Quote from: tenbones;915577I would agree with you in premise - only FFG has been cranking out books for it's Star Wars line. Dunno about you - but I've got two full shelves of their product all of which is seeing good use. The only company leaking shit out slowly in this model is Wizards of the Coast.

How are they on Starship Combat, are there any notes on using RPG Pilot stats in the various FFG mini starship games?

Quote from: Tod13;915532I think that depends on what you like. I think Pundit, for example, based on his comments about designing settings, likes fluff and crunch that are integrated. The crunch rules are based on, work with, reinforce, and depend on the fluff, and vice versa. Lots of people like this.

There are certainly examples of this being done well and examples of this being done poorly. Many setting elements do lead themselves to qualitative crunch. For example, World of Greyhawk has two moons and spends a paragraph or two explaining how that affects lycanthropes. It doesn't involve mechanics per se, and it's entirely about the fluff of two moons, but the effects are so specific as to give it a good crunch. Contrast this with, say, the World of Krynn where (IIRC) there are precise mechanical effects on spellcasters. That comes out awesome if you love it, heavy-handed if you don't like it.

QuoteI don't want different rules for wild west and fantasy and modern and sci-fi. So I like fluff and crunch as mutually exclusive. The closest I get to mixing them is what magic/psionic spells exist. (In my homebrew, in the basic rules, I have 5 spells.)

I'm not sure why there would necessarily need to be a whole different rule set for different settings. There is plenty that re-skins very well without losing anything. On the other hand, there are things that don't re-skin without loss of flavor. Like say a man-eating wolf with 2+1 HD that bites for 1d6 damage vs a flesh-eating ghoul with 2+1 HD that claws for 1d6 damage. It's tempting to port the mechanics from one to the other because the game stats are so identical, and merely re-skin the encounter with different description and narrative. But for me, because they are very different creatures in a narrative sense, I expect them to fight differently mechanically. The wolf can lock its jaws on the victim, segueing into "grappling" rules that differ from "striking" rules, whereas the ghoul has no fear and can come out with a second claw attack, but cannot lock in the victim the way the wolf can, and are vulnerable to sunlight and holy water.

QuotePS - Commas rule!

Word to the wise--commentary on another's grammar is always bad form. It's just even worse when you are incorrect.

Quote from: rgrove0172;915555A pet peeve of mine however is the practice of slowly leaking out fluff a bit at a time. (aka. FFG Star Wars is terrible about this)
Wherein months may go by before a supplement is offered covering a key part of the game setting. As a GM there is a good chance I have already generated info about the subject of the supplement and now have an official but alternate version conflicting. I know, I know, make it your own but its annoying.

Thats FFGs shtick. They are notorious for acquiring and reprinting older board games and then breaking them into smaller parts and parcelling them out. And/or overglitzing them with minis that jack the cost.

They do the same with other stuff. Though the Star Wars RPG is a big offender as theres rules chunks omitted from the core. Nothing vital far as I know. But it can be vexing and the costs can escalate.

I cashed out on star wars after a couple of sessions. $200 or so in stuff. Managed to unload pretty well on ebay.

Quote from: rgrove0172;915631I cashed out on star wars after a couple of sessions. $200 or so in stuff. Managed to unload pretty well on ebay.

Cool.

Quote from: rgrove0172;915631I cashed out on star wars after a couple of sessions. $200 or so in stuff. Managed to unload pretty well on ebay.

Edge of Empire
95$ for the core game, GM book and an extra set of their funky dice.
230$ for the rules supplements.

Force & Destiny
95$ for the core game, GM book and an extra set of their funky dice.
130$ for the rules supplements.

And theres an Age of Rebellion series too???

Though from all I've been frequently re-assured. The game is fine with just one of the cores. Not sure about the GM book. Others seem to disagree. But like with 5e. You can Amazon it for less. Though not as big of savings as 5e.

A Star Wars RPG is one game where Id expect alot of info on all the worlds and races.

Quote from: Lunamancer;915602I'm not sure why there would necessarily need to be a whole different rule set for different settings. But for me, because they are very different creatures in a narrative sense, I expect them to fight differently mechanically.

I wanted something super light. I didn't want one set of rules for how a crossbow works and one set of rules for how a firearm works. Some rule sets make these do damage differently (applying or not applying armor) or apply melee disadvantage to the crossbow but not the handgun. While that might be more "realistic" to some, I don't want to have to remember the differences. And for "realistic" to be useful to me, you start having to look at the type of armor, the type of bullet, and pretty soon you're playing Phoenix Command. So I don't go there.

As for different creatures, with similar stats, fighting in different ways. That's fine. But, anyone can "grapple" if they are capable of grappling. You don't need separate rules for grappling in a fantasy game and a science fiction game, or separate grappling rules for different critters. Or, on a different tact, I don't want different social skill use rules in fantasy and science fiction, even if the rule changes fit the setting better.

That's why I like my crunch and fluff separate. Give me all the rules. Then give me the setting, the fluff, that we use the rules within.

Quote from: Lunamancer;915602Word to the wise--commentary on another's grammar is always bad form. It's just even worse when you are incorrect.

Who said anything about other people's grammar? I, after looking at my post, was commenting about my, possibly over zealous, use of commas, like in this sentence. And I still think commas rule!

Quote from: Tod13;915693I wanted something super light. I didn't want one set of rules for how a crossbow works and one set of rules for how a firearm works. Some rule sets make these do damage differently (applying or not applying armor) or apply melee disadvantage to the crossbow but not the handgun.

