Taking on Obligation is not a stupid choice. I think you are viewing obligation as harsher than it really is.

Also remember
Light blaster pistol 5 damage 300 creds only 2 less damage than heavy blaster
heavy clothing 50 credits +1 soak

Use cover to give you +1 setback to those shooting at you.

Cover with heavy clothing is the same effectiveness as Armored Clothing 1 soak 1 defense(setback die to an opponent's attack)

So you can have a blaster some armor and a utility belt 25 credits, Comlink 25 credits. that is 400 credits. you still have 100 more and every starting group gets a ship.

Hi centerfire,

(1) ... If that’s the case, what’s the realistic pathway for characters to go from “mostly average, and above average here and there” at the outset, to “mostly above average, and extraordinary here and there” as the campaign goes on?

(2) ... If I want my character to feel more exceptional rather than merely more competent, shouldn’t I be trying to maximize the number of yellow dice I throw, rather than just adding greens?

I’d appreciate any response. :-)

(1) Sorry for pointing this out, but this is exactly the question I was trying to answer with my previous post. Here a small excerpt:

...

1. Spend as much starting XP on Characteristic as possible .
2. Take on as much Obligation as the GM will allow , and use it mostly for XP to boost Characteristics.
3. The only reason to taking on Obligation for cash is to buy a weapon (e.g. blaster Rifle - 900 CR)

...

The post was intended to show you how you can create really top characters, starting with characters that have exceptional natural abilities, but low skills (i.e. characters with great potential).

I would be glad to discuss any questions or problems you see with this approach.

(2) You should try to maximize the yellows. Greens are mostly seen as natural ability, yellows are always natural ability plus training/experience. However, chance-wise, adding an extra dice to the pool is better than an "upgrade".

Example: Average check (2 purple) vs 1 Yellow and 1 Green, chance of success: 50,2%, Upgrade (2 Yellow) chance of success: 56.5% but Increase ability by 1 (1 Yellow and 2 Greens) then the chance of success is 65%! (I have a program that calculates this for me)

This is one reason why maximizing Characteristics is important. The other reason is that increasing Characteristics improves multiple Skills.

Finally, what my post above does not mention is that with about 600 XP you will have quite enough XP to have reached Dedication 3 times. This increases 3 Characteristics by 1. Add to that about 10-20T CR for Cybernetics and you can add 1 or 2 more Characteristics upgrades (although this is very much limited to Brawn and Agility increases).

...

(2) By increasing his character's Obligation a player is effectively telling the GM, "Feel free to make my character's life more difficult than it would otherwise be." You don't have to harbor a seething mistrust of your GM to prefer the regular degree of difficulty over the advanced degree of difficulty, and as I also said to CrazyDaddy I think it's kind of crazy that you have to accept the advanced degree of difficulty in order to be able to afford much more than a blaster and a set of heavy clothes.

...

Because I don't want to break the system, my post recommends that PCs take on as much Obligation (15, 20 or even 25) as possible initially.

I see no alternative: in order to reach the goal of iconic characters, your PCs will have to take on this Obligation initially.

However, if anyone is taking Han Solo as the role-model, then remember that when he first appeared he probably had the equivalent of 20+ Obligation towards Jabba. So, your characters will be in good company.

But I also recommend in my post that the GM give the PCs good opportunities to quickly work off this Obligation. This would be a very rewarding initial achievement for the characters.

In general I find Obligations an excellent rule, if you consider it as a type of negative currency. It is a way for the GM to give the PCs something they otherwise could not acquire (for example, better base abilities, or a valuable contact, or whatever), without the GM having to give it away for free.

But, yeah, I'm gradually coming around to the conclusion that this game is not to my individual taste. I guess we'll see.

Funny, as this seemed like a foregone conclusion right from the start.

