We are gearing up to run our first official game, and was trying to get a genral consensus: What makes Star Wars Star Wars?
What makes it feel Star Wars, and keeps it from being just another space setting?
I just wanna keep this from feeling like D&D in space.
For me it's the Wars part. Empire vs Rebellion. The X-wings and TIE's pew-pewing it out in space.
The Force
Also the Wars
Jedi and Sith
Aliens, lots of them
Droids
High technology, but also grunge. It is not a slick clean future like Star Trek. It is more like Firefly.
I'd say it's the sense of scale. I don't know if the term 'space opera' was coined to describe Star Wars, but it might as well have been.
This picture sums it up pretty good:
Star Wars is 1920's pulp serials with better special effects.
Edited by JshockThe sense of humanity having a brighter future where we've transcended the need for money, and have set out to explore space. That and the pointy ears.
The sense of humanity having a brighter future where we've transcended the need for money, and have set out to explore space. That and the pointy ears.
Star Wars is science fantasy. The tech is secondary to the characters and there is magic in the Force.
I just wanna keep this from feeling like D&D in space.
Then don't play WotC's versions.
Star Wars is science fantasy. The tech is secondary to the characters and there is magic in the Force.
I just wanna keep this from feeling like D&D in space.
Then don't play WotC's versions.
Saw that coming
These are good points, especially when playing Edge of the Empire. My worry is that a game will feel too mercenary, given the "grim and gritty" emphasis on the Fringe. I like to thing of Firefly and Serenity, and the aspects that give the characters from them redeeming qualities. There should be some sense of heroism and fighting the good fight, just like when Han returns to the Battle of Yavin to save the day. It should be about more than just meeting and defeating villains, taking the loot, and growing in personal power.
With that in mind, of course, the familiar trappings make it feel authentic. A Star Wars game needs the flash of white stormtrooper armor, blaster bolts flying, strange aliens with weird customs and high-speed vehicles (again with blaster bolts flying).
-Nate
The hero's journey in a galaxy far, far away.
For my 2 credits:
And don't forget the humour. It's not grim dark. There should be one liners, pratfalls and comic relief.
These are good points, especially when playing Edge of the Empire. My worry is that a game will feel too mercenary, given the "grim and gritty" emphasis on the Fringe. I like to thing of Firefly and Serenity, and the aspects that give the characters from them redeeming qualities. There should be some sense of heroism and fighting the good fight, just like when Han returns to the Battle of Yavin to save the day. It should be about more than just meeting and defeating villains, taking the loot, and growing in personal power.
With that in mind, of course, the familiar trappings make it feel authentic. A Star Wars game needs the flash of white stormtrooper armor, blaster bolts flying, strange aliens with weird customs and high-speed vehicles (again with blaster bolts flying).
-Nate
Our group has elected to do exactly what you fear. We are going to run a more Hutt focused, down and dirty, nasty and yucky game up until there is more talk about when Age of Rebellion is to be released. At that point we will seriously consider how we are going to tie into that book and what it has to offer.
Since EotE handles the grittier side of the universe so well, I'd try to tie everything into a grander operatic scale, like I. J. Thompson mentioned above. The heroes are larger than life and their actions make a difference in the world(s) around them. Take some cues from mythology and get some of the key elements in there (aliens, spaceships, exotic locales, stormtroopers will always get a mention ), and you're probably off to a great start.
The scale is definitely operatic. Things ar either hugely big or really small. The Death Star is the size of a moon, star destroyers go for miles, Jabba the Hutt is elephantine, Jawas and Ewoks are tiny. Environments take up whole planets. The trees on Endor and Kashyyk are huge. The cantina doesn't just have one or two alien species in it, no two patrons are the same species and the place is packed.
And everything makes about as much logical sense as an opera. Grand sets and scenery, grand costumes, grand characters, grand plots.
I think it is interesting that no two people will be able to agree on what makes Star Wars Star Wars. I agree with certain points that everyone said, but then disagree with others, and I'm sure everyone else is experiencing the same.
to me it's Space, adventure, and swashbuckling. Also, cool and diverse aliens, costumes, and ships.
Edited by RookhelmEpic, bordering on mythological. To me, one of the differences between Star Wars and something like Star Trek is that SW is based on MYTH rather than technology. Technology that we would consider super-advanced is ho-hum (heck, in the Star Wars universe, even slaves have droids!) -- yet the galaxy is peppered with ancient civilations, ruins, and Force traditionas (in a word, myth).
As a related point, one thing that I don't see on a lot of lists is monsters. I believe each of the movies prominently features monsters in at least one (if not more) of its action sequences. This one is a bit of a pet peeve of mine mainly because *I* forget it sometimes (and, to be honest, although I absolutely adore Saga, I'm looking forward to a game where monsters are actually scary without having to nerf the rules to force it).
