I'm going to apologise in advance for a rather scatty post, everpresent insomnia make lucidity are rarity. Hopefully other posters will come to my aid. In short my issues are 3 races & various spaceships in every career book for no real reason & support for Star Wars RPG Meta is an afterthought. Here is the rest of the post. EDIT: Also in a fit of nerdyness, I started comparing the Duros in AoR and Enter the Unknown (Explorers book for EoTE) There has been a rewrite & I have yet to evaluate the changes) Also Post #9 has some previous threads linked. Thanks. Checking out Order 66 Podcast for some dev interviews.

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I got *issues* with the division of content in the different Star Wars product line. That it even produces a lack of place on forums to discuss Star Wars RPG issues that don't neatly lend themselves to particularly to EoTE, AoR, F&D really bugs me. This "Game Masters" sub-forum seems to be an afterthought & an attempt to address that.

My primary issue is Races & Spaceships spread out among different books. Why not region books with races associated with those regions put in there. Instead we have each Career book containing 3 races, no less no more, that are not especially associated with the rest of the content - So far the Duros has been repeated. Why does the colonist book have spaceships at all? It looks very much like there are no races or spaceships planned in a single publication. I wonder if races & spaceships are being spread out among the various books to entice us to buy more of the books rather than them actually belonging there.

The Hutt space book is looking essential, I was hoping there would be an Empire Sourcebook along the same lines. Sure give you guys some time, but the Hutt Space book would be a great place to put some race/culture material in along with some spaceships relevant to hauling & piracy. I'd imagine you could be doing the same for the Empire. People need some spaceships in the meantime, but the races could probably be delayed, we all have wookipedia after all & can most likely make do until something substantial comes out.

I won't pretend to know much about publishing, but when you decide to produce a 96 page rulebook, you will tend to have either the problem of either padding the book out, or pruning it down. And both, "Greetings sub editor, you got 13 pages to cover the following concepts by this date". I'm sure having a wad of material reprinted does not have a linear effect on costs & reprinting core rules might not seem like such a problem to the publisher. To the consumer though, it means cutting material out without increasing the utility of the publicaiton. At the table, it can be handy to have a 2nd set of core rules to look at so maybe repeating core material isn't such a big deal.

I guess I'm covering old ground you have not merely discussed internally but you are having industry experience to back you up. To that I say, look at World of Darkness 2.0, the repeated material was character creation along with the unique "apply supernatural template". The actual Core Rules was in its own book. The space saving could go to the Vampire/Werewolf/Mage/Changeling stuff. When you have arbitrary content decisions like "It must have 3 races in there & X Spaceships (or X pages for spaceships) other content will be squashed out. Content for which the book was supposedly for, which the consumer is presumably buying the book for, while shoehorned content, Races & Spaceships - which has no real reason to be there - isn't merely sqeezing other content out, it becomes will be spread out amongst various books with no real reason to remember which book you saw stuff in.

In around a years time, we will have 3 Core books, well on the way to 15x96page Career books & not a **** clue which book we got X race or Y spaceship from & some of that material will be repeated. Duros has already been repeated once & you are about 1/3rd done.

The gate was open & the horse has bolted, but less than half of those books are printed, there is still time to clean this up.

I strongly suggest F&D be a sourcebook rather than yet another book with core rules repeated. Can we avoid repeating races again?

Nothing is going to be done about this. It might be time to just accept it and find a way to live your life

Or read the 15000000 other threads about this exact same comments.

Or read the 15000000 other threads about this exact same comments.

Sure, I did a search & found nothing, I don't suppose you could be bothered to link me what you consider the best thread on this.

I'll disagree. Give me more races and starships. Most of the time they all make sense for each career book, but even for those that don't, I'm not complaining. It's [mostly] new material. And even the reprints are for different core products. There hasn't been a reprint of species or ships within any given segment.

Absolutely make Force and Destiny a core product. That's my favorite part of Star Wars and I want it to have as much love and attention as the other 2.

Nothing is going to be done about this. It might be time to just accept it and find a way to live your life

Considering we are only about 1/3 of the way through this process & I'm getting fatigued from this, accepting it and moving on might mean buying less of their stuff. Races & Spaceships is compromising the appeal of their product - this is significant.

They do this to entice people to buy them.

I may not have an interest with that class of character...but new races, ships, equipment...now maybe I'll buy it.

From a marketing standpoint, you get more people interested in the product by hitting more interests.

From a customer service standpoint, you get more info than just stuff tied to a particular class, so even if you don't currently have anyone playing that class, it's still got something you could use.

From a players standpoint, it's a DLC style money grab for those that want all the extra stuff, but not the base info from that particular book.

Sure, I'd rather have a book of races, a book of equipment, a book for each class, a book of vehicles. But then only the people interested in that 1 subject buys that 1 book. If I'm obsessed with all equipment, I want to get every book, and I justify that by adding in the additional vehicles and races I get.