I think there are quite a few misconceptions here which I'm going to try and address / provide context for:

If you assume that players are going to do as the game recommends, and spend a big chunk or their starting XP to improve character attributes,

The game does not recommend this anywhere that I'm aware of. You're getting this from some posters who are taking a strong min-max approach to the game. Firstly, you don't need high attributes to be good at something. A character with 2 Agi and 4 Ranged (Light) is technically no worse a shot with a pistol than one with 4 Agi and 2 Ranged (Light). And the latter will be considerably cheaper. Yes, if you're focused on maxing out skill pool only then buying up Attributes at creation is slightly more efficient. But the character who doesn't will be buying their attribute increases for a flat 25XP per point at the end of their talent tree compared to the chargen cost of (30XP + 40XP + 50XP for ranks 3,4 and 5 respectively). So 75XP to get from 2 to 5 vs. 120XP. The difference is that to pay the cheaper cost you'll have spent 90XP per point on talents. Those aren't wasted points though. In our pistols example a Mercenary's talent tree will have netted her ranks in Point Blank, Lethal Blows, the Natural Marksman ability and True Aim, all of which can't be replicated with just higher dice pool. As well as side-benefits such Toughened. You are ignoring all this when you just focus on maxing out Attributes. You're clearly someone focused very much on the numbers. In doing so you have simplified to the point of being non-representative of a character's abilities.

you’re going to end up with characters who have attribute scores that are 3s (and the occasional 4 and rare 5) in their areas of emphasis, and 2s nearly everywhere else. I’m coming around to the idea that that’s fine as far as it goes; as freshly-fallen-off-the-turnip-truck beginners, they’re still mostly average people, with some above-average abilities here and there.

Not really seeing it. Someone with "attribute scores that are 3s" is someone who is smarter, faster, stronger, more disciplined and more charming than normal people. They're pretty good. Even before you add any skills whatsoever this is someone who fires a blaster rifle as well as a Stormtrooper, can take more punishment, can fly a spaceship, can in a pinch repair a spaceship (they have three in any Mechanics roll meaning they'll succeed against any moderately difficult task on average), they're just all round pretty capable. Throw in actual skills and start getting some Yellows in there, and they really start to shine. Everyone and their aunt has told you you're not quite getting things from the numbers you're looking at, but it's true. You are not reading these numbers right.

But my understanding — and please correct me if I’m wrong about this — is that it’s quite difficult and expensive to raise attributes in play, to the point that a character might only see a couple of attribute increases over the life of a campaign. If that’s the case, what’s the realistic pathway for characters to go from “mostly average, and above average here and there” at the outset, to “mostly above average, and extraordinary here and there” as the campaign goes on?

They buy Skills. Han Solo didn't turn into an acrobatic ninja between Eps IV and VI, but he may have put some skills in Ranged (Light) by the time we see him fighting on Endor. A character with 3 Agi who has bought up Ranged (Light) to 5 is rolling 3Y2G which is a really good dice pool. Difficulty at Medium Range is 2P. Mathematically, they'll be averaging 2.75 hits and 2.5 advantages. Meaning they'll practically never miss and score criticals every few shots. Of course that's an artificial scenario - you'll be coming up against Nemeses who have defensive talents such as Adversary, but you'll also have a mess of talents of your own - the point is you asked how someone would get extraordinaryand there's your answer - someone with 3 in Agility and rolling a pool way above normal, almost never misses against regular people and who has a whole load of extra talents to make them an even better shot. That's an extraordinary person.

It was suggested to me upthread that I was focusing too much on attributes, because the size of your dice pool is the higher of your attribute or your skill. That is, even if my character has a pedestrian attribute score of 2, I can still build respectable dice pool that allows me to do impressive stuff if I buy the relevant skill up to, say, 4. But — again, please correct me if I’m wrong about this — aren’t yellow dice significantly more awesome than green dice? If I want my character to feel more exceptional rather than merely more competent, shouldn’t I be trying to maximize the number of yellow dice I throw, rather than just adding greens?

Yes, but a large dice pool filled with Greens is still a large dice pool. You're less likely to score Triumphs and you'll score fewer hits overall. But the real trouble you're having with this game is trying to apply simple linear maths to a much more complicated set-up. There are two ways to really get this game. One is to start getting deeper into probability (a green averages you 5/8ths of a hit and 5/8ths of an advantage, a Yellow gets you 10/12ths of a hit and 2/3rds of an advantage, the value of a Triumph is maybe 3 Advantages and 1 hit, but X% of your enemies will have Adversary trait and so forth...). Or you can play it and get a feel for it much more quickly.

@CrazyDaddy: As with anything it’s entirely possible I’m wildly off base with this, but I do not interpret Obligation, as it’s presented in EotE, as being as optional and innocuous and purely-narrative as you’re describing. Looking at the table on page 39, those all sound to me like serious, life-affecting complications in the here and now, not just echoes from the past.

