Not even. I don't use scribd.

You can run SW with mini-d6 and wookiepedia entirely for free, if you so choose. Then you have the WEG systems, in which I don't believe I ever invested more than 50$ in total, and that's hedging it on the high end (available for six! dollars on amazon atm...). Dito on Mongoose's Traveller. I see no reason to use a highly specific ruleset when I can get the same experience from a more generally applicable one for less money.

And I don't think anyone would say you have to like or play FFG's SW.

But your preferences don't mean that FFG is ripping people off.

His review reeks of not liking the game, which is okay, surely, right? It's not like he's helicoptering our mums.

Well, it's not entirely like helicoptering, but it's kind of like spidermaning, our younger sisters... and their future children... as I wrote, whether he likes it or not is largely irrelevant, but bad penmanship, poor reviews (i.e. badly written and argued!) and the superficial non-arguments he comes with and calls a "review" is provoking and a crime against decency. I weep for the professionals who get mixed up with people like this guy. Ok, that was mean. I'm just surprised someone is as arrogant as this and calls something like this a review, without the honesty to explicate the fact that they're prejudice against for a variety of reasons from the get-go.

I mean, he's onto something, but he doesn't base it on proper examples, he is being a bit too vague There are obviously issues with this system, we all know it, but he barely touch upon them, if at all. He claims it's complex, which I guess means that we have a lot of genius 6 years old around the world, picking this system up straight away... or he hasn't been bothered with actually playing the system. This means his foundation is ... lacking, or non-existent.

His talk about inconsistencies is also superficial at best.

Basically, I was really disappointed, I thought I was going to read a good review about this system, and I'm still searching for a good review. It's as if every reviewer is biased and presumptuous... or maybe something is wrong with me.

Whoa, you are coming off as way too upset about this. Also, in terms of insulting the author of the review's penmanship/writing, people in glass houses...

1) FFG is a smart enough company to know that the number one purchase in RPGs is a core book. Almost never will a supplement sell similar volume. Also, they know that for supplements, the main determinant of sales is their utility to players. Stuff that gives more player options or adds new rules. This is why literally every book they release for the rpg has some kind of rules in it. This is also why they decided take what would be the biggest supplement books and turn them into full fledged rule books. I think it's funny that people don't believe that each core book has a ton of new content and value packed into it, but they DO believe that each core book is a requirement to have the "full Star Wars experience." Does anyone see the contradiction there?

2) I would be interested to know what these house rules the reviewer says people keep using are. I notice a lot of people fail to use the super nice initiative system because they're too used to old systems and don't feel like changing. I guess maybe the reviewer is referring to people interpreting symbols as pure narrative results rather than the listed mechanical effects? As far as I know, the book flat out tells you that the mechanical results are suggestions, and recommends that people come up with narrative effects. I suppose you could do a strict reading of the rules and always attach the narrative results to the RAW mechanical effects, but the book doesn't recommend this. I get the feeling that the reviewer (like me) is really anal about following rules to the letter, and wants the "pure" experience of playing the game entirely RAW in terms of how the mechanics are engaged. This is why the reviewer made that detailed cheat sheet, because how else will you remember all of those rules?

3) I agree with the reviewer that a flaw of the system is how murky/unclear interpretation of the dice can be, sometimes. You either have to spend a good deal of time brainstorming something with the players and then deciding if it "fits" within the number of symbols of a certain type, which can lead to inconsistency in results. Or, you can follow the rules for how to interpret die results and hope they apply to your situation/aren't too boring. The answer to this is "well, just don't get hung up on being exact with the rules," but this is kind of an infuriating answer given how granular this system can be at times. The inconsistency/vagueness of dice interpretation is a definite flaw of this system, but I don't know whether it's a fixable flaw, or just a compromise to be made. I do believe there is a disconnect between how granular this system gets versus how hand-wavey dice interpretation must sometimes be.

4) The mechanics definitely have issues with inconsistent implementation. The reviewer pointed out the difference between starship repair and regular healing, and he and I have noted that the rules fluctuate between very granular and very abstract, sometimes for seemingly no reason. I would attribute some of this inconsistency to the fact that FFG has multiple authors work on books, and sometimes farms out whole chapters to freelancers. FFG is also infamous for having poor editing. The Star Wars books are some of the best editing they've ever done, but they still have weird inconsistencies come up that very much point to having multiple people work on things and needing another pass or two of editing. FFG also has a bad habit of putting rules mechanics in the middle of narrative descriptions (although they at least have the sense to mostly out mechanics at the end of a narrative description), which makes it harder to get a cohesive picture of the rules. The technical writing aspect of these books (like most RPGs) leaves something to be desired in terms of clarity.

All that said, I do like the system and enjoy it. I think that the reviewers critiques have some merit, though not all, and some need clarification. I would add that my biggest critique of the system is that the talents tend to be really boring, particularly the -1 threat die or +2 strain ones. I think that implementing the talents in a pathed tree is a good way of doing that, but I still think it's boring to spend XP on some talents when compared to others.

You can run SW with mini-d6 and wookiepedia entirely for free, if you so choose. Then you have the WEG systems, in which I don't believe I ever invested more than 50$ in total, and that's hedging it on the high end (available for six! dollars on amazon atm...). Dito on Mongoose's Traveller. I see no reason to use a highly specific ruleset when I can get the same experience from a more generally applicable one for less money.

IMHO, you can't get the same experience at all. All those rules blow by comparison.

Not even. I don't use scribd.

You can run SW with mini-d6 and wookiepedia entirely for free, if you so choose. Then you have the WEG systems, in which I don't believe I ever invested more than 50$ in total, and that's hedging it on the high end (available for six! dollars on amazon atm...). Dito on Mongoose's Traveller. I see no reason to use a highly specific ruleset when I can get the same experience from a more generally applicable one for less money.

And I don't think anyone would say you have to like or play FFG's SW.

But your preferences don't mean that FFG is ripping people off.

The price difference for a "complete system" amounting over 150$ in comparison to other options is pretty telltale.

Except that it isn't.

People buying a corvette over a Fiat aren't being ripped off.

People buying a trip around the world on a jet aren' being ripped off over people buying a train ticket to the next town. Again, you seem to be trolling dude.

A skill tree without some mundane passive skills? That'll be the day.

Not even. I don't use scribd.

You can run SW with mini-d6 and wookiepedia entirely for free, if you so choose. Then you have the WEG systems, in which I don't believe I ever invested more than 50$ in total, and that's hedging it on the high end (available for six! dollars on amazon atm...). Dito on Mongoose's Traveller. I see no reason to use a highly specific ruleset when I can get the same experience from a more generally applicable one for less money.

And I don't think anyone would say you have to like or play FFG's SW.

But your preferences don't mean that FFG is ripping people off.

The price difference for a "complete system" amounting over 150$ in comparison to other options is pretty telltale.

What do you define as a complete system? You can run full games with any core book, with edge of the empire being the most broad (you could run any movie from the OT with edge of the empire alone). At worst, you could assume that each core book contains what would be supplemental material from another system. So yes, there's a complaint to be made that FFG took what would normally be supplemental material and attached it to a more expensive core book. However, Age of Rebellion and Force and Destiny both contain more material than a regular supplement, which costs 30 bucks. The new content in each core book is probably around 2/3 of its page count, give or take. So that would be a 40 dollar supplement compared to the 60 dollar core book. Or, if you buy online, the core book costs 42 bucks, meaning the supplement would be around 28. So the net loss for the buyer by buying a new core book rather than a supplement is between 28-40 bucks.

Not even. I don't use scribd.

You can run SW with mini-d6 and wookiepedia entirely for free, if you so choose. Then you have the WEG systems, in which I don't believe I ever invested more than 50$ in total, and that's hedging it on the high end (available for six! dollars on amazon atm...). Dito on Mongoose's Traveller. I see no reason to use a highly specific ruleset when I can get the same experience from a more generally applicable one for less money.

And I don't think anyone would say you have to like or play FFG's SW.

But your preferences don't mean that FFG is ripping people off.

The price difference for a "complete system" amounting over 150$ in comparison to other options is pretty telltale.

Obviously you don't think the books offer enough value to justify the cost. Which is fine. It doesn't mean it's a rip off.

