Hello one and all. First off, some backstory: I have been a player of the X-wing Miniatures game since wave 1, and have recently managed to finagle a stable gaming group together (that's another story). Over the past few weeks I have been tossing the idea of starting an RPG up with the members, and they have all expressed interest. Looking around, it seems that the Edge of the Empire RPG will be the most appealing to them: it seems to be very noob friendly while still remaining a complex, rich gaming experience. Being that I am the "leader" of the gaming group, I will be assuming the daunting role of the GM.

I have never played, ran or dealt with an RPG before, however, so I need some help. That's why I came here today. I hope to use this thread as a place for me to ask questions, get advice, and sound ideas off of more experienced GMs.

So without further ado, I ask my first question (or rather series of questions). These will deal with supplies:

1) What supplies are needed? I know a core rulebook is a must; a GM guide too (right?). What other things would be good purchases for a beginning group? What third-party accessories might I need, and where might these be found?

2) I think I can count on three or four, maybe five players in our group. Should each player have their own set of dice? Are the special dice all that are needed, or do the players need "normal" dice as well?

That is all I can think of right now. I apologize if any of these are dumb questions; if so, please forgive me. Thanks for your time!

1) Our gaming table is all veterans and we still only have 1 core rule book to share.

There is no GM's guide but there is a GM kit out for EotE. The screen is very handy and full of useful charts. Don't forget dice. Edge of the Empire uses special dice. If you can't find a set at your Friendly Local Gaming Store (FLGS), then order some online or purchase the FFG dice roller app for your smart phone.

As for third part accessories, I recommend OggDude's Character Generator It leaves all the descriptions out, but you can fill them in on your free time or hunt down his forums where fans have been sharing their content, but other than that it's free to use and ready to use.

An opening crawl is also a good way to immerse your players.

2) I'm the only one in the group that owns all the dice for my gaming group, but I also have 4 sets, so I have plenty to share. For another group that I play in, we each have our own set. So I've done it both way, I don't mind either way as long as there are enough so that a player will not have to roll the same die twice for one pool, but that will happen from time to time.

The only other dice you will need besides the Star Wars Roleplay dice is a two 10-sided dice, commonly referred to as a d100, 2d10, or d%. These will be used for rolling critical hits.

If you need an example on how to roll d%:

a 10-sided dice can come in single digits (sides facing 1-10, or 0-9) and tens digits (00-90) the idea is one represents the ones place and the other represents the tens place. So if I roled a 90 on one side and a 3 on the other, the result would be 93. if I rolled a 0 and a 00, the result is a 100. If you have the FFG dice roller (which also has x-wing dice on it) the standard dice are available as well.

If you have two 10-sided dice with single digit facings, you'll need to know before rolling which represents the tens place and which represents the ones place.

Hope that helps!

1 & 2) All you need is the Core Rulebook and at least one... maybe two sets of dice. Having some method of generating random numbers 1-100 is also nice (a dice app on a phone or drop into a game store and buy two d10s). That's it. Players don't need their own dice since they can use the communal dice.

If you buy the Beginner Box, not only do you get a nice introduction to the rules and a story to play through, you also get a set of dice and destiny point tokens. That's really all you need but having a second set of dice for the table is nice to have once dice pools start to increase in size.

We play with three sets of dice for the table and we're never short of dice. We also have a dice rolling tray (that big octagon thing that most game stores sell) and that's nice for keeping dice from scattering all over and off of the table.

Beginner set is nice for the doo dads that come with it. Rule book and some dice are all you really must have. The dice app is cheap compared to dice sets and when I bought it I was able to install on 3 devices which is nice, have it on my phone and Kindle HDX. That's really about it. All the books are nice but not critical. Core book has an adventure and then there is free stuff also like the Under a Black Sun adventure. I did end up buying dice but it wasn't a must have and the app would have been more than sufficient.

Don't worry about questions being dumb. If you've searched and you didn't find and answer, someone's going to help you.

At my table, third-party accessories are slim. We have a couple sets of dice, a couple core books, and as GM I own all the other books. I have a couple paizo battlemats and I primarily use my computer to organize and run games, so I don't have a lot of crap on the table. You could easily get by with a sheet of paper and pencil for maps, since all you're really doing is kinda sorta getting the layout, it's by no means accurate to scale. Anything above that is pretty puddin'.

I do have more gadgetry going on at my table, but we'll cover that later. I find these help posts are best left in small doses!

