The Gaming Den

Sooooo... My FLGS just recently got in a whole bunch of Fantasy Flight Games stuff, including the three different rulebooks to their Star Wars RPG. Being on the hypetrain for the upcoming 7th Star Wars movie, my gaming group is interested in buying it.

Does anyone know if it's honestly any good? And if it isn't, can you tell me why?

I was rather excited for the RPG, but the campaign I was going to play in long ways back fell apart after a good first session. So unfortunately, the best I can give is prior threads about it. Including a post mentioning a couple session reports till the BEARS forced him to quit. As a bonus, here's brief talks on Dice mechanics from Frank

I've played Edge of the Empire some time ago. The game is okay. It's playable and mechanics don't detract from roleplay. In EotE combat was solved by either being a wookie with max toughness, so nothing in combat can ever hurt you, or being a force sensitive so you have more combat dice than anyone ever. Probabilities are rather obscure, but you can ignore that for the most part, and the dice are weighted towards success.

However, the business model is absolutely disgusting. The first two core books were identical for the most part, so buying both of them is the equialent of setting your money on fire. I'll make a wild guess that F&D is also like that.

The group I play with was mostly interested in Force and Destiny, so I was hoping someone had given that specifically a try and could weigh in on the discussion.

That said, reading through those other threads have been... troubling.

F&D literally came out last week.

I really hate their fucking dice and I'm not even referring to their bullshit probabilities.

Longes wrote:F&D literally came out last week.

I mean, I feel like people could probably have played in a game with that specific ruleset by now, especially since FFG had the beta rules out for much longer than a week.

Aryxbez wrote:IAs a bonus, here's brief talks on Dice mechanics from Frank

His rant isn't helpful at all.

The game is good but its implementation of failing forward can get stressful on the GM sometimes.

Edge of the Empire was not cooked enough for release.

There was insane shit in it like... Oh I don't know, abilities you spent XP on that never actually *did* anything.

For example: Pilots could take an ability to cut the time to calculate a hyperspace jump by 50%.

How long does it take to calculate a hyperspace jump? Fuck if I know! It was nowhere in the book.

EOTE was full of shit like that. The amount of upkeep required of everyone simply wasn't worth the payout. You never did "cool shit" unless you were a force user.

I was underwhelmed by it in the end. To the point where I never even looked at the other games in the series. I'd seriously prefer West End Games D6 Starwars. If their dice pool mechanic makes you twitch like it does Frank, you could pretty easily hack it towards a Shadowrun style dice pool & hits system with only a moderate amount of work.

Longes wrote:Probabilities are rather obscure, but you can ignore that for the most part, and the dice are weighted towards success..

Though if someone absolutely wants to look at the probabilities there is always this

http://game2.ca/eote/?montecarlo=100000

There's a thread over at RPGnet at this exact moment discussing the differences between Saga and EotE, and it touches some points on Force and Destiny (the way it deals with morality sounds interesting, btw):

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?762 ... the-Empire

The main thing to explain up front about Force and Destiny, and the rest of the Edge of the Empire / Age of Rebellion characters as well, is that you're probably not too good at what you do. And if you are, you're probably ONLY good at that one thing. It takes hundreds and hundreds of experience to really start to get to the point where you're reliably competent at a few things (unless they're all tied to a single stat and you just pump that to 5 starting out, but that only gets you so far). And the suggested rate of advancement is 10-20xp per game session.

So starting out in Edge of the Empire, you're not master criminals, you're more like Pineapple Express.

In Age of Rebellion, you're not that close to Luke and Wedge, you're more like Porkins.

In Force and Destiny you're not starting as even Padawan level, you're just total scrubs who (maybe) have lightsabers and the potential to use force powers.

THAT SAID, it can still be fun if you know what to expect, but it's not fun because of the system, it's fun in spite of the system. It relies a lot on GM fiat, so that might not sit well with you or your group.

PS: The class design gets a lot better in almost every book after Edge of the Empire (which was the first one). You still sometimes get abilities that are useless, but you get less of them, and you tend to get more "signature" sorts of abilities where someone can tell what specialization you probably have because you've got some cool power that sets you apart from just some dude with a bunch of skill ranks.

Yeah, while most abilities are a boring "+1 die to basketweaving rolls made at moonless midnight on Yavin" garbage, some are actually fun and useful. I fondly remember my Politico's ability to rant at people and give them sanity damage and knock them out (or kill them, since mooks don't have a stress track and take all damage to HP)

Longes wrote:Yeah, while most abilities are a boring "+1 die to basketweaving rolls made at moonless midnight on Yavin" garbage, some are actually fun and useful. I fondly remember my Politico's ability to rant at people and give them sanity damage and knock them out (or kill them, since mooks don't have a stress track and take all damage to HP)

And that is where almost all system optimization is found. Figure out what trees, and which path to follow in that tree, have the fewest mandatory pieces of shit for you to buy in between the good stuff.

Speaking of which flowchart classes also piss me off in this game. NO I will not spend my xp to gain a hidden compartment on my vehicles (That's a real fucking thing to spend xp on!). Oh but if I don't the other path I could take has me buy it twice... fuuuuuuck.

Longes wrote:Yeah, while most abilities are a boring "+1 die to basketweaving rolls made at moonless midnight on Yavin" garbage, some are actually fun and useful. I fondly remember my Politico's ability to rant at people and give them sanity damage and knock them out (or kill them, since mooks don't have a stress track and take all damage to HP)

That's not particularly Star Wars but it is hilarious.

