So, after a game session I played in tonight, I'm left wondering: How do most people handle the introduction of named characters into their campaigns?

I only brought in four characters from the Star Wars universe throughout my campaign. The first, Grakkus the Hutt from the current Marvel Star Wars comics, was just a namedrop from some goons on the streets of Nar Shaddaa. The second was Sebulba, in a speeder race on the planet Boonta, coming out of retirement for one last big race (Which my players greatly appreciated, since they got to race Sebulba and win in a photo finish). The third was a namedrop of Darth Vader in the second to last game of my campaign, where they were robbing a Hutt at the same time Vader was shutting down said Hutt's slaving operation. And the fourth was in the very last game of the campaign, where it turned out the fugitive they'd been hunting for the entirety of the game (Two of the players were bounty hunters) turned out to be a Jedi named Byph, a character from The Clone Wars. Once they finally caught up to him, one of the players, a former Padawan, recognized him, and they worked together with Byph to fight an Inquisitor who had been following both the party and the Jedi.

In two of the four instances, the characters were just meaningful namedrops. Sure, if the players were feeling particularly suicidal, they knew they just had to run up the stairs of the Hutt's palace in order to encounter Vader, or just go to the wrong part of Nar Shaddaa to end up in Grakkus' arena. But they had other things to do at those times, so the risks were minimal. For the other two characters, Byph and Sebulba, I introduced them in a time period when they had long since stopped being relevant to the story of Star Wars, so it didn't really feel like anything that happened with these characters would hurt the continuity of the main series at all.

In the game I played in tonight, my GM brought in the Grand Inquisitor, about a year after the events of Order 66. Tonight was our second game of the campaign, and all of us started at the base level of XP. Our characters were in a room with the Grand Inquisitor, he was in full-blown kill mode, and four of the players are Force sensitives, two having been trained as Padawans. For all intents and purposes, I feel like the Inquisitor should have gone out of his way to ensure we were all struck down. Instead, we somehow managed to escape. While the game itself was a ton of fun, I'm a bit lukewarm about the introduction of such a major character, especially this early in a campaign. It's really gotten me thinking, which is why I felt like posting on here.

So how many of you have had big named characters appear in your games, and how did you feel about it? Do you think it's a good thing to have a strong presence of well-known characters? Or do you think the use of such characters should be kept to a bare minimum?

I've only introduced one so far in my game. I wanted a leader of a pirate band with grand ambitions but presently down on his luck, and for him to be talky to give our 'face' character a chance to talk round a problem rather than the shooting or explosions route the other characters have tended to go for. They were not far from Lothal.

So I threw in Hondo Ohnaka. This worked pretty well. The players of the less talkative characters had seen Rebels, the 'face' character hadn't seen Rebels or Clone Wars (I knew this before hand), so it was a fun dynamic.

As I don't know what might happen to Hondo in future episodes of Rebels (though I suspect he'll survive), he introduced himself (briefly) as "dread pirate", before correcting himself to "legitimate entrepreneur", so that if Hondo does die in Rebels I can use the "Dread Pirate Roberts" explanation without breaking Canon (it's 3 ABY).

I think name-dropping, and lesser named characters, can add to the ambiance- but should not necessarily steal the show. Familiar names, or occasional appearances (on or off screen) can be a fun reminder that you're in the star wars universe.

I'm presently making fast & loose with current canon. My son has rescued Snap Wexley from a First Order detention center, foiled a plot to kidnap Lt Connix and PZ-4CO, and even faced a Knight of Ren! More mature audiences may be less tolerant of such over-the-top antics, but it keeps my 6 year old engaged.

I'm personally inclined to agree that the Grand Inquisitor should have easily handled a party of Force Gumbies... but escaping from the bad guy can be epic, and happens all the time in the movies and shows- so long as they did not actually manage to defeat him in their second adventure.

I tend to use locations and events more than characters in my game, as I feel my players are more invested in things they feel they have control of. For my own fun, I sprinkle in minor characters from the comics or old legends material (and nobody notices), but I shy away from the major players or someone instantly recognizable.

My sense is that my players like to have full control over their own story, so I use portions of the official cannon to inform their decisions and ground the timeline. For instance, we're playing through 1ABY, and a smuggler the PCs have contact with has a cache of illicit holos of the Death Star blowing up that she sells on the grey market to cover her docking costs. Similarly, the local Imperials are flexing their authority now that there is no Imperial Senate.

My game is set during the same time as Rebels so it's easer to keep named SW characters out of it and I am using Ashoka as Fulcrum but my PCs wont likely ever meet her face to face. As for other characters I avoid them, too much baggage.

