I like the game mechanics, even with the funky dice. My issue is that the rules are basically "collectible".

Want ships? Buy Age of Rebellion.

Want wookies? Buy Edge of Empire.

Want jedi? Sorry, they don't exist in this game..., but you can be force-sensitive if you buy Force and Destiny!   (And seriously, who the fuck thought leaving jedi out of a Star Wars game was a good idea? All of the movies are ABOUT jedi.)

I don't mind much when a game splite its content between books like that.  If I like a game, I will buy several books in its line anyway.

Perhaps because we did not lay enough to become accustomed, but I found the dice to be the most useless and overly engineered mechanic of any game I've ever run.  It was very taxing to run a game with pointless complications/boons constantly delaying the pace and flow of the game.  The complications/boons take too much creative energy and end up making the game feel overly random.

I'm with the OP. I was never a fan of multi-books games in the first place.

Also, I find FFG Star Wars way of implementing fail forward too much on the complicated side. I wouldn't matter playing it, but I could see some problems to GM it.

I can see the dice becoming too complicated at times, but I think it was a neat idea. It would probably be easier to go the old "roll d6s and add them", but sadly, FFG did not revive that game.

Yeah, I agree it's neat. Perhaps in play with a proficient GM it flows nicely ? I would be definitely open to try it.

Quote from: danbuter;875155I like the game mechanics, even with the funky dice. My issue is that the rules are basically "collectible".

Want ships? Buy Age of Rebellion.

Want wookies? Buy Edge of Empire.

Want jedi? Sorry, they don't exist in this game..., but you can be force-sensitive if you buy Force and Destiny!   (And seriously, who the fuck thought leaving jedi out of a Star Wars game was a good idea? All of the movies are ABOUT jedi.)

All three books have quite a few ships and force sensitive PCs. Force and Destiny can do Jedi, just add 150-300XP, but the default is the Jedi as presented in the OT.

My main beef with the three books is that there is too much overlapping material repeated to cater for those that don't want to buy multiple corebooks. FFG should have backed it's approach and made the best of it rather than compromise. I would have remove force sensitive PCs from EotE and AoR, item customisation from AoR and FaD, removed all repeated races, and added a mass combat system to AoR. That would cut about 50 pages from each book too.

Quote from: danbuter;875155Want ships? Buy Age of Rebellion.
Want wookies? Buy Edge of Empire.
Want jedi? Sorry, they don't exist in this game...,

WTF???

Ouch. More reasons to stick with WEG's D6 Star Wars.

Quote from: danbuter;875155Want jedi? Sorry, they don't exist in this game..., but you can be force-sensitive if you buy Force and Destiny!   (And seriously, who the fuck thought leaving jedi out of a Star Wars game was a good idea? All of the movies are ABOUT jedi.)

Force and Destiny is really a game for an all Jedi party (there are 18 different flavors of Jedi in there). They didn't put any effort into trying to merge it into the other lines. For example, since you can't ever change your Career, any character created in EotE or AoR who later becomes a Jedi won't have access to any of the Force and Destiny Signature Abilities. F&D created character are simply better.

When talking about this issue on the FFG forums, the general consensus is that Jedi and non-Jedi shouldn't mix in the same campaign. Which, as you say, is pretty weird for a SW game.

As someone who's been playing this game line since the first beta came out, I gotta say...  What?

Did you actually play any of these?

Quote from: hedgehobbit;875188When talking about this issue on the FFG forums, the general consensus is that Jedi and non-Jedi shouldn't mix in the same campaign. Which, as you say, is pretty weird for a SW game.

The underlying design assumption of FFG's Star Wars games is that the Star Wars universe is one in which smugglers, nobles, and Jedi all adventure separately.

Ignore all the sloppy design that turns a few good ideas into a towering edifice of over-complicated, contradictory nonsense. All you really need to ask yourself is whether you want a game where the designers have such a fundamental misunderstanding of how Star Wars stories work?

It's as baffling to me as when Bill Slavicsek insisted that nobody should be allowed to play droids.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;875279The underlying design assumption of FFG's Star Wars games is that the Star Wars universe is one in which smugglers, nobles, and Jedi all adventure separately.

Ignore all the sloppy design that turns a few good ideas into a towering edifice of over-complicated, contradictory nonsense. All you really need to ask yourself is whether you want a game where the designers have such a fundamental misunderstanding of how Star Wars stories work?

It's as baffling to me as when Bill Slavicsek insisted that nobody should be allowed to play droids.

As opposed to your fundamental misunderstanding of how great FFG Star Wars is? And seriously? The game lines aren't supposed to work together? The game I've been running for months would love to disagree.

To those who say you can't play Jedi: You're wrong.

Also, I seem to remember the 2d20 System being shit on a bit here...the one Jay Little created? That powers the game you develop, correct? Do you dislike that, too?

The new SWRPG rocks. It may not rock for everyone, but it rocks nonetheless. So, opinions and assholes. However, many criticisms are disingenuous.

As someone who has played with a mixed crew of characters (We had a Togruta Jedi Counselar, Shien Expert who dipped into other Lightsaber users paths, a Bounty Hunter Assassin droid -Me, I love HK-51-, a Human Rebel Pilot and a Twi'lek Smuggler Scoundrel) at about 150 XP, which according to the rules of F&D makes the Force User into a full on Jedi Knight, and we all played together really well, I gotta say:  You guys are too hung up on wanting to hate this game.

