I miss running Star Wars TTRPG. It was one of the first games I ever picked up that wasn’t made by T$R or Mayfair Games. I was a Star Wars fan clear back in 1977 when my dad took me to see the original. My favorite toy as a child was Luke’s Landspeeder. Of course, I had Luke, Ben, C-3PO, R2-D2 and a couple of Tusken Raiders and a couple of Stormtroopers. Best darn toys ever!

That was then. Nowadays, I have heaps of Stormtrooper and Clone Trooper minifigs and a massive army of Battle Droid minis. Some of those figures turned 20 years old recently. Sigh. I kinda feel old. 😋

What I really miss about the game.

Star Wars TTRPG (The D6 version by West End Games) was one of the longest running campaigns I ever had, spanning most of my high school years. We did everything short of killing Vader and blowing up both Death Stars. We even went a couple of years beyond the time frame of the movies into the new Republic era. (Before Disney got the franchise, obviously.)

I miss the old characters that we all knew by heart back then. I mean our TTRPG characters. I actually wrote an end for that campaign that we never got to run. That’s okay. I think it’s best that way. I have my ending; the players are free to assume whatever they want. Pretty sure our Jedi character went bad and took over the Empire eventually in that player’s imagination.

The thing I think I miss the most is the clear cut good vs evil plotlines of the first six movies. It’s so much freakin easier to run a TTRPG when there’s an evil Empire out to shut down the Rebels or an army of Clone Troopers trying to stop the Separatists from destroying the Old Republic. Even running a simple smuggler’s campaign in either era was a lot of fun. Although inevitably, almost every Star Wars game ran into one of the main tropes.

Plots and easily recognizable bad guys aside, I miss the system(s.)

I ran both D20 versions of the game. I enjoyed it immensely. If nothing else, the game mechanics were super familiar from Dungeons & Dragons. It was super easy.

The D6 mechanics from West End Games, though. Oh, those were the days. I loved every iteration of the D6 game and would probably go back to running it tomorrow if it were officially reinstated and produced again. I wish I had snagged the reprints when I had the chance. I have so many fond memories from the countless hours I prepped and ran those games. Even the ones created completely on the fly were easy to run. They just don’t make games with that mix of complexities anymore.

I never got into the Fantasy Flight Games version of Star Wars. It came along at a time when I was only minimally interested in TTRPGs, and Disney had their claws in the franchise. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t get interested in it. I’m sure the system was okay, and I don’t think the game was a bad design from what I’ve seen. It just didn’t have the same appeal as the older games did. I still have ALL of my old stuff.

Here’s a link to one of last year’s Star Wars TTRPG article if you’re interested.I can think of several systems I’d love to see a new Star Wars game done in. Failing an established game system being integrated, I’d love it if Disney would hand the rights to a company that would really do a deep dive into the game for all eras of play.

So, Happy May 4th regardless of which movies you prefer. No matter which version of the TTRPG you prefer, you’re still a fan. I keep hoping and praying that maybe we’ll get a new Star Wars TTRPG someday. Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate you.

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