So, I'm still trying to sit down, and get the rules for this line of games into my d20-addled mind; its strange dice, weird "the GM adds these dice, just because" mechanics, and mostly my own short attention span, at the moment make me like this game, but really not get it. Thus I decided to sit down, and try to build another character; if my friends are building theirs, and say "so, now what?" or "what does this mean?", I'd like to be a GM who can answer. Well, I decided to step just a bit out of my personal comfort zone (Human Jedi), and build something just a bit different, barely. Introducing "Black Hat", the Chiss Slicer. (I had that name before the movie, so I'm sad someone else thought of it, too )

Anywho, I sat down to start, with a chunk of character fluff in my head, and hit some roadblocks, little ones. Chiss --> Spy --> Slicer was easy, but most of the Slicer talents don't make special rolls; they just add Boosts or Setbacks, remove Boosts or Setbacks, or occasionally decrease your time and footprint in the system. These are great, beyond not having much idea to what degree a GM is going to, for lulz, just add Setback and Boost to things, or how the opposed roll to get noticed will actually play out, but it doesn't hint at other good things to take? I will get Computers as high as it can go, Chiss have great Intellect, for free, and that's about it. I know that some other skills will help, too, like Skulduggery, Stealth, and some others, but "I'm assuming", rather than "the Slicer stuff is hinting". Their gear is little better. Most of the stuff I read doesn't "pull a d20", and say "you must have an x kit to even attempt a check"; computers have interfaces, so you could use their keys, if you wanted, and while I found slicer gear, blackops data breaker, electronic lock breaker, and datapad, all things Black Hat would probably try to own, next to none of them give a bonus for using them, or even say you must. "So, this is good for that? How good? What sort of check does this even call for?"

Did I run into the game's "narrative play" preference, or am I just missing something to make me look dense? Also, as I'm not really fond of one-trick ponies, any ideas on good complementary stuff, for when he's being an a-hole, but NOT hacking Imperial military systems? I know many people would say "Knight-level, or not, spend most of the XP on Attributes; you can boost skills easily enough during game play", but I'm uncertain what to pick up, as this character is less fleshed out in my head than my typical Clone War survivor, street urchin Force-user. My fault, I'll grant, but with what I'm perceiving as the game's vagaries, some thoughts would help out muchly. Scientist, to improve his gear, might be good. Infiltrator, just to reach the terminal. Maybe Recruit, if he really joins the Rebels, instead of selling them secrets. Beyond these, I need some ideas. Some of it will be more "you'll get there" than it is at character-build phase, but direction can always help, if you need to map a road. Thank you kindly, and have a great day.

You are focusing on a Specialization when you should be looking at the Career. There are multiple ways to get there. So... if you want to play a Slicer, is Spy the way you want to do it, or would you rather be a Technician? If you choose the spy and it's related skills as your world view (Infiltrator and Scout) then yes, this is where you should start. If, on the other hand, you want to focus on technology in general then look at Technician and it's related specializations (Mechanic and Outlaw Tech).

Try to really find something more than a fine tuned specialty. You need a broad world view that ends in you picking up specializations. Why does your Black Hat Slicer choose to hack into computer systems, security doors, security systems?

Most of the issues you are having is that you are looking at character generation in a vacuum. Playing a game begins to change everything in how you look at the game. Even if you are just doing it to learn with someone that doesn't want to necessarily play the game full time. Get someone that is just willing to try something with you. Look at the table of things that can happen with success, failure, advantage, threat, triumph and despair, then play the game without it. Make things up and start building the creative use of these mechanics.

I would never recommend listening to the Order 66 Podcast, because no one ever heard or even thought of listening to a high quality production that covers all kinds of useful information on how the game is played and how to work with the narrative dice from guys that even talk to developers! Nope, you shouldn't do it. But you could listen to the One-Shot Campaign podcast and hear how others play the game (even if they don't follow the mechanics exactly... the intent on having fun with the dice is there).

