I have always wondered why everyone in Star Wars seems to fear Stormtroopers and regard them as elite troops when their on camera performance is so poor. The armour doesn't seem to do much against blasters, they can't shoot for beans, and generally seem pretty dumb.

But the truth is the reason the Rebel Alliance is cooler lies in the eye candy value of the respective leaderships. A wrinkled old prune vs well...

Except when they perform poorly it is generally against main protagonists, not common rebels.

Because Star Wars.

A wrinkled old prune vs well...

Except when they perform poorly it is generally against main protagonists, not common rebels.

Because Star Wars.

No its not, fortunately Disney might alter the EU enough so the Rebel Alliance might improve with the next renditions... after all there's even some bits from the past that people rather ignore... Force Unleashed's way of introducing the Rebel Alliance ignoring the fact it should have been in the works since the end of ROTS and not what 17 years later?

Well having this expanded upon for both sides might prove very interesting but that's a story Star Wars Rebels should be addressing.

How do you handle this?

Do you want the Alliance to be "cooler" or grayer?

Do you want the Alliance to be "cooler" or grayer?

The very fact of 'em being a side in an armed conflict makes them gray to me, " coolness " is besides the point.

No its not, fortunately Disney might alter the EU enough so the Rebel Alliance might improve with the next renditions... after all there's even some bits from the past that people rather ignore... Force Unleashed's way of introducing the Rebel Alliance ignoring the fact it should have been in the works since the end of ROTS and not what 17 years later?

Rebels maybe, but not the Rebel Alliance. The Corellian Treaty has been long established to have happened only fairly recently as of a New Hope. Even the opening crawl of a New Hope implies the Alliance hasn't been around for very long.

There was anti-Imperial resistance going on throughout the years between the movies, and in fact the Dawn of Defiance campaign is specifically predicated around playing agents for/of the Alderaanian Resistance in the years before the original trilogy.

Exactly, Rebels without yet being part of the Rebel Alliance.

I have always wondered why everyone in Star Wars seems to fear Stormtroopers and regard them as elite troops when their on camera performance is so poor. The armour doesn't seem to do much against blasters, they can't shoot for beans, and generally seem pretty dumb.

It's been oft repeated here, but of course the plot makes the Stormtroopers poor shots when the heroes are on the screen. When the heroes are not on screen, you will notice they are the elite troops they are supposed to be. But, as soon as a hero is getting shot at, they miss, for obvious reasons. So, in-setting, for a game, they still should be the elite troops they are described as since it was only the plot of the movie (Luke, Chewie, Leia, Han, C3PO, R2D2, Lando didn't die) that made them miss. And of course that plot shouldn't affect the accuracy they are intended to have when playing a game.

Another way to look at it is it's similar to a GM fudging dice to keep a PC alive. The dice fudging itself shouldn't affect the stats of the bad guy on paper.

That depends on the plot and the gm's planned adventure after all if they want the players to reach a certain point in the game he/she can hardly have the storm troopers' conduct a near or total party kill now can they?

Has anyone actually had that kind of problem arise from trying to run the Empire as they think they should be rather than just for mutual fun?

That depends on the plot and the gm's planned adventure after all if they want the players to reach a certain point in the game he/she can hardly have the storm troopers' conduct a near or total party kill now can they?

Has anyone actually had that kind of problem arise from trying to run the Empire as they think they should be rather than just for mutual fun?

That one's easy: find " weaker " Minions to put in the players' way -- the AoR beta provided several -- if your players are somehow unable to handle basic stormtroopers, or if your players can handle regular stormtroopers, then treat the Rival-quality stormtroopers such as sergeants, dark troopers, Storm Commandos, and spacetroopers as a distinct rarity in player encounters, and always in the minority among the players' opposition when and if they appear at all. It helps that while sergeants, like Imperial officers, are rarer by virtue of being unit leaders, two of the other three Rival-quality stormtrooper specialists are a secret project and a commando group respectively.

