My House Rules

[Naaman]

No. And it works fine. I feel like you may have read through my post too fast, though.

[Kytross]

Black Sun

Black Sun is the largest criminal organization inside the Republic. Their influence is great in the core and the colonies, but lessens the farther rimward you travel.

The Black Sun is essentially the space mafia. There are Dons, and bosses and underbosses and made men and anything else you've ever seen in a gangster movie or TV show.

Black Sun makes a great enemy in any time period. The upper level members of Black Sun beat the Jedi in the courtrooms, not on the streets. If you're playing in classic you may owe them a loan on your star ship, or be buying blasters from them for the rebellion, or some such.

[CRMcNeill]

[Kytross]

Hutt Space and the Hutts

There are two major political organizations in known space: The Republic/Empire and Hutt Space.

Ten thousand years ago the Republic and the Hutts were at war. The resulting peace came as the Hutts began to understand that the Republic was not a threat to them. The Republic did not expand through warfare but through diplomacy and exploration. The Hutt clans realized they could make ridiculous amounts of money by selling guns and vice to the Republic, and retain their individual kingdoms.

Hutt Space is not a single unified government, but a number of kingdoms each with their own set of laws, each run by a different Hutt or Hutt family/clan. Hutt kingdoms often allow vices the Republic does not. Hutts are considered gangsters by most people in the Republic and their exploits are hyperbolically exaggerated.

Each Hutt Kingdom maintains a combat fleet. Full-blown internecine war in Hutt space is rare, but not unheard of, while skirmishes between different kingdoms/clans is quite common.

Before the Clone Wars the Republic Fleet was smaller than the smallest Hutt Kingdom Fleet. But the Republis Fleet was always kept to a minimum, the individual sector fleets were the largest fleets inside the Republic, as previously noted.

There are two reasons Hutt Space stayed independent during the Empire. The first is the Hutt Fleets. The Imperial fleet is larger than the Hutt Fleets, but the Hutt Fleets still were too large of an obstacle for the Imperial fleet to want to attempt conquering during the first 19 years of the Empire's existence. The second reason is that the Hutts did not pose a physical threat to the Empire. If anything it was easier to exploit the Empire's vices than it was the Republic. There were no longer Jedi fighting Hutt Crime.

While most vices are legal in most of Hutt Space, they are illegal in the Republic, which makes the importing of vices to the Republic a lucrative business. Of course, smuggling is illegal and has legal ramifications.

Hutt clans use warriors in powered armor to combat Jedi Knights. Depending on the Jedi and the powered armor, it can be a fair fight, but it can also be slanted in either direction.

[Whill]

Kytross, thanks for posting about Hutt Space and bumping this thread. I had forgotten all about this thread and I really enjoy your stuff. Please, keep it coming!
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[Kytross]

The Old Republic

The Old Republic is a fractious mess of a million odd star systems all convinced that while their system of government isn't perfect, everyone else's is far worse. Cohesion is not a word any sane person would ever use to describe the Old Republic. Yet they existed for ten thousand years (generations?) in a state of general peace. How did they accomplish this?

Jedi magic. Space wizards.

Let's take a closer look at how the Republic is set up.

The highest level of government is the Republic itself. Governed by the Galactic Senate on Coruscant the Senate contains representatives from every member world. In later years large business factions joined together and petitioned the Senate for representation. Very few laws actually get passed by the Senate, as getting a million member worlds to agree to anything is quite difficult. They did agree slavery was illegal.

The Republic maintained a minimal Space Navy. Up until the final days of the Republic most military capital ships were no bigger than a Corellian Corvette. These ships were few and far between and were mostly used to support the Jedi. Many Sector Fleets were larger than the Republic's Navy. The Republic chose to fund Sector Fleets to deal with pirates and smugglers rather than a centralized Republic Navy.

The middle level of government is the Sector Governments. The Senate has broken the Republic up into individual sectors, initially of roughly 100 star systems per sector. 100 is a nice round number. These star systems were grouped by proximity and have nothing else in common. Each Sector is run by a charter agreed upon by the member worlds. Each member world has different wants and needs, so they are all fighting each other over the laws a sector government passes. What is legal in one Sector may be illegal in the next Sector. It is very obvious why smuggling is so common in the Old Republic.

