Hello All,

I'm getting ready to run for my group, we are all longtime gaming veterans. I recently ran the group through the Starter Box adventure and we all had a great time with that. Now onto making characters and such which has gone smoothly, pretty straight forward system. I have a few questions that I'd love some feedback on from GMs and players alike. I would like shorter answers, a few sentences at most for the questions, so that I can come back with some follow ups based on what I read as I may not need the long answer initially.

1. What kind of gotchas have come up in reguards to rules holes? I've been busy searching the 3 various flavors of the game. I've looked over the erratas as well. As an example I'm looking for either loopholes and suggested fixes, perhaps a link to ones you've made or others have. Also, some snafu type situations that may cause the action to grind to a halt. I've GMd for over 35 years, so I can handle strange player direction changes, etc. I have found some really great answers, but is there something that threw you for a loop.

2. As a GM what kind of power curve or min/max situations should I be on the up and up about, as we are all new to the system, we don't want to break things purposely too far. The PCs are the heroes so as a GM I am aware that they need to have some badassness in a number of things. I am the kind of GM who will go if they can do it, as the player on the other side of the table so can I in some situations. In the opposite are the areas where the PCs could really suffer if they don't have X or access to Y. Players are creative and I've been quite impressed by what they can with their PCs.

3. In a combat, if the PCs or NPCs are just getting their backsides handed to them, where would you draw things to a close in an in game cinematic style? As many times its the NPCs who are just cut down, at which point the fight isn't worth fighting. As a counter how would you handle a head strong group of PCs and as an extension their players, in that they will feel the wrath of a major opponent and the resources they may bring to bare on the PCs and in knowing the in game reputation by the NPC of the PCs?

4. Now a bit of insight on the campaign, it's based of the Darth Vader:Dark Lord Rising story and is set about 5 weeks after the creation of Mr. Vader. If you've read it help me with your game and game system knowledge so I may be better able to facilitate this style of campaign. I have two force using padawans created with F & D, and a droid bounty hunter, a wookie tech and another tech, I don't think he has decided his race. The two force users are the warrior with the pilot force path and a human defender type jedi. I don't have my book in front of me currently so please excuse the lack of info there.

Thanks

KSW

1. I'm not aware of many important gotchas. People complain about too much Soak, and Strain dealers like Marauder/Doctor mixes, but if your players don't make monolithic characters you should be able to avoid that. Except for early on, my players have made well-balanced PCs, so I haven't experienced anything unusual since those first days.

2. Monolithic characters. They will find parts of the game too easy, and be bored or useless for the rest. So a Wookiee could technically get to Brawn 5, but the player will be annoyed when they become afraid of rat swarms because they failed a Discipline roll. Basically I think once somebody has a dice pool of 5, with 3 or 4 yellows, they can expect to own most situations that rely on that pool.

3. If the PCs get their backsides handed to them, capturing them is perfectly reasonable. Prison breakout sessions can be a lot of fun. It's also useful if the PCs are headstrong, just to show you can "defeat" them, but it's not the end of the story like it might be in other games.

Whafrog,

Thanks for that input. As we are long time gamers we do at times attempt to stress and bend the new games we play to see how much they can stretch to accommodate our indivdual play style. As I've been reviewing odds and ends of this system I see how it may be important to spend advantages or disadvantages to break/disable player equipment at inopportune times. In our starter adventure we frequently did this to each side of the tables equipment. You can nerf a characters effects on a given situation by creative use of this strategy. I'm sure its tempting to place multiple strain on a potential target, but in the course of an adventure, a equipment malfunction can have a much greater impact over the course of an adventure or evening of play.

The one solid thing about the group I play with is how we diversify their PCs as well as have alternative ideas or methods to deal with a situation. They typically have a PC have a prime roll in the party as well as a semi functional backup in the party.

KSW

1. As froggy said, not a lot of "gotcha"'s. Being a narrative game, it doesn't rely on rule minutiae, so rule books are rarely flipped during play. If you're having problems with some esoteric rule, just make a judgement call and say that you'll research the issue out of game so you'll know how it works next session. My group rarely goes through rulebooks during play, and even when they do, it's generally to look up stats for a weapon or ship.

2. It'll work with any power "level" as long as all the PCs are at roughly the same level. Disparities in power can cause imbalance, especially in combat situations. If you want longevity out of a campaign, however, you should urge your players to expand "out" rather than "up" (as Desslok put it). In other words, don't just shoot down your spec tree to Dedication and give yourself a 5 Agility and 5 in Ranged Light and Heavy so you're super awesome at shooting things. Besides being boring and one-dimensional (again, see some of the problems that wafrog stated), it can cause players to lose interest in even the most carefully planned campaign, and before you know it, your Saturday night game will be breaking up. If, however, a PC kept his 4 Agility and used that Dedication to raise his Cunning to 3, then took the XP he saved from only taking 3 ranks in a couple of skills instead of 5 and bought the Thief specialization... he now has a bunch more options, more things to spend XP on, and can potentially create a much more interesting character (a blaster ninja? Who knows?) that he'll want to continue playing for a long time in your campaign.

