3 hours ago, Tubb said:

@TauntaunScout I am sorry, I also had battle miniatures armies, and they never were like yours simply because the stromtrooper blister came in threee diferent poses and there were at leasts two of them, so six different soldiers (same as FFG years ago!!).

There were a total of 13 stormtroopers in WEG and a 14th, a sandtrooper that looked just fine with the other ones. And ONE snowtrooper We got 7 fleet troopers and 7 commandos too but only ONE Hoth rebel. WEG was kinda weird like that. 2 ewoks, 1 scouttrooper (not counting the later one on a bike), eventually 3 wookies... the distribution of things was a bit strange. There was also the small matter of the "missing" 13th stormtrooper. One of the kneeling poses was released in a boxed set, gone for several years as it didn't appear in the 3x blisters of 3, then eventually re-released in the 12 piece squad builder blister packs.

When I was a kid I painted several squads of stormtroopers and rebels and stuff which I (mostly) still own. But now that I have the free time and money of an adult I'm going back and collecting the sort of WEG armies that I could only have dreamt of back in the day. Like 30 of the same snowtrooper!

I actually liked WOTC minis. At first. The rules started to collapse under the weight of several years' releases. Let that be an example to FFG. I still have a big tupperware full of WOTC Star Wars figures and a bunch of the paper maps and stuff. I did collect large enough numbers of them to actually play WEG with but eventually sold those extras off as being an encumbrance. D20 minis really is like playing with toys back when we were kids the winner is almost random. But D20, like Heroscape, had the insurmountable advantage that my wife will play them, so, I probably got more games of those two systems in that any other miniatures game ever. Among more mundane themes, I still have enough D20 minis to play 100 point armies of ewoks and tusken raiders! I can also take, you guessed it, 100 points worth of tauntauns.

6 hours ago, Tubb said:

so, your knowledge of the lore is greater than that of content director from Lucasfilm official webpage... ok, boy, I appreciate your efforts.

George Lucas didn’t mention the role playing games to Timothy Zahn, the rpg are scrap that George didn’t worry to read,

no one should believe its contents, a twi’lek is not a twi’lek, Star wars world isn’t persistent, K.Kenedy has not contacted nobody to make sure that scripts and details fit the fluff,, and you are the only one that can decide what is and what is not star wars enough for you. You got the real truth about every small aspect of star wars in front of you, but Lucasfilm or Disney doesn’t.

Just final question... if you were Disney and a writer would come to you with a star wars story that begins in Manhattan... would you worry or just think... well, it doesn’t matter Star wars lore always in motion is...?

1) Huh?

2) Yes, I am definitely saying that. I am pretty confident to assert that while George Lucas was aware that there was an RPG for which his company gave a license, and he may have even seen a copy or thumbed through it, no I do not believe he spend any of his time reading it. The same goes for Star Wars Galaxies or pretty much any other game put out but LucasArts. He was busy doing things like pushing the envelope on CGI and film restoration.

3) No, I have never said that. What I have said, and what has been in place forever, is that ancillary properties can write whatever the heck they want to (within certain restrictions) and that can get obviated by LucasFilm at any time. That's why we don't have the YV showing up. That's why we, the fans, had to name the Emperor. That's why the Clone Wars were about a conflict between oligarchs and republicans rather than the Mandalorians vs the Jedi and whether or not cloning should be legal. That why Jorrus C'baoth never showed up in even the Clone Wars cartoon. That's why you can't force poke someone in their bran and figure out if they're force sensitive. That's why Jyn Erso got the Death Star plans and not Kyle Katarn. That's why Disney took a flamethrower to the EU and resigned most of it to the ashbin of history where it belonged. But thank you for trying to put words in my mouth.

4) If you have that impression you aren't reading what I'm writing, you're reading what you want my words to mean.

Saying the WEG RPG isn't canon, or "A" canon or whatever label you want to give it is not saying that it didn't exist, it's just saying that it is essentially fan fiction and it carries no weight of precedent. Even the movies don't carry the weight of precedent anymore fercryinoutloud. We've gone from "Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?" to that same character effectively saying "let's just go from dead stop to hyperspace right now while in the landing bay and through that rathtar, we'll be fine."

13 minutes ago, Zrob314 said:

Saying the WEG RPG isn't canon, or "A" canon or whatever label you want to give it is not saying that it didn't exist, it's just saying that it is essentially fan fiction

Fan fiction is an extreme category to equate it to, given how much of the post-Disney canon it created. That's like saying a bunch of older licensed merchandise are "essentially folk art".

13 minutes ago, Zrob314 said:

Even the movies don't carry the weight of precedent anymore fercryinoutloud.

