I read it back in the 90ies, but wasn't a huge fan. I was happy that there was more Star Wars, but I didn't really care much for it. I really am not big on a lot of the EU, but I won't hold it against anyone who enjoys it.

This for me too. I did like the WEG RPG, and I enjoyed the Thrawn books, though (as someone else said) it never really felt like the movies, more like 'LotR in space'.

I find the EU bloated and contradictory, so I mostly ignore it, and hate the prequels with a passion. That said, Chortles has been cherry-picking some of the best bits of the EU for me, and pointing me in the direction of some good stuff I can modify for my game!

Also... much of what makes the movies fun and watchable is really bad for an RPG... This is the same problem with any game set in an established universe with a ton of 'canon'.

Imho, the movies have their own special magic to them that can't really be matched.

And couldn't agree with you more about the EU. So much of it feels and looks horribly handled.

You may have a point but I'm tempted to mess around with it as best I can. Like say Vader appearing out of nowhere to bust some rebel skulls, sees the PC's, walks over to them and says, "That was so wizard wasn't it?! Have a good day Imperial citizens." And then they watch in stupification as he floats up to his star destroyer and flies off.

Imho, the movies have their own special magic to them that can't really be matched.

And couldn't agree with you more about the EU. So much of it feels and looks horribly handled.

You may have a point but I'm tempted to mess around with it as best I can. Like say Vader appearing out of nowhere to bust some rebel skulls, sees the PC's, walks over to them and says, "That was so wizard wasn't it?! Have a good day Imperial citizens." And then they watch in stupification as he floats up to his star destroyer and flies off.

If the PCs escape because "the face of the party" rolled a check so well that they managed to con Vader into thinking that they were loyal Imps...

Imho, the movies have their own special magic to them that can't really be matched.

And couldn't agree with you more about the EU. So much of it feels and looks horribly handled.

You may have a point but I'm tempted to mess around with it as best I can. Like say Vader appearing out of nowhere to bust some rebel skulls, sees the PC's, walks over to them and says, "That was so wizard wasn't it?! Have a good day Imperial citizens." And then they watch in stupification as he floats up to his star destroyer and flies off.

If the PCs escape because "the face of the party" rolled a check so well that they managed to con Vader into thinking that they were loyal Imps...

I see as more like Vader was feeling pretty good after smashing some skulls, said what's up and just leaves.

lol Vader saying "wizard"... Makes me think of Robot Chicken again...

Vader (internal monologue, before turning on Palpatine): "How come no-one says 'wizard' anymore?"

***

Vader (after throwing the Emperor over the ledge): "That was pretty wizard , wasn't it son?"

Luke: "Huh?"

Vader: "I'M BRINGING IT BACK!"

lol Vader saying "wizard"... Makes me think of Robot Chicken again...

Vader (internal monologue, before turning on Palpatine): "How come no-one says 'wizard' anymore?"

***

Vader (after throwing the Emperor over the ledge): "That was pretty wizard , wasn't it son?"

Luke: "Huh?"

Vader: "I'M BRINGING IT BACK!"

You'll probably enjoy the Vader Monologues

Finally this topic is going in a direction I can get behind.

The previous comments makes me think of this:

In my campaign, one of my player is playing a clone trooper, set a few years BBY, so he's starting to get on in years. It works out well and he even managed to run into a Jedi whose life he "spared" during 66. Unfortunately that jedi is now an inquisitor.

I'm hoping to pluck some heart strings with that move.

I would just like to point out that Disney is not as heavy handed as people seem to act, honestly. I really think people straight up forget all the things they own and operate. Even Star Wars is just one more drop in the bucket of tons and tons of properties, and they don't tend to micromanage the others that much either.

I have a feeling in the long run, the Rebels cartoon will be similar in tone to Clone Wars, possibly a bit lighter, but not far. And considering Clone Wars was made pre-Disney buyout for the most part, it doesn't actually seem to be that much of a departure from what was already being done.