Seems like you're talking more about poor execution. I play a rules-lite RPG that uses an armor absorb system but "crits" ignore armor. So forget crossbow vs firearm. Crossbow vs Crossbow sometimes armor applies, sometimes it doesn't. It doesn't require additional rules or mechanics. And it's still really lite. Compared to the various ways different systems handles crits, I consider this one extremely simple and elegant. Now if alternate-reality version of this RPG had armor-bypassing hits reserved for firearms rather than crits, well, it's done so without adding new mechanics, more rules, or increasing complexity.

QuoteWho said anything about other people's grammar? I, after looking at my post, was commenting about my, possibly over zealous, use of commas, like in this sentence. And I still think commas rule!

My mistake. Withdrawn.

The OSR was more focused on Crunch for most of its history up till the 3rd wave; however, there was a lot of fluff contained within that crunch in terms of "implied setting".

Quote from: RPGPundit;916314The OSR was more focused on Crunch for most of its history up till the 3rd wave; however, there was a lot of fluff contained within that crunch in terms of "implied setting".

Written implied setting or implied implied setting?

Quote from: RPGPundit;916314The OSR was more focused on Crunch for most of its history up till the 3rd wave; however, there was a lot of fluff contained within that crunch in terms of "implied setting".

This made me think a little. First, I have no idea what the waves are. But then, more useful to this thread possibly (maybe I mean germane rather than useful) , I realized something about setting or "fluff".

In all the groups I've played, pretty much the only thing we cared about setting (by which I mean the culture rather than what the town/spacestation/whatever looks like) was whether non-humans (or humans or AIs) were accepted as "people". And usually we just said "yes, they are" or came up with a backstory for why our group got along and was mixed. Other than that, setting was just part of the module or adventure we were playing. But we also tended to gloss over things like carrying weeks of food and scores of torches.

This was true of several incarnations of D&D, Traveller (Classic and Megatraveller), Runemaster and Spacemaster, and more recently BareBones Fantasy. (And many others which I won't bother to type or try to remember.) This is spread over 40 years of playing. Not sure what that means, if anything.

And, to answer Omega's question, I figure by "implied setting" it means stuff like, if there are readily available magical items in shops for adventurers to purchase, then there is some sort of magical item industry and a population dedicated to that. This also implies magic is relatively common and "safe-ish", rather than rare and hideously dangerous.

Quote from: CRKrueger;915600How are they on Starship Combat, are there any notes on using RPG Pilot stats in the various FFG mini starship games?

Starship combat in the RPG has nothing to do with the Mini-game UNFORTUNATELY. I wonder what was going through their minds when they thought that not having the minis-game plug in - even as an alternate starship-combat system wouldn't be an obvious winner? Oh well.

In terms of play, Starship combat in the RPG works pretty analogous to PC-combat but if you're a pilot with Talents - you'll get a lot more options, naturally. After a couple of go-rounds of starship combat it runs fairly smoothly. I think it was the starship combat that sold my players. If you have a decent sized ship there's plenty for *everyone* in the group to do if they have some basic skills like Gunnery, Computers, or Piloting. One of the nice things they cooked into the core mechanics was Assist-rules, and there are things that technical PC's can do while in combat - running sensors, repairs, spoofing enemy ship sensors, etc. that does a great job of keeping the tension for everyone high.

Because, you know... no one can hear you scream in space... when you fuck up. heh

Quote from: Omega;915642Though from all I've been frequently re-assured. The game is fine with just one of the cores. Not sure about the GM book.

This would be a general "No" imo. Though the main books do reprint the core rules, and there are SOME crossover between the Edge and the Age of Rebellion books, the Force and Destiny core book and its "classes" are distinct for Force users.

Edge and Age books you *could* hand-wave some stuff, but you'd be missing out on several distinct "classes" that each book delivers on. Edge is for bounty-hunters/scoundrel/freebooters types, Age is for military folks. They both have analogs that correspond to one another, and in a FEW cases they're identical. But in most cases the Talent trees are different. But if you wanted to use the Mercenary Soldier from Edge to represent the Soldier from Age... I don't think anyone would/should complain. You could probably buy the class-packs separately. Also - they do the annoying bit of spreading out the supplemental necessities across ALL of their lines. So if you want all the races and gear, you're essentially going to have to get the other books.

Having said that - I find the quality of the FFG books to be astoundingly good in both production quality and usability.

Either way - Force and Destiny, if you intend on doing actual Jedi/Sith is pretty much a must-buy. BUT Edge and Age do have Force abilities that can be quite powerful in their respective books. The assumption of such characters are that they're either not trained or washouts.

Quote from: Omega;915642A Star Wars RPG is one game where Id expect alot of info on all the worlds and races.

While not up to the WEG's vast amount  - FFG's respective body of work is remarkably well covered. I still fill in whatever gaps I have with WEG's books for reference, but I could easily do without. Of course... as always, FFG's books are pricey (even if you go Amazon). The value will depend on how much you like the game, obviously. So the starter set is always recommended.

Quote from: Tod13;916359And, to answer Omega's question, I figure by "implied setting" it means stuff like, if there are readily available magical items in shops for adventurers to purchase, then there is some sort of magical item industry and a population dedicated to that. This also implies magic is relatively common and "safe-ish", rather than rare and hideously dangerous.

If thats some of the later OSR's implied setting then they kinda missed the mark by a few planets...

Quote from: Omega;916548If thats some of the later OSR's implied setting then they kinda missed the mark by a few planets...

Sorry, I'm not saying that is specifically what is in the later OSR books--as I said, I have no idea what the "waves" are. I'm saying that is an example of an implied setting. Remember, I don't know what the waves are, so I can't comment on them. But this seemed a good example. :cool: