How To Play Star Wars Dungeons & Dragons, Completely For Free

Like many nerds, I’m a big fan of Star Wars, and I spend way too much time playing video games set in a galaxy far, far away. Eventually, I got the urge to do some tabletop gaming at the local hive of scum and villainy (my friendly local game store). That’s when I discovered something surprising: I just didn’t like the official Star Wars RPGs that are currently being made.

I wanted something that played a bit more like Dungeons & Dragons, and I wanted it so bad I was getting ready to reskin the entire system. To my shock and delight, someone had already spent years doing just that, and a 5E-style version of Star Wars was just a click away.

What Is Star Wars 5E?

Star Wars 5E is the name of a fan-made set of rules modifying Dungeons & Dragons 5E. It uses the same core mechanics of D&D, which means the system is based primarily around rolling a D20. While there are plenty of major changes (more on this soon), rest assured that it’s easy for any veteran Dungeons & Dragons player to grab these rules and run their own campaign set anywhere in the Star Wars timeline.

What impressed me, personally, is just how much of an overhaul Star Wars 5E really is. It’s not like the creators of this game simply reskinned bows into blasters. Instead, you get very distinct classes, weapons, powers, starships, and so much more, all set in sci-fi’s most iconic universe. Whatever scenarios you can dream of, there are rules to bring them to life.

All of this adds up to some very versatile storytelling potential. You can set campaigns in multiple Star Wars eras and focus on your favorite kinds of stories. Do you care more for the high adventure of the Original Trilogy? Maybe you want a prequel-like Sith Reveal, or you just enjoy the political intrigue of Andor? Either way, Star Wars 5E has you covered!

How Much Does It Cost To Play?

One of the few downsides of Dungeons & Dragons is that playing it can get expensive. On top of basic supplies like dice and characters, you’ll need to manage a growing library of texts like the Player’s Handbook, campaign books, expansions, and so on. And if you’ve already spent that money, you might be worrying about whether you have enough spare cash to check out this Star Wars RPG.

That’s the beauty of Star Wars 5E, though: everything on the official website is completely free. You can download professionally made PDFs of the four rulebooks under the “Assets” section of the site, and they are filled with great artwork that makes them feel like an official product. But you can also access all of the rules you need with the click of a button. This adds even more versatility to Star Wars 5E because the PDFs are optimized for reading on a tablet, whereas the other rules are basically optimized for desktop.

No matter how you access the rules and other materials, though, everything you need is completely free!

Why Not Play Other Star Wars RPGs?

Now, if you play many tabletop RPGs, you’re probably asking the logical question: why didn’t I just start playing an official Star Wars RPG instead of finding a free one online? The short (for a Stormtrooper) answer is that I’m not a huge fan of the modern RPG designed by Fantasy Flight Games. I tried it before, and I found the dice system confusing; plus, I really love playing with miniatures, and that system isn’t really designed with miniatures in mind.

I considered using the classic West End Games Star Wars RPG, if only to rediscover all the cool lore it introduced to this classic sci-fi franchise. Its D6 system isn’t very intuitive, so I checked out Wizards of the Coast’s D20-based Star Wars RPG, last updated in 2007. It was a bit easier to understand, but I eventually realized nothing would be quite as intuitive as Dungeons & Dragons 5E. 

I thought I would have to make my own. The last thing I expected to find was a ready-made Star Wars conversion in the 5E style!

Easy to Understand and Introduce

There are a few more reasons I decided to embrace Star Wars 5E rather than other systems. The first is pretty straightforward: after you’ve played a bit of Dungeons & Dragons, this Star Wars reskin is much easier to understand. That doesn’t mean there’s no learning curve–D&D doesn’t exactly prepare you for things like starship combat–but having a base-level familiarity with the core mechanics of 5E made jumping into this Star Wars RPG as easy as jumping into the Sarlaac Pit.

In turn, the game being easier for me to understand made it easier to introduce to other players. As every tabletop player knows, it can be hard to introduce your friends to something new, especially if your buddies are freaking out about learning entirely new rules for a game they have never even heard of. With Star Wars 5E, however, I was able to introduce the game as a mod of a system they already knew and loved.

Translation? They had to spend less time learning new rules and more time immersing themselves in this new role-playing world. And as the DM, that’s exactly what I want my players to do when we get together to game.

Re-Use Old Maps

If you have DM’ed Dungeons & Dragons before, then you probably have some old maps kicking around. Previously, my old maps were just gathering dust, sitting around in an old box like Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber in Maz Kanata’s rusty box. Once I started running a Star Wars 5E campaign, though, I had the perfect excuse to bust them out and start using them again.

They worked surprisingly well: fantasy maps designed for forest encounters, for example, could easily serve as a forest moon like Endor. And when I needed something futuristic, I just picked up some Starfinder maps, and they were perfect. Obviously, there are countless fan-made options I could download and print, and I always had the option of designing my own. From a lazy DM standpoint, though, I loved that there were so many “grab and go” map options when it came to running my Star Wars campaign.

Using Figures

I’m going to show my age here, but I used to have a lot of fun with WOTC’s old Star Wars Miniatures game. Those minis had two functions: you could use them to play a combat-oriented tabletop battle, or just use them for the old RPG. If you have your own old batch of Star Wars minis figures, they are perfect for use in a 5E campaign; if you don’t, most of the figs you are likely to need (think generic bad guys, like Stormtroopers) are relatively cheap on the secondary market, helping you create your best Star Wars story on the cheap. You can also buy and paint figures from the excellent Star Wars: Legion game as well. 

If you like the idea of bigger figures and don’t mind creating correspondingly bigger maps, you can also bust out your Star Wars action figures. Alternatively, if you have a bunch of Star Wars LEGOs kicking around (it’s not just me, right?), then you can use those minifigs for your RPG. The bad news is that they aren’t perfectly scaled for D&D-style maps; the good news is that they fit into the movement squares just fine, and you can even use LEGO bricks to create cool 3D terrain.

Make Everything Three-Dimensional

Speaking of cool 3D terrain, we are currently living in the golden age of 3D printers. Those with deep pockets can buy ready-made terrain from companies like Dwarven Forge and WizKids. The rest of us, however, can print and paint exotic terrain at a fraction of the cost. Fortunately for would-be Star Wars 5E DMs, there are plenty of sci-fi terrain designs out there for you to download and print.

Beyond the terrain, there are other ways to make your Star Wars adventures immersive. The old Galoob Action Fleet ships (like their TIE Fighters and X-Wings) scale almost perfectly for your RPG needs. For something a little newer, check out the Micro Galaxy Squadron line: it’s on shelves now, and includes perfectly-scaled ships from the Original Trilogy and newer stuff like the Mandalorian’s Razor Crest and the Ghost from Rebels.

Depending on how you DM, it’s easy to integrate other Star Wars products, including cosplay items, into your campaign. I’ve had players engage in high-stakes Sabacc games, using officially printed cards and fan-made galactic currency; I’ve also integrated the chance cube from The Phantom Menace and gotten light-up Star Wars “holograms” (etched wood made to look like a hologram with a remote control light) off Etsy.

With a little bit of imagination and far less money than you might think, it’s possible to create a fully immersive Star Wars RPG that will give you and your friends a night (and maybe even a Jedi knight) to remember.