The new Star Wars Edge of the Empire is a fantastic rule set. I enjoyed Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3e (yet an inferior game to 2e), but the rule set needed heavy modification just to be playable. Than came along Star Wars Edge of the Empire, which removed every element I disliked about WFRP 3e and streamlined the rules. You need less dice to play the game, the minion rules are actually functional and bullshit half-assed rules like the party sheet, socketed talents and action cards have been removed.
The d6 Star Wars was interesting, but I've only ever purchased and used the core book. What books are good for inspiration and ideas from the WEG d6 era that could be easily translated to Edge of the Empire?
I know nothing about the new RPG, but I thought the Special Forces book, Rules of Engagement, was pretty snazzy.
I don't know anything about it either, other than that it's supposed to be using proprietary dice, which makes me not want it AT ALL.
However, in answer to your question; Every Single Galaxy Guide, Ever. They're filled with great stuff.
Quote from: Panzerkraken;726896I don't know anything about it either, other than that it's supposed to be using proprietary dice, which makes me not want it AT ALL.
Yeah, can we talk about this? These things are despicable, especially when you inevitably lose some. Are they really as popular with general gaming buyers as the Fantasy Flight Games PR people imply?
D6-wise, I think you can't go wrong with the aforementioned Galaxy Guides; No. 6 had the respective bits for a freighter based firefly-esque sort of game as well as talking about ship modification / upgrades.
Also, I loved Pirates and Privateers sourcebook, the Imperial and Rebellion military guides, and the Corporate Sector Authority sourcebook, but IMO and all of that.
If you ever get deep into running up against Imperial types on a consistent basis, the Death Star Technical Companion is neat as it gives typical layouts of generic Imperial facilities, i.e. holding cells, command bridge, etc.
At any rate, have fun and keep the Star Wars flag flying!
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;726906Yeah, can we talk about this? These things are despicable, especially when you inevitably lose some. Are they really as popular with general gaming buyers as the Fantasy Flight Games PR people imply?
Sure.
Star Wars requires much less dice than Warhammer. Characters in Star Wars use less dice because attributes start lower. As well, instead of adding dice to a pool when you have an ability or skill, the player replaces dice with a slightly better dice. In Warhammer, a single roll could involve 15 dice in hand (even more if you are in the higher ranks). In Star Wars, the most dice you will roll is around 8.
I have no problem with buying the dice for Star Wars, as one pack will cover most Rank 1 characters, but a second pack may be required for late game.
As for popularity, I have no idea. But I do know, the mechanic is incredible giving varied results on every skill check. And, no, the results are not narrative in effect. Instead the game allows for every die to had an unexpected element or opportunity.
If a theoretical Warhammer Fantasy 4e would be released like Star Wars, the game might approach or equal the awesomeness of WHRP 2e.
Quote from: Crabbyapples;726862The d6 Star Wars was interesting, but I've only ever purchased and used the core book. What books are good for inspiration and ideas from the WEG d6 era that could be easily translated to Edge of the Empire?
None. WEG d6 Star Wars is not a corpse to be looted by the murder-hobo of FFG Star Wars.
Quote from: Crabbyapples;726974Star Wars requires much less dice than Warhammer. Characters in Star Wars use less dice because attributes start lower. As well, instead of adding dice to a pool when you have an ability or skill, the player replaces dice with a slightly better dice. In Warhammer, a single roll could involve 15 dice in hand (even more if you are in the higher ranks). In Star Wars, the most dice you will roll is around 8.
Yet the dice are imprinted with symbols instead of english which must be translated to be used.
Quote from: Crabbyapples;726974I have no problem with buying the dice for Star Wars, as one pack will cover most Rank 1 characters, but a second pack may be required for late game.
I had no problem finding dice for the WEG d6 Star Wars because the plain old 6-sided dice is everywhere. No gimmick dice required.
Quote from: Crabbyapples;726974As for popularity, I have no idea. But I do know, the mechanic is incredible giving varied results on every skill check. And, no, the results are not narrative in effect. Instead the game allows for every die to had an unexpected element or opportunity.
You mean it isn't fast, or simple and elegant. You get stuck with the interpretation of gimmick dice results instead of playing your character.
