So i found this article on TMAS quite thought provoking, partly for the idea of a low tech party on a low tech world where "Magic" is common. But also for the interesting twists some of these party members have. In particular i found the Twi'Lek Pathfinder most interesting, social Twi'Leks are a dime a dozen, but to use the Pathfinder as a social Specialisation was a novel and interesting twist considering it has entirely no social skills in its list at all.

This all leads to my question, What interesting twists have you or your players put on a Species or a Specialisation and what left of field settings have you come up with for your Campaigns?

Ill kick it off with Khit Ne my Nautolan Hunter Protector, she is essentially a Guard for Wildlife reserves, focused on protecting endangered species rather than killing them. She has a ronto mount and has spent her life roaming the wilderness protecting species from poachers.

My left of field campaign? how about an entire party of Gungans leading an uprising...

This all leads to my question, What interesting twists have you or your players put on a Species or a Specialisation and what left of field settings have you come up with for your Campaigns?

How long have you got?

Our entire campaign was reworked to be this. We all played the WEG version (and many of us played Saga) and played it straight, so the entire concept this time around was a total reboot, a complete reimagining of every single aspect of Star Wars. Pretty much every single sacred cow had to be slaughtered.

Too many things to list off the top of my head, but as an example...

- The Jedi are the main antagonists of the campaigns. Order 66 failed and the hubris in their ranks was never checked. Oh, they see themselves as the heroes, but they most certainly aren't.

- The Alliance are neither 'rebels' nor 'the good guys', being essentially what the Seperatists could have been. They try to keep the high moral ground, but they are as filled with intrigue and politics as any other faction. They are not trying to restore the Old Republic, which puts them at loggerheads with the Jedi, who are trying to turn back the clock.

- There's a shadowy Illuminati of most of the 'scum and villainy' factions, as potent as it is unstable.

- The Empire is headed by Tarkin, who is brilliant, but aged and paranoid. The WW2 elements of racism, sexism, totalitarianism are turned up to 11; all stormtroopers are clones. But there are dissenters, both good and bad, and the Imperium as a whole is torn apart by a vicious four-way civil war, between loyalists, progressives, alien sympathisers and those who want the Jedi as leaders of a New Republic. I may reskin the First Order as the latter group, the first splinter-group to actually leave the Empire and do its own bad guy thing.

- The Emergent specialisation is more like a D&D Prestige Class. It represents an Alliance Emergent, a Force-sensitive especially trained to fight Jedi in a military environment. The Emergent Project has not been without failings, all of which are carefully hushed up.

- The Empire does not deploy Force-users on the battlefield; they are wholly under the command of the current Emperor and loyal to the Imperial throne, not the one sitting on it. They are used exclusively as spies, agents and assassins.

- The Empire otherwise doesn't care about Force-users. The Inquisition is purely a Jedi thing, as they try to 'uplift' or eliminate rival traditions or lone apostates. They actually have very good reasons for doing this, but it's one of the things that earns them hatred from the 'good guy' factions like the Alliance or Lukas Lars.

- Time and distance are reduced by a factor of 10. Knights of the Old Republic happened about 450 years ago; history, not ancient history. Revan was a girl The drall have databanks and a civilisation going back 2500 years (imagine if the Ptolemys had twitter feeds and Facebook accounts we could read today!).

- 'Hyperspace' is not really understood, though most people use it regardless. It is not near-instantaneous; it reduces travel across the stars from hundreds of years to hours, days, weeks or months, depending on the number of jumps required and the needs of The Plot.

- Byss is basically Lost Carcosa, inhabited by Lovecraftian monsters and myriad clones of Palpatine (all of whom are insane and nearly powerless).

- Lightsabers have no 'on switch' and can only be activated by Force users. They are expressly a Jedi thing and fairly rare even among them.

- The Sith are merely an offshoot of the Jedi, akin to Catholic and Protestant Christians or Shia and Sunni Muslims. They will work together when there's an external enemy to fight, but otherwise fight each other. 'Darth' isn't a thing - it's an old Sith Pureblood word for 'master' and has fallen out of favour in the last century. Knowing little about the original tradition, modern Sith largely make stuff up as long as it sounds cool.

- the concept of 'The Force' is merely the Jedi view - it's very popular but there are plenty of other Force traditions who see it as 'magic', or 'the spirits'. Our Guardian PC sees themselves very much as a D&D paladin, armed with high-tech sword and shield and has oaths they have sworn to their beloved. Another is a fanatical believer in the Alliance cause, a bit like a 40K space marine, and both believe they get their powers from their oaths and devotion. Nobody, not even the Jedi, actually knows what the Force really is, or what midichondrians actually do.

- Holocrons are no longer purely beneficial now, they contain the spirits of old, paranoid Jedi leaders seeking serial immortality by possessing unsuspecting Force adepts.

