Running great Star Wars campaigns

[Darth Ultron]

If we set out to run campaign that feel like the Star Wars movies turned into a game, instead of a campaign that converting D&D or whatever to the Star Wars setting, how would that be best approached and hopefully accomplished?

You simply in a general sense can't base a campaign on a movie or a couple of movies. A movie is only a single adventure, not a campaign. And a movie, by it's very nature is fast paced and epic. And that works for movies, as in the movies you can ''blow up the Death Star'', as happens in no less then three Star Wars movies.

To limit a RPG campaign to a couple of movies just won't work, again, unless you just want a short game. It is like saying D&D would be only playing the Lord of the Rings movies. Or Shadowrun is only playing the Blade Runner movies and Johnny Miennoic. Or Vampire is only playing the Twilight movies.

Star Wars is epic. Star Wars is always about very important and influential poeple.
With lots of campaigns there is an instinctive tendency to have the players play as unimportant minor characters in a remote corner of the setting where their actions won't have any real impact on the established setting. But I think to run a Star Wars game that is in the style of the movies, that's just the opposite of what needs to be done. The PCs should be right in the middle of very big events and deal directly with the most powerful people on either side.

This is the first big problem. A movie is epic in the way an adventure is epic, but you can't really have an epic campaign like a movie. Movies are epic as they take place over a very short period of time; Star Wars takes place over what, two days? And in a campaign you can't do an epic 'blow up the Death Star' every day. You can stretch out the 'epic' for a slowly campaign...but not too much or the game will run out of steam and fumble.

Also note that only about half of Star Wars is Epic, as for example the whole Jabba part is very non epic.

Star Wars is heroic. The typical Star Wars heroes are not ordinary people. They are very extraordinary people for which things work out very differently than the average population of that Setting.

Star Wars is heroic, but really only when the focus is on the Skywalker family is it extraordinary. Star Wars is about larger then life Heroes and Villains, but also about common folks. And this is one of the big draws to Star Wars: heroes, villains and common folk.

Luke, Vader/Anikin, Kylo/Ben, R2-D2 and Rae do fall under the extraordinary people.
Han Solo, Lando, Chewbacka, Leia, Padmae, Obi Wan Okeobi, Poe, Finn, and Rose are all just common folks.

Combat is not about destroying the enemy. In many RPGs the objective of combat is to kill all enemies. And that is actually kill. Driving them back or capturing them is something I almost never see even considered because having prisoners or still dangerous enemies running free in the area is a huge annoyance. But in Star Wars, killing all the enemies, or even taking them out of the fight, is never really the objective.

This is just wrong, or maybe wishful thinking. Star Wars is all about killing the enemy and has a very ''classic 50's feel'' to it of ''kill the enemy!"

Luke always kills, in a star fighter, with a blaster or with a lightsaber.
Han Solo blasts and kills every armed foe in sight...and SHOT FIRST.
Leia Orgaina also blasts and kills any foe in sight..or strangles them
The Prequels avoid it a lot by having lots of robot foes, but still Anikin, and Obi kill.
Jin and all of Rogue One are killers
Really you need to get all the way to Rae and Finn to get to the goofy 'they just knock people down' and don't kill.

Run, run, run! Star Wars is almost always in motion, and that goes double for all the action.

This is true of all Action Adventure movies: they are fast paced. And you can run a Adventure game session like this, but it's a huge challenge to keep up that momentum forever.

And, really, I am exactly the Run type DM. Should the players waste more then five minutes sitting in a tavern and pretending to drink....I will have the tavern explode, drop the characters in the Abyss and have hordes of demons attack them.

And, of course, a lot of players don't like my Run style. They WANT to sit in a tavern and talk and stuff for like twelve hours of real life.

It's not about visiting places. It's about visiting people. Star Wars is famous for its many amazing locations. But within the structure of the stories, the many different planets are really mostly just pretty backgrounds where the meetings between characters take place. There is almost no exploration of the local cultures, interactions with the natives, or interactions with the environment.

Not exactly. It IS true that Star Wars does not care at all about Role Playing and details...they just go to 'planet x' and stuff happens.

BUT each planet or place IS a mechanical roll playing wonder land of fun. Star Wars is very well known for it's huge 'skyscrapper' like places where characters can move and jump around at lot. They are not just backgrounds, but huge parts of the story.

Plots can be very simple.

This is very true about Star Wars, and movies in general. They have to make movies very simple, so they can get the widest amount of audience(aka money) as possible. This is why you see very few complicated movies.

But this does not work out so well for a RPG adventure. Sure you can do the ''oh it's day one and Lord Doom is being evil in his castle that has a weak spot in the drain..do you guys want to go attack now or wait like thirty seconds?"

But a lot of gamers want a lot more then that from the game. They like the complexity.

Star Wars is not about stuff. At least not in the way that most RPGs are. There's really a lot of important and iconic pieces of equipment in Star Wars. Light sabers, Han's blaster, the Millenium Falcon, X-Wings, death stars, AT-ATs, the list goes on.

THIS is very much a movie thing...and really most movies do it. Everything in the movie, even the stuff, is just plot pieces. Whatever does whatever the plot needs or wants it to do.

This, however, does not work in an RPG with rules. The rules of a game are set and clear. You can't just say ''oh um everything does one point of damage'', games need much more detail then that. And part of the game is say dodging blasts, but you need runs to do that or it's just a free form mess.

Combined with my opinion on character power and abilities, I think Star Wars is a setting that really doesn't require much crunch. And given the fast pacing of continous movement, it is best served by rules that require few rolls that are resolved quickly. To make a campaign that feels like the movies, getting deep into mechanics and stats gets mostly in the way.

Star Wars, like most RPG, requires a HUGE amount of crunch. If you play ''mirco lite'' rules Star Wars, it will not feel like Star Wars at all. Like say everyone has 1-3 hit points, hits a target on a roll of 6 on a 1d6 and everyone does 1 damage. Well, that kinda does not work out so well.

You can run like a Savage Worlds Star Wars...to a point. Once you add Jedi and Technology you really run into the problem of needing more and more rules.

And getting deep into mechanics is more of a Style thing that happens in a lot of games.

So sure you can, and some people will love a short Star Wars adventure ''just like the movies'' where they have to fight Darth Adon and blow up the Death Star III. And you can make that game both fast paced and rules light...but just for that short adventure.

A Star Wars campaign can and should be anything...like any other RPG....and just not be short changed to being ''just like the movies''. Being a bounty hunter or a smuggler can make for a great Star Wars game, but it is sure not ''epic movie levels''.