Others disagree and think many your options are lousy, some of them so lousy they aren't really viable options.

You can get WEG or Saga Edition Star Wars for much cheaper. And they are great systems and offer a lower cost alternative. The existence of these alternatives does not mean FFGs offerings are a rip off. (Though doing a quick peek over at Amazon the Saga core is $64, Scum and Villainy is $30, Rebel source book is $28, Starships is $45, Jedi Academy is $40, Threats is $17, and Kotor is $100).

Others find core books that do a deep dive into a particular aspect of Star Wars roleplaying worth the cost (also considering that the "extra" in depth material in each core would likely make up a supplemental book in another system).

Others find books filled with amazing and original art inspiring and enjoyable.

Some people do buy the books and grumble about the price or the 3 different cores.

Others are happy to pay the price and enjoy what they get out of it.

We are living in a golden age of Star Wars (even if you don't like FFG Star Wars there's still WEG, RECR, Saga).

I think just releasing just one core for everything would have been a fine choice for FFG. Maybe it would have been cheaper (but probably not - see NimSim above). But you could have fit a complete rules set in a single core. It wouldn't have been very thorough. But you'd have a Space Diplomat Princess, A Soundrel, Soldier, and Jedi in the same book. Which is valuable. But you wouldn't have the depth of 3 separate lines.

I remember the speculation about what F&D would bring in terms of being able to play a Jedi, theories running from no support to a spec or two to maybe a career for Jedi (with perhaps Consular, Guardian, Sentinel specs).

What we ended up with was a spec for 6 lightsaber forms, a career for each Consular, Guardian, Sentinel.

You can't get that kind of depth with a core book for all character types. With the typical model of one core and supplemental books to flesh things out you'd need a core book and one or two supplements to achieve the same depth - which is fine, but so is the alternative.

I can see where the reviewer is coming from. I would say that the FFG star wars RPGs are harder work than some other RPG systems but the reward can be greater if everyone gets on board with it.

As another poster mentioned, the reviewer definitely seemed to have the "I'm right and you're all wrong" attitude which is a bit poor, I thought.

I agree with everything he says. I was one of the proponents of the new RPG system, until I got my hands on it. Ever since Edge I haven't touched the system. Now don't get me wrong. The book is high quality, the art, is great, and it looks good ect. The actual game system the mechanics are just awful. I found it vague. Or my players would cheese it and make everyone always drop their gun because why wouldn't you?

A single simple combat in Edge lasted longer than fight in 5th and nearly as long as in their 40k RPG line. And we all know how much of a time sucking dreary thing that is.

The cypher system does lightweight story focused games better than this game could ever hope to achieve with its vagueness. And I always have more complex RPG choices if I want those like 5th or many others.

The Cypher system and Numenera (most well known of it) allows non-combat characters to shine in combat and combat guys to shine out of it. All on a single dice and combat that takes 1/4 as long. So you can stay focused on the story and dramatic events. It's even got a cool GM Intrusion system that can alter the story, but it's not so frequent like the dice that I feel confused thinking what dumb thing could possibly happening now.

Anybody who wants a lightweight story based game that can easily be tailored to any stetting should check into the Cypher system.

Vague. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdLa9yYt_jw

I've seen quite a few comments regarding this system's obscurity and have some thoughts concerning it: It does pass/fail perfectly while adding mechanical muscle to narrative play. The symbols are there to be used as needed, not needing to be used. It's a system to support a game of imagination based on one of the most beloved, epic settings in recent history; use your imagination and just play.

I normally don't rant/spew vitriol at opinions, but...

If you don't like the price of the books, don't buy them.

If you don't like the system, don't play it.

If you like the system but there are parts you don't like, change them*.

It is really that simple.

*Come here and trade ideas, because that can be great.

Not even. I don't use scribd.

You can run SW with mini-d6 and wookiepedia entirely for free, if you so choose. Then you have the WEG systems, in which I don't believe I ever invested more than 50$ in total, and that's hedging it on the high end (available for six! dollars on amazon atm...). Dito on Mongoose's Traveller. I see no reason to use a highly specific ruleset when I can get the same experience from a more generally applicable one for less money.

And I don't think anyone would say you have to like or play FFG's SW.

