I have a question: Who on this thread who's against the game has played...I mean, truly played*...the game, not just saw the funky dice and/or heard "narrative" and threw up their hands?

*meaning not just grumbled through with preconceived negative views for a session or two.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;941527Thanks for all those quotes proving that what I said was 100% correct. I'm a little hazy, though, on why you think I'd want to ignore something that proves my point.

It's just him wandering into a discussion and publicly shitting himself again, as usual.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;941563I have a question: Who on this thread who's against the game has played...I mean, truly played*...the game, not just saw the funky dice and/or heard "narrative" and threw up their hands?

*meaning not just grumbled through with preconceived negative views for a session or two.

I'm happy to admit I haven't played it. The volume and complexity of the rules blew out my O-rings before I could finish reading the core book and organize a session. It's a lot easier to just pull out my WEG core book and a fist full of d6's!

I haven't played the system, and don't have strong feelings about it, but I am puzzled at the idea that some people think a Star Wars game needs rules for starship fuel and ammo. Do starships in Star Wars even use fuel? Do blasters use ammo? How long does a lightsaber work before you need to plug it in to charge?

I'm not interesting in FFG Star Wars, so I'm not trying to sell anyone on it. It just seems weird that people want rules for things that would actively make the game less like Star Wars. I like Traveller, but not every SF game needs to be Traveller.

Quote from: Larsdangly;941577I'm happy to admit I haven't played it. The volume and complexity of the rules blew out my O-rings before I could finish reading the core book and organize a session. It's a lot easier to just pull out my WEG core book and a fist full of d6's!

I can see where you're coming from; it does look like a lot and can be overwhelming. If I didn't love Star Wars so much, I probably wouldn't have tried it. What's crazy is how well it works. I'm not a game designer so I can't say how better to present the rules. The only reason I care at all is that I feel it's a great game and if somebody's interested, I hope to help them enjoy it more.

As to a desire for more concrete rules for fuel and the like, I don't like telling somebody they're wrong for wanting it (not that you are). Some people like that level of granularity, which is fine, even if it's "not Star Wars.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;941563I have a question: Who on this thread who's against the game has played...I mean, truly played*...the game, not just saw the funky dice and/or heard "narrative" and threw up their hands?

*meaning not just grumbled through with preconceived negative views for a session or two.

I gave it a shot and the funky dice just didn't do it for me. I probably didn't play it long enough to satisfy this "No true Scotsman" criteria.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;941563I have a question: Who on this thread who's against the game has played...I mean, truly played*...the game, not just saw the funky dice and/or heard "narrative" and threw up their hands?

*meaning not just grumbled through with preconceived negative views for a session or two.

Me. Hence my statement of I got the dice and the use. But the system just didnt grab me. As noted in an older thread on FFG:SW. It feels like theres like one layer too many of complexity to it all. Like it could have been done smoother or less steps. Just a baser feeling after more experience with it. Which is still limited.

Quote from: jeff37923;941584I gave it a shot and the funky dice just didn't do it for me. I probably didn't play it long enough to satisfy this "No true Scotsman" criteria.

That's perfectly fine, of course. I'm not trying to bludgeon people into liking it. It was curiosity. It's much like how I had no desire to dig into the OSR. Ugh. Fuck that. D&D...no...just...no...

But...! Godbound was so interesting and praise for Kevin Crawford so high, I opened my mind to it and am extremely impressed. This led to looking at OSR stuff and realizing I was wrong; it's good. I can see the appeal.

The same goes for PbtA. I had Apocalypse World and disliked it. It made no sense to me. Then Blades in the Dark was KS'd and as soon as I saw Thief and Dishonored as inspirations, I said, "Fuck, yes!". I loved the premise so much I decided I would learn its system, no matter what. And I have grown to absolutely love it! It does things I feel should be standard practice for some games.

Nobody has to like what others like, but it's pretty great when we can help our fellow enthusiasts love a game we do.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;941583As to a desire for more concrete rules for fuel and the like, I don't like telling somebody they're wrong for wanting it (not that you are). Some people like that level of granularity, which is fine, even if it's "not Star Wars.

Its not? Since when? Logistics and fuel concerns have been a thing in Star Wars. Just in the background touches. Not major ones.

I think abstracting it is ok though. But Im never thrilled with "runs on Plotolium"

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;941563I have a question: Who on this thread who's against the game has played...I mean, truly played*...the game, not just saw the funky dice and/or heard "narrative" and threw up their hands?

*meaning not just grumbled through with preconceived negative views for a session or two.

I've GMed it three or four times, played it twice as a player.

Quote from: Omega;941588Its not? Since when? Logistics and fuel concerns have been a thing in Star Wars. Just in the background touches. Not major ones.

I think abstracting it is ok though. But Im never thrilled with "runs on Plotolium"

I meant in the mechanics. I don't think such focused bookkeeping has been an aspect of Star Wars rules, but admit I haven't looked at previous versions in years. I do feel it has a place in "the story" (or whatever you want to call it), though. Shoddy maintenance, running out of fuel/food/water/etc. are cool twists and can lead to intense and interesting games.

