Just in case any one really doubted the reviewer's intentions and thought that actually trying to explain how the rules were introduced as they were using could, can, etc. were actually a boon to the system, here is his last post in his review:

29. Justin Alexander says:

People who earnestly argue that rules can’t be poorly designed because you aren’t supposed to use them make my head hurt.

So good luck barking up that tree.

Hilarious how someone that stoops to such levels of intellectual dishonesty would call someone else a liar.

The anger at the review doesn't seem to stem from the material, but from the arrogant tone. Yes, it comes across as arrogant. Justin picked apart a solid, well-received, top-selling game with pure opinion while coming across as "FFG did it wrong and I know how to do it better". That's his right and I've no problem with it. However, to post that review, have it found and linked here...the very forums concerning the game...and be shocked/upset that it was received so poorly is silly. This wasn't from his private diary, it was put online for public consumption. It was consumed and a large amount of readers here found it ill-supported and arrogant.

Personal attacks suck. Politics is rife with them. However, it wasn't just one or two people who had issues with the reviewer's tone, it was many. Is he arrogant? I don't know. I don't know him. I've only seen him through the lens of his review, which to myself and many others, came across poorly. I find it disingenuous to call this system "sloppy" but get upset when that's not well-received.

He doesn't need to walk through a mine-field of feelings, but some respect given would have earned the same.

Thanks Alderaan. Once again you can voice my opinion and hang-ups quite a lot more eloquently than I could have myself...

Thanks Alderaan. Once again you can voice my opinion and hang-ups quite a lot more eloquently than I could have myself...

It's only because I just woke up. Give me some coffee and a few hours...

He's not the only one shocked about the conduct of some people in regards to one of the politest negative reviews you're likely to get. Everything after this will be worse, especially if the reviewers see this thread. You've just removed any reason for anyone to hold back anymore. Congratulations on that, by the way.

The anger at the review doesn't seem to stem from the material, but from the arrogant tone.

What makes it arrogant is the complete lack of understanding of the rules, complete lack of examples, and the complete lack of research. He's certainly entitled to his opinion, but he's not entitled to his own facts. If he gets the facts wrong, his opinion is misinformed.

What gets me is he didn't even try to get his facts right, even in his most recent post he he demonstrated a continued misunderstanding. He's never asked "Do I have this right?" It seems he'd rather support his unfounded hit piece than actually learn something.

I'm somewhat surprised by those defending him. Opinions should be based on something concrete. If he just doesn't like the narrative and abstract nature of the rules, or certain specific elements, that's all fine and good. But he should at least be accurate.

However, you've based the bulk of your criticism on saying that the system doesn't give good guidelines for dice interpretation. That is a debatable subject, and you've not given specific examples to support your argument. You mention people house ruling the game, but don't say what they're changing. Going from your proposed rule changes, it sounds like you don't like the fact that the system has so many result states. For me, it's easy enough to define. Success is whether you do what you attempted, and more success can improve that action. Advantage can either improve a success or make additional good things happen regardless of success or failure. Threat can make additional bad things happen from a success or failure. Triumph makes something really good happen in addition to success or failure. Despair makes something really happen in addition to success or failure. These results can occur independent of an action, in conjunction with it, or because of it. The main rule to keep in mind is that none of the three result types (success/failure, advantage/threat, triumph/despair) can cancel out another kind of result. Succeed, good, really good versus fail, bad, really bad. I don't have any examples from you of when these became difficult to interpret. This lack of examples is what leads myself and others to question your experience.

First: Multiple examples of the inconsistent skill guidelines are given in the review.

Second: An example of the types of house rules I'm talking about is given literally two sentences later in the review.

Not only are all of these examples present in the review, multiple people in this thread have talked about them specifically. I'm really unclear how you (or Whafrog) could have missed them.

Third: " The main rule to keep in mind is that none of the three result types (success/failure, advantage/threat, triumph/despair) can cancel out another kind of result."

That is exactly what I'm talking about. What you just wrote there is not the way the game works. In the RAW, Triumphs count as successes (and thus cancel failures). Despair does the exact opposite. You've house ruled it in order to simplify the mechanic and apparently don't even realize you've done it.

