Star Wars: approach and effective TL

[Gustavus Adolphus]

Originally Posted by johndallman

May I suggest "This is a rational universe in which some martial-arts movies with comic-book physics and pretensions to political relevance were made"?

Yeah, tons of imperfections you're right. But it's hard to create to zero a new world if you're a GM and a lot of your players prefers to play in a familiar setting.

Nevertheless, SW is better than Marvel and DC comics, lol.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Gustavus Adolphus

Yeah, tons of imperfections you're right. But it's hard to create to zero a new world if you're a GM and a lot of your players prefers to play in a familiar setting.

Actually, I was somewhat serious. Take a galaxy with a multi-species interstellar civilisation, in which there have been violent changes of government, rebellions against new governments, etc. The Jedi are a religious/philosophical order, who have had political influence. They just don't have magical/psionic powers, nor are they master warriors and strategists: that was all made up for movies that are about as realistic about the recent wars as Captain America: The First Avenger was about WWII. At that point, having a consistent SF RPG becomes worth the effort.

However, if the cool powers and martial arts are what your players are seeking, then worrying about the technology doesn't seem worthwhile: treat it as a fantasy setting where the plot dictates what the technological scenery does.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Actually, I was somewhat serious. Take a galaxy with a multi-species interstellar civilisation, in which there have been violent changes of government, rebellions against new governments, etc. The Jedi are a religious/philosophical order, who have had political influence. They just don't have magical/psionic powers, nor are they master warriors and strategists: that was all made up for movies that are about as realistic about the recent wars as Captain America: The First Avenger was about WWII. At that point, having a consistent SF RPG becomes worth the effort.

However, if the cool powers and martial arts are what your players are seeking, then worrying about the technology doesn't seem worthwhile: treat it as a fantasy setting where the plot dictates what the technological scenery does.

I see no particular reason why the addition of magical/psionic powers means that all consistency should be thrown out the window.

[Gustavus Adolphus]

No one of my players' character is Force Sensitive and they probably will not see a single Jedi in the whole campaign. The problem is in fact some sort of intellectual laziness by the players :D they democratically decided to play a SW campaign, not an any-kind sci-fi campaign, so I have to adapt.

My proposal to fix TL 10 for Star Wars settings derived from the fact that TL in movies and comics is kinda uncertain: half TL 10, half TL 11 (but personal beam weapons aren't effective like GURPS Ultratech TL 11 weapons, for example). IMHO, considering SW as TL 10 with some TL 11 elements is more easy to handle than a true, coherent entirely TL 11. Medicine, Biology, Informatic, Buildings, most Robotic, Cybernetics and Engineering, the kind of non-space warfare...all TL 10. TL 11 is hyperdrive, space battles and few others things.

[Phantasm]

I've done a bit of work on the SW setting. Admittedly, my work in in the KOTOR/SWTOR era and not the movie era, but either the SW universe is horribly stagnant (no new technologies for about 4000 years, which may or may not be attributed to the Jedi running the Republic at some point between the two) or at some point the Republic had reached a higher level of technology only to lose the resources to support some of the higher TLs and hence revert to a lower standard, which fits the retrotech feel.

A lot of the ranges for weaponry on Wookieepedia ultimately come from video game sources repeated into official RPG stat blocks (a sniper rifle with a range of 35 meters? a heavy repeating blaster with 10 shots? really?), so I tended to take those with a grain of salt. Most of my changes to weaponry were in RoF and range.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I see no particular reason why the addition of magical/psionic powers means that all consistency should be thrown out the window.

It doesn't. I'm postulating that the Star Wars movies are metafiction, created within the game setting. The game setting is consistent, and can have magical and/or psi powers that behave consistently, but that pretty much keeps them from behaving like the ones in the movies. The same goes for the technology of the game setting: if it's consistent it won't reproduce everything in the movies.

What I wasn't clear enough in saying was that if the players want things to behave just like the films then trying to keep that consistent is fairly much doomed, and detailed descriptions of the technology and powers become a bit pointless.