Quote from: Sommerjon;941531Triumph + Despair do cancel parts of the other knocking a Triumph + Despair down to Advantage + Threat.

First: That is not what those quotes say and it's not how the game works.

Second: I double-checked and discovered that you actually re-wrote the quote from the FAQ. There's really only two possible explanations for why you would do that, and neither of them reflect well on you.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;941563I have a question: Who on this thread who's against the game has played...I mean, truly played*...the game, not just saw the funky dice and/or heard "narrative" and threw up their hands?

*meaning not just grumbled through with preconceived negative views for a session or two.

I did. We got a group together to play a full campaign and, AFAIK, everyone involved was anticipating having a great time playing Star Wars. The books were gorgeous, had a ton of support for running games, and seemed to have some nice mechanics. (I still like the way the game handles minions, for example.) I've also be advocating for multi-axis narrative resolution mechanics since the last millennium.

After two sessions we realized something was wrong, but we pushed on for a couple more sessions before we reached a decent breaking point with some narrative closure and decided to call it. The campaign was originally intended to go for 8-12 sessions; after playing the game we realized it would actually take more like 15-20 sessions because of how much the system was slowing down the action. With roughly biweekly sessions, we just didn't see any reason to spend half a year or more playing a game that we weren't enjoying.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;941596First: That is not what those quotes say and it's not how the game works.

Second: I double-checked and discovered that you actually re-wrote the quote from the FAQ. There's really only two possible explanations for why you would do that, and neither of them reflect well on you.



I did. We got a group together to play a full campaign and, AFAIK, everyone involved was anticipating having a great time playing Star Wars. The books were gorgeous, had a ton of support for running games, and seemed to have some nice mechanics. (I still like the way the game handles minions, for example.) I've also be advocating for multi-axis narrative resolution mechanics since the last millennium.

After two sessions we realized something was wrong, but we pushed on for a couple more sessions before we reached a decent breaking point with some narrative closure and decided to call it. The campaign was originally intended to go for 8-12 sessions; after playing the game we realized it would actually take more like 15-20 sessions because of how much the system was slowing down the action. With roughly biweekly sessions, we just didn't see any reason to spend half a year or more playing a game that we weren't enjoying.

What was slowing you down? I'm going with a big assumption that you know the 2d20 system well and probably enjoy it. I mention that because I own Mutant Chronicles 3e and have a difficult time grasping the rules* as quickly as I did Star Wars.

*I do plan on diving in more deeply and only haven't as other games are the focus of learning right now, not an, "It sucks!" mentality.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;941598What was slowing you down?

Anecdotally (I haven't actually analyzed my recordings), it seemed to come down to two major factors.

First, the initiative system. The strategic flexibility of any PC being able to claim on the PC initiative slots offers some intriguing gameplay options, but the extra decision points it introduces is a constant, low-level drag on the speed of combat. In addition, patting myself on the back for a moment, over the years I've gotten very good at managing initiative in a way that keeps the pace of play as high as possible: Prompting action declaration. Putting people on deck. Calling for (or making) the next set of rolls in the down time we have in current resolution. And so forth. A lot of these techniques vanish in a puff of smoke with these kind of "hot potato" initiative systems, which further kills pace compared to other games we play.

Second, the core mechanic in general. The math required to tally up to four different results on every roll is not particularly difficult, but even with experience it's still a time sink that adds up rapidly over the course of multiple rolls. (And you also have the additional decision point and time sink of spending the advantage/threat/triumph/despair you end up with.) The system's approach puts a lot of interesting detail into every roll, but the overall design of the system remains very traditional so you end up (IMO) with a large number of rolls that are just getting bogged down with all the extra detail. (Particularly/specifically in combat.)

QuoteI mention that because I own Mutant Chronicles 3e and have a difficult time grasping the rules* as quickly as I did Star Wars.

I'm obviously going to be biased on this. I will say that we've done a number of things with Infinity to, hopefully, make our explanations of the rules clearer and easier to learn/reference. The system does share the time sink of, "What do I spend this Momentum on?" and that does, unavoidably, slow down play.

Quote from: Sommerjon;941481Abstract?

AoR pg 221-222 Range Bands
Engaged: To reflect two or more target who are grappling or otherwise engaged in hand-to-hand combat....
Short Range: Short range indicates up to several meters between targets....
Medium Range: Medium range can be up to several dozen meters away....
Long Range: Long Range is farther than a few dozen meters...
Extreme Range: Extreme range is the farthest range ar which two target can interact....

I find it odd for someone who goes on and on and on about Theatre of the Mind now needs very precise, down to the inch even, ranges.  It's like you need count squares on a play mat or something...

Those look abstract to me. Especially with "up to", "can be", and overlapping range bands. i.e. the word "few" usually means less than "several".