Ditto on the beginner box set as its intended to help new players with this

Triple ditto on the beginner box, plus FFG has a free PDF download followup adventure which is about 3-4 times as long, so you definitely get your money's worth.

I'll join the chorus. Start with the beginner's box set. That will net you a set of dice and an easy to run adventure that introduces you to the rules as you go. You can download a supplimental adventure for the boxed set called "Long Arm of the Hutt" for free. The box and the extra adventure should provide about three weeks of gaming.

If you enjoy it you only really need the Core rulebook; it contains plenty of options so the other books are not necessary to play.

You will want to get at least one more pack of dice so there is always enough to generate a dice pool. Acquire more if the game takes off with your group.

Thanks for the replies, a lot of good advice here

So it looks like the suggestion is the Beginner's Guide followed by the Core Rulebook, another set of dice and maybe the GM kit. Does the beginner's guide thingy come with a battlemat?

Thanks for the replies, a lot of good advice here

So it looks like the suggestion is the Beginner's Guide followed by the Core Rulebook, another set of dice and maybe the GM kit. Does the beginner's guide thingy come with a battlemat?

It comes with adventure-specific maps (they can be reused if the players keep the ship for future adventures) but generally, the game can be played without tokens, minis, or maps.

Does the beginner's guide thingy come with a battlemat?

Toss that idea away as quick as you can All ranges are abstract, there is no grid system or fixed measurements. Maps assisting visualization and general placing are one thing (and the beginner set has a few), but this game really shines when you dispense with all that heinous D20 stuff.

Does the beginner's guide thingy come with a battlemat?

Toss that idea away as quick as you can All ranges are abstract, there is no grid system or fixed measurements. Maps assisting visualization and general placing are one thing (and the beginner set has a few), but this game really shines when you dispense with all that heinous D20 stuff.

Really. Weird, I had no idea lol. How is distance and all that figured into combat then? Just by altering the dice pool rolled or something?

Really. Weird, I had no idea lol. How is distance and all that figured into combat then? Just by altering the dice pool rolled or something?

The GM decides what ranges things are at the start of a combat. How big is something, where the other guys are situated with respect to things, where the PCs are starting off at this point in relation to everything else, etc.... That tells you what your ranges are, but the process starts from the Narrative story that has been built so far.

From there, the players tell the GM where they want their PCs to go, what range they want to get to, what cover they might want to hide behind (if there is any), etc....

So, range does occur, and if you're too far away to attack, then you're too far away. But "too far away" is a much more narratively driven matter.

All of this is pretty well explained in the rulebook, IIRC.

Really. Weird, I had no idea lol. How is distance and all that figured into combat then? Just by altering the dice pool rolled or something?

Yeah, I had my doubts in the beginning, but it's liberating. Yes, base difficulty depends on range, and there are several range bands. Rather than counting squares you use maneuvers to move between range bands...the further away the more maneuvers you need. Some people still use maps with squares, and just decide beforehand how many squares each range band represents. I have yet to find a need for that though.

The arbitrary range bands probably stems from the turn duration, which is not fixed. So you can't really say "a human can move X meters per turn", since you don't know how long a turn is. It can change from turn to turn depending on what everybody is doing.

I do use maps with squares, but I make it clear the squares are not valid indicators of range, and to reinforce the idea I purposefully place things across square boundaries. I have a number of SW: minis maps that are beautiful and very thematic, so I put them to use. Were I a more motivated and time-flushed individual, I'd likely make some terrain too. The little visual elements really add to the experience at my table.

Welcome to the GM side of the screen. As others have said definitely start with the beginner's box. It helps teach you the rules. With creating adventures Wookiepedia will be you best friend for world information. I second (or third) Oggdude's character generator. It also contains a gm function for putting together adversary stats for encounters. Finally while maps and minis are not required they can enhance the experience. Maps of Mastery are some of the best. You can find starship maps at 0 Hr arts and tech, and the adventurer's journal. For minis try Troll andToads, Noble Knights, and EBay. They have older maps as well. If you are going to add tech (laptop) for music and such Syrinscape is great. An mp3 player application as well. There are places you can find the KOTOR soundtracks and other sw video game soundtracks for free.

Salcor

Some ideas of range representations imo. Meant to write Short not Close as well.

Ok, that makes sense. Kind of unsettling (OCD bleeding through), but I'm sure I can get used to it. My brother isn't too pleased, though (he feels it is "necessary" for an RPG) so I have my work cut out convincing him otherwise.

