Playing It Straight

As the name perhaps implies, the "Star Wars: Imperial Fist" game cast the PCs as servants of the Galactic Empire. Indeed, their mission was to hunt down one of the remaining Jedi and bring him to justice.

Now, there are two classic ways to present a "play as the Empire" Star Wars RPG. Probably the most common of these is to have the PCs fairly quickly realise their error and operate as double agents within the Empire (or, indeed, defect openly to the Rebellion). The other, of course, is to do the "evil campaign" - the PCs are out for their own benefit, and woe betide anyone who gets in their way.

However, there is a third approach, and this is the direction I took with the "Imperial Fist" one-shot, and the one I will try to adopt with the campaign when it comes: play it straight. That is, the PCs are agents of the Empire, yes, but they're not necessarily evil. They may be misguided... or they may not.

In the one-shot, it turned out that the Jedi in question had fallen to the Dark Side. This isn't really a surprise given what we see in the films - the Jedi spend years fighting a pointless war, large numbers of them are killed, padawan training is frequently abridged, and then, just as victory is at hand, their allies turn on them and they are slaughtered and they are villifed.

Based on that, it's no wonder many of those who survive are driven mad by their experiences. Others could well determine that they're involved in a new war, with ever fewer resources, and fight accordingly (see the start of season 3 of BSG).

And, of course, there are also the possibilities that the Imperial Fist team won't just deal with Jedi. There are all manner of corruptions in the Empire that could be tackled, or local authorities could invent a Jedi threat to cover their own abuses. Or...

The evidence suggests that that should actually work really well. The PCs will do their stuff, some moving towards the Dark Side, others remaining the 'good guys' or being appropriately neutral.

But then the really interesting discussions crop up once the PCs finally track down a Jedi who is one of the good guys, and then they have a choice to make. And I do so enjoy those interesting decisions!