Star Wars
The Role Playing Game
West End Games Edition
"Back during the height of the Rebellion I heard a Special
Operations man describe a Star Destroyer as 174,000 design flaws
waiting to be exploited."
-- Talon Karrde (Specter of the Past)
Set the way-back machine for the mid-eighties and you would
witness the first publication of Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game by
a company called West End Games. Dispensing with funky shaped dice,
levels, and character classes, the West End Game was easy to learn
and captured the feel (for the most part) of the movies.
The D6 system used by the WEG game went through several changes as
it applied to the Star Wars game. We tend to play with a hybrid of
rules, basing our games on First Edition, but using Second edition
rules when they offer improved game play. The Second Edition:
Revised and Expanded was more of a patch to Second Edition than a
major update of the rules. All the changes were made available online
for free.
As the Star Wars Universe expanded, WEG had trouble keeping up, both
with expansions and rules, and financially. The D6 system tried to
expand source material and rules to keep up with an endless flow of
new books and comics adding to the Star Wars myth. In the end, WEG
couldn't keep up with the demands of the Star Wars license. Wizards
of the Coast, formerly TSR, Inc., now owns the Star Wars License and
have published a new Star Wars RPG based on their D20 core rules (which
are based on Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition rules). Wizards of the Coast
has also given up on publishing new D20 Star Wars material. The License is
now held by Fantasy Flight games using a proprietary game system.
The WEG material is out of print. Many of the game books can still
be found on ebay at reasonable prices. Whether the new Fantasy Flight version
will succeed is yet to be seen.
Select one of the links to the left to enter an area of interest.
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