Experiences with Tales of the Jedi Companion book campaign?

[Barrataria]

I was scribbling some thoughts for a pre-TOTJ campaign (maybe 5500 BBY), and as I started googling around to select a planet the results led me right back to the adventure setup included in this book. My general ideas were more or less the same as the book campaign: the player(s) to be supporting the Muzara colonization effort by the Brentaal League on that planet. I have a longtime player who really likes planetary adventures (sword and planet, really) so I think this might be a workable way to scratch multiple itches at once.

Although I enjoyed the TOTJ comics, I'm a lot less interested in the whole Jedi-Sith thing than I am in the cooptation of other Force traditions by the Jedi. The Sith will still end up excommunicated, but other non-Darkside traditions will compete with and wither or join the Jedi over time. All that won't play out over this campaign of course but it fills in some backstory I've wanted to add to my New Republic era setting too. This also lets me ignore the KOTOR stuff I'm not so familiar with too.

I'll share more thoughts on the setting once I have them, but I'm curious if anyone did more than run the Ruins adventure in the TOTJ Companion book.

And as an aside, a lot of my thoughts are along the lines of those vanir posted here: http://www.rancorpit.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4210&highlight=tales+jedi

Anyway, any experiences with the TOTJ Companion campaign would be appreciated. Maybe you adapted material from another game system, looked to movies or books for inspiration, etc.
_________________
"A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing"- George Lucas

[CRMcNeill]

I have never played a campaign in the TOTJ era; I use the sourcebook exclusively as a Force powers guide, as well as material for fleshing out Jedi campaigns. I prefer to play in the classic or new republic era.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Barrataria]

And thanks crmacneill, maybe no one else has used the TotJ canned adventure.

I'm going to ask a more general question now for whoever might read this...what kind of personal weaponry do you think was in common use about 500 years before TotJ?

Specifically, regular sci-fi firearms? Although I've thought about adding firearms to an SW campaign, I feel like they would be a little to Earth-y for a setting that seems like it should be even more space opera than the later periods in SW.

Right now, I'm thinking the most common weapons in military service are laser pistols and rifles and Gauss (needler) guns and pistols. Some of these leak into civilian service, principally the lasers, but civilians (including those on the frontier worlds where play will probably be focused) are more likely to own a "smoothbore", either a semi-auto pistol (but with no rifling in the barrel) or a shotgun-like weapon, with beanbag or gas rounds available in addition to "scattershot" or slugs. These might be air-powered or something else, sort of like the semi-magic gun mechanism in Joel Rosenberg's "Guardians of the Flame". Still pondering.

Other weapons will exist, like heat guns or sonic weapons or gyrojet pistol/rifles, but those will be limited to experimental/advanced situations or alien cultures.

On the one hand, I love Firefly/Serenity and Traveller and 2300AD... but on the other hand, I'm wrestling with the weird problem of making retro tech (like, from 5,000 years before) for a futuristic universe. I like vanir's thinking for his campaign, but I feel like firearms don't quite fit in what I have in mind. Notwithstanding that many of the combatants in the TotJ comics seem to be using firearms

Thanks for reading this far.
_________________
"A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing"- George Lucas

[strongarm85]

The real question is how much lore do you want to throw in.

Blasters really came into dominance around the Rise of the Empire weapon.

Slugthrowers are still around during TotJ, but have been largely replaced by early blasters.

Sonic Blasters also exist at this time. If you want to really confuse a Jedi who thinks he's hot stuff deflecting all those blaster bolts, a good way shut him down is to actually use sonic blasters. Sonic Blasters pass through Light Sabers instead of being deflected by them. Although their damage is reduced it can still be lethal.

I might be mistaken, but I don't think Absorb Dissipate works on Sonic attacks, so a Jedi it might encourage Jedi to work on their dodge skills to counteract sonic weapons.

You might also get a bit creative with different types of weapons. Mass Drivers (AKA bullets) make very effective space weapons if there is a technology that exists that speeds the bullets up to a fraction of the speed of light that was perhaps abandoned later because of the incredible amount of energy required to accelerate the bullets.

There are also stuff like concussion weapons.

[Barrataria]

[Barrataria]

So, I'm hoping to get going on this campaign tomorrow night. If anyone's interested, I fleshed out the Muzara world description, and you can find it here: http://farfargalaxy.wordpress.com/on-the-edge-of-forever/the-republic/sectors-and-worlds/trestis-sector/muzara/

There's other random pages on the Republic, available tech, and so on. I just stuck it on an old blogpage I had started to clean up my old SW campaign notes. If nothing else, you might find a few useful totally non-canon "history" tidbits to throw into your campaign here or there.
_________________
"A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing"- George Lucas

[schnarre]

...Pulse-wave weapons are the predecessor to blasters in this time period, & even later on they are still competitive stat-wise. In handling Jedi, consider Corran Horn the normal type--the monolithic model given in the wretched prequels did not exist at this time (one of the reasons I like the period).
...This era is good for "frontier setting" campaigns--hyperspace travel is much more hazardous (pre-Nav Computer), medical tech is not as advanced as in the Rebellion Era (making ailments potentially more hazardous), & the lack of great central authority means that "fringe" elements are more dangerous (Bogga the Hutt with a decommissioned warship among his assets, for example).
_________________
The man who thinks he knows everything is most annoying for those of us that do.

[Barrataria]