How the GM Pages Fit Together
The "For the GM" part of this guide is a set of separate pages: campaign planning, table technique, combat on the ground and in space, Force users, social scenes, NPCs, droids, worlds, politics and visions. Each one stands on its own, but at the table they never arrive one at a time. A single scene can need a villain, a planet, a faction and a firefight all at once.
This page shows how those pieces connect, then lays out one concrete plan for a first campaign that uses every one of them in turn.
🗺️ The GM Pages at a Glance
In reading order, with the question each one answers:
Five Things to Hold Together
Most of the advice in the GM pages falls into five broad areas. A campaign feels coherent when all five pull in the same direction.
🏛️ Foundations
Covers: Campaign structure, world-building, story architecture
Key idea: Strong foundations make improvisation easier, not harder
Pages: Campaign Creation, Campaign Foundations, Campaign Arcs
🎨 Creative Content
Covers: Planet design, NPC creation, original scenarios
Key idea: Creativity serves the story, not spectacle
Pages: Planets & Locations, NPCs & Villains, Droids & Technology
⚙️ Rules in Service of Story
Covers: Combat, vehicles, the Force, reading the narrative dice
Key idea: Advantage, Threat, Triumph and Despair are story prompts, not just numbers
Pages: Running Ground Combat, Running Space Encounters, Running Force Users
📖 Character Stories
Covers: Character arcs, Obligation, Duty and Morality, emotional payoffs
Key idea: Stories are about change, not just events
Pages: Game Master Techniques, Social Encounters
🌟 The Wider Galaxy
Covers: Politics, factions, visions and destiny
Key idea: Complexity should add depth without confusing the table
Pages: Galactic Politics; Visions, Time & the World Between Worlds
🕸️ How One Choice Ripples Outward
Every element connects to every other. A change in politics affects what technology is available. A character's personal growth changes how they fight. A vision of the future reshapes a negotiation. Start from the campaign's theme and the rest follows:
🎭 Character-Driven Everything
Every element should serve the characters. Combat reveals personality, politics test values, technology reflects society.
🌍 Living World Consistency
Your galaxy should feel like it exists independent of the players, with its own history, cultures, and ongoing changes.
⚖️ Meaningful Choices
Every decision should matter, from grand political alliances to small personal interactions. Consequences ripple through time.
🎬 Cinematic Flow
Pacing, tension, and emotional beats should create the rhythm of an epic Star Wars story, with quiet moments and explosive climaxes.
🧘 How GM Skill Grows
Most GMs go through roughly the same three stages. Knowing which one you are in tells you what to practise next.
🌱 Stage 1: Learning the Pieces
You practise individual techniques: how to create NPCs, design encounters, manage the rules. Each skill gets your full attention while you use it.
⚔️ Stage 2: Combining Them
You start combining techniques fluidly, adapting to your players' needs and building scenes that do several jobs at once. The rules fade into the background.
🧙 Stage 3: Letting It Flow
You stop thinking about individual techniques. The pieces come together without effort, and the table experiences one continuous story rather than a series of systems.
🔗 Putting It Into Practice
Here is what it looks like when one scenario draws on all five areas at once.
Worked Example: "The Corellian Conspiracy"
Scenario: Corporate espionage threatens a vital trade route
Foundations: Campaign theme of "trust vs. betrayal" shows up at every level - personal relationships, political alliances, and technological reliability all become suspect.
Characters: Each PC's background connects to a different thread - the pilot knows Corellian culture, the slicer understands corporate networks, the diplomat has trade-guild contacts, the Force user senses deception. One PC's Obligation is owed to someone involved.
Rules: Social encounters decide what information the party gets, a space chase uses Corellian ship modifications, ground combat has to get past corporate security, and political standing limits available resources.
Creative content: Corellia's shipbuilding culture influences everything from architecture to NPC personalities. Technology reflects corporate priorities. Droids have loyalty programming conflicts.
The wider galaxy: Political ramifications span multiple star systems. Time pressure from an impending trade summit. Moral complexity as the "villains" have understandable motivations.
🎯 Try It: One Scenario, Every Page
Design a scenario where the advice from every GM page applies at the same time:
- Planet design reflects and reinforces political tensions
- NPC motivations drive both social encounters and combat situations
- Technology creates both opportunities and complications
- Force powers provide insight but raise moral questions
- Visions or deadlines add urgency and consequences to choices
The result: players face situations where personal growth, galactic stakes, and immediate tactics all demand attention at once - just like the climax of any great Star Wars story.
