Star Wars: Rise of the Rebellion

[NMC]

Star Wars: Rise of the Rebellion

It is a dark time for the galaxy. Although the Clone Wars have ended, the Republic is no more. In its place stands a new Galactic Empire, one that will maintain order with an iron fist. The Jedi Knights, guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy for a thousand generations, are now little more than hunted fugitives. Those few beings who remember the glory that was the Republic are now enemies of the state.

Not all hope is lost, however. There are still some who are willing to challenge the New Order—Senators, allies of the Jedi and other heroes. Though they are outnumbered, under-equipped and poorly organized, they have resolved that Palpatine’s Empire will not stand forever.

Star Wars: Rise of the Rebellion is an entirely unofficial, fan-driven campaign for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. It is in no way approved or supported by Lucasfilm or Wizards of the Coast, and should not be considered official in any way. With that said, here are some campaign highlights:
*It will consist of a series of linked adventures, set during the period between Episodes III and IV, all of which will form one overarching storyline.
*The campaign is open to everyone who wants to play and who can find a GM.
*Adventures are free for distribution.
*Players may create and run characters throughout the series, gaining experience and abilities all throughout.


Greetings!

My friends and I were talking about the end of the Living Force campaign--with a tip of the hat to all who were involved in organizing it--and started to discuss the possibility of arranging a fan-driven campaign along the same lines. The blurb above is a synopsis of our ideas so far, but we have one big question that we need to answer before pursuing such an endeavor: Would people be interested in playing in/running/contributing to adventures for such a campaign? I'd like to start a dialogue about this, either here or (preferably) at an online forum that was created for this purpose. If you have any thoughts/ideas/etc., please check out the Rise of the Rebellion section on the message boards (under Sub Sites) at <www.mindwyr.com>.

Yours,
Nate Christen

 

[Venport]

it sould like somthing interesting... i would be interested in looking threw and possablity running somthing like that...

Few Questions: how would you handel jedi? You could play them but have the risk of being hunted by DV??

What your major idea for the campaing? what is the untement goal for the PC? stuff like that

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Honestly, I'd say its a bad era to pick for any kind of ongoing campaign. While its a great era for a one shot or a short thing, it just limits character creation too much. Not only are Jedi essentially unplayable(unless you want to be killed off), but the Empire is taking such a firm grasp of the galaxy that entire races are being enslaved and pretty much everyone non-human are losing all rights. Basically, its a time of ultimate restriction, which just seems to go against the grain of a campaign, especially since the Rebellion's first victory doesn't come until the Battle of Yavin. That's a LONG time of losing.

For more open times, I'd honestly suggest either the Tales of the Jedi/Knights of the Old Republic Era, pre-Clone Wars/Clone Wars era, or post-RotJ, pre-NJO campaign. All of those eras have their own distinct feels and also leave character creation very, very open. The latter part is, IMO, the vital thing to any major campaign, especially in Star Wars.

 

[kenobi65]

*It will consist of a series of linked adventures, set during the period between Episodes III and IV, all of which will form one overarching storyline.
*The campaign is open to everyone who wants to play and who can find a GM.
*Adventures are free for distribution.
*Players may create and run characters throughout the series, gaining experience and abilities all throughout.

Hi, there,

Let me preface this with the obligatory "I am not a lawyer" disclaimer.

You may well run into some issues with copyright and intellectual property on this project. This topic has been discussed extensively on the LF Yahoo Group list, and it does seem that only RPGA would have the legal ability to run an openly-distributed SW campaign.

What you're proposing is essentially an independent, fan-run Living style campaign. The problem that you may be running into is that, in order to do this, you're going to be using non-OGL material, to which you don't have any copyright priviledges.

When you run a home campaign, you're (of course) free to write adventures that use the SWRPG material, because you're not distributing it to anyone outside of your group. My understanding of the law is that this all changes once you give someone else an adventure that you've written, for them to run. At that point, you're "distributing" the material you've written...and that may put you in violation of the copyright (even though you're not charging people any money). In this case, you might be violating copyrights from both WotC (who owns the mechanics of the RPG), as well as Lucasfilm (who owns the intellectual property of the SW universe).

(Note: this is also why it's perfectly legal for you to have your friends over to your house to watch a Star Wars DVD, but it's *not* legal for you to show a Star Wars DVD in a public setting, like at a convention.)

A couple examples of what I'm talking about:

1) Back in the days when the RPGA had the Living City campaign, there was a sub-campaign to Living City called "the Procampur expansion", which was created and written by a group called the Universe Construction Company (UCC). When Ryan Dancey and Organized Play bought Living City from the RPGA (2002, IIRC), they didn't want Procampur, and the UCC turned Procampur into an independent, non-RPGA campaign called "Legends of the Shining Jewel". They offered LSJ modules to people to run at conventions, game days, home play, etc....essentially, the same thing that the RPGA does.

Eventually, WotC's lawyers took notice. LSJ was still set in the Forgotten Realms, and nothing about the Forgotten Realms is Open Game Content. Thus, UCC was "publishing" material that was in violation of WotC's copyright on the Forgotten Realms. In early 2004, WotC forced UCC to re-tool the LSJ campaign and take out all references to the Realms, as well as any other non-OGC material from the campaign. It took UCC about 8 months to revise all their materials, into a new campaign world of their own design.

2) There is an independent group out there called Game Base 7, which runs a Living-style Star Wars campaign called "Sparks". (They used to use the West End Games d6 system; I've read conflicting information over whether or not they've switched over to the d20 system). From what I've read, they get around the issue of "distribution" by only running their games at conventions, and only letting Game Base 7 "members" (all of whom are listed as authors on every one of their modules) act as the Gamemasters. Apparently, if you're the author of a module, you can run it freely, since just playing in a module doesn't give you access to the entire text of the module, which is what gets you into the "distribution" problem.

At any rate, all I'm really trying to do is give you some advice based on what I've seen in the "Living-style" RPG community with regards to copyrighted material. It may well be that I'm not understanding the law correctly, and what you're proposing is just fine. However, if you're really serious about wanting to do this, I'd highly recommend getting some real legal advice.