Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game
This was the go Star Wars cover art for just about anything for 20 years or so
If you read any of the interviews Timothy Zahn, he talks about how he (and it sounds like a lot of the other early EU authors) got a box of West End Games sourcebooks to look at when he wrote HttE. I never played it, but I'd heard passing references over the years to how it was important for establishing this or that. I figured I'd look through a couple, go "Oh, neat, that's where that specific random droid's name came from!" and that would be the end of it.
It is literally impossible to overstate how big of an influence these books had on the original Expanded Universe. It sounds crazy, but if you created an alternate universe where George Lucas never made ESB or RotJ, but somehow still had West End Games make the RPG and Zahn write the novels, I think the books would've come out less like the ones in our world than if you kept the movies and got rid of the RPG.
This isn't an RPG blog, so I'm going to mostly focus on the additions to the lore, rather than reviewing the system. I skimmed the rules (I had about 1400 pages to get through), my very short review:
1. Very clean and flexible rules light system.
2. Starts in the popular (but IMO kind of awkward) time period between ANH and ESB. I don't know why this is such a popular time, but I see a lot of stuff crammed into that three year period. Eventually, they did do sourcebooks for later in the timeline.
3. Similarly, exists in that weird "you can't be the heroes" zone. Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, and the droids (along with endless minor rebels) all show up, but you can't be them. You probably won't ever fight Darth Vader or blow up a Death Star. It is surprisingly generous with letting you start as a character with at least some Force training. None of the Star Wars Galaxies scavenger hunt mumbo-jumbo. This kind of surprised me since, at the time the game was published, random "lost" Jedi weren't popping up every twenty feet the way they do today.
Also, there are mini-board/card games built in, and animal mounts have something called "Ornerieness Codes" so that's great.
I'd love to play it sometime. Looks fun.
For the purposes of this entry I read all the rule and sourcebooks up to and including The Death Star Technical Companion (Zahn mentions being given a draft copy, as well as multiple of the already in print books) and one adventure Graveyard of Alderaan (it had the most interesting title, though based on publication date and content Zahn probably hadn't seen it.)
So, here's everything interesting I found that AFAIK was first introduced into the universe via this motley collection of splats. I'm sure I missed some. Feel free to tell me about it in the comments. Minor spoilers ahead for books not yet covered in the blog:
Jedi Hibernation Trance: That Luke uses to survived the Interdictor attack in Heir to the Empire.
The cargo area access behind the seat in the X-Wing used in the same scene.
Wedge's tragic backstory (the Empire blew up his parents' space-truck-stop) along with background for a ton of other characters who show up for five minutes or less in the movies.
Likewise, the names of dozens of pieces of equipment, characters, aliens, etc. that showed up in the movies without being identified. People joke about how every random alien has an action figure with a backstory, but it's really more accurate to say everyone has a half a page in these books.
IG88 fighting Boba Fett over Han Solo's carbonite slab: Shadows of the Empire (and several other short stories) milked this into one of the better rivalries in the galaxy.
How moisture farming works: As a kid I always thought they just farmed literal moisture. Condense (wouldn't a vaporator do the opposite?) water, sell it to people in the desert, makes sense. They actually have underground gardens, which makes slightly more sense.
The first technical description of how blasters work (small amount of gas powered up to make a higher energy "bolt" than a laser).
Aliens with horrifying eyes like this Ewok!
Voren Na'al: The in universe historian who wrote a bunch of these books. Lucasfilm would use this technique later for some of the Essential Guides, and this would eventually become pretty common for RPG sourcebooks (I think FASA got there first though).
Bevel Lemelisk: The Emperors lead superweapon engineer, who shows up in several other places (probably the most important character they produced).
Jodo Kast! This one really surprised me. He doesn't do as much as Lemelisk, but he's splashier when he does. He wears Mandalorian armor and manages to show up in about a half dozen games, comics, etc. over the years, usually impersonating Boba Fett.
The Essential Guides (I'll get to them whenever I get around to the mid to late 90s) pulled some good sized chunks almost word for word out of these. Bill Smith wrote for both, so I guess fair play. Likewise, there are quite a few sections where a ship description or something will be copied across two or more sourcebooks.