Sectors Fleets were run by the Sector Rangers. Sector Ranger was the general term used for police on the Sector level. Each Sector had different names for their police forces and each group of Rangers ran under different rules. The one rule that bound all Sector Rangers was that their jurisdiction ended at the border of their sector. Sector Rangers mostly dealt with pirates and smugglers.

The lowest level of Government, for our purposes is the Star System Government. These vary wildly from planet to planet, even if the planets are in the same star system. Trandoshans and Wookiees, for example, are from two different planets in the same star system. These planets all have different laws, they make different things legal and illegal and they levy tariffs on each other that can get extreme, based on how much the planetary governments dislike each other.

Planetary governments in the Republic have no set system. Alderaan is a hereditary monarchy. Naboo was an oligarchical elected monarchy with terms of service. Corellia was some form of democracy or republic with no nobility. That's three worlds out of a million.

Most planetary governments had a few ships to defend their planets from piracy. Almost all planets had an armed space station for ships to dock at and unload cargo. Cargo would then be shuttled from the space station to the planet.

This system of government should not work for a population of a million planets. It shouldn't work for more than one planet really. Everyone is in it for themselves. In Earth history empires are held together with armies or economic pressure. How does the Old Republic stay together, let alone be at peace for ten thousand years?

Enter the Jedi.

The Jedi use the force to see threats to the Republic before they happen. They can stop political brushfires before they become too big to handle. They can see threats of war before they happen, and prepare an appropriate response, or cut them off before they happen.

What the Jedi supplied to the Republic was peace. Peace at a discount rate. 1,000 warrior, diplomat monks who took vows of poverty. Peace was cheap.

The Republic grew when outside star systems petitioned the Republic for membership. The Republic didn't conquer, it didn't rule. It governed and offered peace. And the galaxy was happy to have it.

[Kytross]

How the Empire really formed

This is not talked about in history books. Very few people knew the truth and most of them are dead.

Palpatine was the leader of both the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems. The entire Clone Wars was fabricated by one Sith Lord.

How did he do it? How did he manage to start a war when the Jedi had been able to keep peace for ten thousand years? The answer is so simple it is mind boggling.

Before the start of the war, the Confederacy was not a threat to the Republic.

That's it. That is the entire secret. The Confederacy was not a threat to the Republic.

No Sith Magic, no technological marvel, no tricks whatsoever. The Confederacy didn't want to hurt the Republic, they just wanted to leave the Republic and be left alone.

The Jedi detect threats. The Confederacy was not a threat.

To start the war Palpatine needed the Republic to attack the Confederacy. That's exactly what happened at Geonosis.

The Jedi didn't see the attack from the Clones coming because up until order 66 was issued the clones bore the Jedi no ill will, they were not a threat.

Palpatine eliminated the Jedi then reunited the galaxy under his rule and the Empire was formed.

[Kytross]

Thanks Whill! I do my best.

I've got a new game group forming and I want to get all my House rules and my understanding of how the galaxy runs in one easily accessible place.

[Kytross]

I updated a few things in the thread. Especially the post on Hutt Space. Go back and give it a read.

An old house rule I notice I haven't posted yet:

- Starfighter Ion cannon range is not 1-3/7/36

- Starfighter Ion cannon range is 1-3/7/16

Most ranges in this game are a little over double the previous range. So medium doubles short range, and long range doubles medium range, plus a little. There are a few intentional exceptions to this. Ion cannons are not one of them.

This also bring Ion cannons to a shorter range than lasers/blasters.

So with this the ranges for space weapons are not

- Lasers have the longest range
- Next is Ion
- A distant third is missile weapons/torpedoes
- Trailing far behind in last place are tractor beams

Additionally, RAW has Tractor Beams rolled against the ship's hull. I allow a ship to use it's ray shields to add to their roll. Tractor Beams are an energy attack. Ray shields add resistance to energy attacks. That's my entire reasoning.

Note, Ion cannons ignore shields. I include particle shields in that, meaning they roll against your hull code, minus 2D for the particle shields. Even with the shorter range in my games, Ion cannons are quite dangerous.