- Ganks are unknowable, creepy creatures who kidnap organics to turn them into cyborgs, and are killed on sight by every other species.

- Hutts have a weird aura that brings out the worst in everyone around them. This means ultimately everyone else will kill or otherwise betray them.

- 'Force ghosts' don't exist as per the movies, but are much more nebulous and scary like real-life hauntings. One PC is possessed by a ghost, another can't control her powers and thinks she's inhabited by 'demons'.

- Droids (and cyborgs) are mistreated by almost everyone and their emancipation is a main thread throughout the game.

- The Force in general is more akin to eastern philosophy 'yin and yang' and not Abrahamic 'good and evil'. There's no 'falling to the dark side' because it's in everyone; some traditions like the Jedi see it as a dangerous weapon to be kept sheathed and used only in emergencies, others like the Sith revel in emotions (and are largely seen as immature emo kids).

- There's only one Death Star, the original and best. It was sabotaged by its creator after Alderaan, as he believed it was only to be used as a deterrent. He got killed and nobody has managed to make it work in 20 years, but it's still an ominous threat. The Empire - huge but weak and inefficient - works night and day to get it back online.

- pretty much every canon character was changed. The PCs are supposed to be the heroes of the setting, so largely the antagonists are killed off, and the protagonists moved to mentor roles, where they can still be cool and awesome without doing the PC's job for them. Anakin was a natural Sith made to join the Jedi, and so betrayed them early. He was never 'Vader', but killed a lot of Jedi before they captured, tortured and executed him, which led to Ben leaving the Order. Palpatine was killed at the end of the Clone Wars when Order 66 failed. He was never exposed as 'Lord Sidious' and people still wonder why he was murdered by the Jedi under shadowy circumstances. Jabba was overthrown by Bib Fortuna in palace coup, strangled by Oola with her slave chain and fed to the sarlacc. Fortuna now leads the Kajidics, many of which are no longer under Hutt control.

- for the good guys, Han Solo is retired, in his 50's, trying to raise his twins with his wife, Breha Organa. He's the den-father to the 'charming scoundrels' PC group. Chebacca's flying the Falcon for the Alliance. Luke was born to Owen Lars and is now in his mid-forties. He's the galaxy's Last Sane Man, a voice of reason in a setting filled with brutal wars. He's wanted by all major factions, is more of a shaman or a preacher, somewhere between Bruce Lee, Terrance McKenna and Jesus Christ. He's the mentor of the Force & Destiny PC group. Ben Kenobi is in his early 50's, training the Alliance Emergent Project and looking for a final reckoning against the Jedi for what they did to Anakin. Bail Organa, grim and melancholy after the loss of Alderaan and his wife leaving him, is now a powerful and respected crime lord, working hard to ally the scum & villainy faction to the Alliance. He's the father to one of the PCs. Padme Amidala is a sympathetic Sith-leaning moderate voice among the Jedi Order. She keeps Anakin's flayed remains, frozen in carbonite, for when she really wants to impress potential allies.

- Everything is generally darker, more grindhouse, less understood and mysterious. It's '1313' meets the Wild West. It's 'Game of Thrones' without the sexualised violence. But it's not 40K 'grimdark' and the players are supposed to be the 'good guys' (most of them are, but not all).

- Eh, there's a lot more but I'm not fully awake yet

Torel the hutt: he gets his hands dirty, Hutt Warden, Agressor, Commando. Extremely effective in melee combat, with grapple and No Escape ensuring that thre is no escape. Whenever he gets in engaged range 5 difficulty die fear check, diabolcal. Oh yeah, soon he'll have Vanguard as well.

Wow Maelora, that's some awesome work there.

Wow Maelora, that's some awesome work there.

Believe it or not, there was a rationale for each of those choices, and weeks of player discussions.

I love hearing about other people's tweaks, or revisions or alternate concepts. (Mostly so I can steal them!)

Yes, at this point it's more 'a game vaguely based on Star Wars' than a 'Star Wars game', but I've changed very few of the rules; the changes are to the setting itself. Pretty much the only mechanics I've altered are Obligation, Duty and Morality as they weren't working for us. And small things like armour being far less prevalent, making combat slightly more deadly.

I also tried to keep the essential themes of friendship, sacrifice, personal discovery and 'doing the right thing' - although that's a lot harder in a world of moral greys and tough decisions...

- Eh, there's a lot more but I'm not fully awake yet

That sounds like an awesome campaign; and I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't run the setting right out of the box.

Having just moved out to Phoenix, I haven't had a huge opportunity yet to find/create a gaming group out here. However, I do have a couple campaign ideas that step away from the usual.