But your preferences don't mean that FFG is ripping people off.

Just to add my opinions to this:

FFG was up front about how their system was going to be sold and priced prior to EoTE even being released. If the release schedule (i.e. FaD being last) or the pricing structure was personally offensive to someone, their option has always been to voice their opinion with their wallets by not buying into the system.

I think I'll just stop pissing against the wind. That said, trying to rabble rouse by posting a negative review of a system and going "OMG LOOKIT THIS! HOW DARE HE!" is fairly disgusting. If you don't want to hear criticism, don't open these topics.

Thank you, Jedi Ronin, for remaining civil and providing a counterpoint that actually made me stop and think.

FFG was up front about how their system was going to be sold and priced prior to EoTE even being released. If the release schedule (i.e. FaD being last) or the pricing structure was personally offensive to someone, their option has always been to voice their opinion with their wallets by not buying into the system.

Indeed, and further, this system wasn't made in a vacuum -- the devs had the benefit of seeing all the problems of the uninspired vanilla kitchen sink CRB + broken splatbook approach that SAGA took. Thank the Force FFG did it differently!

And I really don't want to beat a dead tauntaun here because Mr. Alexander is entitled to his opinion, but I did find this

It’s almost as if the designers said, “This system is pretty slick and elegant… let’s go ahead and randomly change half the mechanics for no reason.”

unbelievable insulting (intentional or not) to not only the devs but the hundreds of playtesters, alpha and beta testers who've logged countless hours into this system over the years as a pure labor of love. The dice mechanic might have sprung from Jay Little's forehead like Athena from Zeus, but the community at large made this game what it is today.

Anyways, 'nuff said.

One thing that does stress me out a little as a GM with FFGSW is when you get some bloody cryptic dice result and as a group you can't for the life of you come up with a rationale that does the symbols justice. In my D&D5e campaign that simply isn't happening, we're focusing on storytelling and interesting use of the advantage/disadvantage system. When I come back to FFGSW, I'll be saving the dice pool mechanics for the combat/chase encounters.

Sneak peek for the Big Fix I'm posting tomorrow, which you may find useful:

THE NEW CORE MECHANIC

Build and roll your dice pools the same way.

(1) The Triumph symbol counts as a Success, but also has the additional effect of either (a) cancelling Despair, (b) cancelling all Threat symbols, or © if there are no Threat symbols, counting as two Advantage symbols.

(2) Despair does the exact same thing in reverse: It counts as a Failure, but also has the additional effect of (a) cancelling Triumph, (b) cancelling all Advantage symbols, or © if there are no Advantage symbols, counting as two Threat symbols.

(3) Any effect in the game that uniquely requires a Triumph symbol requires 4 Advantage instead. Similarly, anything that uniquely requires a Despair symbol can be triggered with 4 Threat.

(4) With the exception of damage and recovery, the number of Success or Failure symbols you roll is irrelevant. (The only thing that matters is the binary assessment of whether you succeeded or failed.) Everything else in the rules that ask you to count or use Success instead uses Advantage.

(5) The guidelines for Knowledge skills are chucked completely: If you succeed on a Knowledge check, each Advantage gives you an additional piece of information. If you fail, Advantage can give you a lead on where information can be found. Threat either corrupts the information in some way (misleading, missing detail, missing context), gives you straight out misinformation, puts you in immediate danger (such as an angry alien in a bar shouting, "You'll be dead!"), or alerts the bad guys to your search (like stormtroopers noticing that you cut off the alien's arm).

DESIGN NOTES

Essentially, what I'm doing here is lopping off one of the dice result tiers and having Triumph/Despair cancel each other so the symbols are all counted the same way. The system will no longer generate 18 different possibilities (with varying degrees along multiple axes), but the system will still give you:

Succeed

Failure

Succeed-Advantage

Succeed-Threat

Failure-Advantage

Failure-Threat

You get two bits of information: One is a binary success/fail. The other is good/neutral/bad, with varying degrees of good and bad.

In play, I think you'll find that this:

(1) Gives you guidance essentially indistinguishable from the original system;

(2) Results in dice pools being resolved about three times faster (because of simple symbol cancellation and players needing to report less tangled information); and

(3) Quietly eliminates a wide swath of the game's dizzyingly inconsistent mechanics.

