Star Wars: Chasing Shadows (Learn to play FFG Star Wars)

Creating your character

Come with an idea. You do not need a finished sheet. We build characters together at Session Zero and I teach the system as we go. What it helps to bring A concept you can encapsulate in a sentence or a short paragraph. Expand on it once it settles. The more backstory the better. Who they are, and what they are running from or toward. What did the last nineteen years make them? A rebel who has already buried friends. A smuggler working off a debt to the wrong people. A hunter who takes Imperial contracts and hates every one. Someone who felt the Force once, a long time ago, and has spent every year since pretending they did not. The feeling at their core. What drives them, and what haunts them. A debt. A name they cannot say out loud. Someone they left behind and never went back for. A touchstone, if you have one. A character from the films, the shows, or the games who catches the tone you want. It tells me your register fast. A rough sense of role. Frontline, Force use, tech and slicing, piloting, or the one who talks. Nothing binding. Just so the crew covers its bases. How the system handles it? The Fantasy Flight narrative dice system. No levels. You pick a species, a career and a specialisation, spread starting XP across characteristics, skills and talents, then choose your motivations. Careers set what you are good at. Specialisations let you branch, and you can buy into trees from other careers as you grow, so nobody is locked into one lane. Your drama mechanic is where the character actually lives, and which one you get depends on the book you build from. Age of Rebellion gives you Duty, your standing and contribution to the war. Edge of the Empire gives you Obligation, the debts and secrets that follow you and drag the story back to your door. Force and Destiny gives you Morality, a scale between the light and the dark that every use of the Force tests. Whichever you carry, it is mechanical and it pulls the table toward you. If you play a Force sensitive, using it openly puts you on the Inquisitorius' and the Empire's radar eventually. That is a part of the story, not a penalty. Species selection is broad, with the note that anything from later eras stays out for setting consistency. Careers and specialisations from Age of Rebellion, Edge of the Empire and Force and Destiny are all open. Gear and starting resources are set at Session Zero once I know what the crew looks like. One more thing about this table. Characters do not die here. When a roll goes badly enough the cost lands on the body instead, so build someone you are willing to see marked, scarred, and changed, because you will get them back every session no matter how hard the galaxy hits. Bring that much and you will leave Session Zero with a full character already tied into the rest of the crew and into the era.

Preparing for the session

Once your seat is confirmed on StartPlaying, send me a message here on the platform and I will follow up with next steps. Alternatively, you may send a Discord friend request first if that is your preferred method. Discord is saithefae. When we have touched base I will send you a Discord server invite. Nothing to read and nothing to buy. We play in Foundry VTT and I own everything we need there, and anything I don't yet own the official modules for, I will purchase for the table. All of it loads in your browser when you click the link. Your sheet is built for you, the dice roll themselves, and the rules you need are right there on the character when you need them. I teach the system at the table and I keep teaching it for as long as you want the reminders. If you have watched anything set in this era, Jedi Fallen Order, Jedi Survivor, Rebels, Andor, or Rogue One, or Episode IV that is more than enough grounding for the tone we are playing in. If you have not, you will lose nothing. The campaign explains itself as it goes. You need a Discord account and a browser. I pay for all hosting and provide every other material you will need. Come with a character you want to find out about and the galaxy will handle the rest.