It may not be for everyone, that's fine, but not being 'compatible'?  That I personally disagree with.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;875282To those who say you can't play Jedi: You're wrong.

Nobody is saying that you can't play a Jedi, just that being a Jedi is locked behind a $60 paywall. It's not haters who split all this up. FFG treats each game as a separate line. For example, there isn't an adventure written for mixed parties, they're either all smugglers, all rebels, or all Jedi.

A case can be made for the first two games. EotE is about characters working with the underworld (willingly or not) and AoR is about Rebellion troops fighting the Empire. These setups are sufficiently different that you might be able to justify them as two games. But that's not the case for F&D. It's a game about Jedi doing Jedi stuff. So Jedi fighting the Empire or Jedi working with the underworld are left out. For no reason really. I would have taken all of four pages to include a generic "Jedi" spec in EotE/AoR. You could still have a full blown Jedi game even with that.

Instead, FFG forces people to buy a $60 game just to include one Jedi-type character in your game. And it doesn't even do a good job of that as the Specs in F&D are all designed for starting character and not as add-ons to the previous Force Exile and Force Emergent specs.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;875285As someone who has played with a mixed crew of characters (We had a Togruta Jedi Counselar, Shien Expert who dipped into other Lightsaber users paths, a Bounty Hunter Assassin droid -Me, I love HK-51-, a Human Rebel Pilot and a Twi'lek Smuggler Scoundrel) at about 150 XP, which according to the rules of F&D makes the Force User into a full on Jedi Knight, and we all played together really well, I gotta say:  You guys are too hung up on wanting to hate this game.

You're post does a great job illustrating my point. Jedi work best if they start as full Jedi not if they use the force user rules from EotE and AoR. Many GMs wouldn't want to start PCs off as Jedi but, rather, have them grow into it as Luke and Rey do.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;875345You're post does a great job illustrating my point. Jedi work best if they start as full Jedi not if they use the force user rules from EotE and AoR. Many GMs wouldn't want to start PCs off as Jedi but, rather, have them grow into it as Luke and Rey do.

My bad, we all started at 0 XP and went to 150, we're up to 165 as of yesterday.  My Droid, the Togruta, the Pilot and Smuggler, we all started fresh.  (HK-51 was literally 1 minute old when the game started, and was imprinted on the Twi'lek girl.  It's been...  A fun ride.  Haven't called anyone a 'meatbag' yet, but I'm still playing the gun happy psycho.  "Query:  This one is still moving, Master, would you like me to put a few more shots into it, to make sure it's truly dead?")

Quote from: hedgehobbit;875345Nobody is saying that you can't play a Jedi, just that being a Jedi is locked behind a $60 paywall. It's not haters who split all this up. FFG treats each game as a separate line. For example, there isn't an adventure written for mixed parties, they're either all smugglers, all rebels, or all Jedi.

Really? You can't... you know, just start with the Force and Destiny book? These books are *massive*... calling it a paywall is, pretty hyperbolic considering right now - you simply choose what the focus of your game is going to start as and go with that book. The reason the lines are split up are pretty obvious - there's a TON of content in those books and characters of those respective lines tend to be focused on doing things that those kinds of characters do.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;875345A case can be made for the first two games. EotE is about characters working with the underworld (willingly or not) and AoR is about Rebellion troops fighting the Empire. These setups are sufficiently different that you might be able to justify them as two games. But that's not the case for F&D. It's a game about Jedi doing Jedi stuff. So Jedi fighting the Empire or Jedi working with the underworld are left out. For no reason really. I would have taken all of four pages to include a generic "Jedi" spec in EotE/AoR. You could still have a full blown Jedi game even with that.

You know you can do that with those books? They have force-rules in EotE and AoR. Are they full-blown X-wing tossing Jedi? No... but then that's not the point of those books, right? Right.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;875345Instead, FFG forces people to buy a $60 game just to include one Jedi-type character in your game. And it doesn't even do a good job of that as the Specs in F&D are all designed for starting character and not as add-ons to the previous Force Exile and Force Emergent specs.

FFG, to my knowledge isn't *forcing* anyone to do anything. As I said before - you can play a force-using character in BOTH games outside of Force and Destiny. Saying it's locked behind a "paywall" is like making a claim *any content they can't fit into a book you bought for apparently the wrong reason is locked behind a paywall*, seems rather dissonant. You want to play fullblown Jedi? Go buy the Force book. What's the problem? You don't need any of the other books to play it. Oh wait... you want it all in one book? Well tell that to every other RPG company that produces... you know... content?

So do you just want to play your RPG out of one book and that it? No other books covering content they can't fit into it? If so I think you're being unreasonable.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;875345You're post does a great job illustrating my point. Jedi work best if they start as full Jedi not if they use the force user rules from EotE and AoR. Many GMs wouldn't want to start PCs off as Jedi but, rather, have them grow into it as Luke and Rey do.

Except that Force and Destiny Jedi aren't radically more powerful than EotE/AoR Force-users. And don't get me started on the lightsabers. EotE/AoR characters can get ungodly powerful lightsabers right out of the box (if the GM allows it).

Having said all that. These books all work perfectly fine together. I have zero-idea where anyone got the idea they don't. And their business model, like it or not (I don't like it much either*) but it seems to be what most of the big RPG games are doing now.

* I don't like the model, but damn me if FFG's generally standards of quality are not pretty rock-solid. As a guy that generally detests adventures, they make some really good ones that are sandboxable. So as long as it works and has value, I'll support it. I *hate* haveing to look up rules all over the place. That's the worst part.