I usually avoid it if possible, or I have them simply do a "walk on" scene without much direct interaction with the PC's. I find it to be easier to keep the story going if you don't shove a known quantity into things, and just tell your own story running parallel to what the heroes are doing.

So far I've only used them away from the PCs to inform the environment the PCs are operating in (running my F&D game immediately post-Jedi), like discussing the upheaval that the death of Jabba has caused on Nar Shaddaa or having the players hear rumors that the Alliance has a Jedi working with them. Most of what the PCs have been doing so far hasn't intersected the paths of any named characters, thought that may change shortly.

Funny story. Ever since the old West End Games RPG I've had a standing rule that if anyone hummed the Imperial March during my sessions Vader would show up. This was implemented because of a boast I made almost 25 years ago that I could get figure out a way to get any character into any game. The group decided the character was Vader and the way to determine the game was was randomly when the song came on. It happened randomly a couple of times, and then they tried messing with me and staged it some times too. In the end, it just became something of a tabletop gossip legend, and my shtick. Over the years people have tested it on me - playing White Wolf's Vampire the Masquerade one of the PC's had it as his ring tone, it went off while I was running a gunfight in the street. I narrated that during the gunfight the convention center behind them let loose it's guests (Comic Con) and cosplayers of Star Wars spilled out. Darth Vader and the 501st cosplay group was helplessly stuck in the middle of the firefight and they had to rescue them or face the loss of humanity. It's been fun, over the years I've had Vader enter into all sorts of games, always the bane of my PCs, causing no ends of trouble.

When this version of the RPG came out and I saw what they did in Rescue at Glare Peak I was worried about the connotations of what my boast would mean. To top it all off, we had a new player to the group as well, and while the rest of the group had their fill of "taking the March" the new player was only intrigued by the stories and had that gleam in his eyes. There were a couple of close calls - the first time I went easy on them and he appeared via hologram to alert the station they were at that he was hunting someone in the city and gave a description of one of the force users in the group (easy to do because he was a brown haired human - Vader was after someone entirely different). The second time through was in the middle of the adventure "Under a Black Sun" which takes place on Coruscant. The PC's had opened the adventure by getting into a firefight in a taxi with some Black Sun thugs, and then lightsabering their taxi open to leap to a nearby building. They followed this up by completely demolishing Zelcomm Tower after getting into a firefight with security and ending it with a missile launcher and a jet pack escape. They were all about 2K experience at this point, and had 4 force users, so I had some Inquisitor NPCs that had been recurring villains confront them after they killed their target (and posted it on the holonet immediately after), thinking that would be fair for their troubles. They wound up escaping, and on they way back to their hangar to lay low and wait for a chance off world someone said, "could this be any worse?" Someone else replied, "Vader could be here." To which, without thinking, someone said, "yeah, and the next thing we hear is 'dum, dum, dum, dumdee dum, dumdee dum" at which point everyone stared, open mouthed and horrified at the new guy.

I was in a predicament ... what to do? It didn't help that this happened the same week as one of the old threads of 'FFG Forum Member does XXXX stats' had done Anakin Skywalker/Vader. In response, I'd made my own version (cause most of us have probably done so as a thought exercise with no intention of ever using him). He sat there at 5000xp, waiting to be placed on the tabletop to see if he could match the narrative fright I could use instead. I decided ... sure, if he gets waylaid, I just narrate that he is temporarily sent to a knee and the PC's have a turn to flee before we "Glare Peak" it. He slow walks in behind them, they shout in a panic to the pilot to start the engines as the bulk of them turn to buy time in a shooting retreat. The most experienced of the force users, Aesa, sighs, draws her lightsaber, and takes a defensive posture while the others open fire on the Dark Lord. Very little actually gets to him, barely scratches, and the deflection makes one of the PCs feel it pretty heavily. The ship is ready to go after the second round, and everyone has taken enough damage and strain to realize that leaving is better option as Vader is almost in "return fire" range. One of the PC's decides he's going to be the big gorram hero and open up on Vader instead of retreating - Vader dropped him with a debilitating critical in the opening action of the next round without even getting to half strain. The others grabbed him and drug him, unconscious, into the ship and pulled a scene out of Empire, blasting out of the hangar as Vader watched. They figured they would rather face the entire Home Defense Fleet of Coruscant than spend another round with Vader....

Long story short (too late), you can stat them out, use them as name drops, or have them show up through narrative with no stats and just actions and results. They all work, so long as you remember the story you are trying to tell and use that as the box to keep them inside of.

