Hey everyone, I am a soon-to-be new GM to this game but I had a couple of issues with the players I am planning on playing with, and we haven't even started the game yet!

Since all 4 of us really love Star Wars and wanted to get involved with a RP type game that we could play, but none of us have any tabletop RP experience. I volunteered as GM and bought the beginner game so we can get used to the rules and how everything is setup and played with the game mechanics.

Here is the annoying part, 2 out of the 3 of our players who would be PC's in the game really want to have force powers or "be Sith" right out of the gate. I read up on these forums as well as other places and found out that the Force is really not really much of a part of EotE with the exception of Force-sensitive Exiles. The players that are bent on having Force powers are really disappointed that I won't allow them to be full-fledged Jedi, but I am just following the rules I found from the core rule book.

The main question I have is, should I play EotE or should I pick up Force & Destiny instead of the EotE core rule book? I want to make sure that we have all of the rules available to us, so I wasn't sure if we still needed the EotE book if everything is covered by the F&D book. If we do forego getting EotE and starting with F&D is there any disconnect or lack of info to get started on new adventures? Can we use other EotE published games and change them somewhat to fit the F&D crew?

Wow, welcome to our forum and hobby. I could start listing tons of advice for new gamers and new GMs, but....

They only advice on that is keep it small and manageable in the beginning. Being Sith right out the gate will bring nothing but bad times for everyone.

The F&D Beta book does not give a complete rules setting like the EotE CRB or AOR CRB (ECRB, ACRB). The FCRB will have complete rules in it when it comes out. I would suggest either waiting for the finished book, or picking up either the ECRB or ACRB for the complete rules of the game and the FAD Beta.

The biggest difference between the three is really the setting, and the Obligation, Duty, and Morality systems.

In EotE and AoR they do have Force users, but it is really limited. Pretty much like the classic movies. FAD will bring powerhouse Jedi stuff from the prequels.

Hope this helps a little. Good luck out there and clear skies.

You can start with the F&D book, though be advised only the beta is currently available, and the full book probably won't be available until the summer. There is no difference in the rules, just the careers...and of course F&D has *all* the Force powers, whereas EotE has only a few. But that doesn't mean an EotE character is limited to only the Force powers in the EotE book...all those rules are cross-compatible.

I'd say the best answer depends less on what your players want and more about the campaign. If your setting is more "scum and villainy", trying to keep a low profile and under the Imperial radar, then EotE is probably more useful. Force users with a rating of 1 aren't that powerful anyway, and aren't going to be able to explore all the potential of the Force very soon. Becoming a "real" Jedi in this game is a very long process (which is as it should be IMHO). You can always eventually buy both books, and make all the Force powers from F&D available to your EotE players. They can buy the Force Sensitive Exile tree, and maybe once they've learned a few basic Force powers and have FR2, let them branch into the F&D careers.

If your campaign has a more pre-Imperial setting, then there's nothing wrong with starting directly with F&D. Be warned though that a fresh character doesn't really even rank as a Padawan in terms of capability. The only way to start as "full fledged Jedi or Sith" is to add additional XP after character creation. But if you're new to the game, that's not advised...you'll want to be quite comfortable with the rules and have a good sense of the impact of certain Talents before giving free XP after chargen.

In the end I'd say going the EotE route, with plans to eventually get the F&D book, will let your players have their cake and eat it too.

The F&D Beta book does not give a complete rules setting like the EotE CRB or AOR CRB (ECRB, ACRB). The FCRB will have complete rules in it when it comes out. I would suggest either waiting for the finished book, or picking up either the ECRB or ACRB for the complete rules of the game and the FAD Beta.

The biggest difference between the three is really the setting, and the Obligation, Duty, and Morality systems.

In EotE and AoR they do have Force users, but it is really limited. Pretty much like the classic movies. FAD will bring powerhouse Jedi stuff from the prequels.

Hope this helps a little. Good luck out there and clear skies.

To clarify. Force and Destiny plus the relevant beta updates do have complete rules to play a Force and Destiny game, but it has nothing in the way of fluff and setting information. It's purpose was to give the means to play a game to test the rules but not to be a full campaign guide. So Force and Destiny should have everything you need as long as you are comfortable with making stuff up on the fly.

But if at least one of your PCs are going to be non-force sensitives you'll need another core book.

Do you have any idea on what kind of story you want to tell? If you want screaming TIEs and clanking AT-AT walkers, you may find that you'll also want Age of Rebellion. But if you are wanting the party to negotiate with Hutts and blast out of shadow powers in the Millennium Falcon, well you might just need to grab a copy of Edge of the Empire.

