Settings
Settings
One of the major appeals of Star Wars is the diversity and unique nature of the settings that can be used in an adventure. Instead of having the characters endlessly tromp through the same terrain, or visit cities whose only differences are their names, Star Wars adventures can take characters to the desert world of Tatooine, the awe-inspiring floating cities of Calamari, the Hoth asteroid belt, or the clouds of Bespin’s Cloud City.
The High Concept
The Star Wars movies brought to life landscapes and sights beyond anything ever placed on a movie screen. In order to truly feel like Star Wars, your adventures should be filled with breathtaking, inspirational, and exciting vistas.
When creating settings, you should first devise the high concept of the setting. Instead of concentrating on generating a detailed location right from the start, try to come up with your own stunning visuals that set the mood and feel of the setting.
Beginning gamemasters often feel obligated to go into extreme detail when designing a new setting, especially if they’ve played other games where virtually every location is mapped down to the smallest room. Frankly, it’s a lot of work in a situation where having a few notes and an idea of what the general location is like will almost always be sufficient. After you have a firm idea of what type of location you are inventing, you can detail the most important locations in the adventure.
There are several interesting approaches to the high concept stage of setting creation.
Using Settings From the Movies
When they begin, your players will probably be most interested in locations that they have seen in the movies. There is no reason why you shouldn’t set some of your first adventures in locations that the players are already familiar with. Not only will it satisfy the desires of the players and make the story feel more like a Star Wars adventure, but it will also remove from you the pressure of designing an entirely new setting.
Choosing Tatooine
One of the best settings from the movies is Tatooine because of the extent to which it has been described in the films. Hoth and Endor were both presented almost as thoroughly, but these two planets do not suggest as many interesting story lines.
Tatooine is the setting from the movies where the characters are most likely to find adventure. It has much to offer characters and new players: • Mos Eisley spaceport. There is a wide variety of businesses and activities surrounding spaceports, so the characters would easily be able to find a starship and pilot for hire. • Seedy opportunity and danger. Because of criminal elements on the world—most notably Jabba the Hutt—this is a rough spaceport, with danger and the opportunity for gambling, smuggling, bounty hunting, or any other activity the characters could desire. • Wilderness exploration. Tatooine is also a wilderness world, with wide-ranging deserts populated by two alien species (Jawas and Tusken Raiders/Sand People) and many strange creatures, including Banthas, Dewbacks, Womp Rats, and Krayt dragons. • Crime as a constant plot engine. Tatooine is also (or was, depending on when your adventures are set) the base of Jabba the Hutt’s criminal empire, so there is always something interesting going on that the characters could get involved with. • Frontier isolation. Finally, Tatooine is a frontier world, far from the influence of galactic culture. During the Dark Times and Rebellion eras, it is part of the Empire, but it is safely isolated from the Empire’s most oppressive manifestations. Rather than having to confront Imperial Star Destroyers, the characters are much more likely to come across a squad of local militia members or stormtroopers.
Choosing Bespin
Another excellent adventure location is Cloud City on Bespin. It is a bustling mining town and vacation spot, offering high-class gambling houses and hotels and amazing luxury for those who can afford it. It has a large and diverse population, with miners, laborers, corporate executives, and the seemingly ever-present influences of the galactic underworld.
Of course, Cloud City also features a charismatic and daring administrator—the (in)famous Baron Lando Calrissian—who seems to bring a dose of intrigue and excitement everywhere with him.
This world isn’t as isolated as Tatooine and offers more to “cultured” characters.
Planets and Locations
This Settings section covers two similar but distinctly different subjects. The hints in this section can be applied equally to the creation of planets and the creation of specific locations on a given planet.
Gamemasters who expect to be creating many planets are advised to look at the rules system in the “Planets” chapter. This system gives specific suggestions for how to build new planets. However, if you want to build planets that look and feel interesting—without getting into the finer points like imports and exports—this section will more than suffice for your needs.
With both of these settings, the people, places, and history of the locations suggest many adventure possibilities. On these worlds, the characters can rub elbows with the likes of Bib Fortuna or Lobot, have to fight off Sand People, take a tour of the Cloud City casinos, or visit the infamous Mos Eisley cantina. Other settings that could be useful include Coruscant and Naboo.
Altering Familiar Settings
Using settings from the movies is a great way to get an adventure rolling. However, a game session that is a carbon copy of the movies will be boring. Fortunately, gamemasters can take the settings from the movies and subtly alter them to provide all-new locations for the characters to visit.
For example, if the players exhibit an interest in going to Hoth during an adventure, you could have them travel to another planet which is similar to Hoth. Hoth itself isn’t a good choice—the Rebel Alliance picked it for a base because it was isolated and there was no one else there. Therefore, you can decide to create a new world similar to Hoth.
To start with, you give this planet a name (because a planet or a city with a name almost instantly seems more realistic than an unnamed planet constantly referred to as “the planet”). You then decide how this planet is similar to Hoth: it is cold and covered with snow and ice. For a difference, you choose to have it occupied by a small group of prospectors instead of having a Rebel base.
Now you have a new setting that is reminiscent of Hoth, so the players are already familiar with some aspects of the world, making it easier for them to visualize.
You can also provide more information about part of a setting. For example, if the players want to visit Tatooine, you can modify the setting by having them travel to Anchorhead, a small trading and farming settlement. Here, the characters will get a feel for the nature of a farming town (much more relaxed and with a more tight-knit community than the spaceport). In the adventure, the characters might have to fend off attacks from Tusken Raiders.
The characters might come across some teenagers who are talking about a guy a few years older than them—Luke, they think his name is—who supposedly killed his family over a couple of droids and blasted off Tatooine, and is now supposed to be a space pirate (the Imperial propaganda machine has obviously done its job).
The players will be familiar with Tatooine, its deserts, and the moisture farmers, but they won’t know much about Anchorhead and what goes on there.
Star Wars Materials
Aside from the movies, there are a wide variety of other Star Wars materials that provide information on settings. For game products, there are the sourcebooks, galaxy guides, and adventures. Add to that the various Star Wars novels, comic books, the Art of… books, trading cards, and toys, and there is a truly impressive body of knowledge to choose from.
Many of these books introduce new planets or mention new planets by name without giving much information on them. This gives the gamemaster a huge selection of new locations to design for an adventure. Players who are familiar with these materials will really enjoy the chance to visit these locations.
Whether they are going to Nkllon, Corellia, Nar Shaddaa, or Byss, the players will be better able to visualize the setting because they are familiar with it.
Using Exotic Settings
You can just as easily base your adventure settings on real-world locations by modifying them to fit into the Star Wars universe. For example, the Rebel outpost on Yavin in Star Wars: A New Hope is based on a real complex of ruins—the Mayan temples at Tikal National Park in Guatemala.
There were two things about these temples that made them seem alien enough to fit into the Star Wars universe: • Unfamiliarity. Even real locations can seem exotic and alien to people who have never seen them before. A quick glance through an encyclopedia or a travel guide could provide you with a description and pictures of a real location that is exotic and unfamiliar enough for you to use as the setting for part of an adventure. • Added details. Details such as the guard tower and the X-wing flyover were added to the real temples to make them seem even more alien.
Movie companies use exotic locations, and with a little research, so can you. Flip through travel guidebooks and encyclopedias, and search the internet. You may find pictures of stark landscapes or unusual architecture that can be the basis for an adventure setting.
Of course, you will want to add other details—like starships, droids, and aliens—to make it truly Star Wars, but a good setting may have its foundation in Tibetan temples, Australia’s outback, or South Asian islands that are exotic and alien in appearance.
Using Ordinary Locations
You can take any location, even one that is just down the road, and add details to it that will allow you to use it in a Star Wars adventure. Most locations will have Star Wars counterparts because people will always need some place to buy food or goods, to go out for a night’s entertainment, or to get their vehicles and appliances (or droids) repaired.
