... I've come in late and apologise profusely as I only got the EotE Core Rulebook & dice last week *hangs head in shame, waits for someone to shoot first*

Anyway, all I'm asking is which previously released system, d6 or D20, would be more useful for background material, mainly planets/systems etc. I've already found enough ship deck plans to keep my printer busy for the next few days and name generators online

I did spot the D20 Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds as a start point...

I'm not needing any stats, just 'stuff'

Any thoughts, suggestions, ideas and general derogatory comments for purchasing the Core rules so late much appreciated

From what I've heard, WEG's d6 version is the most compatible with comparatively little tweaking. But if you're just looking for stuff, I recommend Wookieepedia and, if you absolutely must have a book, The Essential Atlas or any of the other Essential titles. You don't need much else. Though the d6 books will either be very cheap or ridiculously expensive.

If you don't need stats, I find WotC's Saga Edition books to be the most "readable" for background info and game story ideas. One of my favorite books from that line is The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide (currently on clearance at Miniature Market for $8), and my second favorite is the Rebellion Era Sourcebook. I'd suggest Googling those two titles. They have given me lots of ideas for running EotE and AoR games.

The WEG material, while useful, seems to be way more disjointed...the style of writing/editing, the organization of the books, just isn't as easy for me to follow.

or you could start here...

http://d6holocron.com/

and see where you end up.

Yeah, D20's stuff, especially saga is fairly recent (precanon wipe, but otherwise...) and covers a lot of ground. But it's stats aren't easily converted.

WEG's thing was it was essentially writing what became the foundation for all EU. That's also why people like it, as the first appearance of a lot of material, WEG tends to present things in their purest form, before half a dozen novelists have re-purposed things to fit their individual needs. WEG covered a lot of ground before losing the license in the late 90's so if you want to run something like a Pirate themed campaign, WEG is still the go to source, and FFG mines WEG mats regularly.

WEG was a smaller operation, so as Away points out it's not as consistent in style and as such can be a little weird to read from one book to another. Also there's a lot of very official looking fan produced material of questionable value (Protip: if it's a "WEG product" and features something from a prequel, it's a fan product, not WEG).

Gotta say WEG.

I bought (and read) every word of WotC's SAGA edition, but their setting stuff seemed (to me) so tied to a lot of novels and comics that I'd never bothered with (and didn't want to). The glory of WEG was that they were in a position to just invent whatever they wanted. I made an entire 25 episode campaign (and a website) out of their original 'Elrood Sector' - and all that material came out of one book...

I'm aware of all the EU stuff.... soooo much stuff... cheers guys, I'll take a look at all siggestions

Gotta say WEG.

I bought (and read) every word of WotC's SAGA edition, but their setting stuff seemed (to me) so tied to a lot of novels and comics that I'd never bothered with (and didn't want to). The glory of WEG was that they were in a position to just invent whatever they wanted. I made an entire 25 episode campaign (and a website) out of their original 'Elrood Sector' - and all that material came out of one book...

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't part of WotC's issue that they were under pressure from LucasFilm to cross-market the novels, comics, ect? I seem to recall a discussion about one of the core books being required to give the Yuzaan Vong "equal screen time" as original and prequel trilogy material because that book series was the one LF was schilling at the time. Though maybe it just seems that way because the Vong were such a hot topic at the time....

And still a volatile topic between Star Wars fans. More so then the prequals most times.

Gotta say WEG.

I bought (and read) every word of WotC's SAGA edition, but their setting stuff seemed (to me) so tied to a lot of novels and comics that I'd never bothered with (and didn't want to). The glory of WEG was that they were in a position to just invent whatever they wanted. I made an entire 25 episode campaign (and a website) out of their original 'Elrood Sector' - and all that material came out of one book...

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't part of WotC's issue that they were under pressure from LucasFilm to cross-market the novels, comics, ect? I seem to recall a discussion about one of the core books being required to give the Yuzaan Vong "equal screen time" as original and prequel trilogy material because that book series was the one LF was schilling at the time. Though maybe it just seems that way because the Vong were such a hot topic at the time....

That is definitely ringing a bell now that you mention it, though I can't remember specifics. Certainly seems likely though - and seems extremely likely that Disney will have a similar mandate...

That's good and bad, in my view. Having everything tied together in upcoming FFG books is not so daunting, now that we're starting from Square One. But at the same time, I miss opening a WEG book and finding dozens of new worlds, vehicles, and (playable!) species.

Gotta say WEG.

I bought (and read) every word of WotC's SAGA edition, but their setting stuff seemed (to me) so tied to a lot of novels and comics that I'd never bothered with (and didn't want to). The glory of WEG was that they were in a position to just invent whatever they wanted. I made an entire 25 episode campaign (and a website) out of their original 'Elrood Sector' - and all that material came out of one book...

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't part of WotC's issue that they were under pressure from LucasFilm to cross-market the novels, comics, ect? I seem to recall a discussion about one of the core books being required to give the Yuzaan Vong "equal screen time" as original and prequel trilogy material because that book series was the one LF was schilling at the time. Though maybe it just seems that way because the Vong were such a hot topic at the time....