(I somewhat lump in the other Minion-quality stormtrooper specialists in that " basic stormtroopers " mention, as their stat blocks are similar if not outright identical other than in environmental-specific gear, with the notable exception of snowtroopers also having Gunnery, in a way where one may simply expect that on certain worlds they would be the PCs' opponents instead of the default unspecialized stormtrooper.)

As for why the the stormtroopers have an 'elite' reputation in the context of the setting that doesn't match their threat to the players in the context of the EotE game rules, that's very simple: Because the stormtroopers' opposition, the Rebels, are verwhelmingly also Minions!

Think of it this way: in the boarding of Tantive IV , Leia Organa's brief shootout with stormtroopers is the only " PC vs. Minions " exchange in the whole combat encounter, and when it's the Rebel troops versus the stormtroopers, that's " Minions vs. Minions " and so the stormtroopers clean house.

Has anyone actually had that kind of problem arise from trying to run the Empire as they think they should be rather than just for mutual fun?

Two things.

First off, any system you play requires the GM to be careful and skillful about what he throws at his players. It might be fun to throw a huge Red Dragon at your 2nd level party, but of course a GM worth his salt would never do such. He's going to wait and bring out that big baddy when the party stands a chance. It wouldn't be much fun to reduce that Red Dragon to Level 5 with 30 hit points just so your low level party has a chance and gets to face a dragon early on. You are going to keep him tough, save him for later, and not spoil the fun for your players.

I want my Stormtroopers to be scary and tough living up to, "only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise". But, I'm not going to throw them at players early on. If I want them to face Imperials early on, its going to be Imperial Navy or Army mook Troopers.

That depends on the plot and the gm's planned adventure after all if they want the players to reach a certain point in the game he/she can hardly have the storm troopers' conduct a near or total party kill now can they?

Has anyone actually had that kind of problem arise from trying to run the Empire as they think they should be rather than just for mutual fun?

Not in Edge of the Empire or Age of Rebellion but my group had one GM when we were doing KOTOR in Saga that we forced to step down. In one example the party was flying a strike mission against a Sith Convoy. Due to PC deaths leading to new PCs and newcomers plus a couple of players being out of town that week due to a wedding and a family reunion out of state we had one level 11, one level 10, two level 9s, and a level 8 against 4 level 11s in homegrown Starfighters roughly equal to the Aureks we were using, and a transport with 3 gunner positions all manned by level 12s..

My players have encountered Stormtroopers twice. In the first case, early in the campaign, they were not the primary targets of the Stormtroopers (the Stormtroopers were after some Rebel agents nearby), but one of the PCs became a target of opportunity when he drew a weapon. In that scene, the PC was downed and the other PCs stimpacked him back to his feet so they could beat a retreat in the midst of the chaos. In the second encounter, the (more experienced and better armed) PCs fought an 'aggressive retreat' out of a compromised outlaw tech base. Over the course of three short battles, they took out two squads of Stormtroopers (each squad was two four-trooper minion groups and a sergeant) and a dwarf spider droid. One of the PCs and a significant allied NPC were downed and critically injured but the PCs again escaped. As a result of these encounters, the PCs still have a healthy respect for Stormtroopers despite knowing that they can often cut through at least twice their number of them.

I don't like how someone makes a reasonable topic and a good amount of you have only seen the prejudice against the poster. It is a serious question in a game when you have to choose between the easy road and the hard one. Being the underdogs would not inspire me to join a highly outnumbered and outgunned rebellion against the greatest military power in the world (referring to real life). I'd only do it if I had no other choice, since my previous life was now in shatters (which is exactly what inspired not only the Rebel Alliance, but the American Revolution).

The point is that he's asking for your reasonable explanation. Why would you want to play the Rebellion instead of the Empire? Because they have no real choice. It's their only hope left.

That's the question being asked, so stop bullying ErikB. I don't stand for that nonsense.

Castlecruncher this thread has morphed several pages ago, like most threads on any topic on the internt will do. Please don't criticize us for discussing other only semi-related topics in pages 8-9, posts past reply #150.

