Star Wars role-playing game (WEG)
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| Star Wars The Roleplaying Game |
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|---|---|
 Second Edition Revised and Expanded cover |
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| Designer(s) | Greg Costikyan |
| Publisher(s) | West End Games |
| Publication date | 1987 (1st Edition) 1992 (2nd Edition) 1996 (2nd Edition Revised and Expanded) |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| System | Custom (Precursor to D6 System) |
Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game is a role-playing game set in the Star Wars universe, written and published by West End Games between 1987 and 1999. A later but unrelated Star Wars RPG was published by Wizards of the Coast in 2000.
The game, based on WEG's earlier Ghostbusters RPG, established much of the groundwork of what later became the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and their sourcebooks are still frequently cited by Star Wars fans as reference material. Lucasfilm considered their sourcebooks so authoritative that when Timothy Zahn was hired to write what became the Thrawn trilogy, he was sent a box of West End Games Star Wars books and directed to base his novel on the background material presented within.
Many sourcebooks and adventure supplements were published for the game during its run through three editions. WEG's license to produce Star Wars material was lost after the company declared bankruptcy in 1998, and was later picked up by Wizards of the Coast.
In 1989 the game was licensed and translated to Swedish by the Swedish gaming company Äventyrsspel (Target Games). A few supplements were translated and published in the years 1989 and 1990.
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[edit] Trivia
In the early 1990s, before the advent of the modern Internet, the FidoNet Star Wars Echo ran a message forum for playing the West End Games Star Wars Role-Playing Game on-line on computer bulletin board systems.
The game also gathered a large internet following via such mailing lists such as the SW-RPG Mailing List. Which also aided many players in meeting up and finding places to play together, via message board or IRC (Internet Relay Chat).
[edit] Spinoffs
[edit] Solitary Adventures
The Luke Skywalker and Han Solo adventures were a kind of Choose Your Own Adventure book. The Imperial Doublecross gamebook used the Star Wars d6 rules and character's die codes. The Lightsaber Dueling Pack and Starfighter Battle Book were picture gamebooks, presenting viewpoint series of pictures and the possible next courses of action, similar to Ace of Aces.
[edit] Board games
Four board games were published and coincided along with the RPG.
- Star Warriors
- Escape from the Death Star
- Assault on Hoth
- Battle for Endor
[edit] Other
A miniature wargaming rules set were written in 1989, called Star Wars Miniatures Battles.
[edit] External links
- West End Games, Company Website
- The Rancor Pit, a site dedicated to the game
- SWRPGNetwork, a site with content for both versions of the game, and conversions between the two
- The Rebellion, a fansite with conversions for the D20 stats to D6 from various sources