By advancing the technology of a given real-world location, you can create a unique Star Wars location. For example: • A movie theater becomes a holotheater. • A hotel could be a hundred-story tower floating on repulsors, with sections that rotate on a huge slow-motion gear mechanism.
What would be the Star Wars equivalent of a used car lot: a landspeeder lot? A droid lot? A starfighter lot? What kind of salesbeings would work there? Would a droid work as a salesbeing on a droid lot, or would the droids try to sell themselves?
What are the equivalents of shopping malls in the Star Wars universe? What stores would it contain? What would be the difference between a mall on Coruscant and one on a small frontier world? Would a mall on Rodia be filled with weapon stores? Would a Quarren mall be underwater?
The Energy Station
Most locations on Earth have unique Star Wars counterparts. Take a self-service gas station as an example. Think about the parts that constitute one of these stations.
In its simplest form, a self-service gas station consists of a number of gasoline pumps—anywhere from four to twenty or more—and a tiny kiosk from which an attendant controls the pumps and takes the money. In addition, most stations will have some sort of identifying sign, and the attendant in the kiosk may also sell simple goods, such as soft drinks, candy, cigarettes, or motor oil.
Now, think about what would be different about an establishment that served this same marketing niche in the Star Wars universe.
To begin with, the pumps wouldn’t be pumping gasoline. Instead, they would be fast-transfer recharging stations that renewed the energy lost by the power cells of the vehicles.
Few of the vehicles that use the station will be wheeled ground vehicles. Most of the clients will be operating landspeeders. However, in order to increase the range of possible customers, the station might have two levels of recharging stations: • One at ground level, to service landspeeders • One at five meters above the ground, to service airspeeders
The attendant could be replaced by a “courteous and efficient” servant droid. Or each individual recharging station could be equipped with a simple electronic brain, eliminating the need for an attendant entirely (of course, it would have a direct line to law enforcement officials should a customer try to leave without paying).
The station’s sign wouldn’t be a simple neon or fluorescent sign. Instead, it might be a large holosign, constantly projecting holocommercials into the air above the station.
The station would sell the local equivalent of soft drinks, candy, and cigarettes, but it might also sell energy packs for equipment, comlinks, or pre-programmed travel modules to use in automated driving systems.
To add that sense of “this is not Earth,” you might even say that the buildings are constructed of smooth plastic or rough-hewn stone, or point out catchy holograph or virtual reality displays. To a wilderness location you could add strange creatures flying through the air, unusual noises, green fog, red suns, and dozens of moons.
With some work, even the most mundane of locations has its place in the Star Wars universe.
Fictional Settings
There are countless works of fiction that provide suitable ideas for settings. With some tinkering, locations from classic myth, modern literature, and, of course, other science fiction and fantasy works could be converted to the Star Wars universe.
One of the most obvious sources for inspiration would be other science fiction movies and novels. However, you should remember that much of the material contained in other science fiction stories will not fit directly into the Star Wars universe because it doesn’t share the Star Wars feel. Material from other science fiction sources will often have to be heavily modified, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t a useful source of basic ideas.
After all, the Star Wars feel results from the combination of a large variety of sources that influenced George Lucas—everything from Westerns to comic books to Buddhist thought to Japanese samurai movies had a part in the underlying philosophy and execution of the Star Wars saga.
Many books about writing science fiction contain essays on designing planets and star systems or on designing alien beings. While these essays usually deal with the specifics of designing scientifically correct planets and aliens (which is less of a concern with Star Wars), the general methods and examples that the writers present can provide you with suggestions you can use when you begin creating your own settings.
Science fiction art books show other dramatic sights that could be incorporated into your Star Wars adventures. The ideas you derive from them won’t necessarily be drawn from the contents of the pictures themselves, but from thoughts that occur to you as you look at and think about the pictures.
Hints on Conversion
When adapting other works of fiction to Star Wars, instead of trying to adapt a setting element-for-element and plot point-for-plot point, you should try to dissect the setting into its component elements and determine why you find it interesting.