They can be. It's part of the game. But if you really don't like it, just don't buy Obligation and pay it down as quickly as you can. You can get it as low as 5 which means you'll never get doubles, either. I don't get why 5XP is so significant that you think Obligation is obligatory (I see what I did there!). So I suspect it's the starting credits. If you really absolutely aren't able to give the players extra money to start with, then I still don't see the big deal. The first time they knock out a Stormtrooper that's a Blaster Carbine right there. You wanted to start with fancy armour? Tough - you're first level, you don't get the Chainmail, yet.

But seriously - if you have a big problem with it, just give them more money if you're GM. You cannot find giving extra money complicated or a source of problematic unpredictability.

@knasserll: Let me try to explain. If I start a new Pathfinder game and tell the players that characters will all start at 7th level, no further assembly is required. The capabilities of a seventh-level member of any given class are described by the game rules to a high level of precision: if you tell me you’ll be playing a priest, I can crack open a book and, with about five minutes of reading, know 90% of everything your character can do. Between that knowledge and the Challenge Rating system, which provides an at-a-glance point of comparison between PCs and potential adversaries, I don’t have to do much work to figure out how starting the PCs at 7th level is going to impact the game. Building challenging encounters for the group is pretty much turnkey.

In contrast, if I start doling out extra XP to starting characters in EotE, I have absolutely no idea how that’s going to play out. The capabilities of individual characters are going to be all over the place, and there’s limited guidance on how to build challenging encounters for even base-level PCs, never mind artificially-advanced ones (does this Nemesis still work as a Nemesis if the PCs are all however-many XP stronger; and if not, how should I modify him?). Sure, I can figure all that out — it’s a matter of some time, some reading, some thinking, and some trial and error. But it’s still work. I applaud people like Maelora who are willing to take that on, but I’m not one of them. It’s not a matter of needing my hand held; it’s a matter of life being too short. If a game doesn’t provide me with a satisfactory experience out of the box, I’ll just go play something else that does. Make sense?

Then in all honesty, EotE isn't for you because it's not like D&D at all. D&D is designed so that you can say X Ogres are a match for Y PCs at level Z. It's an artificial game based around the idea of combat. EotE will never have that simple match-up maths because it's intent is to be cinematic and chaotic and chandelier-swinging fun. Just look at the rules for Advantages. Even if you miss shooting that stormtrooper, maybe they're forced out of cover or you start a fire by the nearby fuel canisters which are getting hotter or perhaps you roll a Despair and your gun jams meanwhile your team mate the Wookie is trying to roll to jump into the cockpit of the AT-ST and use the guns on the stormtroopers. Tell me where the maths works that factors in hijacked Imperial Vehicles into level-based Challenge Ratings. It's not just a case that this stuff could be done this way - the Advantages, Threats, Triumph and Despair system lead you mechanically to this sort of gameplay.

If you absolutely need the game to function like D&D with levels and challenge ratings, then this game is not for you and there's no way to make it like that without losing something. If you simply want to get a good feel for what a suitable challenge for PCs is, however, you can pick that up fairly quickly in the first game or two or with some practice combats on your own.

I still reject that there is anything especially difficult about just giving extra XP to players to start with if you want more advanced play. Certainly some may dump a load of points in social talents and buy lots of specializations instead of min-maxing on one or two. But that's the nature of EotE - it's not a game based around making sure everyone has equal and predictable abilities in combat. It's a game based around a lot of complex choices.

We're talking past each other, I'm afraid. I understand what you're saying. What I'm saying is that it's ridiculous there's a cost to starting the game with an adequate supply of gear.

It's a game about ne'er do wells and fugitives and thus very fitting. If you want something different, just start everyone with 1,000Cr instead.

I think there are quite a few misconceptions here which I'm going to try and address / provide context for:

If you assume that players are going to do as the game recommends, and spend a big chunk or their starting XP to improve character attributes,

The game does not recommend this anywhere that I'm aware of.

It does...

I think there are quite a few misconceptions here which I'm going to try and address / provide context for:

If you assume that players are going to do as the game recommends, and spend a big chunk or their starting XP to improve character attributes,

The game does not recommend this anywhere that I'm aware of.

It does...

Where?

@Daeglan: I also don't have to play games that force stupid choices on players. So there's that. But thank you for the episode suggestions.

