I'm considering a move from Saga to this system, and it seems very much a "you vs the empire" sort of game (even in Edge of the Empire), where as Saga is much more open. Has FFG said anything about this? Are they planning pro-imperial books later, or have they come out and said they don't have an interest in covering the other side?

I'm considering a move from Saga to this system, and it seems very much a "you vs the empire" sort of game (even in Edge of the Empire), where as Saga is much more open. Has FFG said anything about this? Are they planning pro-imperial books later, or have they come out and said they don't have an interest in covering the other side?

They've said nothing about any pro-Imperial or play as Imperial supplements that I'm aware of. I think such is actually pretty unlikely.

That said, the game is extremely capable, flexible and a lot of the careers and specializations would work absolutely fine for Imperial characters. Some, such as "Ace" wouldn't even require a name change. Stats for a Tie-fighter are no less valid in the book than stats for the Millenium Falcon - there's nothing mechanically to stop you using one over the other.

You might be slightly better serviced by the Age of Rebellion game as its careers are more focused on military options and it has more Imperial ships in it. The Duty mechanic can also be re-purposed for the Empire better than the Obligation mechanic in EotE. The game system is exceptional so I would advocate getting it and making the minor edits you need to run the campaign you want. It should be a lot of fun and pretty easy to do.

I hope that's useful, if not the answer you wanted to hear.

I'd expect an Imperial source book, but the careers in AoR are fairly generic (Commando = Stormtrooper, etc.) as they are - easy to build a Imperial PC campaign with.

I'm considering a move from Saga to this system, and it seems very much a "you vs the empire" sort of game (even in Edge of the Empire), where as Saga is much more open. Has FFG said anything about this? Are they planning pro-imperial books later, or have they come out and said they don't have an interest in covering the other side?

They've said nothing about any pro-Imperial or play as Imperial supplements that I'm aware of. I think such is actually pretty unlikely.

That said, the game is extremely capable, flexible and a lot of the careers and specializations would work absolutely fine for Imperial characters. Some, such as "Ace" wouldn't even require a name change. Stats for a Tie-fighter are no less valid in the book than stats for the Millenium Falcon - there's nothing mechanically to stop you using one over the other.

You might be slightly better serviced by the Age of Rebellion game as its careers are more focused on military options and it has more Imperial ships in it. The Duty mechanic can also be re-purposed for the Empire better than the Obligation mechanic in EotE. The game system is exceptional so I would advocate getting it and making the minor edits you need to run the campaign you want. It should be a lot of fun and pretty easy to do.

I hope that's useful, if not the answer you wanted to hear.

Helpful, yes.

Honestly, I'm considering starting with Edge of the Empire, and presenting both good and bad sides to all three options (Criminal, Rebel, Imperial) to the party within the first few missions, and then seeing which the party gravitates to. Mos Shuuta seems like a pretty good backdrop for this.

One question, as I don't have a rule book yet, how does multi-classing work? Like if I start out as a Politico Colonist, and then decide to join the Empire, how easy is it to then decide I'm actually going to be a starfighter pilot? Is it just a case of paying extra for talents from another class, or can you add more classes like in DnD/Pathfinder?

While you can't add an entire second career, you can buy individual specialisations outside of your base career. The first one would cost 30 XP, and you'd add another 10 for each other non-career spec you buy.

After you've bought into a specialisation, though, you can freely buy talents and skill ranks from it.

One question, as I don't have a rule book yet, how does multi-classing work? Like if I start out as a Politico Colonist, and then decide to join the Empire, how easy is it to then decide I'm actually going to be a starfighter pilot? Is it just a case of paying extra for talents from another class, or can you add more classes like in DnD/Pathfinder?

Very easy. You pick a starting career and a starting specialization from that career. (There have been three specializations for each career so far). So you might pick Bounty Hunter for your career and Assassin for your specialization. Each specialization brings you other purchasable goodies from its talent tree but you don't have to max anything out before buying a new specialization and you can still buy from the ones you have. The difference starting career makes to this is a small one. Buying other specializations from within your career is cheaper (slightly) than buying others from outside it. So if the Assassin wants to buy ranks in Politico, there's a modest premium. But nothing that would stop you doing it unless you were a real min-maxer.

