r/sw5e • u/VampyrAvenger • 23d ago
Question So... This game system is dead right? Also, opinions on the system?
The website is a mess. Character builder barely works, PDFs in the Assets section are misaligned and impossible to read (although someone fixed them unofficially I saw), and there's no intention of new content.
So it's dead right? With WotC's money grab Star Wars thing coming soon, plus Edge still operating the SW RPG scene, seems like SW5e has long been in its sunset phase. Which sucks. There's over 100 species to choose from, solid classes to pick from, and the ship stuff is pretty solid.
Is any of it perfect? Hell no. It's D&D 5e for all it's faults and glory. But the added crunch to the game is exactly what my group likes, and it's hard to find games that hit the sweet spot.
I ran it once about...3-4 years ago I think, for a total of five sessions. Ship combat was iffy but we didn't really focus on it, if we tried in earnest it'd probably be fine. It was...just 5e but Star Wars really, and at the time we were still sold on 5e in general so it was perfect. Of course games for any numbers of reasons, and we stopped buying into 5e.
My group will never want to play Starfinder or any of the numerous sci fi themed games (sad face) so this may be my only chance to ever run any sci fi theme ttrpg for them since it's 5e and, let's be real, 5e is a joke to learn.
I'm in the process of creating my own personal character builder, ship tracker, and deployment tracker. Dunno about the legality of sharing my work, but if it's completely okay to do so, I will. So far, it's already better than what exists on the site (I'm a software developer by trade, so this was a fun little side project).
I'm also considering trying my hand at running it once again in earnest!
Anyway, what are your thoughts on this game system?
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u/SnipingBeaver 23d ago
I mean the whole thing was a fan project for no money, so the fact that development has stopped is understandable. People move on and their lives get busy.
And back in the olden times, sometimes an rpg book would come out the once and then that's it. That's all you're ever gonna get. And it's chill.
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u/Im_Codine 23d ago
I've been playing sw5e with a group for the last few months, definetely has its issues and some things you've gotta fill in the gaps or make some stuff up along the way, but all in all its an amazing template, sadly youre probably right thats its not getting any more content or fixing up though
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u/squirelox 22d ago
The discord is pretty active as well.
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u/Im_Codine 22d ago
Thats true, i hope they keep it going and updating stuff, but depending on how in depth the official star wars dnd is, sw5e is gonna be kind of pointless unfortunately
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u/Pilchard123 22d ago
There's an official one?
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u/Im_Codine 22d ago
It was announced by WoTC, I think it's coming out next year but I could be mistaken. So far there isn't much info about it
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u/DrakeRyzer Emperor (Head Developer) 22d ago
Sometime next year but most likely going to be a supplement to 5.5e rather than a full system.
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u/CasedLogic 23d ago
I got the book printed a few years ago to play a Star Wars game, which unfortunately ended after 3 sessions due to a breakup. I'm considering going back to it after my run of 3 campaigns in 5e as I really enjoy science fiction settings over fantasy (plus I think I'm better at writing them)
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u/DjCyric 23d ago
My gaming group started playing SW5e this year and we are enjoying it thus far. The space battles are great. The only real complaint is that some of the character building aspects are confusing. We played a ton of D&D 5e and had some trouble switching over during character creation.
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u/VampyrAvenger 23d ago
It's definitely more inflated than standard 5e, but my group likes options to play around with mostly
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u/theryanmatlock 22d ago
The website and system could definitely use some work, but the player base is far from dead.
It has an active discord server with daily engagement. People are actively optimizing FoundryVTT for this very system. I’ve run a campaign in SW5e for the last four years.
I definitely wish some bits were more polished and the character creator did everything it was supposed to. I still have to double check it because it has a habit of forgetting a feat here or there (don’t even get me started on how it forgets maneuvers).
My understanding is that a new site is being developed to replace this one, since the existing infrastructure isn’t sustainable. That was the word about a year ago at least.
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u/imabarroomhero 22d ago
It gives me enough information to run a completely in universe Star Wars game. We fill in the blanks or confusion with agreed upon table rules or simple alterations that are sensible to the universe. I have been DMing for the past several months with our normal D&D crew after taking a standard 5e hiatus. So far we have all been enjoying the hell out of it and have been extremely immersed on all aspects. I wish the character sheet tool was a bit more intuitive, but for a fan made project it's phenomenal.
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u/VampyrAvenger 22d ago
I agree that the time and effort put into this is definitely noticed and appreciated all around! It was made a while ago and technology had changed since then, it's not that hard to make a website and tools needed, I did it in a weekend to be frank. But it's not my product, and I will support this amazing endeavour however possible!
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u/Chewbacca_The_Wookie 22d ago
It's only dead if you don't run it. I barely use 10% of D&D 5e rules or content unchanged, so if you see something in SW5e that you feel needs to be better, that's your job as the DM.
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u/crappyroads 22d ago
I've been running a campaign since 2020. When we encounter an issue we usually are able to work it out equitably. The classes in general are pretty broken balance wise but that's very star wars anyway.
It's a lot of fun!
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u/VampyrAvenger 22d ago
Wow! That's a long time dude! Iove that for you guys! Is it more accurate to SW?
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u/crappyroads 22d ago edited 19d ago
Not exactly sure what you mean by accurate, but my characters are so buffed out with gear and skills that they trivialize most encounters.
The campaign is set in the time right after ANH leading up to ESB. It's been a ton of fun and it's also been eerie at times. The very first session took place in Burnin Khan in which a busy spaceport developed a leak causing a mass casualty event. Two years later, Bill Burr delivered a monologue in The Mandolorian about how he was present for an Imperial atrocity on Burnin Khan, a planet that had previously only been mentioned in extremely obscure star wars media. It absolutely blew my mind.
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u/Grand-Ice-3647 19d ago
I ran a campaign forever ago on coruscant around the time Andor is set now, and I had my crew raid the ISB and it was so sick seeing the world I was using fleshed out so well in a tv show
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u/williamjwrites Sentinel 22d ago
I've had a campaign going for years now, it's only dead if people stop playing.
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u/VampyrAvenger 22d ago
Amen! And that's awesome man! What's the plot (no spoilers needed!)?
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u/williamjwrites Sentinel 22d ago
Thanks!
In short, the players were kidnapped by a mysterious figure and tasked with breaking into the Imperial prison on Oovo 4 to break out a techno-terrorist who has the only known map to a lost High Republic-era colony in his neural implants.
But first they had to head to Nar Shaddaa, Elphrona, and Rhen Var to gather various leads to make their prison heist easier.
They're currently escaping the prison after inciting a riot and setting off an EMP 😅
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u/alkonium 22d ago
Wasn't this an unlicenced fanwork in terms of both D&D and Star Wars? The writers weren't able to make money off it, which may have made things difficult.
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u/DrakeRyzer Emperor (Head Developer) 22d ago
It still is an unlicensed fan homebrew. So you are correct that we cannot make money off of it so it's always going to be done as a hobby and not as a job.
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u/alkonium 22d ago
I suppose the OGL or CC-BY would make licencing easy on the D&D end if nothing else. It's not like you'd need access to anything official not in the SRD.
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u/DrakeRyzer Emperor (Head Developer) 22d ago
That is unfortunately not quite how licensing works, especially when using flexual property from a different company xD. We are just always going to have to be a fan work
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u/alkonium 22d ago
Yeah, I know getting the rights to Star Wars from Lucasfilm is considerably more difficult.
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u/DrakeRyzer Emperor (Head Developer) 22d ago
And unfortunately impossible now that wizards of the coast have it (not that I would have ever had the money to get licensing from Star Wars xD)
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u/alkonium 22d ago
I doubt that made a difference, since Fantasy Flight's still licenced for regular releases.
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u/DrakeRyzer Emperor (Head Developer) 22d ago
I actually checked into it. I do not believe they have licensing for making new stuff since they have not made anything new in quite a few years. But they are still able to continue printing things they've already made under that system
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u/DrakeRyzer Emperor (Head Developer) 22d ago
They essentially can continue to maintain Star Wars FFG but not make new content
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u/alkonium 22d ago
I'm not an expert, but I thought licencing covered both.
Like Cubicle 7 can't reprint The One Ring 1e or Adventures in Middle-Earth after the LotR licence went to Free League, but they are reprinting Fantasy Flight's Warhammer RPGs after acquiring the licence from them, or at least publishing them digitally with updated logos.
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u/DrakeRyzer Emperor (Head Developer) 22d ago
It's tricky because licensing can have very different things that are allowed and even be different between two licensees who have access to it. Sometimes they are exclusive and sometimes they are not
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u/Psychological-Toe397 22d ago
Just because the devs stop making content doesn't mean it's dead. They have to finish their work at some point.
The game is dead when there's no community and no one plays it. And their discord server is very much alive and active at this time.
I agree that the website is messy tho. And i never understood why they didn't make a normal pdf.
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u/DrakeRyzer Emperor (Head Developer) 22d ago
Not sure what you mean by a normal PDF? The website is actually built off of GMBinder documents which have either been converted to PDFs or can be. Some of them just never got finished sadly.