Obviously you're not forced to play the game and ultimately, it's not our job to persuade you that you should. We're not sales people for FFG, just people who like the game. We're doing our best to answer your questions but I do feel there is a slight expectation on your part that we're supposed to sell you on it with the way you keep finding ways to dismiss our suggestions. The game is what it is which is why most of our suggestions are just pointing out that you can make it work for "high level" play quite easily if you want to, or drop Obligation if you want to. All games have a focus. If you don't like the focus, you're going to have to do something like say "I wont use Obligation" or "I'll give 200XP to start, instead of 100XP". If those aren't concessions you're willing to make... But I do think you don't understand what the numbers really mean.

I think there are quite a few misconceptions here which I'm going to try and address / provide context for:

If you assume that players are going to do as the game recommends, and spend a big chunk or their starting XP to improve character attributes,

The game does not recommend this anywhere that I'm aware of.

It does...

Where?

On a page, somewhere in the book... (Don't have it in the office.)

I think there are quite a few misconceptions here which I'm going to try and address / provide context for:

If you assume that players are going to do as the game recommends, and spend a big chunk or their starting XP to improve character attributes,

The game does not recommend this anywhere that I'm aware of.

It does...

Where?

On a page, somewhere in the book... (Don't have it in the office.)

Let me know where when you have it - I don't remember anything like that and I've just re-read the Experience section of Character Creation. I can't find any such recommendations in the section on Spending Experience in the later section, either.

Maybe start with AoR instead. Its mechanic Duty is more positive instead of negative oike Obligation. Might be more up your alley. The starting options in general may be more to your liking.

I think what’s giving me the most heartburn is contemplating character generation in the context of long-term character advancement. If you assume that players are going to do as the game recommends, and spend a big chunk or their starting XP to improve character attributes, you’re going to end up with characters who have attribute scores that are 3s (and the occasional 4 and rare 5) in their areas of emphasis, and 2s nearly everywhere else. I’m coming around to the idea that that’s fine as far as it goes; as freshly-fallen-off-the-turnip-truck beginners, they’re still mostly average people, with some above-average abilities here and there. But my understanding — and please correct me if I’m wrong about this — is that it’s quite difficult and expensive to raise attributes in play, to the point that a character might only see a couple of attribute increases over the life of a campaign. If that’s the case, what’s the realistic pathway for characters to go from “mostly average, and above average here and there” at the outset, to “mostly above average, and extraordinary here and there” as the campaign goes on?

As others have said, 3 greens are sufficient for most challenges all by themselves. An attribute of 3 is above-average. 4 is outstanding, and 5-6 is among the best in the galaxy. I'd imagine most denizens of the SW universe won't actually meet someone with a 5 or a 6 in person, unless they go celebrity-hunting (I'm not likely to run into Stephen Hawking on the street, but I might at a prestigious astrophysics conference). Mostly 3's with the occasional 4 or 5 means that, compared to an average person, you are stronger, more agile, smarter, more clever, more strong-willed, and more charming than them. And in several of those, you're good enough you should be famous for it. Give me a character with straight 2's but a 4 in Agility (or Brawn) and a 3 or 4 in Presence, and I think you've got a beloved celebrity rookie athlete with endorsements straight out of the gate. Give them a couple of ranks of Athletics (you can get up to 2 at character creation) and you have a superstar athlete mid-career.

Besides, I'm not sure where the idea that a character has to be above-average in every characteristic comes from (although I know some systems like D&D encourage that thinking). In my mind, the worst part about Humans in this system is that there's nothing they're particularly bad at.

@CrazyDaddy: As with anything it’s entirely possible I’m wildly off base with this, but I do not interpret Obligation, as it’s presented in EotE, as being as optional and innocuous and purely-narrative as you’re describing. Looking at the table on page 39, those all sound to me like serious, life-affecting complications in the here and now, not just echoes from the past. Add in frequency of Obligation checks, and the strain threshold modifiers that affect the whole party when Obligations get triggered, and they start to sound more like real flaws than discretionary story elements for making the world seem more vibrant. And I don’t think players are wrong to be reluctant to take on more and bigger flaws, because if a GM isn’t making them feel those flaws, he’s not holding up his end.

