I know the new stuff usually invokes some ire, so try and keep the conversation open minded and creative, but is anyone running a campaign during this era?

I’m asking because the potential is there, if not the material. I rewatched some of TFA yesterday and the idea of treating most of the events of the original trilogy as mythology leaves a lot wide open. I know many might be waiting for official materials, but I’d wager that right now this era is more wide open for interpretation by a clever GM than anything else out there since what we have can be so vague on details... or even the broader concepts for that matter.

There’s a lot of options to make your own story, and I know a lot of folks jumped on the Clone Wars era stuff before there was any sourcebooks for that (granted there was plenty of source material though), so how about this?

If you’re doing it give us a (brief) rundown of what all is going on in your campaign. If not, would you entertain the idea once more material is out (last movie, sourcebooks, etc.)?

I haven't, but the 'cold war' era covered by the Poe Dameron comics and Resistance tv series is quite interesting. I would certainly be interested to look at a sourcebook.

There is a starter set and follow-on adventure, which is quite good (but sadly lacks any vehicle rules).

The potential is definitely there, but personally I have zero interest in the time after RotJ, even though I like the new movies.

Viewing this from an rpg perspective, I don't see any new story elements to work with. First Order vs resistance is just Empire vs rebels.

Plot hooks would be rather the same for fringers, soldiers or force sensitives.

If the campaign is set before TFA, I think, that we need more source material first. Being a resistance spy in that time, trying to collect intel about the first order, maybe to persuade the republic to take action, would be an awesome story for example. But so many things are still uncertain. How did the FO gain so many resources? What did the Imperial exiles, led by Grand Admiral Sloane, find in the Unknown Regions? And how did this whole thing become the FO under Supreme leader Snoke? Too many questions, that could pop up and no GM could answer right now.

2 hours ago, Vader is Love said:

The potential is definitely there, but personally I have zero interest in the time after RotJ, even though I like the new movies.

Viewing this from an rpg perspective, I don't see any new story elements to work with. First Order vs resistance is just Empire vs rebels.

Plot hooks would be rather the same for fringers, soldiers or force sensitives.

True, but that era does have the advantage of not everything being fully detailed or delved into the way the Rebellion Era has been.

But then, it's also an era where the First Order's control of things isn't nearly as solid or absolute as the Empire's was, as well as Force users not being nearly as actively hunted as they were during the Empire. That TFA has a group called the Church of the Force operating fairly openly suggests that belief in the Force isn't as mocked or derided as it'd been three decades prior, and Luke being a living legend could very well inspire a number of potential Force users to embrace their abilities (for better or worse) rather than having to worry about hiding those powers for fear of Imperial reprisal.

I saw Star Wars in the theater when I was five, and played Star Wars throughout my childhood. By the time the prequels came out, I was pretty indifferent; but when The Force Awakens was released, I had my own five-year-old son to introduce to the franchise. This is his era, and I started him on the TFA box set. Since then, he has had adventures with some of the fringe characters, and cameos with others. I expect this era will get the FFG treatment after this next movie is released, but either way I think the era has much room for play.

Not to mention new detail coming out once The Mandalorian and the Cassian series debuts. I understand that the Mandalorian will focus on time right after ROTJ more than the time of current trilogy but the Cassian series should give us a lot more detail of the state of the galaxy and the major players. Not that this will help the OP as the second series is more than a year out.

4 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

True, but that era does have the advantage of not everything being fully detailed or delved into the way the Rebellion Era has been.

But then, it's also an era where the First Order's control of things isn't nearly as solid or absolute as the Empire's was, as well as Force users not being nearly as actively hunted as they were during the Empire. That TFA has a group called the Church of the Force operating fairly openly suggests that belief in the Force isn't as mocked or derided as it'd been three decades prior, and Luke being a living legend could very well inspire a number of potential Force users to embrace their abilities (for better or worse) rather than having to worry about hiding those powers for fear of Imperial reprisal.

This is exactly what I meant when I said there’s potential to play within the lack of material. You can explore a lot of the ideas FFG puts forward without the usual constraints and pitfalls that players would come across in the Imperial Era, AND whatever you come up with works because there’s not much to tell you otherwise.

13 hours ago, Flavorabledeez said:

I know the new stuff usually invokes some ire, so try and keep the conversation open minded and creative, but is anyone running a campaign during this era?