As for bullying of a poster, yes I'm against that. But if you have a few hours of time to go back over ErikB/AluminumWolf's posts you will have a better understanding of why he's brought much of that upon himself. It's kinda bullying of the bully. If you bully everyone else over and over I have little sympathy for you when you get bullied back.

Castlecruncher this thread has morphed several pages ago, like most threads on any topic on the internt will do. Please don't criticize us for discussing other only semi-related topics in pages 8-9, posts past reply #150.

As for bullying of a poster, yes I'm against that. But if you have a few hours of time to go back over ErikB/AluminumWolf's posts you will have a better understanding of why he's brought much of that upon himself. It's kinda bullying of the bully. If you bully everyone else over and over I have little sympathy for you when you get bullied back.

When theyre rude as heck, sure, tell him that's not nice and to go away. When he starts acting semi-normally (I don't believe in normal), even if he doesn't apologize you have no right to keep picking on him. Besides, it's obvious he doesn't care, so you're (speaking generally) not accomplishing anything.

I personally like to play as the rebellion to hog the moral highground despite being glorified terrorists, and largely because playing as the rebellion there is the potencial to interact with the seedy underbelly of the univerce that is seen, but rarely expanded on (Yes we see bounty hunters. but the underworld is always seen as yet another tool in the empire s assinal with local ambision, what if the rebellion also dealt with various scum to accomplish it's objectives? They are the obilgation of Han solo, though one of the more fun ones at that.). I don't see the role of the criminal and rebel as mutrally exclusive, yet due to a rebels stance these roles will intersect frequently until the rebellion gets the highground. So theres the potencial to do a lot of things as a rebel, from criminal to insurgent to eventually a champion of justice as a general.

While I wouldn't have as many cool toys (rebels live on a budget) just the variety of settings I can potencially attack is amusing. Such as power cores, ship factories, banks (Not so much to rob vaults, but to hack credits into another account, and bug the system out to transfer to a hidden account.) imperial armouries, secert labs containing the latest abomination/droid weaponry. Being imperial means that inherently I am less free, though on the flipside I get to play double agents and get to betray rebel cells while experiencing both sides of the spectrim.

Of course there is scope for the empire to do this as well, but I guess it's just that a lot of DM's I imagine would be hesitent to put one of the major protagonists/commanders heads on the chopping block. Since every one of those characters are required to advance the story and the removal of any of them will tip the scales in the empire winning the battle of Endor, hence the end of the plot.

I know more then a few people who would quite happily tear through the orignal cast. XD Just not any who would DM it.

The point is that he's asking for your reasonable explanation. Why would you want to play the Rebellion instead of the Empire? Because they have no real choice. It's their only hope left.

No, the point is that he's asked the same **** question again and again and again in some kind of twisted agenda to push his style of game-play on everyone else (via official channels and by being the loudest voice in the room) and closed-mindedly refusing to accept that someone might actually want to play PCs as bad guys, or NPC bad guys as actual three dimensional characters instead of mustache twirling fiends (or good guys that have shades of gray morality instead of wearing white hats all the time), and offending a great many people with real world comparisons to world war II despite being told that "Hey dude, that's over the line. Please stop."

He's a troll of the highest order and here only to stir $hit instead of have an actual discussion. Life is so much better with him on ignore.

I personally like to play as the rebellion to hog the moral highground despite being glorified terrorists, and largely because playing as the rebellion there is the potencial to interact with the seedy underbelly of the univerce that is seen, but rarely expanded on (Yes we see bounty hunters. but the underworld is always seen as yet another tool in the empire s assinal with local ambision, what if the rebellion also dealt with various scum to accomplish it's objectives? They are the obilgation of Han solo, though one of the more fun ones at that.). I don't see the role of the criminal and rebel as mutrally exclusive, yet due to a rebels stance these roles will intersect frequently until the rebellion gets the highground. So theres the potencial to do a lot of things as a rebel, from criminal to insurgent to eventually a champion of justice as a general.