You really ought to consider using the Duty mechanic, then. It sounds like you have some serious issues about forcing characters to take Obligation, which I can understand. In fact, the rules specifically say all characters must have an Obligation, and a character's total Obligation can't drop below 5. I personally don't see Obligation as a punishment, but rather a story-driver. Edge of the Empire is designed specifically to model characters living on the fringes of society--smugglers, colonists fleeing oppressive governments, and the like. Obligation is the reason why characters adventure. Why don't you just stay at home? "Well, you see, there was this misunderstanding on Ord Mantell, and now there's this bounty on my head..." However, if this doesn't suit your tastes, Duty (from Age of Rebellion) is entirely positive in nature--serve some goal or organization, and get rewarded for it. This isn't kit-bashing, either; the games were specifically designed for parts like this to be interchangeable, and the Age of Rebellion rulebook specifically discusses the interchangeability of Obligation and Duty (it wasn't in EotE because AoR wasn't out yet). If you're interested in the rules on how to do that, FFG released them during the AoR beta, and can be found here:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/StarWarsRPG/age-of-rebellion/beta/Week%205_Low%20Res.pdf

It's on p. 6, under the heading "Compatibility with Edge of the Empire".

For the record, I think Obligation in and of itself is a great idea. I just think it’s kind of silly that, according to the published rules, a starting character can’t afford much more than a gun and some clothes without going deeper into hock (with all that that entails).

I'm not clear on what more you feel a starting character should have. For my tastes, I want my players (and when I'm playing, I want my character) to start hungry. If I'm playing a young merc eager to make his mark on the galaxy, give me a blaster and an attitude; the rest I'll earn or take.

A lot of your concerns seem to focus on starting characters not having much gear, high skills and characteristics, etc. It sounds like you'd prefer to start much further along in a character's career. I know this answer hasn't satisfied you in 4 pages of people saying it, but given that the only real reward characters get is XP, give them extra XP if you want them to start out better. If you're concerned about credits, give them an extra 1000cr to start. It's really not that different than saying "you all start out as 7th level characters". I've never played Pathfinder, but I can't imagine that 1st-level characters start out that incredibly badass, either.

The original poster might consider visiting his local game shop or seeking out someone who might be willing to run either the Beginner Box adventure for EOTE or the one for AOR.

There's also a "Rebellion Day" event on Saturday, September 13, which is designed for players new to the system to sign up and play in a new module and experience the system. In Austin, TX, I'm running for our local shop Dragon's Lair on Sunday, September 14. Feel free to come by and just try it out!

I introduced AOR to my D&D group last night in a one-shot and they really enjoyed it. They had basically starting characters, and they played through an exciting adventure with combat against Snowtroopers, Stormtroopers, plenty of deception, computer slicing, and narrow escapes. It was a lot of fun and everyone enjoyed it.

@eldath: I think what’s giving me the most heartburn is contemplating character generation in the context of long-term character advancement. If you assume that players are going to do as the game recommends, and spend a big chunk or their starting XP to improve character attributes, you’re going to end up with characters who have attribute scores that are 3s (and the occasional 4 and rare 5) in their areas of emphasis, and 2s nearly everywhere else. I’m coming around to the idea that that’s fine as far as it goes; as freshly-fallen-off-the-turnip-truck beginners, they’re still mostly average people, with some above-average abilities here and there. But my understanding — and please correct me if I’m wrong about this — is that it’s quite difficult and expensive to raise attributes in play, to the point that a character might only see a couple of attribute increases over the life of a campaign. If that’s the case, what’s the realistic pathway for characters to go from “mostly average, and above average here and there” at the outset, to “mostly above average, and extraordinary here and there” as the campaign goes on?

It was suggested to me upthread that I was focusing too much on attributes, because the size of your dice pool is the higher of your attribute or your skill. That is, even if my character has a pedestrian attribute score of 2, I can still build respectable dice pool that allows me to do impressive stuff if I buy the relevant skill up to, say, 4. But — again, please correct me if I’m wrong about this — aren’t yellow dice significantly more awesome than green dice? If I want my character to feel more exceptional rather than merely more competent, shouldn’t I be trying to maximize the number of yellow dice I throw, rather than just adding greens?

I’d appreciate any response. :-)

Ok firstly, though I have spent starting xp on attributes that was only one point which brought my Intelligence to 3. I don't see anywhere in the book recommending increasing your characteristics, only telling you how you can. From my experience of playing the game the dice pools work very well focusing on skill being higher than your attribute. Though rolling more yellow dice seems important it is not as massively important as you might think, nice but not vital. I disagree with Jabberwookie about the importance of maximizing your yellow dice, it is one way of playing the game which is no more or less valid than concentrating on talents and skills, it is not the only way.