There's no extra costs once you have the other specialization. You'll entirely be able to start off with EotE criminals and have them segue into Imperial troubleshooters or factious rebels as you wish.

Your Career stays the same forever (unless the GM lets you rebuild completely). You can add as many extra Specialisations as you like - from your own Career or from others - but they cost progressively more and it's cheaper to buy in-Career (and Universal) Specialisations than out-of-Career Specs.

For this you get the Bonus Career Skills of that Specialisation and access to their Talent tree.

You might be slightly better serviced by the Age of Rebellion game as its careers are more focused on military options and it has more Imperial ships in it. The Duty mechanic can also be re-purposed for the Empire better than the Obligation mechanic in EotE. The game system is exceptional so I would advocate getting it and making the minor edits you need to run the campaign you want. It should be a lot of fun and pretty easy to do.

As obscenely easy as it is to convert an AoR game into an Empire game, it's also easy to incorporate EoE into that as well. The fringers from the latter could just as easily work for the Empire as they could for the Alliance or any criminal network. The Obligations don't need to be converted at all; they could be Dutybound to follow the Imperial military machine, or maybe they have a Bounty placed on their heads by the rebellion.

You might be slightly better serviced by the Age of Rebellion game as its careers are more focused on military options and it has more Imperial ships in it. The Duty mechanic can also be re-purposed for the Empire better than the Obligation mechanic in EotE. The game system is exceptional so I would advocate getting it and making the minor edits you need to run the campaign you want. It should be a lot of fun and pretty easy to do.

As obscenely easy as it is to convert an AoR game into an Empire game, it's also easy to incorporate EoE into that as well. The fringers from the latter could just as easily work for the Empire as they could for the Alliance or any criminal network. The Obligations don't need to be converted at all; they could be Dutybound to follow the Imperial military machine, or maybe they have a Bounty placed on their heads by the rebellion.

True. I was just assuming finite funds. If I wanted to run an out and out Imperials game, I would use AoR as my base rather than EotE. But both are fine. But OP has said they'd quite like to start out in a neutral way and see which way the players go, so EotE is likely best after all.

I am running my current campaign in a method that allows them to be regular criminals or trying to be good. This does not say they can't be "bad guys". Heck there is a fan-made Duty Chart that has the duty to the Empire versus the rebellion.

I think the system is flexible enough you can "give it a push" and adapt to playing the bad guys. I don't expect a bad-guy focused splat book though until the good guys stuff is finished though.

I just think by the time they wrap up F&D and the splatbooks we are going to have the first of the new movies out, and the first in between movie on the way. I don't know as it would be a terribly good idea to look back when there is new content coming out.

I don't know as it would be a terribly good idea to look back when there is new content coming out.

You know they're being directed by J.J.Abrams, right? :/

First one of the trilogy, not the second two, and none of the in between movies.

First one of the trilogy, not the second two, and none of the in between movies.

I was just trying to be funny. (May or may not have been successful). But no, I actually didn't know only one of them was going to be directed by him. That may actually be rather odd to see the style suddenly jump between episodes. They pulled it off with Harry Potter, though. Anyway, I've accidentally taken us off-topic! Sorry.

It's not like the original trilogy were directed by one person... oh.. wait.. They weren't.

George Lucas - Star Wars (A New Hope)

Irvin Kirshner - The Empire Strikes Back

Richard Marquand - Return of the Jedi

I'd expect a long and contentious thread with much bile.

Here's a link to a thread where Kalamity made a nice Imperial Duty chart to replace the AoR book version for those running an Imperial Campaign:

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/102418-imperial-duty/?hl=%2Bimperial+%2Bduty

Expect Sypheed/Erik, the resident troll and Rebellion/Jedi Extremist to hassle you about the topic of an Imperial Campaign sooner or later.