(End sneak peek.)

For those claiming that I'm lying about the 20 hours I spent playing the game: Whatever.

For those claiming that 20 hours isn't enough time to spend playing a game before reviewing it: I don't think you have a reasonable expectation.

For those criticizing my penmanship: I'm disturbed by the implication that you broke into my house in order to look at samples of my handwriting.

For those claiming that I hate systems that involve interpreting qualitative results: Quite the opposite. As I said in my review, I love systems like that. As I mentioned in the comments over on the Alexandrian, I actually wrote a meta-system like that for Pyramid Magazine 15+ years ago before the concept was popular ( Dice of Destiny ). I'm actually a huge advocate for systems with qualitative results and I think the improv cues they give greatly enhance creativity at the gaming table.

As I explained in the review, my problem with FFG's system isn't that it involves qualitative results: It's that the system features three inconsistent tiers of qualitative results, but provides no guidance for what the significant differences between these tiers are supposed to be. And it's clear that the reason the game fails to clearly explain these differences is that they do not exist: You can use the skill guidelines or you can ignore them, but what they clearly reveal is that even the designers can't tell you what the difference is supposed to be between a success, an advantage, and a triumph.

As designed, the core mechanic is making you jump through a lot of needlessly inconsistent hoops in order to feed you information that is needlessly complicated. This is sloppy design and it's a major problem.

Evidence of this sloppy design can also be found permeating the entire system. And, again, you can ignore the sloppily inconsistent skill guidelines completely here. Toss that entire chapter out of the book and you'll still find plenty of other mechanics (as the review offers examples of) which are inconsistent for no particularly good reason.

As many people in this thread have said, of course, you can simply choose to not use any of the rules in the rulebook. But, ultimately, that doesn't actually change the rulebook. Which is what I was reviewing.

Thanks for linking this - interesting read. I found most of it fairly well-supported. I think the main disagreements I have are:

1. You only need one book. I think he has some sort of mindset that it's not a complete game if you don't have all the careers. This is incorrect.
2. I think he over-penalizes it for inconsistencies in the skills, etc. That's easy to work around and if you do, the system works pretty well.
3. I don't think he gives it enough credit for how good the concepts are, the guidelines for running a game, the support to players and GMs. It's really an excellent game in that regard.

Other than that I think his comments were fair and I don't see a reason to mock him.

THE NEW CORE MECHANIC

Build and roll your dice pools the same way.

(1) The Triumph symbol counts as a Success, but also has the additional effect of either (a) cancelling Despair, (b) cancelling all Threat symbols, or © if there are no Threat symbols, counting as two Advantage symbols.

(2) Despair does the exact same thing in reverse: It counts as a Failure, but also has the additional effect of (a) cancelling Triumph, (b) cancelling all Advantage symbols, or © if there are no Advantage symbols, counting as two Threat symbols.

(3) Any effect in the game that uniquely requires a Triumph symbol requires 4 Advantage instead. Similarly, anything that uniquely requires a Despair symbol can be triggered with 4 Threat.

(4) With the exception of damage and recovery, the number of Success or Failure symbols you roll is irrelevant. (The only thing that matters is the binary assessment of whether you succeeded or failed.) Everything else in the rules that ask you to count or use Success instead uses Advantage.

(5) The guidelines for Knowledge skills are chucked completely: If you succeed on a Knowledge check, each Advantage gives you an additional piece of information. If you fail, Advantage can give you a lead on where information can be found. Threat either corrupts the information in some way (misleading, missing detail, missing context), gives you straight out misinformation, puts you in immediate danger (such as an angry alien in a bar shouting, "You'll be dead!"), or alerts the bad guys to your search (like stormtroopers noticing that you cut off the alien's arm).

DESIGN NOTES

#1 This is already the RAW except they don't cancel out Threats or Despair.

#2 Again this is already RAW except they don't cancel out Advantage or Triumph.

#3 This is essentially the same as many of the suggestions of what a Triumph or Despair can do are around 3+ Adv or Threat. Generally only very effective effects specifically require one or more Triumph or Despair.

