Edit: responding to post #88. Was last post when I started writing.

I'm aware of that. It still slowly lost any sensation of advancement for my group, and anecdotally I've hard others complain that it didn't scale up well past a certain point. Certainly the 'better to do opposed actions against NPCs' part was less than appealing for us ('oh good, now my blaster skill is 1D higher and I'm fighting opponents with 1D higher dodge').  Maybe it was just in comparison to what we were playing at the time, like D&D, where advancement often got you onto entire different playing fields (spell levels, or into the domain management game).

Okay, one more time from the top - (I should make this a macro for FFG SW threads).

Longtime WEG Star Wars fan here. Love it. Yes it's not perfect. Yes it needs a few houserule tweaks - what game doesn't?

FFG Star Wars Criticisms common to this forum

1) Gimmicky Dice - Yes they are gimmicky. Who gives a fuck. They work consistent with the math behind the system and it works. If you don't like using their dice - feel free to clunk it up and use the conversion chart for normal dice. https://i.warosu.org/data/tg/img/0396/47/1430327598908.png

2) Dice Resolution Mechanic is WEIRD! - Success/Fail, Advantage/Disadvantage, Triumphs/Despair. Three axis. Small numbers. Most of them simply cancel out. This is not advanced math. You rarely go beyond double digits. The symbols are literally color-coded because they only appear on specific dice. This is not rocket science. It's barely more than basic addition and subtraction. The end result is you have Success or Failure in varying degrees. No different than rolling a horde of d6's in WEG's SW and determining how far over your TN was + the Wild Die!

3) Narrative Mechanics! - Common complaint I see over and over and over are the narrative mechanics. The narrative mechanics as such are simply there for use if you indeed *like* using them. As I've said on almost every single FFG thread, this is an invalid criticism because you can simply use the Advantages/Threats as discrete values. HARD NUMBERS WITH HARD RESULTS (oh shit... this is making me hard). I am not a fan of narrative mechanics. If this were even close to being the "narrative game" detractors make it out to be - I wouldn't even be playing it. Oh look - a handy chart. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zgLIJX7quU8/Vb6ZaHN2JdI/AAAAAAAAK6w/8iFGfZXDLqQ/s1600/Dice%2BResults.png

4) Cost. Okay you got me here. The books are pricey. But I'm not going to tell you how to spend your money. This is not a reason to shit on the game. This is a business venture where a company is putting out a product. Electing to not buy a product because it costs money, or is beyond your current financial situation to purchase it is not a criticism of the game itself. That said - FFG has put out... a fucking Silhouette 7-sized amount of gaming material that is top-notch in production quality.

5) Money-Grab Release Schedule - I call bullshit on this. They broke up Star Wars along well established options of play that frankly I give him double-credit for. There is *no way* they could drop one book to cover the stuff they've covered. Impossible. It would have been watered down and shitty. And I'm saying this as someone that doesn't even *USE* the books - from any of the three lines - in the era that they assume you're playing in. They took a bold choice (a risky one at that) sticking with Outer-Rim material, and covering it in depth, and moving on to Military then Force users. *Every* major aspect of Star Wars is covered without a single blip in loss of production or writing quality.

6) WEG is better - why do I need this? - You don't. I fully agree you can get all the d6 material out there and play the holy shit out of Star Wars.

New Criticisms!

7) Talent Tree - I agree. Not a big fan. One way to decouple it is to drop Roles and categorize Talents as "abilities" anyone can purchase and re-adjust costs. This would also require changing the skill selection, but ultimately I think it would make a cleaner and more interesting way of playing.

Progression - Players start too weak imo. I usually give everyone 1 Free rank in Recruit (1 talent). And/or extra xp. It's easy to regulate progression through XP acquisition - as long as you adjust accordingly.