WEG d6 Star Wars - the first and the best.
Can a character die in Edge of the Empire if the player doesn't want it to?
Quote from: Benoist;727015Can a character die in Edge of the Empire if the player doesn't want it to?
Yes.
The setup though is around people going down a LOT but dying rarely. Unless you've taken several crits or someone has a lot of uh... vicious I think is the quality that adds to the critical injury table rolls, you probably aren't going to hit the dead result on it (Crits can be long lasting though, so you could have a bunch of +10s from previous critical injuries punching the result up). In certain circumstances though, you could die in one shot.
Quote from: Emperor Norton;727035Yes.
The setup though is around people going down a LOT but dying rarely. Unless you've taken several crits or someone has a lot of uh... vicious I think is the quality that adds to the critical injury table rolls, you probably aren't going to hit the dead result on it (Crits can be long lasting though, so you could have a bunch of +10s from previous critical injuries punching the result up). In certain circumstances though, you could die in one shot.
In other words: Yes, but very rarely.
Quote from: jeff37923;727040In other words: Yes, but very rarely.
Its intentional. Its run and gun space fantasy heroes, which is what Star Wars IS. They go down pretty often, but they aren't likely to die very often.
Quote from: jeff37923;727014None. WEG d6 Star Wars is not a corpse to be looted by the murder-hobo of FFG Star Wars.
That's helpful.
QuoteI had no problem finding dice for the WEG d6 Star Wars because the plain old 6-sided dice is everywhere. No gimmick dice required.
If you don't buy into the premise that certain game mechanics may require special dice, no amount of discussion will change your mind.
QuoteYou mean it isn't fast, or simple and elegant. You get stuck with the interpretation of gimmick dice results instead of playing your character.
My experience with FFG Star Wars is completely different. The players roleplay their characters and once an action is needed the dice are rolled. Afterwards, the dice tell the results of the action and unknown circumstances. My group finds the concept elegant and simple, unlike Warhammer which can be bogged down by exceptions on action cards.
WEG d6 IS a fantastic game. But so is FFG Edge of the Empire. I have both and plan to continue to play both in the future.
Quote from: Benoist;727015Can a character die in Edge of the Empire if the player doesn't want it to?
The first encounter we played of Star Wars Edge of the Empire, the entire group was defeated by a small group of thugs. They were knocked unconscious, but not killed. If they would have continued their course, they would have eventually died. While it's hard to kill a character, a character can be killed by attrition and even gain long lasting critical wounds without the permission of the player.
I would say FFG Star Wars is closer to the HERO system mechanics of hit points. It's easier to knock a character out than kill him, but if you hurt a character enough, damage will kill.
The game has very few narrative mechanics, unlike Warhammer which has a few too many for my liking. The party sheet and the scene/act structure of Warhammer 3e is terrible and needs to stop.
Why does it need specialized dice though? Why can't number dice just do the trick? I am not egging on you as these are just honest questions.
Shawn is da man. Sez me, proud owner of every single WEG SW product out there. The Adventure journals are too fiction heavy for me, though. And Dark Stryder is a railroady abomination never to be run as intended but looted for all the modular kewl bits.
Crabbyapples, Darkstryder campaign is excellent for EotE. I know a friend who has already run it and I plan to the same if I ever get through the prewritten adventures released by FFG.
Quote from: Snowman0147;727102Why does it need specialized dice though? Why can't number dice just do the trick? I am not egging on you as these are just honest questions.
I've talked about it in another thread, but the dice pool does several things: It combines difficulty, character ability, and circumstances all down to 1 roll of a pool with no difficulty number and operates on more than one axis. You have the success/failure axis (did I get more success symbols than failure symbols), the advantage/threat axis (did I get more advantage or more threat, and by how much), and two binary switches (Did I get a Triumph? Did I get a Despair?)
It doesn't just give you 1 number. It gives you:
I succeeded, and gained an advantage
I succeeded but suffered threat
I succeeded and gained an advantage and had a triumph!
I succeeded and had a triumph, but I also suffered threat.
I succeeded and nothing else happened
I succeeded and gained an advantage, but I suffered a despair!
I succeeded but suffered threat and a despair.
