Galaxy Guides

The Galaxy Guides have been a staple of the Star Wars RPG since 1989, just a couple years after the game's initial release. Indeed they continued throughout the run of the game (the last being released in 1995). Essentially, these books were appendices to the main rule books and sourcebooks, each one focusing on a different overall area. In this post, I am going to list the various Galaxy Guides and a brief impression of each. I imagine I'll get around to reviewing them all individually, so consider this a preview.

Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope

This book focused on the various characters and settings from the first Star Wars movie—providing gaming statistics for pretty much everything from the lowliest Stormtrooper and Jawa to Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Though I would eventually wind up having 'issues' with many of the stats provided (Wedge only has a piloting of 5D!?), they did begin to form the basis of what I considered 'average' statistics in the Star Wars universe—and indeed in my campaign. I also enjoyed all the details they included about very minor characters (like some of the folks in the Cantina). This was one of the true strengths of this product—not only was it fun to read, but it gave you a huge stable of NPCs that you could use in your game. In fact, a lot of the NPCs had information in their backgrounds that made great adventure hooks.

Final Rating: 5/5

Galaxy Guide 2: Yavin and Bespin

When I originally purchased this book, I expected it to be the same format as the first Galaxy guide. It was a little disappointing to find that it wasn't. But that initial disappointment quickly faded. Rather than detailing NPCs, this book provides information on two different planetary systems (not just the 'main planets', either). I especially enjoyed the details provided about Bespin, as well as the various NPCs and plotlines outlined for it. The section on Yavin was a bit more uneven in my opinion. Yavin IV (the location of the Rebel base) was interesting enough, but there was evidently another inhabited moon, populated by sentient snake-people and rabbit people. That just...seemed rather silly. And then there was some kind of mining operation going on in the atmosphere of Yavin itself. The background seems to suggest that the mining operations had been there for a while, but that didn't make sense with the system being a 'hidden' rebel base.

Final Rating: 3/5

Galaxy Guide 3: The Empire Strike's Back

This product followed the format of the first Galaxy Guide—detailing NPCs and locations from the Episode V. Most notable (to me) in its character descriptions was the inclusion of the various bounty hunters. As with many Star Wars products, I would continue to have 'issues' with the stats presented for some of the NPCs—but then, the Stats were just a very small part of the profile of the characters. Much more interesting (and usable) were the backgrounds and story-hooks.

Final Rating: 4/5

Galaxy Guide 4: Alien Races

Right away, I knew this was going to be different than the other guides. Instead of listing info on individual NPCs, this product featured an extensive listing of alien races—including their cultures and physiology and stats. I loved the fact that many of the races from the movies were detailed, but that they also included a fair amount of original ideas. Of course, this was also the source of two particular Alien races that grew to annoy me—the Barabel and the Defel. Both of these were popularized by Timothy Zahn in his Heir to the Empire novels. And both seemed to be 'powergamer' races that made me have to make adjustments in my own games.

Final Rating: 4/5

Galaxy Guide 5: Return of the Jedi

This product detailed the characters from Episode VI—from the creatures of Jabba's court to Rebel High Command to the forest moon of Endor. It was again very interesting and fun. Full of lots of ideas. But it was also the a high-point of showcasing how uneven West End Games was with providing stats for NPCs. Luke, Leia and the heroes were mega, with lots of skills, many at high levels. Everyone else was a schlub. Wedge, for instance, supposedly one of the best pilots in the Rebellion, had a piloting skill of 6D. Up one ENTIRE D from where he started 3-4 In-Character years ago. Mon Mothma, Akbar and General Madine were likewise completely unimpressive. I don't expect any of these people to be 'superheroic', but come on.

Final Rating: 4/5

Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters

When I purchased this book, I thought it was going to detail freighters and present rules for modifications, cargo hauling and the like. It did just that. But it also presented an entire campaign setting—an entire star cluster (the Minos Cluster), along with a flock of interesting NPCs and outlines for numerous adventures. One of these adventures even featured Princess Leia—which really opened my mind up to using feature characters in my own campaign. Ironically, the freighter rules were (in retrospect) the weakest feature of the book. They were functional enough, but weren't particularly well thought out. I would wind up revising them greatly throughout the course of my campaign. But that doesn't stop me from absolutely loving this book and the setting.

