Unfortunately,, it was not very good. Instead of streamlining the dice system fro WH3rd, its even more clunky and has all of the weakneses I've noted in those games. The severely limited approach to the setting (essentially this is like if D&D created a separate game for each Class. EoTE is the "Rogue Class" game) and surprising lack of species to play were more than a little disappointing (yes, I guess I was spoiled by WEG's SW RPG). The book is obviously meant to be more arty than a reference manual during play (which might have been okay if it wasnt such a crunchy game that required constant reference), which was inconvenient in the least.

I shant be attempting any other games in the series.

I tend to agree. I liked WFRP 3e but Star Wars EoE seemed to throw away the good bits (all the different powers) and keep the less convincing bits (the two-axis dice).

My group tried the basic box set for EotE and came to a similar conclusion. At the end of the day, we just didn't like the weird dice. I can only pray that, if there's ever a WFRP 4th edition, it won't be using similar mechanics.

I came away with the same conclusion with the beta and only reinforced by its official release. Sharing dice during beta cemented my FFG contempt (but boy do they know what gamers will shell out for). But hey, the SW WEG fans made something amazing in Womp Rat Press. That compilation of Star Wars stuff was faboo!

I GMed a 10-session (or so) SW EotE campaign. We quite liked the game and the mechanics. What I found helped is:

1) Have the GM screen. It saved a lot of page flipping through the manual
2) When there are a lot of dice rolls in a short time, have a roll with an advantage just add a blue-die to the next roll if there's no obvious reason to have a specific effect.
3) Get enough dice or use an online roller. Skip the talent cards (they are useless).

After I finish the current Temple of Elemental Evil campaign, we're going to do a part II Age of Rebelion campaign.

I've been running Force & Destiny.

The primary problem with the game boils down to the dice mechanic, which is amazingly shitty. You have:

(1) Success vs. Failure (these cancel, multiple successes accumulate but failures don't)
(2) Advantage vs. Threat (these cancel, multiples of both accumulate)
(3) Triumph vs. Despair (these don't cancel)

Ignoring quantitative differences, these give you 18 qualitative results:

Success
Failure
Success-Advantage
Success-Advantage-Triumph
Success-Advantage-Despair
Success-Advantage-Triumph-Despair
Success-Threat
Success-Threat-Triumph
Success-Threat-Despair
Success-Threat-Triumph-Despair
Failure-Advantage
Failure-Advantage-Triumph
Failure-Advantage-Despair
Failure-Advantage-Triumph-Despair
Failure-Threat
Failure-Threat-Triumph
Failure-Threat-Despair
Failure-Threat-Triumph-Despair

The basic functionality characterizing the quality of a success or failure makes sense, but what the system never fully manages to convey is exactly why you need three separate tiers of symbols that you count in slightly different ways.

So you flip to the skill guidelines hoping for a little guidance... and that's when you discover that even the designers have no idea how to use their convoluted dice system.

For example, advantage can't turn failure into success... unless it's a Knowledge skill, because then advantage can grant you "minor but possibly relevant information about the subject" even on a failure. (Except... if you're gaining access to information, that looks a lot like a success, right?)

If you're making a Computer check, then additional successes reduce the time required to make the check. If it's a Stealth check, on the other hand, then you're going to want to use advantage to reduce the time. With Skullduggery you use advantage to gain additional items; with Survival you use successes.

It goes on and on like that.

So you have a system that's supposedly feeding you "useful" information, but the designers can't even figure out how to interpret the results consistently despite multiple years of development and seven different products featuring the core mechanics. Why should we believe that this system is going to do anything useful at the table?

The rest of the system has some interesting ideas, but the core mechanic is so incredibly poor in its execution that it really blights everything that it touches. (Which, since it's the core mechanic, is everything in the game.)

With our next session, I am looking to playtest some house rules:

(1) The Triumph symbol counts as a success, but also the additional effect of either (a) cancelling despair, (b) cancelling all threat symbols, or (c) if there are no threat symbols, counting as two advantage symbols. (Despair does the exact same thing in reverse.)

(2) Any effect in the game that uniquely requires a Triumph symbol requires 4 advantage instead. Similarly, anything that uniquely requires a Despair symbols can be triggered with 4 threat.

(3) With the exception of damage and recovery, the number of successes or failure symbols you achieved is irrelevant. Everything else in the rules that ask you to count or use successes instead use advantage.

This radically streamlines the resolution mechanic so that it is only reporting a binary success-fail state and the quality of that success or failure. (Instead of the RAW system where it reports a qualitative success or binary failure plus three different measurements of the quality of that success or failure.)

The guidelines for Knowledge checks are chucked completely: If you succeed, each advantage gives you an additional piece of information. If you fail, advantage can give you a lead on where the information can be found. Disadvantage either corrupts the information in some way (misleading, missing detail, missing context), gives straight out misinformation, puts you in immediate danger (such as an angry alien in a bar shouting, "You'll be dead!"), or alerts the bad guys to your search (like stormtroopers noticing that you cut off the alien's arm).