And then all those combinations again, but with failure instead of success.
Quote from: Benoist;727015Can a character die in Edge of the Empire if the player doesn't want it to?
Yes. EotE system is ultimately derived from WFRP1e (via WFRP2e and the WH40K RPGs). So a PC has wounds and when those wounds fall to 0, the PC takes critical hits. Those critical hits include death.
I was highly skeptical of Edge of the Empire. after much reading about it, I decided to take a stab. I was very happily surprised at how well it works. I'm currently running a weekly Edge of the Empire game set in the Old Republic era now.
I'm a HUGE d6 fan - and I would recommend all of them. Especially the Gear books.
as for the dice. Yeah this was a big turnoff for me too. But once you play the game - I found I really liked them (I bought a second set in fact).
Sure FFG is making money off them - but I find that the dice-mechanic really works nicely. And I have no problem supporting a high-quality product. Edge of the Empire fits that bill.
As for learning to read the dice results - it's pretty straightforward - players can spend the Advantages on various things specific to the action(Skill) they were doing. GM's get to spend them Threats. They provide many examples.
Takes a good session or two to understand - pretty easy.
Quote from: Snowman0147;727102Why does it need specialized dice though? Why can't number dice just do the trick? I am not egging on you as these are just honest questions.
Specialized dice would be required for the results.
Are you familiar with the Warhammer/FFG Star Wars mechanics?
You can use numbered dice for FFG Star Wars, but translating the numbers to symbols is a time consuming process. In fact, the rulebook has a table for each die face if you desire to use "traditional" polyhedral dice.
Many people say about Warhammer "the dice tell the story". They are wrong, the people around the table after the game session tell the stories of their characters. The dice rolls may give results which are unexpected, but the GM always has control over the "the bad results".
Quote from: Snowman0147;727102Why does it need specialized dice though? Why can't number dice just do the trick? I am not egging on you as these are just honest questions.
"Need" is the wrong word. Almost no part of any RPG is "needed" and can be substituted for something else (whether better or worse).
As to what the specialise dice add to the game, I would say from recent experiences the following:
1. I found the triple axis of success to do a good job in producing the kind of snowballing action sequences that you see in Star Wars and other pulp based RPGs. Success and failure is determined as normal, but the addition of side benefits and setbacks (and amazing successes and failures) help escalate and colour the action in vibrant and often unexpected ways that felt very Star Wars in play.
You could replicate most of this effect by liberal interpretation of normal dice results with margins of success/failure and/or by GM discretion, but the dice made this easier, more transparent and fun.
2. The dice also make certain rules easier to implement. For example, in Rogue Trader autofire works by adding a bonus to the attack and then using a margin of success to determine the number of hits. This adds a fair whack of number crunching and it tends to distort at the upper and lower ends of success, as both effects are using the same mechanical measure.
In EotE, the same rule is implemented by using the main axis of success to determine the damage (as normal), and the advantage/setback axis to determine the number of hits. This produces the same result but in an easier way that is less prone to distortion.
3. The dice are more attractive to some players, especially those that are tactile in nature or number averse. The dice removes numerical modifiers from the system and replaces them with dice. In addition, dice are always added, whether the factor is good or bad, and never taken away. Once you become familiar with the dice, this becomes a remarkably smooth process where the GM simply hands a number of dice to the player to roll without the need to net modifiers to calculate the final bonus.
Sure, some players will find the dice more trouble than straight dice use (especially given familiarity), but others may find it easier in play. Add in RPGers innate love of dice, I have found the dice can attract the attention of potential players that would otherwise have simply passed by :)
Quote from: Skywalker;727137"Need" is the wrong word. Almost no part of any RPG is "needed" and can be substituted for something else (whether better or worse).
This is weaselly.
Why? Because the rules as written for FFG's Star Wars require you to use the gimmick dice.
Quote from: jeff37923;727186This is weaselly.
Why? Because the rules as written for FFG's Star Wars require you to use the gimmick dice.
I think you are raising a separate point from what I thought Snowman was asking, and I was responding to.
