Finally unfettered and no longer distracted by ErikB's jester act, I am free to canvas some more opinions from my fellow players (i.e. not you, Erik!).

How are you structuring the AOR experience? Are your players farmboy hicks fresh off the bantha with an old slugthrower in hand? Or more seasoned Rebels? Anyone playing the other side? Or something non-Alliance?

And how do you deal with the whole 'chain of command' thing? My players are all wily veterans and strongly dislike games where they are told to go here and do that. They want a sandbox, so that's what I give them. Now sometimes they will get a mission they can't turn down (big movie moments they will want to be in on anyway), but for the most part, they are a Special Forces cell who are on their own, and have to monitor developments, be self-sufficient and act on their own initiative. They have to find their own allies, suppliers and help the rebel effort using their own initiative.

It strikes me that EoE is quite free-form anyway,with the players as freelance mavericks, with only Obligation tying them down. But that AOR could become a tad restrictive if allowed to be. Of course, a mission-based approach might work for your players the way it doesn't work for mine.

I personally wanted to avoid the D&D style 'tavern scene' where the PCs are just told what to do and how to do it. But Your Mileage May Vary, of course.

So, let's talk about the actual game and how your campaigns are going.

I'm going to add it into my existing game, flesh out the rebellion. I plan to put heroes and villains om both imperial and rebel sides and want to see who the party chooses.

Failing that, I have so many ideas about a campaign centered around an imperial projext trying to break the hyperspace barrier. The elisive .0 hyperdrive. Imagine fleets moving instantaneously through the galaxy.

Sadly only a .25 prototype drive has been invented.

Well, to be honest, I'm not playing AoR. I run a EotE game and I'm using the material from the AoR Beta in my game. So far we have an Ace (Pilot) that's a hotshot flyer for the Black Bha'lir (she isn't much of a smuggler, but she'll handle the flying for them without asking questions), and we have a Spy (Slicer) droid that's fell on the wrong side of corporate espionage. We also had a player reskin his Explorer (Trader) into a Sullustan since it fit what he was looking for. Still not using Duty. We have also used both a Gozanti Armed Transport (for a Black Sun ship) and a Vigil-class Corvette (for an Imperial picket ship).

I think sandbox is the best way to go in most games, and is what I strive for. Of course, my experience of a military hierarchy is that you have pretty much no say in anything you do that relates even remotely to your job - and sometimes no say in things that don't . Therefore, a Special Forces team, or an independent cell of operatives, might be the best option to explore for me if/when I get the book.

I probably shouldn't even respond, because I'm not doing AoR. I much prefer the fringe, underworld, or full blown Jedi if/when they arrive. The military stuff doesn't appeal to me mostly because of what you hinted at: having a GM-run chain of command leaves less flexibility. To go their own way, they'd have to be extremely trusted operatives on a long-term mission, probably not suitable for new characters. Maybe I don't have enough imagination. Maybe I should be thinking more like a "Femme Nikita" montage situation, with a 6 month stake-out to get some documents. Hmm, now how to make it "cinematic"...

However, I value the resource and I'll definitely buy the final book. I'd have no problem with using any of the careers/specializations in a fringe setting.

What Shakespearian_Soldier describes is pretty much why a WEG book specifically recommended SpecOps -- as opposed to SpecForce; they're not synonymous -- as a most preferable way to go for " who is the party ".

Indeed, Chortles. Any cell that is given objectives to achieve, but not orders on how , will be more fun to play than a group who has an itinerary sent to them for each mission.

Mind you, an alternate option would be to play as part of a "Sector Force" instead of one of the units attached to Alliance High Command, thereby each Sector Force differing enough that there's an excuse for a more "loosely supervised" group.

That, too, could work. But I suppose autonomy is one of the purviews of the Rebellion in that it helps to ensure that it can work well when its units are secluded or segregated from one another - particularly in areas where the Empire is in control.