Examine what makes the world exciting—the descriptions of the architecture, the visual image of a palace on a mountain top with an immense ringed moon in the background, the technology, the strict culture, or the conflicts of different points of view—and try to mold them to more closely fit your Star Wars universe.
It is suggested that you change the names of the new locations so your players don’t immediately recognize the setting. This is especially important when using settings with Earth-derived names—after all, Star Wars is a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, so that culture has different myths and location names than ours does.
When you do use another setting for inspiration, you should make some major cosmetic changes. Try to change the setting just enough so that players don’t know what your resource was.
If your reference is obscure enough or you don’t get too obvious, this might mean simply changing a couple of names and introducing some new gamemaster characters. However, if your idea is closely based on a setting or work of fiction that all of your players are familiar with, this might mean adding a completely new culture, changing the look of the architecture, or adding a new plot line—but it will result in a less derivative and more original world for your adventures.
Original Settings
Creating wholly original settings from your imagination is a lot of work, but it is also a great deal of fun. This is the most often used method of creating new game settings, but it can also be the most difficult for beginning gamemasters.
Often, the gamemaster finds himself (or herself) staring at a blank piece of paper, trying to create worlds. This is entirely the wrong approach. Instead, the gamemaster should open himself to all the thoughts and ideas running through the back of his mind. The key to this method is to learn how to put yourself in the proper mindset for this type of creation.
Converting Avalon
A good example of this process is the conversion of the mythic land of Avalon to a Star Wars adventure. The theme of the Avalon myth is as appropriate to Star Wars as it was to medieval (or modern) storytelling, and several aspects of the Avalon myth can be kept intact—provided you can offer a logical Star Wars rationale for them.
According to the legends of King Arthur, Avalon is the island where the king’s body was taken to be buried after he was mortally wounded in battle. Avalon has many mystic properties associated with it; its location is unknown and it is reputed to be an area where magic is naturally strong.
To create a Star Wars setting based on Avalon, you would start by making it an entire planet—not just an island. You can keep it isolated by putting the planet in uninviting surroundings, such as a giant dust cloud that hides it from the rest of the galaxy. Of course, you will probably want to change the name of the planet, so you might select Millinar as the new name. Because of its isolation, there are rumors of Millinar, but people believe it to be a simple myth passed down through the millennia; no one suspects that Millinar is a real place.
The weather on Avalon is always fair. The weather on Millinar is very pleasant with minimal rain. This is because there is no axial tilt to cause a cold season, and the water/land ratio is such that the level of moisture in the atmosphere never rises high enough to produce precipitation. The world’s land masses are low-lying, with many natural springs and underground streams. The world’s natural beauty remains unspoiled, and there is almost no technology on the world.
Delicious apples grow on the many trees of Avalon. Millinar will have many varieties of succulent fruits that have natural healing properties. The trees themselves have huge root systems that reach the deep underground streams.
Towards the center of Avalon is a small chapel built by Joseph of Arimathea, an ancient holy man. Instead of the chapel of Joseph of Arimathea, the focal point of this new planet is a monument built by an ancient Jedi Knight. The gamemaster decides to make this building a large, triangular building whose outer surface is covered with elaborate paintings that seem to move as sunlight plays across them.
The only inhabitants of Avalon are a race of noble women who have great knowledge of magic. The inhabitants of Millinar are a group of hermaphroditic aliens who have developed skills in using the Force. They might even have powers that Luke Skywalker is unfamiliar with since it is assumed that much Jedi knowledge was lost during the purges of the Emperor.
Avalon is also reputed to be the source of Arthur’s mighty sword, Excalibur. This aspect of Avalon gives you the story hook that you would use to work this new planet into an adventure. There is a legend that tells of a powerful weapon hidden on the mythical planet of Millinar. The characters will be familiar with the myths from their childhood, but they will uncover a clue (perhaps a lost temple of the Jedi) that leads them to search for Millinar in hopes that they can acquire the weapon and use it against the Empire and help bring freedom to the galaxy.