I mentioned to you, Richard, awhile ago in messages about my "DocWagon" idea wherein the heroes are the crew of basically a combat ambulance in the Corporate Sector. They work for a corporation that sells "rescue and retrieval" insurance to the wealthy and powerful. If a client activates their beacon, an ambulance is dispatched to them ready for any situation. The campaign plot is that, upon arriving to a call, the heroes discover/see/witness something they shouldn't have and are forced to flee and operate on their own until they're able to clear the situation up with very powerful people. (Definitely an Edge of the Empire game.)

The other campaign idea I have floating around in my head is based on The Man In the High Castle. (Never read the book, so it's based on the show on Amazon.) The heroes live in a universe where Dooku managed to kill Palpatine, and the Separatists won the Clone Wars. It's a dark and grim Confederacy where uncaring droid armies are used by the fascist military elite to keep worlds in line, and Zygerrian slave trade runs the underworld unchecked. Through mysterious holovids, the heroes come to discover that it is not the way things are supposed to be. The vids suggest the Republic actually won the Clone Wars. Things have to be better in that universe, right? Is there a way to fix what happened? Is there a way to get to that universe? (Can be either an Edge of the Empire game, or an Age of Rebellion game.)

I've only just had to consider it but what about Suicide Squad AOR style. You could do the empire too but I imagine the empire ensures death so you'd have to be something different each mission.

Reports from the field indicate many bothans are tired of dying. They want extraction or data on the emperors new testiclular weapons program does with them. It's a suicide mission. Right, send in the .....data recovered.

Open up all the gear everyone wants. Give them the fancy ship. Then see how far (in abstract range bands) you can take one combat scene.

I want to make a morbidly obese rat. He's the local Hutt's nosy and dangerously competent butler, that floats around with a grav pack pouring drinks and taking note of everything. What species and career should I use for my rat?

Does a total reskinning count as a "campaign theme used in [an] interesting way"?

I just shunted my Pathfinder campaign over to a very lightly altered version of the Narrative Dice System rules. (Short version: a dragon sent the party back in time to stop an aboleth plot and the PCs have to "relearn who they are" by porting themselves over to AoR characters.)

For those interested in how I did it, assuming I haven't derailed things:

Does a total reskinning count as a "campaign theme used in [an] interesting way"?

I just shunted my Pathfinder campaign over to a very lightly altered version of the Narrative Dice System rules. (Short version: a dragon sent the party back in time to stop an aboleth plot and the PCs have to "relearn who they are" by porting themselves over to AoR characters.)

For those interested in how I did it, assuming I haven't derailed things:

Sources:

Use the Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook for general character creation, though you may access Careers, Specializations, Gear, Species, and so on from any other (official) source that you prefer. An excellent resource is the “FFG Star Wars RPG Index” found here: http://swrpg.viluppo.net/

The campaign takes place in the ancient lost continent of Azlant, in the time before Starfall.

This conversion is meant to be as minimal as possible. When in doubt, just narrate how the Star Wars rules make sense in the Pathfinder setting and we’ll roll with it.

And remember: more dice = more fun.

Species/Race:

Choose any species from the Star Wars system that you care to, so long as you can re-skin it as a race from the Pathfinder world of Golarion. The relevant humanoid races can be found here: http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Category:Humanoidsthough there may be other races you encounter.

Characteristics and Derived Attributes:

Soak is equal to a character’s Brawn or Willpower rating (modified by gear and Talents as normal), and this choice must be made at character creation.

Career/Specialization/Class:

Choose any Career and Specialization from the Star Wars system that you like, but keep in mind that some may be highly ineffective in a fantasy setting. Talents will generally be re-skinned, but some Talents may be vetoed outright, or else have no effect, adjudicated on a case-by-case basis. In this case, the player must still purchase the Talent with XP to go deeper into the tree.

Skills:

Some skills from the Star Wars system will be re-skinned to make more sense in the world of Golarion. When creating a character, consider or consult the following chart:

Star Wars Skill -- “Pathfinder” Skill

Astrogation -- Knowledge (Geography) or “Navigation”

Computers -- Linguistics

Knowledge (Core Worlds) -- Knowledge (Local)

Knowledge (Lore) -- Knowledge (Arcana)

Knowledge (Outer Rim) -- Knowledge (Dungeoneering)

Knowledge (Xenology) -- Knowledge (Nature)

Lightsaber -- Use Magic Device

Piloting (Planetary) -- Ride (or else Talents that rely on Piloting (Planetary) may be used while mounted, as makes sense given the scenario)

Piloting (Space) -- Profession: Sailor (or else Talents that rely on Piloting (Space) may be used while mounted, as makes sense given the scenario)

The Force/Magic:

Force powers are magic. Magic, being much more pervasive in Golarion than the Force is in Star Wars, allows PCs to rely on Black Pips and White Pips equally, and without limitation or penalty, when they roll Force dice. There is no “Morality” cost or bonus associated with the use of magic.