There are also those that are Rebels in cause but not in the Alliance. Garm Bel Iblis (or something like that) was a high-end version, but there are going to be others. IME, PCs tend to be among the extremists of the cause in any event, so much his might be a good option.

I've really not had a chance to run AoR yet, but if and when I do, I will most certainly be using the "Mission Group" approach from Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the Rim.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Alliance_Special_Operations

It's a great set-up that I made use of during d6 games, putting the PCs in contact with the Alliance while also retaining some degree of independence, with said contact in those games was a part of Alliance Special Operations. Since most of my groups included a smuggler-type, the fact they had access to a ship meant that the Alliance could send them to just about any place in the galaxy to fight the good fight against the Empire.

With the revision to the Duty mechanic, there's far less impetus to select the "start with a crapload of gear" option for Rebel Resources, though I may provide the option of either the shuttle or a slightly modified light freighter if I really want them to be a roving pack of trouble for the Empire.

From what I recall of the EU stuff (of which I am an intermittently obsessive reader, usually when I want to put something off), only a smallish minority of Alliance personnel actually belong to the large, centralised groups, like Ackbar's Fleet Command or Starfighter Command. Most of the Rebels belong to various Sector commands with huge variations in training, organisation and equipment from one Sector or planet to another. The details aren't really set in stone, so the Sector Command of the area where you're setting the campaign, could be anything from a fully-formed regular military with a clear chain of command to a loose network of guerillas that very occasionally passes on equipment and info to cells of irregulars. The former would probably play more like DnD or Pathfinder organised play- your Guildmaster/Venture-Captain/Planetary Resistance Commander calls you in and tells you to clear out a dungeon/Imperial outpost. The latter would give the players way more freedom; their instructions might just be "here's some blasters, go kill Imperials, or something." Might be hard to manage but more improvisational; it depends on how much control the players want to exert over the story (on-the-rails dungeon crawl, freeform or something in between).

Good ideas, thank you. I'm guessing they will address this issue in the AoR book proper. I've always seen the Alliance as being a lot less formal and centralised anyway, so PC autonomy seems quite possible. As Donovan says, SpecOps seems the best way to go, which is what I did with Crimson Phoenix Squadron.

I like the Mass Effect set-up myself - Shepard is still part of the Systems Alliance military, but also has Spectre powers, giving her a lot more freedom to choose her crew, missions, gear etc. I definitely want the players to be loyal Rebels, without leading them by the nose.

Loved Mass Effect, and have taken more than a few points away from it on how to conduct most military-themed RP campaigns. No PC likes to be ordered about by an NPC continually.

I'm running Beyond the Rim right now, so more EotE than AoR. I am allowing any races and careers/specs from AoR though. I eventually want to run an idea that I had many years when d20 RCR was out.

The idea was (and this was before the Legacy comics and the more recent Lost Tribe of the Sith had come out) that about a 100 years after RotJ, the Sith return and invade the galaxy. There is a group of Sith that disappeared on a mission thousands of years ago that created a Sith Empire elsewhere, who finally return to invade the galaxy. Jedi have slowly returned to the galaxy. The Galactic Empire is replaced by the Galactic Republic. I was never a big fan of the EU in many respects, but I liked the idea of an invading group, but didn't care for the Vong. I was also inspired by the issues of Dungeon and Dragon that focused on the Githyanki Invasion.

I was going to include element like Sith warships, warriors inspired by the Massassi, Sith swords and, of course, big bads using the Force. I liked the idea of them still using the Sith sword technology, the swords like glassteel and glowing with Dark energy (I always liked the silver swords of the Githyanki and sith swords), rather than lightsabers. Sith alchemy would be in full use. Dark side powers and all kinds of fun stuff.

Anyways, until next year when I finally get to see the full extent of Force powers, I'm letting it all percolate for now. Since thinking this up, it has morphed and been influenced by additional sources such as Legacy and Lost Tribes. at some time I'll start putting stuff together again. Lost all my notes from its earlier incarnation having switch computers a few times. Lost in the shuffle.

(While I know I'm on her ignore list, I'll answer anyway.)

My structure is that of active rebel military troops just past initial "indoctrination."

There's actually a comic series- Star Wars: Legacy- about a Sith resurgence 130-odd years after Yavin. Contains a Skywalker, but said Skywalker is a drug-addled, self-serving twit. Luke's ghost appears to him repeatedly and tries to persuade him to become a somewhat less repellant person; fails.

There's actually a comic series- Star Wars: Legacy- about a Sith resurgence 130-odd years after Yavin. Contains a Skywalker, but said Skywalker is a drug-addled, self-serving twit. Luke's ghost appears to him repeatedly and tries to persuade him to become a somewhat less repellant person; fails.

I played in a Legacy Era campaign that used WotC's Dawn of Defiance campaign as the basis.

GM's first change: Cade Skywalker was never born. Instead, there was another Skywalker descendent, this one being a PC, that played a major role in the conflict with Krayt's Empire.

Speaking of, with a few tweaks (most notably the NPC stat blocks), you could probably use Dawn of Defiance with the Age of Rebellion material. Just swap out the "ties to the Rebel Alliance" elements to instead be "ties to Bail Organa's resistance group." With the revised Duty mechanics, by the time the PCs finish "Queen of Air & Darkness," they should have accrued enough Duty to earn an Alliance Reward, which could very easily be a light freighter. Or just defer the starting Rebellion Resource option to give them a nice ship after the first half of "Traitor's Gambit."

My only gripe across the Star Wars eras in the importance of Skywalker. I can understand that the saga is THEIR story, which is why they're among its greatest heroes and stars, but I think that the period following the GCW should have put them into the same backseat positions as Mon Mothma and Akbar, and should have brought in different heroes.

If I ever experienced Legacy, that's what would happen. Sod Cade Skywalker - let the heroes shine without that name being the sole reason why they feel like they should .

...which is why in our games Anakin is a gruesomely-mutilated skeleton dangling outside the Naboo Palace (Project Emergent graduates do a right of passage there to pelt it with rancid vegetables), and the now-unrelated Luke is decorating a womp rat nest somewhere in the badlands of Tatooine.

I actually liked Luke, he works well in the movies, but the writers couldn't leave well alone, and turned the name into a line of Mary Sue's.

Movies need strong characters for the audience to identify with, and role-playing games need those characters to be the PCs...

Movie characters (and TV) are always Mary-Sues. It is their lot in life. I remember reading an interview with with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens as they were writing a Star Trek novel. The edict was given to them that no named character shall die. So in their story they killed the Enterprise.

RPGs should always be about the player's characters. They are the stars. It is why I rarely (if ever) introduce named characters. The Galaxy is a huge place and there is plenty of room for other stories. I'm not even a fan of redoing the movies. There are plenty of other ways of being just as epic.

Amen!

Double amen!

And to be honest, my canon is having a LOT less effect on the way the game plays than I had imagined. There's still an Emperor and an Empire, there's still rebels and the Jedi have gone missing. The EoE characters don't really care about all that anyway.

I'm joining a game set somewhere between a few months to over a year ABY (GM hasn't nailed it down yet).

Our team is being deployed to the Glief System (made up by the GM) in the Ploo Sector, to stir up trouble and draw Imperial attention away from other Alliance operations. We have carte blanche on how to do this, with the caveat that we should try to preserve the Alliance's reputation.

Our team consists of Alliance personnel with no prior history of covert operations work, but who all have something to prove. Our Corellian Pilot was a survivor of the Battle of Yavin, our Droid Commando is a recommissioned MagnaGuard, and my Mon Cal Saboteur is a little too gung-ho for his own good. We may be joined by others.

We're being given some basic supplies (we haven't decided on a team resource yet), some contacts we can call on, and basic intelligence on the star system and its strategic targets. Everything else, we have to figure out for ourselves.

Sounds like a good campaign setup!