The scale is definitely operatic. Things ar either hugely big or really small. The Death Star is the size of a moon, star destroyers go for miles, Jabba the Hutt is elephantine, Jawas and Ewoks are tiny. Environments take up whole planets. The trees on Endor and Kashyyk are huge. The cantina doesn't just have one or two alien species in it, no two patrons are the same species and the place is packed.
And everything makes about as much logical sense as an opera. Grand sets and scenery, grand costumes, grand characters, grand plots.
I'm not sure if you're replying to me Dave, but if so, I felt I should clarify my own post a bit.
When I say scale, I'm not just talking about the physical scale of the things in the picture... but rather, the scale of what's dramatically happening: the farmboy who only wants to make his skyhopper go faster, being asked to save the galaxy. The self-involved smuggler risking his own bacon to help overthrow a tyrannical government. The senator-turned-freedom-fighter who's seen her own planet destroyed, somehow finding the strength to lay down her arms, if only for a moment, and allow herself the gift of true love. Epic stuff!
Of course I'm not sure EotE by itself will allow for all this, but I think creative GMs with a flair for drama can get pretty close.
For my 2 credits:
- Zero hard explanations for things beyond a 20's and 30's pulp sci-fi nod toward reality (aerial physics for dogfights in space, artificial gravity everywhere, physics largely ignored for the sake of cool scene setting and stories).
Well that one is basically true for almost every SF movie/series I have ever seen with the exception being 2001: A Space Odyssey, if you don't look at the ending...
Well Babylon 5 at least tried and had newtonian movement. Btw, starships in Star Wars don't move with aerial physics. I have heard people say this so often, but when I watch the movies... nope. Aircraft simply don't move that way.
Star Wars basically has no consistent physics (like as I said almost every other SF series/movie) but it does not invent a fictional physics in the movies. It does in the EU, though, sometimes (and this fictional physics tends to be even more horrendously crazy than that of certain other franchises...)
So basically, Star Wars is about heroism and sacrifice and about good and evil... in space... with swashbuckling.
And Star Wars is huge... it's not about a couple of planets but about thousands and millions of planets.
A capital ship is a mile long, a big one is a dozen miles long and the death star is a hundred miles in diameter.
The Jedi are there not for hundreds or thousands of years but for tens of thousands of years.
A weapon of mass destruction does not destroy a city or a continent but a planet.
Technology is not limited by physics or science, but it can achieve whatever is necessary for the story. But no matter how omnipotent technology seems to be, it can be beaten by... well heroism and sacrifice - and is insignificant compared to the power of the Force.
Edited by ThomsonHaving been a teenager when the original films came out then:
If it hasn't got Han, Chew, Luke, Leia, the bots, Darth and Stormtroopers in it ISN'T really Star Wars
SO for EotE games we have to have a smuggler, young upstart, Wookiee and an annoying droid or it just doesn't feel right.
Heroic action adventure. Good guys are good guys, and bad guys are bad guys. People do dumb heroic things and it works, because it is heroic.
Though this isn't how I am running my current game at all, so...
For my 2 credits:
- Zero hard explanations for things beyond a 20's and 30's pulp sci-fi nod toward reality (aerial physics for dogfights in space, artificial gravity everywhere, physics largely ignored for the sake of cool scene setting and stories).
Well that one is basically true for almost every SF movie/series I have ever seen with the exception being 2001: A Space Odyssey, if you don't look at the ending...
Well Babylon 5 at least tried and had newtonian movement. Btw, starships in Star Wars don't move with aerial physics. I have heard people say this so often, but when I watch the movies... nope. Aircraft simply don't move that way.
Then you might want to watch some of the behind the scenes stuff for the Star Wars movie. The dogfighting between the X-wings and the TIE fighters was based on WWII fighters and dive bombers going at it.
People have covered the major ones.
1. Modern Day Myth: Much has been made of Lucas appreciation of Campbell. Star Wars IS the story that we all know well; Lucas just gave us a new special-effects laden facade. This was hit home for me with Ep 1. A Chinese friend of mine (born and raised in China, came to U.S. as adult after college) saw the promos and the trailers and explained to me -- he got that Darth Maul was a "Chinese demon" like what he was used to in the stories he grew up with. Regardless of race, location, or culture, Star Wars is about the hero's journey.
2. The Living universe: recall what set SW apart in 1977. Contrasting with the pristine, clinical space of Star Trek and 2001 came Lucas' living galaxy. Everyone had a story to tell. This galaxy was alive.
3. Pulp Action: Almost has been made of Lucas' inspiration: the old Flash Gordon / Buck Rogers serials of his youth. There's a reason why there's "wars" in the title. You need action. You need battles. On land -- in the jungles, in the desert, in the ice! You need battles in space. No slow-moving things here; Star Wars is patterned after WW2 dogfighting, not real world physics.
4. Jedi, Sith and the Force