Of course there is scope for the empire to do this as well, but I guess it's just that a lot of DM's I imagine would be hesitent to put one of the major protagonists/commanders heads on the chopping block. Since every one of those characters are required to advance the story and the removal of any of them will tip the scales in the empire winning the battle of Endor, hence the end of the plot.

I know more then a few people who would quite happily tear through the orignal cast. XD Just not any who would DM it.

Honestly most of your first paragraph sounds like the progression of oe of my favorite player characters. Once any piracy or privateering focused expansions and Age of Rebellion are out I'll have to talk with my current group's GMs and see about getting a similar campaign going again.

I personally like to play as the rebellion to hog the moral highground despite being glorified terrorists, and largely because playing as the rebellion there is the potencial to interact with the seedy underbelly of the univerce that is seen, but rarely expanded on (Yes we see bounty hunters. but the underworld is always seen as yet another tool in the empire s assinal with local ambision, what if the rebellion also dealt with various scum to accomplish it's objectives? They are the obilgation of Han solo, though one of the more fun ones at that.). I don't see the role of the criminal and rebel as mutrally exclusive, yet due to a rebels stance these roles will intersect frequently until the rebellion gets the highground. So theres the potencial to do a lot of things as a rebel, from criminal to insurgent to eventually a champion of justice as a general.

Of course there is scope for the empire to do this as well, but I guess it's just that a lot of DM's I imagine would be hesitent to put one of the major protagonists/commanders heads on the chopping block. Since every one of those characters are required to advance the story and the removal of any of them will tip the scales in the empire winning the battle of Endor, hence the end of the plot.

I know more then a few people who would quite happily tear through the orignal cast. XD Just not any who would DM it.

Honestly most of your first paragraph sounds like the progression of oe of my favorite player characters. Once any piracy or privateering focused expansions and Age of Rebellion are out I'll have to talk with my current group's GMs and see about getting a similar campaign going again.

Aye, I recalled one Smuggler campiagn back in the D20 system that really was the best. Though there was no grand objectives, just swindling from one end of the galaxy to the other. Below is just a quick, run on sentance to summerise a alternative, KOTOR univerce.

Started off by making underground deals and a couple with the rebellion, entered a casino and won the jackpot, ended up fleeing from the mob that invaded the space casino from a job gone bad, wreaked the ships hyperdrive in the getaway, ended up in Chiss space and captured. Transport craft was wreaked over a planet, resulting in a tense 2 week survival campiagn against the Vong vangard (Seriously, out of the 8 crew on the ship at the time, only 4 surivived.), ended up managing to highjack a ship at a research station there to return to civilisation, ended up doing work for the republican imperial's as we used the winning from the casino for a fully fitted out falcon (complete with hidden compartments for weapons) and ended up being drafted to help fight the true sith as they attacked carasant.

Unfortunately the campiagn ended there as I was absent for the last hour of that session, the character who owned the ship suddenly went pro imperial, kicked my pilot out of the chair and proceeded to kamazise the ship into the bridge of a true sith war vessel, killing the entire party. Some of us still hold a grudge over that and is partly a few of us don't really trust him anymore.

And ironically none of that was really planned by the GM. infact we had died before we got to the main plot, which was helping the imperial empire to deal with a crime ring.

Interesting but how was that an alternative KOTOR? Did this all happen in the KOTOR era Revan overrunning the Republic and the Vong showing up a few thousand years early?

My pirate to privateer to rebel fleet officer to Jedi was actually 3 interlinked campaigns with a few players retaining characters between them, including me, It started out in 8 BBY but by the time I joined the group they were up to 5 BBY. The Party was part of the crew of a the Wolfsblade, a Class 1000 cruiser, which had been a privateer during a war between its home system of Dorcin and the neighboring Delfii system sparked by Delfi impounding several freighters carrying goods to Dorcin and sparked a 5 year conflict. The Empire had officially blamed the Wolfsblade's home system for the conflict and invaded which led to the Wolfsblade going pirate after a failed attempt to defend their home system though they limited ourselves to hitting shipments from Imperial allied organizations as best they could. My character, an undiscovered Force Sensitive, joined the Wolfsblade's fighter group after his parents were killed by a stray heavy blaster volley striking their home when Imperial forces, including heavy armor, were deployed to suppress a riot.

We continued raiding the Empire until the Alliance formed and became privateers first for the Minos Sector Command than later for the Alliance as a whole but around 1 ABY the Wolfsblade was ambushed and wrecked. We decided that would be a good time to stop the campaign and many of the surviving PCs said their characters would be joining the Alliance. So we skipped to shortly before Hoth where one of the former PCs had become captain of a recently captured Nebulon-B, the Starbane and had gather those she could of her former comrades back together.We continued that campaign for about 8 months RL, and 5 years ic time. After another couple of campaigns a couple of players who had moved away moved back and we decided to go back to the old campaign only now it was going to be13 ABY, my character had been discovered and trained as a Jedi and we were going to be running a Sacheen-class Light Escort modified with an expanded hanger. Unfortunately a couple of months into the campaign the GM was deployed to Afghanistan and several players moved away or lost interest while he was gone.

As for why the the stormtroopers have an 'elite' reputation in the context of the setting that doesn't match their threat to the players in the context of the EotE game rules, that's very simple: Because the stormtroopers' opposition, the Rebels, are verwhelmingly also Minions!

Think of it this way: in the boarding of Tantive IV , Leia Organa's brief shootout with stormtroopers is the only " PC vs. Minions " exchange in the whole combat encounter, and when it's the Rebel troops versus the stormtroopers, that's " Minions vs. Minions " and so the stormtroopers clean house.

Yes, this, so much this.

You know, I think the EoE stats for stormtroopers are actually just right.

The rank and file are still minions, but a cut above the standard street thug, plus they have much better gear. The guy on the street in the SW universe has very good reason to fear them, as Owen & Beru found out.

Now, the PCs are the heroes, and assuming they brought a rifle or a decent melee weapon, they can slaughter them by the truckload. And yet, they should still be wary of encountering loads of them, especially given the sheer number of them the Empire has at it's disposal.

And if the GM wants better versions, they are right there in the rules for when they run into leaders, elites or the like.

Sounds just like the films, if you ask me.

Heck, "elite" minions can be made just by adding a point to Agl, WT, soak, and giving them the cool skill. works with almost all minion types.

Guards need vigilance, not cool; the effect is to push them way up the sequence so they can shoot before dying.

Also... adding scopes and relevant talents can really boost their capabilities. The one where an aim gets +2dBlue is really nifty for minions.

Now that I posted it, seems excessively long. Forgive me for getting so far off topic

Interesting but how was that an alternative KOTOR? Did this all happen in the KOTOR era Revan overrunning the Republic and the Vong showing up a few thousand years early?

My pirate to privateer to rebel fleet officer to Jedi was actually 3 interlinked campaigns with a few players retaining characters between them, including me, It started out in 8 BBY but by the time I joined the group they were up to 5 BBY. The Party was part of the crew of a the Wolfsblade, a Class 1000 cruiser, which had been a privateer during a war between its home system of Dorcin and the neighboring Delfii system sparked by Delfi impounding several freighters carrying goods to Dorcin and sparked a 5 year conflict. The Empire had officially blamed the Wolfsblade's home system for the conflict and invaded which led to the Wolfsblade going pirate after a failed attempt to defend their home system though they limited ourselves to hitting shipments from Imperial allied organizations as best they could. My character, an undiscovered Force Sensitive, joined the Wolfsblade's fighter group after his parents were killed by a stray heavy blaster volley striking their home when Imperial forces, including heavy armor, were deployed to suppress a riot.

We continued raiding the Empire until the Alliance formed and became privateers first for the Minos Sector Command than later for the Alliance as a whole but around 1 ABY the Wolfsblade was ambushed and wrecked. We decided that would be a good time to stop the campaign and many of the surviving PCs said their characters would be joining the Alliance. So we skipped to shortly before Hoth where one of the former PCs had become captain of a recently captured Nebulon-B, the Starbane and had gather those she could of her former comrades back together.We continued that campaign for about 8 months RL, and 5 years ic time. After another couple of campaigns a couple of players who had moved away moved back and we decided to go back to the old campaign only now it was going to be13 ABY, my character had been discovered and trained as a Jedi and we were going to be running a Sacheen-class Light Escort modified with an expanded hanger. Unfortunately a couple of months into the campaign the GM was deployed to Afghanistan and several players moved away or lost interest while he was gone.