Quote from: tenbones;969903...
3) Narrative Mechanics! - Common complaint I see over and over and over are the narrative mechanics. The narrative mechanics as such are simply there for use if you indeed *like* using them. As I've said on almost every single FFG thread, this is an invalid criticism because you can simply use the Advantages/Threats as discrete values. HARD NUMBERS WITH HARD RESULTS (oh shit... this is making me hard). I am not a fan of narrative mechanics. If this were even close to being the "narrative game" detractors make it out to be - I wouldn't even be playing it. Oh look - a handy chart. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zgLIJX7quU8/Vb6ZaHN2JdI/AAAAAAAAK6w/8iFGfZXDLqQ/s1600/Dice%2BResults.png
...

Tenbones, I've read and appreciated what you've explained about this system (in various past threads - I haven't read all of this thread), and how you could toss a lot of the narrative stuff. However I think that just reading the table you provided, it's clear that something very abstract and non-representational is going on compared to a game where things tend to happen because of the situation. I guess maybe that could be framed as being gamey but not narrative, but I think I'd still want to use some story-related word to describe how the abstract dice are translated via creative interpretation into a description. e.g. The table mentions you can turn a couple of die symbols into spotting blast door control panels, as opposed to a literal spot roll based on the situation. e.g. Another die roll combo lets you ignore environmental modifiers, instead of there needing to be some logical way you could avoid being impaired by a situation. e.g. Another die roll trade lets you give a pal a bonus to their roll, which presumably you make up some reason for it, instead of there actually having to be something you do in play that has some rules to it that make sense about when you could do it and what the effect is. What would be a good term for that, or has someone coined one already? Narrative interpretation of an abstract die roll system?

i.e. it still seems pretty narrative-y to me.

Quote from: Skarg;969918Tenbones, I've read and appreciated what you've explained about this system (in various past threads - I haven't read all of this thread), and how you could toss a lot of the narrative stuff. However I think that just reading the table you provided, it's clear that something very abstract and non-representational is going on compared to a game where things tend to happen because of the situation. I guess maybe that could be framed as being gamey but not narrative, but I think I'd still want to use some story-related word to describe how the abstract dice are translated via creative interpretation into a description. e.g. The table mentions you can turn a couple of die symbols into spotting blast door control panels, as opposed to a literal spot roll based on the situation. e.g. Another die roll combo lets you ignore environmental modifiers, instead of there needing to be some logical way you could avoid being impaired by a situation. e.g. Another die roll trade lets you give a pal a bonus to their roll, which presumably you make up some reason for it, instead of there actually having to be something you do in play that has some rules to it that make sense about when you could do it and what the effect is. What would be a good term for that, or has someone coined one already? Narrative interpretation of an abstract die roll system?

i.e. it still seems pretty narrative-y to me.

The table is including narrative options as an example. But again - they're perfectly optional. There's a couple of things that might be confusing if you're not used to the mechanics. Environmental issues are handled with Setback dice - which are the black squares (they're black d6's you add to rolls if there are environmental issues). You can mitigate these with Talents, gear, or the GM can just simply not include them as part of your roll. That's the same exact narrative call as *any* RPG where a GM adjudicates difficulties by adding/subtracting modifiers.

Most of these are covered. In FFGSW - it's basically 1-3, with 3 being really bad modifiers. Running across slippery ice might be 3-setback dice for trying to do an acrobatic manuever, for instance.

This cuts both ways with adding Booster dice (blue d6's). You get them for Talents, gear, or GM fiat. Much like in D&D's various editions where attacking someone from higher ground gives you +1, or attacking someone from behind - etc. The difference here is you have *those* kinds of guidelines (there are other tables) plus you have the general flexibility of GM fiat with good common-sense guidelines.

So let's take it from a more realistic angle that you're alluding to. You're essentially asking "What if my player rolls a shitload of Advantages - does this mean I *have* do some improv to justify what just happened?" The answer is no. You *could* if you wanted to. But if improv ain't your thing, you are not beholden to. Further - that's precisely why the economy of the game relies on players and GM's using those Advantages to activate gear and Talent abilities.