Iconic characters in Star Wars aren't automatically going to be super-hero's. To repeat the example of Luke from my earlier post, in the first movie he was pretty rubbish except with piloting. He also had no gear having sold everything except his clothes and the plot (Droids and Lightsaber) which were the hook to get the farmboy into the rebel alliance. He managed to lose his first two fights (Tusken Raider and the guy in the bar), and he only just about managed to shoot a couple of stormtroopers escaping the Death Star. All in all not a very iconic guy, until you get to the end of the second film leading into the third film, after a lot of xp which was likely spent on skill and talents since their was little evidence that he had been working out that much, and he didn't exactly show much in the way of sterling intellect attacking Darth Vader. Brave but a really dumb move on his part.

The dice mechanics are actually really very well done and allow for a very narrative game play which makes even missing your enemy fun and of benefit, and one of the best examples I saw was a description of someone shooting at Gamorians inside a warehouse, the character missed but got advantages and so his shots hit the light fittings in the warehouse causing the enemy to have a disadvantage for the round (making them all roll a setback dice on their rolls) due to the surprise and the sparking fixtures.

Additionally you can upgrade a dice from green to yellow by spending a lightside destiny point, though there is a limited pool it can be refreshed if the GM uses the darkside destiny points properly. By properly I mean things like increasing the difficulty of a task you believe should be harder, boosting the enemy so that the parties victory in a fight is more satisfying etc.

And yes, it can be expensive to increase your attributes through xp, you need to work your way through the talent trees to get there, to say nothing of the ever increasing cost of buying new specialisations to get the dedication talent from. But characters can still be exceptional without needing to have above average attributes, I see Han and all the other major fun characters as being far more skill than attribute.

To paraphrase Master Yoda "High Stats not make one great"

Lastly, Obligation: I find the concept of Obligation really nice but I don't particularly like the execution of it. It works as a way of explaining why Han and Chewie would take such a dodgy job transporting Obi-Wan and Luke "no questions asked" and "no Imperial entanglements". As to using it on a game to game basis, you have to roll lower than the groups combined obligation to have any obligation show up which assuming a group of four players who have each taken +1000 credits mounts up to a mediocre 60% of the time. Statistically that suggests that more than half the time someones obligation is going to be butting into the storyline but statistics don't cover the random nature of the dice.

Also the book specifically states: " if the GM decides it would derail the story at a critical junction, ha can delay the actual encounter " and unless you roll doubles when rolling obligation, most of the effect is just the groups worrying about the Debt, or getting annoyed at the mechanics spice problem (a.k.a. strain loss).

I hope this has gone some way into helping you understand the system better and maybe get more out of it.

E

I don't see anywhere in the book recommending increasing your characteristics, only telling you how you can.

Page 15 left hand column bold print.

"Players need to think carefully about their characteristic ratings, and should consider investing a significant portion of their starting experience points in improving their characteristics"

I hadn't noticed that before, though it only says should consider.

E

But, yeah, I'm gradually coming around to the conclusion that this game is not to my individual taste. I guess we'll see.

Funny, as this seemed like a foregone conclusion right from the start.

@Daeglan: I also don't have to play games that force stupid choices on players. So there's that. But thank you for the episode suggestions.

Obviously you're not forced to play the game and ultimately, it's not our job to persuade you that you should. We're not sales people for FFG, just people who like the game. We're doing our best to answer your questions but I do feel there is a slight expectation on your part that we're supposed to sell you on it with the way you keep finding ways to dismiss our suggestions. The game is what it is which is why most of our suggestions are just pointing out that you can make it work for "high level" play quite easily if you want to, or drop Obligation if you want to. All games have a focus. If you don't like the focus, you're going to have to do something like say "I wont use Obligation" or "I'll give 200XP to start, instead of 100XP". If those aren't concessions you're willing to make... But I do think you don't understand what the numbers really mean.

After reading through several pages and seeing people answer numerous times the same way more or less, I couldn't have sent it any better.

I will say that if this is a game that he doesn't care for, he will also want to avoid Margaret Weis' Firefly as it is even more dynamic.

I'm loathe to tell someone that a game isn't for them, especially not when the game is designed to be as universally appealing and flexible as Edge of the Empire (and Aor, and FaD).