The alternate timeline came about in a Kotor campiagn when it derailed as it neared the end of the mandolorian war. essentially a in dependant sith, a recent addition to the party after half the party was killed, decided to seek out Reven. Needless to say he found him and, in order not to get slaughtered, arranged to sacrifice one of his right hand men to Revan to seal the deal, to prove he was serious. The dm pitied the player who, at level 8 was pitted against this level 19 character so decided to resend the house rule restricting 1 destiny point per encounter. Needless to say the player spent most of him to slaughter Revan with a series of natural 20s, malek was killed shortly afterwards when the entire party attacked him and that put an end to the campaign in possibly one of the silliest ways. Needless to say the senior sith took control of a good portion of the recently turned sith and our character and manipulated both sides to introduce the sith gently after a short staged skirmish.

This resulted in the PC doing what Plap did, but not nearly as successfully as the Jedi saw it coming. As far as history knows, Revan died a hero on malacore 5. The details are very thin about how it went down, but Essentially since he loved the original tri, it ended up being a effective copy. However we liked the idea of rp in this universe, even if the logic was down, since then we have had...

A all Jedi campiagn. (Lasted 3 months. Ended prematurely as actions ended up with half of the Jedi being killed off, causing those forced to make non-force sensitives as backups uninvolved in plot, so it was ended with a time jump. though the highlight was the level 20 fight, and how my old droid character matured into a very potent figure of terror, a droid that hunted Jedi with fire.

Smuggler campiagn (6months. The vong was present because the dm wanted a terrifying foe, they were 4000 years early, but it takes a long time to survey a universe in secert, these guys were essentially using this unoccupied planet as a base. It was basically a one shot deal, but we loved it.)

Rebel campaign (1.5 months. It was terrible because old, insane Jedi. It had potential and had its moments, but it felt savataged by players.)

Survival campiagn (1 year, it was terrible. The idea behind it was great, we were ordenary people caught up when our ship went into hyperdrive and landed on a strange planet. Problem is, many of the ideas were penned up by not our normal dm, who allowed all classes. Three people chose to be Sith Lords that dominated the party. After the 5th week, I was so dispaired at how poor the rp had gotten and how hard I found it to have new force sensitives join in with every PC death, that I flat out refused to attend for 12 week to get a break from the dispair I felt. It improved towards the middle to end, but the big problem is that there was not enough actual exploring, often travelling large distances with little to no interaction, I actually took another 8 weeks off because of how bickers the party was... This campiagn made me hate seeing force sensitives, since two sith in poticluar kept the knowledge of the entire plot to themselves so the others barely knew. B y week 52, since all the original party had died, and the new ones got on the sith ship, we mostly decided that there was no point to continue)

The adventures are not really related. Personally, the smuggling campiagn was my favourite. Since there was a lot we could do and we had an organic dynamic. You know things are real when you actually role play a standoff, inside a crippled ship because one guy snapped at being stranded in deep space, we all got incredibly emotional at the prospect of dying in space, and we ended up having a shoot out at stun when our tempers blew. It was.... An artful chemistry that I hadn't felt in any dynamic since.

Though my first rp using the completed eote came pretty close. We all started in prison and I, playing as a human ex stormtrooper marulder, retaliated collectively to a wookie flipping the parties table. I looked at the guy with the metal bowl in his hands and asked "finished yet?", was passed the empty bowl and proceeded to create a face impression in the base, followed up with a one liner, then there was a giant improved combat, where I proceeded to use much of the table as a improvised weapon in several pieces. Something that simple made me passionate about describing my actions again.

Sorry this was typed entirely on iPad, sorry if this is a tad long winded. Xd