I volunteered as GM and bought the beginner game so we can get used to the rules and how everything is setup and played with the game mechanics.

Just an aside: be aware that the beginner game has a free PDF extension (basically triples the game time and plot), and extra pre-gen PCs, on support page.

Thank you for all of the responses so far! regarding what kaosoe said, "But if at least one of your PCs are going to be non-force sensitives you'll need another core book" does that mean that I should allow all of them to be Force-sensitive Exiles? I thought that was a bit much and kind of odd that 3 Force-sensitive people happened to find each other...but I guess it's possible.

I will ask everyone this weekend how they would want to play it out and figure out which book I should go with, although I believe starting with EotE or AoR would probably be something they would want to do, then progress to F&D once that comes out if they are all Force-sensitive.

And a quick note to whafrog, thanks for the info on the other adventure! I had heard about it but I didn't start reading through it yet!

Something worth considering:

Have the players start the game using standard EotE play options. Make a good note of what each character's theme and functional area is. As the players advance, keep a record of what they spend XP on. Nothing too detailed, just something like (Force powers 30, Skills 85, Talents 55 Total 170). Play using that until F&D Gold comes out this summer.

When F&D comes out, if the players still want to be force using nasty men, pull those characters out and compare them to their F&D equivalents, and then let the players rebuild the characters using the new options, but keeping within the same themes and functional areas. Use your XP record to keep things from getting out of hand. The players shouldn't have to spend the identical amount of XP in the same areas, but if they spent 30 XP in Force powers the first time, and 100 in them the second, you might want to say something.

I'd say primarily...you want the group to have fun. So if you want all out force users...get F+D when it comes out. Let them wield lightsabers and chuck people around-- if that's what will make your game night fun! Sith and Jedi in the same game will be sort of a ping pong game session which...can work...but sort of breaks the flow. (Bob is Jedi so gets 5-10 minutes of GM session than Jane is Sith so now it's her turn to get 5-10 minutes of GM time etc) it can work I've been in a game like that but you will have to wait your turn and than you may get into pvp if they get to close to each other's agendas.

Now SITH aren't entirely evil. Read REVAN, FATAL ALLIANCE and RED HARVEST for great SITH ideas as well as the FATE OF THE JEDI series if you want to go full Sith group. I've wanted to do a SITH game forever. Just remember even though by Lucas standard they are the bad guy they have a full rich ideology and history. They could have many adventures that don't involve "hunting Jedi" from the beginning of their training you could have them wander together on KORRIBAN in search for ancient Sith relics to prove their worth to their masters and earn the chance to hunt the tombs full of tuk'ata to find their lightsabers and become apprentices. Search for lost ruins on planets--- they aren't just hunters of Jedi...they seek knowledge too ...a SITH variant is totally doable. But make sure they know it's more cut throat when jealous rivals of Sith are also their enemies...

In the meantime maybe let them get a hang of the EOTE rules or maybe get them ready to be captured by the Sith When the F+D rules come out the Sith release them into the Academy for training...or death. Or collected by Jedi to train

Thank you for all of the responses so far! regarding what kaosoe said, "But if at least one of your PCs are going to be non-force sensitives you'll need another core book" does that mean that I should allow all of them to be Force-sensitive Exiles? I thought that was a bit much and kind of odd that 3 Force-sensitive people happened to find each other...but I guess it's possible.

You could allow that, at least for the ones that want to be Force Sensitive and eventually pursue Jedi/Sith careers. I'm not sure why that would be any different than two characters being Force Sensitive F&D characters right out of the gate...or maybe I'm missing something.

Also, keep in mind that when a majority of people think of Star Wars, they think The Force, Jedi Knights, lightsabers, etc. It's pre-programmed into our society. Your players may be wanting to play Force users because they honestly don't know or don't understand that there's more to Star Wars than Sith and Jedi. EotE may have limited Force options, but it more than makes up for it with a lot of gritty Outer Rim, underworld, scum and villainy action that, honestly, can be a lot more fun than just hacking enemies to bits with your lightsaber. Likewise, the movies don't go too far into the day-to-day of being a member of the Rebellion, and they may end up enjoy being part of a crack team of Rebel infiltrators, sabotaging Imperial ships and taking over bases, or flying sorties into Imperial space with their Y-wing squadron.

