Clone Wars Campaign Ideation

By PS-29-3, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Hi everyone,

A little background to start for one of my gaming groups. Because of Covid, I play in an online campaign with people in different countries and states. I am in a group of 7, which is quite large for my liking but the GM decided to go ahead and is handling that group size well. He was fortunate to be able to find and buy every book and has systematically included every adventure module into the campaign. It will be three years long. One year for EotE, one year for AoR and one year for F&D. Things have been going smoothly and everyone is having a great time.

However, recently the GM sometimes can't make it due to work and this is starting to be reoccurring. I was recently asked by this group of players and the GM to start a campaign in the Clone Wars era since I also GM another game. They idea we came up with is we will be playing these two campaigns but they are linked into each other. The current campaign I'm a player in, the characters will shift from scum, to rebels, to force-sensitives. The weeks the GM can't run the game, I will GM the Clone Wars campaign. The Clone Wars campaign will tie into and culminate with how the primary characters were rescued as children and hidden after Order 66. My campaign will be a prequel and explore the dynamics behind how that shaped the current players but also the unique circumstances of Clones, the Jedi and the Republic vs Separatist. Each of the players will be playing a new secondary character, either clones, Jedi or republic officials in this game. Depending on the length of the campaign, which I'm currently planning to be much shorter than three years, these character will likely be killed off or retired and become key NPCs in the primary campaign we first started playing, any surviving Jedi will likely be turned to inquisitors and any clones will be mercenaries.

I'm not as familiar with this era as some but I'm currently consuming all the Clone Wars material I can find to wrap my head around the dynamics of the era in an attempt to keep things cohesive with the lore. I've seen many excellent campaign ideas and suggestions on these forums and reddit. I was looking to see if anyone had any successful way to run a clone wars campaign with a large group and any pitfalls I can avoid.

Is it fairly easy to keep things balanced between having Clones with Force-sensitives?

What were your campaign stories like and what was memorable?

Now we have Genesys, what possible mechanics from FFG's published material or from the Foundry would be useful to include?

I really appreciate anyone's time spent reading this and any comments!

Balance between Clones & Force-Sensitives : I don't find Forcers to be at all overpowered, balance-wise in this system. Sure, if you build a 500 XP Jedi they're gonna be a pretty decent character, but the same is true for a 500 XP Hired Gun or Soldier or whatever. From my limited experience, Force Powers are great narrative devices, but won't usually contribute their XP cost's worth in structured time/combat that often, so your Clones will probably shine at least as much as the Jedi during action scenes.

As for the campaign story, I would pick a region of space or specific conflict that you like and run with that; or, of course, invent your own location and troubles. Furthermore, I would build this as close as possible, thematically, to the mother campaign, featuring mother campaign PCs' forebears and older allies/enemies as central characters in the new story; or at least let them be central to whatever kicks off the conflict in your spin-off story. And likewise, if you can somehow tie the spin-off campaign's story & conflict to the mother campaign's story and conflict, then that much better!

Edited by angelman2