Pseudo-Star Wars Idea

[VonKatzen]

I was looking at Azagthoth's "GURPS Star Wars" and it got me thinking about how I handled Prime Directive when I ran it: I had the Prime Directive 3rd edition books (I have since acquired the 4e) but I had GURPS 4E. Instead of 'converting' it, I took everything from the book's history, gear descriptions, etc. more or less at face value but used the statistics and rules from Ultra-Tech and Spaceships without modification. As a result the phasers were ridiculously dangerous, for example (which matches the rhetoric of Star Trek and its technical guides, but not the shows which treat phasers as being generally inferior to semiautomatic pistols except when not shooting people). Although it wasn't quite 'Star Trek' as we know it I enjoyed it, and it actually felt more appropriate for Amarillo Design's war-torn universe.

So I had the thought about doing the same thing with Star Wars. Take the first three movies (and whatever I particularly like from the books) but don't bother to manipulate the rules to fit them except to make what we see on screen possible - some cinematic options and fighting styles from Martial Arts and Action, shields, blaster rifles, TL10^ stuff as appropriate from Ultra-Tech, Psi stuff - but straight from the brain of Pulver & Punch, rather than filtered through an attempt to make it 'just-so' matched to Star Wars canon.

[JoelSammallahti]

I think it would work. Especially if you take thepoverty of the setting at face value. What I mean by that is, people don't have a lot of stuff. Most of the time, the adventurers just have a blaster pistol and that's it, not a whole backpack full of gadgets. All those gadgets in UT may well exist, but they're expensive and rare - because people are poor. So I'd also give the PCs very limited budgets, or even just say that everybody has Struggling or Poor, with Average Wealth the maximum. I would also treat Stormtroopers as the crap they are: skill 10-12 mooks with scary uniforms that aren't real armor.

If you do that and have 250-point Action heroes as the PCs, with cinematic rules like Unarmed Etiquette and Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy, you can even get a pretty Star Warsy mood going.

Oh yeah! One thing that I would suggest: don't use racial templates. If somebody plays a nonhuman, just have them build a character they like and define for themselves which traits on their sheet are typical of their species and which aren't. I think that's an approach to aliens that fits Star Wars and differentiates it clearly from Trek etc.: in Trek, there's primarily a species called the Klingons or whatever, with their own looks and tech and culture, and each individual represents some aspect of Klingon-ness, possibly with some personal traits that conflict with the racial type. In Star Wars, there's a tough guy called Chewbacca, or a big fat slug called Jabba, and probably there are other Wookies or Hutts running around somewhere but that's not important. What's important is the individual.

[VonKatzen]

Originally Posted by JoelSammallahti

I think it would work.

Part of the reason I think it would work is because so much of the Star Wars RPGs and unofficial sourcebooks for GURPS/Mythras, etc. are deriving stuff from the Expanded Universe, Essential Guides and prequel/sequel universes. Whatever you think of this stuff it's obviously not anywhere in the original trilogy. In fact Timothy Zahn got some of his ideas directly from the West End Games setting. George Lucas was basically making a Joseph Campbell generic story with a Flash Gordon parody theme, so if you want to make a Trilogy game you're probably better off ignoring every single thing written and filmed since Jedi. A comprehensive Universe with actual explanations for what was going on and an integrated theory of the Force, etc. was nowhere in the mind of Lucas when he made these movies! Even the 'Vader is Luke's Dad' was only made up after the first movie, so if you narrower the cinematics to 1 or 1 & 2 you end up with a vastly different world and tone than the elaborated, rationalized, over-explained science fiction Universe that was created for marketing purposes the following 40 years.

[VonKatzen]

Rather than take in the prequel/sequel/game/expanded Universe content (some of which has confusing origins as being based on one or the other, i.e. the structure of the empire being derived from the West End Games RPG because Timothy Zahn didn't have any other sources to go off of) I'd like to get a handle on what is in the original Trilogy and use standard GURPS rules (with the sourcebooks I have) to model it.

Basically, I want to make zero attempt to acknowledge or integrate the technology, cosmography, explanations, philosophy, history, etc. that exists in anything beyond the original trilogy. Using stuff that appears in the original trilogy and only the original trilogy, with zero influence in explaining or elaborating it from any other source produced after and outside the original triology.

What are some salient features of technology, Force powers, geography and politics that appear in these movies? I will deliberately not use the 'customary' names of these things to avoid the association with the Essential Guide craft. As these vehicles originally appeared they were not explained and probably no one had any idea what most of them were supposed to do or how they were supposed to work. Any other corrections or expansions based on the original Trilogy films (the scripts and deleted scenes included) are welcome.

