what were the races as long as the zabrak are there im probably happy like i said brood was hawt so i would be likely to play one (not that the character would be very attractive my characters tend to shave bald) but on a more widespread appeal matter it is important they have a good choice of races

oh sarlac pcs could be fun or more realisticly a rancor. though i suppose those would probably work better in a more generic star wars rpg rather then one focused around bounty hunting and smuggling and whatnot but if there compatible with the other 2 anyway i suppose you could still use the info

Quote from: TristramEvans;820792Well, agree to disagree I suppose. It certainly wasnt my main complaint over the mechanics. Maybe it was as much what races they were.

Cool.

Do you miss the Ewoks in the Sourcebook?

Quote from: Skywalker;820793The Star Wars Sourcebook was never expressed as being a Corebook as with the DMG and MM. True, it is universally regarded as such but only because the SW WEG 1e rulebook was so lacking in things like alien species.

i see

im still not sure what weg stands for though

West End Games.

Edge of the Empire (which deals with scum and villainy campaigns) contains Bothans, Gands, Rodians, Trandoshans, Twi'leks and Wookiees. I considered it to be a decent list for that focus.

Zabrak appear in Force and Destiny.

SW Sourcebook contains Ewoks, Gamorreans, Ithorians, Jawa, Mon Calamari, Quarren, Sand People, Sullustans, Twi'leks and Wookiees.

well that seems a fairly good mix of races. of course the more the better when it comes to races but if you have to have a small amount that looks like a decent list to choose from

justin, your dislike towards this game is quite entertaining, but please don't misrepresent what others are saying. you seem to have a problem understanding the system. that's ok, just don't like it then. don't make up things other people said to make your point though.

Quote from: shlominus;820720

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;820708... there are times when we just "ditch" potential things. It's all fallen into place, but I can see the urge to wrack your brains with each roll. What I like is the option to fiddle; you don't have to all the time.

this is the secret to enjoying the system in my view.

what we like is "the option to fiddle". get it? options. ditching "potential" things. for us it has "fallen into place".

what i didn't say is that the secret is "not using the system" and you know this very well. so just... don't, ok?

if you and your players feel that clunkyness is infecting everything, then maybe the game isn't for you, cause a lot of people do not have that problem. this is a badwrongfun-issue and you are on the wrong side of the argument.

does the game have problems? hell yeah! just like every other game out there. if your problems are the dice and the core system then i would advise you to play something else. you've said that you never really intended to play it, maybe this has had some impact on how you perceived it during play. several people (myself included) have stated that the were sceptical of the system at first, but quickly realised how much fun it is.

the lack of alien species is easily solved:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/g51dvua11vazi4x/Star+Wars+-+Edge+of+the+Empire+-+The+Unofficial+Species+Menagerie+3.0.pdf

should you need a race not covered and are unable to create it from scratch maybe roleplaying isn't the hobby for you, considering how easy it is with the system. +/-1 on 1 or 2 stats, a simple special rule or two... tadaa, 99% of all species done.

for once shlominus is right he was clearly talking about only sometimes ignoring it

that said if you ever have to ignore the core mechanic at all then something is seriously wrong with the system changing most things is common a core mechanic change not so much, hell im pretty sure the only reason unearthed arcana had options for changing it was an exercise to see if they could do it

Quote from: shlominus;820800justin, your dislike towards this game is quite entertaining, but please don't misrepresent what others are saying. you seem to have a problem understanding the system. that's ok, just don't like it then. don't make up things other people said to make your point though.



what we like is "the option to fiddle". get it? options. ditching "potential" things. for us it has "fallen into place".

what i didn't say is that the secret is "not using the system" and you know this very well. so just... don't, ok?

if you and your players feel that clunkyness is infecting everything, then maybe the game isn't for you, cause a lot of people do not have that problem. this is a badwrongfun-issue and you are on the wrong side of the argument.

does the game have problems? hell yeah! just like every other game out there. if your problems are the dice and the core system then i would advise you to play something else. you've said that you never really intended to play it, maybe this has had some impact on how you perceived it during play. several people (myself included) have stated that the were sceptical of the system at first, but quickly realised how much fun it is.

the lack of alien species is easily solved:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/g51dvua11vazi4x/Star+Wars+-+Edge+of+the+Empire+-+The+Unofficial+Species+Menagerie+3.0.pdf

should you need a race not covered and are unable to create it from scratch maybe roleplaying isn't the hobby for you, considering how easy it is with the system. +/-1 on 1 or 2 stats, a simple special rule or two... tadaa, 99% of all species done.