Centerfire , if you come through this part of the thread, would you mind telling me what other systems you have run or played in? That may provide a good point of comparison that we can use.

For example, I've been into RPGs for about 5 years, and most of that time was spent as a GM in the Storyteller System (World of Darkness, Exalted ( especially Exalted)), with a few short stints as a player in 4e DnD. For me, Edge of the Empire was a natural fit, as I'm used to having to eyeball relative challenge-levels, adjust on the fly for completely unexpected player actions, and (thanks to Exalted) get really descriptive so that players get inspired to add in their own details.

As an experiment, I sat down and created a human Bounty Hunter/Gadgeteer character. Here's what I came up with:

Br 3, Ag 3, Int 2, Cu 3, Wi 2, Pre 2

Skills: Brawl 1, Mechanics 1, Negotiation 1, Perception 1, Piloting (Space) 1, Ranged (Light) 2, Ranged (Heavy) 1, Stealth 1, Streetwise 1, Vigilance 1

My experience also helped me quickly figure out that 2 Green dice would be "barely competent," while 1 Green, 1 Yellow is akin to "proficient". A character with 1 Green, 2 Yellows, as your example Bounty Hunter PC has in Ranged (Light), would actually be fairly skilled!

Now, would you be able to take on the Journeyman Bounty Hunter NPC in a "straight," white-room fight? Probably not, if only because he has a DISRUPTOR RIFLE, one of the most deadly weapons in the game (I really don't understand why FFG put that in the statblock). However, if he had a regular blaster rifle, or you were willing to play to your character's advantages? In that case, I could easily imagine your PC triumphing.

For comparison, in the first real combat of my first campaign, my players were outnumbered 6 to 4 by blaster carbine-wielding security droids (Minions, but I kept them un-grouped like Rivals). Only two of the four PCs were armed, one with a vibro-sword, the other with a holdout blaster, and only the swordsman had more than 3 Soak (Brawn + Armor). Despite not taking advantage of cover or using their defensive Talents, the PCs wiped the floor with the droids, taking only minor wounds. They used the Initiative Slot mechanics to their advantage, snatching weapons from the hands of the defeated droids and immediately adding to the kill-count. Then they retreated to their ship and blasted off with fighters in hot pursuit.

I'm loathe to tell someone that a game isn't for them, especially not when the game is designed to be as universally appealing and flexible as Edge of the Empire (and Aor, and FaD).

* Not to say that wasn't in mind during the design, but no game will ever be "universally appealing". There will always a significant portion of the consumer base turned off by what was designed.

As to your second point, I completely disagree. I've been playing tabletop RPGs for north of thirty years, and I have yet to meet a player capable of remaining convinced he was playing a big **** hero in the face of immersion-busting game mechanics. Dice eventually get thrown, and if the results fail to support the narrative then players call BS ("I thought I was playing a skilled pilot; why am I having such a hard time with a middling-difficulty piloting test?"), and the narrative breaks down, pretty fast.

With respect, I’ve also been playing tabletop RPGs for north of thirty years (remember the original boxed set for D&D? Remember the game that preceded it, called "Chainmail"?), and I have found that FFG’s SWRPG is unlike most any other RPG I’ve ever played.

With regards to the dice mechanics, it’s up to the GM to set the difficulty of the dice rolls to be appropriate for the players, and then both GM and players "role play" the outcome.

Soccer matches don’t necessarily rack up huge amounts of points, and frequently end up in a tie. But you cannot possibly convince me that picking a random soccer match that ended in a 1-1 tie must necessarily have been a boring match. And likewise, an American Football game that racks up huge numbers of points isn’t necessarily an interesting game, just because it racks up huge numbers of points.

In both cases, what makes the game interesting or not is what happened on the field during the play, and the final score is not such a great indicator.

So, with SWRPG, it is my belief that if you’ve finding that the immersion is being busted by the dice mechanics, then you’re playing the game wrong.

And that will happen if you try to bring a D&D or an MMORPG damage-per-second mindset to this game.

If you want to have real fun with this game, you need to change your paradigm and drink the FFG dice mechanics kool-aid.

Ok firstly, though I have spent starting xp on attributes that was only one point which brought my Intelligence to 3. I don't see anywhere in the book recommending increasing your characteristics, only telling you how you can. From my experience of playing the game the dice pools work very well focusing on skill being higher than your attribute.