To give them a feel for these less well-known aspects of Star Wars, I'd suggest running them through the EotE and AoR Beginner Game adventures to see how they like the setting and the game play. They may surprise you and end up wanting a bounty hunter or a commando instead

I think Ghostofman has the best idea so far....have them create and use characters in EotE first and when F&D comes out transition to that with the characters but rebuild them so it matches the new system better. Since they would all start out as Force-sensitive it would make sense that they all have the ability to become Jedi at some point.

whafrog: I guess my main question regarding that post was that kaosoe mentioned that if a single person is NOT Force-sensitive then it wouldn't work out since F&D is all Jedi/Force based adventures. So if 2 wanted to have Force powers but 1 decided to forego it then it wouldn't work when we transition to F&D because the lone person without force powers would be the odd man out.

I wasn't sure if letting all 3 be Force-sensitive was too much. I was going to limit it to a single Force-sensitive person but they didn't appreciate that and are now trying to battle between each other who gets it. I didn't want it to start this way, I just didn't want the game to be wrapped up all with the Force when it's a game based on the more outlying areas and smugglers/bounty hunters/and the like...

Oggdude, you make an excellent point! I didn't do a lot of homework into the other books beforehand so all I knew was that EotE existed and that was what we were going to play. I didn't realize that Age of the Rebellion was even an option! I think after the first session of EotE beginner game we can figure out which way we want to go and if this is something they would want to proceed with.

whafrog: I guess my main question regarding that post was that kaosoe mentioned that if a single person is NOT Force-sensitive then it wouldn't work out since F&D is all Jedi/Force based adventures. So if 2 wanted to have Force powers but 1 decided to forego it then it wouldn't work when we transition to F&D because the lone person without force powers would be the odd man out.

Ah, I think there is a misconception there: no, the non-FS can continue on in their EotE characters, branching from Smuggler to Bounty Hunter or whatever they want to do. They aren't the odd man out unless you make the campaign so that it's essential everyone is FS. So long as your campaign is open enough, you do not have to have everybody using only careers from a specific line. You could have a game with one EotE character, one AoR character, and one F&D character...it doesn't matter what game line the careers are from, you can mix and match as you please.

There are 3 games, but technically they are all the same at the end of the day, just 3 different faces of the same universe.

Characters from one book are more than welcome into the world of another, just as Luke and Han teamed up on missions despite both characters taking skills from different Core Rulebooks.

What your group may discover is that being Jedi is a bit bland or inconsistent at the moment due to how much XP you need to invest plus in EotE for few skills plus the F&D beta not being the finished product.

Use the F&D beta if you want things now, but also consider the EotE sourcebooks to add extra flavour. A guy in my group created a Jedi/Entertainer using the EotE Colonist Sourcebook, really gave his character a fun identity and role play style.

Thank you for all of the responses so far! regarding what kaosoe said, "But if at least one of your PCs are going to be non-force sensitives you'll need another core book" does that mean that I should allow all of them to be Force-sensitive Exiles? I thought that was a bit much and kind of odd that 3 Force-sensitive people happened to find each other...but I guess it's possible.

I meant that in the context if you only by Force and Destiny and not any of the other cores. You can't play non-force sensitives in F&D as it is written.

it wouldn't work out since F&D is all Jedi/Force based adventures.

The published adventures will likely be Force/Jedi heavy. But it's going to be all the adventures that you write yourself that will matter, so the future is really up to you. If there's a non-forcey or two in your group, that'll only be as big of a problem as you let it be.

Adventure writing is tough, even for those of us that have been doing it for probably too darn long. There's a GM forum, don't hesitate to make use of it. We'll be there to help you ID potential issues, troubleshoot mechanics or story snags, pitch adventure hooks when you hit a block, or just about anything else a newbie GM might have trouble with.

Feel lucky this is such an active and open community, back when I started I had to figure a lot of this kinda stuff all on my own.

I'd go with the EotE beginners game. Start session 1 by watching episode 1 of Firefly. Forget about jedis for now and play through the Beginner box adventure and then the downloadable pdf next. Use the characters in the beginners box - they're well done.

I think this is a pretty easy fix. Buy the book for the campaign YOU want to run and tell them they're welcome to play whatever they wish but if it's not in the campaign book you bought that they're going to have to pony up for the other book, after all it's not fair if they expect you to pay for 2 games just so they can play something else and if they really want to play what they say then they'll put in the money to add he book to the game. The systems are completely compatible and you don't need to do to much extra reading since both systems have only minor rule additions.

As for how 3 force sensatives would find each other just have those players work together and write up backgrounds for their characters and how they met. Takes work off you and gets the players more invested in the story when they have a part in writing it.

I'd go with the EotE beginners game. Start session 1 by watching episode 1 of Firefly. Forget about jedis for now and play through the Beginner box adventure and then the downloadable pdf next. Use the characters in the beginners box - they're well done.

Orrrrr a couple episodes of Farscape.

to OP: why not zoidberg... I, uh, I mean both.