WotC is NOT renewing Star Wars license

[Terras Jadeonar & Raven]

Thanks Ardent, Axis and Allies isn't something that i've ever gotten around to as a choice of gaming, though theres a few computer games that have come close to A&A for getting my strategy and tactical fix

Originally posted by Ardent
Part of why there's not a whole lot of stuff that has been posted for Saga has less to do with the system not lending itself to creation, and more to do with the creative-types heading out for different systems.

I think you said it best about SWSE & AD&D4 as a gaming platform - its not geared for community creation. Its been a big turnoff for me for gaming. I like systems where theres rules and mechanics for user creating / creation. WEG's d6 still has alot of appeal to me for the sheer amount of random dice tables for just about anything and everything.

The past year and a half I pretty much dropped off the radar as SWSE had no appeal to me. It certainly was a nice and possibly much needed break from rpg'ing. You only need to look at my Deviant.Art gallery to see what my spare hobby time has been put into.

I'll have to look into those other systems you mentioned.

Your right, playing Star Wars is supposed to be escapist.

Our views might vary in some aspect though.

Perhaps in many aspects, alot of the current Star Wars feel and direction might be related to real world politics and situation (kinda what the newer BSG sci-fi based its drama & angst from), be it the Clone Wars to NJO and onwards to Legacy of the Force.

That being said, you as the gamemaster or player, should set the tone to play it as you make it for your star wars game.The game doesn't have to echo realworld. If you want to play sw as an escape, by all means, make it a campy gun toting spice running imp blasting adventure. The flavor of dice system shouldn't have any impact or bearing on that.

Though I will have to say, SWSE has impacted my perspective and idea of fun for roleplaying SW. Again, it comes right back to the system design - not meant for player/user creation. To that effect, it does feel very closed in and trapping, being forced to use only whats in the books, can't make or modify your own 'anything' outside of characters and droids, to the point that the streamlined character stats system feels more like an 'arcade' than a customizable and immersible game system.

So I guess in a way we both felt trapped in one way or the other in playing SWSE.

[Terras Jadeonar & Raven]

Originally posted by Sedelaaire
Terras Jadeonar & Raven:

I can't agree with you concerning vehicle creation. I have created lots of vehicles and starships for my game, without an better creation system. I have done it mostly by comparison between official stats and my creations. I also used the conversion document to convert vehicles created for RCR.
And although I have Starships of the Galaxy and Threats of the Galaxy, I use mostly my own versions of vehicles and NPCs.
Unfortunatly I can not post these, because they are in German.

Well, having to compare your own handiwork/guesswork to whats in the books isn't the greatest thing... For the simple fact that theres no official reference point for each stat.

In D6 and RCR, the creation rules give set min / max criteria for each size of craft. Speed, etc.

How do you gauge the minumum or maximum Strength or Dexterity for a Huge landspeeder vs a gargantuan landspeeder?

If/when you have to make a vehicle in RCR stats first, then convert it haphazardly into SWSE rules, thats actually more a step backwards that forward than ease of use and streamlining for a supposedly advertised streamlined game system...

Secondly, by your own example - all your stuff your not sharing since they're exclusively written in German. If there are more people who have found some comfortable way of making their own vehicle stats, again, nobody's posting them or sharing them, or what creation process they've used.

SWSE is not a user creation oriented system, and therefore either nobody is able to figure out a vehicle creation rules system, and those that do, is keeping that knowledge secretive, and their created works privately to themselves.

For a community to prosper, grow, and keep active, the community has to post and share, and keep sharing as a collective.

Hence the major point I made in a previous post about the night and day stark contrast between the RCR holonet days and the SWSE days - whch coincides with the downward decline of community postings. In the RCR days, there was a good mixture of threads - from game mechanics to vehicles and starships posted, and posted & discussed frequently on a daily basis. Ever since late 2007, the debut of SWSE, sure theres been some threads about rules or mechanics questions, but also a total lack of creativity - no creation & postings of new ships or vehicles that the people in the community has made.