As one of Alderaan Crumb's players, I can say things have gone very well.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;820779It's pretty telling that most of the people in this thread who have professed to like the dice mechanics have nevertheless admitted to ignoring them for a good portion of the time. Like, one guy just got done saying that the secret to enjoying the system is not use it.

Not wanting to interpret a result in a narrative way isn't ignoring the system. And the system isn't any clunkier than the sacred cow, D&D. I could go on for hours as to why I scratch my head over its popularity as, IMO, it has some of the most annoying mechanics of any RPG. Even so, with all of the things I can't stand about D&D, there's a lot I still like.


Why do I bring this up? Because I, as well as many people I've known who run and/or play D&D have the same issues and end up ignoring large portions of the game to make it work. And that's actually ignoring said rules. That doesn't make D&D bad/shit/crap, just maybe not for some people, st least without fiddling. In Star Wars, not interpreting symbols isn't not using the rules, as results are guidelines and options, nothing more.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;820779Another case in point: That's not actually the system. If advantage/threat is the only thing you're spending on special effects, then you've house ruled away the major problems with the dice mechanic.

Huh? Explain, please.

You also tried to make it seem as if assembling a dice pool and interpreting it's slow and clunky and it simply isn't. The Beginner Game does a marvelous job of teaching the system as compared to the 5E set which went much more slowly, with both new and veteran D&D players. I'm not picking on D&D but as it's the RPGsite's "Exalted" (as in it's wildly popular, not in the fuckery of its fans) it's a good point of comparison to me.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;820815Not wanting to interpret a result in a narrative way isn't ignoring the system. And the system isn't any clunkier than the sacred cow, D&D. I could go on for hours as to why I scratch my head over its popularity as, IMO, it has some of the most annoying mechanics of any RPG. Even so, with all of the things I can't stand about D&D, there's a lot I still like.


Why do I bring this up? Because I, as well as many people I've known who run and/or play D&D have the same issues and end up ignoring large portions of the game to make it work. And that's actually ignoring said rules. In Star Wars, not interpreting symbols isn't not using the rules, as results are guidelines and options, nothing more.



Huh? Explain, please.

You also tried to make it seem as if assembling a dice pool and interpreting it's slow and clunky and it simply isn't. The Beginner Game does a marvelous job of teaching the system as compared to the 5E set which went much more slowly, with both new and veteran D&D players. I'm not picking on D&D but as it's the RPGsite's "Exalted" (as in it's wildly popular, not in the fuckery of its fans) it's a good point of comparison to me.

you are right but in d&d few people are ignoring the core mechanic. although to be fair its a simple enough mechanic your cant really ignore it

Quote from: tuypo1;820817you are right but in d&d few people are ignoring the core mechanic. although to be fair its a simple enough mechanic your cant really ignore it

Yes, in that I would agree. Rolling one (or two in 5E) D20 and adding it to a number is certainly less work than gathering a dice pool, rolling and dealing with the symbols. However, that doesn't make Star Wars bad or the base mechanic clunky. It took very little time for us to grasp the system and have a lot of fun. Some people obviously had different experiences, which sucks but is ultimately OK.

That mentioned, people aren't ignoring the core mechanic of Star Wars (assembling a dice pool and rolling it) when don't use the narrative aspects of the results each and every time, most often out of combat. There are simply times there's nothing to add to a scene, but the symbols give you the option to do so.

What I meant about D&D is that it has certain rules that get in the way, such as how magic works, rolling initiative for each and every enemy (and no good way to group them), tracking their individual HP, moves, etc. Nearly all RPGs require bookkeeping and I find D&D's unpleasant. Others may find FFG's Star Wars unpleasant. Different strokes and all.

My point is that neither game is for everyone, all games have flaws and calling any game (besides F.A.T.A.L.! ) "shit" or something similar is ignorant.