I’m asking because the potential is there, if not the material. I rewatched some of TFA yesterday and the idea of treating most of the events of the original trilogy as mythology leaves a lot wide open. I know many might be waiting for official materials, but I’d wager that right now this era is more wide open for interpretation by a clever GM than anything else out there since what we have can be so vague on details... or even the broader concepts for that matter.

There’s a lot of options to make your own story, and I know a lot of folks jumped on the Clone Wars era stuff before there was any sourcebooks for that (granted there was plenty of source material though), so how about this?

If you’re doing it give us a (brief) rundown of what all is going on in your campaign. If not, would you entertain the idea once more material is out (last movie, sourcebooks, etc.)?

I have one that is currently on hiatus (needs new players) over in the F&D Beginners forum.

I think the era is very interesting, but I'd also like to have all of the pieces in place (Resistance, the Journey to IX stuff, and Rise of Skywalker) before I play anything there. I know that would be limiting to a lot of people, but I like knowing how things end. There's also more post-RotJ coming down the pipeline, which would help paint a better picture of the time period.

When the series came back from the dead with E7, we considered it. Back when E1 came out, we started a Just Before Naboo era game all with Padawans and played through to when E3 came out - and it was hella fun playing in paraell with the trilogy. However we quickly came to the conclusion with the new movies is that we simply don't have enough information to go on. How big is the First Order? How big is the resistance? How did the bigger universe view change between Jedi and Awakens? Where are the major players? Who are the major players? E7 simply did not have enough to go on, even with the beginner set, so we abandoned the idea.

I'll try not to veer into "This movie sucks!" toxic opinion here. Honestly, here we are two movies, countless comics and novels, TV shows, action figures, and bubble gum cards - and we still don't really have enough of a picture to comfortably run a game. And assuming the spoiler synopsis I read for E9 is accurate, it will take some major reworking on my end to make the story palatable let alone fun to play in.

I think the core idea - Nazis running to Argentina, hiding out for 40 years and going "Guess what! Fourth Reich, muther****ers!" has some merit - but the canon universe as written? No way.

22 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

True, but that era does have the advantage of not everything being fully detailed or delved into the way the Rebellion Era has been.

But then, it's also an era where the First Order's control of things isn't nearly as solid or absolute as the Empire's was, as well as Force users not being nearly as actively hunted as they were during the Empire. That TFA has a group called the Church of the Force operating fairly openly suggests that belief in the Force isn't as mocked or derided as it'd been three decades prior, and Luke being a living legend could very well inspire a number of potential Force users to embrace their abilities (for better or worse) rather than having to worry about hiding those powers for fear of Imperial reprisal.

Yeah, you're right. Thanks.

More or less in addition to your statement: We don't know, what the FOs goals are, apart from destroying the New Republic. They probably want to rule the galaxy as the empire did, and since they seem to be even more extremist, they will burn every planet in their way, if they feel the need to.

The empire was formed out of the republic. But the FO appears as an enemy from out of the known galaxy. Even with the new republic government and their main fleet destroyed, the FO surely faces fierce resistance.

8 hours ago, Desslok said:

When the series came back from the dead with E7, we considered it. Back when E1 came out, we started a Just Before Naboo era game all with Padawans and played through to when E3 came out - and it was hella fun playing in paraell with the trilogy. However we quickly came to the conclusion with the new movies is that we simply don't have enough information to go on. How big is the First Order? How big is the resistance? How did the bigger universe view change between Jedi and Awakens? Where are the major players? Who are the major players? E7 simply did not have enough to go on, even with the beginner set, so we abandoned the idea.

I'll try not to veer into "This movie sucks!" toxic opinion here. Honestly, here we are two movies, countless comics and novels, TV shows, action figures, and bubble gum cards - and we still don't really have enough of a picture to comfortably run a game. And assuming the spoiler synopsis I read for E9 is accurate, it will take some major reworking on my end to make the story palatable let alone fun to play in.

I think the core idea - Nazis running to Argentina, hiding out for 40 years and going "Guess what! Fourth Reich, muther****ers!" has some merit - but the canon universe as written? No way.

