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Author Topic: D6 Star Wars vs. FFG  (Read 10770 times)

Batjon

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D6 Star Wars vs. FFG
« on: October 20, 2020, 02:37:50 AM »
Which is your favorite Star Wars RPG? D6 WEG or FFG?
« Last Edit: October 20, 2020, 03:20:01 AM by Batjon »

Eirikrautha

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Re: D6 Star Wars vs. FFG
« Reply #1 on: October 20, 2020, 07:05:45 AM »
D6 by a mile.  It was innovative for its time, and despite some flaws, still plays pretty well.  It also did a pretty good job of supporting flavor with mechanics; you feel like an action hero in that game (until the power creep of later products).

Melan

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Re: D6 Star Wars vs. FFG
« Reply #2 on: October 20, 2020, 08:26:12 AM »
D6, while not perfect out of the gate, remains an excellent, versatile system that is a nigh-perfect fit for cinematic action adventure. The specific implementation also makes it a great SW game.
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hedgehobbit

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Re: D6 Star Wars vs. FFG
« Reply #3 on: October 20, 2020, 08:26:53 AM »
It's not a choice, but my most successful Star Wars campaign was using the d20 rules. It was a game where the characters were part of the Empire and I ran it for my normal third edition D&D group so the game worked well with that setup.

I wanted to like the FFG game, as it looked great and focused on the OT era, but there were just too many mechanical issues and it got frustrating with their copy-and-paste from edition to edition. They even copied sections of the text without applying the previously released errata. I never bought their Jedi game, Force and Destiny, as their "falling to the darkside" rules were comically bad (i.e. Yoda could fall to the Dark Side just by rolling badly).

Brad

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Re: D6 Star Wars vs. FFG
« Reply #4 on: October 20, 2020, 09:33:42 AM »
Star Wars 1st Edition and it's not even close. You can give a character sheet to a total newbie and they can figure out how to play in two minutes.
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tenbones

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Re: D6 Star Wars vs. FFG
« Reply #5 on: October 20, 2020, 10:33:26 AM »
I've run both pretty extensively.

I prefer 2e D6. The entire catalog of D6 Star Wars defines Star Wars. Even beyond the cinematic material, beyond the video-games, it fully encompasses all other mediums and has influenced those other mediums on fundamental levels.

System isn't perfect, but it does everything very well.

However - FFG's game captures Star Wars very well. I own the all three lines in their entirety (except the new Ships book - which is fantastically hard to find, but it's just a collation of mostly of ships in all their other books). And it is very complete. The line could end right now and it would stand very well on its own.

What both systems "stumble" on is playing Force users alongside non-Force users without making those Force Users either too weak, or ridiculously too powerful, based purely on the XP curve. If you ran a Force user campaign - you're in good shape. In FFG Star Wars a basic Force User, like in D6, will always be struggling to split XP between their Force powers and Skills. In FFG you can mitigate this with a Talent Tree purchases , but it amounts to the same thing.

If you want those Force Users to be dedicated Jedi/Sith - you're in for a LOooooOOOOng Grind. If you want to play semi-experienced Force Users most GM's grant an additional 150 points for "Knight Level" play... and honestly? It barely scratches the surface. It's not that the FFG system doesn't handle the Force well - it does so very well (arguably better than D6 in terms of "flavor" - but this comes from having a decade+ of latter era development). It's tricky to do a Jedi/Sith + non-Force user game.

If you want to play a non-Force User game... both games are excellent. I think D6 is slightly better overall. But FFG's game is close. The production value is *excellent* the art is good. And contrary to what a lot of people believe - it does not require meta-mechanics nearly as much as naysayers claim. There is tremendous support for it as well (And D6 has *never* suffered from lack of support either).

The only downside to FFG's game that I find commonplace, but did not impact me at all (and I thought it would) - is the dice. It turned out to work very well for me and my group of grizzled asshole players. If I say Star Wars is on the table - and they're ALL D6 veterans, they will choose FFG first every single time. I've tried to get them to go back to D6 - they won't have it.

So my thoughts? D6 is probably slightly better. My reality? I run FFG with D6 material as fluff supplementary material because it's rock solid and my group loves it more.

Aglondir

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Re: D6 Star Wars vs. FFG
« Reply #6 on: October 20, 2020, 04:27:00 PM »
D20 Saga is my overall favorite, but I've never played FFG.

lordmalachdrim

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Re: D6 Star Wars vs. FFG
« Reply #7 on: October 20, 2020, 04:39:03 PM »
Any version that is NOT FFGs

Ratman_tf

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Re: D6 Star Wars vs. FFG
« Reply #8 on: October 20, 2020, 04:54:01 PM »
Haven't played a Star Wars RPG in ages. I'd want to use WEG d6 just out of pure nostalgia. (Plus I bought the reprints of the original RPG and the Sourcebook, and I'd love to use them at the table)
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jeff37923

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Re: D6 Star Wars vs. FFG
« Reply #9 on: October 20, 2020, 05:59:48 PM »
WEG d6. So good that some of FFGs best sales were reprints of the original WEG d6 booksi
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Slipshot762

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Re: D6 Star Wars vs. FFG
« Reply #10 on: October 20, 2020, 07:41:07 PM »
I love D6 system so much its the only thing i use, any other ttrpg product i might have gets adapted to use D6 system. never tried the ffg version.

BronzeDragon

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Re: D6 Star Wars vs. FFG
« Reply #11 on: October 20, 2020, 08:44:27 PM »
WEG Star Wars IS Star Wars.
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Re: D6 Star Wars vs. FFG
« Reply #12 on: October 21, 2020, 08:14:58 AM »
Any version that's not d20.

Dimitrios

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Re: D6 Star Wars vs. FFG
« Reply #13 on: October 21, 2020, 10:46:22 AM »
Definitely WEG D6 for me.

I have a theory that licensed rpgs do best when the license if for something that isn't the hot property of the day. The heyday of WEG was during a time when Star Wars was not exactly front and center in popular culture. This was before the prequels: Star Wars was 3 movies that everyone remembered fondly and some novels that were read mostly by hardcore fans. Call of Cthulhu established itself at a time when Lovecraft was still a niche geek interest. Even MERP, for all that the system didn't really match the setting, released what I still consider some of the best Middle Earth source material, and that was when LotR was pretty fallow, since the animated movie had failed to make the big splash that the Tolkien estate had been hoping for.

Edit: I realize that CoC isn't technically a licensed rpg, but still.
« Last Edit: October 21, 2020, 11:07:08 AM by Dimitrios »

Abraxus

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Re: D6 Star Wars vs. FFG
« Reply #14 on: October 21, 2020, 10:52:05 AM »
If someone were to release an official 3E SW D6 which fixes the power issues with Jedi I would be in seventh heaven. Until then it's still my goto Star Wars even if I don't allow Jedi as player characters. Or if I do it has to be with the right player.