🚀 Your First Campaign, Start to Finish
The fastest way to get better at running Star Wars is to run something. This is the GM part of the guide assembled into one concrete plan — roughly twenty sessions, every stage pointing at the page that covers it. Follow it once and you will have used every technique on this site at least once.
Before Session One
- Pick an era and a premise in one sentence — "a salvage crew working a debris field the Empire has declared off-limits." Era selection is in Campaign Creation.
- Run session zero properly: expectations, logistics, and safety tools. All three are in Campaign Foundations — do not skip the third.
- Build characters together, at the table. Character Creation for the mechanics, Crews & Group Dynamics for making them a party rather than four strangers, and settle the "why do you stay together" question out loud.
- Prepare one situation, not a plot. Three names, two locations, one thing that happens regardless — see Game Master Techniques.
Sessions 1-4 — Establish
Small stakes, close focus. Give every character one scene that is theirs. Let the dice do narrative work early so the table learns the system's rhythm — Reading the Narrative Dice for spending results, and the Narrative Dice Roller if anyone is still hesitant about pools. Bring each character's Obligation, Duty or Morality into the story at least once. End session four on your first real cliffhanger.
Sessions 5-12 — Complicate
Introduce the antagonist and start their clock running: NPCs & Villains. Widen the map — a second and third world from Planets & Locations, and the faction pressure behind them from Galactic Politics. Vary the register deliberately: a firefight (Combat & Conflict), a negotiation (Social Encounters), a chase (Starships & Vehicles). Land your first arc around session eight and immediately seed the next.
Sessions 13-18 — Escalate
Consequences arrive. The villain has won something and the party can see it. Raise scale and complexity rather than enemy statistics — the pacing guidance is in Campaign Arcs, and the advancement curve in Campaign Creation. If you have a Force user, this is where Morality should have visibly moved: Running Force Users.
Sessions 19-20 — Land It
Finish. This is the single rarest skill in the hobby and the one worth practising most. Give every character a beat that pays off something established in the first four sessions, let the villain's plan reach its final step whether or not the party stops it, and end deliberately rather than drifting into a hiatus that never resolves.
The only advice that really matters: a finished twenty-session campaign will teach you more than five abandoned forty-session ones. Scope small, land the ending, then start something more ambitious with everything you learned. That is what all of these pages are for.
📊 Signs Your Campaign Is Working
You will rarely get direct feedback, so watch for these at the table:
🎭 Player Immersion
Players stay in character even during rules discussions. They reference campaign events months later.
🌊 Effortless Flow
Transitions between different encounter types feel natural. Rules fade into background.
💫 Emergent Stories
Players create compelling narratives through their choices. Stories emerge you never planned.
⚡ Emotional Resonance
Players genuinely care about NPCs, worry about consequences, celebrate victories.
🔄 Organic Adaptation
You adjust smoothly to unexpected player actions without breaking immersion.
🎯 Thematic Coherence
Every element reinforces your campaign's central themes and emotional core.
⚔️ Keep Getting Better
There is no finish line for running games. Every campaign teaches something new, and every group of players brings new challenges.
🔄 Reflect After Each Session
After every session, ask: What worked? What could be better? Which scenes did the players talk about afterwards? Write the answers down while they are fresh.
🤝 Talk to Other GMs
Share your experiences with other Game Masters. Borrow their ideas and offer yours. Every GM has solved a problem you have not met yet.
🌱 Keep the Players at the Centre
Your skill exists to serve your players' enjoyment. The best sessions are the ones where the players' ideas shape the story as much as yours.
⚖️ Choose the Right Tool
Know when to use each tool in your arsenal. Sometimes a simple encounter is perfect. Sometimes complexity is needed. The skill lies in choosing.
🌌 May the Force Be With You
Every page in the GM part of this guide is a tool, and no campaign needs all of them at once. Pick the ones your table needs this month, run the game, and come back for the rest when a new problem turns up.
If you want to play without a GM at all, the next part covers exactly that.
Every GM page orbits the same thing: your campaign.
Where to Go Next
This page leans on the rest of the guide. Revisit whichever area feels thin:
- Campaign Creation: Campaign construction — era, premise and long-term planning.
- Campaign Arcs: Arc architecture across many sessions.
- Game Master Techniques: Week-to-week table craft.
- NPCs & Villains: Antagonists to carry a whole campaign.
- Galactic Politics: The galaxy-scale forces your players push against.
- Playing Star Wars Solo: Running the same galaxy with no GM at all.
- Welcome to the Star Wars RPG: And the beginning, which reads differently once you have run a campaign.