So I was reading the Star Wars Roleplaying Game book yesterday (one of the finest RPGs ever, I might add) and a thought came over me. How does the Empire feel about aliens? Obviously they hire them out, such as Bossk et. al. in the hunt for the rebels, but do aliens factor into the Empire’s Master Plan of Conquest? Are they going to be eliminated or enslaved (a la Mon Calmari and Wookiees)? Or are they just different people to do business with? The alien races seem to be centered on their own planet, which could be obliterated by a planet-killer or a bunch of star destroyers. Are there any alien races that rival the Empire on terms of sheer power, or do we humans have the badass market cornered?
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There is no real “Empire” in the sense that there were a lot of people with a lot of different views.
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The Emperor used select laws on rare occasions and hiring practices to discriminate against nonhumans. Presumably this was a way to minimize his powerful political opposition - he feared being upset from within more than the pitiful rebel alliance.
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Many imperial officers cultivated a pro-human snobbery
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Most people didn’t care at all
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The Empire most definitely did deal with nohumans all the time. There were no nonhuman system that rivaled the Empire in terms of power, but remember the Empire was an Empire that encompassed EVERYONE.
First question: Which SW RPG are you talking about? The old West End Games version or the new d20 crapola?
On with the OP: The Empire (or more specifically, the Emporer and those who cowtow to him) has extreme racial animosity towards pretty much anything not human. Species that have shown they are useful the the goals of the Empire, such as the afforementioned wookie slave workers, Bith scientists, and Sluissi shipyard workers, are pretty much considered cheap conscripts that serve a purpose or worse. During the Empire era, non-humans were pretty much purged from the established government and suffered racial hatred as well as economic sanctions, etc. by Imperial Moffs. In places where they had classically held sway - such as the Herglics in the Tapani Sector, they were pretty much “outsourced” from their jobs and replaced by humans. If they had too much influence to just “let go”, they sometimes be dissapeared, or at the very least watched constantly and pressured to go away.
Any other species capable of equalling Imperial might? No. Though in the New Jedi Order is seems the Yuuzahn Vong could at least have made serious trouble before being gooshed.
Some species have gotten along pretty well as far as power - the Hutts, for instance. The Trianni are also highly respected, though they seldom leave their own space.
There is also the Yevathans, who had a very powerful fleet, and the Sii Ruuk, who had a big fleet and tried to attack when neither the Empire nor Rebellion was at it’s strongest, but they failed too.
[whew!]
West End Games, yo! Best RPG ever!
Thanks for the info! That explains a lot about the Empire now. Gorgon, you mentioned the Hutts. Here’s my next question; how did the Hutts rise to power? I know they are gangsters, but it’s not like they can move quickly, fight, or shoot well. Obviously they aren’t good at smooth talking either because they are almost unintelligible. So what’s the story on Hutt power?
I don’t think we’ve ever gotten the Hutt backstory.
However, they don’t speak unintelligibly. Most speak Basic, or CAN, at least. But they make it a point to only speak Huttese, because they consider themselves the only civilized beings in the galaxy.
And yeah, a young Hutt CAN actually move pretty fast, and fight pretty hard. Read Ann Crispin’s Han Solo Trilogy. Plus, they’re really hard to kill. (From what I understand, Leia had it easy strangling Jabba, but that was a rare opportunity. You wouldn’t be able to get close enough to do that. )
My opinion is probably worthless, because I haven’t even flipped through the thing in going on ten years, but, IMHO, the West End Games version is pretty much crap, too.
IIRC, these were my principle beefs:[ul][li] The ship-to-ship spaceborne combat rules were essentially unworkable.[/li]
[li]Continuing the above, the ship stats were all out of line with “cannon”. (The movies.) For instance, the ISD’s were far too small and underpowered.[/li]
[li] The character classes. Jedi are as common as dirt, and Bounty Hunters and Smugglers are insanely overpowered.[/li]
[li] The regular combat rules don’t work, either.[/li]
[li] Lightsabres are also as common as dirt, and can cut through anything except mud bricks or loose earth.[/li]
[li] Blasters can punch through armor, flesh, bone, or just about anything except a 1/2" sheet of drywall.[/ul][/li]
Again, these are just my long-term personal recollections, and I may be wrong. As I recall, however, I decided at the time to run a game using rules and equipment cherry-picked from Space Opera, which should give you an idea of how much I hated Star Wars.
Yes, I am a geek, and no, I didn’t like it.
I found the combat to be an easy system and a great release from THAC0. I can’t comment on the ship-to-ship as we really didn’t do much of that. We had a good GM who really made unique adventures. My big complaint is that there was no jedi character that came with and could use the lightsaber. There was one that had it, but they didn’t know how to use it, and the Failed Jedi knew how to use it but was washed up and didn’t have one.
Anyone know the full Hutt story? Guin, you did a great job of filling me in, I am just wondering how space slugs became feared crimelords.
According to one story, Jabba used to be a mercenary, and was very good at it.
Oh, don’t get me started. WEG was a lot of things, but they didn’t a lick of homework before writing that section.
It doesn’t really say, but maybe someone at boards.theforce.net can help out?
Mmm… Space Opera. Nostalgia… bad pain make it go away, mommy…
There’s a way to modify D20 Star Wars to make it work really well and quickly. Set levels. Heroes are 10th, goons are 3rd, big villians are 15th… Let people level incrementally, +1 to a skill or a extra HD after a long while. Slow levelling. Makes it much more cinematic.
The D20 Star Wars 2nd edition works very well. And there is no reason you have to allow Jedi at all, and E-Sabbath’s level idea is quite common, I’m sure.
Oddly, I’m the only person I’ve heard mention it… I invented the concept back in 3e beta for a pulp game I wanted to run… since converted to Spycraft.