Campaign Background

[NukeHavoc]

Since we had most of the folks who will be playing in Star Wars around Sunday afternoon, we decided to spend some time kicking around ideas for what era they'd like to play in, what style of game they'd like to play, and what character's they're interested in. I jotted down some notes, but rather than try and recreate what everyone said, I'll just sum up.

In terms of eras, we have five primary options:

* The Great Sith War (covered in the Dark Horse comics)
* The Restoration
* The Mandalorian Wars (referred to extensively in KOTOR II)
* The Jedi Civil War (KOTOR I)
* The Dark Wars (KOTOR II)


The Great Sith War
The 4-year Great Sith War features the return of the Sith teachings to the galactic scene after two Jedi -- Exar Kun and Ulec Qel-Droma -- are tempted to the dark side by the spirit of a Sith master named Marka Ragns. They join forces with the Krath (and alien race that had fallen under the sway of the Dark Side). They invade the Republic, causing great devastation before being defeated by Republic and Jedi forces. This time period features many Jedi bound together by a common threat in the form of the resurgent Sith.

The Mandalorians were involved in the Great Sith War as well, first against the Sith and then -- after their leader Mandalore is defeated by the Dark Lord Ulic Qel-Droma -- on the side of the Sith.

The Restoration Period
The Restoration Period is a time of rebuilding from the Great Sith War. The Jedi in the galaxy return to more of their loose-knit confederation form of organization; there is a Jedi Council on Couresant, but there are also other, equally influential (or almost so) Jedi Academies and Councils scattered throughout the galaxy.

As is the case throughout the KOTOR period, the Jedi have no coalesced into a single Order with a singular set of rules; there are a variety of competing Jedi ways; some Masters may have a dozen padawans, some may take on adult students; some Jedi are married with children of their own.

Qui-Gon Jin would fit in beautifully in this period.

The Mandalorian Wars

The Mandalorian Wars see the invasion of the Mandalorians (which IIRC begin as a subspecies of human but expand to include other races as their warrior cult spreads throughout the galaxy). This gives rise to tensions between traditional Mandalorians (who believe only in warfare, not forging empires to hold the lands they've conquered) and the neo-Mandalorians, who believe in empire and using the resources of conquered lands (including factories to produce ships, and conscripts to fight in their armies).

The Jedi, understanding the Mandalorian code, and still recovering from the Great Sith War, do not initially help the Republic repel these invaders. Eventually the Jedi Malak and Revan, outraged by the inaction of the Jedi and concerned about the Mandalorian invasion that is overrunning the Republic's outer holdings, decide to act. They rally like-minded Jedi to their cause, and lead a Republic/Jedi counter-force to drive back the Mandalorians.

They succeed, defeating the Mandalorians at Malachor V and nearly wiping out their entire society. Surprisingly, the two Jedi then gather the remnants of their own fleet and head into the Unknown Regions.

The Jedi Civil War

Malak and Revan return a year later at the head of a massive invasion fleet ... a Sith invasion fleet, for the Jedi have turned to the Dark Side and now call themselves Darth Malak and Darth Revan. What follows is the Jedi Civil War, as the Sith found their own empire and wage war against the Republic and its light-side Jedi. To the galaxy at large though, this is a conflict between two branches of the Jedi Order; they don't necessarily understand (or care) about the philosophical distinctions of the two groups.

This period is covered in the Knights of the Old Republic video game, which is set near the end of the Civil War.

The Dark Wars

The Dark Wars see the Sith Empire shattered into hundreds of fragments, and the Jedi Order reduced to a shell. This period also sees the rise of the Sith Triumvirate, three Sith Lords who are intent on reforging the empire.

[NukeHavoc]

In terms of what eras people wanted to play in (and what they wanted to be able to do):

* No one waned to play during the Dark Wars, as the end of the timeline; the Jedi are all but extinct here (which makes the time period very dark) and there's less of the cool philosophical/moral dilemmas offered by the earlier time periods.

* Everyone wanted to pick a time that gave us room to manever, so if we wanted to we could either move the timeline ahead, or have a follow-up campaign that explored some other notable period in the timeline.

* We have at least three people who want to play Jedi, possibly four. I think most people didn't want to be closely allied with the Jedi Council on Couresant; the idea of being associated with one of the semi-independent academies was appealing to several people.

* I think everyone wanted the group to have access to their own ship, either provided by the Jedi or owned outright by the players. Two or three people wanted the ability to work towards owning their own junker ship (or perhaps starting "owning it" but having a large loan to pay off) so they'd have something to upgrade. Following the Firefly model, with one base ship that has shuttles/fighters that dock with it was also suggested.

* It was proposed that we start with second level characters, which is low enough that everyone still has plenty of time to learn their characters, but gives folks who want to multiclass the opportunity to make a more complex character.

Looking at the time periods I think most discussion was set around the Mandalorian Wars prior to the Jedi Civil War and the Restoration Period prior to the Mandalorian War. In both cases, most folks were very interested in setting up the hard choices that had to be made in both these time periods.

There was also a general sense of wanting to have the campaign straddle two eras; the end of one and the beginning of another so that choices made in one would impact the next. There was also discussion of running one-shots that fleshed out parts of the story (e.g. we run a Sunday afternoon game in which we all play Mandalorians and play out some significant even in the Mandalorian invasion; those characters could then show up as NPCs later in the campaign).

We also discussed rotating GMs, and focusing on more self-contained stories (a la Dark City). This isn't to say there won't be overarching stories or themes, but that we'll try and keep things some what selfcontained so that we can easily move from one GM to the next). I'll kick off the GM round-robin when we start the campaign.

Finally, we mentioned the idea of occasionally skipping the timeline ahead six-months, a year, or more, advancing characters a level or two, and having everyone write summaries of what their characters did during that time. This would allow us to do some higher level stuff faster than if we played through level by level. I don't think we'd do this a lot -- maybe once or twice in the campaign -- but the sense is that it would be a useful tool for moving things along.

[NukeHavoc]

We talked through a bunch of scenarios relating to these ideas (and again, none of this is set in stone so please feel free to weigh in on your thoughts/hopes/ideas).

A majority of people liked was setting the campaign in the late-Restoration period. This era has a good number of Jedi around, as well as the occasional reclusive Sith Lord who might rise up to threaten the Republic and claim a few worlds (this was an important point -- while there are times when the Sith are dominant in the KOTOR era, it's possible to have Sith Lords at any point in the timeline, as well as their red lightsabered minions. We don't *have* to play in the Jedi Civil War to get that, though if you want a single coherent Sith enemy, that's probably the way to go).

The sense was that folks wanted to have the campaign straddle late-Restoration/early-Mandalorian Wars.

The first half of the campaign could happen in the late Restoration, and setup the Jedi, worlds, corporations and other elements that will be threatened in the second half of the campaign, which sees the initial invasion of the Mandalorians.

In terms of Jedi, there was a thought that all of the Jedi (or maybe most of them) would be associated with one of the Jedi academies, and that the Academy would be bankrolling the Jedis exploration/wandering of the galaxy.

For a ship, both Cory and I were interested in the idea of having a ship we're working towards owning; perhaps the ship (a junker of some kind) was purchased with a loan. To avoid having to get into real-world checkbook accounting, we could have Jedi cover the loan payments (as it so happens that their travel stipends cover the loan payments). This way we can nicely explain how second level characters can afford (barely) owning their own starship. It also gives the ship crew a chance to work toward owning the ship outright, and achieves one of our earlier stated goals of having a mobile place to call home.

[NukeHavoc]

The Jedi Order

I was re-reading the section on the Jedi Order in KOTOR, and I misremembered some of the details.

The Jedi Order is in existence, and is a central, organizing for Jedi throughout the galaxy. The Jedi High Council on Coursesant has a role similar to that in the movies, and Jedi are often sent out on missions for the Order and the Republic.

That said, it's not the same as in the modern era. As we discussed, it's not uncommon to find a Jedi Master who vehemently disagrees with the Jedi High Council and simply ignores it. There are enclaves and academies that are semi-autonomous from the Jedi High Council. I'm imagining that the Jedi High Council has hundreds of Jedi who are expressly loyal, and undoubtedly exerts considerably influence throughout the galaxy, but their power (and authority) is not absolute.

In the Restoration period, the Jedi High Council is attempting to reassert its authority, and hold Jedi Masters and Jedi Watchmen to higher standards, but as the book says, this is a long uphill battle.

So, in short, lots of great role-playing fodder, and I think this still fits everything we discussed about doing with Jedi in the KOTOR campaign.

[T1Mirage]

Okay, I only ever seen the movies. Where/When are we looking at so I have an easy reference.

[NukeHavoc]

Okay, I only ever seen the movies. Where/When are we looking at so I have an easy reference.

4,000 years before the Battle of Yavin depicted in Episode IV.

Ken

[setanta14]

George:

Go here: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Old_Republic_era and start surfing around.