For some folks, the lack of information isn't a problem, especially if you're not fussed with exactly following to the letter how things pan out in the movies. The original trilogy had the exact same problem when WEG published the first edition of their RPG, as there really wasn't much of anything to go on apart from the films themselves and a few books of varying quality, with the Han Solo ones doing the most to expand the setting by introducing the Corporate Sector. Of course, back then WEG had much more freedom to flesh out the setting than FFG does, so WEG could easily start filling in the blanks where necessary. And any GM with a modicum of experience and confidence can do the same thing, filling in the blank spots where necessary for the sake of their campaign; it might not gel with whatever direction LFL ends up going, but it's enough to run a satisfying campaign on.

As for enough info to "confidently" run a game, I disagree, again provided you as the GM are willing to not let yourself be straight-jacketed by whatever LFL winds up saying on the topic or don't need to have your hand held to flesh out whatever region of the galaxy that you're setting your campaign in. It's not unlike the Rebellion Era where there's plenty of adventure to be had that doesn't involve a single one of the lead heroes from the movies. TFA does paint the Resistance as being pretty small (pretty much what we see on the screen), especially if you take even a casual dip into the background material (majority of which can be found for free with a quick trip to Wookieepedia), and the First Order is big enough that the notion of them seizing control of the galaxy isn't that far-fetched of a notion, especially with the highly successful first strike that was blowing up the entire Hosnian System (which also severely hobbled the Resistance), but not so large that a mass invasion of every system at once is likely nor could they be as omni-present as the Empire was.

I am curious as to why it seems like people are hesitant to venture “off the map” with this time period. I can initially see where it seems that a lack of material/knowledge regarding the era seems limiting, even though it’s actually freeing.

Is it a need to have a “universal” type experience you can discuss with others who weren’t at the table? Because as long as the themes of Star Wars are present, the universality will still be there.

To me the openness of the setting is highly appealing. For example, during the Imperial Era if you’re a force user seeking out ancient knowledge regarding your abilities it’s a given who is going to eventually show up to spoil your fun. But during the sequel era? There’s no telling what’s going to be searching for force secrets. At that point in time there’s no wrong answer, and by wrong I mean that deemed incorrect by the “purists” out there who would turn their nose up at extreme creativity inside this IP’s sandbox.

17 hours ago, Flavorabledeez said:

At that point in time there’s no wrong answer, and by wrong I mean that deemed incorrect by the “purists” out there who would turn their nose up at extreme creativity inside this IP’s sandbox.

For any RPG based around an established setting, there's always going to be subset of folks that can't/don't/won't color outside the lines, and want their campaign to cleave as close to whatever the established narrative is as possible, even though any campaigns set within that setting by their nature would conflict with the established narrative simply because that established narrative doesn't mention whatever events the campaign would include.

I've seen this with Dragon Age (great RPG btw, though not without its faults) with folks sticking almost zealously to the events of the game, to the degree that I saw one trog bashing the folks of the Wonders of Thedas podcast for their home game having diverged from the official canon by way of the party having managed to set up a new elven nation that was on pretty good terms with several other nations of Thedas.

A friend of mine talked about running a campaign set within the Game of Thrones setting, but didn't go through with it because he didn't want to conflict with whatever GRRM or the show would wind up doing. Granted, at this point I doubt GRRM is going to live long enough to actually finish the series at the rate he's going, and contradicting the last couple seasons of the show might not be such a bad thing.

I've sadly seen a few Star Wars campaigns get completely derailed because that "one guy" who was such an ****-retentive EU purist simply could not let go that the GM wasn't sticking to what the EU had established, even when the GM had made it clear from the outset that it was an alternate-universe campaign that deliberately wasn't following the established lore. To that end, I'm sure a number of GMs breathed a sigh of relief when Disney shunted the entirely of the EU over to Legends so that they could tell that "one guy" to get stuffed because things described in some obscure EU book were no longer relevant.

On 10/10/2019 at 10:02 AM, Donovan Morningfire said:

For any RPG based around an established setting, there's always going to be subset of folks that can't/don't/won't color outside the lines, and want their campaign to cleave as close to whatever the established narrative is as possible, even though any campaigns set within that setting by their nature would conflict with the established narrative simply because that established narrative doesn't mention whatever events the campaign would include.

I've seen this with Dragon Age (great RPG btw, though not without its faults) with folks sticking almost zealously to the events of the game, to the degree that I saw one trog bashing the folks of the Wonders of Thedas podcast for their home game having diverged from the official canon by way of the party having managed to set up a new elven nation that was on pretty good terms with several other nations of Thedas.