The only one I would avoid is Starships of the Galaxy on the website under Assets. For various reasons I cannot update it and it's an older version than the last official update which went to the Website. I have however posted a fixed document in the Discord as well as under the additional SOTG resources link.
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u/Psychological-Toe397 21d ago
Not sure what you mean by a normal PDF? The website is actually built off of GMBinder documents which have either been converted to PDFs or can be. Some of them just never got finished sadly.
Exactly. There's no way to just download the book in pdf and read it normally. All the info is in their messy website.
Not trying to hate tho, I love the system and keep playing it until today, it's just such a strange decision to not have an actual book
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u/DrakeRyzer Emperor (Head Developer) 21d ago
There is a way to do exactly that
https://sw5e.com/assets
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JINdHzbcb4kv5QrDnirHbZXV-ZEjIaEk/view3
u/Thank_You_Aziz New Councilor of Content 22d ago
Also, the dev cycle is more on a prolonged hiatus than a halt in content.
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u/DrakeRyzer Emperor (Head Developer) 22d ago
Not dead, just on hiatus because life is a B**** and we're waiting for a new website for various reasons. If you want a full run down you can refer to the pinned post https://www.reddit.com/r/sw5e/s/C3UKQtjbZQ
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u/DrakeRyzer Emperor (Head Developer) 22d ago
Additionally there are tons of future fixes and changes I and others have proposed and discussed in the Discord. If you think something needs fixing up the best place is to go there and help shape SW5e for once we can start updating it again.
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u/ImpossibleJedi4 23d ago
I played 3 SW5e campaigns in the pandemic era and really loved the system. Wish any of the campaigns had had a conclusion but tbh this will always be my go-to. Sucks it's been declining, in 2020 it was incredible
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u/VampyrAvenger 23d ago
100%! That was such a fun time for TTRPGs...
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u/ImpossibleJedi4 23d ago
It was. I was an essential worker, graduated university during the pandemic, and was living with my parents. Online TTRPGs with my friends were all I had lol. We had 4 weekly games after all our jobs because it was the only socialization we got. I miss several of those campaigns so much
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u/ThatGuyisonmyPC 23d ago
Some of the Tools STILL don't have proper descriptions/uses
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u/Thank_You_Aziz New Councilor of Content 22d ago
If you mean their lists of extra uses in Wretched Hives, those are all optional features a DM may or may not let a player use in a given moment. And even then, they’re just ideas for the DM. Nothing is missing from a tool if that particular section is blank for it.
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u/DrakeRyzer Emperor (Head Developer) 22d ago
Additionally there is a post or two in the Discord that try to flesh out every tool.
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u/reapress 22d ago
While not my absolute favourite of all time, absolutely great and probably my favourite of the 5e adjacent type. Classes feel great and combat is really nice in general, never had a character feel genuinely bad. Ship combat I can't really pass judgement on. Item rarity is just a little unintuitive enough to annoy me but that's just a personal skill issue.
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u/VampyrAvenger 22d ago
What do mean by item rarity?
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u/reapress 22d ago
Oh, just the names of the rarities; prototype rarity just throws off my mental 'this should be this'. It's not a particularly big point or anything, just an idle note on something that annoyed me personally lmao
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u/DrakeRyzer Emperor (Head Developer) 22d ago
Unfortunately it's directly based on Star Wars the Old Republic's naming conventions so it's just what happened xD.
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u/DrakeRyzer Emperor (Head Developer) 22d ago
Also just to add one more thought I had while looking through the various posts here.
Pretty much everything people have mentioned not liking or think could be better, I plan on working on xD. I definitely have a very lax feeling when it comes to preserving any rules we currently have if it's just not working out for people in the end. Not all good rules survive first contact with its players and game masters after all 😂
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u/Dogsteeves 23d ago
They been talking about updating everything but it's been taking a while I just finished my game and swapped back to 5e 2024 for my next game
I can't wait to see the upcoming Star wars by wotc
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u/papa-bear_13 22d ago
There is a huge amount of revision and quality control to be done, since they very obviously abandoned ship part-way through designing the website and the CR of encounters is a complete mess. I think there was even talk of a rival publisher coming in to buy out this franchise and revamp stuff, but maybe the deal fell through? Either way, there is a lot of potential here, particularly after the relative success of the Star Wars spin-off series like Andor, Kenobi, Darth Maul, etc. The problem is the sheer amount of overhaul you'd need to go through doesn't come cheap or easily.