That might have been an issue with the RCR d20 edition (they have a good amount of Vong stuff), but certainly wasn't with Saga Saga Edition paid as little attention to the Yuuzhan Vong (and the NJO Era in general) as possible. The line is conspicuously missing a New Jedi Order Era Sourcebook, and IIRC (a big disclaimer here, pretty sure I heard in on the Order 66 Podcast, but this would have been years ago now) the reason was that the WotC guys didn't really like the Vong all that much, so it was like bottom of the priority list for them to cover.

Gotta say WEG.

I bought (and read) every word of WotC's SAGA edition, but their setting stuff seemed (to me) so tied to a lot of novels and comics that I'd never bothered with (and didn't want to). The glory of WEG was that they were in a position to just invent whatever they wanted. I made an entire 25 episode campaign (and a website) out of their original 'Elrood Sector' - and all that material came out of one book...

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't part of WotC's issue that they were under pressure from LucasFilm to cross-market the novels, comics, ect? I seem to recall a discussion about one of the core books being required to give the Yuzaan Vong "equal screen time" as original and prequel trilogy material because that book series was the one LF was schilling at the time. Though maybe it just seems that way because the Vong were such a hot topic at the time....

That might have been an issue with the RCR d20 edition (they have a good amount of Vong stuff), but certainly wasn't with Saga Saga Edition paid as little attention to the Yuuzhan Vong (and the NJO Era in general) as possible. The line is conspicuously missing a New Jedi Order Era Sourcebook, and IIRC (a big disclaimer here, pretty sure I heard in on the Order 66 Podcast, but this would have been years ago now) the reason was that the WotC guys didn't really like the Vong all that much, so it was like bottom of the priority list for them to cover.

SAGA came from the same company, so they'd already done Vong and other stuff... And it was generally still compatible with some Errata for some stats.

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't part of WotC's issue that they were under pressure from LucasFilm to cross-market the novels, comics, ect? I seem to recall a discussion about one of the core books being required to give the Yuzaan Vong "equal screen time" as original and prequel trilogy material because that book series was the one LF was schilling at the time. Though maybe it just seems that way because the Vong were such a hot topic at the time....

I had an associate who worked at WotC and he was pretty clear that Lucasfilm was a real beast to work with. They had very tight controls on what they could do, mandated all kinds of restrictions, the approval process was a pain and they ruled the company with an iron hand. He didn't say as much, but I strongly suspect that one of the reasons they gave up the license was it was too much work for too little return.

Also there's a lot of very official looking fan produced material of questionable value (Protip: if it's a "WEG product" and features something from a prequel, it's a fan product, not WEG).

Boy that must have been heartbreaking for the creative teams. If they had just lasted another 12 or 14 months, they would have been in the sweet zone of the Episode One avalanche. They could have tapped some of that sweet, sweet Phantom Menace money.

But no, the Shoe company had to drag them down just a bit too early. And I weep for what could have been. . . .

The glory of WEG was that they were in a position to just invent whatever they wanted.

Plus they were in that sweet zone where everyone thought that the franchise was stone cold dead. The comics had ran its course, the action figures were in the 99 cent bins, Zhan was still 6 years away from breathing life back into the series - they got away with so much stuff because nobody cared about what the hell they were doing. They had the run of the castle, no supervision and license to do anything.

Yeah part of me wonders if the supervision is why there has as far as I recall no mention of the Alliance privateer program in the material.

It is kind of weird though. I could see them not wanting the good guys to use pirates except that Disney has an entire franchise where the protagonists are pirates so why would they have problems with the Alliance having privateers?

Yeah part of me wonders if the supervision is why there has as far as I recall no mention of the Alliance privateer program in the material.

It is kind of weird though. I could see them not wanting the good guys to use pirates except that Disney has an entire franchise where the protagonists are pirates so why would they have problems with the Alliance having privateers?

In the WEG stuff? There was no book on privateers (I don't believe) but there was an article in the Star Wars Adventure Journal Vol. 1 #2. Rebel Privateers.

I found a lot of inspiration in encounters and adventures from all range of Star Wars RPGs

Yeah part of me wonders if the supervision is why there has as far as I recall no mention of the Alliance privateer program in the material.

It is kind of weird though. I could see them not wanting the good guys to use pirates except that Disney has an entire franchise where the protagonists are pirates so why would they have problems with the Alliance having privateers?

Because Disney didn't own Star Wars/Lucas Film until years after WotC gave up the license.

Yeah part of me wonders if the supervision is why there has as far as I recall no mention of the Alliance privateer program in the material.

It is kind of weird though. I could see them not wanting the good guys to use pirates except that Disney has an entire franchise where the protagonists are pirates so why would they have problems with the Alliance having privateers?

In the WEG stuff? There was no book on privateers (I don't believe) but there was an article in the Star Wars Adventure Journal Vol. 1 #2. Rebel Privateers.

And the Pirates and Privateers sourcebook, and the Far Orbit Project campaign.....

Yeah part of me wonders if the supervision is why there has as far as I recall no mention of the Alliance privateer program in the material.

It is kind of weird though. I could see them not wanting the good guys to use pirates except that Disney has an entire franchise where the protagonists are pirates so why would they have problems with the Alliance having privateers?

In the WEG stuff? There was no book on privateers (I don't believe) but there was an article in the Star Wars Adventure Journal Vol. 1 #2. Rebel Privateers.

And the Pirates and Privateers sourcebook, and the Far Orbit Project campaign.....

I stand corrected. Not as familiar with all of WEG's stuff.