Ok, so I recently stumbled upon this game yesterday and now I can't stop thinking about it. I haven't purchased anything yet because I have some questions.

1. I'm a married guy with kids and no one I know will play this so that leaves me with remote playing. I just found Fantasy Grounds and I do have Steam but what I'm wondering is, is there a way to just join a game? Are there places online that people coordinate and play together?

2. Should I read the core book and beginner book before even trying to find a game? It seems like a lot of material and might take awhile to understand it all.

3. Is it fun? I like the idea of creating characters and going on adventures and the reviews have been good but some people are put off by the dice. Are the dice bad?

That's all I can think of right now but any help would be greatly appreciated. Especially if someone can point me in the direction of joining a group that can sort of teach this to a complete noob to the tabletop RPG. Thanks!

1) there are plenty of people looking for online games as a way to get around lack of local players for them. You'll see their posts here or on other forums of a similar or more generic nature.

2) You only need to read about 10% of the core book to get the rules down. Most of the rest is GM stuff, gear, etc... So, start with Character Creation, Talents and Combat to get the largest bulk of what you need down.

3) It's been fun each time I've played/run it, but fun is in the eye of the beholder. The people complaining about the dice are mostly just too used to the "normal" numeric only dice with a simple Success/Fail result.

1) There are plenty of places you can play online, and plenty of methods. If you want to do it via chat in real-time, people run games on Skype, IRC, Roll20, all sorts. If you want to do forum play-by-post (where the players put up detailed posts of what their characters are doing, saying, etc), then there are all sorts of places for that too, like www.rpol.net

2) The book is actually quite straightforward, and does explain each step for newcomers to RPGs. I'd honestly suggest going for the core book, so you have all the rules. If you have any issues, you're welcome to ask us here

3) It's fun as hell, and probably my favourite current RPG. The rules are fairly simple, the dice allow for a variety of outcomes (rather than just binary yes/no results) [NOTE - YOU'LL HAVE TO BUY THE DICE FOR THE GAME AS WELL], the game is pretty well balanced, you can make pretty much any character you can think of... it's awesome.

And seriously, the dice are one of the best bits about the game. People disliked it at first, but it's basically one of the main things most people like about the system now.

Any other questions, don't hesitate to ask - and welcome!

Thanks for the info I just feel a bit overwhelmed. I play the X-wing miniatures with my son and we do campaigns so I'm not new to changing dice rolls and interpreting them so that's not a problem. Out of all the online ways to play, which one do you guys recommend the most? Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, whatever IRC is?

You might also consider buying one of the Beginner games and run through the starting adventure with your kids, and maybe a few of their friends. They'd love it, and it would help you better understand the game. I think it's $29 and includes a $15 set of dice, so the investment is minimal. Personally, I like Edge of the Empire beginner game the most, but you can't go wrong with the Age of Rebellion beginner game, either.

I've run both the Edge of the Empire and Age of Rebellion beginner box adventures for my nephews (ages 9 and 13) and they both had a blast! I second OggDude's recommendation.

There are people who play the game via Google Hangouts, Skype, or other video chat services. There is also Roll20 and some other shared resource sites for playing these games remotely.

You’ll find some of those games discussed in various places on this forum, but also in Google+, or various other locations.

The game is also commonly played at various Friendly Local Gaming Stores (FLGSes), and so you might be pleasantly surprised to find some people to play with in-person. FLGSes can also act as a place where you can meet like-minded people, even if you don’t game with them in person. Heck, if everyone else in the group is mobile but you’re not, they might be willing to come play at your place, if that works for you.

You could start with the boxed beginner set, but I would be inclined to first try to find a current game that is looking for players, either remote or physically near you. We can give you general advice about the game and our experiences with it, but being able to directly talk to the prospective GM and other players may help cement things in your mind much better.

Especially since this game tends to be narrative in style, and so while there may be some common threads among games run by various different GMs, there may also be some significant differences. Most of those differences are likely to be minor interpretation differences of some of the rules, or differences of opinion as to what has (or has not) happened in their Star Wars Universe, but there’s a lot of room there for interpretation.

I find the game to be a heck of a lot of fun, but a great deal depends on finding the right like-minded GM and players.

In one “Edge of the Empire” game, I have a Wookiee that is probably bigger and stronger than Chewbacca and meaner in melee combat, but he’s got a lot of mechanical skills that I don’t. I also have a droid in that game as a mostly-NPC who is kind of a cross between Kryten from Red Dwarf and Bender from Futurama, and he’s a blast to periodically run for a little while.

In another game (using the “Force and Destiny Beta” rules), I play a Clawdite Mystic/Seer who comes from a different tradition than the Jedi, and we’re helping to rebuild what will become the New Jedi Order and the New Republic. It’s very interesting to me to play someone who sees the Jedi from the outside, and sees a lot of mistakes that they’ve made in the past, with an eye towards hopefully being able to help them rebuild themselves along better lines that will maybe be able to avoid some of the mistakes that the Jedi have typically made over the previous thousands of years.

There are lots of useful resources in the various pinned sections of this forum, but to help you understand how the dice work, one of the first places I’d suggest you start is by looking at “Torquemadaza's Introductory PDF”. The official link is dead, but I happen to have saved a copy on my Dropbox folder at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/79813707/SW-EotE/Rules/EotE_basics_v2.pdf

Good luck!

Thanks for the info I just feel a bit overwhelmed. I play the X-wing miniatures with my son and we do campaigns so I'm not new to changing dice rolls and interpreting them so that's not a problem. Out of all the online ways to play, which one do you guys recommend the most? Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, whatever IRC is?

BTW, Internet Relay Chat (“IRC”) is an ancient form of real-time chatting on the Internet. More modern protocols like XMPP have largely taken over that space, and there are plenty of XMPP apps available (Google Chat is based on XMPP) that can also do IRC.

If your son can play X-Wing, he can play this too. I played with my son quite a bit before he grew up and joined the Air Force

I'll echo the others, get the beginner game and work through it. There is a free PDF download to extend the adventure 3-fold. If you like it, then get the core rules and welcome to a galaxy of story-telling...

I will say, if you only play with you and your son, you'll probably want to consider getting one of his friends to join, or have him run multiple characters. You'll want to reduce the number of enemies, because the beginner game assumes 3-5 players, but that's easy to do.

If you're looking to check out Edge on-the-cheap, then the Free RPG Day adventure really lays everything out nicely, in an easy-to-follow manner.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/star-wars-edge-of-the-empire/

Scroll down to Player Resources and grab Under a Black Sun.

The official FFG die roller app is only $5 and gives you every die for every system they make: X-Wing, Edge of the Empire, Imperial Assault, and even Armada. Plus it makes pew pew noises...

Roll20 and Fantasy Ground each have visual EotE die rolling available, as well as MapTool. There is also an app for Google+ Hangouts that has die rolling. So you might not need to buy any Physical dice at all.

TL;DR

Grab the PDF, buy the FFG app. You're in for $5, and you can use the app for X-Wing regardless!

Awesome, thanks!