The Culture: Cutting Out The Corporate Gatekeepers, Part Four (#StarWars)

Playing Uncle George's Space Opera is piss-easy. I will link you to the most recent post on it.

West End Games is long dead, but its games of note (d6 Star Wars and TORG) endure on used bookstores and game shops around the world, and the former in particular maintains an active online archive of official and unofficial material (starting with the unofficial edition of the game).

Combined with the disgust that Kulty Kathy induced in the fans of Uncle George's Space Opera, you saw an uptick in support for the d6 version of the game despite it being dead before The Phantom Menace released.

"But I can't stand the brand anymore. That was our last hope."

Yoda There Is GIFfrom Yoda GIFs

In addition to Traveller (which can do this just fine, and definitely discourages needless violence), Spacemaster (Rolemaster ruleset retooled for Space Adventures), and Star Frontiers (which has the mood, but not the specific substance), there is another forgotten game that is meant for this stuff.

(Note: Please don't buy from DriveThru; if the publisher allows direct sales as is the case for Space Opera do that instead.)

Long before West End got the license from Uncle George to make the official RPG in 1987, there were people filing off the serial numbers to make something that could do it but not get them into legal troubles. Certain other games also serve well to fulfill this function such as Mekton Zeta.

(Star Trek got this explicitly with Starfleet Battles, and yes you can use the above games for Trek-inspired campaigning also.)

All of this follows a theme: a long disdained/underserved audience learns how to work around the lack of Official Product and ends up recreating old norms, thus making Official Product irrelevant at best.

Do give Space Opera a try. They also made Bushido, which is also worth a try, and some other games that should be given a revisiting in light of their use as ways around corporate gatekeeping.