Characters from the Films

[McKinley]

who here has used them in their adventures? Which characters did you use, and what role did they play?

I once had Lando drop the PC's off on a planet. I have also used General Veers as a returning villain.
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-The Wookie has no pants-

[Ankhanu]

The only game we played where the man characters were used was an alternate timeline/events game in which we followed the events of the movies... but from an Imperial perspective. My character was a secret Sith (The other characters didn't know, and there was no overt Force use), and headed a special Imperial strike team under Palpatine's command. My character was a direct rival of Vaders, though monumentally less powerful, but seeking to remove Vader from Palpatine's favour... Vader saw him as a pest to be destroyed... but couldn't due to the Emperor's wishes.

Yavin was destroyed, and Leia and C-3P0 went with it. The characters had a scuffle with Solo and Chewbacca while trying to get off Yavin before it's destruction (they were trying to steal the Falcon as a getaway... ultimately they ended up on a small barge to escape)... and Vader killed my character on Cloud City.
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[masque]

I've had Wedge pop up a few times, but that's about it. Never as a major figure in the campaign, though, just cameos.
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Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

[Gry Sarth]

I occasionally use film characters, where appropriate. I've had Leia giving medals to heroes, Ackbar or Wedge giving mission briefings, Luke giving a budding Jedi a pep talk or IG-88 being a general menace. However, I usually don't get film characters too involved in the adventure itself.

For a deeper level of involvement I'll usually use EU characters, like Booster and Mirax Terrik, Borsk Fey'lya, Kolot, Nawara Ven or Platt O'keefe.
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[FightingCorsair]

I've tried to avoid bringing in major characters. Mostly I've just used the denizens of Jabba's palace or the cantina. Characters that only the deep fans would recognize. Though the characters did choose to go see Jabba once.

I like the idea of medals or missions being handed out by note worthy characters.

I try to keep my players the heroes of the story. Too many appearances by the film heroes could diminish that.

[Grimace]

I've only had mentions of the film characters in my games. I once had people talking about Luke Skywalker and another time I had the PCs intercept communications explaining that Lord Vader had arrived at the very starport they were at. Needless to say, Vader made a much more lasting impression. My players were actually quite intimidated by the mere mention that he was on the station. I didn't even have to bring him within sight, but I did. He didn't do anything to the PCs, as he was just walking down a hallway to have a "meeting" with the station commander, and the PCs were at the opposite end doing their best to get away as quickly and unnoticed as they could.

Other than that, I haven't really used any other characters from the films.

[DarthMortis]

[masque]

Aside from the occasional cameo of a film character, I like to have the players bump up against the movies in certain ways. Our last campaign was a a gunrunning one, where the players were smugglers, running advanced tech from the Corporate Sector to the Rebellion, and standard military arms and supplies from the Rebellion to the Trianii Resistance in the Corporate Sector.

One of the pieces of tech they "acquired" and provided to the Rebellion were new, humano-type prosthetics, the same type as Luke uses to replace his hand at the end of ESB. I liked to do subtle things like that, so that the players were affecting the canon, even if only in small ways.
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Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

[garhkal]

There has been some groups i have allowed interaction with film characters (or just novel ones) and others i dreded the thought..., Heck one group almost TPKed themselves when i brought vader onto the space port they were, as he was there to 'Accept the apologies of the station commander for screwing up' and the group decided to try and take him out...
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[mastereji]

The only main character from the movies that i have used was Leia (though she was in disguise) and the PCs never even knew who she was (though some suspected). She briefly came upon them as they were completing their mission and it took place across from where Leia and some other rebels were picking up much needed medical supplies for the Rebellion. One other character (from the EU books) that I have used multiple times is Mara Jade. The PCs were an up and coming bounty hunter group that was hunting down a lost sister of a high-ranking Imperial official (who didnt at the time know she was Force-sensitive). During their tracking her down they found out that she was force-sensitive due to one PC in the group being force-sensitive and having 1D in Sense. Well, during their "hunt" they were beset by pirates and heavily out-gunned and basically were going to be annihilated until an ISD shows up and scares off the pirates. Well they were then really scared until they were hailed by the ISD (and not shot at) and a hooded female basically demanded due to them saving them that they turn over some "dusty old scrolls" (actually Sith Scrolls) that they had received as a partial payment for an earlier job (though they had no clue). Needless to say, one guy in the group is always opposing demands by his "superiors" and basically had to be "intimidated" into complying with opposing Intimidate check (by Mara) vs his paltry Willpower check. He lost, badly, by like 25 or more. Anyways, they have come across her like 2 to 3 other times and each time they are basically scared witless (and they still have no clue who she is, though a couple of the more knowledgable players suspect). Basically, I feel that the main movie or EU universe characters should be backdrop or there for flavor, that the PCs are the "heroes" of the campaign.
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"Remember the PCs are just putty in your hands"

[YodaWI]

I ran the "Free the Forgotten" mission which has Han extracting the characters after completing their tasks.