It's standard RPG fare really. Heck, if you really want to make yourself ill, go back to D&D 2nd or 3rd edition. You had books for EVERYTHING. A book for each race, each class, etc. We used to joke about how we couldn't wait for the Complete Book of Dwarf Fighters Named Larry and stuff like that.

My group learned long ago to just avoid all that extra fluff. Focus on the core books and ignore the rest.

The extra stuff is just nice, they are enjoyable to read and to spark imagination, and saves you some time coming up with concepts.
But really in a RPG you don't even need these books, you can make up your own rules on the stats of a Duros or how much a x-wing costs, you could even remove the mechanics and try to rely on your imagination entirely (im sure this is hard but still possible)

Or read the 15000000 other threads about this exact same comments.

Sure, I did a search & found nothing, I don't suppose you could be bothered to link me what you consider the best thread on this.

Well, you asked for it.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/135806-a-few-questions-about-the-sw-rpg-line-of-ffg/?hl=%2B%26%2339%3Bthree+%2Bcore+%2Brule+%2Bbooks#entry1461663

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/134641-why-different-core-rules/?hl=%2B%26%2339%3Bthree+%2Bcore+%2Brule+%2Bbooks#entry1444857

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/128922-do-i-need-both-core-rule-books/?hl=%2B%26%2339%3Bthree+%2Bcore+%2Brule+%2Bbooks

That is with about 5 seconds of searching. I can pretty much guaranty most comments about why the system is the way it is, is on those threads or the multitude of others if i bothered to search for longer than 5 seconds.

I suppose if you wait long enough at the end of the Star Wars FFG run you might get a chance of, "Complete Book of Races", "Complete Book of Vehicles & Starships", "Complete Book of Careers", and "Complete Book of Gear & Armaments".

As was already said above, it was done for marketing purposes. Each of the career books has something for each of us. So, each of us buys it. Plus, if they started with mammoth "Complete Book of Races, $40" and "Complete Book of Careers, $40" out the gate, we would still be waiting for the other Complete Books with thus little in the way to offer when picking vehicles, starships, creatures, and gear (only what we got in the core books). Then, a couple new races get introduced in a new novel/movie/comic and your Complete Book of Races needs a reprint. Repeat every few months.

I like the books the way they are. They are like a series of official fanzines full of a variety of good stuff - gear, vehicles, specialties, and more! I DO hope for compendiums at the VERY END of the print run. I'll buy those too FFG.

Here's the long and short of it. Print media is dying in this world. Books are going the way of the dinosaur. Digital media is killing it along with all other aspects, like the art included in the books. Artists work for peanuts. So, if a game company doesn't come up with a way to draw out the material over a number of publications, nothing of the product quality seen in the FFG Star Wars books will happen. Don't believe, feel free to peruse the D&D forums and the complaints about their 5E launch, I love the game but the books used a poor binding method and are falling apart, and the QC was non existent practically on the print process.

You're perfectly well and right to not like it, but if you think it's going to change you can go right ahead and plan on being perpetually disappointed.

As a GM, I really like the way they are putting out content. Every book has something useful for my group, if not as player options than in the form of fleshed out NPCs, encounters and setting details.

I appreciate the format of the books. It's nice to see both new player and GM options in each of the books. Give us a few races. Give us a few ships. And despite what you think I feel that the races and ships are themed quite nicely with the rest of the book's content.

Books take what? A few months to come out? Would you really be willing to put your game on hold until a book of races comes out?

Nothing is going to be done about this. It might be time to just accept it and find a way to live your life

Considering we are only about 1/3 of the way through this process & I'm getting fatigued from this, accepting it and moving on might mean buying less of their stuff. Races & Spaceships is compromising the appeal of their product - this is significant.

Well, considering that there is nothing you can do about it and they're not going to suddenly decide to completely revamp their product release strategy after having invested in it heavily for several years and having great success, in my opinion "accept it and find a way to live your life" seems like your best option.

If FFG did it that way:

"I don't understand FFG's thought's, why do they make me buy a huge source book with every alien that's ever been mentioned in Star Wars just so I can play a Duro pilot. It's not like they're some fringe, uncommon race. Then they want me to buy a whole huge ships book to fly something other than a YT-1300? and I still have to wait for the "Jobs in the galaxy" book stuffed with colony rules and running shops and other crap I don't need just to get rules on how to smuggle goods? Bloody cash grabs, why can't they just make a smuggler book?"

Edit: 1,001 posts!

Edit: 1,001 posts!

Congrats!

I like the career book idea. Though it would be nice to have a "Player's Guide" type thing so I didn't have to keep having my Player's grubby hands on my books. =) I want to put highlights/notes/Post-its/idea things but I can't put those kinds of clues there for my Players to get foreshadowing. =)

But other than that I fully support the FFG lines as they are and I like how with the new AoR "sector book" it is more AoR focused with rebellion strongholds/etc which is neat. It makes it seem likely the first F&D one will have Force type neato places.