I admit, I liked the game because of hearing other people play it. I then bought the Edge core rulebook and the beginner set (because I knew that with the dice, the box only cost me $5 more than the basic price of dice). Since then, I have gotten the Force and Destiny rulebook, beginner's set (for more dice) and the GM Screen. I absorbed a lot of information in a short period of time, but I didn't start understanding why some of the Talent Trees were focused the way they were until I started playing.

You will make mistakes... but don't worry about them. Begin playing the game as soon as possible. If you have access to it, use a beginner box and just play through it like it was a table top game with other people that like tabletop games. One-shot and done. You'll learn a lot and so will they. You might even pick up a player or two. As you play through, you'll get to see how the different classes kind of work together and what is going on. Then build out your Black Hat Chiss and go to town.

As luck would have it, I have a little experience running games for slicer/spies in Star Wars.

On Boost and Setback

One of the things I had to get used to switching to the FFG system is the idea of all these boost and setback dice, and what constitutes a good time to start using them. From my perspective, the first thing a GM needs to figure out his or her own internalization for is what constitutes a setback or a boost, and when to apply them. Imagine them like spices in cooking. While they have the a limited impact on the success or failure of a role (about half the influence of their respective 8 sided counterparts) they have more of a chance to increase the number of advantages and threats generated, affecting the quality of said success or failure. Use these to highlight dramatic moments. When time is an issue, when stress is high, when it's do or die, this is when you want to drop some setbacks. These can range from environmental issues like rain and wind and darkness to emotional issues like having a literal or figurative blaster to your head. I would also probably use them in situations where the character is in some way, shape, or form out of their depth. With the slicer example, let's say you are trying to interface with some one of a kind Quaternary system (base 4, yes, no, maybe yes, maybe no) as opposed to a binary (base 2, yes, no) system. It's close enough to being a normal system that you understand it, but those two extra responses are a little mind boggling, forcing you to think outside of the box. That's worth some setback in my book.

Boost die are fairly closely related in terms of adding "flavor" to an encounter. Not just having the right tools for the job at hand, but having your personal slicing tools, your lucky hydrospanner, and that black box electronic lcok breaker you've been tweaking and improving since you were a kid, all potential sources for boost. Now, as this touches on the gear that you mentioned, some of it has some specific uses listed, but just having the right tool for the job would (in my opinion) put you at a neutral point in terms of setback or boost. If you are trying to "make due" with run of the mill tools you swiped on your way to a job or sub optimal situations like trying to use a flat head screwdriver to work with a hex bolt, some setback would live there.

On Gear

In this kind of narrative game, as opposed to the tactical simulation that I feel like D20 is (Nothing against it being that, it did grow out of a tabletop miniature game, after all) I tend to think of gear more like a prop, or a cross between a prop and a security blanket. In my current Force and Destiny game, there is a slicer/mechanic. The way we worked out his "Tool Kit" is basically, he's got what he needs for general droid/vehicle/computer maintenance. Want to run a quick memory dump of a droid, sure! Just whip out your EPROM reader and find the right cable adapter. Did that chase to get away from a bunch of storm troopers shake a repulsor coil a little loose from it's housing on your bike, no worries! Oh, the magic blue smoke has been let out of the hyperdrive motivator? That's going to be an issue. That would take some seriously specialized tools and probably some replacement parts to fix "the right way," but if you just want to nurse it along for one last jump back to yoru home base? Look at all these setbacks!

On Complimentary Skills

Using the example of the techie in my FND game, Careers and Specs and Talents don't exist in a vacuum. All the things you mention could pair really well with the slicer concept, but all of them pair differently. The techie in my game (set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope) used to be the guy who took care of the droids at a Jedi Temple. His pet project was a Search and Rescue probe droid. He'd help out with ship and vehicle maintenance when he was needed, and then Order 66 turns his whole world upside down. He and the rest of the party escape with the help of a bounty hunter that owed them, so they become his "crew" to cover the fact they are on the run. In this case he has to double as part time astrogator (but not enough to warrant picking up a pilot oriented spec, just enough to drop the odd bit of left over XP in there from time to time). Being on the run and hunted by the empire means he wants to be able to defend himself a little (without resorting to the Glowstick of Doom) so he practices with a blaster, but again, not enough to pick up a blaster oriented spec. Now, could he use some skulduggery to get to those tasty Imperial computers? It's useful, to be sure, but someone else in the party is the "infiltration specialist" so as a team, the techie just stays quiet and tags along, or waits for the "all clear" signal.