A friend of mine talked about running a campaign set within the Game of Thrones setting, but didn't go through with it because he didn't want to conflict with whatever GRRM or the show would wind up doing. Granted, at this point I doubt GRRM is going to live long enough to actually finish the series at the rate he's going, and contradicting the last couple seasons of the show might not be such a bad thing.

I've sadly seen a few Star Wars campaigns get completely derailed because that "one guy" who was such an ****-retentive EU purist simply could not let go that the GM wasn't sticking to what the EU had established, even when the GM had made it clear from the outset that it was an alternate-universe campaign that deliberately wasn't following the established lore. To that end, I'm sure a number of GMs breathed a sigh of relief when Disney shunted the entirely of the EU over to Legends so that they could tell that "one guy" to get stuffed because things described in some obscure EU book were no longer relevant.

I honestly don’t see how you could keep a Game of Thrones game going longterm without having the player characters heavily break the storyline. Even the Green Ronin ASOIAF game encourages that (which seems like a cool system in that the players start by creating their House and lands, not with characters). It seems like most of the fun would be to break the storyline of that world and make it your own, especially with the major houses proverbially shooting themselves in the foot and leaving ample space for the minor houses to move up.

Oh well, I don’t want to be the guy who accuses people of playing wrong, but it sure is tough since the beauty of pen and paper rpgs is that it’s only limited by your imagination and allows you to take the story in whatever direction you want, but if folks want to handcuff themselves that’s on them. I’ve played with quite a few players who don’t care to step into the shoes of someone who is in control of their own fate and panic when faced with options.

I ran a game in this setting. My players found it freeing because anything can basically be made in this setting without any of the restrictions of other eras. Force users, force traditions (i.e. church of the force), wannabe Jedi, Jedi that still are surviving the purge, mandalorians, former sith, sith, pirates, imperials, former imperials, politicians of all sorts from senator to princess, rebel sympathizers, rebel anything really, I mean the list goes on through everything in the universe being in one group as possibility even a rebel and imperial in a party. Being a former student of Luke that escaped Kylo's rage is possible and kind of cool.

The connections are really endless since everything happened in the past and also the important events all happened in two or three days. We have years before the time before and the time after are filled in by books, comics, and tv shows. You can have ties to the Mandalorian TV show during this time, which I think will be the fill-in people are looking for.

Just trying to sell it guys because I think it does have a lot of fun potential.

One of my players was a former pilot of star tours. In our story, star tours started losing too many ships to random accidents and filled for bankruptcy. One player was a former Rebel spy that now found himself sensing things were not all as they seemed with the peaceful new republic. One was a former wookiee slave that acquired a damaged first order spy droid (another player) to which she was unaware until the first order came hunting for their missing droid. Having the first order madly hunting them while simultaneously trying to hide from the New Republic made for some great chase sequences. I also had the First Order taking over planets that were out of the scope of the New Republic. Players loved it and even got into a load of trouble on Canto Bight.

I'm dangerously close to going into "This movie sucks" territory - which isn't my intent - but to color outside the lines, I need to know where the lines are in the first place. My issues with the era is that JJ is terrible at worldbuilding, so much so that I don't even know if there are lines to color outside of.

No, the first movie back in 77 didn't have a lot to go from either, with huge blank spots in the canvas - but it had a stronger overall framework to operate from.

Very excited for IX to drop so that authors can have more free range to explore the era with all of the big pieces already in place. I love the post-Endor period, but it's just too nebulous once you get past the Battle of Jakku. Granted, it is a thirty-year period, but I really want to know about the various non-NR/FO factions like the New Separatist Union and Confederacy of Corporate Systems. Having various legitimate galactic governments around that seemingly aren't in conflict with each other makes for a really interesting setting, but we need more info to know how these factions operate and how they reacted to the First Order's invasion of the galaxy.

On 10/14/2019 at 12:26 PM, Desslok said:

My issues with the era is that JJ is terrible at worldbuilding, so much so that I don't even know if there are lines to color outside of.

Is it okay to agree and disagree on this one? The Force Awakens felt very narrow to me, but I feel that narrowness was the key to keeping the story focused and well-paced. So I agree with you, but I feel that a less-fleshed-out setting furthers my goals as a GM by giving me just enough limitations while leaving plenty of room to improvise.