[Frost]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Actually, I was somewhat serious. Take a galaxy with a multi-species interstellar civilisation, in which there have been violent changes of government, rebellions against new governments, etc. The Jedi are a religious/philosophical order, who have had political influence. They just don't have magical/psionic powers, nor are they master warriors and strategists...

I have to say I like this idea, the SW universe as presented in the films is basically a mess when viewed as gaming material which is a bit of a shame.

Toning the tech down and removing many of the most cinematic elements makes sense.

I might even be tempted to leave the Jedi their military elements. It possibly doesn't stretch things too much to have the order as a supplier of bodyguards, strategists etc. Possibly this might be one of the sources or their influence. For me the big casualty in Jedi circles might be the lightsaber, they are relatively hard to reconcile with the modified tech and the lack of psychic powers.

[Gustavus Adolphus]

Originally Posted by Frost

I have to say I like this idea, the SW universe as presented in the films is basically a mess when viewed as gaming material which is a bit of a shame.

Toning the tech down and removing many of the most cinematic elements makes sense.

That's why I have this approach on SW. I like the World Building work and most ideas, but the setting lacks on coherence. I cannot imagine a TL 11 battle fought with World War II tactics and concepts, with a lot of not-so-well-armed grunts on both sides. For example, clone and stormtrooper armors: why spending 8.000 credits per armor if protections are largely ineffective, according to the movies?

My approach is: SW is basically advanced TL 10 on most science and technology sectors. The SW blaster technology is lower than TL 11 GURPS Ultra-Tech blasters, except for massive structures like turbolasers (And GURPS UltraTech puts fully-effective massive blaster installations as TL 10). Then, I've lowered the blaster armor divisor and range [(3) or (4) instead of (5) and much less range than GURPS UT blasters, because SW setting's blasters have very low range compared to UT's blasters], but blasters are more lethal than bullets: BTx2 for tight-beam burning damage [the heat is mostly adsorbed by the target and overpenetration is more difficult], less Recoil [at least on semi-automatic and high-cycle burst settings], more Accuracy, cartridges are less heavy and they contain more hits, improved armor divisor [only expensive bullets can reach armor divisor (3) and they are still less lethal than blaster bolts], close-range stun setting available. Rainbow lasers exist, but they are rare and tremendous expensive. Maser, tractor-beam, vibro-blade and concussion technology is also available. The only true anomalies are the hyperdrive technology (in fact not-physically-explicable superscience, TL 10^?), lightsabers (we can consider them TL 10^) and force shields (TL 11 or TL10^?).
Biology and medicine are fully TL 10. Informatic, robotic and engineering are fully TL 10 also. Very little or completely absent nanotechnology and smart swarm technology.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Frost

I might even be tempted to leave the Jedi their military elements. It possibly doesn't stretch things too much to have the order as a supplier of bodyguards, strategists etc. Possibly this might be one of the sources or their influence. For me the big casualty in Jedi circles might be the lightsaber, they are relatively hard to reconcile with the modified tech and the lack of psychic powers.

The lightsabre makes sense as a ceremonial weapon. Lots of martial artists train with weapons that aren't practical in the modern era, but are useful for self-discipline, or special ceremonies and rituals. Also, dueling culture need not has faded as it did on Earth, or could have come back into fashion.

[Frost]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

The lightsabre makes sense as a ceremonial weapon. Lots of martial artists train with weapons that aren't practical in the modern era, but are useful for self-discipline, or special ceremonies and rituals. Also, dueling culture need not has faded as it did on Earth, or could have come back into fashion.

All of these would be fairly persuasive arguments for a conventional metal blade either retained from an earlier phase of the orders history or adopted as a training aid.

I am not so convinced by the notion that these carry over to a better than state of the art plasma torch dragooned into use as a personal weapon. If the campaign were running at TL 11^ or if the psychic powers were intact then maybe the calculation might be different but without one or both of these options they are just not appropriate.

The logical replacement, unless somebody can think of anything funkier, is probably going to be a conventional blade.