And this has happened virtually every single time I've gotten into a discussion like this. The people championing the dice mechanics repeatedly reveal that they are not, in fact, using the dice mechanics as published.

Actually, that is the way the game works. Because yes, a Triumph does generate 1 Success it's also a Triumph, and yes a Despair does generate 1 Failure it's also a Despair. You're nitpicking a statement and drawing innacurate conclusions from it. Everyone knows what his statement means and everyone runs it as the RAW states in this regard.

No one is house ruling this.

There are in fact 3 "independent" axis of results. Just because one symbol contributes to two axis doesn't negate that.

And I'm sorry, I just re-read your review and I don't see much in the way of examples to support your claims.

Here's what I saw - and if I'm missing something I'd appreciate it if you'd point it out:

>> Skills inconsistent in how they use Success, Advantage, Threat Despair. <<

I agree more consistency here would be nice. But I don't see how it amounts to the core mechanic sucking or being clunky or not working well. These uses are suggestions and lay out the concept of how success and advantage can be used.

Most systems with skills have special uses and "mini-rules" that govern their application and FFG Star Wars is certainly no worse in this regard.

>> Initiative is a competitive check that doesn't resolve like a competitive check <<

Excxept initiative does resolve just like a competitive check. Number of success determines order. Number of Advantage breaks ties.

Triumphs don't break ties in initiative but being a PC does which is a very slight departure from pure competitive checks...but doesn't amount to the core mechanic being lousy.

>> Medicine/Mechanics vs Damage Control <<

So, they're not consistent in their use of < and <=?

Again, that doesn't amount to much.

An inconsistency? Yes.

A significant and meaningful one? No

Still no evidence of the core mechanic not working as written.

>> Game is clunky <<

No examples given

>> Game takes too long to play through encounters <<

You expected to play through your planned adventure in a session or two. It took 4.

Did you moderate your expectations based on the fact you and the players were learning a new game, one that has a core mechanic that takes some getting used to?

Finally, going back to something earlier in the review. You criticized the 3 lines and 3 core books. Fine, there are legitimate ways to complain about this. But all you say is that there is "no justification for it". There is a justification for it. You may not like the justification or think the justification doesn't suit your preferences but there is a justification. I think it's statements like this that make you come across as arrogant. You fling out statements like this when there has been quite a bit of justification provided by the devs for it. You don't have to agree with those justifications but to say they don't exist isn't true. You could have said that you prefer all core character concepts in a single core instead of a deep dive into seperate sets of core character concepts. This would have at least indicated you knew what you were talking about instead of making unfounded statements about the designers.

He's not the only one shocked about the conduct of some people in regards to one of the politest negative reviews you're likely to get. Everything after this will be worse, especially if the reviewers see this thread. You've just removed any reason for anyone to hold back anymore. Congratulations on that, by the way.

I don't know who that's directed at, but I'll gladly assume responsibility for possibly angering a complete stranger who's opinion doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game in the least. What I find ridiculous is you blaming future reviewers possibly being worse because of how people acted on this thread. People are accountable for their actions and no matter how many terrible, vicious personal attacks are thrown at Justin, it will never excuse bad behavior in others. That's fear-mongering of the weakest kind. If Justin had made a polite, "I'm not a fan of some things FFG did in Star Wars; here's why and what I've done to make it better for me", I doubt any but the most bored or rabid fans would've batted an eye. However, he didn't do that. He made what many felt were snide, poorly-supported comments that came off as arrogant and people responded accordingly. This is how the world works, especially online.

So, Justin wrote a review, many here found it wanting. In the end it amounts to nothing more than strangers giving opinions online. In the end, the game speaks for itself, good or bad.

Something just occurred to me: Perhaps the "inconsistent" examples are that way because there are just too many variables stemming from imaginative interpretation of the results. It would take pages per skill to list every idea a group may have, so FFG might have put what they felt would be inspiring, leaving it up to the presumably intelligent players to take it from there.

One thing I've noticed is that players have no issue with hand-waving or changing things, but are shocked when FFG makes a solid system that grants mechanic leeway to what players often do in the first place.