The problem that is sort of unique to SW is, it began as a movie first and foremost. Unlike, say, Batman. You can make a good or bad Batman movie and you can have a do-over for Batman later on. I can't think of anything else in the nerd pantheon/multiverse, that has this level of success, that began as a movie. TV shows, comics, etc. can be adapted and re-adapted. But SW was a movie series first, with a narrow storyline. This is also why the fans get so mad when directors mess it up. If they make a bad Batman movie, we can get another real Batman movie. If they make a bad Luke Skywalker movie, that's it, no second chances. That's who or what Luke is now. Whereas you CAN make a bad Luke Skywalker comic, it's fine, we can still theoretically get a do-over later with a different Luke comic. I mean what else began life as a movie? Aliens and predators is all I can think of but that wasn't made for a broad age range. Jurassic Park was close, since most people forget the Crichton novels even existed, but everyone forgets about JP for awhile about a year after its latest film. Mad Max has more of a cult following honestly, and Miller kept pretty impressively close control over that as it developed, and openly states that there is no continuity in it. Something along the lines of "These are all stories [of the past] told by a future civilization, which may or may not be true". Whereas with Star Wars it began as a movie. Indiana Jones began as a movie but never took off the way SW did anywhere near to the degree of Star Wars . You can cast a young Han Solo but Harrison Ford is still the "real" one, unlike James Bond who was adapted from books and so can be endlessly re-adapted.

So now that the movies aren't even a precedent, what's left? What IS Star Wars if the movies can't be trusted? And I suspect this is why people ignore SW comics, novels and cartoons they don't like, and flip a table over a SW movie they don't like.

1 hour ago, TauntaunScout said:

Fan fiction is an extreme category to equate it to, given how much of the post-Disney canon it created. That's like saying a bunch of older licensed merchandise are "essentially folk art".

Only if you are dismissive of fan fiction.

The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost are essentially Fan Fiction, heck the Inferno is self-insert fan fiction. The Aeneid is fan fiction of the Illiad and the Odyssey. That doesn't mean that they are not worth reading or studying. The first two certainly had a gigantic impact on how we view H**l and the Devil. However they are in no way primary sources and are in many places directly contradictory to the source material (which according to some interpretations of said source material means they are blasphemous). It could be stated that parts of certain holy books are kinda fan fiction of other parts of the same holy book, but I'll leave that for a more academic setting.

Here's a fun piece on this: https://www.bustle.com/articles/159041-11-classics-that-are-secretly-fanfiction (link corrected)

1 hour ago, TauntaunScout said:

You can cast a young Han Solo but Harrison Ford is still the "real" one, unlike James Bond who was adapted from books and so can be endlessly re-adapted.

I know you're about 12 years younger than me from prior conversations here. You don't really remember the fan wars over Bond. My parents were totally dismissive of Roger Moore, and wanted to reject almost any non-Connery bond film. Then came Timothy Dalton which people just wanted to completely jettison. It wasn't until Pierce Brosnan (by then Bond number 5) and eventually Daniel Craig that people really accepted that Bond was going to change faces over time. I think that if we had 20 years and 3-4 more people playing Han Solo we'd eventually get over it. If for no other reason that many first gen fans would be dead.

1 hour ago, Zrob314 said:

I know you're about 12 years younger than me from prior conversations here. You don't really remember the fan wars over Bond. My parents were totally dismissive of Roger Moore, and wanted to reject almost any non-Connery bond film. Then came Timothy Dalton which people just wanted to completely jettison. It wasn't until Pierce Brosnan (by then Bond number 5) and eventually Daniel Craig that people really accepted that Bond was going to change faces over time. I think that if we had 20 years and 3-4 more people playing Han Solo we'd eventually get over it. If for no other reason that many first gen fans would be dead.

I'm from the country we ran about a decade behind I'm painfully aware of it. My friend had the entire Bond series on VHS. He was so proud of the work and money it took to amass it! Now it takes a few clicks...

1 hour ago, Zrob314 said:

Only if you are dismissive of fan fiction.

Well it's a generally dismissive term. I frankly can't even follow what actual point you and Tubb are debating though.

Quote

The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost are essentially Fan Fiction, heck the Inferno is self-insert fan fiction. The Aeneid is fan fiction of the Illiad and the Odyssey. That doesn't mean that they are not worth reading or studying. The first two certainly had a gigantic impact on how we view H**l and the Devil. However they are in no way primary sources and are in many places directly contradictory to the source material (which according to some interpretations of said source material means they are blasphemous). It could be stated that parts of certain holy books are kinda fan fiction of other parts of the same holy book, but I'll leave that for a more academic setting.

If you're going down that road, I guess the Sequel Trilogy is fan films. They were just made by a bunch of fans at a massive international movie studio. And all crucifixes are fan art apparently. Sounds like the makings of an Onion article.

Here's a fun piece on this: https://www.bustle.com/p/im-so-jealous-you-get-to-read-my-brilliant-friend-by-elena-ferrante-for-the-first-time-15952754

Based on that review, I am never reading My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante.

6 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

Well it's a generally dismissive term. I frankly can't even follow what actual point you and Tubb are debating though.

