Starting a new smuggler campaing

[SSB_Shadow 46]

Hello. I am trying to start a campaign set in the Old Republic era but I am having a problem with lack of ideas.

What I have planned so far is that the time is set right after the Mandalorian Wars have begun. There are many unexplored planet and undiscovered hyperspace routes still. The common people in the outer rim have grown used to constant warfare and are simply trying to cope with it. This leads to famine, sickness and revolts on local planets, etc. Lots of worrisome times

The party are a group of smugglers who operates from a single ship. They are trying to survive in this hostile, lawless rim while helping those in need by providing them with supplies. They would be going against Mandalorian blockades, Republic restrictions and disputes with other criminals. It would be nice if they had a hub to rest up and receive missions from, sorta like the Phoneix crew in Rebels have their base of operations on Lothal in season 1.

Note: I haven't read the Tales of the Jedi or Old Republic comics with the whole Zayne Carrick plot. I know the overall story but not the details. I have almost every Star Wars FFG books as well as Old Republic campaign guide from Saga edition (Wizards of the Coast). I've played Kotor 1 and 2 but it was a while ago.

So my questions are as follows;

#1: Handling resources
Something I've had trouble with in the past is handling the party economy. The team are supposed to "go hungry" and have to keep themselves working in order to pay for fuel, food and basic needs. What exactly is a good amount of credits to award for a simple errand job to a dangerous job? How much does it cost to fuel a ship and how often would that be needed to be done? When does it have to receive maintenance except for battle damage?
I have read page 151 on EotE and it talks about rewarding supplies instead of money but what kind of "supplies" are valuable except for weapons and armors?
Lastly, how do you handle shops? If a player says she wants to go to the local weapon store, how do you decide whats in there at the moment?
This is a bit of an open question but I am eager to hear your ideas about it.

#2: Main quest
I feel stumped in this area. Being in the Kotor era I feel I can do whatever I want but I feel its TOO big.
Should the Mandalorian be a constant threat to their way of life? A criminal organization such as Czerka or Black Sun could be a thorn in their sides. The Republic, being not so in control at this time, could be trying to enforce themselves in nearby planets.
My current idea I have is that Taris is having a few gangs that are harassing the people as well as the party. The party motivation would be to free themselves and win that big score to become independent. At the same time I want to have room for the iconic morality dilemmas that are common in Kotor games.
(Also, should they start with a group ship? Is it okay if its in a bad quality to encourage them to repair and modify it?)

#3: Limiting character options
I haven't talked to the other players yet what kind of characters they want to play but so far I want this to be primarily Edge of the Empire theme; lots of underworld dealing, smuggling, and all that come with living in the fringe.
Should I allow players to make characters from Careers in the other books? I can see how maybe an Ex-Republic Solider or an Ex-Jedi could join this motley crew but having a fully fledged Soldier or Jedi seem not to fit the theme. What do you think I should do with Age of Rebellion and Force & Destiny accessibility? 

Thanks in advance!

Edited August 20, 2018 by SSB_Shadow
Auto-correct is mean sometimes.

[Archlyte 1,227]

It's Old Republic so I would say don't feel too beholden to canon or other story sources because over time the fact might have shifted significantly. 

#1. My suggestion for the resources thing is that if you want some detail just arrange resources by "units" and give them a bas price per unit for the area. Fuel and Maintenance should be primarily plot dependent I would say, but if you want something more concrete then figure out some acceptable percentage of the overall income and subtract it. Everything just about can be valuable in the right circumstances. You could haul Ice to a Desert World, or any other scarce material. The old standby of Machine Parts is a good one as there is often a need for replacement parts. 

#2. If they start with a ship the gang idea is harder to make work unless they have a tracker on it or something and a fleet of ships to make the PCs life a pain. I would say give them a ship if you are good at being dynamic as a GM. It will also make being a smuggler more fun. You could start small and have them work up to a ship which I think would be even better. 

#3. You are gonna need to be clear about getting characters to fit the theme, but I wouldn't rule out military or Force Sensitive characters unless they are made in such a way that their motivations and goals will remove them from the Smuggler Life hastily. The characters need to be made with the spacer life in mind. 