Turning Ideas into Star Wars
Instead of trying to create everything from thin air, think of a favorite story or visual image or character and then actively concentrate on how to convert that idea to Star Wars. Every day gamemasters are exposed to thousands of interesting ideas on television, in newspapers, in books, in music, and just in ordinary conversation. If you work at converting these ideas, ask yourself:
“What would this thing be like in the Star Wars universe?”
The Brainstorming Method
This method is the most wildly creative, and thus the least structured. Simply pull out a piece of paper and a pencil. Then start thinking about gaming and Star Wars in particular. Write down every idea, image, emotion, scene, or other factor that crosses your mind. Don’t try to explain or develop these ideas—simply write them down.
After a few minutes of this, you’ll probably have scores of words, phrases, and ideas written down. Then, go over the list, pick out the most interesting ones, and try to develop them into interesting scenes and settings.
The Matte Painting Method
Rather than trying to instantly come up with a fully realized world, concentrate on one exciting mental image that sets the tone for the world. Some gamemasters call this the “matte painting” shot—an establishing image that succinctly gives the feel and the tone of the world.
These kinds of images would include the twin suns setting on Tatooine, Ben and Luke overlooking Mos Eisley spaceport, the Millennium Falcon being dragged into the Death Star’s hangar bay, the first shot of the Tauntaun running on Hoth, and the twin pod cloud cars flying toward Cloud City with the brilliant orange and red clouds in the background.
These shots instantly suggest a world that is visually stunning. They provide enough information to be enticing, while still leaving a great deal of mystery about the specific location.
Try applying this to your own ideas: • What would the heart of a nebula look like? • The reactor core control area of an Imperial Star Destroyer? • A world with ammonia oceans and earthquakes that build and destroy mountain ranges literally overnight?
Then ask: what could happen in this setting? How could the characters end up here? What kind of story could they get involved with?
The Word-Association Method
Another method is word association. By using a categorized thesaurus or dictionary, you can skim through just looking for interesting words. Particularly interesting words can be very useful in describing a planned setting or inspiring an interesting facet of a new one.
Example: Look up “plants” and find a list of adjectives. If you’re designing a new plant or a plant-like alien and you’re stuck, pick several words at random and combine them into a skeleton description—then flesh it out with your imagination.
The Research Method
Books about space and the planets in the solar system—particularly ones with photographs and paintings—can be a big help when you are designing settings. Photographs taken on the surface of the Moon, Mars, or Venus help you get an idea of what another planet might look like, and paintings of the outer planets and stars give you ideas about objects to put in the night skies of other planets.
Some of these books contain informative speculative chapters about planets in other solar systems and the possibility of intelligent life on other worlds.
You can also draw inspiration from history and politics. If you read about a country on Earth that has had several violent changes in power, you might be able to get a feel for a world that has known similar warfare and changes in power—city ruins, continents blasted by weapon exchanges, and the like. Bleak as it is, this could offer a fascinating location for a Star Wars adventure.
Preparing Settings for Play
With the high concept decided, you can begin working on the details of the setting. Here are some of the questions you will need to answer about the settings you design.
Name
Give the location a name. Almost every location will have a name, ranging from a simple descriptive (such as Ben’s hut) to a more abstract name (such as Fort Tusken). Giving a location a name makes that setting more realistic, because it implies history that is reflected in the meaning of the name.
A name won’t instantly make a place seem real, but as the setting is used—or the characters learn more about it—the place takes on a life of its own.
Type
A “type” is a very succinct description of the location. Those two or three words can give you an excellent feel for the location and what it is like. For example, “posh nightclub” and “seedy, criminal cantina” are essentially the same type of establishment (drinking and socialization), but the type description shows how different they are from each other.