I wonder if races & spaceships are being spread out among the various books to entice us to buy more of the books rather than them actually belonging there.

Two ways to view this: either they're "enticing" you, or they're trying to create products with broad enough appeal so they can stay in business. The last two incarnations of Star Wars RPGs suffered because the marketing truth is that providing a single book focussed on one thing limits sales only to those interested in that thing. WotC figured out that every book had to have new species, but they still made the mistake of issuing a "starships of the galaxy" or "villians of the galaxy", and even a Clone Wars book while TCW show was still in full swing. If you issue a couple books that don't interest a large audience, you lose money quickly, which, from what I understand, is basically what happened to WotC.

In terms of marketing, FFG has hit the sweet spot I think. Every book so far has something of interest to me. If that's what it takes to keep the material flowing, so be it.

congrats, quicksilver.

not buying a product doesn't diminish the fun of your game.I'mI not getting the Hutt book.we don't play in nal hutta. no one in my group plays a Hutt Ior will play a Hutt. fforce and destiny, I got the beta and I'll upgrade to the core, then get nothing else because my group doesn't play just. It won'ttake away from my game not to have a book on the table. just my.money for a book if I get a book I don't want

I can see what you're saying, but the species and ships we've gotten have been themed. hired guns book: Burley races that like to fight. powerful ships that can take damage and give it. and the other books follow the same ideas. honestly, I like how this has been going. after the horrors of revised d20 and 3.5, this Is nice. I can see what you're saying, but it would be too unwieldy, and require constant updates.

congrats, quicksilver.

not buying a product doesn't diminish the fun of your game.I'mI not getting the Hutt book.we don't play in nal hutta. no one in my group plays a Hutt Ior will play a Hutt. fforce and destiny, I got the beta and I'll upgrade to the core, then get nothing else because my group doesn't play just. It won'ttake away from my game not to have a book on the table. just my.money for a book if I get a book I don't want

I can see what you're saying, but the species and ships we've gotten have been themed. hired guns book: Burley races that like to fight. powerful ships that can take damage and give it. and the other books follow the same ideas. honestly, I like how this has been going. after the horrors of revised d20 and 3.5, this Is nice. I can see what you're saying, but it would be too unwieldy, and require constant updates.

I am so glad I stayed away from most of d20 and the OCR.

Regardless, I find I disagree with your statement about not buying what you don't want to currently play. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to insult you or say that you are "Not a Twue Gamer" or any such thing. I just find that if I don't purchase most books in a game series then later on they will become unavailable. I have played in games where the rule books have been discontinued or impossible to find.

I hate borrowing books for games that I play. I always treat them with a special consideration, but I would hate to have a book disintegrate on me while I am borrowing it from a friend. And yes that has happened to me with Shadowrun (3rd Edition) before.

My group has a habit of playing older games that we drag off the shelf every so often. While I hope it takes a long time, eventually FFG will discontinue the system. On that sad day, if you and your friends want to play it or use it to compare with the newest Star Wars RPG (such as WEG and SAGA are now) it may be hard to find.

That is why I try to purchase complete systems as best as I can if I enjoy them. I might not buy the adventure modules, but the important stuff I grab up while I can.

Carpe Biblio!

(I have no idea if that is the correct way to say that...I never took Latin)

I get what you're saying, and there's nothing wrong with bring prepare. however, on not, not will ever, advocate spending money on something that you have made an informed decision that you don't want.

informed decision that you don't want.

(emphasis mine)

That's the crux of it, I believe. There are many reasons to want something, and to value that want against reasons not to obtain the book (such as cost). Those are going to be different for all people. For some people, the fact that it's an Edge of the Empire product is sufficient to want the publication. For others, they may see a few ships or species of value to them before they want the publication. For yet others, nearly everything in the book must be useful (or potentially useful) to their campaign for them to want the publication. And for yet others, no amount or type of material is going to make them want the publication, and those people will happily play with just the CRB until the end.

I get what you're saying, and there's nothing wrong with bring prepare. however, on not, not will ever, advocate spending money on something that you have made an informed decision that you don't want.

If you have zero interest in the book that makes complete sense. It seemed to be more that you were not currently interested in the book because currently no one was playing a hutt or travelling to Hutt space.

and this is what on saying to Jedi. the products aren't designed to be necessary. getting a supplement should add to.the enjoyment of your group. if it will activity take it away, as he feels it will, then don't get it.there's no law that says you need to buy one. ffg isn't going to change it's marketing strategy, but if you don't like it, keep with the core. it's still a good product and an enjoyable game.

This topic seems to come up once a month, I personally take no issue with the business decision to spread the Species/Vehicle/Starship/Droid/Gear content up between multiple books and to see the occasional species repeat between separate compatible game lines. My concern is that they eventually won't give me all of what I want at the pace of 3 per unless we eventually get some species/starship/droid compendiums.