I cannot help your perception. Fan Fiction is basically the longest and richest human cultural norm. Also, here is the correct link, I'll fix it in my original message.

https://www.bustle.com/articles/159041-11-classics-that-are-secretly-fanfiction

The point Tubb is trying to hold is that the RPG is canon and every aspect of it was personally approved by George which has never been a true statement. I mean Richard Dean Foster almost got away with it for a few years with Splinter of the Mind's Eye but even that was trashed after Empire came out.

8 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

If you're going down that road, I guess the Sequel Trilogy is fan films. They were just made by a bunch of fans at a massive international movie studio. And all crucifixes are fan art apparently. Sounds like the makings of an Onion article.

I'm not sure you can consider it to be fan fic when it is put out by the persons who own the IP.
So if I write a story about how Darth Sidious meets Count Dooku after the end of TPM it's a plausible, could happen. If Dave Filoni puts it into The Clone Wars then it's Star Wars history.

2 minutes ago, Zrob314 said:

I'm not sure you can consider it to be fan fic when it is put out by the persons who own the IP.

Then it becomes a nonsense term when applied to writers working before the concept of IP law and such. This is a great example of "the modern lens".

13 minutes ago, Zrob314 said:

The point Tubb is trying to hold is that the RPG is canon and every aspect of it was personally approved by George which has never been a true statement. I mean Richard Dean Foster almost got away with it for a few years with Splinter of the Mind's Eye but even that was trashed after Empire came out.

This whole thing makes me think of when nothing was canon. Franchises were just complete acid trips and nothing made any ****ing sense ever. In any given franchise, comic books would openly, horribly, contradict tv shows and that was just how it was. Like someone would be a villain in the tv show and an goodguy in the comic book. Or a sequel would come out to some movie and a major character would just inexplicably be missing. I think in Beastmaster his cat actually changed species between films based on what trained animal they could rent. Movies, books, and television tripped ALL the balls in those days. I guess to me, nothing in-universe can ever be a Star Wars "canon" just "trivia" because it's too fluid. Disney has it codified for now . The only thing that's real to me is what happens out of game: names in the credits, box office numbers, etc.

George isn't in charge anymore though, so even if he was right it's irrelevant. I do think WEG's sources are better material to go off of than a lot of what else has been made since. And an argument based on "they should make this because it's (currently) canon!" is strange. If FFG wrote to Disney and asked to make a mini of something and it didn't hurt anything I'm pretty sure Disney would canonize it. Let us not forget. Jaxxon and Duloks are still canon. So I don't think the process is all that stringent.

6 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

Then it becomes a nonsense term when applied to writers working before the concept of IP law and such. This is a great example of "the modern lens".

No it doesn't. For thousands of years the only people who could determine if something was the author, or in the case of religious texts, the appropriate church. Most famously of course the catholic church deciding what was scripture, what was apocrypha, what was blasphemous and their occasional cleaning up of this lists of who is a saint.

Again, if you assume fan fiction is a derisive term then you'll refuse to believe that The Once and Future King is fan fic of le morte d'arthur but it still doesn't change the fact that it is. Sure, most fan fic is crap, but the same can be said of any literary subset.

@Ragnar_the_Blue Just go with Crait bases, there's too few of us out there right now : D

35 minutes ago, Zrob314 said:

No it doesn't. For thousands of years the only people who could determine if something was the author,

I don't think that it's a useful term when applied to pre-copyright, and even pre-printing press, societies. You're projecting a lot of modern baggage backwards, such as the concept of a fandom. The Once and Future King isn't Mallory fanfic but if it is, Mallory is also fanfic cause he didn't invent Arthur and then anything that uses anything from Greek mythology is fanfic too. It's funny to say this book or that is fan fiction for clickbait but it's hardly a helpful term. And the whole reason it's funny is predicated on the underlying assumption that fan fiction defaults to garbage. Which you're opposed to. You're taking this horribly broad definition for a term, like when Louis Armstrong said all music is folk music. It's all made by folks after all. Great yep Louis, it's all folk music, guess we'll call it Traditional Mostly Anonymous Mostly Unwritten Music that'll be so much clearer. Didn't create everything from whole cloth? Fan Fiction. And got a license from the IP holder? Still fan fiction. Whether or not something is licensed is pretty much the dividing line between fan fiction and not. So before licenses that's not a useful term, and it can't be applied to licensed authors now. Unless it devolves into an overly broad nonsense term. Which I still think it is the way you're using it.

Lucas had Alan Dean Foster write a sequel to the first Star Wars book/film. Lucas went a different direction and of course that book is not canon today, so things do change. Look at the vast number of known worlds and then add in the worlds in unknown space, it is impossible to define everything exactly, so leeway should be given to those that want to define things their way. I painted my snowtroopers in my theme of Vader's security troops. My IG will be different, not by a lot though, in order to distinguish them from my snows.

I say do what you want and make up a background to suit your troops.

I wasted too much time on this thread that I will never get back.