To add: I find it odd that detractors of the system will often cite that ignoring results is a weakness in design. If that's the case, all RPGs are weak in design. When you roll a critical in D&D, you can just say, "You do extra damage" or you can give is some spice. The former is boring, even if by the RAW. What if someone rolls 3 successes over the TN in the WoD and you can't think of how they can change a tire any better? Is that poor design? I won't even touch FATE.

All FFG did was take a dice pool with binary results and give it some mechanical flavor. The symbols are merely guides in what otherwise would be boring or hand-wavy. Star Wars is high-action space opera and full of nail-biting moments of excitement. Codifying every possible result or leaving it to total interpretation wouldn't have done it justice, so they took a fresh, untrodden path.

The anger at the review doesn't seem to stem from the material, but from the arrogant tone.

What makes it arrogant is the complete lack of understanding of the rules, complete lack of examples, and the complete lack of research. He's certainly entitled to his opinion, but he's not entitled to his own facts. If he gets the facts wrong, his opinion is misinformed.

What gets me is he didn't even try to get his facts right, even in his most recent post he he demonstrated a continued misunderstanding. He's never asked "Do I have this right?" It seems he'd rather support his unfounded hit piece than actually learn something.

I'm somewhat surprised by those defending him. Opinions should be based on something concrete. If he just doesn't like the narrative and abstract nature of the rules, or certain specific elements, that's all fine and good. But he should at least be accurate.

I'm pretty much going to agree with anything you post because, well, Mark Sheppard.

Something just occurred to me: Perhaps the "inconsistent" examples are that way because there are just too many variables stemming from imaginative interpretation of the results. It would take pages per skill to list every idea a group may have, so FFG might have put what they felt would be inspiring, leaving it up to the presumably intelligent players to take it from there.

One thing I've noticed is that players have no issue with hand-waving or changing things, but are shocked when FFG makes a solid system that grants mechanic leeway to what players often do in the first place.

Also, as Justin calculated there are what, 18 possible qualitative results, so enumerating the application of all of even most of these is a poor use of pages.

Maybe this is why Justin so highly values consistency (and why he claims the core mechanic doesn't work RAW, and that no one he's encountered plays it RAW) - with so many options a consistent meaning for extra success, advantage, triump, etc is useful.

But skills are very different than each other so a consistent interpretation rule may not make sense.

And, perhaps most importantly, the game was designed to be more narrative, meaning that the designers wanted GMs and players to be creative in how they "spend" extra success and the results of the other two axis and so they had to walk a fine line of codifying the possibilities to give something to fall back on and even inspire and using language and examples that leaves room for that creativity.

Thinkgs like success in Computers reducing time, but success in Stealth being used to aid comrades and advantage reducing time are things he points out that seem like they could be more consistent.

So, there is some value in consistency but I don't think the case has been made that the level of inconsistency means the core mechanic doesn't work well or demonstrate why people aren't following RAW when they play the game (ignoring the question of whether or not people are in fact playing according to RAW or not).

Justin also ignores the fact that the book leaves interpretation up the to GM so even though most people play the game according to the guidelines (RAW), the rules do explicitely place the responsiblity and power in the GMs hands to interpret results as best suite the fun and the story and encourages players to do so as well.

He's not the only one shocked about the conduct of some people in regards to one of the politest negative reviews you're likely to get. Everything after this will be worse, especially if the reviewers see this thread. You've just removed any reason for anyone to hold back anymore. Congratulations on that, by the way.

I don't know who that's directed at, but I'll gladly assume responsibility for possibly angering a complete stranger who's opinion doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game in the least. What I find ridiculous is you blaming future reviewers possibly being worse because of how people acted on this thread. People are accountable for their actions and no matter how many terrible, vicious personal attacks are thrown at Justin, it will never excuse bad behavior in others. That's fear-mongering of the weakest kind. If Justin had made a polite, "I'm not a fan of some things FFG did in Star Wars; here's why and what I've done to make it better for me", I doubt any but the most bored or rabid fans would've batted an eye. However, he didn't do that. He made what many felt were snide, poorly-supported comments that came off as arrogant and people responded accordingly. This is how the world works, especially online.