The game can work fine in that regard, yes. But if you want to get better at something, improving the skill is relatively cheap. Contrariwise, it is much, much more expensive to try to increase the attribute on which a skill is based.

If you start out with low attributes and high skills, you’re setting yourself up to relatively quickly hit a cap on how good you can become at things, and you’re giving yourself a handicap from the start. It might not seem like much of a handicap to begin with, but the more and longer you play, the bigger of a drawback it will be.

This isn’t to say that you can’t play your character the way you want. If you want someone who starts off really low in attributes on everything and relatively higher on the skills, you’re more than welcome to do that. But you should make a fully informed decision and be made aware of the consequences that will become more visible as you go.

Though rolling more yellow dice seems important it is not as massively important as you might think, nice but not vital. I disagree with Jabberwookie about the importance of maximizing your yellow dice, it is one way of playing the game which is no more or less valid than concentrating on talents and skills, it is not the only way.

No, it’s certainly not the only way. Much fun and narrative can come from explaining what happens when you fail.

And as you get better in your dice pool, the GM should increase the difficulties that you face.

But, on the whole, the more yellow dice you can roll, the more likely you are to be able to achieve some particular outcome that you may want. If you don’t want to succeed, then you don’t need to roll a lot of yellow dice.

The dice mechanics are actually really very well done and allow for a very narrative game play which makes even missing your enemy fun and of benefit, and one of the best examples I saw was a description of someone shooting at Gamorians inside a warehouse, the character missed but got advantages and so his shots hit the light fittings in the warehouse causing the enemy to have a disadvantage for the round (making them all roll a setback dice on their rolls) due to the surprise and the sparking fixtures.

Agreed.

To paraphrase Master Yoda "High Stats not make one great"

True enough, as far as that goes.

But it’s also hard to fly like an eagle, when you don’t have enough thrust to get you above the level of the turkeys.

Thrust and stats are just one part of their respective equations. They are not sufficient to guarantee success. But they are pretty important factors, and you would be hard pressed to succeed without an adequate amount.

I don't see anywhere in the book recommending increasing your characteristics, only telling you how you can.

Page 15 left hand column bold print.

"Players need to think carefully about their characteristic ratings, and should consider investing a significant portion of their starting experience points in improving their characteristics"

I hadn't noticed that before, though it only says should consider.

E

Which is exactly what a recommendation is...

Lots of responses, lots to think about. Going to keep this relatively short.

@knasserll: I absolutely do not expect anybody to sell me on the game, and I apologize unreservedly if I've come across as dismissive of anyone's well-intentioned suggestions. I may consider certain suggestions non-starters for me , but I appreciate anybody taking the time to offer them.

@RedfordBlade: Oh, gaah. We're talking about 34 years of gaming; if I try to give you an exhaustive list we'll be here until the sun goes cold and dark. Things that are currently on my shelf: Ars Magica 5e, Pathfinder, HERO 6e, L5R 4e, Shadowrun 4e/5e, Mage: the Awakening, Only War, and Savage Worlds.

@bradknowles: Erm. I think you missed some context there. I wasn't arguing that the EotE mechanics are immersion-busting (I'm still trying to get a bead on them; I wouldn't know). I was making a more general point that narratives need to be sustained by mechanics. The GM can narratively position the PCs as Big **** Heroes all he likes, but if players don't feel like their characters are capable of doing things they think Big **** Heroes ought to be capable of, their confidence in the narrative positioning is going to die a pretty quick death. At least, that's been my experience; YMMV.

Also, soccer? Not the best example to use with me, as I find the sport about as exciting as watching paint dry. :-) How about I pretend you said ice hockey instead, and agree?

The thing you need to understand Centerfire is the characters DO feel like pretty big heros. Because of the way the die mechanic works you succeed fairly often on basic roles and depending on your talents things that would make the check harder get to be ignored by your character and you might get bonus dice on other chacks.

The reason we keep saying to give the game a whirl is because that is one of the best ways to get a feel for how the mechanics work and what the numbers really mean. and the system is pretty quick once you get the hang of building the dice pools.

@Daeglan: Again, I was making a general point, not criticizing EotE. Most everybody has said that the EotE mechanics do a pretty good job of making players feel like their characters are capable of doing Heroic Stuff, and a few of you have walked me through it in detail, and I don't have any particular reason to doubt you.