Compare this to a different slicer played by the same guy in an old WEG game. Still a slicer, but this guy was a slicer super spy. Loads of the sneaky type skills to get in, get the info and get out, plus the combat skills to back it up when things invariably went wrong. This second guy would have picked up some combat and stealth specs in this system because he mostly worked alone, without a net.

I guess the TL;DR version of this section is "It's hard to build a character in a narrative focused system without a solid concept," because unlike more tactically oriented games where some methods of building a character are clearly optimal or suboptimal, that's not exactly the case in a narrative system. That being said, it's up to the GM to make sure everyone has a moment to shine.

Anyway, I hope this helps!

These both do, except that I run into the problem that this system, at least to me, and my friends, is somewhere between "never seen before", and "never asked for this. Where did d20 go?" I won't sit here and spit at the dice, and their system, but I find myself old enough that I don't learn as fast as I did, or as fast as I might spend money, and I'm probably the only one of the set whose sole appeal isn't "this game is Star Wars", and without "Jedi", even F&D isn't so popular with them, in theory; they certainly aren't as keen on learning a new system, using dice they don't have, if I haven't "mastered" it, first. I have all three of the core books, and grabbed Edge: Enter the Unknown, purely because it had Chiss in it (even if I feel they have no business being in the movies-time frame (that's not for here, please?), and am no closer, really, to knowing how to run it. My friends will want me to do that, as they know even less about these dice, these rules, and all, and I'm 90% sure they wouldn't sit down to do anything, if I didn't already know how to tell them how anything is done. I don't expect there can be that "one shot to see how things work", as they'll see it as a waste of their time, if I can't even run the game I want to conduct.

Oh well, school just started for them, so I've still got time to keep looking at these, and trying to figure it out, if the even want to play Star Wars (I haven't figured out my 5th ed D&D much better, so there's that), so maybe I'll figure, maybe not, and maybe another semester of Pathfinder Anyway, thank you very much for your help, all, even if I am doing a pretty good job of illustrating a lost cause, thanks to my friends, and my ignorance, and of course, other comments are still certainly welcome.

No lost cause. If nothing else, set yourself up as both a player and a GM. Think of a scene in a movie, and then work out how your character would carry it out. Whether that is Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom (I know, odd for a Spy / Slicer, but still something that you can find out how he performs). If you are gutsy and can juggle it in memory or with notepads, go for a party of 4 player characters (or however many the movie scene entails).

From the train heist in Firefly, to a James Bond chase scene, to the speeders over Coruscant. Actually roll the dice and think of non-fatal ways to interpret the dice. Say it out loud if you can so that you slow down your thought process and deliver it deliberately. Do a Pod Race with non-pilot characters. Imagine flying through Beggar's Canyon as a rookie kid without anything but your Characteristics. If you can talk to yourself in different voices, this is even better. If you don't want to be in-person, do it as narrators describing the scene to a crowd. The key is to begin to roll the dice and start interpreting the symbols. The reason I listed the two podcasts, was because it is invaluable as a resource in how to hear what others are doing. That doesn't mean it is the only way. It is a way. Try out several and keep what you like.

Bottom line... start rolling dice and unleash the creativity inside so that you begin seeing the dice as ways to add to the story instead of lacking numbers telling you what to do.

For addressing the gear question, page 186 of the Age of Rebellion rulebook has a box, "The Right Tool fo the Job" (couldn't find it in EotE and didn't check in F&D). It also might be useful to pick up one of the beginner games, because it takes you step by step through the rules. Even if you don't play it with your group, but instead play multiple roles yourself (say, read it as GM while playing the choices of two of the pregens), you'll learn the rules and get an idea of how the system works as presented.

I'll second Grayfax's suggestion (though I'll outright say it explicitly). Have a listen to the Order66 podcast. Its a wonderful resource for everything about this system. The hosts are pretty laid back and may let themselves go from time-to-time, but they throw down wisdom like Gandhi.