After Force and Destiny

By edisung, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

So with GenCon coming up, it's hard not to imagine that we'll soon be gifted with the final Beta in the original trilogy, Force and Destiny. We will all finally be able to satisfy our force-sensitive brothers and sisters, allowing them to pursue the path to becoming jedi knights (or sith lords) that has thus far eluded us all. Having anticipated this for some months now, I can't help but to think of those wonderful months after Force and Destiny officially releases, perhaps each month filled with a supplement or adventure for each of the three core systems.

That will surely be an exciting time, but I've thought of a time even further down the road, a couple of years further. When all the careers and specializations have been accounted for, when the basic grit of each system has been satisfied, and when we still want more. Will we find ourselves in a similar position to how we felt before the prequel films' releases, wanting more Star Wars stories and settings and adventures?

I know that I could keep playing EotE/AoR/F&D until my core books were tattered messes, though I would still like to see FFG continue with such great skill at recreating the vast tapestry that Star Wars has become and take it to even further detail. Is there a possibility that they could consider a Clone Wars Core system? A Dark Times? The Old Republic?

Once Episode VII releases, we will all have a clearer picture and understanding of what happens after RotJ, especially with the EU relegated to Legends now. The big picture that is Star Wars in epic widescreen detail soon will have new opportunities for us to adventure within but will it only be through the mind's eye of a few brilliant GMs who have estimated their best resources to stat out these exciting eras of galactic history? Or perhaps might we hope that FFG would see an opportunity to expand on their wonderful telling of the galaxy's "lesser known" stories and mythological heroes.

If FFG someday announced that they were making a core rulebook set during another era of galactic history, which era do you want to see the most or think would work the best?

Those sound like sourcebooks rather than stand-alone games, to me. AoR Soldier specs look perfectly fine for Old Republic Soldier specs, for example.

2nd Edition, baby!

I am still thinking that an Imperial Core Rule Book would be a hot seller...

(Please refrain from the usual "but with a little work you could do an imperial campaign already"-responses, I know you could.)

I think it's pretty unlikely that FFG will release more Core rulebooks. My bet, provided they retain the lisence when it expires, is that they'll keep releasing career splatbooks for all careers in all core books, plus more sourcebooks for regions of space and other things. And more adventures, of course.

I think it's pretty unlikely that FFG will release more Core rulebooks. My bet, provided they retain the lisence when it expires, is that they'll keep releasing career splatbooks for all careers in all core books, plus more sourcebooks for regions of space and other things. And more adventures, of course.

Yeah, but does things are pretty much a given so that is not reall "a bet" is it? :)

Id like if they released generic time period books. I could buy a kotor one to burn, and sequel trilogy to explore.

Id like if they released generic time period books. I could buy a kotor one to burn , and sequel trilogy to explore.

But TBS - personal force-fields (which are ultra-specific about what they protect against) , billions of cortosis-alloy blades, kewl gadgets to let your lightsaber stun people - what's not to love? [cringe]

(I actually had fun with the XBox games (the evil scheme of the 2nd one aside) , but there was a lot of crap "RPGs have to have this stuff" crowbarred in.)

Some source books of the following would add more to the games.

1:A type of adversary book.One which covers a variety of creatures,enemies and mounts.

2:A type of vehicle book.One which covers perhaps numerous vehicles,star ships,ect.Perhaps depicting the ships found in both the saga movies and expanded universe.(not duplicating those that would already be included in books released.)

3:A sith or Empire based book.

4: (although not a book), a pull out galaxy map found in EotE core rule book.

And don't forget,since star wars has an extremely wide variety for setting,include more species with every book except adventures.I would think that 60+ species would work well as it's base amount.(not total amount) [ official species anyways ]

Just my opinion.

I think it's pretty unlikely that FFG will release more Core rulebooks. My bet, provided they retain the lisence when it expires, is that they'll keep releasing career splatbooks for all careers in all core books, plus more sourcebooks for regions of space and other things. And more adventures, of course.