So the first thing to do is take the concept of canon, make it tangible and then throw it out the window. FFG's books and products are not canon. They're not worldbuilding as WEG did. They're canon agnostic, and you can hear this in one of the more recent Order 66s where Keith Kappel says his priority is to give the players the support they need to tell great stories over a need for canonicity.

Your characters do not, and will not, exist in canon ever. You are at this point creating your own What If style story. As such, the actions of the characters you bring in, who have a place in the wider Star Wars universe, can do as you - the GM - pleases.

FFG have been smart in not giving Vader, Luke et al stats, because players are frankly stupid and if it has hit points and stats, it can be killed. They don't want the players doing that, so they don't enable it. They don't facilitate it. But if you drop in Sebulba, or Quinlan Vos as a mentor, whatever - it's because you want them, not because their official bio will note their time on Nal Hutta with your players.

Canon is a massive restriction here and it's easiest to abandon its relevance at your table.

In my recent AOR game, I used Hondo, Mon Mothma, Crix Madine, and Airen Cracken. I was going to use Admiral Ackbar, but instead made up my own Mon Calamari (inspired by the decision to use Admiral Raddus in Rogue One) called Admiral Allahu (two players didn't get the joke which made it even better). To manage this, all I did was use them in social situations where they weren't required to make skill checks and thus, I gave no opinions as GM as to what their attributes might've been.

Named characters help enhance the most important aspect of Star Wars RPG - the feel . Using Han, Luke, Leia, Hondo, Mon Mothma, Hera, etc - this grounds your campaign in something the players have seen and helps visualise it. To that end I would strongly advise not having them as combatants or whatever, just for social interactions. Otherwise, if you must use them, just pull out 8 yellow dice for any check and smile innocently at the players...

1 hour ago, Endersai said:

So the first thing to do is take the concept of canon, make it tangible and then throw it out the window. FFG's books and products are not canon. They're not worldbuilding as WEG did. They're canon agnostic, and you can hear this in one of the more recent Order 66s where Keith Kappel says his priority is to give the players the support they need to tell great stories over a need for canonicity.

Your characters do not, and will not, exist in canon ever. You are at this point creating your own What If style story. As such, the actions of the characters you bring in, who have a place in the wider Star Wars universe, can do as you - the GM - pleases.

FFG have been smart in not giving Vader, Luke et al stats, because players are frankly stupid and if it has hit points and stats, it can be killed. They don't want the players doing that, so they don't enable it. They don't facilitate it. But if you drop in Sebulba, or Quinlan Vos as a mentor, whatever - it's because you want them, not because their official bio will note their time on Nal Hutta with your players.

Canon is a massive restriction here and it's easiest to abandon its relevance at your table.

In my recent AOR game, I used Hondo, Mon Mothma, Crix Madine, and Airen Cracken. I was going to use Admiral Ackbar, but instead made up my own Mon Calamari (inspired by the decision to use Admiral Raddus in Rogue One) called Admiral Allahu (two players didn't get the joke which made it even better). To manage this, all I did was use them in social situations where they weren't required to make skill checks and thus, I gave no opinions as GM as to what their attributes might've been.

Named characters help enhance the most important aspect of Star Wars RPG - the feel . Using Han, Luke, Leia, Hondo, Mon Mothma, Hera, etc - this grounds your campaign in something the players have seen and helps visualise it. To that end I would strongly advise not having them as combatants or whatever, just for social interactions. Otherwise, if you must use them, just pull out 8 yellow dice for any check and smile innocently at the players...

I both agree and disagree here. On the one hand, yes, the story you are telling is very much "non-canon". On the other, my table has found it very fun to keep the game heavily tied to canon events. While I have seldom brought movie characters into my game, I strive to keep the game in line with the 'canon' story. I pay close attention to what was happening in the greater galaxy of Star Wars at the time the story I'm telling takes place, and I try to tie the players' story in somehow. Then the players feel more like their actions are connected to the movies. So far, this method has worked pretty well for me.

8 minutes ago, Underachiever599 said:

I both agree and disagree here. On the one hand, yes, the story you are telling is very much "non-canon". On the other, my table has found it very fun to keep the game heavily tied to canon events. While I have seldom brought movie characters into my game, I strive to keep the game in line with the 'canon' story. I pay close attention to what was happening in the greater galaxy of Star Wars at the time the story I'm telling takes place, and I try to tie the players' story in somehow. Then the players feel more like their actions are connected to the movies. So far, this method has worked pretty well for me.

I prefer a similar vibe.

The issue there though is with Legends and then the nu-canon, you're going to have players who either have to be up to date on all the stories, or at least Rebels, to really understand and appreciate that. You're also creating a rod for your own back in terms of the events you are obligated to respond to - in my view.

But, that's not the point I was making. You are not running in canon, and FFG books are not canon. You exist in an entirely acanonical place with the RPG, and as such whatever you chose to bring in is discretionary. It has no bearing on canon though; and it is not materially enhanced nor diminished for how closely it follows the new canon stories. Worrying about whether Sebulba may or may not play a role in the future of Star Wars is immaterial to your game. If you, the GM, decide to have him race the Sentinel Racer and die in a fiery crash thanks to two Despairs, and he shows up in next week's Rebels, you shouldn't have to retcon this. Canon doesn't care if you killed him; you shouldn't care if canon keeps him alive.

Basically; if you have a choice between breaching canon to tell a good story, or dimming the impact of your story to fit canon, you should go the former over the latter every time.

Had used Named-SW-Chars several times, mostly to encourage the players (they specifically asked to meet some chars at sessions Zero! so they would get the vipe!)

Here is what I used:

Lando Calrissian: When one player tried to make a fortune at the sabacc tables... the player became too lucky and wouldn't stop... so he encounter in a very Highstake-game a charimatic dark toned Human... after the PC was crushed utterly, the NPC introduced himselfe and offered a job to pay the dept... (Fun fact: that was before I ever saw the "Rebels" episode where the exact same thing happens to Zeb!)

Han Solo and Chewbacca: to get two PC to work together an uprising in a tavern broke out, a Human smuggler and his Wookie friend where engaged with some Bounty Hunters, which of course called him by name. Durring the ruckus Han and chewie took theire leave while the players helped them to escape.

Mon Mothma: as a Hologramaboard of the "Freedom Wing" a light fregatte where the players had helped the alliance for some time, they were entitled as "trusted friends of the Alliance" and got a little bit of fame.

Luke Skywalker and Wedge antilles: During the evacuation of Yavin, the Pilot of the group helped to fend of some TIE-L/N and TIE-BOMBER while hearing on the com that Rouge one and two where also on the case. After the first wave he got some orders where to flight and get rid of another TIE by Luke.

Luke Skywalker (Solo appearance): 1st Name-drop a board the "Freedom Wing" about this Jedi-Guy-Commander other than the players.
2nd. Battle of Hoth the players saw him in the far distance, or better they saw his Lightsaber while he was cuuting into the AT-AT to throw the Grenade in it. (helped to determine the phase of the battle)

Tyber Zann: The players got an assignment to be Bodyguards to an "Salesman" calles "Mr. Z" and helped him to get around town while foiling some attempeds to assasinated him. Funny was that whenever he got into some placed to do his "buisness" the players had to wait outside, securing the area and such. They only found out what really happened after "Mr. Z" said Thanks and left the planet, when they saw in the news that severals MOB-Bosses where slauthger in the vicinity, and that the suspect was the infamous Tyber zann or better his organization with the Bounty-Poster of him shown.

Mara Jade: they met her on a imperial ship that went stranded in a asteroid field. The Captain of the ship went rouge and wanted to created his own para-military-dictatorship, the players wanted the ship for the rebellion (at least everything useable on it), Mara was there to get rid of the captain. They met each other on different occasions on the ship. (beginning with just some glimpses of the red haired woman, to assisting each other in a firefight (they thought she was also a rebel at first) until she offered companion ship to defeat the captain (without showing her true intensions, of course), she seezed the bordcontrols and led the players to the bridge where they defeated the captain while she enjoyed the show via monitor (they used triumph to let her use the computer for some help, though...). Only when she departed with a smile and the warning that the selfdestruction of the ship had been activated the players recognized who she was ^^

Jabba the Hutt: some Name-drops here and there when they had buisness with the Hutt-cartells.

Urai Fenn: Help a charackter to get a Job... the player didn't recognized him...

Darth Vader: obviosly Name-Drops since the players are forcys. But also one appearance: In a dark side campaign the PC was happy with his Sith-Master (secret apprentice of Dooku <- Name-Drop) on Korriban trying to become a sith when the Empire appears and sow havoc on the little sith-base. Final encounter: Vader and the masters clashes, the master gets down fast, PC tries to unleash his anger... and gets force shoved by Vader (by "accident") into the waiting rescue ship and hits (also by "accident") the startbutton, escaping to space and hyper space.

Exar Kun: also darkside Campaign. On Yavin 4, as a Dark Side force ghost he offered the player great power in the depth of the pyramide (where he is bound) if the player would make an innocent humanoid offering... in the end the player got his corrupted kybercrystal.

