Star Wars: Backgrounds

Star Wars: Revised System
Table of Contents Character Creation Classes Attributes Abilities Backgrounds Feats Virtues & Vices Experience Game Mechanics Species List Force Powers Combat Starship Combat Equipment Starships Compendium
Stories
Prelude 1: A Treaty on the Brink 2: Amity in Peril 3: Fish in a Barrel 4: Measured Success 5: Empire of the Hand 6: Icy Reception 7: Galactic Chess 8: Heart of the Ascendancy 9: A Familiar Foe 10: Csaplarian Streets 11: Ascendancy in Turmoil
Characters
Akea Oahu - CS Allanar Onsai - CS Renora Cordalis - CS Greer Lachlan - CS Brance Maddox - CS

• Allies - Personal friends of some reasonable power, this background is not intended to refelct other player characters but people on par with a level 1 character or greater. This provides either 1 person per dot in the background, or possibly a single more powerful ally for multiple dots. It should be noted however that this is not mentor.

• Contacts - This represents a characters informants, these are people who he can get information or perhaps a favor from, as long as he pays for them. These a acquaintances at best, each dot represents a major contact and a number of minor ones. This background can be taken more than once to reflect different areas, or scopes of contacts.

• Influence - Influence represents a characters pull in an organization, his overall power and ability to make something happen. This does not necessarily imply rank in the organization though they often go hand in hand. Emperor Palpatine certainly had influence 5 over the galaxy because of his official rank, however, Yoda certainly had a large influence (just not large enough) without an official position in that organization. Jabba the Hutt is another example of a character with a great deal of influence without official position.

• Resources/Wealth - This is a measure of the overall money that your character has, this money can be gained in any way but this background reflects them all. It should encompass all of a characters money making sources, it also covers his starting assets.

• Arsenal - This represents a characters access to major military weaponry, this could mean a major stock of small arms (thousands of blasters), artillery fire, droid armies, military ships, or anything else that would be considered military class weaponry. It should be noted that this is either the equipment that the character personally owns (And therefore should be reflected by wealth/resources) or has personal access to. If a army he commands is equipped with such weaponry than it is not technically his, but rather whoever funds the army.

• Backing - This represents a characters official position within an organization, this normally means a title but not always. Certainly army or navy rank is the most rigid and easily described form of backing but certainly not the only one. A crime lord is backed by his crime syndicate, the jedi are backed by the jedi order (not always according to rank). If a character is officially apart of multiple organizations this background can be taken more than once, though some organizations will discourage this. Backing will encompass command in my eyes, we could change that though if people want.
  • (1) Jedi Padawan
  • (2) Jedi Knight
  • (3) Jedi Master
  • (4) Jedi Counselor
  • (5) Jedi Grand Master

• Reputation - Reputation determines how well known your character is around the galaxy, this can be a doubled edged sword if you're trying to do something to not be recognized. Darth Vader is a good example of reputation 5, obviously reputation also covers notoriety.

• Mentor - Mentors can be several different things to a character, they can be a boss or an adviser, or even a companion. They are always a source of power, be it knowledge or physical, but the degree of influence in a characters life is rather up the player. not all mentors are found of their students, nor the other way around, but mentors are willing to help their pupils for one reason or another. The most obvious case of mentor-pupil relationship in starwars are Jedi's and their masters.

• Force Potential - This determines both whether a character is force sensitive or not, when the character becomes intune with the force, and how strong of a force user the character is. A 3 in this background will allow a character to start with the force, most jedis will have this rating at 3. Ratings a 2 and 4 are also fairly common as late bloomers and prodigy children. Jedis with 1 are rare because often the character is too old and set in his ways, and 5 only comes along once in a generation at best.

• Workshop - This background will represent a specific place a character owns that is equipped with everything the character would need to perform some major task. This could be a ship repair shop, a ship yard, a droid manufacturing center, an occult library, an elaborate medical facility, or a number of other things. The higher the rating the better equipped and larger the workshop can be, workshop will likely provide bonuses to characters performing actions in them considering they are well equipped to perform them. Some won't provide a bonus but are necessary to even attempt a task, for instance a ship yard of some sort is needed to build a ship. (This could be excluded and just put under wealth or arsenal but I think its different from both. A character will a good repair shop isn't necessarily rich or well equipped.)