WEG Stereotyped Aliens

[Whill]

WEG fluffed and statted some characters as stereotypes of their species. Here are 13 examples that stand out in my mind. The sources used here were early WEG: The Star Wars Sourcebook, and Galaxy Guides 1, 3, 4, and 5.

Momaw Nadon - He was a nature-loving high priest of Ithorians, a species who worships nature.

Greedo - WEG gave him the attributes exactly matching Bounty Hunter PC template. His original WEG capsule states he is a bounty hunter which is an honored profession of Rodians. On Rodia they hunt for sport, and out in the galaxy they are commonly ruthless hunters who Hutts are fond of employing.

Ponda Baba - He was a criminal who pushed Luke and didn't like him for no reason. "Aqualish are a people with nasty, belligerent dispositions" with "occupations where violence and hatred were considered benefits."

Lak Sivrak - He was "a scout of some skill" who "never speaks to anyone" and "spends most of his time out of touch with civilization." He was statted out with 6D in survival. Shistavanens were "quiet beings" and "regarded as possibly the best scouts in the Empire." Their superior "survivals skills make them ideal first explorers of unknown and untamed worlds."

Ellorrs Madak - He was a Duros who was a starship hanger bay owner, piloting instructor, and former scout. Duros typically had spacer professions.

Bossk - He was a renown bounty hunter who hated Wookiees, and he "developed quite a reputation as a Wookiee hunter." Trandoshans were an enemy species of the Wookiees. They were the ones who suggested that the Empire enslave Wookiees, and "many Trandoshans volunteered to hunt down all renegade Wookiees who escaped enslavement."

Zuckuss - He was a Gand Findsman, and "being a Gand Findsman was a time-honored tradition on Gand."

Bib Fortuna and Oola - "Twi’leks are known throughout the galaxy as clever and resourceful, though ruthless businessmen. Bib Fortuna is no exception." The Twi'lek homeworld was known for exporting spice and slaves (selling their own people into slavery, especially women). Bib Fortuna was a spice smuggler before he cleverly became Jabba's major domo, and Oola was a slave woman.

Jabba the Hutt - He was an egomaniacal crime lord, and Hutts were egomaniacs known for organized crime.

Barada - He was one of Jabba's indentured servants, and many Klantooinians are indentured servants to Hutts.

Tessek - Quarren harbored a deep hated of their Mon Calamari brothers so betrayed them to the Empire. Tessek was a trusted ally of Jabba who secretly sold information to the Empire and plotted to overthrow Jabba.

Nien Nunb - He is quite a pilot and navigator who dislikes SoroSuub and likes to laugh. Sullustans are "known throughout the galaxy as able pilots and navigators." The "majority of Sullustans" dislike SoroSuub. "The race has a sense of humor."

Can you think of other examples?

Do you embrace the alien types or do you change the species fluff for your game? Even with embracing the species fluff, does your game have characters who fulfill the types, oppose the types, or both? Is it only PCs that can be exceptions?

NPC-wise, I personally enjoy having alien characters that reinforce the types then slipping in rarer characters who defy expectations for that species. I encourage players to play an alien PC against species type.
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[garhkal]

For the most part, yes i do embrace those stereotypes. Its rare that i do not do anything out of the ordinary with those..
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[MrNexx]

I view them as stereotypes... the thing people tend to believe about every alien they come across, regardless of its applicability to the individual.

For example, Rodians. One of the largest cultures on Rodia corresponds to those bounty hunter stereotypes. But there's a lot of Rodian cultures, and not everyone who is part of the bounty hunter culture is a bounty hunter or bounty hunter adjacent. That group still has droid techs, pilots, and scholars... they're just not what everyone expects from a Rodian.

Most of the time, NPCs will treat you according to the Story Factors of your race, until they get to know you. People might initially assume Hera Syndula is like any other twi'lek... but she'll quickly disabuse them of that notion.

While I tend to view the galaxy as being pretty racist in this regard, it's also pretty cosmopolitan in most places. So, while they'll assume a Rodian is a bounty hunter, or a twi'lek is a schemer, they'll relatively quickly figure out that Cid the Trandoshan isn't the same as Bossk the Trandoshan (and, woah, Cid is voiced by Rhea Pearlman!)
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[Dredwulf60]

I hated the stereotypes and was one of my pet peeves about the entire EU. It feels incredibly lazy.
Can you imagine if one applied the same logic to other movies? It would get pretty ridiculous. Like, pick any movie and imagine that every character in it was suddenly an archetype for their profession and nationality/ Culture (since most movies don't depict other species).

You watch Indiana Jones and come to the conclusion that every archaeologist prefers to wear fedoras and get into adventures. The bull whip is their sacred tool/ backup weapon. They train for years in Archaeology Academy on how to effectively use it to swing from. No one else has the dexterity required to use one effectively without that extensive training.



The one I hate the worst is Bothans. Since many Bothans died to bring the secret plans...suddenly Bothans are a species of spies and their entire planetary society is based around secret information brokering.

Makes me irritated just thinking about it.

[Whill]

Bothans are a great example, and they only appeared in film dialogue. And that was Zahn himself who made a stereotype out of the Rebel spies mentioned in the film.

I was annoyed by the alien stereotyping as a young GM playing 1e, but I got over it. My compromise was to consider the types as describing as little as 51% of the species, and include characters that go against type in the game. I've had multiple players that chose to play alien PCs that went against type, which I encourage and enjoy. But for the rest of the species, it is up to me to include some diversity as NPCs.
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[Dredwulf60]

To be fair, the later movies did, intentionally or not, ignore the stereotypes.

In the background of the prequels you see Rodians who don't appear, based on the context of the scene to be bounty hunters. They are just galactic citizens.

Almost like GL didn't consider the EU very important.

[Whill]

[TauntaunScout]

West End's stereotyping was greatly amplified in the retelling. People on the internet in the last umpteen years tended to replace "many" with "all".

I try to see if it makes sense when you replace a species name with "Scottish" and the job or whatever with "bagpipers". "All Scottish people play bagpipes" is ridiculous while "Many Scottish people are hired as bagpipers" is not.

[Whill]

[TauntaunScout]

[Dredwulf60]

[Whill]

[TauntaunScout]

To an extent the stereotypes are the result of dealing with a species instead of a culture, too. Human stereotypes based on one data point (with basically one exception) are less accurate than guessing. However if you tried to apply them across species? If all I knew was a species I could make some VERY broad AND accurate guesses about how that individual of horse or cat varied from a boiler-plate human.

The natural abilities of ugnaughts or rodians might come into play quite a bit in the mixed-species economy of Star Wars. Try as I might, I can never compete to do the job of a drug-sniffing dog.

[CRMcNeill]

[Whill]