Admiral Zsinj : Name-drop on an empireal communique about the blockade of Dathomir.

Asaij ventress: Name-Drop in a story told by the "Mother of the singing Mountain" while on dathomir.

Asoka Tano: Name-Drop due to a backgroundstory of a PC.

(Darth) Revan: Name-Drop in a story about the past and the solari-crystal

Ood-Bnar: Name-Drop due to a backgroundstory of a PC and the solari-crystal

Grand Moff Tarkin: Name-Drop by an empireal officer that wanted to became just like him... well without beeing framed for treacherous mass murdering of course...

Ysanne Isard: Name-drop in an ISB-Communique about some new "Detencion-Facility" on Couruscant.

Wow, looking back on the two years of gaming SW... there were quite some prominet appearances in my campaings (and not even once they stole the players the glory of beeing main characters!). ^^

Way, way back in my old d6 Star Wars game (this would have been around '89-ish), I brought Chewbacca in as a side-character in one of my games. The characters had actually rescued him from a Trandoshan slaver working with the Empire. During their escape, the PCs pulled the old "dress up as stormtroopers" gambit. But what to do with Chewie? There was a large security droid they had taken out (wish I'd known about K2-SO and his height back then! ), and the plan was to rip out all its innards and try to clamp its shell around Chewie.

I pointed to a rough sketch of the droid I'd done, and the fact that Chewie's fur was way too thick to allow them to clamp the droid shell around his limbs. That's when my oldest friend, Paul, uttered one of those lines that has echoed down through the decades in our gaming group...

"Could we shave the Wookiee?"

Paul's character didn't quite get his arms pulled out of their sockets, but I managed to pull off my best Wookiee howl-of-outrage impersonation.

Oh god, WEG SWRPG and shorn Wookies/ewoks. What was it about that game that prompted that discussion for seemingly every group ?

(Also, wouldn't you shear a wookie, not shave it?)

My players encountered the Night Beast (old Marvel comics character/monster, which I retconned into being a normal red skinned Massassi) on Ziost who told them about his encounter with 'Skywalker' - the logs from the ship he'd arrived on (crew were dead) gave them some more details about Luke and Yavin 4, and they decided to visit. They never made it due to plot shenanigans and left the Massassi on Tund- which had survived the apocalypse of canon due to Lando (there was a statue of him in the square, they didn't get to meet).

Currently they have just encountered Gungi - the Wookiee youngling from Clone Wars who survived Order 66, and has grown into quite a powerful Force using warrior, and Rebel Commander. They also met, and crippled an not-named-yet Imperial Inquisitor who will defiantly be remembering them... in detail.

There has been a few unexplored side-plots that might have led to more 'Names' showing up, but my Crew have a tendency to talk themselves out of side adventures.

I am a canon Nazi. In the Star Wars games I've run previously (from WEG D6 through OCR/RCR/Saga) I've had the players involved in events happening simultaneously with events in the Star Wars Expanded Universe (which was not Legends at the time). The very first game I ran. . . was back in high school, so let's not talk about that one. The SECOND game I ran started the players right around The Truce At Bakura, and while they didn't participate in those events directly, they did encounter some Ssi-Ruuk scouting parties they had to deal with. I moved them up through a series of time skips to the Thrawn Trilogy, where they were fighting another Imperial faction supporting Grand Admiral Thrawn's offensive, and a group of Dark Jedi created whole-cloth by me. To put things in perspective, one of the players was playing a Verpine, and I told him flat-out that he wouldn't be meeting Luke Skywalker until after the events of Dark Force Rising, because a line in that book indicates Luke had never met a Verpine before. They did end up particiapting in both the Battle of Sluis Van and the Battle of Bilbringi. We wrapped that campaign and started a New Jedi Order one, with the same characters having aged (and leveled) up in the interim. They participated in a few of the events from the novels, but I quickly spun out a new antagonist and plot for them to follow (though the campaign wound up being a lot more disorganized than I would have liked, with a lot of my ideas jettisoned because I forgot about them until it was too late or the players were in a position now where it wouldn't make sense).

To avoid all that, my current campaign (started in Saga, switched to FFG recently) is set a thousand years after the New Jedi Order, in a Second Galactic Empire working closely with the Jedi Order to maintain peace. Of course, it's Star Wars, so things don't go according to plan. The players are now the main heroes of the story. There are important and powerful NPCs they deal with on a regular basis, but they get to be the Anakins, Obi-Wans, Lukes, Hans, and Leias of this generation. They get to go where the big important stuff is happening (usually). I have statted out several of these important NPCs, partly to get used to how the game works myself and partly because I just really like having stats and knowing what characters are capable of, since (especially in a system like this) what you can and can't do mechanically can greatly inform who your character is, and vice versa.

