Game Your Way into the Star Wars Expanded Universe with a New Guide

A lot of Star Wars fans first discovered the expanded Star Wars universe via the Knights of the Old Republic video games. Now you too can create your own characters and experience the rich, exciting era that took place thousands of years before the saga of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. The Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide is a sourcebook for the current edition of the Star Wars role-playing game. It comes out this week, and we've got all the details, plus previews of some awesome interior art.

Even if you have no intention of ever playing the Star Wars RPG, the KotOR Campaign Guide is a pretty interesting book. There are detailed descriptions of Star Wars history and the lives of many main and supporting characters, along with ships, droids, weapons and alien races. The production values are top notch, with rich, full-color interior art, a clean layout and color-coded labels for each section. Here's a look at some of the splash pages that start off the sections:For gamers, this book is a feast of new rules. Wizards of the Coast has taken the force abilities, characters and weapons used in the KotOR video games and converted them into RPG form. While the SAGA rules system can be fairly complicated at times (it's a strange blend of 3.5 edition D&D with new 4th edition D&D elements, all customized for use in the Star Wars universe), this book offers plenty of options to players:

• 10 new playable alien races.
• 21 new feats.
• 3 new prestige classes, plus updates to old classes.
• 10 new Jedi powers, and two new Jedi talent trees.
• 15 new droid types.
• Dozens of characters, from Sith assassins to noble Jedi advisors.
• More than 20 new starships.

My favorite part is the section on alternate Force beliefs. If you'd like to use Force powers, but don't subscribe to the black vs. white/Sith vs. Jedi dichotomy, you can follow an entirely different ethos. It's interesting to see how non-Jedis view their connection to the Force. Also, the characters, classes and droids in this book are tied to the Star Wars Miniatures set that we previewed last week. So if you want to play a Czerka trader with a T1 Bulk Loader Droid, you don't have to figure out how to represent yourself on the gaming table. Images by: Wizards of the Coast.

Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide [via Amazon]

Send an email to Ed Grabianowski, the author of this post, at edgrab@io9.com.