Heh heh. I like how Erik is asking for stormtroopers to be toned down like the Rebels cartoon is the new G-canon for Star Wars. The Clone Wars is only T-canon and Rebels will also fall in that level at best. Only the new movies will have G-canon relevance. Cherry pick away now.

That presumes Disney does't just do away with the distinction.

This. Our current ranking of canon assumes that there is one set of films and everything else is add-on material of some nature.

I don't think it will hold up once we have 2-3 different threads of movies out, plus the possible multiple TV offerings. The system is going to have to adapt.

Heh heh. I like how Erik is asking for stormtroopers to be toned down like the Rebels cartoon is the new G-canon for Star Wars. The Clone Wars is only T-canon and Rebels will also fall in that level at best. Only the new movies will have G-canon relevance. Cherry pick away now.

That presumes Disney does't just do away with the distinction.

This. Our current ranking of canon assumes that there is one set of films and everything else is add-on material of some nature.

I don't think it will hold up once we have 2-3 different threads of movies out, plus the possible multiple TV offerings. The system is going to have to adapt.

There's a very real possibility that Disney will issue a "D-Canon" that ignores everything prior, possibly including large chunks of G-Canon and T-Canon.

Disney's choice for Star Wars is the guy who brought us a darker trek universe, by resettting the timeline, introducing a timeline temporal violation, and then going forward from there in the altered timeline.

I'm not saying new Trek is Bad - it's not - but it's utterly disrespectful of many canon elements and alters the setting considerably, and in very bad ways for gaming. (Note to FFG - A Trek RPG on the same engine as SW would be quite a coup...)

I'll note that the "utterly disrespectful of many canon elements" bit is a given when it's explicitly an alternate timeline... while the original timeline's official continuation is none other than Star Trek Online (seriously, the MMO)... but I'm still gonna agree as well that I'm not at all confident in J. J. Abrams helming Episode VII.

I realize I might be in the minority here, but I've always found the very idea of "cannon" in relation to a fictional universe rather silly. Regardless of what Disney decides to produce for the IP it's not going to change my game. Our EOTE game tends to resemble Shadowrun more than SW, but it's a game we are happy playing.

If the production staff at Disney decided to retcon the first 3 movies completely would it matter? If Bobba Fett and Jabba the hutt threw a surprise birthday party for JarJar Binks would that destroy Star Wars forever?

Star Wars is, at this point, far more than the movie George Lucas intended it to be. He had a story drawn on from a variety of other mediums that he made a movie about and it was vastly more successful that anyone expected it to be. Now we have a living, breathing world of possibilities open before us. Our world views may differ, even the history will, but so what?

Is the game fun?

Are we being good emissaries to the hobby?

i think that those are enough.

I'm not decrying internet discussion, far from it, it encourages new venues of thought. I've just never seen anyone show me anything indicating sole authority to say what is and isn't "cannon" for a fun, if silly game.

I'll note that the "utterly disrespectful of many canon elements" bit is a given when it's explicitly an alternate timeline... while the original timeline's official continuation is none other than Star Trek Online (seriously, the MMO)... but I'm still gonna agree as well that I'm not at all confident in J. J. Abrams helming Episode VII.

I was not referring to the characters... I was referring to things like travel times, distances, limitations on the technologies.

Like QonoS being only a few hours flight from earth. Like Kirk calling Scotty from the border. Like multiplication of the size of the Enterprise by a factor of more than 10. Like using a brewery for Engineering sets.

I realize I might be in the minority here, but I've always found the very idea of "cannon" in relation to a fictional universe rather silly. Regardless of what Disney decides to produce for the IP it's not going to change my game. Our EOTE game tends to resemble Shadowrun more than SW, but it's a game we are happy playing.

If the production staff at Disney decided to retcon the first 3 movies completely would it matter? If Bobba Fett and Jabba the hutt threw a surprise birthday party for JarJar Binks would that destroy Star Wars forever?

Star Wars is, at this point, far more than the movie George Lucas intended it to be. He had a story drawn on from a variety of other mediums that he made a movie about and it was vastly more successful that anyone expected it to be. Now we have a living, breathing world of possibilities open before us. Our world views may differ, even the history will, but so what?

Is the game fun?

Are we being good emissaries to the hobby?

i think that those are enough.

I'm not decrying internet discussion, far from it, it encourages new venues of thought. I've just never seen anyone show me anything indicating sole authority to say what is and isn't "cannon" for a fun, if silly game.

A sense of canon is essential for continued development.

What is and is not canon is core to development of a story set in someone else's universe. If you overwrite the primary stuff, it usually makes your work non-canon, or in some cases, non-printable. (At least one Known Space story was rewritten extensively to be included in a later Man-Kzin wars book, because Niven and Pournelle noted that it didn't fit their universe well as submitted.)

The absolute worst games I've played in have been those of people who lack a sense of canon - everything mixes willy-nilly, and even internal continuity within the campaign is lacking.

For me, my last such was a Buffy game - I went in expecting the standard tropes of the buffyverse - Bots always go evil eventually, demons are mostly bad, possessor demons are always bad, and vampires are about the worst there is in terms of being consistently bad. I also expected a reasonable level of privacy for the school medic (my character was an MD and the watcher). The other players, as well, expected that the canon would be a baseline set of assumptions. But the GM didn't, and didn't communicate that ahead of time, He also denied me the use of several advantages I'd gotten approved, effectively robbing me of the points spent on them, ruining my character concept, ignoring the way things actually work in school systems (I'm employed by one), and ignoring even federal laws regarding the medical profession (laws which had been the basis for my character choice as watcher).

Canon sets a shared continuity, and makes it easier to both share the universe and move from one person's game to another. And for authors to write in the setting.

Don't get me wrong - I've no problem with deviations from canon on an individual basis - I've run Pendragon games where Mordred never went bad, thanks to the love of a woman (a PC female knight, no less), Trek games where Commodore McCoy put certain Vulcans medical records on standards other than Vulcan norms, a Buffy game with 3 slayers set before the end of the original series, and Traveller games without the OTU. But in each case, I warned players ahead of time, so they knew what to expect.

Also, for marketing purposes - Canon makes it easier or harder to sell new bits.

FFG could have tried to write a game that completely ignored anything but ANH, ESB, and ROTJ. It would have had a large appeal. But it wouldn't have met fan expectations as a whole.

FFG has shown that they respect at least G and T canon, and with EOTE, a good bit of C Canon (to wit, the Han and Lando novels). This widens their fan base a LOT. It gives them a broader starting base.

FFG has also shown some startling lack of awareness - the lack of illos and/or even thumbnail maps for the FireStar class base, for example, implies that the adventure has a Sterling Hershey contribution... but that base is S Canon from an little known WEG book, and not one that fed a lot of EU awareness. Which means that it has gaping holes in the description that can be filled by finding (legally or not) a canon reference to give enough data to run the adventure, or the GM can fake it. I wound up faking it - successfully, I might add, but not anything close to what's in the canon reference. Which said canon ref I found only AFTER running the adventure! Boy, was I off.

Not that non-canon versions bug me as a GM -but as a fan, I want it to match up. I want canon to reference the various versions of the YT-1300. I want to see all 4 standard plans in useful-at-table resources. (The Haynes manual is the shizzle, dog!) I want my players to feel like the characters they're playing are in the same universe as the movies. And that they also matter as much to rebel success as do Luke and Han. And many times, I succeeded using WEG. I didn't always give the feel of playing in WEG's version, tho'.

And yes, as a player, I like to play Jedi in WEG games. My last PC was a failed apprentice - Mace Windu's failed apprentice. It was particularly annoying when the GM decided arbitrarily that I couldn't detect guards on the other side of the door despite 3D sense and a roll of 18...