Also, I was a character in a mission in which our group of characters was on board "The Wheel" spacestation at the same time the Empire was trying to capture Han, Leia, Luke, and Chewie on the station. My character was stuck in about a no win situation when the quartet showed up at the other end of the corridor, surprising the stormtroopers.
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"May the Force Be With You."

[Redmenace]

I'll do it but I have a unwritten rule that the major stars of the movies don't appear but supporting cast are fine.

Mon Mothma awarding the pilot-PCs who faught in the battle of Endor is fine, 4-Lom and Zuckuss being on the party's trail is fine, but Leia and or Boba Fett appearing probably wouldn't be.

The PCs are the "Big Damn Heroes" which I think makes the drama better .

[hisham]

Luke Skywalker himself popped up in the 6th or 7th session of my old, long-time campaign I GMed. I made it so it happened during one of his many minor missions during his early days in the Rebellion just after the Battle of Yavin.

The scenario was simple: Luke and the players' main NPC commander were captured and incarcerated on Golrath. The PCs have to sneak in and bust them out.

Years later in the same campaign (both in real time and campaign time), the group was playing during Dark Horse Comics' Dark Empire period. The PCs had a mission to extract someone from Coruscant which was a battle zone thanks to the Imperial Civil War. They rode in on Lando's Star Destroyer which crashed on Coruscant before the comic began. But in the course of the game, the PCs were captured, escaped, got in many fights... until they came face to face with Luke Skywalker, Dark Side Adept, who was discretely aiding their escape out of Imperial Palace. That was quite a shock for the players, knowing that Luke had joined the Palpatine clone, but was still helping them to escape.

That's it. No appearances of Leia, Han, Chewie or the droids.

When I played in a Clone Wars campaign some years back, Senator Yarua, the Wookiee senator from The Phantom Menace was a major NPC in one story arc.
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The Enteague Sector | Cracken's Collection of Crackpots
In D6, of course.

[Chandra Mindarass]

In my games, the movie, game and novel characters make cameo appearances. They rarely, if ever have any importance to the campaign. That might change after the battle of Endor.

As I'm using a non-EU compatible world (original trilogy canon), the major characters are probably at different places, than they would be in the novels. We are a few months past Episode IV. Yavin is abandoned, the A-Wing has just been introduced and Vader has yet to find out the identity of the Force-sensitive, that blew up the Death Star.

The characters are part of a Rebel "ghost fleet" that hides Mon Mothma and other key Alliance politicians, so Mon Mothma features heavily. The ghost fleet has a modified Hoersch&Kessel droid control ship as HQ and uses much of its ragtag fleet for pirate activity. Kyle Katarn is working on his beard here.

The supreme command under Dodonna/Riekan is - as we all know - the group that also hosts the main heroes. They are momentarily stranded on some make-shift asteroid base and have yet to discover Hoth.

The Mon Calamari fleet under Admiral Ackbar is still only building up at a secret location. The Home One has just been completed, the B-Wing is being developed and all the MC subvariants are being manufactured as part of the "Secret Fleet Project".

In my games there are lots of local groups; the Duro group, the Sullust group, they sometimes host some minor characters from the movies, like Nien Nunb or Tarrful.

Han sometimes works as a courier between the supreme command and Mothma, so the Falcon sometimes shows up or they even get to talk to Chewbacca in the Cantina. Awwr-rooaaahhhr-wrrrrr...hours of fun.

I should add, that all my players are veteran gamers and don't act like fanboys. "OMG! U R Lars Vader sign my helmet, sign my helmet!"
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>-q=p---

[Bulldogzeta]

I've used characters from the film but they have had little real contact with my players characters. They are mostly used to move a plot along in cases where my players are involved in something from one of the movies such as the attack on the second Death Star.

The only film character I use on a recurring basis is General Cracken, and I'm not certain how much screen time (if any) he had. I use him because of how often he was used in various West End products. All other film characters I've used have seldom been more than cameo appearances.