So, Justin wrote a review, many here found it wanting. In the end it amounts to nothing more than strangers giving opinions online. In the end, the game speaks for itself, good or bad.

I'll be blunt then: This thread is nothing but a witch hunt and could well be considered mobbing. The assumption people won't notice it when they search for feedback on reviews before doing their own is not one I personally make, because I know professional reviewers look at their demographic. Usually, a lot of negative feedback would mean a change to the review, however, what you are doing here is a collective beatdown on constructive criticism of the rules (wether it's accurate is another issue entirely. Very few posts here actually address that beyond unsubstantiated claims a la "this blows"). If this is how constructive criticism is treated, people will notice and decide, if they don't like the system, either not to review it at all (meaning less press) or start with a very unpleasant deconstruction (if they get their pagecount that way).

Another thing: The game does not speak for itself. The fanbase speaks for the game. If I showed this thread to people wanting to start EotE, they wouldn't want to try it. I mean, seriously, you have entire pages worth of people patting each other on the back about how "they sure showed him". It's pathetic.

I am lovin this thread. Awesome stuff. I would add to it but it would just be repetitive with what so many have said. I could NOT care less about what this guy thinks of the game, though. So I'll just keep drinking my beer and eating my popcorn chips keep enjoying the show.

@DeathByGrotz: To misrepresent Justin's review as constructive criticism of the system is dishonest, at best. As for the rest of what you wrote, meh. Except: circle jerk? Why, thank you sir, you want me to hold yours too, while you shake your fists in exasperation at us pathetic fans?

Jedi Ronin, I just find it odd that examples...again, examples...of what one can do in an obviously narrative system are taken as concrete, total use. I'll admit when I first skimmed through the book and saw the slew of things under each skill, I cringed thinking, "I'll never remember all that!". Then I absorbed the book and it became clear that those examples were simply guidance. After running the game for a while I came to realize that I could easily use the RAW while not sweating if we were interpreting the symbols incorrectly. It was remarkably liberating.

As a GM, I've found so many systems don't hit that sweet spot, where I can have a solid base that gives me intentionally designed wiggle room for narration, without fear of breaking something.

I'll be blunt then: This thread is a circle jerk of the worst kind of fanwank.

Reported.

I'll be blunt then: This thread is a circle jerk of the worst kind of fanwank.

Reported.

Great. Now we're "all" (i.e. me and a select few) going to get warning points ... well, nice knowing y'all.

@DeathByGrotz: To misrepresent Justin's review as constructive criticism of the system is dishonest, at best.

Criticism backed by proof on an interpretation of the rules plus suggestions for improvement sounds pretty constructive to me. As far as net reviews go, especially from blog pages, he was very polite.

Wether or not this is accurate is another matter entirely. Review plus improvement suggestions is an incentive to play the game, because the "fix" is literally one click away. If he'd just posted his review without promising crunch which he apparently intends to deliver, maybe I could understand the negative reaction, but he actually delivered right here in this thread. What more could you possibly want? It's a blog.

I'll be blunt then: This thread is a circle jerk of the worst kind of fanwank.

Reported.

Great. Now we're "all" (i.e. me and a select few) going to get warning points ... well, nice knowing y'all.

Sorry, but I'm not sure comments like the one from DeathByGrotz can be justified. I daresay he wouldn't say that to a complete stranger's face, so I don't see why such terms should be used online. The end result is still the same.

Well, if it genuinely offends you, I'll just edit it, no problem. In my part of the world, it'd be considered blunt, but not offensive.

He's not the only one shocked about the conduct of some people in regards to one of the politest negative reviews you're likely to get. Everything after this will be worse, especially if the reviewers see this thread. You've just removed any reason for anyone to hold back anymore. Congratulations on that, by the way.

