Star Wars Saga Edition

Apr 5 2013

Wanderers of the Outlands, a sci-fi setting!

Milky_Way_GalaxyAlmost two years ago I wrote my first post about a sci-fi setting I had in mind. I plan ahead for my campaign so I knew I wanted to run some sci-fi and began to put together some ideas about what to run. I posted a first draft here in the blog, talked with my players, the majority was excited about the prospect, listened to the comments the first time around, and have been tinkering with it ever since.

In the meantime I wrote about designing aliens (and some wonderful readers offered to help with the design, I never took you up on it because just what the aliens looked like had not really solidified in my mind, but if the offer is still good I’d love to work with any artist willing to help!) and wrote the end of the campaign for a ConCurrent game I ran, both at a Geeknic and online during the con (the links to part 1 and part 2).

So coming back full circle, here is the finished background to my sci-fi game. I already discussed it with my players, and they seem to be on board. Some elements remain undeveloped, but that is a purposeful decision because my players have agreed to develop specific elements of the campaign. I love that idea and look forward to their input.

So, without further ado, Wanderers of the Outlands! (I’ll be back after the background to discuss some specifics of the campaign…)

By • Ask The Readers, FATE, Fluff/Inspiration, Other Systems, Pathfinder, Random musings, RPG, Star Wars Saga Edition • 4

Mar 21 2013

Star Wars Infinities – The Gathering Storm (Part 9 of 9)

SW InfinitiesWell here we are at the end of this weekly series! It’s been a great experience for me. For a long time I had wanted to try my hand at doing a series of related posts on a unifying topic and I’m very thankful to Michael who said “Go for it!” when I told him of the idea of revisiting my old Star Wars RPG Infinities (i.e. What if? or alternate story) type campaign.

Through the process of writing these posts I’ve revisited, edited and remixed my notes on that campaign and have reacquainted myself with my plans for the game. In a way it’s reignited my desire to revisit the game. Perhaps it will happen…

I had originally planned to do eight sessions but as I revisited my notes I realized there was one more bit of information I wanted to share with our readers. The characters! My players back then made some very interesting characters and I wrote some introductions for each of them.

When the game began our group had just changed the location of our game, some players had move to the USA and amazingly I had only 4 players as the campaign began. That quickly changed and the group eventually grew to 5 early one and eventually to 6 by the end of the campaign, about 8 or 9 months later.

On this post I’m going to share the character concept the players gave me and the introduction I wrote after my discussion with the players following character creation. The following stories are not simply my creation they were crafted with player input, so I am very thankful we could tell these stories together. A BIG thanks my player then, Luis Manuel Alvarado, Luis Lao, José Bellavista and Karlo Yeager. Two of them are not currently playing with us regularly, but I always hold hope these good friends will sit at my table once more.

Each section will begin with the character concept as presented by the player, in italics, and the introduction I wrote for each of them. So here we go!

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By • Ask The Readers, Fluff/Inspiration, Non-RPG, Other Systems, Random musings, RPG, Star Wars Saga Edition • 0

Mar 15 2013

Star Wars Infinities – The Gathering Storm (Part 8 of 9)

SW InfinitiesYes you read that right! This was supposed to be the 8th installment of the weekly series of posts based on my old Star Wars Infinities campaign. Organizing the information for these posts has been a trip down memory lane and I realized that I have materials for one additional post. So next week will be the REAL final installment, an overview of the campaign itself. But for this week we’ll venture into crunch territory, house rules!

While the first 7 posts were mostly fluff and (I hope) usable for any Star Wars game, regardless of the system, this one is specifically about the Star Wars Sage Edition RPG. Published in 2007, we quickly embraced the system and got to playing. As I often do before a campaign I submitted a survey to the player about campaign expectations, this gave way to the Infinities timeline and background you’ve read in previous posts. It also gave way to the following house rules.

Back in 2007 I did share some of these rules in the EN World forums and got some excellent feedback form members. The rules evolved, I took some of their advice, ignored other bits, and came up with the following rules…

(Various caveats: I wrote the rules back in 2007, only the core rules had come out. I had some idea of how I wanted the system to work, specifically cutting back on some of the Jedi’s power. Whether I succeeded is debatable. In the end I believe I added needless complexity and there were some easier fixes, but hindsight is 20/20! One last thing, the force talents were adapted from those posted online. I cannot find the original source for all of them; some are adapted from the Imperial Knight Prestige Class (found here), the others I cannot identify. I don’t think I wrote them from scratch, but I am not sure.)

These are the house rules as I presented to my players back them. So let’s take a trip down memory lane to 2007!