I'll note that internal consistency (of "canon") within a campaign is far more important to enjoyment than whatever canon the GM chooses to use as a "jumping off" point, although I would note that if the GM chooses to instead do an AU or pick-and-choose canon elements, they should be clear, specific and up-front to the players about this, where the point of divergence before the campaign was (that's what makes it an AU in my book instead of just "the players' story within the context of existing canon") and which elements were mix-and-matched... since the characters will (unless they were in seclusion or Rip Van Winkle'd) have "lived that life" up until the start of the campaign.

Like QonoS being only a few hours flight from earth.

Well, in fairness, I think the first episode of "Enterprise" had already screwed up the travel times thing. A couple of days in the Enterprise era could easily be compressed down to hours with the faster warp travel speeds available decades later.

Though mind you, I still would have been much happier if he'd ignored the Enterprise travel time...

I couldn't care less about the EU or the XYZ canon. It mostly feels hopelessly muddled and bloated to me, the work of a ton of authors all going in their own separate directions.

It's a game. I'll do what the hell I like with it.

The elements that make for a good movie or story are different to an RPG. A book or movie needs good, solid characters for the audience to relate to. An RPG needs those characters to be the PCs, not NPCs.

I'll agree with Aramis that a GM needs internal consistency, and having the players on board - but that done, anything goes.

I like the way FFG has gone about things so far. There are little nods to various sources like the prequels, but nothing that really seems intrusive - no cheesy cameos from JarJar or whatever. I'll be very happy if they leave most of the canon elements to our own discretion - to include them if we want to, or not.

I'm not, for example, expecting 'Force & Destiny' to make a clear ruling on something as controversial as 'midichlorians'...

I realize I might be in the minority here, but I've always found the very idea of "cannon" in relation to a fictional universe rather silly. Regardless of what Disney decides to produce for the IP it's not going to change my game. Our EOTE game tends to resemble Shadowrun more than SW, but it's a game we are happy playing.

Star Wars is, at this point, far more than the movie George Lucas intended it to be. He had a story drawn on from a variety of other mediums that he made a movie about and it was vastly more successful that anyone expected it to be. Now we have a living, breathing world of possibilities open before us. Our world views may differ, even the history will, but so what?

Is the game fun?

Are we being good emissaries to the hobby?

i think that those are enough.

Oh, so much this. Take a cannon to the canon.

We don't need people like ErikB invoking the Power of Disney and telling us what we should and shouldn't be doing in our games.

As I won't be watching the new movies anyway, whatever Disney decides to do with them will have the same impact on my games as 'Caravan of Courage' and 'the Holiday Special'. And whatever Dave Filoni says about stormtroopers has as much effect on my game as whatever Dave Cameron says about them

I'll note that internal consistency (of "canon") within a campaign is far more important to enjoyment than whatever canon the GM chooses to use as a "jumping off" point, although I would note that if the GM chooses to instead do an AU or pick-and-choose canon elements, they should be clear, specific and up-front to the players about this, where the point of divergence before the campaign was (that's what makes it an AU in my book instead of just "the players' story within the context of existing canon") and which elements were mix-and-matched... since the characters will (unless they were in seclusion or Rip Van Winkle'd) have "lived that life" up until the start of the campaign.

Yes, agreed. Which is partly why I'm picking your brains about things and brainstorming

I'm currently reading Allegiance and the five stormtroopers in it seem to be very capable, but not too savvy. They are amazingly good at accidental success, but I'm only about a third of the way through the book so far.

Allegiance is good fun, Choices of One (the sequel) is not as good as I remember it, but still a fun read.

I am not repeat NOT attempting to contradict, villify, or disregard the validity of the EU. Frankly I love the heck out of it, and Star Wars will always hold a place in my heart. That being said:

A sense of canon is essential for continued development.

I agree. For most world building and in most mediums, continuity is absloulty essential for a continued suspension of disbelief amongst the viewers. This is also true for RPGs regardless of Intellectual Property.

What is and is not canon is core to development of a story set in someone else's universe. If you overwrite the primary stuff, it usually makes your work non-canon, or in some cases, non-printable. (At least one Known Space story was rewritten extensively to be included in a later Man-Kzin wars book, because Niven and Pournelle noted that it didn't fit their universe well as submitted.)

I agree with what I believe to be the intent of this statement, if not its scope, which I will endeavor to explain in a moment. Again, I'm not debating the validity of any sort of canon, just responding with my own perceptions in the interests of debate.

I believe that this part of your statement was referencing the contiuned development line from FFG for the SW products? and in that sense, I totally agree that a sense of continuity needs to be maintained, UNLESS a product is specifically denoted as being a variant.

The absolute worst games I've played in have been those of people who lack a sense of canon - everything mixes willy-nilly, and even internal continuity within the campaign is lacking.

For me, my last such was a Buffy game - I went in expecting the standard tropes of the buffyverse - Bots always go evil eventually, demons are mostly bad, possessor demons are always bad, and vampires are about the worst there is in terms of being consistently bad. I also expected a reasonable level of privacy for the school medic (my character was an MD and the watcher). The other players, as well, expected that the canon would be a baseline set of assumptions. But the GM didn't, and didn't communicate that ahead of time , He also denied me the use of several advantages I'd gotten approved, effectively robbing me of the points spent on them, ruining my character concept, ignoring the way things actually work in school systems (I'm employed by one), and ignoring even federal laws regarding the medical profession (laws which had been the basis for my character choice as watcher).

From my perspective, the problem isn't that the GM in this game ignored the canon of the Buffy universe, it's that he didn't talk to his players! This was a game ruined by lack of communication, not cannonical adherence. As for denying the use of your abilities I cannot really fairly comment. There are certain situations where this can be appropriate, but it sounds like this wasn't them, which is again a lack of communication.

Not that non-canon versions bug me as a GM - but as a fan, I want it to match up . I want canon to reference the various versions of the YT-1300. I want to see all 4 standard plans in useful-at-table resources. (The Haynes manual is the shizzle, dog!) I want my players to feel like the characters they're playing are in the same universe as the movies. And that they also matter as much to rebel success as do Luke and Han. And many times, I succeeded using WEG. I didn't always give the feel of playing in WEG's version, tho'.

And yes, as a player, I like to play Jedi in WEG games. My last PC was a failed apprentice - Mace Windu's failed apprentice. It was particularly annoying when the GM decided arbitrarily that I couldn't detect guards on the other side of the door despite 3D sense and a roll of 18...

I agree that froma writing/story/movie perspective continuity is important, vitally so to certain types of literature.

I also want to note that your wants are completely valid! and for the right reasons it seems.

What I was trying to convey is that this is an RPG, and as such it can be whatever individual players choose to make it. Altering whatever history of the setting you choose to adhere to is perfectly acceptable. For groups that enjoy having a very detailed universe and wish to reference it often in their games then great! For our group, we really don't have anything at all to do with the EU or even the core movies, outside of basic setting information (the Empire is what it is, the first DS just blew up, the Rebels are terrorist scum etc.) however none of us are particularly knowledegable of the EU so we rarely run into conflicts.

I guess in my blundering way, what I am trying to say is FFG has thus far given me no indications that they intend to put forth inferior products for this line so I will trust what they come up with. Regardless of what new cartoons/movies/novels come out, me and my players are happy and I don't see the need to include this material in my game just because it is considered "canon" by the community. Whenever a new game forms or a new player shows up, or if I am doing demos at my friendly local game store, the first thing I do is ask my players what they are looking for in the game. I discuss the types of themes, level of violence, and tone/seriousness of the game they are looking to play. I let them know what I want to see as well and we determine what our campagin is going to be like from there. I could rely on "canon" to determine all of this for me, or make assumptions about such things, but as you have experienced that can cause huge problems.

Player (and I include the GM in this) communication is vastly more important that cannonical adherence.

Sorry for the micro rant.

I like the way FFG has gone about things so far. There are little nods to various sources like the prequels, but nothing that really seems intrusive - no cheesy cameos from JarJar or whatever. I'll be very happy if they leave most of the canon elements to our own discretion - to include them if we want to, or not.

