Star Wars in Role-playing Games

Happy Star Wars Day! A holiday observed today because some once said "May the fourth be with you."

Anyway, to commemorate this, I'd like to discuss Star Wars in relation to role-playing games. I've often made the argument that role-playing games was what got me into writing in the first place. And my first experience of running a role-playing (as a host rather than a player) was the Saga Edition role-playing game developed by Wizards of the Coast (the company behind Dungeons & Dragons). First released in 2007, to commemorate 30 years of Star Wars, the Saga Edition provides baselines for running campaigns in any era of Star Wars. Unfortunately, the product line was discontinued in 2010, as Wizards of the Coast gave up their license.

While spending this lockdown at home, I found my old source-books, including my favourite; Scum and Villainy. This has material and adventures for working on the fringes of society, creating a Firefly-esque campaign where characters attempt to get by, while dealing with the Galaxy's criminal elements.

I'm interested in running such a campaign once I finish my assignments. However, instead of running them using the d20 system they're made in, I'd like to use my favoured Savage Worlds system. This is because that system is good for handling more cinematic adventures. There isn't an official source-book for running Star Wars in Savage Worlds, but there are plenty of fan-made guides, the most comprehensive of which is this video from The GM Table.

The main struggle with running such a game is the races. There are far too many to make a dedicated race list, so I'd follow GM Bobby's advice and just build them during a dedicated session zero. While he's teaching how to run with just the core rulebook for the Adventure Edition of Savage Worlds, I'm also looking at the using the Science Fiction Companion to help develop equipment and other setting rules. I'm also using a blog post by Rodney Orpheus to convert non-player character stat-blocks from d20 to Savage Worlds.

Well, it gives me something to look forward to once I finish my second year work. And thanks to the move to virtual tabletops, I should have no problem finding interested players.

Happy writing, and may the force be with you.