What I Can Think Of

Technology - Spaceships

• Small Spaceships capable of planetary landing
• Large battleships ('Star Destroyers')
• Huge battleships (the *Executor*)
• The Death Star
• 'Blaster' type ship weapons
• Missiles of some sort
• Shields
• Tractor Beams
• Hyperdrive (requires calculations)
• Space fighters (TIEs)
• Smaller (but still large) spacecraft (Leia's ship)
• The *Millenium Falcon*
• Those escape ships on Hoth
• Rebel big ships in *VI*'
• X-Wings
• Various Rebel Fighters/Small Ships
• Bounty Hunter's spaceship in VI
• Emperor's shuttle in VI

Planetside Vehicles

• Landspeeders
• Chicken-legged armored vehicles with blasters
• The four-legged walkers with blasters
• Flying speeder things on Hoth that the rebels use, have blasters
• Flying boat thing on Tatooine

Big Guns & Defenses

• Those defensive cannons on Hoth
• Some kind of shield over the rebel base on Hoth

Personal Weapons Technology

• 'Blasters' - semiautomatic energy guns of some kind, including some gun Leia has (presumably a blaster), the rifles the Stormtroopers carry, the big pistol Han Solo has, Greedo's gun, presumably the MG42 looking thing the Stormtroopers were getting ready to blast Han with when they were taking off in the *Millenium Falcon*
• Lightsabers - seem to cut basically whatever, not actually used much except Vader v. Obi/Luke fights
• Axes
• Thermal Grenades
• Spear thingies Palpatine's guards have
• Bounty Hunter's gun in VI

Personal Armor

• Stormtrooper armor (seems useless, at least against direct hits from the weapons the heroes carry)
• Red armor the emperor's guards are wearing (never tested)
• Vader's armor (either his armor or his powers or both stopped a short-range hit from Han's big pistol)
• Vests that rebel pilots are wearing in V/VI (never really tested)
• Bounty Hunter's outfit in VI (maybe durable, the fight with him in the desert was pretty short)

Androids and Cyborgs

• R2D2, C3P0, C3P0 knock-off, droid that catches fire up in IV, trash can droid, little black box robot on wheels, bounty hunter robot in V
• Darth Vader is cybernetic
• Cyborg with weird head appliance on Cloud City
• Luke's robot hand in VI
• Imperial probe droid
• Torture robot used on Leia

Other Technology

• Cameras (on Death Star)
• Hologram communication (Emperor to Vader)
• Hologram recording (R2D2) and display (IV)
• Stormtrooper communicator link thingies in IV
• Freeze people in carbonite (potentially non-lethal)

Imperial Politics

• Empire had a senate (was dissolved)
• Empire has an Emperor. No explanation of how or why he's the Emperor, or how old the empire is, or if he's the first emperor or one in a series, or what came before the empire, whether the empire is a revolutionary government (i.e. overthrew the previous state which ruled Tatooine and other parts of the Galaxy) or an expansionist one (which conquered them). This really just isn't gone into at all.
• Tarkin is apparently important (is his rank ever given?)
• Some other imperial officers on the Death Star and various imperial ships (ranks? I recall Captain, I believe...)
• Deleted Tatooine scene has Biggs talking about the Empire nationalizing commerce, so it's apparently somewhere between interventionist and communist in its economic policies.

Rebel Alliance

• Lady in the big meeting over the Death Star plans in IV (is she named?)
• Other people in the meeting, also people in V and VI rebel base (are any ever given name or rank?), rebel pilots (some are 'leader' of a squad but no rank otherwise given)
• Leia seems important

Places

• Alderan (blown to bits)
• Tatooine
• Bespin/Cloud City
• Hoth
• Rebel base on Yucatan Pyramid Planet (ever given a name in the movies?)
• Swamp planet with Yoda (ever named?)

Force Powers

• Dark Side named
• Vague stuff about the Force being some kind of energy that binds the Universe
• In script Vader is referred to as a 'Dark Lord of the Sith', which is never mentioned or explained in any of the movies as far as I remember
• Push/throw/lift stuff is a pretty common technique
• Befuddle the minds of/evade notice from dumbasses
• Improve your sword-fighting and piloting/space shooting abilities
• Block blaster bolts? (Vader in V)
• Fly (only Vader does this)
• Shoot lightning (only the Emperor does this)
• See into the future or something (Yoda does this, the Emperor too?)
• Turn into a force ghost when you die (Vader, Obi-Wan, Yoda)
• Jedis: Obi-Wan, Yoda, no one else ever mentioned as far as I can tell. No information given on them at all.
• No mention of the Sith at all (except in script, unexplained), or any order of Dark Side users. Vader works for the Emperor, the Emperor is the Emperor, they both have Dark Side powers. Vader used to maybe be a Jedi (never explicitly said IIRC) but there's no explanation for who the Emperor is or why he has powers/where he got them

[Phantasm]

My own conversion follows many of the same points as the OP mentions, keeping it playable rather than trying to fit the entire varying levels of canonicity, although unlike most I pick a TL11^ safetech path rather than TL10^.

Of note is basing the stormtrooper armor off light clamshell, making it fairly heavy while not really protecting against blasters, though it's enough to turn a solid hit from "he's dead, Jim" to "MEDIC!" Armor based off heavy clamshell is suitable for elite units and mercenaries.

Also of note are write-ups for several lightsaber styles.

Linked files point to a variety of racial packages and Force powers that have been given a Psionic Powers treatment.

Hope it helps.