Case in point - Let's say you shoot a Gungan and get 1-success and 4 Advantages. You say "my blaster has a Crit Rating of 2 - I spend 2 Advantages to land a Critical Strike. And I use the other two Advantages to dive for cover as a free maneuver." You as the GM can color that whole thing as you see fit. Just like any other RPG. And if you wanted - you could give a narrative "thing" to those four Advantages if you wanted.

The Advantage trading is something that I find is close to being "narrative" - but again it's a discrete mechanic. You're giving a bonus to your fellow PC's - much like in D&D where you can give bonuses to your fellow players by doing certain actions. If coming up with a colorful reason on the spot is difficult - just use the mechanical value and let the bonus's roll on. When a player does a Feint maneuver in D&D and gives his fellow party member using the Help manuever, this is the exact same thing. You can describe it (narrative!) or keep things rolling and just hand out the bonus.

The exact same thing is true with Threat results in reverse.

Is it "gamey"? I guess. I don't see it any more gamey than other games in its Crunch-Weightclass. Is it narrative? Only if you want it to be.

Interesting, thanks tenbones! I'd be interested in seeing you GM a small tactical shootout situation with non-Force characters. I think I'll have to admit I don't know how it really can be used until I see a demo or get stuck someplace with the rules for a while. Meanwhile, I see you clearly have got it to work well for you, and I thank you for taking the time to explain.

Maybe we can get tenbones to GM a game for us and show us how it works.

Quote from: Skarg;969926Interesting, thanks tenbones! I'd be interested in seeing you GM a small tactical shootout situation with non-Force characters. I think I'll have to admit I don't know how it really can be used until I see a demo or get stuck someplace with the rules for a while. Meanwhile, I see you clearly have got it to work well for you, and I thank you for taking the time to explain.

Funny you should say that. Until this game I'm currently running, I've never *had* a Force user. Every game I've had has been Edge-related. Mercenaries, Bounty Hunters, Smugglers, Fringers, Technies all doing gun-work/crime/etc. so the *vast* majority of my experience in FFG has been doing shootouts. It really doesn't work too different than any other game in this regard.

I stay very cognizant of the setting where various scenes are taking place, I give my players as much information as I think their characters would readily see or understand (I try to make people only roll for things that matter). So when combat breaks out, I make sure everyone understands the literal lay of the land - ranges, etc. The normal combat procedures handle everything else. When I do descriptions of stuff - I try to put as much Star Wars-lensed-through-our-game (our games tend to be darker than standard Star Wars) and let the blaster-fire fly.

FFGs combat is pretty smooth. You can simulate the players going up against a bunch of clods, vs. trained badasses with minimal effort. The biggest adjustment most non-FFG's players have to make is simply learning the dice-mechanics. And I maintain it's not that hard. The number values are so low it's ridiculous. You rarely have to count higher than 5.... hahah no shit. You roll the dice, remove the values that cancel each other out. Results!*

*Interpreting those results in non-narrative fashion is *easy*. There are no random damage values outside extra success on the roll. It really just takes a couple of encounters and you see how easy it is. Best thing: ship combat is 99% the same as normal combat, just different scale.

Quote from: Dumarest;969938Maybe we can get tenbones to GM a game for us and show us how it works.

I wish. I'm pretty busy with my own game and my other projects I'm working on. BUT... seeing as I'm probably the most vocal proponent of this game on this forum, I'm more than happy to field questions, scenarios, etc. to demystify the opaqueness of the game.

Anyone that goes back far enough will see me poking around here asking questions long before I ever played the damn thing. I made sure the first game I ever ran I did basic combat, and ship-combat. There is a ton of social gameplay here too (gambling, negotiating, coercing etc) but we all know that's the easy shit. If combat didn't hold up AND be fun to the standard I have with WEG - then no amount of convincing would make me drop the gold-brick in cash it would take to own this line.

But it did. And thus I do.