[whafrog 10,384]

23 hours ago, SSB_Shadow said:

#1: Handling resources

The Far Horizons book has rules for a homestead, which is a business that covers basic costs and keeps the PCs alive, clothed, and in reasonable health.  If they want extra credits, they have to do extra/nefarious work.  I only count credits when it comes to that extra work, and it really only applies to big-ticket items they want.  So if they go to the bar or out for dinner I don't charge them.  (Sometimes "out for dinner" means a big social event which is part of a mission...in which case they might have to buy new clothes, etc, but that's a different issue.)  Any job they do they can save the proceeds for that quad-laser turret upgrade they've been eyeing.

Basically, I don't sweat the day-to-day.  That means you can scale your rewards to the items they really want, and that can give you a handle on how much is a good reward.

As for shopping...this is just me, so take with a grain of salt, but:  there is nothing more boring than going shopping in a game.  Shopping should be done between games, so the session is about story and action.  I never saw Luke or Han in a weapons shop, haggling over blasters or oohing and aahing over equipment stats.  Now if the item is required for the plot, that might be a different matter, but then the "shopping" event should have the potential for action.

23 hours ago, SSB_Shadow said:

#2: Main quest

No problem starting them with a ship.  I wouldn't necessarily encourage them to upgrade/repair it, that should be a decision that arises from the conflicts they face.  If they are consistently out-gunned, they'll either want more guns or faster engines, etc.  You can always push them gently just by the types of encounters they have to face, but you don't have to say anything.

You don't need a big galactic plot if you don't want one.  My longest campaign started very local.  The star system was in a nebula, difficult to reach (populated by a crash-landing 300 years earlier), and only reconnected to the Republic 50 years ago.  Then the Empire showed up as "friends", and I only mentioned this casually at first.  Over time its presence became more sinister, affecting the PCs friends/family, etc and the goal became to drive the Empire out.  But that only evolved after about a year of playing.

23 hours ago, SSB_Shadow said:

#3: Limiting character options

I wouldn't limit anything, unless you don't want to deal with Force users.  The flavour of the character is how it is played, not the career and specs.  My earlier campaign was technically EotE (all about smuggling, crime, etc), but two of the three PCs were AoR characters.  The only real difference in the game line is the use of Obligation vs Duty, but you can use one, both, or neither.  I stuck with Obligation, but only for chargen, then I ignored it.  Never looked at Duty at all.  Duty does show up in a couple of Talents in the AoR line, but those aren't common and we just made them do something else when the Diplomat ran into them.

 

Edited June 21, 2018 by whafrog

[Mark Caliber 881]

Whafrog's advice is all very solid and I endorse his take on pretty much everything.

I do have a couple of techniques that I use for ship maintenance, fuel, food, supplies etc that works VERY well for me.

First the cost for the day to day operations cost 10% of the cost of the ship per year.  If you want a Per-dium cost divide that by 360.  If you want a weekly cost, divide that by 52.  So to figure out what they need to spend to keep the ship running, that's the math that I use.  So every time they hit a port, you know what they need to spend to get their "Consumables" replenished.

Port costs are different and I use that as flavor and the costs vary from port to port, but I'm charging about $200 - $600 per week for a berthing fee.  (I'm keeping things simple so we normally don't break down berthing fees on a per dium basis.  If your PC's want to go that granular, try cutting the weekly fees to a quarter of the weekly fees).

Here's the most important bit.  Once you have those two costs figured out you know that most jobs will pay MORE than the included costs.  Otherwise, people WONT ship products through space.

 

There is one other thing that I do for flavor and it's a trope that my players calls "The Window Washers of Philadelphia."

When they land on a port, the group will usually be approached by an NPC who offers to wash their ship's windows.

These encounters offer a rather quick and concise glimpse into the character of the planet.

On depressed or backwater worlds, these washers are generally eager kids who are looking for an opportunity to leave home and travel the galaxy.  Often; They ask pointed questions about ships operations and are trying to learn enough to become a crewman on a ship.  They may even ask for a job.  They don't charge much and may even be eager to point PC's in the right direction, if asked politely.

Worlds with better economies with lots of trade may have washers who are dedicated and well paid professionals.  They know the starport well and can help facilitate ship operations.  Some may expect to be tipped for additional information ancillary services.