Ok, that makes sense. Kind of unsettling (OCD bleeding through), but I'm sure I can get used to it. My brother isn't too pleased, though (he feels it is "necessary" for an RPG) so I have my work cut out convincing him otherwise.

You know, I'm going to take the opposite stance - maps and figures are useful. Don't become a slave to them, figuring out line of sight or distances or ranges or whatever - but an overview of the battlefield, especially if you have loads of combatants all over the place, makes things much easier. As far as all the details - just eyeball it. "This cluster of stormtroopers moves - oh, about here. Lets say that puts them in short." and call it good.

Ok. Now I have another question: How easy is it to create overpowered characters? I know this can be a problem in certain RPGs (I'm looking at you, 3.5).

It's fairly easy to create very lethal characters. It's also equally easy to be put down by adversaries in the game. You're pretty squishy regardless of xp invested per character. Every RPG has a point where it becomes obvious the characters are no longer mortals and it's time to consider retirement and a new set. Fleshing out fully developed characters that don't just make a singular mad dash to max out a stat or feature puts that time off and increases shelf life of characters.

Ok. Now I have another question: How easy is it to create overpowered characters? I know this can be a problem in certain RPGs (I'm looking at you, 3.5).

It's not that hard, but then such characters end up being really amazing at their one thing and pretty useless otherwise. You can make a Wookiee with 5 Brawn right out of the gate, give him a vibroaxe and a few mods, and a couple talents to boost damage and the lethality of criticals...but outside of a fight he'll be frustrating to use and the player will likely be bored.

The game is more fun if the players take a more balanced approach, and this game allows for a lot more flexibility of character creation and development than other games I've played. You're never locked into a class...eg: you can easily develop a scholar who's also a great shot, or a fighter who has decent computer slicing abilities.

I had this sense from many of the new people posting here that after the first initial sessions, after they've thrown off the yoke of thinking in terms of previous games what they really want to do is start fresh with new characters. So you might want to plan ahead for a campaign switch and make the first one short-lived, maybe 5 sessions or so...enough to be comfortable with the rules, gain some talents and consider dabbling in some other specializations. This period will also reveal how useful some of the skills are that most D20 players would normally ignore.* Second time around will result in more flavourful and balanced characters.

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* eg: the Brawn 5 Wookiee who invests in Melee and Marauder talents, but has no Discipline, Vigilance, or Cool, and despite being huge, can't Coerce a baby.

Hey, if your players want to kick some butt, why not indulge them? There are plenty of stormtroopers to go around.

I had this sense from many of the new people posting here that after the first initial sessions, after they've thrown off the yoke of thinking in terms of previous games what they really want to do is start fresh with new characters. So you might want to plan ahead for a campaign switch and make the first one short-lived, maybe 5 sessions or so...enough to be comfortable with the rules, gain some talents and consider dabbling in some other specializations. This period will also reveal how useful some of the skills are that most D20 players would normally ignore.* Second time around will result in more flavourful and balanced characters.

Or you could do what our group does. We realize that for the first 5 or 6 games on a new character (or in this case, a new engine) you are still working out the kinks. After you get some time to walk around in their skin, you can go back and change things up. "I don't really see her as a Kung Fu fighter. I'm going to swap my points to melee instead". Basically, the ability to respec your character if things aren't working (or you get new information. When the Colonist book comes out, I'll probably jigger some points around depending on what the new trees are) but you like the character.

The whole point of the game is for everyone to have fun. If something is holding you back from that fun, see if the others are willing to let you reshape things to get to that fun.

To give you an idea of lethality.

My bounty hunter character started the game with a Heavy Blaster Rifle. Most Minions and even a few Rivals will go down in a single hit from even the weakest possible roll.

But even though pretty much everything I hit dies(or is almost dead), it wasn't overpowered. I wasn't any harder to hit than they were, and sometimes easier because of how Minion groups work. Strain is the great equalizer, and getting over wound threshold isn't that difficult either.

So while a PC will likely drop Minions right and left, even a small group of minions can pose great threat to the player. 3 Gamorreans beat our Wookie unconscious down from full strain, right after he'd been healed completely up from a single Gamorrean cutting him with a Vibroaxe down to 1 away from his wound threshold.

A group of 3 minions with ranged(light) 1 and only 2 agility are rolling YYG for shooting. Thats about as good as a PC could ask for starting out.