WEG books that maintain that original Star Wars feel

[strangebrew]

I recently got back into West End Games' Star Wars RPG via the FFG reprint. Back in the 90s I played 2nd edition and had a number of other WEG books - the Gamemaster's Guide (just a ton of prose and no useful tools), Galladinium's Fantastic Technology (loved it back in the day, now not so much), Heroes & Villains (tons of character templates), and maybe a few others, plus a bunch of non-WEG technical guides, the guide to the galaxy, complete character guides, etc. Extended universe canon overkill.

Like many of us, these days I've come full circle to liking just the original basics of the SW universe, before we knew the name, species, and backstory of every cantina alien, when the whole thing was more full of wonder and mystery. If I were to run a SW RPG game now (and I hope to), it would just be the first movie and some details from the novelization, and perhaps a bit of inspiration from the Marvel comic. Nothing new here, others have said the same.

Anyways, my question. Are there any WEG books which still maintain the original wondrous vibe of 1977? Or even of 1977-1983? Galladinium's Fantastic Technology was fun at the time, but looking at it now, it ain't Star Wars. Power armor, high tech appliances, etc., plus it leads to an emphasis on getting credits and buying more STUFF. SW ain't D&D, it's not about the equipment. Heroes & Villains is full of templates that excel only in making the mysterious mundane. "Oh, I can finally be an Imperial line cook on a Star Destroyer!" The GG was rubbish, but I knew that back in the 90s.

For 1st edition, I currently have the rulebook (great for that wide-open world vibe), the sourcebook (getting a bit over-developed already) and the Imperial sourcebook (even more over-developed - do we really need to know all this?). I feel that I can get by with these and maybe the Rebel book and Gamemaster screen, or even using just the rulebook, but are there any other sourcebooks or adventures I'm missing? Ones that strike the balance between good, fun ideas without wringing out the wonder by explaining every mundane, unnecessary detail? In the 90s, I loved all that stuff, but now I'm trying to put the genie back in the bottle while still looking for the best bits out there.

[boot]

Welcome to the forum, Strangebrew! From reading the above, you've certainly come to the right forum. We focus on 1E here.

I own every book WEG printed, but I think it might be easier if you asked questions about a certain book. Your "Star Wars feel" might be different from mine.

For example, I would suggest Cracken's Rebel Field Guide. It's got a lot of interesting information not found anywhere else, and it's focus is the "jury rigging" that Rebels have to do in order to combat the Empire with whatever they've got. I think of the line in The Empire Strikes Back where the ground crews have not yet finished adapting the air speeders for the cold.

But, that may not fit the feel you're going for--maybe it's too focused on detail when you want a swashbuckling, blaster firing, Falcon swooping, Han quipping Star Wars game that doesn't land on details like this at all.

So, fire away. Tell me which books you are interested in, and I'll give you a run-down on them.

[strangebrew]

Thanks for the welcome, boot!

I guess I'm looking for things which are useful for a SW IV era and are more of the swashbuckling, latter vibe you mentioned. Things that don't get bogged down in excessive detail and match the tone of SW IV. For example, I don't think I'd be interested in Galaxy Guide 4: Alien Races. First off, I'd probably encourage only a single alien character, keeping with the feel of SW IV. Even then, I'd like the player to create their own alien instead of picking off a list. For the purpose of the campaign, aliens are one-off oddballs, like Chewbacca or the cantina crew, not representatives of entire species full of customs and history. Judging by SW IV (or V or VI), what do we know about Wookiees? They can only speak their own language, they use bowcasters, and they tear peoples arms off when upset. That's all we know, and all we need to know.

Adventures that have the original, wild vibe would be cool. Supplements that have tools to spur the imagination (instead of doing the imagining for you) would be cool. Doesn't one of the books have a planet generation system? Something like that could be great, even if it means ignoring the other half of the book.

How about Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope? Is it worth having if I have the SW Sourcebook?

Reading this all over (and my OP) I have to admit it might be more of a rant than a question. So any tips anyone has on preserving the feel I'm looking for would be great.

[boot]

1E & 2E Books:  First, I should say that all 1E books were republished under 2E.  I play 1E, but some of the 2E republished stuff has extra info and added pages.  Not all, but some.  As you probably know, the 2E stat blocks contain more inforamation.  Some of it can be useful for a 1E game, and that which isn't can just be ignored.  So, really, any 2E book can be quite useful for a 2E game.  You'll have to add in the Speed Code, though.  I made a thread with a conversion chart to make that easy.  You can find that in this forum.