A couple of worlds dominated by unions and guilds will have washers who receive a cut of the very high port fees and do a horrible job washing the ship's windows.  The portals may even require cleaning AFTER they get done.

Some ports with minimal services or in VERY high traffic areas may not have any washers approach the PC's.

I do try to put together a unique NPC for each world and try to understand the motivation of each washer.  They can help establish color for each world, provide subplots (rarely) and can be a good resource for helpful information.

Just a couple of things I do with my campaign that may work for you.

[Ghostofman 8,319]

3 hours ago, SSB_Shadow said:

What exactly is a good amount of credits to award from a simple errand job to a dangerous job? How much does it cost to fuel a ship and how often? When does it have to receive maintenance except for battle damage?

Easy solution is to focus on predicted net profit. Essentially assume the players have two accounts. One that covers food, docking fees, fuel, ect. And then a second account that is thier personal spending money.

When you offer a job say something like "he gives you a number. After typical expenses you should have 1,000 credits each left over."

You can then modify this as story elements require.

"Hey guys, bad news. When I ran the numbers to get here I didn't know the mandos would blow the tanker that keeps this place fueled and drive prices into orbit. So we need another 10,000 unless you want to sell the ship and buy a farm here... I dunno about you but I don't know anything about growing Varplian Soybeans...."

 

Likewise maintenance is the same thing. Basic oil changes and such should be covered and just assumed to happen as needed... Until there's a story need for the poodleplap regulator to blow. Heck, that's the sort of thing Darksiders d-points are made for.

3 hours ago, SSB_Shadow said:

 I have read page 151 on EotE and it talks about rewarding supplies instead of money but I what supplies are valuable except for weapons and armors?

In the middle of a galactic war, where opposing side are torpedoing freighters left and right trying to deny each other resources needed to win the war? What resources won't be valuable? Fuel, food, whiskey, grain, medical supplies, butter, sugar, coffee, fresh meats, droid parts, durasteel, chocolate, copper, power cells. The list is nearly infinite.

4 hours ago, SSB_Shadow said:

Lastly, how do you handle shops? If a player says she wants to go to the local weapon store, how do you decide whats in there at the moment?

I run 3 kinds of shops:

1) Story shop. This is Watto's. It's got anything it would reasonably have, but only 1 thing that matters: the quest item.

2) Environmental shop. This is the stall at the mining camp. It has a menu limited to what it would be likely to have. Food, stimpacks, tools, coveralls. But not much else. It's not there to provide a shopping experience, it's there to add color to the location and maybe give the opportunity to the players to pickup a mundane item they might need in the near future.

3) Everything else. In town and want a new blaster? Roll Negotiation vs. Rarity of the blaster you want + modifiers. This counts as you checking all the local shops in the area and finding the best deal. One and done, no rerolls. Success means you found it, advantage means you talked the price down a bit. Don't expect a description of the shop or shopkeeper, it doesn't matter.

 

More later.

[gwek 123]

First off, I wouldn't be too worried about having an overarching  story idea just yet. You don't know who your PCs are, and they will by definition impact the direction of your story. Once you have a better sense of why they are, it's likely going to help your direction.

Additionally, secondary objectives (which I'll get to in a moment) will help with both story and with keeping the players "hungry."

As for limiting character options, the approach that I took when I started my EotE campaign (okay, it's really a Firefly campaign using the EotE engine) was to suggest sticking to EotE but to keep an open mind. Rather than sit down with all the books, I had the players think about what kind of character they might want to play and they we discussed options. I would up with 4 players using EotE careers (2 Smugglers, 2 Techies), but would have been open to it if we felt that a different career was more accurate. In fact, I presented the Ace as an alternative for our pilot and he said that nah, he wanted to stick with smuggler. We're now in "Season Two" of the campaign and some of the players are looking to branch out so we may dip into other areas - our Slicer is educated and smart so we may add the Analyst talent tree for him, and our ship's captain (a Smuggler/Scoundrel) seems well-suited to a few of the trees from the Dawn of Rebellion sourcebook.

With respect to shopping, I'm lucky that my players don't want to do it all that often. Unless they're looking for something unique and interesting, I try to keep it "off-screen," typically when they hit a major port. It's like, okay, you're conducting business at the system capitol - once you have your money, you can probably buy anything legal you want here. We also have a few major "shadow ports," and that's where they can get almost anything that's NOT legal.

Now, how do you keep them hungry and moving? That's the real trick, right?

I ran a Star Wars campaign (using Saga rules) that ran for 100+ sessions over the course of a decade, and I'm now prepping for session 15 ("Season Two, Episode Two") of a Firefly campaign using EotE rules. Both campaigns were heaving influenced by Firefly and fell into the model of "squabbling folks on a ship." In both cases, they were actually FORCED together by events (in Star Wars, they were strangers travelling on a mass transit vessel that was attacked by pirates and in Firefly, they were all criminals from various crews on the same space station during a crackdown by the authorities), so keeping them moving and keeping them together was, at times, a bit of a challenge.

If you'll indulge me, I'll prattle on a bit about some of our stories, and perhaps they'll give you some ideas.

In the Star Wars game, we had four players - a Jedi Padawan looking to become a Knight, a Gunslinger seeking vengeance against his old partner, a former slave turned Pitfighter on a crusade to bring down slavers, and a Scoundrel planning to grow into a crime lord. For the first "season," there was an NPC captain to the ship and they were all crew. The captain passed away at in the season finale and left them (and a few NPC crew members) equal shares.

Early on, the competing agendas of the players was really interesting to watch and drove many of our early stories. A lot of it turned out to be the Jedi trying to do heroic stuff, the Pitfighter trying to do brutal things, and the Gunslinger (who had both tendencies) sort of caught in the middle. The Scoundrel was sort of along as comic relief a lot of the time, but also sided with whoever was likely to produced the most money.

As the game evolved, they went from helping each other with their personal agendas on a "you scratch my back" basis to doing it because they actually cared about each other. And it created some interesting dynamics. For example, the Jedi found out that the Scoundrel was secretly smuggling addictive spice and she kind of lost it and spaced the spice. The Scoundrel, who was now in debt to a ruthless crime lord for quite a bit of money, was beside himself with anger - until the Jedi promised that, because they were crew mates, she would help him earn enough coin to pay off the debt.

There was also a prolonged story arc (I believe in Season Two) where the ship got stolen by a rival crew and the players had to pull together to get sufficient resources to hire a temporary replacement, catch up with the bad guys, and get their ship back. They were very frustrated, but it was a great team building experience.

Once model that I've gotten a lot of mileage out of (again, in both campaigns) is the idea of breaking up space into several regions, where you can travel fairly easily within a region, but getting between regions is tougher/longer. Then, give the players a long-term goal (ie, completing a job at the far end of space) and let them have adventures along the way. Progress is not a straight line, so much as a series of misadventures. The different regions and travel times also give you time to force a little character downtime and development from time to time.

In Firefly, for example, the known 'Verse consists of five star systems, each with a dozen or so planets and even more moons. Travel within a system takes hours or a day or so, but travel between systems can take weeks. The systems are in a somewhat straight line (it's actually more like the points on a "W," but who's counting?), so in our campaign, the players spent Season One traveling from one end of the 'Verse to the other.

And there were a number of distractions.

They started in, well, let's call it System 1, where they were forced together, then almost immediately got involved in an adventure that involved then rescuing dozens of kidnapped children. Although they were dedicated to trying to get the kids back home, the kids were also a huge resource strain, so the players had to work hard just to keep everyone fed. The kids were all from Systems 1, 2, and 3, so the players spent some time working to return those in System 1. At their last stop, it turned out that one of the kids belonged to a local crime family, who offered the players a job delivering some goods to Persephone (a major starport) in System 3.

They jumper over System 2 (but hired some trusty folks to deliver the kids from there - at this point, the players, despite working a number of illegal jobs, could barely scrape together two coins) to head to Persephone. When they delivered their goods, the guy they delivered to had a job offer for them to steal a McGuffin. That involved them in a three-way war between varying criminal factions who all wanted the item. They ultimately threw in their lot with Lady Hu, the least morally objectionable, not because she could pay the most, but because she offered to take the remaining kids of their hands and start a small school for them.

