The Star Wars films depict an amazing galaxy of strange aliens, wondrous machinery, mystical powers, epic struggles, great heroes, and terrible villains. From the moment the first Star Destroyer blazed across the screen, the story of Star Wars captivated the world. With this game, you can re-create the story of the films or craft your own adventures in the Star Wars universe. All you need is some dice, a few friends, and your imagination.
This Is Star Wars
Blasters. X-wing starfighters. Lightsabers. Clone troopers. The Force.
Star Wars is space fantasy at its best, full of action, adventure, and a sense of wonder. The heroes are larger than life. The villains are utterly evil. The universe has a lived-in, well-used look and feel. It's a familiar story, but it's never been told quite this way before. It has mythic elements that speak to the heart of the audience. It's epic in scope; everything appears on a grand scale. And it's fun. Vehicles move very fast. Things blow up. We want to cheer for the good guys and boo the bad guys. And, sometimes, we want to be a part of that faraway galaxy.
This Is a Roleplaying Game
This is a game of your imagination, where you get to tell stories by taking on the roles of the main characters—characters you create. It's a game that offers a multitude of choices to those characters—more choices than even the most sophisticated computer game, because the only limit to what you can do is what you can imagine.
The story is like a movie, except all of the action takes place in your imagination. There's no script to the movie (other than a rough outline used by the Gamemaster); you decide what your character says and does. The Gamemaster (GM) is the director and special effects designer, deciding what the story is about and taking on the roles of all the other characters—the villains, the extras, the special guest stars. The GM also keeps track of the rules, interprets the outcome of actions, and describes what happens. Together, players and Gamemaster create a story, and everybody has a great time.
Combine the fabulous elements of the Star Wars universe with the imagination-powered engine of a roleplaying game, and the faraway galaxy draws nearer. When you play, you create a unique fictional character that lives in the imagination of you and your friends. You control your character, and together with your friends you face the dangers and explore the mysteries that your Gamemaster sets before you. Anything is possible. You can have your character try anything you can think of—if it sounds good and the dice fall in your favor, the action succeeds.
Now, get ready. It's a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. And the Force is with you.
Your Characters
Your characters are the stars of the movie, the main characters in the game. Veterans sometimes call them "heroes"—not in the "good guy" sense per se, but in the sense of the main protagonists of the story. Each character's image might be:
- A tough blaster-for-hire.
- A Padawan learner seeking to gain power in the Force.
- A brash starfighter pilot.
- A gambler looking to make the next big score.
- A grizzled spacer making a living on the space lanes.
- A smuggler with a heart of gold.
- A young senator from a prosperous world.
- A Rebel spy.
- A Jedi Knight wielding a lightsaber in defense of the Republic.
- A galactic scout exploring the hyperspace lanes.
- A soldier trained for war in the Outer Rim.
…or any other kind of character you can imagine.
What You Need to Play
Here's what you need to start playing:
- This handbook, which tells you how to create and play your character.
- A character sheet.
- A pencil and scratch paper.
- One or two four-sided dice (d4), four or more six-sided dice (d6), an eight-sided die (d8), a ten-sided die (d10), a twelve-sided die (d12), and a twenty-sided die (d20).
- A miniature to represent your character and a battle map with 1-inch squares to put it on (handy for combat, though you can play just as well on graph paper or in your head).
Dice
The rules abbreviate dice rolls with phrases such as "4d6+2," which means "four six-sided dice plus 2" (generating a number between 6 and 26). The first number tells you how many dice to roll (all of which are added together), the number after the "d" tells you what type of dice to use, and any number after that indicates a quantity that is added to or subtracted from the result.
Some examples:
| Roll | Means | Range |
|---|
| 3d6 | Three six-sided dice | 3–18, the damage a blaster pistol deals |
| 2d8 | Two eight-sided dice | 2–16, the damage a lightsaber deals in the hands of a 1st-level Jedi |
The Three Eras of Play
The Star Wars Roleplaying Game supports adventures and campaign play in many different eras, three of which are described in detail in this book.
Rise of the Empire (Episodes I–III). The era of the prequel movies: a period when the Republic's power is waning, war grips the galaxy, and the Jedi Council still holds sway over ten thousand Jedi Knights. This time period pre-dates the Empire but includes the tumultuous Clone Wars.
The Rebellion Era (Episodes IV–VI). The classic period of galactic civil war, when the power of the Empire is supreme and those capable of using the Force are few and far between. This is the time described in the original Star Wars films.
The New Jedi Order Era. Jump to a time twenty years after the Battle of Endor and participate in the events surrounding the invasion of the galaxy. Aliens from beyond the edge of known space have begun an incursion into the New Republic as forces conspire to threaten the hard-won peace.
In addition, the rules can support campaigns set in other eras. In the distant past, the Jedi and Sith warred for the fate of the galaxy, as told in the Tales of the Jedi and Knights of the Old Republic series. Or set your game in the Legacy era, decades after the fall of the Empire, where a new generation of Jedi and Sith struggle for control of a changed galaxy.
The choice is yours. Whichever era you play in, the story is yours to tell—and the Force is with you.