In general, though, I'd say it depends on the table. If your group has great reverence for the Star Wars story as it stands in canon, then under no circumstances should you mess with that (understanding that "canon" is a bit of a moving target at the moment, with the Legends EU, new EU, and new films, all of which FFG draws upon to create a Schrodinger's Canon gestalt). If your players are comfortable with the established Star Wars story going off the rails, then go ahead and say Luke Skywalker is dead and they have to step to be the new heroes of the Rebellion and defeat Darth Vader and the Emperor.

One final note: when Wizards got their Star Wars games up and running, and stats for various canon characters came out, there was a immediately much headscratching about how level 9 Luke Skywalker (as he was at the end of Return of the Jedi) could have possibly defeated level 20 Darth Vader. Darth Vader was level 20 because we'd (now) followed his story from a nine-year-old slave boy on Tattooine through his career as a Jedi Knight, he fall to the Dark Side, and his time as the Emperor's favorite attack dog. But realistically, for a role-playing game, putting the villain at level 20 while the characters aren't even half that is unnecessary, and not all that bright. Say the characters of A New Hope were all level 1. To be an insurmountable threat, Vader would only need to be level 5 or 6. Come Empire , say the heroes are level 4. For Vader to be a challenging foe for Luke to face one-on-one, he's probably still only level 5 or 6, maybe 7. Difficult, and highly likely to give Luke a bad time (as he does in the film), but not invincible. Come Jedi , if Luke is level 9, then Vader should be 12, max. A difficult, but defeatable, foe.

So if you're looking to stat up named characters for a campaign, they can be as powerful as they need to be. Do you want your players to have the tough-but-doable fight of Empire or Jedi , or be in the Mook Horror Show that was the end of Rogue One ? That's how much XP your Vader is built on.

Right until the time that the campaign was stopped for an indeterminate time due to a matrimonial disagreement, I ran a campaing that did away with any and all such expectations. I dubbed it the "Dark Age of the Republic", set about a couple of hundred of years after the events of The Old Republic, Knights of the Eternal throne (yes, the MMORPG). The group met with a disillusioned soldier with the last name of 'Solo', and there were a few other 'famous' non-cameos like that, but other than that, there is neither an established character from the MMORPG, nor any established character from the prequal, original, or sequel era. Not indeed the Legacy era for those who still like to consider that part of Star Wars after the Disney-66 within Canon.

It was rather refreshing to do whatever I wanted, to provide my own movers and shakers in a galaxy still recovering from the massive wars where Sith and Republic fought The Eternal Throne (MMORPG background and storylines), even if some organisations (Hutt Cartel, Republic, Sith, Mando'ade, etc) were still there, more or less. Also, it allowed me to use all three Core Books and their rules and specializations, with a couple of re-skins of existing ships and equipment into 'Old Republic style' ships and gear. Because of that ("Hey, this OR Bomber has stats almost identical to a Y-Wing!", "Yes, why change a winning formula?") converting existing material into TOR material was less work that expected.

If I would Game Master a more contemporary setting, such as a 'true' Age of Rebellion campaing. I guess I would cameo some of the known characters. Briefly. Sometimes even sneak them in. "As you walk through the corridors of Echo Base, you pass by a man and a woman who are arguing about something. It's just one of those captains you heard a couple of tall tales about, and she is that former senator from Alderaan, Leia Organa. The guy is muttering something about how she could use a good kiss and there was some yelling about kissing a Wookiee. Of course, with your duties elsewhere, you move along to the command center and report for your mission briefing. You guess it might be some time before you see this ice planet again if it is true that you will fly off to Bothawui." Allows the player characters to be the heroes in their own stories, the way it is supposed to be, in my opinion.

In our game ( AU! ) Padme survived and is heavily involved in the "Amidala-Organa Network." Obi-Wan serves in an "advisory" capacity, but spends most of his time at a remote sanctuary colony (Otoh Nabierre) assisting Sabe in raising the twins. Ahsoka is working for Bail and Padme as Fulcrum with an outpost (not yet base) on Hoth. Two of the PCs are Jedi Survivors from Garm Bel Ilbis's clan and are becoming increasingly important operatives for AON. The other PC is also a Jedi survivor. Yoda has passed into the Force.