Edit: I fully submit this isn't a game that OSR aficionado's will probably like. It's got crunch. But it's not nearly as much as most people think. There is a ton of sub-systems that are fully plugged into the core-mechanics that cover a lot of cool stuff that really makes your games pop:

Tactical hyperspace micro-jumps, Weapon/Armor manufacture/modding, GOOD cybernetics rules, homesteading/business rules, workshops and fortifications, REALLY good Mass Combat rules, Contact Networks, Gambling - rules for in-game gambling Sabacc, Hintaro, Beefy rules for Slicing (I swear it's almost a lift from Interface Zero's hacking rules, they're good!), and a ton of other stuff.

Quote from: tenbones;969903Okay, one more time from the top - (I should make this a macro for FFG SW threads).

Longtime WEG Star Wars fan here. Love it. Yes it's not perfect. Yes it needs a few houserule tweaks - what game doesn't?

FFG Star Wars Criticisms common to this forum

1) Gimmicky Dice - Yes they are gimmicky. Who gives a fuck. They work consistent with the math behind the system and it works. If you don't like using their dice - feel free to clunk it up and use the conversion chart for normal dice. https://i.warosu.org/data/tg/img/0396/47/1430327598908.png

2) Dice Resolution Mechanic is WEIRD! - Success/Fail, Advantage/Disadvantage, Triumphs/Despair. Three axis. Small numbers. Most of them simply cancel out. This is not advanced math. You rarely go beyond double digits. The symbols are literally color-coded because they only appear on specific dice. This is not rocket science. It's barely more than basic addition and subtraction. The end result is you have Success or Failure in varying degrees. No different than rolling a horde of d6's in WEG's SW and determining how far over your TN was + the Wild Die!

3) Narrative Mechanics! - Common complaint I see over and over and over are the narrative mechanics. The narrative mechanics as such are simply there for use if you indeed *like* using them. As I've said on almost every single FFG thread, this is an invalid criticism because you can simply use the Advantages/Threats as discrete values. HARD NUMBERS WITH HARD RESULTS (oh shit... this is making me hard). I am not a fan of narrative mechanics. If this were even close to being the "narrative game" detractors make it out to be - I wouldn't even be playing it. Oh look - a handy chart. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zgLIJX7quU8/Vb6ZaHN2JdI/AAAAAAAAK6w/8iFGfZXDLqQ/s1600/Dice%2BResults.png

4) Cost. Okay you got me here. The books are pricey. But I'm not going to tell you how to spend your money. This is not a reason to shit on the game. This is a business venture where a company is putting out a product. Electing to not buy a product because it costs money, or is beyond your current financial situation to purchase it is not a criticism of the game itself. That said - FFG has put out... a fucking Silhouette 7-sized amount of gaming material that is top-notch in production quality.

5) Money-Grab Release Schedule - I call bullshit on this. They broke up Star Wars along well established options of play that frankly I give him double-credit for. There is *no way* they could drop one book to cover the stuff they've covered. Impossible. It would have been watered down and shitty. And I'm saying this as someone that doesn't even *USE* the books - from any of the three lines - in the era that they assume you're playing in. They took a bold choice (a risky one at that) sticking with Outer-Rim material, and covering it in depth, and moving on to Military then Force users. *Every* major aspect of Star Wars is covered without a single blip in loss of production or writing quality.

6) WEG is better - why do I need this? - You don't. I fully agree you can get all the d6 material out there and play the holy shit out of Star Wars.

New Criticisms!

7) Talent Tree - I agree. Not a big fan. One way to decouple it is to drop Roles and categorize Talents as "abilities" anyone can purchase and re-adjust costs. This would also require changing the skill selection, but ultimately I think it would make a cleaner and more interesting way of playing.

Progression - Players start too weak imo. I usually give everyone 1 Free rank in Recruit (1 talent). And/or extra xp. It's easy to regulate progression through XP acquisition - as long as you adjust accordingly.

In recognition of tenbones SME (FFG) status, I will not dispute him (like I have many times in the past). He is a hoopy frood who knows where his towel is at and I will not mock him for liking a different version of Star Wars RPG (even if it is reeking of badwrongfun).

