Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game

The Star Wars Roleplaying Game holds the distinction of being the initial officially licensed roleplaying game to be situated within the Star Wars fictional world. West End Games originally published it, starting in 1987, but they eventually lost the license in 1998. Subsequently, Welt der Spiele released a German-language version some years after the original publication.

Within the game, one participant assumes the role of the gamemaster, effectively managing the gameworld as a combination of director and referee. The remaining four to eight players each control a specific character or role. Random occurrences, such as combat damage, are determined through dice rolls. Game sessions could be structured as brief, self-contained adventures or more expansive and intricate campaigns. The player characters are equipped with a range of skills and equipment, and some possess the ability to wield the Force, though this carries the risk of succumbing to the Dark Side if the character's actions are not aligned with its principles, resulting in the player losing control of that character.

Greg Costikyan was the individual responsible for developing the game's rule system. The main rulebook was released in three distinct versions: first edition, second edition, and a "Revised and Expanded" second edition. All three iterations were built upon West End Games' D6 System.

The collection of sourcebooks from West End Games is extensive, comprising nearly 100 titles, excluding second editions and compilations. Additionally, there were 15 quarterly magazine publications under the banner of Star Wars Adventure Journal. They also published several books connected to, but not part of, the Roleplaying Game line, including Star Warriors, the board games Escape from the Death Star and Assault on Hoth; the two-player game Lightsaber Dueling, the Introductory Adventure Game, Star Wars Miniatures Battles, the Live-Action Adventures and single-player adventure books.

The books provided not only game scenarios and guides, but also in-depth descriptions and expansions of familiar locations, items, species, creatures, and characters from the original trilogy, along with introducing new elements. The Clone Wars era remained a restricted topic for the publisher, as dictated by Lucasfilm. Consequently, the lore created for the RPG became a significant source of Expanded Universe content prior to the surge in Star Wars publications sparked by the release of Heir to the Empire in 1991, and it continued to be a vital resource. As one of the earliest sources to provide numerical data and specifics about the universe depicted in the films, some of the details presented in the sourcebooks have undergone retconning or revisions to better align with the films and Expanded Universe narratives. Notable examples of these adjustments include continuity discrepancies involving the Super Star Destroyers and the "discovery" of the Mon Calamari species by the Galactic Empire.

When Timothy Zahn was selected to author what would become known as The Thrawn Trilogy, he received a collection of West End Games Star Wars books and was instructed to ensure his writing was consistent with the background information established in the roleplaying game. Following the success of the novel trilogy, West End Games developed a series of sourcebooks inspired by Zahn's literary work.

In 1999, West End Games' license for the Star Wars RPG expired. Wizards of the Coast, the new licensee, initiated the development of a new roleplaying game utilizing their d20 System. Meanwhile, in 2004, West End Games began publishing D6 Space, a generic space opera game system that drew inspiration from the former Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game but excluded any specific Star Wars content. In 2012, Fantasy Flight Games launched their own Star Wars RPG titled Edge of the Empire.

During the early 1990s, predating the widespread adoption of the modern Internet, the FidoNet Star Wars Echo hosted a message forum dedicated to playing the West End Games Star Wars Roleplaying Game online via BBS.

In 2017, Fantasy Flight Games revealed plans for a 30th Anniversary Edition's reprint of the first edition's rule- and sourcebook. The initial release was slated for Q4 2017 but faced multiple delays, eventually being released on July 5, 2018.