I'm one of the people that generally agree the system has some flaws, I don't however think an overhaul is necessary just better examples of play that include a wider range of sample results, and some going through and cleaning up inconsistencies (such as the example of healing and ship repair).

in any case the system is sound for what it is trying to accomplish just not always as clear as it could be.

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.

This was something that really excited me when I first read the rulebooks. I was disappointed when the actual practice ended up being so tangled up that I felt the underlying virtue had been lost.

Reading this, though, I now wonder if it might be more effective to simplify the core mechanic in a different way. Unlike the house rules I posted above, these obviously haven't actually been playtested, but it might be better if:

(1) Successes and failures canceled. (Except for damage and recovery, they only report the binary outcome of success-or-failure. Everything else that involves spending successes instead involves spending advantage.)

(2) Advantage and Threat cancel each other.

(3) Triumph counts as two advantage that CANNOT be canceled. (It no longer counts as a success.)

(4) Despair counts as two threat that CANNOT be canceled. (It no longer counts as a failure.)

(5) 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.

This preserves the "Reichenbach Falls" effect, but still simplifies dice pool outcomes to a more usable core concept of (a) binary success/fail; (b) degree of advantage; © degree of threat. (In other words, you've still eliminated the different tiers of qualitative success that are independent from each other.)

I'd want to check the impact on probability from removing the success/failure mechanic of Triumph and Despair. Might need to fall back to Triumph doing 1 success (can be canceled) and 1 advantage (cannot be canceled) for a more balanced result.

Something about heat and getting out of kitchens.

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.

Oh, I played xwing and stopped playing because of it getting too expensive. However, I would never call a company having an active business strategy money grubbers. Especially not when the products they put out for the rpg (the game we are talking about here) come out at the interval in which they do and are such great value for money.

This was something that really excited me when I first read the rulebooks. I was disappointed when the actual practice ended up being so tangled up that I felt the underlying virtue had been lost.

Reading this, though, I now wonder if it might be more effective to simplify the core mechanic in a different way. Unlike the house rules I posted above, these obviously haven't actually been playtested, but it might be better if:

(1) Successes and failures canceled. (Except for damage and recovery, they only report the binary outcome of success-or-failure. Everything else that involves spending successes instead involves spending advantage.)

(2) Advantage and Threat cancel each other.

(3) Triumph counts as two advantage that CANNOT be canceled. (It no longer counts as a success.)

(4) Despair counts as two threat that CANNOT be canceled. (It no longer counts as a failure.)

(5) 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.

This preserves the "Reichenbach Falls" effect, but still simplifies dice pool outcomes to a more usable core concept of (a) binary success/fail; (b) degree of advantage; © degree of threat. (In other words, you've still eliminated the different tiers of qualitative success that are independent from each other.)

I'd want to check the impact on probability from removing the success/failure mechanic of Triumph and Despair. Might need to fall back to Triumph doing 1 success (can be canceled) and 1 advantage (cannot be canceled) for a more balanced result.

I'm not sure your suggestions would change much other than the mechanic itself. What would be helpful would be to, like you did when pointing out the healing/ship repair inconsistency, would be to identify the other inconsistencies and deal with them.

So, I actually read his review. I agree there are advice inconsistencies between skills, however I don't agree with it being due to sloppy/ignorant design. The way I've looked at it is "skill relevance" for lack of a better term. Take the Lore skill (no matter which one). Overall, it can be considered a minor skill when compared to Ranged or Brawl, for example, but can be very useful in guiding what a character knows. To let some piece of relevant information "slip" through on a failure, while still feeling the pinch of failure (you don't know the whole bit) is perfectly acceptable. It's not game-breaking. Cutting down hacking time for Computers while doing something else for Survival is acceptable as they have different flavors. If your group lets the 6 successes rolled on a Survival check to find sustenance mean you not only found food for days, but shelter as well, awesome! Rolled another 6 successes, this time with 4 Advantage, to find a safe path to the enemy base? Great! Perhaps travel time is cut down and you end up in an advantageous spot to spy on the enemy. Again, the symbols lend mechanical weight to the moment's narrative, guiding the story, not controlling it.

