Is the time right for a Star Wars RPG based on Traveller rules?

The problem with Star Wars is simple.
Jedi.
In order to make the Force a valid enough element of the story, it has to be powerful. It has to be so powerful that characters have a choice:
Be a force-user or be the force-user's pet.
It's the same issue that brought Star Wars Galaxies down.
 
tossing out my few cents.... actually to me the problem with Star Wars seems simple

West End Games

Even before some other potential issues like the horrendous licensing fees you would think would be needed to be paid to the corporate overlords D&D has had 30 something years making an inferior version, unrecognizable versions of the original that hit like a tidal wave back in the day for a very good reason. Very little of what made that game great seems to remain in today's game from what I've picked up.

Hard to see anyone, unless Mongoose gutted its Traveller output by retasking its stable of first class writers, making anything that was good as the original was. I love that game, just like some others like AD&D/BX D&D, T2000 that I never bothered to even give a chance to later versions of it and still play them today rather than any newer versions. Like someone else coming in.. you really think they could do Traveller justice. Remake the game but keeping the name?
 
Star Wars is based on a heroic, cinematic, style of play. Traveller is more realistic, gritty, lethal, and scientific (to an extent); that is its USP. There are plenty of heroic sci-fi RPGs out there more fit for that purpose.
An unarmored young Luke or Han would be killed in Traveller after a few random encounters with stormtroopers, regardless of "psionic Jedi powers", based on probability alone. You would need to hack the rules up so much as to make it not Traveller anymore. It would be nice to expand Traveller to other worlds such as Firefly, The Expanse, Blake's 7, etc, but Star Wars is so different.

You can alway go the other way in terms of technology, and in this Traveller works perfectly well. I am sure we have all encountered low tech worlds. I have run entire campaigns where there was only that world. such as a barbarian world, and 1939–1945 Earth . Perhaps something that captures historical settings by adding more flavour via campaign setting books would be a nicer and more practical way to go?
 
Last edited:
The problem with Star Wars is simple.
Jedi.
In order to make the Force a valid enough element of the story, it has to be powerful. It has to be so powerful that characters have a choice:
Be a force-user or be the force-user's pet.
It's the same issue that brought Star Wars Galaxies down.
Or you play Star Wars post clone wars when there are effectively no Jedi.
Han Solo vs Ben Kenobi - pick one to play.
My favourite Disney Star Wars film - Roge One.
Andor vs Star Wars Luke Skywalker - pick one to play
 
I’ll address all three comments in one go, I think.

People seem to be under the impression that the Traveller rules couldn’t handle Star Wars, which I find to be a strange view. There has already been an unofficial adaptation which was really good and particular sub-systems like the Force or the cinematic nature of the game is pretty straightforward to adapt, really.

West End Games basically adapted the newly designed Ghostbusters D6 rules to Star Wars when they had the license but making comparisons to a game that is more than 35 years old now isn’t all that fruitful. Half the RPG market these days were not even born then and the Traveller rules have evolved significantly since then in any case. Whatever WEG did back then - and I still love my own copy - it is hardly relevant to the here and now is it?

The simple question is whether the Traveller rules can be adapted to the Star Wars - and the answer is a resounding yes! The second question is whether the license would be worth it? As a consumer, I say yes. As a potential business venture, I'm less sure as I don’t have to balance the books but I’d still argue the potential upside ought to significantly outweigh the downside.
 
best answer might be to flip the question...try putting playing a Third Impeirum/OTU based on Star Wars rules... probably a good clue on how well this would go over. Very different settings and the rules sort of matched them. One could argue that the lasting appeal of Traveller is that the rules, the game, is not combat based. After many many years of enjoying, playing RPG's where the plot generally was just an excuse to blow things up or kill things..combat based. Traveller has been a refreshing change.
 