Actually, if they lose the license, they can't produce any more Star Wars merchandise. My guess is that, depending on the life of the license (which I don't know), they're hoping to get all their planned products such as sourcebooks and adventures out before it expires, just in case Disney decides not to renew it.

Given the pace of releases, however, I'm guessing the license doesn't expire anytime soon and they'll be able to pull it off. Frankly, even if Disney doesn't renew the license and gives it to someone else to create a different Star Wars RPG, I think I'll be playing this one for a long time.

From a marketing perspective, I would fully expect whatever comes after all three CRB's supplemental material is out will be something to do with what is currently going on the in the new films. That's certainly the part of Star Wars lore that Disney is going to want to see stressed in everything that is printed. Not to piss off the EU fans, even though I know this will, there is very little, to absolutely no reason, for Disney to green light the print of any material from the past when they have already shoved it to the side with the Legends label and are in the midst of promoting new movies. If there is something done dealing with the past it is going to be based on possibly origin information released in the filler movies between the new trilogies or new novels released in the 'new canon'.

If what I remember is correct we actually have less time on the license not more. In fact I believe the license expires 3rd or 4th quarter of 2015. So what I see happening is that FFG will run books like there is no tomorrow but F&D may be the only book in that line. Which if you think about it makes sense if they are only trying to do the OT which for the most part is wrapped up with that book.

Now what I have predicted happening is that Disney lets FFG keep it for another five years so long as they pop out a few books in regards to the new trilogy and the spin offs. To be honest I wouldn't be surprised to hear at either this celebration, gen con, or Southern California ComicCon (can't remember what city they move to from San Diego) that Disney renewed the contract early so that FFG can continue their one year lead time for development to release. That is my hope but to be honest the stuff before or even an empire sourcebook I just don't see. Though we may get a rebels sourcebook in regards to that new animated series and just maybe a clone wars source book ( needs a bad ass arc trooper).

Sourcebooks. Careers, regions, and adventures. That is what I expect.

Personally I would like to see a couple of sourcebooks for the AoR line focused on the Rebellion and Empire respectively, rather than career books. They could be bigger books that combine career, region and equipment elements.

If we do see a Sith book I wouldn't expect it until after the actual F&D CRB drops.

I am still thinking that an Imperial Core Rule Book would be a hot seller...

(Please refrain from the usual "but with a little work you could do an imperial campaign already"-responses, I know you could.)

Can we still hit you with the "If you want to play an Imperial, you must be a real life Nazi" arguments?

Oh sure! Anyone seen Sylpheed around? :)

I am still thinking that an Imperial Core Rule Book would be a hot seller...

The only reason I think such a book would sell well is if there wasn't an Empire sourcebook, which is not a reason to make it. I think more people want Empire information, rather than the ability to run Empire games. A sourcebook would fill that need nicely before a CRB.

Oh sure! Anyone seen Sylpheed around? :)

Also known as...

Either would be nice of course.

Oh sure! Anyone seen Sylpheed around? :)

Also known as...

Ian Slypheed.

I am still thinking that an Imperial Core Rule Book would be a hot seller...

(Please refrain from the usual "but with a little work you could do an imperial campaign already"-responses, I know you could.)

This is what I really want. Seeing things from the other side of the war. The biggest thing I don't get is why no one ever seems to want to play Imperial. Ever since I read The Last Command, I have always thought of the Empire as just another government with a different (and opposing) ideology, and not the evil enemy. From that time forward, I was reborn as a true Imperial.

We're probably more likely to see sourcebooks than we are to see additional core rulebooks. The core rulebooks are very pricey, and there's only so many times FFG can get away with publishing what amounts to the same book every year with only minor amounts of new material.

Playing an Imperial campaign can be covered in a chapter of an Imperial sourcebook (most likely for the AoR product line) as potential campaign option, detailing not only the pitfalls that such a campaign could entail, but how to tweak the AoR rules to work for a party that's backed by the Imperial war machine.

