.

I'm always going to be a big fan of the Brian Daley Han Solo books.

Sir, you are a scholar and a gentleman. Please have my babies!

I love those books - yeah, they're very much an artifact of the era, but they're fun romps with scoundrels and over the top bad guys and lost treasure, and narly a Imperial or Jedi in sight. Great stuff, and I deeply regret Brian never writing any more in the universe (other than the radio plays)

I'm always going to be a big fan of the Brian Daley Han Solo books.

Sir, you are a scholar and a gentleman. Please have my babies!

I love those books - yeah, they're very much an artifact of the era, but they're fun romps with scoundrels and over the top bad guys and lost treasure, and narly a Imperial or Jedi in sight. Great stuff, and I deeply regret Brian never writing any more in the universe (other than the radio plays)

I liked how it fleshed out the universe more and added to it in a way that helped it feel like there was a lot more going on than just the civil war and the Empire. I also liked some of the details, the scene in the big lounge in the space port, how huge it was and the hustle and bustle of different beings coming and going.

People tend to zero in a little too narrowly in the universe and lose sight of the fact there is always a lot going on that might not have anything at all to do with the major conflict of the day. Been reading about US and European naval actions in Japan while the American Civil War was ongoing as an example. A Star Wars campaign need not have anything to to do with accepted canon at all.

Meh, the Vong are nothing like the Tyranids, aside from the fact they both use bio-weapons. The Tyranids don't have language or culture or interactions with anything -

The Vong have speech, culture, some sort of civilisation, as horrible as it is.

Aside from being a bioform based, overwhelming extra-galactical threat, the tyranids have canonically done just about everything the Vong have, from deploying secret agents to spy and usurp (genestealers) over the mutation of planets into their native ecosystem to backhanded diplomacy (Zoats...). The interaction of the nid bioform with native environments is a huge part of why the 40k galaxy is how it is ecologically. Then there's the negation effect the 'nids have on their galaxy's jedi equivalent on top of all that. Literally everything a PC group is going to see from the Vong, the Tyranids do. The only difference is the Vong's motivation/doctrine is out there in the open and that they have more unique antagonist figures, rather than a big unknown spot to be filled by the GM (or Blizzard Entertainment) as he pleases. Thing is, for all that different core motivation, the actual ingame effect of the two species is identical.

They're "identical" in a sweeping sense... if you ignore the details.

They're "identical" in a sweeping sense... if you ignore the details.

Like the Tyranids and the Zerg...

Pretty much any organitech alien species is alike. It is an unique and terrifying idea to begin, but it's hard to do right. You have to make it work inside your universe. Problem with the Vong was, they broke one of the fundamental rules of the universe right from the start: they had no connection to the force, but even rocks have it according to Yoda.

We had a pair of species in our SW campaign who were "Force nonexistent", but that was because they were from outside the entire universe -- refugees from an "big rip" caused by the mother of all WMDs.

I'd never expect that to work in the "canon" setting, and the Vong's state was never really given that sort of extreme rationale.

. Problem with the Vong was, they broke one of the fundamental rules of the universe right from the start: they had no connection to the force, but even rocks have it according to Yoda

By this point in the SW stories, the authors had painted themselves into a corner by making the Jedi invincible Asgardian supermen.

The Vong were a broken answer to the broken way they had given the Jedi so much power-creep in the novels.

The concept wasn't inherently flawed, but the execution sure was...

Not to mention recruiting, what, a dozen different writers? Too many chiefs...

Problem with force nonexistant beings: It validates

and I am not okay with that.

Problem with force nonexistant beings: It validates

and I am not okay with that.

This was before midi-chlorians, and we always ignored that Parasite Eve ripoff anyway.

The point was "these guys... they're not from around here", and it also made for some interesting moments with the Jedi characters... caught between their obligation to help others in need, and their sense that maybe these guys were terribly wrong in some fundamental way.

. Problem with the Vong was, they broke one of the fundamental rules of the universe right from the start: they had no connection to the force, but even rocks have it according to Yoda

By this point in the SW stories, the authors had painted themselves into a corner by making the Jedi invincible Asgardian supermen.

The Vong were a broken answer to the broken way they had given the Jedi so much power-creep in the novels.

The concept wasn't inherently flawed, but the execution sure was...

They already had the solution at hand, ironically: Droids.

As for 'only similar superficially', I'm genuinely curious how your party is going to learn all these intricate details that protect the Vong writers from copywrite infringement lawsuits and, y'know, survive the experience.

Thank you for your assistance Maelora, and yes Desslok, my players want 'Vong, and a good GM listens to his players, "oh woe is me I am a terrible GM for listening to my players."

DeathByGrotz, they are similar in a very sweeping sense, biotech and all that, but lack a lot of the motivation and such behind the 'Vong as people have put out there, the comparison was made in a very snide and derisive way (as Max puts it) and I stick by my opinion that it was made to dismiss me rather than assist me. The Tyranids are not the 'Vong, I am looking for assistance involving the 'Vong, not a psudo-Vong that is kinda close.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuuzhan_Vong

vs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranids

Look at that Vong picture and tell yourself "Star Wars"...

That's right, doesn't work, does it? It never did!

Even the Sith were a cleaner looking army. And then they just look too much like Orks to me.

Look at that Vong picture and tell yourself "Star Wars"...

That's right, doesn't work, does it? It never did!

Even the Sith were a cleaner looking army. And then they just look too much like Orks to me.

I'm in the odd position of not being a fan of the Vong, and not thinking they're very fitting to the SW setting... and yet feeling obligated to refute this notion that they're some sort of blatant, cheap Tyranid expy.

(And never mind that the Tyranid are something of an Aliens / HR Geiger art expy...not that being such is any sort of crime in and of itself.)