Thats why I seriously doubt the longevity of SWSE as a game system once the books are nolonger produced. The WOTC is the sole and single source of new and fresh content & stats. Once that stops, without fundamental aspects like vehicle creation available for the masses, SWSE will get old and boring.

I can 3d model a brand new CMG HoverVette to my heart's desire, or find a 3d model to render for my character's useage. I can create the vehicle's history and lineage, but I can't create the stats. I have to look in the book and borrow some airspeeder's stats for use. Therefor, I cannot post the vehicle in the forum here as an original vehicle with the [SAGA] / [SWSE] / [STATS] prefixes since the stats are already published material.

Notice a revolving pattern there?

[Terras Jadeonar & Raven]

Originally posted by Ardent
To answer your previous gripe about vehicle creation: the method is "whatever works, works." There's no common logic modality between books.

So basically...The "whatever works, works" then is pretty much a haphazard jury rig of AD&D4 ruleset for make it up as you go StarWars vehicle stats then... There is no vehicle creation rules because there never was any.

Furthermore, its a dice system geared for AD&D which there isn't anything much for mechanized locomotion outside of horses and the odd beastie that can pull a cart of wagon.

Yeah, that answers alot of things actually. I shouldn've known then from the SAGA SotG book, the gaping holes within its starship creation rules. Remove the size/lengths categories, replace it with realworld naval classifications - Corvette, Frigate, Battleship etc, but then entirely skip / cop out on the terms and definition of roles for those ship classes...

Thats a terribly poor way to try make, run and market a genre specific game system if you ask me.

[Thomas]

well so far my only major complaint regarding the loss of license is I'll probably never get that Palleon mini I've been harping about for the last seven or eight minis expansions. As for the lack of possible creativity, I agree that there should have been vehicle creation rules, but I've done rather well converting blasters and armour to Saga.

[Admiral Zaarin]

Wizards still has an amazingly strong product line, and if more d20 Modern were to come along I'd be highly tempted to get back into it, provided the material was still strong (can I prod you any louder, Rodney?).

And if I can add my own prodding, I'd love to see a d20 Steampunk game.

[SmugglerJedi]

Oh come on, if we can deal with Huttese and Ancient Sith, I'm sure we can deal with a little German.

On another note, I'm not tired with the genre of Star Wars. I think the property itself is getting a little stale and stretched too far in some places. Like Ardent said, its no longer the escapism that it used to be. However, after reading and watching and even playing "regular" science fiction for some time, I want to create a setting that is pure space fantasy, in the vein of Star Wars. I dunno if I'll use d20 for it (more than likely not). I want something that captures the feel of SW, but SW itself is just...not that anymore.

And like I said, I feel d20 is somewhat restricting and cumbersome in many aspects. Not too bad when you get to the actual playing part, but beforehand, urgghh...

PS: Also, I totally agree with Ardent with 4E; I never want to play that system beyond that one "test session" I had. But Vampire? Seriously? I saw the quickstart for VTM and wondered how the hell anything in that game is supposed to work.

[Notices he skipped a few posts]

PPS: Ah, so that's why this community feels barren and deserted lately. I just thought everyone got depressed after I left.

But in all seriousness, that's a terrible way to run a gaming property. With everything being so rigid and pre-dictated, that's not so much a roleplaying game as a MMORPURGHER--which is where Wizards' seems to be going with 4E and apparently SAGA. No thanks.

PPPS: Zaarin, I'm pretty sure there are one or twelve d20 steampunk books out there already. There's at least one for True20, and that shouldn't be too hard to reverse-engineer back to d20 for your enjoyment. (Or maybe it is, the conversion process has some holes.)

[Ardent]

Originally posted by SmugglerJedi
PS: Also, I totally agree with Ardent with 4E; I never want to play that system beyond that one "test session" I had. But Vampire? Seriously? I saw the quickstart for VTM and wondered how the hell anything in that game is supposed to work.

