Do any of the sourcebook give any details about the ranks of the imperials and the ISB?

I think there is a notable absence. I suspect at some point an Imperial Sourcebook will be released.They might be a bit on the fence about it, as its a problematic topic at the moment. Nobody want's their brand associated with fascists.

A good amount of information is in the corebooks. You can also use the imperial adversaries in the corebooks.

There is a sourcebook, about the Imperial Military, but it's not made for the RPGs, but you can come up with a lot of things.

15 hours ago, Vipersfang00000 said:

Do any of the sourcebook give any details about the ranks of the imperials and the ISB?

There's a chart on another discussion:

One of the issues that I had in researching this subject was that the insignia in movies & TV productions didn't seem to be consistent. (And there are good and practical reasons for that to be the case apart from a harried costume designer issuing the wrong costume to the wrong actor and the director being more concerned with burning daylight over the concerns of how many jolly ranchers are needed for this scene).

The panel that Jendefer points to works well enough and you can certainly use that one.

And why doesn't matter ? I never describe exactly the rank insignia of anybody, not just imperial, wearing ones on their uniform / clothes; If the PCs have a reason to recognize the grad corresponding to this insignia, I tell them which grade it is. Otherwise I tell them from the appearance they could guess if it's an high ranking guy or a middle ranking or a low ranking.

The insignias didn't matter so much to me, but I went looking for this information because of the rank structure. There was an NPC with a rank of lieutenant in the Imperial Army who was in his late 20s. One of the players, with real life military experience, wanted to know what that meant in terms of the promotions this NPC had gotten. Was he advancing quickly through the ranks? Was he being left behind? Trying to answer these questions helped shape the backstory of the NPC in an interesting fashion.

It could be the guy enlisted as private and climbed ranks to become an officer. It took him some years for that. Or it could be the guy had a life and joined the Imperial army as an officer while already in his mid-twenty. Or perhaps he was demoted to the lowest officer rank and has to regain his former ranks.

On 8/14/2019 at 7:10 AM, Vipersfang00000 said:

Do any of the sourcebook give any details about the ranks of the imperials and the ISB?

1. This site is by far the most accurate and best documented resource. You can start at an overview of the Empire , or jump right into rank organization and appearance .
2. If you want at-a-glance, try this site .

I'm always surprised to see the ranks for the Empire armed Forces mimicking closely those of the US armed forces, while the Empire is THE Space Nazis.

4 minutes ago, WolfRider said:

I'm always surprised to see the ranks for the Empire armed Forces mimicking closely those of the US armed forces, while the Empire is THE Space Nazis.

Not that surprising. George Lucas's biggest real life inspiration for Palpatine was Richard Nixon.

On 8/16/2019 at 5:41 PM, jendefer said:

The insignias didn't matter so much to me, but I went looking for this information because of the rank structure. There was an NPC with a rank of lieutenant in the Imperial Army who was in his late 20s. One of the players, with real life military experience, wanted to know what that meant in terms of the promotions this NPC had gotten. Was he advancing quickly through the ranks? Was he being left behind? Trying to answer these questions helped shape the backstory of the NPC in an interesting fashion.

That interaction sounds like a good opportunity for GM/Player improv rather than digging around for some Imperial Order of Battle document. Any reasonable explanation you come up with should be enough because it's your game world.

If the NPC is:

• too old to be a lieutenant, it's because he didn't suck up to his commanding officer enough.
• too young to be a lieutenant, it's because he has a family member with power and influence.
• the right age to be a lieutenant, well... that's okay too but that closes off an area to explore.

I recognize there's a temptation to have technical accuracy in order to please the grognards of the gaming world, but, at the end of the day, it's Star Wars (not Twilight 2000 ) and you're aping the tone of a blockbuster space fantasy franchise, not Platoon .

On 8/18/2019 at 9:35 AM, WolfRider said:

I'm always surprised to see the ranks for the Empire armed Forces mimicking closely those of the US armed forces, while the Empire is THE Space Nazis.

Anglophone movie audiences generally know what a sergeant or a colonel is, not a Haputfeldwebel or Overgruppenfuhrer. The Empire are space Nazis but they're also representative of every authoritarian regime in history, going back to the Romans.