Or you play Star Wars post clone wars when there are effectively no Jedi.
Han Solo vs Ben Kenobi - pick one to play.
My favourite Disney Star Wars film - Roge One.
Andor vs Star Wars Luke Skywalker - pick one to play
I loved Rogue One for just that reason: No eff'ing Jedi [ok, the blind guy might have been one or he could have just been a martial artist]. But to be honest, Darth Mickey jerked around with the franchise so much that I've really lost interest. I mean, if somebody can't make a movie about how Han met Chewie a hit then maybe they need to go back to Donald Duck.
The existential problem with the entire franchise is that The Force MacGuffin creeps into every storyline. Apparently this mysterious mystical something-or-other is as ubiquitous as droids and twice as annoying.
As far as I'm concerned 'StarWars' starts and stops with George Lucas.
HOWEVER [!] that's just my spin on it. Don't let my opinion stop you from your fun. My happy isn't gonna be your happy and I certainly don't want to get in the way of someone's happy.
 
Last edited:
I'd like to see a "director's cut " of Solo. I enjoyed the movie and some of the bits they cut make it a lot better. I also think it had a lot of potential for at least one sequel.

Maybe if they hadn't called all the fans racist transphobes more people would have gone to see it.
 
I'd like to see a "director's cut " of Solo. I enjoyed the movie and some of the bits they cut make it a lot better. I also think it had a lot of potential for at least one sequel.

Maybe if they hadn't called all the fans racist transphobes more people would have gone to see it.
As a general rule, I'm alright with inclusion. I'm not interested in seeing two men making out, and I'm not gonna apologize for that, but that's not a judgement statement about those people who find that attractive. It's my preference, other folks have theirs.
I didn't see 'Solo'. I'd seen the movie before it in the series and wasn't impressed, so I left it be. As I understand it, the script was weak and the acting only so-so. And to be honest, I didn't particularly like Ehrenreich as Han Solo. He looked too much like a cologne model and not a rogue in space. OTOH, at least he wasn't as bad as Darth Daddy Issues [aka Darth Beaker, aka Adam Driver]
 
Star Wars is based on a heroic, cinematic, style of play. Traveller is more realistic, gritty, lethal, and scientific (to an extent); that is its USP. There are plenty of heroic sci-fi RPGs out there more fit for that purpose.
An unarmored young Luke or Han would be killed in Traveller after a few random encounters with stormtroopers, regardless of "psionic Jedi powers", based on probability alone. You would need to hack the rules up so much as to make it not Traveller anymore. It would be nice to expand Traveller to other worlds such as Firefly, The Expanse, Blake's 7, etc, but Star Wars is so different.

You can alway go the other way in terms of technology, and in this Traveller works perfectly well. I am sure we have all encountered low tech worlds. I have run entire campaigns where there was only that world. such as a barbarian world, and 1939–1945 Earth . Perhaps something that captures historical settings by adding more flavour via campaign setting books would be a nicer and more practical way to go?
B7 Media have the rights to Blake's 7. I imagine they would charge less than Disney would for Star Wars.
 
Note Classic Traveller Supplement 4 has a take on a couple of characters from Star Wars:

Young Farmboy 797655 Age 22 Cr minimal, Pilot-2
For years an inexperienced farmboy, this individual has joined the rebellion against the Empire as he seeks out the murder of his father and the true story of what happened.
He has a psionic rating of 11, with rudimentary training.

Imperial Leader FAADFF Age indeterminate Cr-, Blade Cbt-5, Pilot-3, Jack of all trades-4, Leader-2
Of the highest rank of imperial nobility, this individual is charged with the suppression of the rebellion.
He has a psionic rating of 13; it is not known if this is natural, or if it is artificially enhanced. It is reported that the life support system he wears constantly is necessary as the result of a fall into a volcano.
 
best answer might be to flip the question...try putting playing a Third Impeirum/OTU based on Star Wars rules... probably a good clue on how well this would go over. Very different settings and the rules sort of matched them. One could argue that the lasting appeal of Traveller is that the rules, the game, is not combat based. After many many years of enjoying, playing RPG's where the plot generally was just an excuse to blow things up or kill things..combat based. Traveller has been a refreshing change.
Which Star Wars rules? There has been four official versions of the rules - two of them D20 based - and a multitude of unofficial Star Wars rule-sets adapted to pretty much every major RPG system out there - including Mongoose Traveller!

The Traveller rules aren’t exclusive to the default Charted Space setting and are adaptable to different settings - and always have been. As has been pointed out by others, pretty much all the components that allow groups to play Star Wars with Traveller rules are already there in the game.

And yes, for me, the best of the recent Star Wars movies was undoubtedly Rogue One because it introduced new characters with their own story without an overemphasis on Jedi.
 
Which Star Wars rules? There has been four official versions of the rules - two of them D20 based - and a multitude of unofficial Star Wars rule-sets adapted to pretty much every major RPG system out there - including Mongoose Traveller!

The Traveller rules aren’t exclusive to the default Charted Space setting and are adaptable to different settings - and always have been. As has been pointed out by others, pretty much all the components that allow groups to play Star Wars with Traveller rules are already there in the game.

And yes, for me, the best of the recent Star Wars movies was undoubtedly Rogue One because it introduced new characters with their own story without an overemphasis on Jedi.

I just have experience with the 1st Ed. WEG version of the game. I did look at the current version of it but didn't bite. It would be interesting to see how well.. or if at all games like that which are so very strongly tied to a particular, very specific, setting based on good v. bad conflict might translate to a different setting like the peace of the Emperor and love of the Empress and general stability. One game, one settng revolves at its base around combat and 86'ing hte bad guys, the other is all about the many glorious shades of grey. Like real life not a movie.. surviving and struggling to get ahead in a very VERY dangerous, often unforgiving and lethal setting that don't need comic book baddies to kill you quickly.

Obviously I've never tried to see how well they might crossover as my interests and experiences in both games are separated by decades. What remaining love and nostalgia I had for the original Star Wars has been slowly but surely crushed under the boot of a goofy looking Mouse and his evil corporate puppeteers.. oh.. and that travesty that was Jar Jar Binks
 
I just have experience with the 1st Ed. WEG version of the game. I did look at the current version of it but didn't bite. It would be interesting to see how well.. or if at all games like that which are so very strongly tied to a particular, very specific, setting based on good v. bad conflict might translate to a different setting like the peace of the Emperor and love of the Empress and general stability. One game, one settng revolves at its base around combat and 86'ing hte bad guys, the other is all about the many glorious shades of grey. Like real life not a movie.. surviving and struggling to get ahead in a very VERY dangerous, often unforgiving and lethal setting that don't need comic book baddies to kill you quickly.

Obviously I've never tried to see how well they might crossover as my interests and experiences in both games are separated by decades. What remaining love and nostalgia I had for the original Star Wars has been slowly but surely crushed under the boot of a goofy looking Mouse and his evil corporate puppeteers.. oh.. and that travesty that was Jar Jar Binks
Yes, I think there install a confusion here between the mechanics of a game system and just general tropes of the respective settings.

There is no reason, whatsoever, that the Traveller game system cannot be adapted to run Star Wars tropes with.
 
Hm... who currently holds the rights to the various Gerry Anderson sci-fi properties? Those would make some rich possibilities.... and open up all sorts of additional ideas for alt-campaigns. (What happened to/on Earth after the Moon departed in Space: 1999? Maybe the Tracy family got heavily overloaded and may have had to expand operations with Rescue International? Certainly, any other heroic types - if their franchise could be shoehorned into a shared milieu - could wind up working with, for, or in competition with RI.) And the ideas can keep spinning from there, or something else could be the departure point. Or there may be no departure point.

Several others of those 1960's through 1980's productions seem like good sources for setting mining as well. Food for thought.
 
Back
Top