Duty:

Given the variable party size for this campaign, PCs all start with 5 Duty of the player’s choice. This Duty is owed to the Time Dragon and his cadre of good dragons who seek to stop the aboleth from collapsing all realities and taking over Golarion. (See pages 46-50 of the Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook for additional information, as well as the Duties listed in the various Career books.) There will be no extra effect on rolling doubles.

In addition, all players must take 5 Duty (Defeat the Aboleth). This is counted as one group duty. Any time you gain Duty, it may be awarded to your personal duty or the group’s. In exchange for taking on this extra Duty, each PC gains +1,000 starting gold (credits). Players are encouraged to spend this to bring items from the original Razor Coast campaign into the Age of Azlant and Abolet. PCs may still take reduced Duty at character creation, for credits or XP, following the normal rules.

Starting “group resource”:

The party will be given a “Base of Operations” group resource. This will be detailed in-game, but it may (and should) be expanded. The bonus gold (along with some bonus Duty) is already described above. For some ideas on how this may be expanded, consider looking at the rules for “Rebel Base Rules” in Desperate Allies (pages 86-89). You might also consult “The Colonist Base of Operations” in Far Horizons (pages 82-85) and for “Technician Rewards: The Workshop) in Special Modifications (pages 94-96).

Combat:

The “Autofire” weapon quality costs 3 Advantage to trigger, not 2.

The Critical Rating of a weapon may be lowered to 2, and no less. (Any weapon that starts with a Critical Rating of 1 has that raised to 2.)

XP and Duty Gain:

XP is earned at a rate of 5XP per hour of play time, as adjudicated by the GM, and is assigned individually. (So someone who can only make it to the first half of a 4-hour session gains 10XP, and someone who has to leave 1 hour early gains 15XP, with everyone else earning 20XP.)

Duty is earned at a rate of 10 Duty per session, with each PC earning at least 1 Duty per session, with the remainder being divvied out as adjudicated by the players. If an amicable decision cannot be reached, the extra Duty goes towards the group’s Duty (Defeat the Aboleth). Any PC whose individual Duty is triggered during that session, and who furthers that Duty, gains double Duty after the 10 base Duty is awarded.

You might find our "re-skin" interesting... check out the link in my signature.

I do love these Fantasy Re-Skins quite a lot, i think it highlights just how much FFG need to make a "High Fantasy" system, i think the WFRPG was definitely a first gen product and it shows compared to the dice etc in the SW system. Gee i hope they make an L5R Narrative system... or just buy Paizo and make a new Pathfinder!!!!! (unrealistic i know, but its the kind of system that would be fun)

On a side note Force Powers will be much more potent in your game now that the drawbacks are gone for the DS pips. have you considered at least keeping the Strain cost, to represent a character having to put more effort into casting the spell? or having a limited number of DS pips available to them each day (Or session) perhaps 5 per Force Rating, or Force Rating x Willpower? Just a thought.

On a side note Force Powers will be much more potent in your game now that the drawbacks are gone for the DS pips. have you considered at least keeping the Strain cost, to represent a character having to put more effort into casting the spell? or having a limited number of DS pips available to them each day (Or session) perhaps 5 per Force Rating, or Force Rating x Willpower? Just a thought.

Yeah... you have to be careful with stuff like that...

We wanted magic to hurt as much as possible in our Conan re-skin, and to have a slippery slope 'edge' to it, so we made DS pips usable, but they cost Wounds instead of Strain... of course, we also put in a way to pass that cost on, but at the risk of Corruption...

Whatever you do, FFG has put in this amazing Strain/Advantage economy mechanic, which is really easy to build off of...

I want to make a morbidly obese rat. He's the local Hutt's nosy and dangerously competent butler, that floats around with a grav pack pouring drinks and taking note of everything. What species and career should I use for my rat?

You could go with Ranat, or Jenat. Two, very mouse or rat looking species. Spy.

On a side note Force Powers will be much more potent in your game now that the drawbacks are gone for the DS pips. have you considered at least keeping the Strain cost, to represent a character having to put more effort into casting the spell? or having a limited number of DS pips available to them each day (Or session) perhaps 5 per Force Rating, or Force Rating x Willpower? Just a thought.

Thought about it, then I thought about how magic basically always works in Pathfinder, so I ditched it for now. Will report on how it goes, though...

Its probably not noticeable at the start, 1 force dice doesn't do much, but a Hunter adding 2 FD to ranged attacks can automatically add 2+ success or advantage to every single attack. or a Seer/Sage with 3 FD gets an average of 4 pips every time they cast a spell, lots of things can be done with 4 pips.

But like you said, try it out, see what happens, change it if things get out of control. XP will limit a lot of that anyway, unless someone decides to focus on a single spell.