That said, I can't help but be a bit interested in running a "Cold War" game in this setting, or at least during the interim. I kind of like the idea that the war in this setting is being fought with scraps, over scraps, (although Starkiller was a pretty big scrap) and that two gigantic galaxy-spanning conflicts earned merely 30 years of relative peace. There's a lot of potential to play with unresolved issues, or one could draw inspiration from real-world history. ("The World Was Going Our Way" has been on my reading list for quite some time, and could be a potentially invaluable resource for planning a game in the post-OT period.

My next game is going to include some fighter squadron stuff and Jedi stuff, and although the group seems to have its heart set on the pre-Empire Strikes Back period, I'll at least float the idea. A military (or quasi-military) unit attempting to justify its existence in peacetime while being pulled in different directions by authority figures with differing goals, all while trying to help a couple of its members learn to be wizards could be pretty fun. Add in that classic cold war paranoia and its accompanying surveillance regime and you could have a lot of varied things to do.

Spinning off a conversation I was just having elsewhere, here's what I mean about terrible world building.

What's the name of the planet that got blown up in E7? Us supernerds know that it's Hoisin, but the only way to find out that is via the ancillary material. On the other hand, a casual viewer would assume that it was Coruscant that got blown up - a perfectly reasonable assumption since it was a brownish planet with similar looking city landscape and the three previous movies have spent tons of screen time establishing it as the center of the Republic.

The guy I was talking with JUST found out that it was suppose to be a different planet, and he's seen the movie 4 times. And that's all down to the fact that JJ cant even be bothered with an establishing shot.

If we ever get around to playing in the era, I think having the Neo-Empire out in the open, running it as a cold war could be pretty cool. A game with lot of Smiley's People or Tinker Tailor Solder Spy like intrigue has a lot of potential. But as it stands now, as written? Worthless to me.

While I'd have no problem running a game set during this time period right now, I would really love it if FFG did a source book set in this era once Rise of Sykwalker is released. They could even do a two-parter like they did with the Clone Wars, with one being before TFA and the other being after ROS, though I'd prefer one big source book.

Once RoS is out and Resistance has finished up, FFG should have a ton to work from. They could even look at the Poe comics, since their other books have shown they aren't afraid to dip into that medium for idea.

Even though I rage against the New Trilogy, game wise there's loads of potential. I still love the new ships, stormy armour etc... the concept art books are amazing for visuals.

I plan to make my new SW game when I run it canon up to the end of Ep 4... but still maintain some consistency - i.e. no killing Jabba, Tales of the Bounty Hunters is a no no.. I'd still like IG-88(B?) running around and like the idea of IG-88A, C & D out there plotting something.. I'm having about eight Jedi survive Order 66... a D20 is too much - what if I roll a 20??!! and 2 or 3 Padawans survive as their Masters forced them to flee while they gave their lives... I mean. come on, NO ONE not even Yoda had a Force Vision of Order 66 in the days leading up to it? the WHOLE Jedi Order was 'Clouded by the Dark Side'??? Even those that hadn't visited the Temple in months?

I even considered an Old Republic Era setting but know F'ALL about that really, so I'm going for CONSISTENCY which I think the New Trilogy lacks, which I put down to the fact as lazy Writing, No Communication and Lack of Story Vision... great visuals though and it gives a clean slate after ep 9. My Force Awakens story would be exactly that... younglings awakening across the galaxy and it's a race against the Sith to round them up.

On 10/23/2019 at 7:05 AM, A7T said:

Once RoS is out and Resistance has finished up, FFG should have a ton to work from. They could even look at the Poe comics, since their other books have shown they aren't afraid to dip into that medium for idea.

I think FFG have been savvy so far by sticking with OT/PT stuff, with some other stuff (Rebels) added.. I suspect one of two things will happen: 1) release New Trilogy stuff (that I'm not interested in but good for those that are) or 2) Call it a day (which would really,really suck for all of us - we'd have to go back to poaching d6/d20 for ideas)

On 10/23/2019 at 6:27 AM, unicornpuncher said:

While I'd have no problem running a game set during this time period right now, I would really love it if FFG did a source book set in this era once Rise of Sykwalker is released. They could even do a two-parter like they did with the Clone Wars, with one being before TFA and the other being after ROS, though I'd prefer one big source book.

Even though I hate those films - TAKEMYMONEY, TAKEMYMONEY!!!