As for a 2nd edition, that's going to depend on how long FFG has the license. While it probably will show up eventually, I wouldn't expect to see such a thing for at least a few years after the Force and Destiny core rulebook is released in 2015. Dark Heresy took a few years between when it was published to when it got a 2nd edition, and the FFG design team are probably going to want to wait and see how the entire system fairs once it's in the hands of the players & GMs; and then see what needs to be addressed for a second edition, either because it's not working as well as they initially figured or there are issues with sub-rules from one product line playing well with sub-rules from another product line (i.e. the White Wolf problem, particularly where the old World of Darkness was concerned).

And the license is a major thing. Hopefully Lucasfilm/Disney decides to stick with FFG, but if WotC decides that they want a crack at it and the final factor is the amount of money, then FFG's got an uphill battle as WotC has a lot of fiscal resources they could throw at, especially as they have a new D&D product line coming out later this year as well as being a subsidiary of Hasbro.

As for the new films, again that will likely be a sourcebook, as well as books covering other eras of play, such as Dark Times (pre-Rebellion Era), Clone Wars, possibly KOTOR/SWTOR (though hopefully without many of the video-gamey elements).

I wish they did changed how they did things and did a Starships book with various mods, a weapons and equipment book with various mods, a droid book with various mods, etc. Having to root through 18 different books gets old.

I would love a Clone Wars era book especially if they can go back and include some of the D6 and Saga ships from the era that weren't in TCW or the PT. I hated the fleet makeups in current canon of the Clone Wars. By far the majority of my favorite Star Wars capital ship models would be silhouette 6 in FFG and I don't think we saw any combat oriented silhouette 6. ships in the current Clone Wars canon fleets. Peltas would probably be silhouette 6 but we only see them being used as cargo or medical ships, The Arquitens class might be silhouette 6 but based on what we see of them, and their crew and passenger compliments IMO silhouette 5 is much more likely. And the smallest CIS warship we see is almost certainly silhouette 7 or 8 since Dangerous Covenants has a smaller vessel as silhouette 7. The only combat ship we see in the current Clone Wars canon that I would bet on being silhouette 6 is Hondo's pirate frigate and we never see that in a real fight.

The Legends setting has tons of silhouette 6 combat vessels that were active in the Clone Wars period. I can think of at least 5 models of silhouette 6 warships known to be used by the Republic and its allies, and at last one other warship model extremely likely to be silhouette 6 that the Republic used which could have been easily used by both sides. There's at least two models of silhouette 6 warships the CIS use in Legends and likely two other models. (One's an apparently unidentified model mentioned in one of the stories on holonet news.com, and might be silhouette 5 but they said it was probably a frigate which is the standard class of most silhouette 6 ships so far. The other we just have a model name for from Insider.)

My prediction: we're on a five-year plan because that is (I assume) the length of the license agreement. When the license term ends, some bigger toy-type company (probably called Hasbro) swoops in and outbids FFG to get the card game/minis/rpg rights for when the new films come out.

Obviously this is total conjecture on my part, but I don't think it's a completely uneducated guess.

If FFG retains the rights, I expect there would be products based on the new films. I'm curious as to why they won't touch the prequels in any of their products, however, as that's an obvious vein to tap. Perhaps the license is only for the original films and their spin-off video games and novels?

After seeing Black Crusade and Only War come out for the 40K RPG line, yeah, I could see more rulebooks that explore new themes. An Imperial-based game isn't at all out of the question. Since you can play as the Empire in other Fantasy Flight Star Wars products, why not an RPG as well?

Edited by Venthrac

Well They have touched the prequel era some just not very much. One of the fighter models in Suns of Fortune was drawn from a novel that was set just before episode I and hadn't appeared anywhere else until Suns of Fortune came out, and the class of ship Padame used in The Clone Wars CGI and Episode III appeared there as well. but yeah its odd that they haven't mentioned or drawn stuff from it a lot more.