AFAIK there's a 1st, a 2nd and a 2nd Revised & Expanded edition. What are the differences, which one do you prefer and why?
While there are some solid changes in the later editions. I stick with 1st these days. Mostly because of its simplicity and straightforwardness. It is also better written, with a tighter tone in its writing.
There are some changes that just don't work well mechanically. For example:
I dislike the wild die mucking up the game. The wild dies takes the dice pool system and messes it up by making one die special; and screwing over the probabilities, just to add the idea of critical failures or successes to the game that didn't need them. (Success or Failure is enough IMHO.)
On the other hand scaling is better in the later editions, and quite functional. It would be one of the things I would port backwards, if I cared enough to mess with a good thing.
You're wrong! My subjective tastes are obviously objectively superior!
...am I doing it right?
Anyway, I would avoid 2nd edition (non-revised); it's not terrible, it's just the weakest of the three. 2nd Revised is great, but it's mechanically much heavier than 1st edition. To me it's basically rules-weight preference between the two (1st and 2nd Revised).
I first GMed er, first and and liked it, even if I hilariously goofed the Storm Troopers ability to hit anything at all.
I've seen second edition and there was something "off" with it that just couldnt quite place. Possibly just the look and formatting.
I never had 2nd edition. I do have 2nd edition revised & expanded as well as 1e.
I prefer 1e. It speaks more to my sense of fun. The use of promo photos and concept drawings keeps me planted in the Star Wars Universe. The rules are simpler, leaving artificial complexity at the door while handing what they need to do in a clean and quick style. The writing is also very good, very conversational and clear.
2eR&E adds a bunch of comic style art evoking the Expanded Universe that I don't care for. It adds a bunch of original D&D3e style "Iconic Characters" which really only serve to yank me out of any Star Wars vibe I'm into. The rules get a bunch of extra complexity which honestly does very little for the game, and almost none of it productive improvement.
I guess my attitude about it is like this: 1e presents itself as a STAR WARS RPG. Meanwhile 2eR&E presents itself as an Expanded Universe (with Dark Horse/Dark Empire flavor) RPG. Personally, I don't like the latter.
2nd Edition is the weakest one. 2nd Edition, Revised and Expanded has the rules that function the best consistantly. 1st Edition has some of the greatest advice and original ideas to mine.
And if you disagree with my opinion, you are worse than Hitler. :D
I never owned the first edition core book, just the second edition and then upgraded to the revised and expanded book after the binding dissolved on the 2nd edition one. I was able to use the first edition Star Wars Sourcebook without any issues on with the second edition corebook, so as everyone else mentions they are fundamentally the same game.
I did like two things from the later editions. First, starship speeds were in a die code in first edition and changed later to fixed numbers. I prefer the fixed numbers, although I can see how an experienced pilot in a battered Y-Wing outflying a TIE Interceptor can be viewed as in genre. Second, the scaling mechanics improved over the editions - the first edition Star Wars Sourcebook having a line like "players attacking a Star Destroyer deserve a quick round of applause for their bravura before you rip up their character sheets" and improving to using die caps in later editions.
For simplicity, go with 1e. For completeness, go 2e R&E. Don't go 2e.
My strong preference is for 1e.
2nd RE was largely redundant if you had 2nd and the Movie Trilogy sourcebook. But it does pack a lot of content into a single cover.
I personally prefer the wild die. I think it keeps things swingy without messing up the predictability too much.
Quote from: Silverlion;737275While there are some solid changes in the later editions. I stick with 1st these days. Mostly because of its simplicity and straightforwardness. It is also better written, with a tighter tone in its writing.
I could not agree more. There is something very special in the tone and attitude of the 1st edition.
There is an official 1st edition rule upgrade that should not be too difficult to track down and with a little Google Fu you can find any number fairly standard house rules and fixes but even so 1st is certainly where I would start.
I don't get the hate for regular 2e. Did people not like the Vader cover? :)
I liked the die caps and the combat rules better in 2e than 2e R&E.
Quote from: Skywalker;737313For simplicity, go with 1e. For completeness, go 2e R&E. Don't go 2e.
This is basically it.
1e presented an absolutely brilliant, dead-simple, newbie-friendly core and executed it with aplomb. It is rightly considered one of the great RPGs of all time because of it.
2e was a muddled and rushed effort that, my guess, seems to exist purely for some kind of contractual reason than any actual need to exist. Its book is dull and low-budget and adds little or nothing to the game. It had great sourcebooks still, though, and that lead to R&E.
R&E is almost like a compendium release. It's still basically the 2e rules, but exactly as the title suggests, expanded and revised to be a much better game, and put into a far lovelier looking full-color package to boot. It's a fantastic game as well, and far more complete in some ways than 1e was, but there's a bit more in there to learn and by this late in the game there were some rules issues.
The wild die is probably the biggest point of strain between 1e and R&E: 1e doesn't have it, R&E does. The Wild Die is a love it or hate it thing, and will pretty much define which of the editions you'll like.
Personally, I like both, and the Wild Die is easily enough ignored even in later editions. The bigger problem with the 2E and R&E era is a much wider gap between the named heroes in the movies and books, and how PCs start the game. It also got a bit crazy with the inflated dice pools as well.
On the whole, though, I'd still play either without a second's hesitation, and it'll ultimately boil down to personal taste.
Does the 1989 rules companion add anything useful or is that just an upgrade to 2E?
It explains that difficulty numbers are a range and not a set 5, 10, 15, etc. An easy task becomes a 3-5... stuff like that. It's nothing anyone needed official rules for.
There are some other skill rules like combined actions and stormtrooper combined fire. I suppose those are useful nuggets.
An optional rule called Uncertainty Dice is provided. Basically you roll some extra dice. Some add to your total and others subtract from your total. It seemed extraneous to me.
There are a couple of pages of movement rules which revolve around rolling dice to move. These seem pointlessly fiddly.
Some more combat rules are introduced. These were mostly absorbed into 2e. You can take a Haste action which makes your action resolve sooner. This is also the birth of Dodge as a reaction skill which replaces the difficulty number to hit instead of adding to the difficulty number to hit.
It provides the 1e scaling system, which works by die caps.
There's some stuff for converting RPG die codes into stats for the Star Warriors starfighter combat boardgame.
Then there's some stuff about Droids, a Capital Ship combat system, new Force powers, more rules for the Force, and an adventure.
Certainly none of it is critical. I recall feeling it was a rip off at the $15 I paid for it when it was new, but I played Star Warriors back then and I thought the conversion rules for that game as well as the RPG capital ship combat stuff would be much better and more useful than what it was.
Quote from: 3rik;737400Does the 1989 rules companion add anything useful or is that just an upgrade to 2E?
Though a precursor to 2e, the RC adds some useful stuff without the wholesale shift away from 1e's simpler approach that 2e brought.
If you feel like 1e rules needs some patching, then the Rules Companion is a good way to go. I never found it to be that worthwhile.
Not only do all your opinions deserve less respect than that which I scrape off my heel, even if they agree with mine, they are wrong, I am right, and I will stay at the keyboard day and night to instantly riposte any argument you make, no matter how sensible or whether I agree with it or not.
Right, that's the edition warring sorted.
1st Edition with the addition of the pullout from the campaign pack and some adventures (which changed the range of stats and did other stuff) for the win I think. Not only because it works as a game* as well as the other editions but it has those lovely glossy plates, an easy on the eye layout and is rocket fast to pick up and play with near instant character creation.
2nd Edition (Blue cover) had some ghastly (ok, not Blood of heroes but not my cup of tea at any rate) art and just didn't grab me enough to suggest we ditch 1e for it. By that time I think the prolific output had slowed right down.
2e revised and expanded is the one everyone goes for on ebay, and sure it's nicer on the eye than 2e and the most complete set of the rules but its trickier to get hold of for sensible money.
So, 1e with expansion rules pullout, 2e rev and exp, 2e in that order. 1e had the best 'original trilogy' feel because it came out only a few years after Jedi. By the time 2e rev and exp was out I think most role players had moved on from Star Wars to pastures new, and the prequels (nnngh!) were just an itch in George Lucas' wallet.
*For me the game breaks down at long term campaign play, and Stormtroopers are less than nuisance value. Some kind of mob/mook rules would fix that (like throwing in a group of Stormtroopers dice into one roll - that would make even Han Solo think twice about taking on entire Battalions). Force powers at high levels > everyone. You might like that or not.
For best results take 1e + pullout, add the Force Unleashed storyline/uber stormtrooper types, and forget the prequels ever happened. Then rewrite your own SW history with Luke missing the shot on the Death Star, Vader training apprentices who go out into the galaxy (Starkiller etc) and unwittingly form the rebellion, new legions of alien deathtroopers that make the Galaxy a three way tussle and so on.
I went through a similar process recently of trying to figure out which d6 Star Wars version might work for me.
For what it's worth I ended up leaning toward Mini-6, with mining of 1e for spacecraft data etc.
2e & beyond were too rules heavy/unapproachable.
1e was nice but I like the scaling from Mini-6 and the fact I could learn it in 5 minutes would make it an easy sell to my players.
Quote from: jeff37923;7373042nd Edition is the weakest one. 2nd Edition, Revised and Expanded has the rules that function the best consistantly. 1st Edition has some of the greatest advice and original ideas to mine.
And if you disagree with my opinion, you are worse than Hitler. :D
This, but I am even rightier than him.
1st Edition. It's pretty much the perfect licensed rpg in that you can actually use it to play Star Wars games that feel like the movies. The Rules Companion adds some good stuff, namely ranges for difficulty numbers and Uncertainty Dice, and I do think some of the material should have been in the main book, but whatever.
Quote from: Skywalker;737313For simplicity, go with 1e. For completeness, go 2e R&E. Don't go 2e.
My strong preference is for 1e.
This is my experience as well.
I am looking forward to writing a 1e supplement based on the original script that Dark Horse turned into a comic. It would be a fun project.
DARK HORSE
https://digital.darkhorse.com/profile/3662.star-wars-1-nick-runge-cover/
ORIGINAL SCRIPTS
http://starwarz.com/starkiller/category/star-wars-scripts/star-wars-star-wars-scripts/
1e WEG Star Wars is the one true game. All others are pale imitations of the real thing.
Just reminding anyone who's interest has been raised about the WEG Star Wars game that the D6 Space (and everything else West End games put out as OGL a couple of years ago) are free on Drivethru, plus another couple of sites (Shown here (http://www.d6online.com/forum/showthread.php?1451-OGL-Books-Link&p=20123#post20123))
Quote from: APN;738265Just reminding anyone who's interest has been raised about the WEG Star Wars game that the D6 Space (and everything else West End games put out as OGL a couple of years ago) are free on Drivethru, plus another couple of sites (Shown here (http://www.d6online.com/forum/showthread.php?1451-OGL-Books-Link&p=20123#post20123))
Are those based on 2E Revised & Expanded?
There's also a thing called Mini 6 out there. A streamlined version of D6, but again, I'm not sure if that was based off 1E or 2E Rev. (I backed the KS for Breachworld, which runs on Mini 6, so I'm bound to get acquainted with the system eventually.)
Quote from: 3rik;738290Are those based on 2E Revised & Expanded?
More or less (tending toward more). It definitely tends more towards the 2e R&E fiddlyness. But it's still a good add to a RPG collection. The PDFs are free, and the books can be had for under a dollar each if you look around online.
The D6 Space Ships book is my stand in for Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters.
Quote from: 3rik;738290Are those based on 2E Revised & Expanded?
There's also a thing called Mini 6 out there. A streamlined version of D6, but again, I'm not sure if that was based off 1E or 2E Rev. (I backed the KS for Breachworld, which runs on Mini 6, so I'm bound to get acquainted with the system eventually.)
Given how close 1e and 2e Rev are, I would say Mini-6 is based on both :) I have found it to be as simple as 1e yet includes some much needed house rules. You can download it for free though and read it in like 5 minutes, so no need to take my word on it.
The best edition is Star Wars D20 Revised.
Quote from: RPGPundit;738826The best edition is Star Wars D20 Revised.
This is expressly a WEG edition war thread. :)
Quote from: Skywalker;738827This is expressly a WEG edition war thread. :)
What is more warring than to say "you all suck"?
Quote from: RPGPundit;739176What is more warring than to say "you all suck"?
No U. :D