GG4 Alien Races is the first of several books devoted to alien characters.  Since this is the first book of aliens for the game, you'll find several that were in the movies, like Hutt, Aqualish, Bith, Duros, Mon Calamari, Rodians, and so on.  In this book, each species is given several pages.

The intro goes into detail about the format of each alien, and it can be helpful when designing your own aliens.

I'm looking at the 2E version of the book, and it has notes on Appearance and Biology, Temperament, History and Culture, Technology Level, Trade and Technology, (insert Alien) in the Galaxy, a stat block showing minimums and maximums for stats, special skills, and story factors.  There are also notes for the gamemaster, personality notes, and suggested skills.



GG1 A New Hope I have read and created an entire thread about.  Look down from this thread a bit, and you will get a great description of the book.  GG1 gives you stats and write ups on various types of NPCs that you see in the movie.  When it comes to aliens, though, those are treated individually as characters.  The write up isn't about the entire race--it's about that one specific character you saw in the film.  I think this is neat because you can re-use them as NPCs in your game.  For the aliens, you have to look to GG4 to get the generic write-up for the race.  GG1 aliens are all specific NPC characters.  For example, Greedo is described, not generic Rodians.  Kabe is described, not all Chadra-Fan.

I think the backgrounds done on the various alien characters are fascinating and quite well done.

When it comes to the Empire, though, those are treated as generic NPCs unless a specific character is being described.  Any aliens without specific characters in the film are treated generically, of course.  Here, I'm talking about Desert Storm Troopers, Sand People, and Jawas.

This treatment is done for Tattooine, The Death Star, and for Yavin.

I'd say the majority of the book is about the characters seen in the film.  The next portion is about some of the tech, like droids, Jawa Sandcrawler, and such.  Lastly, the smallest portion of the book provides some tidbits about the three locations.

The 2E version of the book includes a complete adventure that focuses on a swarm of Tusken Raiders descending upon a small village out in the sand wastes.



 
 

[Falconer]

I’d say the Rulebook is really THE one that nails the feel of the OT movies.

Other than that, adventures. And the Planets of the Galaxy collections.

I’d also say Tramp Freighters, and Han Solo and the Corporate Sector. But those are more if you like the pulpy old Han Solo Adventures.

The Aliens book is fine to flip through as long as you don’t read all the background on the races or necessarily use their EU-style names.

Heir to the Empire Sourcebook is one of my favorites, as it brings a nice cross-section of ships, tech, planets, species, and Force powers to the table.

[strangebrew]

Thanks, guys. I read your review, boot, and I think I'll keep an eye out for GG1. I never read any of the Han Solo books, but come to think of it - they were published between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, right? Those might be interesting to pick up.

I like the idea of Tramp Freighters, but I think it would get too into logistics and trade mechanics, if I'm understanding the book right. Not really the game I want to run. I think the best description of my ideal game is right there on the cover of the main rulebook - blasters and lightsabers blazing, star fighters dogging it out, obviously evil dude looming in the background, and funky droids and aliens.

Just read a great quote by Zulgyan in the 'bare essentials' thread: "There are many sourcebooks and supplements, mainly from 2E, that stray to far away from OT Star Wars. They contain stuff that I haven't seen anywhere in SW, or from books and comics I have never read (and never will). I don't recognize the stuff in those books as Star Wars. They start to look like stuff from a generic sci-fi universe, and not really SW with it's very particular and recognizable aesthetic." Amen!

I also think it would be interesting to have the players play characters from the movies, with the game taking place directly after A New Hope. Though I guess I'd have to rework the character stats - I've read that they're a bit inflated as presented in the Sourcebook.

[Falconer]

Aug 26, 2019 18:41:10 GMT -6 strangebrew said:

Thanks, guys. I read your review, boot, and I think I'll keep an eye out for GG1. I never read any of the Han Solo books, but come to think of it - they were published between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, right? Those might be interesting to pick up.

The Brian Daley ones were, yeah. They are great!

Aug 26, 2019 18:41:10 GMT -6 strangebrew said:

I also think it would be interesting to have the players play characters from the movies, with the game taking place directly after A New Hope. Though I guess I'd have to rework the character stats - I've read that they're a bit inflated as presented in the Sourcebook.