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By • Blogging, Fluff/Inspiration, Non-RPG, Other Systems, Random musings, RPG, Star Wars Saga Edition • 0

Mar 8 2013

Star Wars Infinities – The Gathering Storm (Part 7 of 8)

SW InfinitiesUnderstand, all the planning for this campaign began in 2007. While Social Media existed, not all my players were avid users. One didn’t even have internet access at home. So when I decided to begin teasing about the campaign my best bet were text messages. This was not even MMS, no smart phones in the group. This was only text, and short messages at that…

These messages began simply as a distraction, a way to get all the ideas about the Star Wars game out of my head and give the players an idea of the campaign. I sent the first few while waiting in line at the bank. The response was immediate and I realized these messages could serve another purpose. Through them I could send teasers about the happenings in the galaxy and possible plotlines. Likewise the players took an active role and began interacting with the storyline, one quickly integrating e-mail for longer responses.

Here I have collected and edited all postings sent via text message or e-mail and ordered them into a semi-logical sequence.  They give a glimpse at what had been happening in the Galaxy before the game started, hinted at things to come, and even introduce some characters they met during the game. A very special thanks to Sammy, Piwie and José, they are not currently playing with us regularly, I hope to have them at my games again in the future.

So without further ado, this week’s installment:

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By • Blogging, Fluff/Inspiration, Non-RPG, Other Systems, Random musings, RPG, Star Wars Saga Edition • 0

Mar 1 2013

Star Wars Infinities – The Gathering Storm (Part 6 of 8)

SW InfinitiesAnother Friday, another Star Wars post! I’ve been having a lot of fun writing these posts. Revisiting material I created for my campaign, revising some of it, and getting this incredible urge to run this campaign again. Sadly of the group that was playing my game back then two players moved and one is not currently playing due to RL complications. I wonder if it would even be possible to revisit this campaign 5 years after we played it. Yes, all this material I created back then. But enough musings about my game!

This is the last installment of the fiction pieces I wrote for the campaign, this time focusing on Thrawn. In my experience he’s become the Drizzt of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, people either love him or hate him. While I loved Heir to the Empire when it came out, starved for new Star Wars content back in 1991, I now realize that for all the great things in the series, Thrawn as a character has been done to death. So why did I use him? Well one of the players was a BIG fan and I thought he would be a good vehicle to introduce information about a particular Jedi Order. I remember back then someone commented the story was a little “hard-ish” sci-fi for their taste. I don’t see it, perhaps it’s not what they thought of when they thought of Star Wars, but most of my players enjoyed it. So here is my take on the character, hope you like it.

“Open a secure channel to Coruscant. Inform the Director the Gen’Dai is active…

Agent Daala, Republic Intelligence

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By • Fluff/Inspiration, Non-RPG, Other Systems, Random musings, RPG, Star Wars Saga Edition • 0

Feb 22 2013

Star Wars Infinities – The Gathering Storm (Part 5 of 8)

SW InfinitiesAnd we are past the halfway point! This is part 5 of Friday’s mini-series based on the Star Wars Infinities campaign I ran for my players back in 2007. Hard to believe this was the game we ran previous to D&D 4th edition. Click on this link for the previous post.

This is the second piece of fiction I wrote for the campaign, and part of the introduction to the campaign I handed out to the players some weeks before the game. I should point out that I had conducted a survey to know what elements of the Star Wars universe they were interested in and from there I created the alternate history and other elements of the game I’m sharing with you in theses posts. My intention with this piece, much more so than the previous one, was to introduce players and plotlines that could become part of gameplay eventually. In this specific instance it did not, based on what the players decided to do. The secrets hinted at in this little story would have been very important for the second part of the campaign. Alas, we never got around to it… Not yet at least!

 

“The Sar’Akar are under my protection. Abbaji Forces will defend Ossus at all costs. Tell your masters that a Kaleesh repays his debts of honor!”

Warlord Qymaen jai Sheelal, alias General Grievous, during the siege of Ossus More

By • Fluff/Inspiration, Non-RPG, Other Systems, RPG, Star Wars Saga Edition • 0

Feb 15 2013

Star Wars Infinities – The Gathering Storm (Part 4 of 8)

SW InfinitiesThis is part 4 of the mini-series of posts going live every Friday and based on the Star Wars Infinities campaign I ran for my players some years ago. Parts 1, 2 and 3 are accessible if you click on the links. What follows is a piece of fiction I wrote set in the alternate background to the galaxy covered in the last two posts. It tries to illustrate some of the happenings in the galaxy as the game began, and to cast familiar characters in a different light.

“No, he was not my father, we were actually not related. Reymus was a Prince from Alderaan, I’m from Corellia and Antilles is a pretty common surname there…  I did meet him briefly before the Battle of Yavin, before the Tantive IV was captured over Tatooine.  He told us how he was there at the beginning… No he did not join the crew of the Tantive IV until the Clone Wars had begun, but he was there before, when it really began, piloting a small 4 person transport on its way to a secret meeting in the Outer Rim.”

Wedge Antilles, Commander of the Rogue Squadron, talking about Reymus Antilles

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By • Fluff/Inspiration, Non-RPG, Other Systems, Random musings, RPG, Star Wars Saga Edition • 0

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