Heh, I hear that a lot. The short answer is: there's a bit of investment up front learning just what the heck everything is supposed to do. But actually playing is easy. Choose a difficulty between 1 and 10 and the player rolls between 1 and 10 dice. If they roll 7 or greater more times than the difficulty, they've succeeded.

But in all seriousness, that's a terrible way to run a gaming property. With everything being so rigid and pre-dictated, that's not so much a roleplaying game as a MMORPURGHER--which is where Wizards' seems to be going with 4E and apparently SAGA. No thanks.

PPPS: Zaarin, I'm pretty sure there are one or twelve d20 steampunk books out there already. There's at least one for True20, and that shouldn't be too hard to reverse-engineer back to d20 for your enjoyment. (Or maybe it is, the conversion process has some holes.)

There's plenty of Steampunk material out there from third-party publishers. There's even d20 Past which is sort of a Cliff's notes to playing Steampunk, provided you set the atmosphere as such.

[Terras Jadeonar & Raven]

Originally posted by SmugglerJedi
Oh come on, if we can deal with Huttese and Ancient Sith, I'm sure we can deal with a little German.

Absolutely! We could even run it through the Dialectizer for even more fun

[Treefrog]

Well as much as I hate to say it, maybe WotC dropping the SW license is a good thing. Maybe a few years without official SWRPG material will be a good thing.

For example: Star Trek took a hiatus for a few years, and the latest film reinvigorated the franchise.

[SmugglerJedi]

If by "reinvigorated" you mean "crapped all over it," then sure, I guess.

Although the logic over having a hiatus of official material is still sound. I mean, there are reams of fan created material (for older systems, at least), dozens of conversions, and plenty of stuff available. (Not to mention music to play during games.)

So I have no worries about the gaming community. We'll always come back.

[ij thompson]

I'm pretty relieved by the news. As each Saga book has come out, I've bought it, read it, and put it on the shelf. I was in a Dawn of Defiance game with some people here I met on the internet, but it just didn't hold the same excitement and fun as my old D6 romps, back in the day. I still think Saga is a cool system (and no one can deny the books are very pretty!), but it just feels too much like work (and the idea of GMing it gives me a heart attack!).

I've been happily playing in a diceless, freeform online game for the last two years, where story, character, and atmosphere are the name of the game. It hasn't cost a dime, and it's satisfied my RP jones more than any off-the-shelf game system ever could!

[Sithspawn]

I'm pretty upset by WOTC dropping Saga, I'm really enjoying it. There really isn't a bad sourcebook IMHO. The only weak link was the Core rulebook using recycled art.

I certainly think someone will pick it up though, especially following the LFL announcement. The whole issue of licenece costs is a mute point. What's not financially viable for WOTC might be a goldmine for another company.

[SmugglerJedi]

I still think Pinnacle could make it work using their Savage Worlds system, but I have a feeling Margaret Weis Productions will quickly find another setting to add to their Cortex lineup...

[Terras Jadeonar & Raven]

Originally posted by Sithspawn
I'm pretty upset by WOTC dropping Saga, I'm really enjoying it. There really isn't a bad sourcebook IMHO. The only weak link was the Core rulebook using recycled art.

I certainly think someone will pick it up though, especially following the LFL announcement. The whole issue of licenece costs is a mute point. What's not financially viable for WOTC might be a goldmine for another company.

Only flaw there is SWSE is pretty much WOTC's proprietary dice system, its own 4th iteration of the d20 system.

Back under the 3rd edtion which pretty much was Open Source D20, just about any game company was able to make compatible addons using the system. Not any more now.

Pretty much explains WOTCs jump to 4e, they wanted the people to buy only their books, for their system and not expansion sets from third party publishers.

I doubt WOTC would easily or readily give another company permision to use it's 4e based dice system when continuing Star Wars under a different label.

[Treefrog]

Originally posted by SmugglerJedi
If by "reinvigorated" you mean "crapped all over it," then sure, I guess.

While I won't deny that there were some serious canon issues for that film, there were some very good acting "as a whole", except for Chris Pine.

Another series that was the best ever produced, was the Reimagined Battlestar Galactica, which was lightyears better than the original.