Hi folks. We're about to embark on our first RPG, with me as a first-time GM, and we've picked Edge as our game of choice.

We'll be playing the Beginner Game in a couple of weeks to see how we get on (we've obviously bought more extras than sensible already, despite not having played), with the intention of then embarking on a 'real' campaign.

Half of my players are dead keen on creating their own characters in preparation for the 'real' campaign, so whatever we do in the Beginner game will become obsolete.

So I guess my question is/are:

1. Can I use their custom characters for the intro campaign, and just do without the neat step-by-step instructions available?*

2. The easiest campaign-progression seems to be the "Long Arm of the Hutt" campaign, but how heavily does that rely on the supplied characters?

3. If we use the default characters for Beginner, and then pick a new campaign for real, what campaign should we start with? BtR?

thanks!

*We're all seasoned tabletop gamers, and the ones that want to create their own chars are putting a lot of thought into this, so it might be possible to swap in "the face" and "the brawler" or whatever, rather than end up with 4 spread-spectrum random characters. Also, the ones that aren't creating their own chars are the ones that will most benefit from having the step-by-step character sheets - the ones rolling their own won't have any problem picking up on the progression rules.

Long Arm of the Hutt does not depend on any of the characters, feel free to make your own.

Note that the players in the beginner box are not 100% compatible with a character made from scratch with the full rules, but it's close enough. Use Oggdude's character generator if you want to convert.

How I ran one of my beginner box sessions was using the pregens up to the point of capturing the ship. Next session some people created new characters (some stuck with the pregens), so the new characters ran up to the ship...in-story these new characters were also fleeing Teemo and had just taken a different route. The old characters then just became passengers to Ryloth and were never seen again...

BtR is a good followup, but you'll need to invent a segue.

I like the sound of that. Simple, and lets them use their own characters as soon as possible, without breaking the theme. Also might solve another problem I have, which is a player that might turn out to be a bit flaky, so only turn up sometimes - he can be one of the travellers

My biggest unknown at the moment is how they're going to react to the RP element - we currently play a fairly co-op games (Zombiecide, Dead of Winter, BSG, Arkham, Xia, etc) fairly hard-core min/max, so getting them not to take the piss out of each other's RP will be fun. Never know, it might all just work out

Making a character can be time-consuming, especially if somebody invests a lot of work into a good back-story, motivation, etc. Inter-character conflict can cause inter-personal conflict if they feel all that work was for nothing, so I'd emphasize the team aspect, at least until everybody has a handle on the game and all parties are okay with rivalries.

Pre-Generated are nice for people that aren't familiar with Pen and Paper RolePlaying Games. I really don't think it will matter if you have all Pre-Gen, all Custom, or even half and half. Let someone with a good idea develop theirs. If someone doesn't want to do that, the pre-gens give a good idea on a backstory and how to be involved and the first stages of leveling up. In fact, you don't have to have just the 4 characters. Most of it is scalable very easily (like the first encounter says "as many Gamorreans as players"). The only difference might be the fight with Trex, but by the time you get there, you'll have a basic idea of how things are rolling along. We completed it with just two players once, so it can be done... though I'm not sure two brand new players would be successful.

As for the roleplaying, just give them opportunities to talk. In most of the beginner's box you won't get much.. but after they are on the ship, you'll have some serious downtime that they can begin discussing things and getting into character. For tabletop gamers, the quips and quotes can flow easily (and RP players can be as bad), just let them know that they need to discuss this "in character". If they do a good job, let them know. If not, don't talk to them as a group, just talk one-on-one and give them a single pointer that might make roleplaying more fun for them for the next session. If they are bad at it at first, provide lots of opportunities for combat but in time you should reasonably be able to get them to talk more and more. Confront them with more social situations. Odds are they will pick it up and run with it. If they are very bad at it, run a "player character" yourself so that you can start dialogue and coach them into what you want.

Only possible catch I've seen so far is the PreGens that come with the Beginner box are not built to standard starting rules. So if you have a group of 3 builders and 1 PreGen, the pregen may seem a little OP. Not that huge an issue though as once you're through the first Act of LAotH everything should start to balance out.

Little tip on LAotH: