Here's a weird one. I don't really have a group at the moment, but have an idea I'm kicking around and want to flesh out but would like some help filing off an edge or two.

The inspiration is the Lincoln County Range wars that inspired the movie Young Guns. On some planet to be named later the big export will be cattle....err Nerfs. There are various ranches all vying for rich Imperial contracts. One faction, secretly backed by the Imperial Governor, is bullying the others to sell out by rustling Nerfs and getting the Imperials to turn a blind eye and stuff. Both sides are hiring mercenaries for their little war.

My biggest background complication is "what's keeping the Empire from just taking what they want? Could it be that one faction has the backing of a favored Imperial Senator? Depends on the period, but I'm looking at the Dark times between Episode 3 & 4. Then there's the problem of does this feel Star Warsy enough? Does that really matter?

Anyway, like I said I'm kinda hung up on the reason why the Empire just doesn't take what it wants and it's driving me nuts so I'd like some opinions.

I believe that even canonically, the Empire's reach got weaker the further you got out from the core. The interested Imperial party might just not have the military manpower to take total control, but still have the means to back some locals to act on their behalf. This kind of situation is actually why privateers existed in the real world.

The Tv Show Firefly is essentially a western in space. It has several episodes that could be mined for ideas, in one episode they are literally smuggling cows.

The classic Akira Kurosawa film "Yojimbo", or the modern retelling with Bruce Willis, "Last Man Standing" has a mercenary showing up in town and pitting both sides against one another.

Possibly less relevant but "Quigley down under" has a mercenary hired by a rancher. Most relevant thing for you would probably be the "Evil rancher" Villain.

As for why the empire doesn't take it:

1. How about the empire doesn't care, and it's just one greedy ambitious moff who is secretly siphoning weapons and materials to fund his side in hopes of wining his own planet he can retire on.

2. Unless you are going to play an AOR game why does it need to be the empire? In my current Edge game the players are strictly in the Outer Rim and have barely seen the empire. See the suggestion above for the firefly episode "heart of Gold" where a single powerful guy is trying to take over the planet.

2. Alternatively, who cares? a good story is a good story.

you can also just replace Empire with a powerful local crime syndicate.

Thanks for the wonderful ideas. It's really helped. I'm writing a ton of notes and ideas to flesh out my setting. Hopefully when I'm done I'll have something worth sharing.

One of the problems I constantly run into is I get tied up in setting minutiae. I want everything to be internally consistent. Towns and cities need infrastructure and a reason to exist. The bad guys need believable motivation. There have been many times where I dumped an idea because some small facet doesn't work. I know it's just a game, but it gets frustrating. Sometimes I'll drop something because I get too bogged down with details. Anyone else have this problem? What do you do to get past it?

17 hours ago, Tahl said:

One of the problems I constantly run into is I get tied up in setting minutiae...

I know it's just a game, but it gets frustrating. Sometimes I'll drop something because I get too bogged down with details. Anyone else have this problem? What do you do to get past it?

I'm a guy who, more often than not, is the GM for the groups I play with. Designing a campaign is a great place for the creative urges that don't have any other outlet. I'm also the type that can spend hour after hour working on a setting, naming towns and NPC's, devising guilds and gangs and goventments, writing histories and myths of the various regions. That kind of thing is a lot of fun.

On the other hand, I have found that - often - less is more. An outline, a few named NPCs, the basic plot hooks and set-piece encounters is all you need. Especially for FFG's Star Wars. Adapting to the choices the players make is far more important that mapping out a hundred possible branching paths. Keep in mind the broad story you want to tell, but remember this is a collabrative game.

Further, I now stay just a session ahead of the players. Planning too much often means you are going to be frustrated by how much the players ignore or skip past. Yes, you can and I do hold onto unused encounters for future sessions, but getting too far ahead is just so much wasted effort.