I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is if you’ve ever played Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition (D&D 5e), for the most part, creating a character in Star Wars 5e (SW5E) is going to be pretty familiar to you. The bad news is if you’ve never played D&D 5e, you’ll have to learn this from scratch. But don’t worry, I got you. 

“D&D but make it Star Wars” makes perfect sense when you consider Jedi are pretty much space paladins out to save the princess from an evil god-emperor who might be a lich. From padawan to bounty hunter who definitely shoots first, Star Wars 5e offers a great blend of familiar d20 mechanics with a galaxy full of starships, droids, and Force users. 

So you’ve found a Star Wars campaign here on StartPlaying, and now you need to tackle the mechanics of building a new inhabitant of the galaxy? Fear not, young Padawan. We’ve got you covered.

If you want to pilot an X-Wing through an asteroid field, discover ancient Jedi secrets, and explore the thrilling Star Wars galaxy with your friends online, you’ll need a virtual tabletop (VTT) to do it. Star Wars 5e offers players more familiar with the Dungeons and Dragons 5e system a path to tell their stories in the Star Wars Universe without having to learn an entirely new TTRPG. However, there are many notable differences, such as all new classes, archetypes, starship combat, and ‘spells,’ which have been split into ‘Tech Powers’ and ‘Force Powers.’ Your choice of VTT is a critical one, as this decision can set up your next game to be extremely fun or extremely frustrating.

Character sheets need fields for strain, wounds, critical injuries, and obligation/duty/morality tracking. And the Destiny Pool––the eternal push and pull between the light and dark side––needs to be easily accessible by everyone at the table.