The late great Robin Williams once described us as a really nice apartment over a meth lab... But I digress...

No he didn't. He said:

Canada is like a loft apartment over a really great party.

He has actually said both. The former in a reddit AMA quote from Sep 2013. The latter is from his Live on Broadway 2002 special.

Fair enough. I wasn't aware of the AMA. Sorry about that!

Hi everyone,

I'm going to be starting up a Star Wars campaign for my game group and I'm interested in the FFG system rather than one of the older rules sets. I'd like to have a mix of character types from Age of Rebellion and Edge of Empire. Do I need to get both core rule books to cover everything, or would getting the Edge of Empire beginner's set cover everything that's not in the Age of Rebellion core book?

If you really want a mix of characters from both books, then I'm going to go with yes, you really would need both books to do this well. However, I'm going to put the caveat in that I really don't think there's a need to mix from both books. Firstly, they have different focuses so they wouldn't necessarily mesh together that well. EotE characters are bounty hunters, smugglers, thieves, politicians (Hmmm, one of these is not like the others. Oh wait, it is. ). AoR has soldiers, fighter pilots, spies... Thematically and in some practical ways, the focus is not the same.

Secondly, EotE has eighteen different specializations (six careers in total). That's quite a lot and plenty to explore. If you add AoR, you'd have thirty-six! Do you really need thirty six starting classes for your players to choose from? Even if you treat each career as class equivalent still, six character classes is plenty especially when there are differentiations within them - a politico is not like a doctor, an assassin is not like a gadgeteer (even though both are bounty hunters).

My advice is all based on the idea that you aren't swimming in money and going to buy everything. If you are, then yes, it's nice to have both. But if you're not you're far better off getting one core book and some of the lovely supplements for it. Though it's up to you.

Just an FYI, I'm in the UK so my purchasing options are different. Amazon.com won't deliver these books outside the US and Amazon.co.uk is charging nearly $60 equivalent at the moment. I can get them for about $48 at an RPG specialist site.

Try Leisure Games in London. They do mail order and are very quick and helpful.