A short history of Star Wars TTRPGs

Since 'A New Hope' first screened in cinemas in 1977 and the world discovered that galaxy so long ago and so far away, it has starred in three different tabletop roleplaying game systems, each one offering a distinctive way for players to create their own sagas. This guide introduces each of the three Star Wars TTRPGs, who made them, and their lasting legacies.

The most recent Star Wars Roleplaying Game, originally published by Fantasy Flight Games, is still on sale, but the rest are out of print and not available in digital editions. Still, you can find more great Star Wars tabletop experiences in our guide to the best Star Wars board games.

D6 Star Wars

The original Star Wars RPG is also its most influential, not just on gaming but on the whole extended Star Wars universe. It was released during a lull for the franchise, long after hype from the original trilogy had ended, and as the first run of Star Wars novels was winding down.

In order to give players and game masters enough information about the Star Wars universe to actually run a game, it fleshed out elements of the world and backstory that had been completely ignored by the films and books. In the process it invented huge amounts of canon that the extended universe came to rely on.

The canon that West End Games created would remain valid up until the Disney buyout. Even then, many of its concepts have been reimplemented in the new timeline, with the Ghorman massacre in the TV series Andor being one of the most prominent examples.

For a game released in 1987 it has a remarkably elegant - and appropriately heroic - set of rules. Actions are resolved by rolling a pool of D6 and trying to beat a target number, and players can attempt any number of actions in a round but suffer a cumulative dice penalty for each action after the first. One on one, even first level player characters are more than a match for a single Stormtrooper - but things get dicey once they're surrounded…

D20 Star Wars

Wizards of the Coast's Star Wars RPG used a variant of the D20 rules used in Dungeons and Dragons 3e and then 3.5e, with character classes, levels, D20 rolls, and polyhedral damage dice. It had two main editions, the second 'Saga' edition being slightly more streamlined and straying somewhat further from the DnD-like core of the original.

Despite being out of production since 2010, this may well be the most played Star Wars RPG, though many people will be completely unaware that they've ever engage with it. That's because the rules engine underpinning D20 Star Wars was adapted wholesale into the famous Bioware CRPG 'Knights of the Old Republic' and its sequel.

FFG Star Wars

The most recent family of Star Wars TTRPGs, developed by Fantasy Flight Games, uses custom polyhedral dice. A single pool of dice shows both whether or not an action has succeeded, and also whether or not the success comes with extra good or bad consequences, depending on the balance of 'threat' or 'advantage' in the results.

The game has three concurrent editions, each one focusing on a slightly different part of the setting:

• Edge of the Empire covers adventures in the Outer Rim, starring bounty hunters, smugglers, and explorers;
• Age of Rebellion is all about being freedom fighters striking against the Galactic Empire;
• Force and Destiny is for playing as force users, whether they're Jedi survivors of Order 66 or Force-sensitives living under the Empire.

Though the game line initially focused on the original trilogy era, supplemental products let you play in on other eras:

• The 'Force Awakens Beginner Game' takes place during the early days of the First Order;
• The sourcebooks 'Rise of the Separatists' and 'Collapse of the Republic' let players play as forces on either side of the Clone Wars.

In 2020, Fantasy Flight Games announced that it was ceasing development of its Star Wars RPGs. This was part of a general reorgnization by its parent company Asmodee, and the license for the RPG was transferred to Edge Studio, another Asmodee subsidiary. Though the line is still in print, it has not been expanded since the transfer.

If you're a big fan of any of the Star Wars RPGs - or if you prefer to play games in the same universe using a different rule set - come and join us in the Wargamer Discord community!

For a retrospective on even more RPG history, why not check out this run down on the full range of tabletop Warhammer 40k RPGs?