I had posted a while back about SW:EotE vs. WEG's d6SW. I forget where, who cares. Anyway, I tried to run the game once with some newbies and it was a miserable failure. The die mechanic is pretty hard to grasp for people unaccustomed to "complex" games...I don't think we got through half the first combat. Conversely, they looked at the d6 character sheets and pretty much understood the die mechanic instantly. Roll X amount of dice over Y target number.

So, yeah, the fucking nerds can say whatever they want, but for casual gamers d6 is the way to go.

I'm a pretty die-hard d6 fan. It still remains, imo, a great system. It has its flaws, but nothing that can't be houseruled.

As extremely skeptical as I was about EotE - I picked it up. It took me one session to figure it out with my crew of players. And it just worked for us. Was the dice mechanic weird? Yeah. But it also clicked. You can use the dice for purely mechanical values, if you're not particularly feeling imaginative or are the type of GM that isn't good at improvisation. I personally don't have that problem. But I purposely used the default values for the dice (letting PC's just add/subtract dice for bare-minimum input) and the game flowed nicely.

Of course once I got my druthers going and injected the game with my personal verve for what the underbelly of the Old Republic was like... the game really took off.

Having said all that - the real question is do I like it more than WestEnd SW? That is the real litmous test. I'd put it like this...

Pros:

• Production - Production value is *far* superior. These books are meaty and gorgeous and well constructed.
• Flavor - The feel of Star Wars very much emerges from the game play. This might be due to my own love for SW and I eked it out. But I felt it required very little effort on my part.
• Internal Consistency - The encounters and roleplay worked well with the kooky dice system. Combat once run a couple of times flowed smoothly for us. And players felt comfortable coming up with extemporaneous excuses to get Boosters. Which is what the game encourages - and it worked.
• Unexpected Emergent Gameplay - As a GM - I like not feeling comfortable with knowing outcomes. The dice-system in play makes every roll a springboard to some really really cool possibilities if you're an agile GM. For me - the system is pretty powerful in squeezing a lot of possibilities from what in other systems would simply be a straightforward roll.

Cons:

• Initial Dice System - I say initial because I fully admit the dice-system is weird at first blush. But after a session, it hums right along.
• Relative Lack of content - this is almost unfair comparing it to d6, but yeah you miss all the glory of the Tramp Freighters Book, and the massive list of gear from d6. That said - there is PLENTY of cool stuff to run your campaigns with. Lords of Nal-Hutta upped the ante quite a bit as have each book that's come out since.

Do I like it better? Not sure. As much as I like d6 I think the shocking thing to me - is that I can't really decide. I think that says enough.
Is it better? Not sure. It's different. But I'll put my chip down on the table and say this: it's a fun game and system. I can definitely run the kind of Star Wars games I like - dark, not a lot of a Force-related shenannigans (though there are rules for it), and gritty-yet-adventurous sorts of fare. I freely use my library of d6 material with it to supplement lore and gauge on-the-fly gear stats.

Edit: And Fantasy Flight Games just had their Star Wars License renewed - now they can include stuff from the new movies.

Quote from: Brad;820826I had posted a while back about SW:EotE vs. WEG's d6SW. I forget where, who cares. Anyway, I tried to run the game once with some newbies and it was a miserable failure. The die mechanic is pretty hard to grasp for people unaccustomed to "complex" games...I don't think we got through half the first combat. Conversely, they looked at the d6 character sheets and pretty much understood the die mechanic instantly. Roll X amount of dice over Y target number.

So, yeah, the fucking nerds can say whatever they want, but for casual gamers d6 is the way to go.

There's only so many ways you can decide "Did this thing happen?" before it all gets rather tedious.

Quote from: Brad;820826Anyway, I tried to run the game once with some newbies and it was a miserable failure. The die mechanic is pretty hard to grasp for people unaccustomed to "complex" games...I don't think we got through half the first combat.  

Anecdotally, I recently ran both SW D6 and one of the FFG games with the same two groups of high school aged newbies. The addition of the d6s in WEG proved just as hard as the results in FFG on average. I had some players who preferred one and some who preferred the others depending on how they best processed information and previous gaming experiences. The GM's enthusiasm and ability to grasp and explain the rules in question has a big impact too.