Well folks, my game is finally underway. It was a small start due to conflicting schedules, but it looks like it's going to be great game.

And it's all because of you guys! OK, I'm not going to gush (much). But, honestly, the questions, inspirations and advice on this forum are the reason this campaign campaign is off to a good start.

The biggest thing that helped was taking the advice of talking to the players about their expectations and mine. I had one player who was interested in the Colonist career, but because so many past campaigns were combat heavy, he didn't want his character to be "useless." After I described the direction of the campaign, and let him know that I would be including plenty of non-combat challenges. (and I have a list, thanks to some threads here)

The group is used to playing Shadowrun, and a few of them have played little else. The d20 Star Wars campaign that I had taken over (and ended up leaving) had been an outer rim adventure, that had simply turned into what I called "Shadowrun with lightsabers." I explained that although Edge of the Empire is also dealing with the "lawless" fringes of the galaxy, I am envisioning a game for more "good" leaning characters, with the potential of their becoming involved in the Rebellion later. I ended up using Firefly as an example. Picture a group that has weapons because it's a dangerous 'verse out there. For the most part, you'd be perfectly content to just make your rounds and live in peace, but things seem to unfold that puts you in the position of big **** heroes.

They seem to like that idea, although it looks like I'm going to have two or three Jaynes.

Another lesson I took to heart was to stand my ground, especially at the beginning. I had players wanting to make changes, play characters with a more evil bent, etc. What worked there was that I insisted this is going to be a game for "good" characters because enough players were interested in that type of game, and those who didn't want to join don't have to. (I'm actually hoping a few opt out, because if everyone shows, I'm up to 8)

Just remember that there is true evil and then there is typical self-centeredness. A character can do good deeds without being altruistic, it's just your job as a GM to provide opportunities for them to fulfill their character motivations, such as greed, without resorting to the quick and easy path. While this game isn't intended for a dark side campaign per se, the morally ambiguous setting makes running a true light side campaign rather difficult...as doing the "good thing" all the time will probably get you killed eventually, or starved for lack of credits.

An example on a not evil/not good character: I want to play a bounty hunter with the fame motivation, though greed is certainly a secondary motivation, because he wants all those cool toys. The desire to be a feared and famous (and deadly) bounty hunter isn't an inherently evil motivation, while not being inherently good either. He'd rather do good than do evil, though he'd rather not cross the empire or a powerful Hutt. At the end of the day jobs that appeal to either motivation, or to his sense of justice or honor are the ones he will favor. He could work fine in a "good campaign" though I would not call him a good character at this juncture in his life.

Han is a good example of that too. He defiantly was not good early on he owed lots of credits to hutts and murdered poor Greedo. As his adventures went on he started to care more for others and started becoming a good guy. Like when he came back to help Luke at the end with the Death Star.

That's great to hear!

And good that you are being firm with your players. While it's always good to try to work with the players I find that too many special snowflake cases often distracts from the focus of the campaign - that everyone agreed on from the start (hopefully).

Letting everyone get what they want is just like adding everything and then some on that burger. Individually it might be good stuff but put together it becomes too rich.

More and more I find that the GMs job isn't so much to create a great story (that's the group's job) but to keep the story on track and make sure everyone get their time in the spotlight.

Good points.

Okay, I left an incomplete sentence above, there goes my grammar police badge.

"After I described the direction of the campaign, and let him know that I would be including plenty of non-combat challenges" The rest of this thought should read, "He decided to play a Scholar."

I do like the idea of someone who "would rather do good than evil." I think that's part of the point I tried to get across. The Firefly example I used is kind of leading that direction. This particular group has a tendency to drift toward evil, so I will admit to pushing for a very "good" group of characters was my way of pre-compensating for this drift. They usually pitch characters who are more on the ruthless, bloodthirsty, greedy side, and talk about how they want to role play their character's move to redemption. They never seem to get to that part, though.

Could also Introduce a Darkside point system like the old WEG had. Accumulate too many and you lose your character. The single force user I allowed in my group started out with looking pretty bloodthirsty and I remind him that once he starts down the dark path...

Could also Introduce a Darkside point system like the old WEG had. Accumulate too many and you lose your character. The single force user I allowed in my group started out with looking pretty bloodthirsty and I remind him that once he starts down the dark path...

Or, as I saw in a game, when the PCs as a group gain too many Dark Side Points they lose the GM. One of the players picked up the role and the rest went right on playing with their bad selves.

Could also Introduce a Darkside point system like the old WEG had. Accumulate too many and you lose your character. The single force user I allowed in my group started out with looking pretty bloodthirsty and I remind him that once he starts down the dark path...

Or, as I saw in a game, when the PCs as a group gain too many Dark Side Points they lose the GM. One of the players picked up the role and the rest went right on playing with their bad selves.

That is actually how the d20 game ended.

I've toyed with the idea of using Obligation for the Dark Side and characters who start playing evil. Basically, if a character goes down the dark path his personal obligation limits him from advancement (consumed by hate and without formal Sith training). I'd make it clear that a dark sided character may not survive or is retired for a different campaign. If your entire group heads this way and you can't really control them, your climax might be a death match between each character and then they all are destroyed like a Scorsese film.