#4 Again this is generally already RAW with a few exceptions. Multiple Failures are specifically called out as having no effect.

#5 This is generally how it's done in example provided in Adventures.

For #1 & 2 there is a reason for not doing as you suggest and that is to represent that like many things you can get good with bad even spectacularly good and bad at the same time. Keep in mind that Rounds in Combat are quite long and the roll is not just about the Action itself but about what happens in the scene as a whole. Skill checks outside of Combat can also have multiple outcome even with Success.

I think I'll just stop pissing against the wind. That said, trying to rabble rouse by posting a negative review of a system and going "OMG LOOKIT THIS! HOW DARE HE!" is fairly disgusting. If you don't want to hear criticism, don't open these topics.

Thank you, Jedi Ronin, for remaining civil and providing a counterpoint that actually made me stop and think.

Perhaps it was not the fact that the review was negative that inspired me to link to it. It is the fact that the 'reviewer' claims to review the system (as he does again in his 'fix' above) but is in fact reviewing something it is not. A totally non-familiarity with what the game does and I high focus on what it ('apparently' for the reviewer) should have been. This was what lead me to believe that there was a complete unfamiliarity with the system but I now believe those games were indeed played but not with a mind of giving the game an honest review.

As can be gleaned from his post here is that he needs to tell us about a set of rules he wrote 15 years and the fact that he will not only "fix" a system that is in no need of fixing, no he will give us a "big fix". What does this tell you?

If anyone still thinks we are talking about a review here instead of a bout of megalomania or, in the least, total self absorbtion then I understand why you would find it weird that I put a link up.

I completely disagree with this assesment as it should be obvious to anyone reading through this 'review' that the reviewer was not on board with the system right from the get go. The language he uses when talking about the publisher and their supposed "scheme" alone makes that abundantely clear.

Errr, FFG are THE masters at making you buy more than you need. I say this as both an Armada player and a player of EotE/Aor/FaD. They're as bad as Games Workshop when it comes to tricking you into getting just one more thing, with the difference that FFG write excellent and well thought out rules.

I will say that I was surprised to find out that Triumph's don't cancel Despair. So you can have a success (or failure) that has BOTH a Triumph and Despair?

I completely disagree with this assesment as it should be obvious to anyone reading through this 'review' that the reviewer was not on board with the system right from the get go. The language he uses when talking about the publisher and their supposed "scheme" alone makes that abundantely clear.

Errr, FFG are THE masters at making you buy more than you need. I say this as both an Armada player and a player of EotE/Aor/FaD. They're as bad as Games Workshop when it comes to tricking you into getting just one more thing, with the difference that FFG write excellent and well thought out rules.

I doubt any company is as bad as GW.

Yep. This is one of the reasons why adding Red dice can really ruin your day...

One episode of Order 66 brings up this scenario. It was actually a pretty eye-opening example on how to use Despair for me.

I will say that I was surprised to find out that Triumph's don't cancel Despair. So you can have a success (or failure) that has BOTH a Triumph and Despair?

Yes. It's something that I really like about the system in fact. It's what I call the "Reichenbach Falls" Effect.

As can be gleaned from his post here is that he needs to tell us about a set of rules he wrote 15 years and the fact that he will not only "fix" a system that is in no need of fixing, no he will give us a "big fix". What does this tell you?

If anyone still thinks we are talking about a review here instead of a bout of megalomania or, in the least, total self absorbtion then I understand why you would find it weird that I put a link up.

There were several people in this thread expressing that they had had the same problems with the system that I had experienced, including the person I was replying to. I had a solution in my pocket that had helped me fix a lot of those problems, so I thought I'd share it. And, yeah, it's a big fix: It completely changes the core mechanic of the game. It's not some small little change. It's going to have a big impact on how the game plays.

I'm not sure why the idea of people changing the game to make it play better for them and their groups is something that elicits such boiling rage from you.

You've said a lot of hurtful things here about me. You've now admitted that some of those were lies, which I appreciate. But I still don't appreciate all the other lies you've posted about me. You may consider it "megalomania" to post things which factually contradict the lies that you've told about me, but I'm afraid that's not going to dissuade me from pointing out the radical inaccuracies in what you're saying.