While helping Lady Hu consolidate power with a few "side quests" (again - the players are not actually making money, they're just helping make enough coin to get the orphans a good home) they accidentally caused some massive property damage. Lady Hu offered to cover the immediate expenses, but drove a hard deal where she leveraged the players into making a dozen deliveries for her in Systems 4 and 5... The were not paid for the individual jobs, but only when all items in a system were delivered.

At this point, I think we were 6 sessions in, and the players had not turned a significant profit, although they had made a number of allies and helped a bunch of kids in need.

Travelling on to System 4 to deliver Lady Hu's gifts, they arrived at the Space Bazaar (a major space station) where they got a few side-gigs but also encountered the son of our ship's pilot (playing off one of his Obligations) - who happened to be in debt to a local crime lord. Now, the players embarked on two jobs for that guy, not for themselves, but to get the son out of debt. Along the way, they turned a small profit and took on an additional side-job delivering prisoners. Unfortunately, at the prison, they ran into a corrupt lawman (Womack, for those who've watched the series), who was an old enemy going back to the first episode and who shook them down for most of their money (the alternative was to allow him to search the ship, which would have unearthed the smuggled goods they still needed to deliver to get the pilot's son square with the crime lord).

While in System 4, they also visited the home planet of the mechanic for some downtime, where they found that his sick sister was in need of some very expensive drugs (again, this was tied directly to an Obligation). The players launched a daring heist to steal the drugs - and also steal enough to turn a profit. But not too much of a profit. The had to make a decision: they could sell the stolen goods quickly and for a moderate amount of money or keep them and sell them for more later. They took the safe bet.

By the time they left System 4, the players had some money in their pockets, and good relations with both Lady Hu and Benny Bronte (the guy the pilot's son was in debt to), both of whom had modest jobs for them in System 5.

They arrived at System 5, visited a major shadowport to conclude much of their business (and do a little shopping), but had two small jobs that delivered to a nearby planet where one of the captain's old friends was planning a major job. The old friend offered the players in, and said that potential profits were huge. The job was so big, in fact, that it would involve four different crews working together (including the players' nemesis crew). The players had to invest a lot of their remaining coin into optional resources for the big score. Needless to say, the big score didn't go as planned, with betrayals galore, and the bad guys making off with the majority of the money.

Still, by the end of the season (and thirteen sessions), the crew had made some money, made a number of allies, and traveled from one end of space to the other.

If you managed to make it through all this, you may noticed a few patterns:

1) The players often had multiple gigs going on at once.

2) At least one gig always moved them "forward," delivering something to someplace new and further down the lone.

3) The players were often faced with choices. Do you want a little money now, or a lot of money later? Do you want to do the right thing, or the profitable one?

4) More than once, the players were in a situation where they were working to gain, or pay off, a favor rather than to actually profit. For this to work, though, it needs to produce meaningful results or mean something to the characters.

5) Although a majority of jobs were just jobs, a significant minority were tied directly to the players' agendas, backgrounds, and obligations.

Although it's not probably not clear from this play-by-play, the overarching story for the season was basically having the players travel from one end of space to the other, and have three crews (the players, their nemesis crew, and Womack the corrupt lawman) interact repeatedly. All three crews were present in the first session, and also, in some capacity, in the finale, which saw a realignment of those crews, with some characters swapping ships or being killed. Notably, the players lost half of their crew complement, with one NPC arrested, their PC mechanic being kidnapped by the bad guy crew (the player has to step away from the game for a while), and the other NPC  betraying them. In return, they picked up the former captain of their nemesis crew, who was betrayed by his own people.

I hope some of this has been interesting or informative. If not, I apologize if you managed to slog through it all.

[Ghostofman 8,319]

OK, it's later...

 

On ‎6‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 7:58 AM, SSB_Shadow said:

2: Main quest
I feel stumped in this area. Being in the Kotor era I feel I can do whatever I want but I feel its TOO big.

Ok, so lets set the stage a bit.