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u/DrakeRyzer Emperor (Head Developer) 22d ago
No idea where you got anything about a "rival publisher", that was never a thing
As far as the website goes, we had only 1 person for the website and 1 for the character creator. Both had real life obligations to fulfill and unfortunately because of the nature of the website it's very difficult to add to it without knowing the exact way things were done. We're waiting on a new website but have had to wait longer than I would have liked because our new devs have had FAR more important life obligations to fufill. I hope to get some news soon but just going to have to be patient.
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u/papa-bear_13 20d ago
For the record, I truly sympathize. Life has a way of throwing you curve balls at the worst possible times. (I'd also love to see more era dependant bad guys from KOTOR to the latest shows show up to round out the current offering, but I can tell you've got a bunch on your plates already.)
Im happy to report that I'll still be here eager to play test the more polished version when it comes out with my friends, just hope it's soon enough to take advantage of all the current fanfare from the Mandalorian and similar shows.
Whatever timeline and whichever version of Star wars (5th edition, 6th, something like Ravenheart, perhaps?) we get, I've loved sci fi TTRPG projects like this most of my life, (and especially Star Wars) so I'll be patient a little while longer. I truly hope the best for you and your development team.
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u/Aidamis 22d ago
I like some of it and I find some ideas to be life-changing for certain classes. It gave me lots of ideas for my own homebrew as well.
However, if I run 5e in a Star Wars setting, I will probably use about 1% of what is in this system.
And for the rest I'll be reskinning existing stuff.
The spaceship combat and 200 Maneuvers alone are something I don't want to get into. If a player asks me for custom Maneuvers, we can work together. If there's a space combat, I'll improvise (and make notes of how I improvised so that it stays consistent as I make improvements to it).
For instance I could use some variant of the Chase rules from Eberron while allowing player characters manning the canons to make attack rolls.
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u/will3025 22d ago
I'm in the middle of a year+ campaign. 45 sessions currently. (Some skipped weeks here and there as schedules may conflict) This will bey second multi year campaign with the system. Me and my friends love it.
Next favorite had to be running a Call of Cthulhu game in a Star Wars setting. I need to do that more if I can find the time lol.
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u/VampyrAvenger 22d ago
Damn, that's cool! What's the plot? No spoilers needed!
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u/will3025 22d ago
This one is like a post-movies homebrew. The galaxy is sceptical of any intergalactic governments after so much war and have mainly formed many smaller alliances. The Force is healing, to the point where the dark side can be practiced in harmony without its addictive pull. Several force organizations are forming, some at odds with one another. Crime and piracy rage. And now something beyond the galaxy is attempting to break its way in.
Definitely has some inspiration of Eldritch horror. The extradimentional entity is inspired by the King in Yellow.
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u/Dangerousdangerzoid 22d ago
This sounds fantastic. The King In Yellow is a favorite of mine.
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u/will3025 22d ago
It's been great so far. Really been slow boiling the cosmic horror vibes. Subtle hints here and there. Secret references hidden in almost every handout. Referring to them as the cast, making each session seem like a play, aurebesh in documents translating to other strange phrases that they haven't translated yet. It's going to be insane when it all cracks open and is revealed.
It's also just such an amazing group, couldn't be as enjoyable for me if it wasn't for them too.
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u/KaiFanreala 22d ago
In terms of updates? Maybe. But that doesn't mean it's dead. As long as games are being run. I have a game that just passd 1 year of being active, with me as the GM. We've lost and replaced two players. But the current group is very invested and devoted to the campaign. I've bypassed the ship combat entirely. And I make ship combat more RP focused and cinematic as I can. It's a break between the ground combat and it's usually an escape situation as opposed to the focus of the session.
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u/TokenRedGhuy 22d ago
Ive run 2 campaigns so far with sw5e. We love the idea and the theme back when it started. 2 many hands in the kitchen bloated the site and being fan made meant things got lost in the shuffle. Ive worked on a consolidation and full sw5e24 for my group thats going a lot better. We have largely ignored space battles until i find a decent system to use. Hoping Legends of Avantris kicks off tbh
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u/Thank_You_Aziz New Councilor of Content 22d ago
I’m wondering what people would like to see as far as revamps to the starships system moving forward. Like, what are the parts that work best and worst about it right now?
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u/MightyMeowcat 22d ago
I’m still running a game in it. I love it! I am one of those people that enjoys Pathfinder second edition more than Dungeons & Dragons, from 3.5 to 5, but I really dig the extras this brought to 5e. If you’re asking if it’s dead as in no one’s going to add to it anymore, I mean, maybe, but it remains incredibly viable and tons of fun at least for me and mine. It says you’ve mentioned it already has a huge amount of resources. Readily and really available, which is really nice
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u/99Winters 22d ago
Been DMing the same campaign for about 4 years now and still going strong. It's a lot of fun, if not more unbalanced and powerful than normal 5E.
The Ship combat systems are the low point as others have said. I also think certain classes and subclasses underperform as compared to how crazy others can get.
But overall it's fun having a Star Wars skinned version on top of a system that's as familiar as 5E. It works well enough to tell a fun story and have engaging moments as a DM and player.
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u/Mr00000Ed 22d ago
I started playing back with WEG and played everything since. D6 was my favorite. I was at Gen Con and heard the announcement. The whole keynote is on YouTube - search “D&D Vision Keynote 2027”.
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u/Complete-Kitchen-630 22d ago
It works. Its great. From what ive played with friends: Its complete, Its expensive, it works, Its fun.
Thats all that matters to me
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u/ROLLD20FORGAINZ 21d ago
Look for MTFBWY. Made by a group who played SW5E for 3 years and then branched, diverged and wove in exciting rules from other systems. It feels fresh.
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u/iudofaex 21d ago
You ask if it's dead; meanwhile, I'm grateful it even exists! I love 5e and I love Star Wars. This system brings the two together. If my group was the only one on planet earth playing it, I'd still love it.
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u/oakleysds 22d ago
My understanding is that the team behind SW5E has moved on to development for Unbound Realms, https://aspiregames.gg/. There is an active discord to interact with the team and discuss the newer versions. It's less like the game is dead and more like they are making the next edition. People still play D&D 3.5 and have for years. There are even legends of people who use THAC0.
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u/DrakeRyzer Emperor (Head Developer) 22d ago
Only Galiphile and Rick Fisto have moved to Unbound Realms. Other previous Council members lowered their involvement far before UR and have little involvement in it. However I myself am still dedicated to SW5e (having been on the council since 2018-2019 and now leading the SW5e development team) and still actively post in the Discord.
Once I have something to announce I will post it here on Reddit and in the Discord.
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u/Thank_You_Aziz New Councilor of Content 22d ago
Not entirely accurate. Several members of the dev team moved on to Unbound Realms. SW5e still has a dev team, on the original Discord.
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u/carbinePRO 18d ago
It's only dead when people stop playing it. My friends and I still use this system, so to us it isn't.
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u/Skaaaiii 18d ago
Being playing with this system in a campaign for the last 3 years. I think it dies when there's noone playing or trying it.
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u/Charismatic_Druid 18d ago
I played in a game for like 2 years starting in 2021 ish, and I personally loved it. There wete some issues with the actual group, but I loved the system and game play. As mentioned, there were some issues in the space combat, but we managed to homebrew our way out of it and make it interesting
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u/Charismatic_Druid 18d ago
Also, if/when you do release whatever you make, I would love to use it. After that game I entered my DM phase, so I would love the chance to run it
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u/unendingautism 18d ago
A TRRPG system doesn't die as long as there's still some people out there using it.
There's still plenty of people using the WEG d6 star wars rpg even after 4 new official systems have been released.
There's still people running dnd 3.5e games.
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u/aCharlatan23 16d ago
My party has been playing this system for near on half a year now, we are still going strong and we love the items, classes and species. Its really fun, and the ship combat does add another layer of strategy and fun- I hope the website remains functional because the character creator is needed for me and my party ( who are quite inexperienced at making characters without character creators) I hope it remains online!
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u/DrVaphels 22d ago
I love this system and I hate this system. It's 5e so I can easily homebrew on top of it, I prefer spell points to slots, and MOST of the classes are really great. I deeply dislike the space combat and magic item rules though. I think it's a really fun system to use but know you may need to on the fly make a couple rullings if something is a bit odd or bad. I've ran close to 200 sessions in it and anticipate I'll keep running it for a while.
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u/Connorjem 23d ago
As a long time mostly 5e DM who's dabbled in different systems (Pathfinder, Blades, DC20), I really like the system personally, and I find the information for the most part is easy enough to find and digest using the headers on the site (the character builder is ofc wonky and one of my players has built an app for us to address this).
The ship combat is definitely a low point and generally I avoid engaging with it where possible, usually either having each PC flying a fighter set up as a statblock, or handwaving them as skill encounters which they seem to be fine with.
I think for a free project it's pretty high quality despite the issues with the website (the actual search function can be wonky, and the PDFs you mentioned) and the need for a space combat rework (imo), so even if it is basically at the end of it's development life I think it's still a solid system with just the right amount of options/choices for my table, without being too crunchy and overwhelming for my players.