Final Rating: 5/5

Galaxy Guide 7: Mos Eisley

Taken along with Galaxy Guide 1 and the adventure module Tatooine Manhunt, you have pretty much all the information you need to run a great adventure or even micro-campaign on Tatooine. Galaxy Guide 7 presents numerous locations and NPCs—and expands upon some great landmarks in the city of Mos Eisley, including the Cantina and Jabba's Townhouse (his home when he's in the city). Many maps are presented for the various locations as well, making this very great for a GM.

Final Rating 4/5

Galaxy Guide 8: Scouts

Without a doubt, my favorite character type is the scout (a hold over from my love of Rangers in the D&D game). Thus, this book was highly anticipated by me. Unfortunately, that meant I probably set unreasonably high expectations for it—even though I'm not sure exactly what those expectations were. This guide is functional enough, providing a system and hints for the creation of interesting alien worlds. It also details the various scout-services in the galaxy as well as the ships and equipment used by them. It even included a very cinematic short adventure regarding a lost Jedi artifact and a Dark Force wizard searching for it. All that was good, but I was still left wanting. There just didn't seem to be 'enough'—almost as though they were trying to cram too much into one book and wound up cutting things. There could have been more specialized gear and ships—but more importantly, I think the inclusion of some NPCs (various types of scouts) would have added a lot of flavor and personality to the guide—just providing blank templates wasn't enough 'meat' for me.

Final Rating: 3/5

Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the Rim

This is probably one of the strangest Galaxy Guides of the lot. It doesn't read as a 'guide' so much as it does as notes from someone else's Star Wars campaign—complete with a set of NPCs with intertwining back stories. Subject matter jumps from Rebel operatives to Imperials to criminals to corporations to military units to news agencies to leisure activities to—well, you get the picture. So I guess the title is exactly right. It's a lot of information on a lot of different things. This may seem, at first, to be a bit disjointed, but in truth I found this to be one of the most inspiring of the Guides—greatly expanding the Star Wars galaxy into areas I hadn't even considered. Rock Bands? Yep. They have 'em. Different mixed drinks? Got 'em. And who can forget the AWEsome list of Rebel special ops slang—all those wonderful 'TLA's (three letter acronyms). Yeah, my players and I got a lot of use out of this book.

Final Rating: 5/5

Galaxy Guide 10: Bounty Hunters

Honestly, I am biased against this book. I was never a huge bounty hunter fan. I was never a Boba Fett fanboy. It didn't help matters that this particular Guide quickly got 'sold out' and became hugely expensive because all the fanboys snapped it up. I wound up getting ahold of this book rather late compared to the others, and when I did, I didn't really see what all the fuss was about. Its a solid, functional book with information on bounty-hunting—the process, the gear, special guilds and all of that. But it's nothing spectacular. Particularly annoying to me was all the BS on the 'code' of bounty hunters, trying to portray them as something other than the back-stabbing, money-grubbing mercs they really are. Give me a break.

Final Rating: 3/5

Galaxy Guide 11: Criminal Organizations

This book was a bit of a let-down to me—though again, I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting. The book presents a great deal of information on various criminal organizations (of course), including types of crimes, tactics, NPCs, adventure hooks, etc. It also presents some great information on law enforcement agencies (of particular interest to me were the Sector Rangers—but then, I'm a sucker for anything with the word 'Ranger' in it). But again, much like the Scout Guide, it seemed to lack personality. There was too much 'overview' for my taste, and not enough down and dirty example. Plus, again, the specialized equipment section felt pretty skimpy. At this point, however, I imagine the game designers were leaving equipment info for the more specialized books that were also coming out (i.e. Galladiniums, etc.)

Final Rating: 3/5

Galaxy Guide 12: Aliens—Enemies and Allies

This was essentially a 'volume 2' of the original Alien Races Guide (galaxy guide 4)—detailing a lot of new races in much the same manner. The artwork is great, better, in my opinion, than GG4. The artist (Mike Vilardi) is my absolute favorite of the artists used in the WEG products. Like GG4, this book is both usable and fun to read.

Final Rating 4/5

Alas, these were the only Galaxy Guides produced for the game. West End Games went under and lost the rights to the Star Wars setting before they could produce any more. A shame, too, as they next guide was rumored to be a 'Scoundrel and Gambler' book. Sigh. Anyway, that's the short version of all of it. You'll notice I didn't give any of the books a rating lower than a 3. That isn't just because I'm a huge fan—it's because these are ALL great books. Fun to read and useful in the game.