Late on Thursday July 30, the final reveal of Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons and Dragons Vision Keynote at GenCon was an absolute showstopper – Star Wars D&D. Due to arrive in the fall of 2027 as the key release in the ‘Season of Rebellion’, this will be the second major crossover project in a new Universe’s Beyond initiative that pairs D&D rules with other classic IPs, following on from an equally audacious World of Warcraft crossover this winter.
It was an epic teaser to close the show on, with WotC dropping the name of the project and then practically no other details whatsoever. And even though we have a lot of details about the earlier World of Warcraft crossover, the fact they share the Universes Beyond label doesn’t mean the two products will be comparable: WotC first used the Universes Beyond brand for Magic: the Gathering, and no two Magic Universes Beyond products are ever the same.
But the WoW supplement is the best lead we’ve got to go on. That’s going to be a chunky tome with content for players and GMs alike: 11 DnD races, nine new and revised subclasses, 23 factions, magic items, spells, monsters, dungeons, and much more that you can read about in our complete rundown.
Another supplement like that would be a substantial overhaul for the current edition of Dungeons and Dragons – but in my heart of hearts, I hope that WotC is going to be even more ambitious. Wizards of the Coast used to publish a complete line of Star Wars TTRPGs, and it did a great job.
Way back in the year 2000, the same year that WotC published its first version of Dungeons and Dragons, it also published D20 Star Wars. This ran on a similar rules engine to D&D 3rd edition and was popular with tabletop gamers – but it had an even greater influence than you might think. The BioWare videogame ‘Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic’ ran on the Star Wars D20 rules engine, and that game was a major creative and commercial stepping stone towards the even more massive Dragon Age and Mass Effect series.
D20 Star Wars was given a major overhaul in 2007 to create the Saga Edition, which received Gold ENnie awards in the ‘Best Game” and “Best Rules” categories. Though another D20 system this was a functionally distinct game, which got its new subtitle because it allowed for games set at any point from Phantom Menace to Return of the Jedi. That edition lasted until 2010, when WotC let the Star Wars license lapse: in 2012 Fantasy Flight Games released its take on the Star Wars RPG.
Sadly, that game line has been inert since 2020. FFG’s owner, Asmodee group, spent a lot of time in the late 2010’s shuffling licenses and games among its studios to try and focus each team on one speciality: in 2020, it transferred the Star Wars RPG to Edge Studio. This new studio was basically a caretaker, occasionally reprinting the old books, but not expanding the line with anything new.
A new D&D Star Wars book would probably be the final nail in the coffin for the FFG Star Wars RPG, but there haven’t been any signs of life there for some time. Whether this new product is as well-supported as D20 Star Wars, as well loved as Star Wars Saga Edition, or just a chunky one-off supplement, it’s just good to see something happening with the Star Wars license in the world of RPGs.
Which is your favorite Star Wars RPG? Do you have another system that you think works even better than any of the official ones? Come and share your thoughts in the Wargamer Discord community!
Source: Wargamer