That could be fun! You could just use the Brash Pilot, Smuggler, Young Senatorial, etc. templates from the Rulebook.

[boot]

RE: Han Solo novels, and the WEG Corporate Sector Handbook

The Corporate Sector has become canon. It is mentioned in The Last Jedi and around 18 novels, comics, and short stories.

Ironically, the original Han Solo novels are not canon.

But...who cares about canon. It's good, Star Wars stuff. Plus, Daley's novels were also adapted into newspaper strip form and serialized in the Star Wars newspaper strip. Dark Horse took the strip and worked the stories into graphic novel form. The original strips are available from Amazon,too.

[Starbeard]

The planet generation stuff comes from the "Scouts" Galaxy Guide, whichever number that is, and it might be either restated or revised into a new system in the Darkstryder campaign box set. I can't remember.

The scout stuff can be a lot of fun, especially when paired with Tramp Freighters, but it's pretty clear when you read them that both books were written as conversions of Traveller's trade, travel and exploration rules, which all had to make an appearance in any space game wanting to keep its club card.

I've never read through the Darkstryder stuff fully, but I believe the adventure book there won't be much help. I remember it seeming railroaded, and a little more Star Trek meets Starship Troopers than swashbuckling Star Wars.

[Falconer]

Planet Generation - Actually, before Scouts, it was in Planets of the Galaxy Vol I.

[Starbeard]

So it was, I forgot about that. Are the rules in Scouts an expansion, revision or just a restatement? I know they also include tables for creating alien species and creatures, again in the same vein as Traveller.

[Falconer]

I haven’t looked at Scouts because I’ve mostly been poking around 1E.

I agree Star Wars doesn’t need the “Traveller” elements in order to feel Star Warsey; and in fact would feel the most Star Warsey if it exchewed them. However, I do definitely like that level of grit in a RPG — exploring planets which aren’t necessarily tied to an overarching predetermined story; working jobs and upgrading your ship and buying a better gun and etc.

[boot]

Just FYI, for those reading the thread, the stuff that seems "Traveller" is a very wide interpretation. Traveller is more detailed--more realistic. The SW stuff is much easier to use and a lot more space opera.

I see the connection. I thought the same when I first saw the rules. But, the SW rules are a lot more simple than what you'd find in Traveller.

[Starbeard]

Sept 3, 2019 15:02:59 GMT -6 boot said:

Just FYI, for those reading the thread, the stuff that seems "Traveller" is a very wide interpretation. Traveller is more detailed--more realistic. The SW stuff is much easier to use and a lot more space opera.

I see the connection. I thought the same when I first saw the rules. But, the SW rules are a lot more simple than what you'd find in Traveller.

That's true, they've all been D6-ified and streamlined. What I mean is that the systems are clearly there in the first place because they appear in Traveller (the same reason they appear in nearly every other space RPG between 1978-1990 or later). Traveller has a list of starport classes, so we need that too, etc.

To be fair to Traveller, though, a lot of the generation stuff is pretty streamlined and simple already. Determining population, tech level and government type are done pretty much the same way in both systems, and I think at the same level of complexity. Same with generating the type of starport present.

Trade is pretty much exactly the same—use the generic supply & demand table to do speculative trading—but I believe the trade categories are streamlined in D6, and actually locating buyers and sellers is also streamlined, with a series of simple tables that utilize the various D6 skills, all in the same way. If I remember correctly, basically you just roll your skill and how high you roll determines how successful you are.

[boot]

What I mean as to Traveller being a bit more detailed can be exemplified with the Technology Level description of planets. With Traveller, you get a number. TL 4 is roughly equivalent to Earth 1860-1900. TL 8 is roughly equivalent to Earth 1980-1989.

That's specific. And, I've always found it a bit hard to remember. What's TL 9 again? TL 5?



Then, Star Wars comes along, and a planet's Tech Level is Stone, Feudal, Industrial, Atomic, Information, or Space. If I see that a Star Wars world has a tech level of Stone, then I know immediately what it is like there. If I see Feudal, I get it. Atomic, I understand.



BTW, before Scouts and before that first Planets guide, there was Galaxy Guide 6:  Tramp Freighters, published in 1990.  That book didn't have a dicing planet generation system, but some of the planetary descriptors were first revealed in that book.  Technology Levels, Trade Good Categories, etc.