I wasn't sure how to start my first blog post on this new site, but why not start by showing off a document that I made a while back with little fan fare.

I was obsessed with the Fantasy Flight Star Wars trilogy for a while: Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion, Force & Destiny. I ran and played in half a dozen campaigns over the course of a few months. And I always ran into the same problem: canon. That sounds like an odd thing to say, no? Why would you play in an established setting and be annoyed about canon. The answer is simple: it stifled the games.

I literally had players pour over the galaxy map for half-an-hour while I tried to explain they could go anywhere they pleased. That they could just give a vague idea and I could make up a world. Or I'd try to introduce something but players would counter how the element was different in the expanded universe. It got...tiring.

I was then listening to an episode of the Order 66 Podcast where they described a game in an Alternate Universe where the Clone Wars never ended. And it got me thinking of how I'd do that myself. I did enjoy the Clone Wars cartoon show and it did always stink how it was ultimately a tragic story since they were all headed to predetermined doom.

As such, I decided to make my own alternate universe: Star Wars: Cold War.

I had a bunch of mechanics lying around from when we tried to make a Clone Wars supplement on a discord...only for the official books to be announced mid production and kill the vibe. So, I repurposed a lot of those mechanics to make this fan supplement.

The idea is that Anakin Skywalker sided with Mace Windu over Palpatine, ultimately choosing the Jedi Order. The act may have ended the Sith Grand Plan from coming to fruition, but it did not come without cost. The Jedi Order was disbarred from the Republic for committing an assassination on a sitting politician. Furthermore, in the kerfuffle, Count Dooku escaped his imprisonment in the Jedi Temple, as this Anakin didn't kill Dooku, and returned to the Separatists, seeing himself as the future of the Sith. The galaxy now remains divided in an uneasy peace between two collapsing democracies fighting proxy wars across the galaxy.

Not all of it aged well and it isn't as woke as I now right, but it's a cool thing that I rediscovered that I thought would be an interesting thing to share.

Without further ado, here you go: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1skNsl7F9gAvxKUCJFhaeg8zXkrHiK6BfYdXbAotZKx0/edit?usp=sharing


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in reply to @covok's post:

Unfortunately, no. To be honest, I don't know if I'd use FF SW for it nowadays. I might use something else, like a Star Wars Cortex hack (like this one https://www.dropbox.com/s/z5k2bi056bj9k5a/Cortex_Star_Wars-Players_Guide-v021322.pdf?dl=0) or perhaps Fate core (like my own hacks https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bOEQlo4d3GI9TUTPI_ty0xtRD6k7X8Uk?usp=sharing) or Star Wars World (https://mega.nz/file/gplHwbLR#s73zF2-eHjzZfXBGx82tkxfZJahU7L3Q9uMhDNeAqBc) or Galactic 2e (https://metagame.itch.io/galactic).

I would love to revisit the concept because an AU has a ton of potential and it would give a fresh take on things while also taking the pressure off on actually adhering to canon.