Imperial Campaign

[ReverendKeaton]

Has anyone ever run an Imperial based campaign? I have looked around and don't see anything that jumps out at me. I am considering setting up another campaign and seeing what I can come up with as far a game from the other point of view.

[garhkal]

Yes.. Most of the pcs were imp pilots/troopers, quelling slavers/scum/pirates.. However, they were reletively short lived, lasting maybe 20 or so games..
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[Yora]

The main challenge, though not necessarily obstacle, that I see is that imperial characters would be expected to follow orders. You could make one of the PCs the commanding officer of the unit they are playing, but usually RPGs are regarded as cooperative adventures of equal characters.

PCs need a lot of freedom to do things, but in the imperial forces, those people with the freedom to make choices are not the people who are doing the actual things.

I can remember only a single case in which the idea of playing an imperial soldier was implemented in game form and that was the videogame Tie Fighter back in the 90s. The way that game works is to put you into a Tie Fighter for 10 to 15 minutes and getting told which ships you need to destroy and keep alive. The player was given tactical choices in the way of flying the ship and giving orders to the rest of the squadron, but there is zero choice in deciding the goal or contributing to where the squadron is sent next. Obeying orders work on a tactical level if the gameplay of combat itself is fun. In pen and paper RPGs, it generally isn't. Fights are fun because of what they mean in the story of the characters and how the players are approaching them.

To make a campaign as Imperials work, this is something that needs to be solved first. What kind of imperial characters would be fun to play as a group?
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[jmanski]

I think something highly specialized like SpecNav, Storm Commandos, or RadTroopers would be the way to go. Being "special forces" the rules wouldn't be quite so black and white. And playing as an Imperial means a lot more variation in enemies to fight.... just sayin'.
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[garhkal]

[Urban Spaceman]

I think the recent EA Battlefront 2 had an Imperial based campaign, but I wouldn't be shocked if you changed sides half-way through.

I think to make it work as an RPG you might consider having them separated from the chain of command, either because they are deep cover operatives, or possibly because they are the only survivors of a larger team (in which case it seems logical that this is because the entire team was betrayed, possibly by a high ranking official, so the campaign could focus on them needing to gather proof of this in order to clear their names and have Imperial justice be served - similar to the film 'The Losers').

One other problem you might face is are the players up for an Imperial campaign? I only mention this as an Imperial Campaign was one of my ideas for my current campaign, however 2 of my players had concerns about playing Imperials, as they didn't want to be the bad guys and all that it might entail.
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"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."

[WillTasker]

[Urban Spaceman]

[CRMcNeill]

WEG does have some information on the matter. See the SWRPG 2R&E rulebook, page 202, bottom section.

There is also a large portion of Heroes & Rogues dedicated to Imperial character templates and how to play them.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

[Sutehp]

[Falconer]

There are two kinds of Imperial characters which would appeal to me.

1. Black knight in service to the Emperor. Like Darth Vader in SW77, or Mara Jade, or the Operative from Serenity. You have a free hand to execute justice across the Galaxy, as long as you use your power wisely, and don’t screw up. Still, it seems defection is inevitable, since you serve evil incarnate.

2. Post-Endor naval officer. A Pellaeon or, perhaps even better, a Parck or Baron Fel. You want to restore the glory and good discipline of the Empire, hopefully without resorting to superweapons or the Dark Side. You’ve shed that baggage, and you still get Star Destroyers and Walkers, and your scrappy Imperial Remnant is the underdog—what’s not to love? Well, the downside is that a RPG campaign doesn’t usually lend itself to that grand strategic scale.

[ReverendKeaton]

I am still not sure how I am going to do this third arc. My players have two sets of characters so far that are playing through two different arcs. One is a rebel spec ops team that I kind of dumped on them as a side shot and they became attached too. The other is a group of freelancers are getting their strings pulled by an unknown source.

I want to introduce them to another angle. The only thing I can consistently figure is making the things they have to do as Imperials be so horrid they want to defect. Which is probably how I will do it in the next story arc.

[JediJones]

Some GMs mentioned this, and it was my experience with running an Imperial campaign, that the stratified nature of the imperial military is at odd with role-playing culture where everyone is equal at the gaming table.
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