Berate a storm trooper for missing you. He dies of shame.

Lokathor wrote:The main thing to explain up front about Force and Destiny, and the rest of the Edge of the Empire / Age of Rebellion characters as well, is that you're probably not too good at what you do. And if you are, you're probably ONLY good at that one thing. It takes hundreds and hundreds of experience to really start to get to the point where you're reliably competent at a few things (unless they're all tied to a single stat and you just pump that to 5 starting out, but that only gets you so far). And the suggested rate of advancement is 10-20xp per game session.

So starting out in Edge of the Empire, you're not master criminals, you're more like Pineapple Express.

In Age of Rebellion, you're not that close to Luke and Wedge, you're more like Porkins.

In Force and Destiny you're not starting as even Padawan level, you're just total scrubs who (maybe) have lightsabers and the potential to use force powers.

THAT SAID, it can still be fun if you know what to expect, but it's not fun because of the system, it's fun in spite of the system. It relies a lot on GM fiat, so that might not sit well with you or your group.

PS: The class design gets a lot better in almost every book after Edge of the Empire (which was the first one). You still sometimes get abilities that are useless, but you get less of them, and you tend to get more "signature" sorts of abilities where someone can tell what specialization you probably have because you've got some cool power that sets you apart from just some dude with a bunch of skill ranks.

Thanks, you just sold me on the rest of the series. Im ok with GM fiat, and being low-power scroungers feel much more in-line with the classic saga than the Super-Padawans of the latest one.

silva wrote:

Lokathor wrote:So starting out in Edge of the Empire, you're not master criminals, you're more like Pineapple Express.
In Age of Rebellion, you're not that close to Luke and Wedge, you're more like Porkins.

being low-power scroungers feel much more in-line with the classic saga than the Super-Padawans of the latest one.

Only Silva would thumbs up the idea of playing fucking Greedo.

Lokathor wrote:The main thing to explain up front about Force and Destiny, and the rest of the Edge of the Empire / Age of Rebellion characters as well, is that you're probably not too good at what you do. And if you are, you're probably ONLY good at that one thing. It takes hundreds and hundreds of experience to really start to get to the point where you're reliably competent at a few things (unless they're all tied to a single stat and you just pump that to 5 starting out, but that only gets you so far). And the suggested rate of advancement is 10-20xp per game session.

So starting out in Edge of the Empire, you're not master criminals, you're more like Pineapple Express.

In Age of Rebellion, you're not that close to Luke and Wedge, you're more like Porkins.

In Force and Destiny you're not starting as even Padawan level, you're just total scrubs who (maybe) have lightsabers and the potential to use force powers.

THAT SAID, it can still be fun if you know what to expect, but it's not fun because of the system, it's fun in spite of the system. It relies a lot on GM fiat, so that might not sit well with you or your group.

PS: The class design gets a lot better in almost every book after Edge of the Empire (which was the first one). You still sometimes get abilities that are useless, but you get less of them, and you tend to get more "signature" sorts of abilities where someone can tell what specialization you probably have because you've got some cool power that sets you apart from just some dude with a bunch of skill ranks.

Good to know that things "get better", but man... for as "low power" and "vanilla" as the skill trees are, the system is just to fucking baroque for me. At least with WFRPG3 you had all these powers and slots and you were tracking cooldowns and your aggression stance and yes the system was fucking baroque but it felt like you were seriously playing a game. Granted that game was basically WoW but you *felt* like the overall system was a game you could play well and do well with.

They ditched a lot of the fiddliness and cards and shit from WFRPG and left this clunky-ass system that never really stepped back into the background for us. It was always there, we were always grappling with it, and it never let us forget that it wasn't especially fun to use.

As I said, I might as well go back to WEG star wars. Sure I didn't have a feat tree but counting a pile of dice is easier than the "narrative" system shit.

What's a good alternative system for playing Star Was with then? Shadowrun 4e with Adept Jedi and jet pack bounty hunters?

OgreBattle wrote:What's a good alternative system for playing Star Was with then? Shadowrun 4e with Adept Jedi and jet pack bounty hunters?

Probably not Shadowrun, guns stomp all over melee weapons and adepts are a shitty life choice unless you're using them to cheaply max a skill out.

Also, to stay relevant, I'm new to EotE and I want to twink a Wookiee, how do I do this? Max Brawn, melee weapons? Get shot and never die? Break everything? Why not be a Trandoshan instead?

It's been a year since I last played, but yeah, something like that. With Brawn 5 and a decent armor piece you'll be immune to everything but heavy blaster crit cheese. I don't remember what the difference between wookie and trandoshan is.

absurdly high soak, autofire (especially combined with jury rigged) and the move force power can all be abused way too easily.

while those are pretty serious issues, they can be fixed easily and i haven't heard about any other glaring ones.

if the power level bothers you simply start with more xp (force and destiny explicitly mentions this option, if i am not mistaken).

the dice are a matter of taste i guess. if large dicepools bother you, high level gaming will be painful.

Longes wrote:It's been a year since I last played, but yeah, something like that. With Brawn 5 and a decent armor piece you'll be immune to everything but heavy blaster crit cheese. I don't remember what the difference between wookie and trandoshan is.

According to the book the diff is that wookiees do more damage in melee when they're hurt, while Trandoshans heal more out of combat, and Wookiees' 1 stat is in Willpower instead of Agility. So it seems Wookiee > Trandoshan.

I wonder if I can hose people down with heavy repeating blaster bolts while abusing the mobility Force powers will presumably grant me.