Hi there.
Me and my girlfriends have played the old West End Star Wars that we found in dad's RPG box in the basement and we want to test something new.

This Age of the Rebellion feels like a good game, but we have a question: Is it possible to play the Empire side or do you have to be the good side all the time?

While all the fluff is written for the Rebellion, there's nothing mechanically different between playing a Rebel character or an Imperial character.

And if you do run into anything in Age of Rebellion that you cannot resolve in the Imperial light, please post your concerns here. It could be a fun exercise to resolve.

8 hours ago, kaosoe said:

And if you do run into anything in Age of Rebellion that you cannot resolve in the Imperial light, please post your concerns here. It could be a fun exercise to resolve.

8 hours ago, Oden Gebhac said:

While all the fluff is written for the Rebellion, there's nothing mechanically different between playing a Rebel character or an Imperial character.

They're definitely not wrong. Mechanically, AoR works a lot like playing the Imps, even down to the Duty mechanic. You may want to change things to taste, or you may not want to; I'm sure you'll develop your own feel on the fly. Meanwhile, as kaosoe said, you can always post questions here. There have already been quite a few threads about playing the Imperial side (you might have to look into the Edge of the Empire board; most system questions get posed there), though I'd avoid any thread that talks about an "Imperial Core Rule Book" - it's a can of worms that really doesn't need to be re-opened.

Also, I'm sure you could dig up a few play-by-posts from the Imperial side to get a feel for how others do it....

EDIT: Didn't want to sleep and wanted a project. Tracked some stuff down for you.

This thread pitches an Imperial PbP. Not sure where the board is / if it's still up / if it ever got off the ground. It immediately assumes the players will eventually defect, but still gives good ideas on playing Imperial characters.

Although I haven't read it to check if it's super useful (I only have so much time :P), here's a short-ish thread about ways an Imperial campaign could work.

The alternate Duty table mentioned in that thread, as well.

A bit of story and inspiration about one player's Imperial campaign.

And another one, for fun.

Other advice comes in many forms. Remember that Imps were largely human-centric; aliens probably have to have a good reason to be around, and they wouldn't be standard "military" characters - something like a Spy or a Quartermaster, perhaps, with interesting justification, and even then, the species issue would come up a lot. However, a common misconception is that the Empire was also sexist. It wasn't - that isn't even a new canon change; there are all sorts of examples in old EU of female officers, troopers, pilots, and ship captains. The issue was that they had exacting physical standards which skewed the distribution to be more "male"; coupled with the fact that armor and uniforms weren't different between genders and generally tended to mask most features, no one really saw women. They were, however, there. Otherwise, for inspiration, just try to get your hands on random material: PDFs of Imperial-centered sourcebooks for discontinued RPGs, in-universe Imperial Handbooks, comics, whatever.

2 hours ago, Kestin said:

However, a common misconception is that the Empire was also sexist. It wasn't - that isn't even a new canon change; there are all sorts of examples in old EU of female officers, troopers, pilots, and ship captains.

It's not a misconception. Do we see even a single female Imperial in any of the movies?

If you want to change that, that's cool of course. But it's definitely a change in how the Empire is presented.

54 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

It's not a misconception. Do we see even a single female Imperial in any of the movies?

If you want to change that, that's cool of course. But it's definitely a change in how the Empire is presented.

I think only looking at the movies is a mistake. I mean, yeah, it's all Star Wars is to many people, and it's all that can be expected of the general public, but I tend to believe anyone looking at the universe as it applies to the RPG needs to look at the bigger picture. The history of sexism in the Empire seems to be, like most of the EU, up in the air. Writers have described ISD bridges as crewed by "young men and women"; other writers have mentioned being surprised at seeing women in the bridge - though that means they were there.

Natasi Daala, perhaps one of the most famous female Imperials, got her start during the Galactic Civil War. Of course, she faced discrimination for her gender, so there's that.

That discrimination, if it applied to them in their source material, didn't stop Countess Ryad or Howlrunner. Ysanne Isard also has a long and storied service with Imperial Intelligence. Then there's the fairly common Imperial grunt trooper or pilot found in a lot of random comics, though some of those come from non-canon "Tales" comics. It's an idea supported, however, by The Essential Guide to Warfare, put out in 2012 - released around half a year before Disney bought Star Wars. That's the thing that talks about females in service, how their armor sort of removed the idea of gender, and how it was hard to get in but not, in that character's eyes, because of overt sexism. Here's a picture of her and her friend:

Of course, females were still super underrepresented in the Empire in EU material for a variety of reasons, both in-universe and out. Sources that mention them seem to fall more on "inclusive but rare" than "sexist" - though, to be fair, there are those sources that steadfastly and specifically claim the Empire was sexist.

If we're talking new canon, then, oh boy, do we have examples. Name a show or book or comic and I can probably point to a female Imperial. Rebels has politicians, officers, and soldiers, named or otherwise. There's two-part arc about Geonosis that has an Imperial captain of a light cruiser. She sucks at her job, but that's just the Imperial way. The Aftermath series has Rae Sloan as a major Imperial player. Lords of the Sith had a female Moff. One of the main characters in Lost Stars is a woman. Of course, that's all new canon, and new canon is extra inclusive (if you ignore Rogue One; the sequel trilogy could also use more female characters, Imperial or not); you can't read a book without Disney making it obvious there are LGBT characters in Star Wars. I love me some LGBT characters, just like I love me some LGBT people, but they go to lengths to point it out to the degree that it looks less like normalization of, you know, reality and more like a desperate attempt to get brownie points for being hip.

Still, even if you want to argue that the old-canon female characters are outliers - and I suppose you could easily say they are, especially if you count The Essential Guide to Warfare as the start of attempts to catch up to modern standards -, there are in-universe sources, albeit new, for you to point to female Imperials in. Which means the only reason to make the Empire sexist in your game is because you want to go out of your way to make them extra-awful.

You know the one thing you really can't do, new canon or otherwise? Make them not speciest. Unless they are tolerating an alien to contract work out to; have them as a spy because, hey, it's suspicious if all your spies are Human; or because they have specialized knowledge you just can't live without, you never see aliens in any material (during the Galactic Civil War era, anyway; certain Imperial remnants and new Empires were less intense about this).

To me, all that seems like EU writers not getting the movies (a common enough occurrence, if you look at some of the absolutely atrocious stuff that saw print over the years), and rather ham-fisted attempts at inclusiveness by trying to twist the world of the movies into something it's clearly not.

I applaud the attempts at expanding female representation in Star Wars, but I don't know that making the British Space Nazis less sexist outside the movies is the right way to go here, because it implies that the lack of Imperial women on screen isn't a result of sexism. There are women here, they just "happen" to not be shown. No big deal, right? Go buy Star Wars merchandise, girls!

That seems the wrong signal to send, in my opinion.

I'd rather the new movies just continued to do better with representation, instead of trying to pretty up the past by pretending it wasn't ugly. It reeks too much of the different ways in which some countries handle their history. Compare how the German and the US educational system handle the ugly pasts of their respective countries, for example. Thanksgiving fables in American school books, and teaching kids about the holocaust in German ones.

Honestly the sexist nature is more down to real world sexism than any intentional writing. Women are ridiculously under represented in mainstream media, that's obviously changing for the better but it's still a legacy we have to deal with.

As far as running an imperial campaign it's just a matter of rewording the descriptions of Duty, Motivations, species etc. The Imperials still have Aces and there are Imperial Commanders. The diplomat role is as strong as ever, but instead of negotiating peace they instead focus on spreading the propaganda of the Empire. Engineers are key in building and maintaining the Empires massive weapons of war. Soldiers are everywhere, so are Spy's.

Honestly the most important element will be developing a solid reason for the PC's to work together.

2 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

Compare how the German and the US educational system handle the ugly pasts of their respective countries, for example. Thanksgiving fables in American school books, and teaching kids about the holocaust in German ones.