As for JJ, I'm sure it'll be fine. If anything I'm expecting an overly dirty/lived in universe from him. He made Star Trek a bright shiny lens-flared universe because bright/shiny/clean/ironed is kinda Trek's schtick, so with Star Wars I expect him to go to the opposite extreme.

Lens Flare is his signature move though, and I'll be really surprised if he doesn't use it on a light saber.

Great, sounds like i should bring my sunglasses to watch the new movie.

Great, sounds like i should bring my sunglasses to watch the new movie.

I don't think it'll be that bad. He went berserk in Trek because he could get away with it, lens flare seems to be a current cultural visual cue of high Sci-finess these days.

Star Wars, with it's emphasis on classic archetypes over wiz-bang gadgetry doesn't need the high sci-fi cues because that's not really it's thing, so lens flare is more about stylistic decisions.

There will be at least one lens flare because it's JJ signature (just like a Shooting Star is in many Spielberg films, and a White Dove in John Woo), but I'm not worried about the cockpit of the Falcon looking like a laser show at the planetarium...

I don't worry. JJ makes a good movie visually and gets solid performances out of actors. They brought in Kasdan to collaborate on the screenplay, so I am not concerned.

Great, sounds like i should bring my sunglasses to watch the new movie.

I don't think it'll be that bad. He went berserk in Trek because he could get away with it, lens flare seems to be a current cultural visual cue of high Sci-finess these days.

Star Wars, with it's emphasis on classic archetypes over wiz-bang gadgetry doesn't need the high sci-fi cues because that's not really it's thing, so lens flare is more about stylistic decisions.

There will be at least one lens flare because it's JJ signature (just like a Shooting Star is in many Spielberg films, and a White Dove in John Woo), but I'm not worried about the cockpit of the Falcon looking like a laser show at the planetarium...

I'm more worried about the way all of his Star Trek on screen space battles turned into kamikaze or boarding action fests 2009 and 2013 Hopefully the lack of transporters in Star Wars will force im to actually have th ships fight it out with their weapons rater then just throwing themselves or boarding parties at the enemy.

Combat in SW is more about small ships with heroic characters dogfighting, compared to Trek's cruise liners with laser pointers. I imagine the focus on boarding or completely OTT stuff was probably to avoid people who thought it was a bit impersonal tuning out, but that's less of an issue when every ship has a face.

I don't worry. JJ makes a good movie visually and gets solid performances out of actors. They brought in Kasdan to collaborate on the screenplay, so I am not concerned.

Dude, are you serious?! That's AWESOME! Even more excited about the new Star Wars movies (my previous response every time the new movies were brought up was "Eh. Disney can't ruin Star Wars any more than Lucas did.")

Combat in SW is more about small ships with heroic characters dogfighting, compared to Trek's cruise liners with laser pointers. I imagine the focus on boarding or completely OTT stuff was probably to avoid people who thought it was a bit impersonal tuning out, but that's less of an issue when every ship has a face.

True but in the combined sum of Star Trek movie Space battles not directed by Abrams there's been a grand total of one ramming attack and two or three boarding actions. (I don't count Insurrection because IMO the ground and space engagements were basically separate battles that took place at the same time where neither group of characters in the battle really interacted except for a few moments at the end. I also don't count The Undiscovered Country assassination since the ships weren't in combat.)

That leaves Star Trek III (Which barely counts.) Star Trek First Contact (Again barely counts though more then III, and the boarding action was basically the end of one battle with the battle on board ship beginning hours later) and Nemesis (Where the ramming and boarding action only occurred after a long battle between the ships)

In Abrams Trek all space battles consist of at most two or three salvos fired by the ships then either ramming speed, a boarding action or landing party paradrop, or both with the exception of the Kobyashi Maru simulation when the second salvo completely destroyed one of the forces in the battle. Hell in the last Abrams Trek movie I don't Enterprise ever even fired her weapons

I don't mind that kind of battle happening sometimes (I loved the opening battle of A New Hope) but IMO when a space battle involves kamikaze spacecraft attacks, especially kamikaze capital ship attacks, or boarding parties the Audience should be surprised not thinking "Here we go again."