The point I was trying to make was that the FFG dice aren't needed to unlock the specific result that they achieve. That result isn't exclusive to these dice, as are so many thing in gaming. They are just one way to achieve that result, and you can then balance and weigh the various pros and cons. The reason for making this point is that some people raise the argument that if you can achieve a result through an existing method, then somehow the new or alternate method is automatically inferior or flawed without looking at the various pros and cons.
You are making a separate point as to how easy the game is to play without the FFG dice. You can do this through the use of a table or dice stickers (both are provided by FFG), but I would admit that I wouldn't want to do either.
I love the d6 Star Wars system still, but I have to say, after learning the new edge of the Empire dice, they click more in tune with the feeling of being in the star wars galaxy, the d6 will always have a place in my heart, those dog fights under the d6 system just felt so star wars to me, Dodge roll, fire roll, but the edge of empire dice actually feel about the same, only with a lot more detail to the narrative, you don't just out roll your opponent, you might succeed at a roll, but a few threats left over can create more dramatic problems for your hero at the same time, just fits the star wars feel to me, I have six sets of edge dice, and love em.
Quote from: Skywalker;7271371. I found the triple axis of success to do a good job in producing the kind of snowballing action sequences that you see in Star Wars and other pulp based RPGs. Success and failure is determined as normal, but the addition of side benefits and setbacks (and amazing successes and failures) help escalate and colour the action in vibrant and often unexpected ways that felt very Star Wars in play.
100% Agree. You could do this with the d6 system (or any other), but the extrapolation of numbers pushes the scaling and curve of success/failure to unwieldy-territory. Not that d6 is bad, but the additional third-axis scale really lets you and your players easily assess not just what is going on, but it opens up options for other players with the Advantage system. It really reinforces group play not just in a narrative sense, but in a mechanical sense. Very few games do this well.
Quote from: Skywalker;7271372. The dice also make certain rules easier to implement. For example, in Rogue Trader autofire works by adding a bonus to the attack and then using a margin of success to determine the number of hits. This adds a fair whack of number crunching and it tends to distort at the upper and lower ends of success, as both effects are using the same mechanical measure.
In EotE, the same rule is implemented by using the main axis of success to determine the damage (as normal), and the advantage/setback axis to determine the number of hits. This produces the same result but in an easier way that is less prone to distortion.
Yes. It serves to keep the scale of the game close to its own mechanical conceits. The design of the game also allows for you to do a *lot* of customization of your gear and your character via Talents to really push the system without blurring the scale of the math behind the system. The system almost police's itself.
Quote from: Skywalker;7271373. The dice are more attractive to some players, especially those that are tactile in nature or number averse. The dice removes numerical modifiers from the system and replaces them with dice. In addition, dice are always added, whether the factor is good or bad, and never taken away. Once you become familiar with the dice, this becomes a remarkably smooth process where the GM simply hands a number of dice to the player to roll without the need to net modifiers to calculate the final bonus.
Sure, some players will find the dice more trouble than straight dice use (especially given familiarity), but others may find it easier in play. Add in RPGers innate love of dice, I have found the dice can attract the attention of potential players that would otherwise have simply passed by :)
I think the argument about the gimmick-factor is salient. However, no one *has* to use the dice. And the cost of the dice is no more onerous than the cost of a basic set of regular gaming dice (which now many people are buying specialty dice that are far more expensive). But you know, at this point, does it matter? The full range of the game (Edge, AoR, FD) is pretty solidly complete. I would even say their rules for playing Force users is *the best* ever done for Star Wars. You can be Jedi, Sith, make up your own goddamn order... solid rules for lightsaber construction and modification, or - /gasp! go without a saber! (only 1/3 of Jedi and Sith used lightsabers - this is reflected in the class specialties). Ship combat - on point. This game is the best rendition of Star Wars yet.
I'd consider using it if they ported it to other genres. I don't think it would handle *everything*, but it could certainly do Sword and Sorcery very well.
The Star Wars Adventure Journals are great sources of general stuff.
Galladinium's Fantastic Technology: Guns & Gear
Cynabar's Fantastic Technology: Droids
Gundark's Fantastic Technology: Personal Gear
The Rebel and Imperial sourcebooks are very good for just about everything else, although I'm a fan of the Bounty Hunter Galaxy Guide.