Rolled really well but can't figure out how your character's actions would apply them to an ally who's nowhere near you? It's narrative in regards to the story, not just the rolling character's personal universe. Let those Advantages push the story forward as a whole, not just in regards to that one action. Or, as has been stated many times, don't use them.

Although there's advice on what to do with the symbols, all they really do is give mechanical guidance to what in most games, ends up being hand-waving.

One example I love is how most games would handle making a melee attack, but wanting to get some mechanical benefit from kicking an opponent as well. In many games that would be two actions with or without penalties, splitting a dice pool, one action with penalties, a power, just not possible, etc. With this system, when you slash at the Stormtrooper and hit with Advantage, you can say that you cut him, then kicked him back/knocked him down/stunned him with the pommel/inflicted a terrible wound/disarmed him/etc. You don't need to reference charts or do fancy math, you just go with the flow and create memorable moments.

Another fantastic, often-overlooked gem are the "modifiers" of Boost and Setback dice. They're a great way to change the difficulty of actions with ease in a story-enhancing way. Add in Talents that remove Setback dice and the system strengthens, especially for characters who have those abilities.

The system works and works well. I've had novice players dive in right away and love it, then go to another system and comment that they miss the FFG system. To me, that shows the system's strength.

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.

I run both systems and disagree that FFG's system is vague or difficult. The Cypher System is awesome, to be sure, but "suffers" from the same "problem" of creatively interpreting dice rolls. Combat in my SW games haven't slogged on and if players do little more than make people drop weapons, well, they're making it boring, not the system. Besides, those are possible uses of Triumphs, not iron-clad uses. If the GM doesn't like it, don't allow it. My point is that your, or anyone else's, bad interaction with the system does not make it a bad system.

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.

Except in Numenera that interpreting the dice ONLY happens on a natural 19 or a 20. Greatly limiting the times the GM and players have to think of something, and it's simply always a minor positive or a major positive effect. Or you can take damage. That's it. Simple as pie. None of this teal leaf dice reading crap of the Edge line. You also roll only a d20 and the Gm does almost no rolling. So the time you do have to think of something you don't need to read dice leaves you can just say what's happening and you the GM are totally focused on making things creative and amazing. Instead of having to interpret dice.

The only other mechanic as a GM is the GM intrusion but if your throwing one of those at your players again you only want it to happen a few times in one session. You say what the intrusion is. it can be anything as long as it puts as twist on the scenario the PC's didn't plan for. It could be as simple as the enemy grabs them to an unexpected third party shows up to the much weirder or they could even find someone in town who knows them and puts a twist on the scenario they din't expect. So I can have an enemy drop their weapon if need be, but it won't happen the entire duration of a fight or so often it makes the enemies look totally stupid. Like how did they ever learn to walk stupid. When I do throw an intrusion at the player in question they get an xp for it and one to give to another player as long as they give a reason so even the bad or unexpected twists can be fun and rewarding.

So it all flows fast fast fast. Your constantly focused on the story and you can make a new enemy in seconds due to how easy the system is. It is what I imagined Edge would be like before playing it when all I heard was the sales pitch.

Where as every dice roll in Edge line of rpgs is practically a committee.

Which shows that you don't really know the system, as it is not a committee at all. Players advocate what their positive results bring to the table within a boundary set by the gm. GM's put forward the negative.

Now some groups enjoy determining fun results and discussing them, but there is no need to do so if you are not interested.

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.

I can name three:

Electronic Arts

Konami

Capcom

KnasserII is on point about FFG being the masters of making you buy more than you need though, and I empathise with his situation regarding the ownership of little plastic ships. For example, I would very much like to put a mangler cannon on my lovely Outrider, which means that I would have to buy an ugly little bug of a vessel for the one faction I don't play, or IG2000, which is a much cooler (and twice as expensive) ship, but is also for the faction I don't play - just to own the desired upgrade card. If I did take the plunge by buying either ship, I'd then need to pay for more ships of the same faction to have a feasible squad, just so the first ship isn't a complete waste of money. And all because the mangler cannon is a nigh-on must have.