I'm not, for example, expecting 'Force & Destiny' to make a clear ruling on something as controversial as 'midichlorians'...

It helps that FFG explicitly stated that signs of Force-sensitivity may only manifest later in life so that unlike d20 (all three versions latched onto the "birth-born" idea), "Force-sensitivity" is something that a character may pick up at any time that they can afford a new specialization... so the game mechanics support a different view than midichlorians. In any case, you can look to the history of "dark side sorcery" and 'artificial' imbuing of others or objects with the Force...

* For example, the assertion in the Dark Empire Sourcebook about his history of cloning, then dying in comfort mere meters from the next clone body that he'd move on to? Down the line it was explicitly declared that all of Palpatine's movie appearances to date were not clones, so he didn't do the infamous body-hopping until after Episode VI (even if he had the clone bodies prepared beforehand, they were all off-screen) and any assertion to the contrary by Palpatine in Dark Empire was untrue.

A sense of canon is essential for continued development.

I'm going to be bold and say no, it's not. Why? Please allow me to submit exhibit A, m'lard:

Absolutely no canon whatsoever. The only canon ever established by the BBC is thus: all story elements must be contained within the television show, meaning that they cant tell a story that requires the viewer to go and read a book, buy a comic or otherwise have to be up on the ancillary material to understand what the hell is going on in the Parent Show. Aside from that - everything goes.

Continuity in the main show? How many variations on the sinking of Atlantis are there (three wildly different versions at last count). How many Loch Ness Monster explanations are there? (Two) Hell, Dalek history alone is such a mess even the Doctor couldn't figure it out.

Continuity serves the story, not the other way around. If continuity gets in the way of a good story, then continuity has to go. The dog wags the tail.

Continuity in Star Wars should be the same way. Kind of like Robin Hood, it's all canon, and none of it is canon, tales handed down over the years becoming mytical and larger than life. Where did Vader and Luke first meet? Some say that it was on Mimban in the Temple of Pomojema. Some stories tell of Luke and Vader first meeting in the Crystal Valley on the planet Monastery. And of course everyone has heard of the meeting on Bespin in the bowels of Cloud City.

Which is canon? ALL of it!

A sense of canon is essential for continued development.

I'm going to be bold and say no, it's not. Why? Please allow me to submit exhibit A, m'lard:

Absolutely no canon whatsoever. The only canon ever established by the BBC is thus: all story elements must be contained within the television show, meaning that they cant tell a story that requires the viewer to go and read a book, buy a comic or otherwise have to be up on the ancillary material to understand what the hell is going on in the Parent Show. Aside from that - everything goes.

Continuity in the main show? How many variations on the sinking of Atlantis are there (three wildly different versions at last count). How many Loch Ness Monster explanations are there? (Two) Hell, Dalek history alone is such a mess even the Doctor couldn't figure it out.

Continuity serves the story, not the other way around. If continuity gets in the way of a good story, then continuity has to go. The dog wags the tail.

Continuity in Star Wars should be the same way. Kind of like Robin Hood, it's all canon, and none of it is canon, tales handed down over the years becoming mytical and larger than life. Where did Vader and Luke first meet? Some say that it was on Mimban in the Temple of Pomojema. Some stories tell of Luke and Vader first meeting in the Crystal Valley on the planet Monastery. And of course everyone has heard of the meeting on Bespin in the bowels of Cloud City.

Which is canon? ALL of it!

Except, that it is a show that is based around Time Travel which can allow certain changes except around "fixed-points" and has 50 years of material. Frankly, I think they are doing a good job of keeping older elements as canon in the new series.

And part of that, Dess, is in the nature of Dr. Who as a show. The past and future can be changed. In a setting where time is linear and the past is set in stone, it makes sense for historical events to be both objectively known and subjectively interpreted by those later in history. In a setting where time is not linear, the same can't be said.

In any case, I find Star Wars canon helpful in that it can provide a good baseline of generally-accepted-as-true knowledge for players, if not their characters on occasion.