Campaign Foundations

Practical Applications

Session Zero: Your Campaign's Foundation

Before you even roll dice, hold a "Session Zero" - think of it as the Jedi Council meeting where you agree the rules and expectations for your campaign.

Essential Questions to Discuss:

• What era interests everyone? (This determines the galaxy's political state)
• What type of heroes do you want to be? (Smugglers and bounty hunters suit Edge of the Empire, Rebel operatives Age of Rebellion, Force users Force and Destiny; the three core books share one dice system and mix freely)
• How serious vs. lighthearted? (Rogue One vs. A New Hope tone)
• What themes matter to your group? (Redemption, friendship, justice, etc.)

The Unglamorous Half: Logistics

Campaigns die of scheduling far more often than they die of bad storytelling. Settle these while everyone is still enthusiastic, because enthusiasm is a poor substitute for a calendar:

• How often, and for how long? Fortnightly three-hour sessions that actually happen beat weekly five-hour ones that keep collapsing.
• What counts as quorum? Decide now whether you play with someone missing. Groups that never decide this end up cancelling by default.
• How does a session end? Stopping on time, mid-arc, is a skill. Ending on a cliffhanger beats ending because everyone is exhausted.
• Who brings what? Dice, snacks, and the character sheets someone will inevitably forget.

Safety Tools: Agreeing the Edges

Star Wars runs on torture droids, amputation, slavery, genocide and family betrayal. That range is exactly why the setting has lasted — but it also means a table can wander somewhere a player did not sign up for, usually by accident and usually mid-scene. Safety tools are how you find those edges before you hit them. They take ten minutes, and they are standard practice now rather than an optional courtesy.

• Lines — content that will not appear at all. Collect them privately if anyone prefers; a written list passed round works better than going around the table aloud.
• Veils — content that exists but happens off screen. The interrogation occurs; you cut away and rejoin afterwards. Most Star Wars darkness plays better veiled anyway.
• An escape hatch — one agreed signal, a card or a word, that any player including the GM can use to rewind or skip a scene. No explanation required, no discussion afterwards. The point is that it costs nothing to use.
• A check-in after session one. People rarely know their own edges in the abstract. Ask again once everyone has seen what the game is actually like.

Two things make these work. First, they apply to you as well — running a scene that is upsetting you is not professionalism. Second, using one is never up for debate: a veil invoked mid-scene is honoured immediately and play moves on. A table that argues about a safety tool has just demonstrated why it needed one.

What the Game Master Owes the Table

Session zero usually covers what the players want. Stating the reverse prevents most GM burnout:

• Preparation proportional to the group's investment — and no more. A GM who prepares four hours for a group that forgets the plot weekly will quit by month three.
• Consistency. Rulings can be wrong; they should not be arbitrary. If you rule something on the fly, write it down and keep it.
• Spotlight discipline. Everyone gets a scene that is theirs. That is a scheduling problem, not a talent problem, and it belongs to the GM.
• The right to say "let me think about it." You may rule provisionally and correct it next week.

The Three-Act Structure for Campaigns

Structure your campaign like a Star Wars movie trilogy: