Alternate timelines

[Eiren]

Has anyone here run a Star Wars campaign using your own madeup timeline, deviating for the movies/books/official SW history?

If so what are some of the things you've done? I'm interested to hear.
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[noctum_carpe]

You might wanna check out the star wars comics infinitys, for insperation.
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[Ankhanu]

All the games I have played have deviated from established canon in some way... that or else they've happened in regions not covered by the official material.

As long as the theme of Star Wars is maintained, Canon isn't THAT important. It's important to keep things in mind and understand how the official stuff comes together, but to outright avoid good storylines because it deviates from what's on the screen and pages, well, you're limiting yourself.
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[Eiren]

I've run quite a few alternate timelines and played in quite a few as well.

Here's a couple off the top of my head:

One I ran for a friend of mkine who wanted to play a young jedi. I followed the timelines up until Episode IV. His character was a young speederbike courier. He was more or less a street rat, knew alot about life on the streets, high streetwise, etc. There was a homeless bum who he had befriended and the two become relatively close. The bum was actually a failed jedi but he was old enough to have fought in the clone wars. Everything was moving along normally until the beginning of Episode IV which is around the time this campaign started. The bum felt a tremor in the force, it wasn't Alderaan though, it was Obi-Wan and Luke being killed on Tatooine by Vader.

In a nutshell this left Leia as someone who could become the galaxy's great hope but with no one to train her or show her the ways of the force there wasn't much chance of that happening. The failed jedi had known the PC was force sensitive and even had very minor force abilities and came to the realization that unless he took it upon himself to begin training the PC, there would be no hope for the Galaxy.

Basically the PC took the place of Luke as the big hero.



Another one I played in was something the GM of our game had come up with and wanted to run in a one on one setting. He came up with the idea of Palpatine having a son (I think I read somewhere that palpatine actually did have a son in the storyline, but this was before we had ever found that out). He wanted Palpatine's son (whose name was Keff) to be a dark jedi, reasonably strong at the start of the campaign, but striving to return to the light side. The story was set after RotJ but before the Thrawn Trilogy. I suppose it wasn't TOO much of a deviation from the original storyline, but Keff wound up changing much of the future storyline through his actions.



And an idea my nephew and I had this morning as I was driving him to school was:

Yoda is old. Very old. Sometimes people who are very old start to deteriorate mentally and physically. So we have really old Yoda who goes into exile in a swamp for 19 years with no one to talk to, no one to interact with, no one to keep him company and no way off the planet and the reason he is here is because the Emperor kicked his little butt and the former padawan who he never thought should be trained as a jedi in the first place betrayed him and all jedi and now the two of them are flying around the galaxy in big ole ships stomping out innocent people who get in there way and ruling the galaxy like a couple of high and mighty egotistical punks.

So Yoda snaps, goes nuts, and turns to the dark side. Now when Luke shows up in Ep V Yoda doesn't train him to be a jedi to defeat Palpatine and Vader, instead he turns him to the dark side to be an ally of his to go exact revenge on Palpatine and Vader. Luke has a ship afterall and can get him off world finally but only after his training is complete.

We didn't get much further than that but basically Yoda begins using dark side powers to maintain his failing health so he can live long enough to get his revenge. This is the core tennet of him turning to the dark side. Not so much that he is totally insane or desires to be evil, just that he has alot of time to stew and wallow and suffer and his slightly deteriorating mental state combined with everything else makes him thirst for revenge which is what leads himto use dark side powers which is what turns him and makes him evil.

I really actually like this storyline and am considering using it in the young jedi campagin I'm running for my GF. She's seen all the movies now so it'll be a nice twist to throw at her to keep her on her toes especially since right now she is between Ep IV and V. She's seen the movie timelines being followed so I don't think she'd be expecting this, hehe.




So anyone else have anything to share?
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"Could someone please Jury-Rig my Wookiee?!"

Troops: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO6rqAJ3mGc

[vong]

that looks cool

I am in one game on the pit with Kryat, and the alternate timeline is that At endor, luke turned to the dark side, and became an instrument of evil for the emperor.
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[Esoomian]

I like that game/timeline. I hope it starts up again.
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[Ankhanu]

I think it's just held up in terms of player input.


One of the biggest deviations we had from established timelines (as most, as mentioned, didn't really involve the main plots/world/people of the canon material) was in one of the last games my table top group actually played; Imperial Regime. We played Imperials and, among the major changes we made to the continuum, we saved the Death Star, consequently, destroying Yavin (taking out Leia, C-3PO and other major figures who were not in starfighters), and, towards the end, ended up killing Luke. It was somewhat plagued by silliness though, so, while it covered some serious events, too many NPC characters were running gags for it to be as enjoyable as it could have been.

Additionally, I'm playing another PbP game on another forum that is an alternate future, about 1000 years (or so) ahead that ignores most of the established EU stuff and creates its own late history.
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[Revenant]

None of my games ever really follow the time line. I play them usually well after the fall of the Empire (about 250 years after). The Jedi Academy on Yavin is pretty much as it was before the Empire, and the Shadow Academy is their only real concern.

The Sith are the main problem in my games. After the Empire fell and the Jedi were struggling to get back on their feet, instead of the Vong moving and throwing loud parties it was the Sith instead.

As you may have guessed the 'rule of two' is usually out the window in my games. There are normally two Sith Lords, master and apprentice, but there are several other sith who step up to the plate: sith marauders, sith warriors, sith warlocks, etc...

So far they don't control very much territory on their own, but they pretty much assimilated what was left of the Imperial Remnant which gave them a massive amount of power.

[TheDoctor]

I have had mixed feelings in general with the spin-off novels that take place after ROTJ, so I don't generally consider them to be an "official" timeline. Therefore I'm sometimes open to running my own timeline in the post ROTJ era.

I've also thought of running a campaign taking place 1,000 or so years after ROTJ, but I haven't gotten to it yet.
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[TheCrazyDuro]

I am currently running a game where I plan to have the groups employer use his own racial prejudice to convince Palpatine to kill the Jedi(more so then already, that is). I always find it is well to change timeline a little, but where it can still be considered canon
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[Sith'Ari Lizanthrin]

I usually start with tossing the Vong out the window after embracing some of the EU prior to their appearance.

From there my timeline progresses into a new era that depends on the group and my desires.

One Timeline was-

The Imperial remnant fell to the New Sith Order relatively fast, being that they are used to being lorded over by Dark Force users. We are not talking Krayt here but a game timeline that developed long before that story was conceptualized. Lady Kian Tar has formed a new order of Sith, discarding the rule of two she instead focuses on training an entire order. As her power base increased and war became imminent (she broke the no fire accords that had been set up in our timeline) her numbers grew, bolstered by those who "could not hack it" as Jedi. There are always more people willing to take the easy route than the noble hard route. thus the Sith Empire was re-formed in name.

The Galactic war that ensued cost many lives, among them Luke Skywalker who fell to Lord Magi (Kian's lover) and Mara Jade Skywalker. When the timeline was "done" (ie as far as the story went) The Sith Empire was coming to a point of acceptance of the Republics surrender.


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In another variation though less large overall, the Krayt timeline was modified to make Talon the head of the New Sith Order, primarilly because of the lack of "leading lady" force users throughout the canon.


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My namesake comes from a current long term game I have been in. It deviates again on the Vong, as the GM picked up the mantle to ease pressure off me and we see eye to eye on the Vong. But after that some major changes are.

--Jacen did not get redemption, when we aided in his capture someone used a Force Severing on him (ala what he did to Ben) and we tossed him in prison for life sans the Force.

--Ancient arts have been springing up allowing us to integrate little known EU force powers/abilities/sorceries

--The primary characters are very odd, so odd I won't talk about them here, too many heavy SW players may poke me for the oddness of it ^_~ its fun, but odd. If asked I will divulge the story in its entirety in its own thread.

--We have had a good deal of contact with Luke and Leia, but we have not affected there storyline so much as interacted around it.

--No one dropped a moon on Chewie.

--A couple new races were introduced in place of threats that happened in the galaxy.

--As oppossed to Vong, the major "Anti-Force" baddies were a genetically engineered race made by insidious minds in the Imperial Remnant.

The females were trained to hunt force users and were programmed to work in teams of 3. Nasty little bitc-es with a small Yslimari like effect that they had a conscious control of and could combine with positioning, as well as having the force "slip" off them. They were extremely well conceived opponents and tracking down the facilities that they were being created in was a major part of the story. They provided a great challenge and tested the players compassion, seeing little girls cloned, and brainwashed to be good little killers touched the players making the enemy also memorable as a sad testament to men's corruption. Girls came in a few different types as the story evolved and the sick b@st@rd* behind their creation adapted to our meddling, Alpha girls, Iteration 3 girls, Marko Projects, and the 3 Nagas. They each were variations on the idea, and dealing with each provided new challenges. Jsut when you thought you had em pegged kind of hooks.

The males were conditioned instead of programmed to hunt, rape and cannibalize the girls. Yes you read that right, they were "clean" up, girl escapes, goes rogue, or fails, send a Sextant project after her. The Imperial Remnant had taken boys at about 1 year of age and locked them in a white walled cell with a hole to piss and crap in. They were fed minimally, in the form of a paste through a thin tube that kept them from dying but left them slightly starved and dehydrated. Every morning a trained girl would come in and beat the living hell out of them. Eventually they came to fear the very scent of the girls and the isolation and torture drove them mad by a couple years of age, feral if you will. One morning they wake up to the scent of a female of their race, cringing they don't dare open their eyes, lest the beating start. Another scent hits their nose. Coppery, curious they look up to find not an older girl, but instead a younger one, cut in numerous places and unconscious, carefully they edge closer and curious pokes give way to a feral rage at their mistreatment by things that smell like this. Before you know it the girl is dead, the boy coated in blood. Warm, rich, life sustaining blood. One taste is all the starved boy needs in most cases, failures are of course eliminated at this point. This twisted warping of young males protective nature, making it into something sadistic was probably one of the most face blanching things I have encountered in a game. To be honest, I will remember those images in my mind...forever.



Alexis Dority
*smiles*

[l0mathon]

In my current game, I am using the Clone Wars as a backdrop, but created a sector for the group to move around in. Rather than focus on the Republic and CIS, I created two new races that will eventually renew a war from 500 years ago that nearly wiped out both species. The only things I intend to use from established storyline/movies are some NPCs, and of course, Order 66 when the time is right...

The other long-term game I ran a few years back involved the return of god-like Force Lords to the galaxy after centuries of inactivity and/or exile. That game took place starting slighting after Episode IV and ended a year or two after Jedi. Aside from the Rebellion and Empire duking it out in the background, I avoided most of the official storyline.
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[Lostboy]

Im thinking of a setting with a female version of vader(It's only the differance between an x and a y chromosome.) and im looking for a good picture, preferably one with a redesigned helmet that looks appropriotly sinister, if anyone has one or wants to make one i would appreciate it.

P.S. Ill give more info on the setting later, i'm a bit pressed for time right now.