I don't know who that's directed at, but I'll gladly assume responsibility for possibly angering a complete stranger who's opinion doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game in the least. What I find ridiculous is you blaming future reviewers possibly being worse because of how people acted on this thread. People are accountable for their actions and no matter how many terrible, vicious personal attacks are thrown at Justin, it will never excuse bad behavior in others. That's fear-mongering of the weakest kind. If Justin had made a polite, "I'm not a fan of some things FFG did in Star Wars; here's why and what I've done to make it better for me", I doubt any but the most bored or rabid fans would've batted an eye. However, he didn't do that. He made what many felt were snide, poorly-supported comments that came off as arrogant and people responded accordingly. This is how the world works, especially online.

So, Justin wrote a review, many here found it wanting. In the end it amounts to nothing more than strangers giving opinions online. In the end, the game speaks for itself, good or bad.

I'll be blunt then: This thread is a circle jerk of the worst kind of fanwank. The assumption people won't notice it when they search for feedback on reviews before doing their own is not one I personally make, because I know professional reviewers look at their demographic. Usually, a lot of negative feedback would mean a change to the review, however, what you are doing here is a collective beatdown on constructive criticism of the rules (wether it's accurate is another issue entirely. Very few posts here actually address that beyond unsubstantiated claims a la "this blows"). If this is how constructive criticism is treated, people will notice and decide, if they don't like the system, either not to review it at all (meaning less press) or start with a very unpleasant deconstruction (if they get their pagecount that way).

Another thing: The game does not speak for itself. The fanbase speaks for the game. If I showed this thread to people wanting to start EotE, they wouldn't want to try it. I mean, seriously, you have entire pages worth of people patting each other on the back about how "they sure showed him". It's pathetic.

To think that anyone who reads his review or this thread will steer clear of the game is laughable. Nobody knows what anyone else will do. Most people will form their own opinions. This isn't a house or car. Many people will probably just see "Star Wars" and buy it. Some may do what you believe they will, as with any purchase. Some won't care (such as mouthymerc, who won't share beer and popcorn).

I haven't counted the members of this forum, but I would be surprised if it comprised anything close to the demographic buying this line. The game and its entire fanbase are symbiotic, however it's unlikely the forum base is the reason for its existence. That's the other way 'round.

I also find it odd that you mention Justin gives constructive criticism but then admits he may not be accurate. That makes no sense.

I am lovin this thread. Awesome stuff. I would add to it but it would just be repetitive with what so many have said. I could NOT care less about what this guy thinks of the game, though. So I'll just keep drinking my beer and eating my popcorn chips keep enjoying the show.

It's pretty awesome, huh? I normally stay out of the shallow end of online conversations, but hey, everyone needs to rubberneck every once in a while. Besides, people are getting dogpiled for having an opinion about an opinion, and that bothers me.

Well, if it genuinely offends you, I'll just edit it, no problem. In my part of the world, it'd be considered blunt, but not offensive.

When people resort to terms such as those, it says more about their calibre than that of the person who was offended. And "in my part of the world", if I actually said that to the people in the vicinity (e.g. at the FLGS), I would expect to have promptly alienated myself.

Criticism is based on a set of criterea selected by the critic, the objectivity of which can vary. A deconstruction, which is very easy to write about literally anything, takes a subject matter and picks it appart. Constructive criticism examines the problems the critic percieves. It then offers one or more potential solutions. As the rules are a text medium and at times not phrased clearly (this happens, especially in English, Polish, and a couple other languages that favour a warmer tone) this perception can be accurate for one party, but inaccurate for the other.

Now personally, I don't agree with his interpretation of the rules. I'm even rethinking mine of the business model, due to points that were raised in a manner I can respect and properly digest and comprehend. But that doesn't mean I have to like a pub table level deconstruction.

I'll be blunt then: This thread is a circle jerk of the worst kind of fanwank.

Reported.

Great. Now we're "all" (i.e. me and a select few) going to get warning points ... well, nice knowing y'all.

Sorry, but I'm not sure comments like the one from DeathByGrotz can be justified. I daresay he wouldn't say that to a complete stranger's face, so I don't see why such terms should be used online. The end result is still the same.

While I don't agree with DeathByGrotz's points, I in no way want his voice silenced, no matter how rude. I'm sure we can all take some snark, at least I hope so. Besides, taking a snake's rattle doesn't make it any less venomous.