 

It's the best of times, and the worst of times

War is the best and worst time to be a smuggler. In war, each side is doing everything (within reason, practicality, and policy) to make the other side want to stop fighting more than (whatever policy issue started the war in the first place).  Having the biggest army is great, but having that Army means keeping it fed, equipped, and where the fighting is. As a result EVERYTHING is now in short supply.

- All but the most basic of foods and goods are being diverted to the war effort.

- Factories that normally pump out various consumer goods now pump out war materiel. Yeah that may be a Blastech E-2 Blaster rifle, but check the underside, it's been manufactured by the Taris Parking Meter Company under license. Want a new Datapad? Sorry, that factory now cranks out tactical displays for AR-90 Starfighters.

- Luxury Goods are even more scare and valuable. Why turn all that Corellian grain production into whiskey when there's Soldiers and civilians that need food and a government willing to pay hard to make whiskey prices for easy to make loaves of bread?

 

I was running guns before it was cool

So for a Smuggler, war is their chance to go semi-legit. If you're moving desperately needed canned bantha meat to the front, you're not going to get much guff if there's also a crate or two of contraband mixed in to "help cover expenses." Likewise maybe your black market contacts are now providing a legit service. No need to run blasters to those Zaneetan Marauders who were just as likely to kill you as pay you. Now the Farp Colony Militia is suddenly a thing and in need of weapons, and they are totally on the up-and-up!

 

The launched torpedoes?!? I miss the days when you'd just get tractored aboard and arrested...

Of course the downside is, you're a valid military target. One of the easiest ways to put pressure on the other guy in a war is to go after his shipping. Not just his military hardware (which is technically almost anything) but even civilian merchant ships. It's all fun and games till the next iPhone release gets cancelled because the ship moving them across the pacific was sunk my an enemy torpedo. Oh.. now it just got real.

So this means that most freighters are going to be moving under military escort in a convoy. They'll be bigger targets, but at least they've got protection.

 

I've got what you need...

Of course a smuggler may not want that. Running a solo run all by your lonesome means no protection, but also that you're a smaller target. No enemy spies making note of when you and your convoy are leaving or where you're headed, but also no cover if you happen to stumble across a wolfpack of mandalorian gunboats. And you'd better hope the Republic Picket ships on the other end believe that you are indeed a cargo vessel and not a mandalorian assault penetrator. 

It also means the ability to move what you want and deliver items that are essentially "out of season." Hey, look at what I got... a small freighter FULL of stuff like iPhones, Whiskey, Sugar, and other things you want and need AND I'm arriving without a convoy of other ships... you don't want to pay triple for these things? Ok.... wait till the next convoy arrives... after Christmas...maybe... Refresh my memory what does little Timmy want from Santa again? An Action Hank figure.... like I happen to have? But it's ok, I'm sure Timmy will understand that Santa got shot down over the Canary Islands this year...

 

Spy games

Furthermore Cargo isn't the only valuable thing. If any of the PCs have a military background or are otherwise in good standing or proven capability maybe they get approached from an intelligence service to run an op. Maybe as simple as counting the number of ships the mando's have in orbit around Tesinki's Moon.... Maybe they just need to *ahem* pick up a passenger on Venihim and bring him back to Coruscant... Or maybe something far more dangerous.

 

"Crime Syndicate"!?!  I'm sorry, I think you mean "Legitimate business ensuring the safety and security of the Republic."

While the usual runs and rackets may stick around, they may also get less pressure from authorities in exchange for certain services. A classic story from WWII is how the US government released Mobsters from prison and allowed them to essentially take control of the docks. Why? because no self respecting red-blooded American wise-guy would let some Nazi saboteur or spy get in on his racket. 

So in Star Wars you may see a similar situation. Black Sun controlling a major spice trade? Hey, if they are meeting the quota needed by the Medical Corps who cares if a few metric tons go missing here and there?

 

More later...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SSB_Shadow 46]

All your responses have been an amazing help.
I have been a bit busy lately but I'm feeling very motivated to start off my campaign soon.
I will let ya know how it goes once I kick it off!

Now, for perhaps a random question... What's up with the fashion in clothing in the Star Wars universe at this time?