Quote from: Justin Alexander;820380The basic functionality characterizing the quality of a success or failure makes sense, but what the system never fully manages to convey is exactly why you need three separate tiers of symbols that you count in slightly different ways.

because they tried to create a hybrid system with narrative elements. you are supposed to get results like "you succeed, but problematic story element!".

triumph and despair are simply crit results, i wouldn't count them as a seperate tier myself. advantage/threat is almost purely narrative. i consider letting triumph and despair cancel each other out a good idea though.

in my group, if you can't think of any positive (players) or negative (gm) aspects of the resolved action quickly, the advantages/threats are simply disregarded, or, as languagegeek suggested, they simply add blue or black dice to the next roll. with creative players this mechanic is usually great fun, and if you don't care for it, you can simply ignore it.

i think the biggest problem with the system is that the dice can add up quickly, and even if you are used to reading them figuring out a result involving 12+ can take a few moments. sometimes this adds a bit of tension, usually it's just tedious.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;820380unless it's a Knowledge skill, because then advantage can grant you "minor but possibly relevant information about the subject" even on a failure. (Except... if you're gaining access to information, that looks a lot like a success, right?)

i've always considered this to be some kind of fail forward-mechanic. if you need information to proceed and fail, offering other ways to get the info seems like a good idea to me.

with your suggestions you are taking the narrative element out of the dice rolls, which to me seems to be the core of the system. i am sure it can work, but i wonder why you would play this version of star wars if you did.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;820380(...)

This has been my impression of the game from the start, admittedly without actually fully reading any of the published stuff. Also, I fail to see how this convoluted mess is in any way helpful in emulating the source material.

In my experience the system design works better in WFRP 3e where the majority of actions have an associated card which has a table giving specific effects for 'boon' and 'bane' results.

The Star Wars implementation falls between two stools, keeping the complexity but not using it for anything worthwhile. It has the worst of both worlds.

I love the dice mechanic...in concept. It doesn't feel playtested enough to streamline it. Perhaps, its played best with a roller app?

Personally, Better Games did the whole "variable level of success" thing far better in 1992 with Battleborn and their house system.

Quote from: Spinachcat;820493I love the dice mechanic...in concept. It doesn't feel playtested enough to streamline it. Perhaps, its played best with a roller app?

Personally, Better Games did the whole "variable level of success" thing far better in 1992 with Battleborn and their house system.

Our group plays Edge of the Empire every second Saturday. We enjoy it but that's because the GM is being a bit subtle. Though he did buy a whole lot of dice so we don't have to buy our own (I did but that's because more dice is better in this type of game).

I'm not necessarily a great fan of the dice mechanic itself, but I accept it, and it's kinda grown on me as we've played. It's different enough from standard dice and, more importantly, the d20 system that it's fun.

Called it and I mean I fucking called it.  I knew that custom dice was going to ruin the game and that the only reason it would sell like hot cakes is because of the name brand.  Any other none name brand game and this would fail.  Hell it failed for Warhammer which is a name brand, but far less popular than Star Wars.

Quote from: Snowman0147;820497Called it and I mean I fucking called it.  I knew that custom dice was going to ruin the game and that the only reason it would sell like hot cakes is because of the name brand.  Any other none name brand game and this would fail.  Hell it failed for Warhammer which is a name brand, but far less popular than Star Wars.

Yes, because theRPGSite, which is obsessed mostly with Old School games is 100% a good representation of the entire hobby. :rolleyes:

Oh, no, a few guys on theRPGSite think its bad, the game must be shit! :rolleyes:

Quote from: shlominus;820421because they tried to create a hybrid system with narrative elements. you are supposed to get results like "you succeed, but problematic story element!".

That still doesn't explain why you need three separate tiers all handled in slightly different ways. This system generates outcomes like, "Moderate success with something vaguely good, also something vaguely better than than the vaguely good, but also some seriously bad in a vague way."

Succeed-with-complication can be usefully improvised around. Succeed-with-complication-and-great-thing-and-also-a-really-bad-thing is just noise.

Quotetriumph and despair are simply crit results, i wouldn't count them as a seperate tier myself.

A nice house rule which, you'll note, tacitly admits that the system doesn't actually work.

Quotewith your suggestions you are taking the narrative element out of the dice rolls,

Not really following your logic here. Why are you claiming that success-with-narrative-complication isn't narrative, but success-with-narrative-complication-and-also-narrative-triumph is narrative? Particularly since you've already admitted that you've house ruled out the narrative effects of Triumph results?

I also don't really accept that these mechanics are primarily narrative. If you look at the actual guidelines given in the rulebook, virtually none of them are narrative. It's stuff like "you accomplish the task 25% faster".

Quote from: Jame Rowe;820495Our group plays Edge of the Empire every second Saturday. We enjoy it but that's because the GM is being a bit subtle. Though he did buy a whole lot of dice so we don't have to buy our own (I did but that's because more dice is better in this type of game).

Out of curiosity, how many dice are you playing with?

I've found that you need a minimum of three sets with beginning characters if you want to avoid having to reroll individual dice to form a full pool. You can get away with two sets while only occasionally having to kludge it, but the idea of playing with only a single set sounds absolutely horrid.

That means a $45 investment in dice on top of a $60 core rulebook. ($180 in core rulebooks, of course, if you want a complete game.) I think the most depressing thing for me is how completely inaccessible FFG has made what could be a major gateway product.

The only reason I'm running it is because somebody else paid for all the rulebooks and the dice. Previously, I've approached the "buy the same rules 9 times" FFG marketing plan, laughed, and walked away.