I loved this expansion. Set 4000 years before the movies gave great freedom to players. I had a campaign that ran for three years. It had a large universe shaking scope that the d6 allowed you run with. Set at the height of the conflicts of the old republic and using the star wars adventures set in otherspace had the characters pitted against creatures from another dimension. They had many trials my players resurrecting an ancient force using group called the Triumvirate who were dedicated to holding back this other dimension invasion. Good times:)

But this book was a great EU expansion that let players off the hook and run amok and not worry about treading on the movie character toes. Not that was ever an issue but the sense of freedom was compelling.

I think I was looking for this one but I never got it before I stopped playing the game. The comic series was wonderful and a great departure from the OT that I had hoped to run a campaign in that setting sometime but it never came to be.

I loved the Dark Side Sourcebook. I always enjoyed the distinction of Sith and Dark Jedi that we lost with the prequels.

I like that dark side users have been expanded upon in Canon like Maz and Bendu. Not just the Sith. My own expansion was the Triumvirate a triad of powerful force users with gifts specific in fighting the other dimension invaders the 'Charon'. It's that pioneering that WEG was happy to expand upon. Give direct sourcebook power novel. Line the truce of bakura. A bad novel but gave rise to the night sisters. WEG were unafraid to stat and explain them to more EU defined them.

My favorite source book for the game! I still have my copy.

I loved "Tales of the Jedi". It's a shame it has been pretty much ignored for "Knights of the Old Republic".

Loved this one as well. In our Star Wars campaign my brother and i played a campaign that saw him reintroduce the Jedi Infiltrator to Luke Skywalker's academy, while i reintroduced the Battle-Master training :-)

On 8/19/2017 at 6:17 PM, selderane said:

My favorite source book for the game! I still have my copy.

I loved "Tales of the Jedi". It's a shame it has been pretty much ignored for "Knights of the Old Republic".

To be fair, the KOTOR games borrowed heavily from these Dark Horse Comics stories... The only thing that was truly changed were the tech, as the video game designers didn't like the looks of most of the ships from the Tales of the Jedi comics. But, yeah, anything from that time period is now labeled KOTOR or TOR.

The Tales of the Jedi Companion is the only actual supplement I still own from WEG. (I still have the original RPG and sourcebook as well as the revised second edition RPG and its sourcebook.) And if I were to run a Tales of the Jedi campaign these days? I'd make sure to create a lot of stats for the incredible wealth of new material from KOTORs 1 and 2. Although I do believe some folks online may have already beaten me to the punch...

On 8/31/2017 at 11:51 AM, Harlock999 said:

The only thing that was truly changed were the tech, as the video game designers didn't like the looks of most of the ships from the Tales of the Jedi comics.

Which was a mistake. There's nothing that visually sets KOTOR apart from anything else from the films or the EU.

That was one of the best things about TOTJ! Everything felt old. It looked distinctive and yet you could see how later technology might evolve from it.

5 hours ago, selderane said:

Which was a mistake. There's nothing that visually sets KOTOR apart from anything else from the films or the EU.

That was one of the best things about TOTJ! Everything felt old. It looked distinctive and yet you could see how later technology might evolve from it.

I'll admit I quite like the looks of most of the KOTOR tech.

That said, turning the truly unique Mandalorian Basilisk war droid into a f'ing Starviper (in KOTOR 2)?!? That was ... miserable.

At least we got to see the return of the original design in the PS2, PSP, and Wii versions of The Force Unleashed.

16 hours ago, Harlock999 said:

I'll admit I quite like the looks of most of the KOTOR tech.

That said, turning the truly unique Mandalorian Basilisk war droid into a f'ing Starviper (in KOTOR 2)?!? That was ... miserable.

At least we got to see the return of the original design in the PS2, PSP, and Wii versions of The Force Unleashed.

I'm not saying it looked bad. It doesn't. I'm saying by going away from the distinctive look of TOTJ the game's tech looks like it could have come from any point in the current timeline.

And certainly not something that existed 4000 BBY.

On 9/7/2017 at 9:57 AM, selderane said:

I'm not saying it looked bad. It doesn't. I'm saying by going away from the distinctive look of TOTJ the game's tech looks like it could have come from any point in the current timeline.

And certainly not something that existed 4000 BBY.

That was true and i think it was to appeal to the current fans rather than reinventing the wheel they got a little lazy and just rehashed what was currently their including a reflection of the saga films story line. I love biowares original innovation as far as story and character development especially the companions but failed at a collective saga of their own and as you say trying to stylish an 'old' star wars galaxy. A good start that declined heavily over the years. Now that totj have been moved to legend only the fans of the series keep it alive without the support of rpg or comic. The closest thing you will get in the exploration of SW history is the comics like Kanan but that hardly stretches back any length of time.

Speaking of, I believe the story was that Bioware never intended or expected for the game to be included in the canon of the EU when they worked on it. They wanted some freedom to develop a story and not be tied to the movies and characters, so they picked the era and designed it as they wanted. It wasn't until after the game's reception and praise that it was merged into the EU canon.

At least, that's the story I remember reading.

1 hour ago, Blackbird888 said:

Speaking of, I believe the story was that Bioware never intended or expected for the game to be included in the canon of the EU when they worked on it. They wanted some freedom to develop a story and not be tied to the movies and characters, so they picked the era and designed it as they wanted. It wasn't until after the game's reception and praise that it was merged into the EU canon.

At least, that's the story I remember reading.

Agreed, bioware of the 90's and 2000s was a place of great story telling not just Star Wars. Kotor had many memorable moments giving us enduring characters that were begged to be explored. Kotor II expanded on that and SWTOR blew the door off but its current episode chapters i find very lack luster but that is the same crew as ME: Andromeda...I know some chief story tellers had left by this time.

Well, I didn't bring it up to discuss Bioware's current status, but as an explanation as to why KotOR looks so different from TotJ. Although the oversight of the Star Wars canon/EU was much less then than it is now, if they had gone into the development planning to add their game to the greater canon, we probably would have had a game that looked a little bit closer to the comic's depiction.

If the story I shared is true, then Bioware just wanted to make a Star Wars game, so they made something that looks like Star Wars, but is different enough they could design their own stuff and not have to finagle with any existing canon. It just happened that it would get made canon anyway.

18 minutes ago, Blackbird888 said:

Well, I didn't bring it up to discuss Bioware's current status, but as an explanation as to why KotOR looks so different from TotJ. Although the oversight of the Star Wars canon/EU was much less then than it is now, if they had gone into the development planning to add their game to the greater canon, we probably would have had a game that looked a little bit closer to the comic's depiction.

If the story I shared is true, then Bioware just wanted to make a Star Wars game, so they made something that looks like Star Wars, but is different enough they could design their own stuff and not have to finagle with any existing canon. It just happened that it would get made canon anyway.

Meh a topics response is not in mandatory perimeters lol. As for the differences in kotor and totj as i said i think was objectively an easy representation to make something more familiar and thus more palatable so they may think to the mass legion of star wars fans. Especially after the SWG debacle.

On 9/9/2017 at 3:32 PM, Blackbird888 said:

Speaking of, I believe the story was that Bioware never intended or expected for the game to be included in the canon of the EU when they worked on it. They wanted some freedom to develop a story and not be tied to the movies and characters, so they picked the era and designed it as they wanted. It wasn't until after the game's reception and praise that it was merged into the EU canon.

At least, that's the story I remember reading.

It's true BioWare wanted more freedom to craft a roleplaying experience that wouldn't have to follow the "rules" and expectations set forth by the films...

...and picking a setting 4000(?) years in the past seemed a great way to avoid these issues.

But, again, the developers did indeed borrow heavily from the TotJ stories and lore for their games. So, yeah, obviously they were planting KOTOR firmly in "EU canon;" BioWare just wanted to change the looks of the starships and tech as they believed the comicbook art was "ugly."

That said? In the 90s and early 00s, the only people who truly worried about what was canonical or not were the minutia-driven, diehard fans. To most of us? If it didn't have George Lucas' fingerprints all over it, it was never truly canon. So who really cared if it all fit together seamlessly?

This was one of the last WEG books I picked up and is still one of my favorites (next to Han Solo and the Corporate Sector). And this was long before KOTOR was a “thing”. By copy is still in prestine condition having hardly been used (but red cover to cover many times over).