US schools don't mention such things as Indian massacres and slavery? I grew up in a more patriotic time, and that stuff was still taught back then. I'm guessing it's even more stressed today.

24 minutes ago, Sturn said:

US schools don't mention such things as Indian massacres and slavery? I grew up in a more patriotic time, and that stuff was still taught back then. I'm guessing it's even more stressed today.

In which state, though? Texas, for example, is rather infamous for the deplorable quality of its history school books.

1 hour ago, Stan Fresh said:

In which state, though? Texas, for example, is rather infamous for the deplorable quality of its history school books.

I have no idea what is taught in Texas, but I find it hard to believe slavery isn't mentioned in history classes. But, you didn't say "Texas educational system", you said US. Goal posts just shifted to a specific state.

Stan you also compared apples to oranges: a holiday in one country (with a dark historical connection) to what is taught in classes in another. If I compared the Day of German Unity (which has a dark historical connection) then say, but historical slavery is taught in the educational system of the US so we are somehow more enlightened, it wouldn't be fair.

5 minutes ago, Sturn said:

I have no idea what is taught it Texas, but I find it hard to believe slavery isn't mentioned in history classes. But, you didn't say "Texas educational system", you said US. Goal posts just shifted to a specific state.

Since I gave the example of the nonsense taught about thanksgiving, and not slavery, you can hardly complain about *me* moving the goal posts. I also didn't say slavery wasn't *mentioned*.

As for how slavery is taught in Texas: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/opinion/how-texas-teaches-history.html

Quote

If I compared the Day of German Unity (which has a dark historical connection) then say, but historical slavery is taught in the educational system of the US so we are somehow more enlightened, it wouldn't be fair.

I mentioned the thanksgiving stuff in the context of historical misrepresentation, not for being a holiday. That's pretty clear from my post, I think.

It has really nothing to do with German Unity Day, especially when you consider that one celebrates revisionist history and downplays the horrific crimes committed against the American natives , while the other is a somber reminder of past injustices perpetrated by the German people against others and itself.

Repentance for derailing:

Is your dad's WEG library extensive? There are lots to be found in there to help you with an Imperial campaign. The Imperial Sourcebook to name one. If you don't have a copy, it's still available at d6 holocron.

I would be prepared for a couple things as the campaign gets older. First, try to keep the Imperial players from being "evil". This could be fun for a bit, but in my experience it also leads to a campaign coming to an end more quickly. Hopefully your players choose to go the route of Imperials that view the Empire as beneficial to the Galaxy while they hope to steer it to being more benevolent. Second, be prepared for your players to suddenly decide to jump ship to the other side. Eventually, as ideas for Imperial military adventures become more repetitive, boredom could cause a welcome shift to a change up as the players start working with the Rebellion. This could be a full on traitors turned Rebels, or something lesser. For example, they may actually decide certain leaders are corrupting the Empire (the Emperor, high ranking officials) and thus hope to secretly use the Rebels to help remove corruption from their beloved Empire, while remaining Imperials.

21 hours ago, Cattis said:

Hi there.
Me and my girlfriends have played the old West End Star Wars that we found in dad's RPG box in the basement and we want to test something new.

This Age of the Rebellion feels like a good game, but we have a question: Is it possible to play the Empire side or do you have to be the good side all the time?

So, ignoring the sexist derailing debate, and actually addressing the OP's question:

No, there is nothing that requires you to play as a Rebel. The developers, have gone on record multiple times, saying you can absolutely play an Imperial campaign with their rules. You just have to change the flavor text of some stuff. They went to a lot of trouble to make the rules very flexible, to fit any campaign someone can come up with. People have modified them to run campaigns in the Fallout setting (and it seems to have worked well from what I've heard), Old Republic Era stuff, Force Awakens Era stuff, etc etc. They actually pride themselves on having the rules be very adaptive.

So go for it. You and your girlfriends can totally rock an Imperial Squad, and kick lots of Rebel ass in a campaign. Just do a little re-skinning of the factions and stuff, and you'll be fine.