Why no love for Star Wars RPGA!?
Well, there is a little love in the sense that there are official RPGA modules in the form of the Dawn of Defiance campaign. I've even seen it run at local conventions. I believe that the last round of Player Reward cards (before the program got redone) had cards to be used in the DoD campaign.
But from my understanding it is not feasible to run a larger Living campaign. The amount of work it apparently takes for each module to get approved by whatever LucasFilms division handles their licencing is reportedly insane.
Approaching Star Wars with a MyRealms approach might be an option they should explore.
-Cal
Good points.
Another factor is that the current DoD adventures are really long. They don't fit into convention slots.
A new campaign with shorter adventures might bring back a lot of the player base. But, to grow it, you need something else. I'm not sure what it needs, but the game/program lacks energy. I've had real problems drumming up more than one table at cons or in getting home play to take off.
I'm talking about:
No rewards
No calendar/Schedules
no search/listings on the site (even before the forum update...)
DoD (and the subsequent 2 smaller adventures) follow the prescribed format and requirments, require sanctioning, and RPGA Cards... yadda yadda
but no love....
I don't really expect a tread in the RPGA area, DoD has it's own sub discussion in the SW RPG forums
but c'mon...
Gotcha. I'm with you there.
The love, system-wise, is very low compared to the accolades over the system itself. But, I don't know how the sales compare. That might be the driving factor.
Gotcha. I'm with you there.
The love, system-wise, is very low compared to the accolades over the system itself. But, I don't know how the sales compare. That might be the driving factor.
It's Freakin' STAR WARS!
seriously...!?
yeah I get it- "we gotta pay back the licensing fees blah-blah..."
a very paltry excuse(IMO) when SW RPG books printed less than 9 months ago are out of print already and going for double to triple their shelf price on the secondary market....
pretty amazing when 3.5 a 4th edition books are stinking up the shelves...
Peopel are playing this RPG game and they ARE buying the books...
I'm talking about:No rewards
No calendar/Schedules
no search/listings on the site (even before the forum update...)
DoD has the same reward support that LFR has. That is, generally none with the exception of the occasional player card.
Apparently due to licencing issues I understand the published release schedule has been delayed so much it's meaningless. But a few LFR modules have fallen to delays as well. It's just less noticeable because the campaign is bigger.
DoD has exactly the same search ability that LFR has through the DCI player pages. Yes, LFR is bigger and more focused on, but DoD isn't missing any support that LFR is getting.
a very paltry excuse(IMO) when SW RPG books printed less than 9 months ago are out of print already and going for double to triple their shelf price on the secondary market....
pretty amazing when 3.5 a 4th edition books are stinking up the shelves...
(Disclaimer: I am a big SWRPG fan, as my screen name might suggest, and I've played every single version of the RPG, dating back to 1987.)
I guarantee you that the print runs for the Star Wars books are *far* smaller than those for D&D books. If they sell out, then WotC has to decide if they think there's sufficient demand for a second printing.
Every statistic I've ever seen says that sales of D&D absolutely dwarf sales of every other RPG out there, including the Star Wars RPG. The simple fact is that the RPGA has limited resources, and the Star Wars RPG is simply not as big a priority as D&D.
The RPGA used to have a Star Wars campaign: Living Force. It had solid play numbers, though not anywhere near what Living Greyhawk or the D&D Campaigns (the RPGA's other campaigns of that time) had. IIRC, Living Force had something on the order of 3000 active players, whereas the RPGA's D&D-based campaigns were pulling in well over 10,000 active players.
Living Force was a 5-year campaign, and was always meant to have a finite life, with a definite conclusion. At the time that Living Force was wrapping up (2005, IIRC), the campaign staff had started work on a sequel campaign. Unfortunately, at that time, WotC had ceased actively supporting the SWRPG (this was before they brought out the Saga Edition), and their support of the Star Wars franchise was largely limited to the miniatures game. WotC had the campaign staff shut down development of the new campaign, since they were not interested in funding a campaign that used a then-unsupported game system.
So, now, we have the Saga Edition. As you may have seen, you can order the Dawn of Defiance adventures for RPGA play. Chris Tulach has noted that they have not closed the door on some level of RPGA support in the future, and that they would be using RPGA play of the DoD adventures to help them make that decision. So, if you really want to see more RPGA support, order the DoD adventures in the RPGA database, and report your play of them.
(I'll also note that there *were* some Star Wars cards in the 2008 Players Rewards cards. They were sent out randomly, so I would imagine a lot of them wound up in the hands of people who only play D&D, but they *are* out there.)
DoD (and the subsequent 2 smaller adventures) follow the prescribed format and requirments, require sanctioning, and RPGA Cards... yadda yadda
Actually, just to set the record straight:
While you *can* order the DoD adventures for RPGA play, you do not *have* to. You simply download them from WotC. You don't need to be an RPGA member to obtain them, or to play them (though, see my previous post about why you may *want* to).
There is one "one-shot" SWRPG adventure available on the RPGA database ("The Betrayal of Darth Revan")...for that one, yes, you do need to be an RPGA member.
And, the RPGA system has a "placeholder" for reporting play of your home SWRPG campaign. Again, reporting play of those may help convince the RPGA that there's demand out there.
Good points Kenobi.
Also, back to the 'fairness' issue, there are two ways to look at it. In absolute terms, DoD and SWRPG get a lot less love than LFR or any other D&D vehicle. The forums get little admin love, the bugs/issues get little love, the WotC site gets little love (you think RPGA is/was bad on the WotC site?). And, for having just a few mods (like when we had 2), the next installment was often MONTHS late. Months late when you only have 2 adventures is a huge impact. I know the author means well, and the late installment was often a big module, but it is still a really big impact. You basically have living campaign people sitting idle... they go play something else.
Now, fair from a business standpoint? That's a lot harder to argue. My guess is it would be smart for WotC to spend a bit more, particularly in being more responsive, but I don't think they would be smart spending much money on SWRPG. This may be colored by my complete inability to get interest at cons around here or in home play around here. I know some huge SWRPG fans, but I see and hear of few DoD games being played.
If someone actually cared for my recommendations, I think you could either adopt an LFR model, but actually go shorter. Target 3-hour adventures but with a good amount of free-form RP and decisions. This works well in modern games. The foe is on level 7. The party can get there tons of ways using tons of skills/abilities, so build in time for that but keep combat short/confined. Small adventures with vignettes that sell on the overall concept. One in an asteroid field, one on a space base, one in a jungle swamp, not a super-module taking 20 hours to do all of those. Players can play all mods or just some, no sweat.
The other possibility is to go for a really huge, tight, epic story where the PCs are getting a really different experience than with LFR. That could be a draw. Somewhat like the MINI format, but I would still go for 4-hour adventures, just with huge story components that sell you on playing the entire series in order. Adopt a character-tree like FantasyCraft and Dark Sun, so you can easily fill slots with any of your tree PCs and anything one accomplishes the others do as well. You could separate them by level and have XP just go to the main PC or you could just allow various PCs with separate XP tracking.
My understanding is that the major thing that has held the SW stuff back is that everything that gets published requires line-by-line approval from LucasFilm's licencing arm. It is, apparently, a massive huge amount of work on the RPGA/WotC's end to get anything completed. An order of magnitude more effort than is required to publish something for an in-house brand like D&D.
My understanding is that the major thing that has held the SW stuff back is that everything that gets published requires line-by-line approval from LucasFilm's licencing arm. It is, apparently, a massive huge amount of work on the RPGA/WotC's end to get anything completed. An order of magnitude more effort than is required to publish something for an in-house brand like D&D.
That is very true.
I'm friends with several folks who were on the campaign staff for Living Force. Every single thing that the campaign did...every module, every web article, even the logsheets...had to go through Lucasfilm Licensing for approval. That approval sometimes took weeks, sometimes months. Yup, it was a major hurdle, and a major pain in the posterior.
Plus, didn't a few mods get sent to Lucasfilm (or whichever branch it was) and simply disappear, never to be seen again?
Yes, there were several LF modules which were never released for RPGA play. I'm not entirely certain where the hang-up happened, but, as I understand it, they never did make it through the approval process.