Between the Great Sith War and the Mandalorian Wars there is gap of 30 years. While googling around for ideas and pics I can't help but to notice how more primitive-looking it looked back then compared to later. In such a small amount of time, even. Can anyone explain why they suddenly stopped roaming around with classical fashion (spears & axes, tunics/robes, dresses, and funny hats) and turned into a bit more modern clothing (kinda) in only 30 years?
Was there some kind of fashion revolution going on? Was this only a Krath dressing thing or did the whole galaxy do this? I know that the Great Sith War comics have more of a fantasy-theme to it while later era are more kotor'ish with armors and pants.

Or am I only imagining things? Did the artwork change so it's not as noticeable anymore?

This is kinda important because I've got some ideas of the PCs investigating an old wreckage from the last war. But it's also slightly morbid curiosity from my part because nowhere does this seem to be addressed at all. Plus one of the players wondered if their character's parents or grandparents would still go around in those classical 80's heroes clothing (think He-Man).

[Tramp Graphics 2,326]

1 minute ago, SSB_Shadow said:

All your responses have been an amazing help.
I have been a bit busy lately but I'm feeling very motivated to start off my campaign soon.
I will let ya know how it goes once I kick it off!

Now, for perhaps a random question... What's up with the fashion in clothing in the Star Wars universe at this time?

Between the Great Sith War and the Mandalorian Wars there is gap of 30 years. While googling around for ideas and pics I can't help but to notice how more primitive-looking it looked back then compared to later. In such a small amount of time, even. Can anyone explain why they suddenly stopped roaming around with classical fashion (spears & axes, tunics/robes, dresses, and funny hats) and turned into a bit more modern clothing (kinda) in only 30 years?
Was there some kind of fashion revolution going on? Was this only a Krath dressing thing or did the whole galaxy do this? I know that the Great Sith War comics have more of a fantasy-theme to it while later era are more kotor'ish with armors and pants.

Or am I only imagining things? Did the artwork change so it's not as noticeable anymore?

This is kinda important because I've got some ideas of the PCs investigating an old wreckage from the last war. But it's also slightly morbid curiosity from my part because nowhere does this seem to be addressed at all. Plus one of the players wondered if their character's parents or grandparents would still go around in those classical 80's heroes clothing (think He-Man).

The difference arose from the creators of KotOR wanting to make the game more "recognizable" as Star Wars. There really isn't an in universe explanation for the radical change in fashion and ship design. 

[FuriousGreg 1,667]

A great resource are the Firefly RPG splatbooks, there is some great smuggler info and adventures that can be adapted to EotE.

Edited August 21, 2018 by FuriousGreg

[Ghostofman 8,319]

59 minutes ago, SSB_Shadow said:

Or am I only imagining things? Did the artwork change so it's not as noticeable anymore?

Yeah no kidding!

It started back with the old Tales of the Jedi comics and got weirder from there. I suspect the idea was trying to generate a more primitive look to counter the "sci-fi" look of the original trilogy. Heck, I'm pretty sure some of the old Sith and Mando warships back then were made of stone, canvas, and animal hides... As that era came into more widespread use, they updated the look to be more consistent with the rest of the material.

 

Now.... 

If you want to explain why? Well how about....

 

Back then Hyperspace wasn't as reliable, or anywhere near as fast, especially not to the common being. As such, despite widespread space travel there was still a certain sense of isolation. It might take months or years for fads, trends, and styles to move about the galaxy, and more conservative regions and cultures could more easily cling to local traditions and cultural touchstones. Additionally you had lots of strange mixes. Colonies, still establishing themselves, would rely on more locally sourced materials over galactic standards since they'd get resupplied so rarely. Some "colonies" were made up more of up-teched locals than "civilized" beings from the rest of the galaxy, so you'd see things like mixes of swords and blasters. So on.

Soooo yeah, you can have a lot of strange mixes. More cosmopolitan regions will tend to have a more "Star Wars" look to them, more traditional regions will have a look more consistent with "how they always have been," and colony and rim worlds can look like something right out of He-Man. Look, that dude over there is wearing a loin cloth and a huge sword. The woman next to him is wearing an energy absorbing body-glove and armed with a slugthrower and a cortosis staff. And the man next to her is wearing full servo enhanced body armor, carrying 5 different kinds of blasters, and mace, and rocking an epic "adult" mustache.