There. That's my whine for the day.

Now where's my goddamn wallet...?

Which shows that you don't really know the system, as it is not a committee at all. Players advocate what their positive results bring to the table within a boundary set by the gm. GM's put forward the negative.

Now some groups enjoy determining fun results and discussing them, but there is no need to do so if you are not interested.

All I hear is "do whatever you feel like maaaaaan, as long as its one of the fixed results in the rules". So why not just roll ******* normal dice if all that's going to happen is a fixed result. All I know is Edge is an overrated pile of crap. I'm out. I've said my piece and anymore would just be negatively affecting me.

Edit

None of your examples are RPG game developers Einstein they're videogame developers. Might want to go back to the drawing board before you start hitting the logical fallacies.

Which shows that you don't really know the system, as it is not a committee at all. Players advocate what their positive results bring to the table within a boundary set by the gm. GM's put forward the negative.

Now some groups enjoy determining fun results and discussing them, but there is no need to do so if you are not interested.

All I hear is "do whatever you feel like maaaaaan, as long as its one of the fixed results in the rules". So why not just roll ******* normal dice if all that's going to happen is a fixed result. All I know is Edge is an overrated pile of crap. I'm out. I've said my piece and anymore would just be negatively affecting me.

Edit

None of your examples are RPG game developers Einstein they're videogame developers. Might want to go back to the drawing board before you start hitting the logical fallacies.

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 run both systems and disagree that FFG's system is vague or difficult. The Cypher System is awesome, to be sure, but "suffers" from the same "problem" of creatively interpreting dice rolls. Combat in my SW games haven't slogged on and if players do little more than make people drop weapons, well, they're making it boring, not the system. Besides, those are possible uses of Triumphs, not iron-clad uses. If the GM doesn't like it, don't allow it. My point is that your, or anyone else's, bad interaction with the system does not make it a bad system.

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.

Except in Numenera that interpreting the dice ONLY happens on a natural 19 or a 20. Greatly limiting the times the GM and players have to think of something, and it's simply always a minor positive or a major positive effect. Or you can take damage. That's it. Simple as pie. None of this teal leaf dice reading crap of the Edge line. You also roll only a d20 and the Gm does almost no rolling. So the time you do have to think of something you don't need to read dice leaves you can just say what's happening and you the GM are totally focused on making things creative and amazing. Instead of having to interpret dice.

The only other mechanic as a GM is the GM intrusion but if your throwing one of those at your players again you only want it to happen a few times in one session. You say what the intrusion is. it can be anything as long as it puts as twist on the scenario the PC's didn't plan for. It could be as simple as the enemy grabs them to an unexpected third party shows up to the much weirder or they could even find someone in town who knows them and puts a twist on the scenario they din't expect.

So it all flows fast fast fast. Your constantly focused on the story and you can make a new enemy in seconds due to how easy the system is. It is what I imagined Edge would be like before playing it when all I heard was the sales pitch.

Where as every dice roll in Edge line of rpgs is practically a committee.

What I don't do is **** on something I don't even like in the place where people enjoy it, knowing it will change nothing. I don't ***** about the cost of things I feel aren't worth the price. I don't tell people they're doing things wrong when I disagree on an opinion. Not all of these things apply to you, so only wear the shoes that fit.

*One big gripe about the CS is the GM Intrusion. I like it but many don't. It's been called too "handwavy" and unfair. Another is spending XP for rerolls and other non-advancement things. Another is the lack of balance in characters, especially the Glaive (seen as weak). Another complaint is the narrow focus of Foci. I tend to agree as I might want a cyborg bowman who shoots flame out of his eyes and can fly. Can you do this? Absolutely, but you have to tweak/modify/interpret the system. Overall, I have little to no complaints about either system or the cost of books. My only "complaint" about Numenera is that it's too light on the "science" part of "science-fantasy", at least thematically. The art, while very good, is still very fantasy-focused (powered armor is plate armor with lights on it). The great thing is that if you want guns it's incredibly easy to add them in, especially since The Strange and CS Rulebook have gun-focused Foci.