I ensure the aforementioned characters play a strictly supporting role, even if they are formally in leadership positions, by ensuring they are restricted to cameos or social scenes, and don't participate in the primary action. My players absolutely love interacting with canon characters, but a big part of that is that we are not treating canon as inviolate so there is not need to be railroaded by a meta-plot in which the events of the OT come to pass. I also try to make sure the aforementioned canon characters don't show up in every session and, when they do, don't participate shoulder-to-shoulder in the main action with the PCs.

One developing dynamic is that while Obi-Wan is the last surviving member of the Old Jedi Council, all Jedi business is decided on as a group. In essence, the defacto Jedi Council consists of Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and three player character Jedi (2 surviving knights and a surviving youngling-turned-padawan). Its understood, with Padme, that while she frequently has Jedi working towards her ends, Jedi business is Jedi business. This makes the players feel their characters have the future of the Jedi Order in their hands. They are Qui Gon fans and their characters are would-be disciples of the living force. Qui Gon's force ghost will likely make an appearance.

I plan on having guest-star appearances by 17 year old Hera Syndulla (same age as our padawan), Cad Bane, Hondo Ohkana, Embo, Tarkin, and Darth Vader. In terms of Vader, I'm building him to be dangerous-scary, but not a fan-**** deus ex machina, and to play fair with him. If Luke, as a powerful yet greenhorn Jedi, could take him down then a trio of fully trained Jedi should stand a chance at doing the same. In fact, it may be that the PCs get to the point where any one of them can go toe-to-toe with him just as Luke did. The Force wills what I will it to will!

Another plan I have is to work Jewell of Yavin into the rebellion storyline with Padme being taken hostage during a visit to Nar Shaada by a Hutt (mayhaps Jabba?) as a means of leveraging them into stealing the Jewell so that his rival Kaltho won't get it. This is complicated by the fact that Kaltho, in my game, is an old acquaintance of two of the PCs and sells arms to AON! Whether I use Lando or not in that is up in the air. He'dbe a lot younger and I would have to determine if it made sense.

We'll see how it goes.

On 8/25/2017 at 0:53 AM, Underachiever599 said:

Do you think it's a good thing to have a strong presence of well-known characters?

At my table? Absolutely! I love having moments with the movie characters, and continuity be damned. If they can change events via these interactions, then more power to them. Letsee. . . .Our All Padawan game set during the E1-3 era had extensive contact with all kinds of folks in the Jedi order (as one would expect) and managed to prevent Anakin from falling. Sadly their Dark Jedi Nemesis wound up as Palpatine's Strong Right Hand.

My favorite one was where the entire universe was set out of kilter when the PC Jedi found a missing Luke on Hoth well before nightfall. Han was able to leave before the base was locked down, which meant that Leia was capture because she was cut off from her transport. Luke wound up falling to the dark after Vader announced his patronage. The two killed the Emperor and ruled the Empire pretending that Palpatine was taken ill. With his plans all up in smoke, Yoda activated his backup plan, making the players go put right what they messed up by going to save Leia and train her (as he was dying). Luke was saved, Vader was killed still evil and everything the players did echoed down the timeline to Thrawn's counterattack where he came within moments of beating the Republic. That was quite the epic game - and all from "Hey, I bet I can find Luke with the Force!"

My current batch of PCs just got on Vader's radar when they threw a severed droid head at him - and connected - when Vader and Luke were fighting on Bespin. We'll see how this one plays out.

I don't use the named characters really because I just never have it be the right place and time for the players to meet up with them. I don't have any ill-will toward using the named characters, I just prefer to have the game be completely about the PC's and the NPC's they encounter as it's own instance of Star Wars.

But if I was going to use any of the minor ones I don't think I would want them in a combat situation against the PC's directly. The major characters have plot armor to me, so they won't be affected by most of what the players do, but I also would only use them like the rolling ball in Raiders of the Lost Ark, just get out of its way

1 hour ago, Archlyte said:

I don't use the named characters really because I just never have it be the right place and time for the players to meet up with them. I don't have any ill-will toward using the named characters, I just prefer to have the game be completely about the PC's and the NPC's they encounter as it's own instance of Star Wars.

But if I was going to use any of the minor ones I don't think I would want them in a combat situation against the PC's directly. The major characters have plot armor to me, so they won't be affected by most of what the players do, but I also would only use them like the rolling ball in Raiders of the Lost Ark, just get out of its way

That's fair, I suppose. The only time I bring named characters into combat is when it's a character whose impact on the story is already over. Sebulba, for example, isn't relevant after his race against Anakin. The younglings from "The Gathering" episode of The Clone Wars are also no longer important after their story arc, so I don't mind introducing them as surviving Jedi. That way, it's still very much the story of my player's characters, but they still get the joy of running across familiar faces. The only major character that's made an 'appearance' in my game was a name drop instead of actually showing up.

On 9/2/2017 at 11:07 AM, Kyla said:

Funny story. Ever since the old West End Games RPG I've had a standing rule that if anyone hummed the Imperial March during my sessions Vader would show up. This was implemented because of a boast I made almost 25 years ago that I could get figure out a way to get any character into any game. The group decided the character was Vader and the way to determine the game was was randomly when the song came on. It happened randomly a couple of times, and then they tried messing with me and staged it some times too. In the end, it just became something of a tabletop gossip legend, and my shtick. Over the years people have tested it on me - playing White Wolf's Vampire the Masquerade one of the PC's had it as his ring tone, it went off while I was running a gunfight in the street. I narrated that during the gunfight the convention center behind them let loose it's guests (Comic Con) and cosplayers of Star Wars spilled out. Darth Vader and the 501st cosplay group was helplessly stuck in the middle of the firefight and they had to rescue them or face the loss of humanity. It's been fun, over the years I've had Vader enter into all sorts of games, always the bane of my PCs, causing no ends of trouble.

When this version of the RPG came out and I saw what they did in Rescue at Glare Peak I was worried about the connotations of what my boast would mean. To top it all off, we had a new player to the group as well, and while the rest of the group had their fill of "taking the March" the new player was only intrigued by the stories and had that gleam in his eyes. There were a couple of close calls - the first time I went easy on them and he appeared via hologram to alert the station they were at that he was hunting someone in the city and gave a description of one of the force users in the group (easy to do because he was a brown haired human - Vader was after someone entirely different). The second time through was in the middle of the adventure "Under a Black Sun" which takes place on Coruscant. The PC's had opened the adventure by getting into a firefight in a taxi with some Black Sun thugs, and then lightsabering their taxi open to leap to a nearby building. They followed this up by completely demolishing Zelcomm Tower after getting into a firefight with security and ending it with a missile launcher and a jet pack escape. They were all about 2K experience at this point, and had 4 force users, so I had some Inquisitor NPCs that had been recurring villains confront them after they killed their target (and posted it on the holonet immediately after), thinking that would be fair for their troubles. They wound up escaping, and on they way back to their hangar to lay low and wait for a chance off world someone said, "could this be any worse?" Someone else replied, "Vader could be here." To which, without thinking, someone said, "yeah, and the next thing we hear is 'dum, dum, dum, dumdee dum, dumdee dum" at which point everyone stared, open mouthed and horrified at the new guy.

I was in a predicament ... what to do? It didn't help that this happened the same week as one of the old threads of 'FFG Forum Member does XXXX stats' had done Anakin Skywalker/Vader. In response, I'd made my own version (cause most of us have probably done so as a thought exercise with no intention of ever using him). He sat there at 5000xp, waiting to be placed on the tabletop to see if he could match the narrative fright I could use instead. I decided ... sure, if he gets waylaid, I just narrate that he is temporarily sent to a knee and the PC's have a turn to flee before we "Glare Peak" it. He slow walks in behind them, they shout in a panic to the pilot to start the engines as the bulk of them turn to buy time in a shooting retreat. The most experienced of the force users, Aesa, sighs, draws her lightsaber, and takes a defensive posture while the others open fire on the Dark Lord. Very little actually gets to him, barely scratches, and the deflection makes one of the PCs feel it pretty heavily. The ship is ready to go after the second round, and everyone has taken enough damage and strain to realize that leaving is better option as Vader is almost in "return fire" range. One of the PC's decides he's going to be the big gorram hero and open up on Vader instead of retreating - Vader dropped him with a debilitating critical in the opening action of the next round without even getting to half strain. The others grabbed him and drug him, unconscious, into the ship and pulled a scene out of Empire, blasting out of the hangar as Vader watched. They figured they would rather face the entire Home Defense Fleet of Coruscant than spend another round with Vader....

Long story short (too late), you can stat them out, use them as name drops, or have them show up through narrative with no stats and just actions and results. They all work, so long as you remember the story you are trying to tell and use that as the box to keep them inside of.

That's an awesome story, even if the highlighting made my pupils bleed. That's such an awesome gimmick.

5 hours ago, Degenerate Mind said:

.... even if the highlighting made my pupils bleed....

I commend you. When I run across offensive formatting, I usually skip the read.

3 hours ago, Vondy said:

I commend you. When I run across offensive formatting, I usually skip the read.

Copy & paste it somewhere to read it if it's that big a problem, that was quite entertaining to read.