Living Force Campaign Guide (Star Wars Roleplaying Game)

As others have pointed out, the system seems a bit "overstuffed". There's one of everything, from a Jedi Academy, to overflowing spaceports, to cultural conflicts, to an indigenous sentient species. Alas, like a strip mall, having a taste of each facet of Star Wars roleplaying dilutes the overall product.

Also, keep in mind the material presented gives you a complete system as of the events of Episode I. If you fast forward to the Rebellion Era or beyond you may not be interested.

If you play in the RPGA's Living Force campaign, you are definitely going to need this book. If you are a GM, you may consider this one if you are looking for fresh new places to explore. If you think Star Wars rolepaying is about visiting the worlds firmly established in Star Wars lore (on screen and in print) then this book won't add to your experience.


A supplement that doesn't take chances   March 27, 2001
 19 out of 19 found this review helpful

Being the second supplement for the new Star Wars role playing game, the Living Force Campaign Guide is the `home system' of the RPGA and a part of the prequel time line. Though 30 pages shorter than the `Secrets of Naboo' book, it actually offers up information that can be considered useful to game masters. It details all of the planets within the Cularin System which is comprised of five planets (Acilaris, Cularin, Genarius, Morjakar, an asteroid belt, and Almas), orbiting a twin (binary) stars. The system is a hodge-podge of sorts as the writers tried to stuff as much of the rest of the galaxy into it. There are cloud cities hovering in the upper atmosphere of Genarius like Bespin, platform cities above the jungle world of Cularin, plus it is inhabited by a sentient race who reveres nature, both similar to Ithor, an asteroid field home to smugglers, and were invaded by the Trade Federation. All that was missing was a pod racing circuit.

Unfortunately where it falls apart is the total lack of detail where it was needed the most. A section called Mysterious Places and intended for story hooks, is far to brief in its descriptions of these places. The book mentions a Sith temple on the planet Almas, but spends less than half a page describing, and none of these `mysterious places' is accompanied by a map. One would assume that the most interesting places would be covered in some more detail than a few pages near the end of the book. The maps that are provided-the city of Forard is useless and an asteroid base is slightly less so. Finally, the art is just bland, not poorly drawn, just completely uninspired. In fact, the whole work seems to be a retread of what we have seen done before, and in many cases, better.

It has a native race on Cularin who are naturally Force sensitive, like the Witches of Dathomir. It has a creature that lives in the gas giant Genarius that secrete a fluid that negates Force powers, similar to the ysalamiri. It also states that one of the gases mined at Genarius is argon- a colorless, odorless, and completely inert gas that reacts with nothing, and one of the noble gases like krypton and neon. All in all the Living Force doesn't really produce anything new and not a lot that we haven't seen before. The `great evil' they mention on the back cover is still a mystery, because they didn't detail it much either.

What it does well is provide decent backgrounds for their large stable of NPCs, and good histories for why the system turned out that way. Perhaps the authors felt they could legitimize their work by including so much material from other Star Wars sources, like a blockade by the Trade Federation. Or maybe it was easier to borrow than to create something new. It does provide a Jedi Academy and some detail on how it is run, so there is at least a reason to include the Cularin System in your overall RPG universe, and maybe it even survived the Purge by the Emperor to be of use after the fall of the Empire into the New Jedi Order, a time more interesting, at least so far, than the prequel story line.

The Force will be with you, always.


Not quite enough   March 12, 2001
 1 out of 5 found this review helpful

This book has a lot of interesting information for a beginning Jedi characters. But the book doesn't have much to add to a character that wants to grow. It might help a roleplayer to better play a jedi, but there is little to improve simple game mechanics.