[weby]

Originally Posted by VonKatzen

As a result the phasers were ridiculously dangerous, for example (which matches the rhetoric of Star Trek and its technical guides, but not the shows which treat phasers as being generally inferior to semiautomatic pistols except when not shooting people).
(snip except the part I am going to nitpick on)

I generally agree that trying o fit the feel too much will be a headache as all Scifi movies and TV series have inconsistencies and strange tech choices. But normally I try to do some fitting.

Then a minor nitpick: In the original series of Star Trek the phaser pistols seemed to make the target totally disappear quite many times.

[VonKatzen]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

My own conversion

Cool, thanks!

Originally Posted by weby

Then a minor nitpick: In the original series of Star Trek the phaser pistols seemed to make the target totally disappear quite many times.

Yeah, the phasers did pretty good damage in TOS (though I have to wonder where all that instantly vaporized mass went - should have created an explosion, not a disappearing act!), but in Prime Directive the RPG they're pretty weak.

In TNG they're just horribly inaccurate and never used correctly. Just wide-beam stun or vaporize everything in the room! Evasive target? Hold the damn button down, boy!

Star Trek phasers on paper (especially TNG phasers) are some of the most OP hand weapons ever introduced to science fiction, but apparently no one in Starfleet has the common sense or training to use them in remotely logical/effective ways. Like much of the technological amnesia of Star Trek this is because it was a bunch of random people writing episodic stuff with the entire point to fill the timeslot or build and arc and any inconvenience from previously demonstrated technology would just be hand-waved - if the author even remembered there was an inconsistency to begin with!

Star Wars is fairly truncated in comparison so suffers less from 'we forgot how to do what we did last week' and more 'what is going on here?' I still don't understand why people don't just use wide angle beams or explosives against Jedi. Deflect this, you Buddhist ninja freak!

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

keeping it playable rather than trying to fit the entire varying levels of canonicity

Originally Posted by weby

I generally agree that trying o fit the feel too much will be a headache as all Scifi movies and TV series have inconsistencies and strange tech choices. But normally I try to do some fitting.

Then a minor nitpick: In the original series of Star Trek the phaser pistols seemed to make the target totally disappear quite many times.

I have the impression that the difficulties with emulating the SW feel come from the fact that SW would better fit in a fiction-first system, as opposed to GURPS' firm physics-first architecture.

[VonKatzen]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I have the impression that the difficulties with emulating the SW feel come from the fact that SW would better fit in a fiction-first system, as opposed to GURPS' firm physics-first architecture.

Well, yeah, in GURPS 15 guys rapid-firing directed plasma weapons down a hallway are basically going to kill you 90% of the time. But that doesn't bother me.

Aside from the feel of the movies, I'm also just not interested in trying to ape the canon of Expanded or pre/se-quels. If you ignore the games, toys, books and later films there is actually very little that is ever explained about Star Wars.

No such thing as Boba Fett, Mon Mothma, Palpatine, etc. These are 'Bounty Hunter', 'Lady on a Ship', and 'The Emperor'.

No 'Sith', no indication that the Emperor is part of a 'Sith Order'. The Emperor's force powers are never explained. Literally nothing is explained about him.

Certainly no indication that the Jedi are a recent (w/in 20 years) and well known (huge temple on the capital planet of the Empire who led major armies across the galaxy!) stuff from the prequels. Jedi seem to be secretive and have been dying out for a while. And the Empire may be much older than the Emperor (really no evidence either way).

The Rebellion is not explained: its origin, its methods, its base, its goals - nothing whatsoever is said about this, unless you count the fact that they appear to be opposed to being blown up and (via deleted scene) having 'commerce nationalized'. The Rebellion is also obviously tiny (all of them are gathered at the Death Star II in VI - a paltry force overall). They apparently just got lucky and have basically no overt support in the galaxy.

Almost none of the ships are ever named. There's no explanation or example on screen of what most of them even do or why they're used instead of other ships.

It's a very different animal from the merchandising and marketing chain that grew up out of it.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by VonKatzen

'Blasters' - semiautomatic energy guns of some kind, including some gun Leia has (presumably a blaster), the rifles the Stormtroopers carry, the big pistol Han Solo has, Greedo's gun, presumably the MG42 looking thing the Stormtroopers were getting ready to blast Han with when they were taking off in the *Millenium Falcon*

Something to add here would be the SAW-type blasters used by the rebels during the Battle of Hoth. Also, don't forget that at least some of the Stormtrooper blasters have a "stun" setting, that shoots some weird circular wave that knocks people out (or at least knocked Leia out unharmed, as I think that's literally the only time - in the original trilogy or thereafter - that the stun setting was used on screen).

Originally Posted by VonKatzen

Lightsabers - seem to cut basically whatever, not actually used much except Vader v. Obi/Luke fights

"Cut anything" seems to be more from later media. Notably, there are several instances in Luke's final fight with Vader where the lightsaber is stopped by (but still does some damage to) various machinery and railings. A full-strength swing is able to cut through Vader's arm and the railing beneath, but honestly that wouldn't have been an inappropriate result for, say, Conan swinging a normal sword. I'd probably have lightsabers just be swords with an armor divisor (everything they are seen to do on-screen in the original trilogy would be appropriate for a sword in a cinematic setting).