In the end, both system's are, to me, fan-*******-tastic and have very little I'd change.

To add: As I was driving back to my shop it struck me as odd that, as great as the CS is I feel it would handle Star Wars poorly compared to FFG's version. It's very difficult, if not impossible, to make a Jedi Master with the CS. How do you handle the Force powers available? You'd have to heavily modify/create a Focus to get the same thing FFG can do. I only bring this up because you're arguing the merits of the CS here, not in general. If this was a "Which is better overall?" thread on say, RPG.net, I'd have a hard time choosing. But for me, within the galaxy of SW, FFG beats the CS hands down, every time.

Companies make money that's how they can create products, however no one goes into the RPG business to get rich or scheme people.

It is a niche market that will never make you rich (well not Gyrax rich anymore at least).

The star wars license is expensive (so expensive that WotC gave up on it) and to make money off of it you will need to put out things that people want to buy. The fact that you want to buy these things, even when you don't need them (and you need none of it to begin with) means you think it is worth your money. Otherwise you would spend it all on beers and hookers... Or wine and dinners... Or jeans and weed... Whatever floats your boat.

As a company you can never do well in this field, slow down your release schedule and out come the cries of "they have forgotten about EotE!!!" "The line is dead!"

Put out a lot of material and it is "money grab! Scheme!"

I find that the release schedule of the RPG line is very good, wspecially considering the quality control that goes into it and how every book thus far has been amazing.

Which shows that you don't really know the system, as it is not a committee at all. Players advocate what their positive results bring to the table within a boundary set by the gm. GM's put forward the negative.

Now some groups enjoy determining fun results and discussing them, but there is no need to do so if you are not interested.

All I hear is "do whatever you feel like maaaaaan, as long as its one of the fixed results in the rules". So why not just roll ******* normal dice if all that's going to happen is a fixed result. All I know is Edge is an overrated pile of crap. I'm out. I've said my piece and anymore would just be negatively affecting me.

Well, if that is all you hear then perhaps you should get your ears checked....

Glad that you got to say your piece? Now how about going unto a fanboard of a movie you hate and piss all over them too?

And your edit was for a different poster I assume?

Otherwise you would spend it all on beers and hookers... Or wine and dinners... Or jeans and weed...

What's "or" got to do with it? You leave "or" the hell out of this.

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.

This was something that really excited me when I first read the rulebooks. I was disappointed when the actual practice ended up being so tangled up that I felt the underlying virtue had been lost.

Reading this, though, I now wonder if it might be more effective to simplify the core mechanic in a different way. Unlike the house rules I posted above, these obviously haven't actually been playtested, but it might be better if:

(1) Successes and failures canceled. (Except for damage and recovery, they only report the binary outcome of success-or-failure. Everything else that involves spending successes instead involves spending advantage.)

(2) Advantage and Threat cancel each other.

(3) Triumph counts as two advantage that CANNOT be canceled. (It no longer counts as a success.)

(4) Despair counts as two threat that CANNOT be canceled. (It no longer counts as a failure.)

(5) 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.

This preserves the "Reichenbach Falls" effect, but still simplifies dice pool outcomes to a more usable core concept of (a) binary success/fail; (b) degree of advantage; © degree of threat. (In other words, you've still eliminated the different tiers of qualitative success that are independent from each other.)

I'd want to check the impact on probability from removing the success/failure mechanic of Triumph and Despair. Might need to fall back to Triumph doing 1 success (can be canceled) and 1 advantage (cannot be canceled) for a more balanced result.

Also, your proposed rules changes mostly seem to be focused on changing the probability curve and eliminating mixed results involving triumphs and despairs. I don't see a good argument for why you would not want triumph/despair to act semi-independently of themselves and other bad/good symbols, respectively. What about having a success with triumph and threat is so bad that you feel it should be eliminated? The game also tends toward two main states of success with threat or failure with advantage and if you eliminate the effect of extra successes you end up having very skilled characters get a lot of wasted successes. This was a problem in the WFRP3 implementation of these rules that is fixed by this system. As far as wanting to rework the knowledge system, I think that what you're proposing is less of a rules fix/house rule and more of being within the suggested use of dice; I believe the wording in the book is "examples are provided highlighting potential ways that advantage can be used." I suppose that at that point it's more a case of the book examples being "use this if no one can think of anything."

Basically, it comes off as you kind of fundamentally misunderstanding the the three pairs of symbol types and how the book is intended to be used. You haven't given any examples for your argument and it just comes off as you saying "well, I think these are bad and there's no real difference between them," when the difference seems fairly obvious to myself and others. The way you are interpreting the symbols sounds a lot like someone who prefers quantitative results, because your big issue seems to be with the fact that the results interact and overlap in ways that aren't quantifiable.

Edit: even then, it's fairly quantifiable

Success are whether you do what you set out to do, and how well you do it

Advantage can improve a success, add new things to a success, soften a failure or make a silver lining to a failure.

Triumph act like super charged advantage, and make you more likely to succeed in general.

Failure are whether you fail at what you do.

Threat can worse a failure, add new things to a failure, worsen a success, or add a bad thing to a success.

Despair act like a super charged threat that also makes you more likely to fail.

You always succeed or fail at a roll, and this can be added to, improved, worsened, but not negated by threat/advantage or despair/triumph.

It's all quantified there.

Which shows that you don't really know the system, as it is not a committee at all. Players advocate what their positive results bring to the table within a boundary set by the gm. GM's put forward the negative.

Now some groups enjoy determining fun results and discussing them, but there is no need to do so if you are not interested.

All I hear is "do whatever you feel like maaaaaan, as long as its one of the fixed results in the rules". So why not just roll ******* normal dice if all that's going to happen is a fixed result. All I know is Edge is an overrated pile of crap. I'm out. I've said my piece and anymore would just be negatively affecting me.

Well, if that is all you hear then perhaps you should get your ears checked....

Glad that you got to say your piece? Now how about going unto a fanboard of a movie you hate and piss all over them too?

And your edit was for a different poster I assume?

To add: If you can't afford something you want, don't buy it or save for it. This new-think of businesses being bad for making money shocks me. If I don't want to support a business, I don't. I wasted breath as I literally yelled at TW for being beyond terrible, but it wasn't until I got rid of them and gave sombody else my money that they opened their eyes. Too late, of course, but my wallet is powerful!

Not as powerful as the Force, though...

I don't know about you guys, but I can feel an abrupt segue into a thematically-linked but otherwise completely unrelated subject change coming on; one in which all participants feel a little nicer about the inconsequentialities we've been getting so uppity about.

Edit: wanted to use a semi-colon instead.

I don't know about you guys, but I can feel an abrupt segue into a thematically-linked but otherwise completely unrelated subject change coming on; one in which all participants feel a little nicer about the inconsequentialities we've been getting so uppity about.

Edit: wanted to use a semi-colon instead.

You use the heck out of that semi-colon!

I don't know about you guys, but I can feel an abrupt segue into a thematically-linked but otherwise completely unrelated subject change coming on; one in which all participants feel a little nicer about the inconsequentialities we've been getting so uppity about.

Edit: wanted to use a semi-colon instead.

You use the heck out of that semi-colon!

You like that kinda thang, huh?

Edit: now with added Bean meme.

Edit: wanted to use a semi-colon instead.

I was going to start dropping links to pictures of adorable animals. Probably not on topic. Like, quote every arguer and make a massive wall of text then have a picture of some rabbit at the bottom.

I was going to start dropping links to pictures of adorable animals. Probably not on topic. Like, quote every arguer and make a massive wall of text then have a picture of some rabbit at the bottom.