Quote from: jeff37923;969946In recognition of tenbones SME (FFG) status, I will not dispute him (like I have many times in the past). He is a hoopy frood who knows where his towel is at and I will not mock him for liking a different version of Star Wars RPG (even if it is reeking of badwrongfun).

haha you magnanimous bastard!

Quote from: Skarg;969918Tenbones, I've read and appreciated what you've explained about this system (in various past threads - I haven't read all of this thread), and how you could toss a lot of the narrative stuff. However I think that just reading the table you provided, it's clear that something very abstract and non-representational is going on compared to a game where things tend to happen because of the situation. I guess maybe that could be framed as being gamey but not narrative, but I think I'd still want to use some story-related word to describe how the abstract dice are translated via creative interpretation into a description. e.g. The table mentions you can turn a couple of die symbols into spotting blast door control panels, as opposed to a literal spot roll based on the situation. e.g. Another die roll combo lets you ignore environmental modifiers, instead of there needing to be some logical way you could avoid being impaired by a situation. e.g. Another die roll trade lets you give a pal a bonus to their roll, which presumably you make up some reason for it, instead of there actually having to be something you do in play that has some rules to it that make sense about when you could do it and what the effect is. What would be a good term for that, or has someone coined one already? Narrative interpretation of an abstract die roll system?

i.e. it still seems pretty narrative-y to me.

Improv? That's what I call it. And me likes it.

Hey Tenbones, while you're at it...
9) Minions
10) Range Zones

Quote from: CRKrueger;969993Hey Tenbones, while you're at it...
9) Minions
10) Range Zones

/shakes fist.

Okay... /dabs the beads of chi-sweat from his brow  

1 - I concede you have have a POINT.
2 - I am going to rage against that point.

Hear me out, I'll give this a shot.

Minions - OK, if we're going to say Minions are "narrativist" because it abstracts NPC's as "less than PCs" for the narrative effect of letting the PC's fight against gigantic numbers and be heroic, I find this to be little different than mid-level/high-level characters rolling up against hordes of low-HD NPC's/Monsters by direct analogy. The conceit in D&D is that your characters *are* special people that are more than just "standard" folks. By comparison in FFG's system, being skill-based game, leverages the minion-rules to simulate this.

*Second* (and this is probably my strongest argument on this particular issue) - There is a ridiculously easy solution if you don't like Minion rules. *Don't use them*. You can simply make everyone a Rival or Nemesis. Then you have parity (and a much more dangerous and gritty game). I see zero reason why you have to use Minion rules. By not using them you're making the game closer to Cyberpunk 2020 (and that's certainly not a bad thing).


Range Zones - Okay this, I have little defense for. Frankly, games with range-zones have never been an issue for me because in my melon, I just figured it's like FASERIP's "Areas" which is a random distance from melee to 40-yards depending on where the PC is standing. Usually when I have to ballpark this for accuracy, I just resort to D&D-distances or hand-wave it. I get it bugs people, but the solution is to simply do a little bit of elbow grease and establish some hard-ranges and stick to it.

If these two things are the only reasons keeping you from digging this game, I dub thee a true purist. But I also think these are quibbles at best and *easily* resolvable.

That's my take. (you dirty malcontent)

Quote from: sureshot;969159Maybe I'm getting old. Or just don't have time for rpgs that use proprietary dice. I tried to recently read Edge of the Empire and their dice mechanic I just don't get it. I look at the older D6 Star Wars and it seems so much simpler. Fire at a Storm Trooper roll your total of D6s take into account any Wild Die or other modifiers vs difficulty number. That being said the D6 has it flaws.  It may also be why I'm not going to buy the new Star Trek rpg. to me at least it just seems like FFG is trying to hard to be different which sometimes can be a good thing. Yet also complicating matters at the same time.

It's not just you. The game is shit.

Seems harsh for a playable game people are enjoying.