The type might describe: • The clientele (starfighter pilot’s bar, Mon Calamari restaurant, Rodian weapons shop) • Who occupies/owns it (Rebel base, Imperial garrison, TransGalMeg mining station) • Its prime function (trading offices, farm, luxury hotel) • Its true function (a casino that’s actually an information hub or underworld contact point)
Location
Where is the setting? Remember: settings do not exist in a vacuum. Outside every wall is a street or another building; through every door—even if it never opens—is another room. Keep surroundings in mind and let them affect your design.
Describe the location relative to something familiar: • “Next to the cantina” • “Two and a half hours north of Anchorhead by landspeeder” • “Out in the frontier of space” • “Near the Core Worlds”
This helps characters (and you) grasp distance, travel methods, and what’s nearby.
Set-Up
How is the setting laid out? If the characters will maneuver significantly (infiltration, combat, escape), they will want a map. Even a crude sketch can convey more than a paragraph.
Maps aren’t necessary for all locations, but they’re very helpful when positioning matters (hiding behind a door vs. standing in the open). Keep layouts logical and consistent—if there’s an elevator on one floor, it should exist above/below (or there should be a reason why not).
Physical Description
Write a brief description of the most important places and objects, especially things a map can’t convey. Start with a general “look” word—grungy, sterile, pastoral, mechanical—then make sure details support it.
Example: • A messenger droid in a decrepit starport might be a squeaking, battered, carbon-scored R2 unit with a hastily rigged (and unreliable) vocabulator. • A messenger droid in a flourishing starport might be a top-of-the-line, well-lubricated, polished protocol droid that speaks three million languages and exudes a pleasant scent from aroma-disseminators.
The “used” look of the original films is a key part of the Star Wars feel: real equipment gets dirty, people are busy, and many can’t afford constant replacements. Settings that feel most Star Wars are often seedy, grungy, or disheveled—but use contrasts sometimes (Naboo luxury, sterile Imperial hospitals, etc.).
Military installations differ too: • Imperial/Republic garrisons: spartan, polished, organized; strict inspections; clean vehicles; harsh punishment for scuffs. • Rebel bases: disheveled, improvised; only necessary maintenance; grime tolerated; inspections rare. • New Republic installations: in-between; cares about appearances, but not enough to weaken forces; more routine maintenance, moderate emphasis on appearance.
People
Who (or what) might the characters meet there? List: • Regulars (shop owner, mouthy patron) • Uncommon encounters (a brawling alien who happens to be there) • Crowd level (packed, empty) • Common species (and how that affects behavior) • Creatures (pets, herds, local wildlife)
These details can become story fuel.
Background
Explain how the setting got to be the way it is: history, past owners, old scandals, secret ownership, feuds, how the business is run, local law, government, and economy.
Background can also explain value differences (water on desert worlds, metals on water worlds) and hidden threats (dominant predators that aren’t present yet).
Events
What’s supposed to happen there? Outline expected encounters and how they unfold, plus a quick note on what happens if things go sideways. This gives you control when players improvise.
Modifying Settings During the Game
Players won’t always do what you expect. Be ready to modify settings to keep the story moving.
Example: You prepared a restaurant on Obroa-skai where the characters learn IG-88’s location. Players insist the clue is on Tatooine and go there. • Letting them fail to find it could be long and frustrating (especially if you have nothing prepped). • Telling them “Tatooine is a dead end” is unfair and railroads them.
The quickest—and fairest—solution is to move the restaurant to Tatooine. The plot progresses, but the players keep their agency.
However, the restaurant must be modified to fit Tatooine. The elegant Obroa-skai version won’t feel right under twin suns. Downgrade furnishings, change the clientele, and make it eclectic and rougher—so it feels like it was always on Tatooine. The players shouldn’t be able to tell you relocated it.
Final Preparation
Settings are one of the key parts of Star Wars adventures. With a little creativity—and by focusing on look and feel over exhaustive detail—you’ll find settings come easily.
Since you’ll rarely have enough prep time right before a session, keep a notebook of locations. Write them up when inspiration hits. When you’re rushed later, you may already have exactly what you need.
Source: REUP:207