3. If you've seriously misjudged the balance of an encounter... eh, just fake a roll or two, but don't look like you're faking a roll You can also have the bad guys escape, have the hand of God come in and do something major to the encounter (and make it look like you had planned that all along), or have the PC's captured and have to escape from captivity (and find all their stuff). This has happened to me once or twice. While it's pretty simple to deal with if you've under-powered your bad guys (pretty much, they just die and the PCs are happy), when the PCs are on the smaller end of the power scale, it can be a lot trickier to get them extricated. Again, make sure it doesn't look like you're fudging the battle if that's what you decide on doing; you'll lose credibility

1. Not sure off the top of my head.

2. Beware the droid PC that starts out with a 5 in Brawn. There have been more than a few threads on the PC with a soak in the double digits. It's also fairly easy to activate autofire for certain weapons if you are familiar with rules (Superior, Jury Rigged, etc...)

3. I seem to remember a paragraph or a sidebar on resolving combat with a single check, but I couldn't immediately find it in my copy of Age of Rebellion.

Thanks All,

I recall the sidebar about the single die roll cinematic combats. I'll keep that on a sticky note of game reminders!

I will stress to the players about expanding around, and as I played with these guys for a few years, it is what we typically do. We recently wrapped up a L5R campaign where there was a required pyramid based skill system. You are required to have more lower level skills than the level above. We have only recently gotten to level 5 skills. I can't see doing that in this system. but the suggestion about spreading out will definitely be mentioned. As for the Auto-fire I'll also bring it up, Auto-fire can conceivably wipe a PC of the battlefield as well from what I looking at.

I do have a follow up questions.

4) Modifying stated opponents and custom building nemesis level opponents. Do you find these processes easy to do and do you have any suggestions. I do not want every thug with a face to be a carbon copy, the faceless guys can be quite generic to me, the way you make them feel different is how you use the to engage the players PCs. i.e. Command and Control structure as well as leader strategy and group tactics. As far as the nemesis level enemies go do you tailor them, or make your concept and work around your nemesis' strengths and weaknesses? I tend to develop an idea and work around their makeup rather than customize them for the players. To me it seems more organic and genuine.

5) How much do you let the players modify their ships? or equipment? Do you tend to use the rarity level and if you do how hard are they for a player to get around with the various skills and abilities the PCs have? Obviously the purchase of hard to find goods can cause eyes to take a look that way and information to travel this way and that. Next as far as mods go are there some that can break the game if found too easily. I am planning on bumping up the rarity levels as it's just a few weeks after the Rise of the New Galactic Empire, so everyone is really paranoid of attracting the wrong people or they want to save it for their own protection.

We also frequently play the FATE system, a bastardized Thundarr the Barbarian game "Blue Gnu and Friends" and it's quite a wild ride as times!

As I said I've seen throughout the forums the mention of double digit soak. I know the player playing the Droid PC did not place his brawn at 5. He is looking forward to having internal gear. Well just because it's internal doesn't mean I can't break/disable it with the use of advantage and disadvantages. Recently when we were playing the starter box adventure, one player kept generating a lot of advantage and having their foes run out of ammo. During the Storm Trooper fight he had two of them run out of ammo. I did get them later during the escape scene on the the Kryate Fang. I had a shield go down. However they did take out a laser cannon on one of the Tie fighters. We are all loving the die system and are always seeing how creative we can be with the use of the advantage system.

We have had some chats about what would be reasonable for the spending of the (dis)advantage generated. We all agree that the character should be flavorful and feel like they come from the Star Wars universe, we all have player the previous incarnations of the Star Wars RPGs (the d6 and the D20 & Saga versions). They were hesitant about it, but I really stressed to them that it was a completely different way of thinking with this incarnation, especially the chance of failure, but the chance of also generating a benefit to their side somehow and vis-versa with succeeding and getting the bone. As with any game we play we are always on the lookout for power curve issues. I've seen a lot of talk for example on the F&D forum about some Force power tree such as move and heal/harm. As we haven't started to play yet, they will finish up characters this Thursday. We are also only using the core Edge of the Empire and the beta Force and Destiny book [like there is a choice there ;-) ] I have allowed the races found in any of the 3 core books save a few as campaign wise they may not yet have a lot of presence in the campaign timeline.

I have also visited a lot of people's campaign sites to see how things have gone in their games and as I am in the solid believe of "Why recreate the wheel" I have found a number of great Star Wars flavored different tires(things) I can place onto my rims so to speak. As an intro adventure for example I am taking the adventure in the back of the EofE core book and moded it to work for me, instead of the droid being screwed over in the beginning, it will be the one of padawan's Masters who will be on the ground dieing. Though both padawans will be captured instead of the astromech, however I have another use for that droid. It will be the one walks, err rolls into the bar later on and gets picked on by the toughs. I will be fleshing out their obligations as well Thursday, plus the padawans moral balance.

I think I took a look at GM Hooly's site, I really like how it was organized and it was based in the same era as I am running though his game is set 5 years after the fall of the Republic. We also have into documents for the campaigns that setup character build guidelines and even better he had a mixed campaign too and I borrowed his and changed a number of items to better fit what I was going for. For the campaign the padawan PCs are required to have the moral guideline and also an obligation, though it is only at a value of 5. As they are still padawans they still may have outside influences that could play a part against their jedi training, this is more of an roleplay influence. I also allowed the padawan characters to select additional obligation to bump up their starting XP or Credits. I really love as a GM placing characters at odds with each others moral zones as this kind of drama can draw out players as great role-players and a great table experience as well allow for a lot of tension. Having a mature group really allows this to work too. We have a really good L5R game running with a lot of inner party clan politics. I will bring the moral politics into the picture, I don't know how they will react to this, but I'm really looking forward to seeing if I can bend one of the padawan players to the dark side, what player will sell out the group to settle an obligation, only to come in and save them thus throwing off the other players unwanted attention in that area. Nothing like being a false hero to make a few creds.