This rabbit?

He has also mentioned other perennial complaints about the FFG line - 3 separate core books to get the complete Star Wars experience and the cost (and previously the unavailability of components) this brings with it. I think this is a legitimate complaint - though the route taken is reasonable too, it's a matter of trade-offs - but I would add that each core book contains information that would in other systems go beyond a core book. In other words, each core includes material that would also constitute a separate splat book in other systems.

So it is not a reasonable complaint... And definitely not a very fresh one I might add. We have been playing the system for years by now. so why does this dead horse still receive so many floggings?

Because they keep doing it.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/184019-i-am-doubtful/

Isn't that a thing... And how disingenious to try to paint me in the wrong light here as I am very specific in that topic that I do not think this is an issue for the SW line. At all.

Also, the End of the World are a direct one by one translation of 4 Spanish CRB so I understand where they are coming from in doing it, but I don't think that I will buy anymore of the books. A consumer has a choice.

And consumers not wanting to shell out close to 200$ for the Star Wars line is unreasonable because?

Ah, so now we are moving into the realm of trolling...

There is nothing unreasonable about customers not wanting to shell out close to $200 for anything. Just like there is nothing unreasonable about customers not wanting to shell out $40 dollars for it, or $10.

And that is not the point I was making. I am talking about the whole "Complete Star Wars experience" argument. But you knew this and you were being intentionaly obtuse.

Because World of Darkness, D&D, Exalted and Savage Worlds are not things.

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.

This was something that really excited me when I first read the rulebooks. I was disappointed when the actual practice ended up being so tangled up that I felt the underlying virtue had been lost.

Reading this, though, I now wonder if it might be more effective to simplify the core mechanic in a different way. Unlike the house rules I posted above, these obviously haven't actually been playtested, but it might be better if:

(1) Successes and failures canceled. (Except for damage and recovery, they only report the binary outcome of success-or-failure. Everything else that involves spending successes instead involves spending advantage.)

(2) Advantage and Threat cancel each other.

(3) Triumph counts as two advantage that CANNOT be canceled. (It no longer counts as a success.)

(4) Despair counts as two threat that CANNOT be canceled. (It no longer counts as a failure.)

(5) 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.

This preserves the "Reichenbach Falls" effect, but still simplifies dice pool outcomes to a more usable core concept of (a) binary success/fail; (b) degree of advantage; © degree of threat. (In other words, you've still eliminated the different tiers of qualitative success that are independent from each other.)

I'd want to check the impact on probability from removing the success/failure mechanic of Triumph and Despair. Might need to fall back to Triumph doing 1 success (can be canceled) and 1 advantage (cannot be canceled) for a more balanced result.

It would take more thought than I can give it right now to say whether the above is good or bad, imo. (Pretty late where I am right now). But a couple of things stand out to me. I expect you've thought of them and dismissed but I'll state them any way because they're the things that I consider notable at first glance. Firstly, by turning Triumphs and Despairs into just advantages and threats (whether cancellable or not), you make the effects of these more available to lesser situations for want of a better term. Green dice don't have Triumphs. And purple dice don't have despairs. That both inclines spectacular successes to be the preserve of the skilled and gifted and red dice are no longer something that has a sudden shift in the nature of possible consequences. An Adversary 3 Nemesis is scary because you know you're rolling against possible despairs. I don't feel that just threats carry the same weight because they're just an accumulation not a DESPAIR!!! Though your version where they can't be cancelled mitigates that somewhat. In fact I'd say the non-cancellable amendment is pretty important for this reason. Without it, a skilled PC never experiences real risk from red dice / high-level adversaries because they'll always have enough advantage to offset most of the threat.

The other thing that leaps out at me is that with success / fail being pure binary you're placing all qualifiers for degree of success on advantages (unless I've misread you). I don't like that because of necessity it pushes out a whole different axis of depth to the results in order to take its place. Which may be your intent but I like that extra axis.

Anyway, hope that is useful - I sleep now.