Some surprisingly accurate computer predictions. I feel like when you read 80s/90s Sci-Fi (especially soft Sci-Fi/Sci-Fant like Star Wars) future computers are either laughably pathetic compared to what we have now ("My supercomputer the size of a house can perform over a thousand calculations a second! With it, I can calculate the inverted flux of the laser core in only 12 hours!") or just flat out magic. Star Wars datapads are actually pretty close to a modern tablet. They can hold a reasonable amount of data (they use an imaginary "data screen unit" but they can at least fit millions of them, unlike some series where a book fills a novel fills a whole datapad), have touch screens, cameras and mics, etc.
HoloNet: The hyperspace based internet of Star Wars. This is an area where they really didn't really scale up (even later) to match the real world equivalent. Even later in the EU you needed a pretty large/advanced ship to have space-internet in your space-car.
Also, a lesson on how to read an email scandoc. I guess email was pretty rare at this point, but getting most of a page in a sourcebook explaining stuff like what a Subject: line is was pretty funny to see.
The Tarkin Doctrine- Rule through fear of force rather than through force itself! (Established in ANH, but really defined here.)
Names and/or additional details for a ton of stuff that showed up in the Ralph McQuarrie concept art. TIE fighters hanging from ceiling racks and Juggernaut tanks jumped out to me, but there's buckets of other stuff.
The Imperial Security Bureau/ISB: Which will show up a ton in the Rogue Squadron series, and occasionally elsewhere.
The first edition of the TIE model abbreviations
The first appearance of the
proper "proto X-wing" style Z-95 Headhunter. IT'S SO COOL!
Like, all the ships. If it's not a TIE fighter or an A/B/X/Y Wing and it shows up in the first five years of the EU, it's probably here first (or Dark Empire).
Skipray Blastboats: For when you need more guns, but still want to count as a fighter.
Strikers, Lancers, Carracks, and Dreadnaughts: For when you need a small to medium sized capship and don't want to trot out the Nebula-B or Corellian Corvette again.
Interdictor Cruisers: For when you don't want someone to go into hyperspace. Also, the basic mechanics of hyperspace. I don't really think I can adequately express how critical this is to the EU. Star War's weird (and reasonably distinct) version of light speed is integral to the plot of so many of the stories, and Interdictors either stopping someone from running off or yanking someone out of hyperspace is a staple event. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that, for the purposes of the Empire and New Republic eras (when most of the good EU stuff is set) this is a bigger deal than Vader being Luke's father or all but maybe a half dozen events in the OT. And, as always, fuck the Holdo Maneuver.
Chariot LAVs: Ground vehicle, not a ship, but Zahn gets some mileage out of 'em, so gotta mention them.
Basic: The first time appearance of the eventually standard name for the requisite sci-fi common language.
And, most impressively, precious little that has to get retconned, even twenty plus years later. I think the biggest "mistake" I found was turbolasers being used to target fighters (and lasers are for cap ships), which is the inversion of what would become the standard. Fair, since they do use turbolasers (semi-ineffectively) against the X-Wings in ANH.
So yeah. That's a lot. I was expecting to get a dozen little fun pieces of trivia, but these books are really the foundation of the EU. There's plenty of sci-fi franchises that're based on tabletop games (Warhammer 40K and Battletech jumping to mind) but I don't think I've ever seen a property so defined by the work of a spinoff like this. Who knows what Star Wars would've looked like in the 90s if it wasn't for a dozen guys in a little game company. I don't want to take anything away from Zahn, Stackpole, Allston, or any of the other great authors who wrote the novels, but they stood on the shoulders of real underappreciated giants.
And, finally, I'm going to start a new feature on this blog. Many Star Wars fans know
"I have a bad feeling about this." is a recurring line that's almost required in any piece of media in the franchise. Moving forward, I'm going to try and mark where the phrase appears in each text.
IHABFAT: Grave of Alderaan page 35 C-3PO as he, Han, and Leia fly to what's left of Alderaan after the PCs and the Empire.
Comments
Post a Comment