What Yuthika 'Fey' brings to the table

Thirty-four years behind the screen and a lifetime in this galaxy. I have run every Star Wars tabletop game ever published. West End Games d6, d20, Saga Edition, Fantasy Flight's Edge of the Empire line, 5e, and Savage Star Wars. I own the full run of each. When a rule feels thin, I know what the other systems did with the same problem and which of those solutions actually plays well at a table. The lore is not research for me. Nearly every novel, nearly every comic, the films more times than I can count. Chase something obscure into the Outer Rim and there is a fair chance I already know what is out there. I was on the small private forum where Mando'a started, working with Karen Traviss on the original vocabulary document behind the Republic Commando trilogy. In fact, I contributed the phrase Haat, Ijaa, Haa'it for sealing a bargain. The later Cuun Joha dictionaries and the mando'a.org community grew out of it, though that part was not mine. I was Bioware's first outside tester on Star Wars: The Old Republic. Nineteen months under NDA as class liaison for the Imperial Agent storyline. There is an NPC in the Smuggler line named after me. The banner features actual unused concept art from Jedi: Fallen Order, the game that help to inspire the unique way I plan to approach this campaign, by concept artist Jordan Lamarre-Wan, shared with his blessing. Voice acting for every NPC. I work professionally in anime and games, and the officers and fixers and Inquisitors at this table come back with voices you will recognise. Teaching is my actual job. PhD in Psychology, professional educator. I teach the system in play, at your pace, for as long as you want it. Years as a costume designer and VFX artist on NBC's Grimm, and teaching foam latex and prosthetic work on the convention circuit. It shows up in how I describe things. Full virtual tabletop production. For FFG, I use the incredible array of modules that help bring the story to life visually. Add in custom maps, tokens, ambient audio, and a Star Wars crawl for every session, and the table comes alive. I pay for all hosting and provide every material you need. And yes, I own a custom lightsaber. Because of course I do.

Homebrew rules

If it is Star Wars, we can build it. The core rules stand as written. I do not rewrite systems that already work, and FFG works. What I do build is content, and this is the system that makes it painless. Species come out of a points based ancestry builder, so a species that has never had stats can be balanced against the ones that do in about ten minutes. Force traditions are limited to Force and Destiny. Things such as Jensaarai, Baran Do Sages, Matukai, Zeison Sha, the Nightsisters, a Sith holocron tradition your character found and should probably not be reading are open with table consent. Each of those is an afternoon of work, not a rewrite, and they come out feeling distinct at the table rather than reskinned. Same for gear, starships, and fighting forms. If it exists somewhere in Star Wars and is not in the conversion, bring it to me. Between the d6, d20, Saga, and Fantasy Flight lines I almost certainly have a version of it on my shelf, and porting it into FFG is a short job. Legends, canon, comics, novels, games. If it is out there we can make it work at this table. The only requirement is era and tone. Nineteen years after the purge, 0BBY in a galaxy under Imperial control, with the Inquisitorius and Vader still hunting remnants per the expanded canon comics to fill in the edges. Anything that belongs to a much later period stays out for setting consistency. Bring me the concept. I will find the rules.

How Yuthika 'Fey' creates a safe table

Your safety matters more than any scene. Star Wars is adventure first. This campaign lives in the same register as the films and the games it draws from. There is danger, there is loss, and the Empire is genuinely frightening, but the tone stays heroic rather than grim. I am not running gore in a Star Wars game and never have. How the table holds that. Lines and Veils before we begin. Whatever you name as off limits stays off, permanently, and you never have to explain why. X card always available. Say the word or type an X and the scene changes. No questions asked. Open door policy. Step away at any point, camera and mic off, return when you want. No judgement. Check-ins during play. If a scene runs heavier than expected I pause before we continue. Roses and Thorns at session close. Short debrief every session, and private follow-up afterward if you prefer. What this campaign contains. Blaster and lightsaber violence at the level the films show it. Imperial occupation and what it does to the people living under it. Slavery as a practice of certain factions, referenced without detail. Capture and interrogation, including the Force used to pull something out of a mind that does not want to give it up. Loss of people your character cares about. The Inquisitorius, who are genuinely menacing. Characters cannot die in this system, and I will always tell you when the danger is real before you commit to it, before you end up with a cybernetic replacement. What this campaign does not contain. Graphic gore or dwelt-upon injury. Sexual content of any kind. Harm to children onscreen. Order 66 and what came after are the wound this campaign starts from and the Temple is part of that history, but children are not put in danger in scenes we play. Torture as a scene rather than as something that happened offscreen. Anything a player has named as a line. The galaxy is dangerous. The table is not. If something is not landing, say the word and it changes.