My brother is running his very first game tomorrow. That is awesome! He starts out safe though, with the Age of Rebellion Beginner Box, but he might want to continue the campaign after that, so he says we can make our own characters instead of using the premades if we want. Has anyone done this? Any reason at all why we shouldn`t?

Edit: I have no ide what to play! I have lots of character concept ideas for EotE, but not as much for AoR....

I have and they work fine Might take some tweaking on the GMs part.

I think everyone has done it so far and it work fine. The stories, especially the Age of Rebellion one, doesn't depend of the characters.

Here's an idea I've seen floated around here if the group is worried about knowing the rules enough to create a decent character. You can start by using one of the pregen characters. After that game, you can either keep playing that character or create a brand new character. For the story going forward, you can just refer to anything that happened to the pregen characters to have actually happened to the character you end up playing with. Perhaps the character was just "going through a weird phase back then."

IIRC some of the pregens don't follow the rules as written for talent tree advancement. So, if you do play with the pregens and keep them going, the GM will have to decide what to do if the talent advancement doesn't quite match up.

Otherwise, I agree with others. My group always played the beginner games with our own characters. The missions are simple enough (and this game allows anyone to use any skill) that you don't have to have the "correct" character for the challenges as written. Need a pilot? Anyone can roll Agility. Need to slice into a computer? Anyone can roll Intelligence.

Very little in any of the Beginner Box adventures is reliant upon using the Pre-Gens.

For "Escape from Mos Shutta" (EotE), it's very easy to have your players come up with their own reasons why they're fleeing the Hutt's grasp. You can handwave why they don't have a ship already, since the adventure ends with them getting a fairly decent YT-1300.

For "Assault on Whisper Base" (AoR), the PCs are an Alliance strike team, so with that hook you're set to go, with the adventure's successful conclusion providing them both a Base of Operations and an Imperial Lambda shuttle.

For "Mountaintop Rescue" (FaD), the PCs simply need to have a connection to the NPC that's in need of rescue, who generally seems to be set-up to be a Mentor for the party.

I did Escape from Mos Schutta and Long Arm of the Hutt with my group, as the intro to a longer campaign and it worked out fine.

Edit: I have no ide what to play! I have lots of character concept ideas for EotE, but not as much for AoR....

You could play a Rodian. Maybe even a Rodian Clone.

We did Escape from Mos Shutta and Long Arm of the Hutt with our own characters too. A BX Commando droid who was being used as a gladiator, A Corellian pilot (Hotshot), Alderanian mechanic and my Twilek dancing girl. We also ran through a modified version of Whisper Base, scaled to not be to easy.

My online group is running Whisper Base with our own characters this weekend.

Did Escape from Mos Shuuta with 2 players and custom characters.

One Big Game Hunter and one Scoundrel.

Worked just fine.
They even managed to take down the most dangerous enemies (you know which ones I mean, no spoilers here), but they nearly got knocked out of the fight more than once.

It was a fun game with the custom characters

(and obligations worked to set them up for leaving Mos Shuuta in a hurry)

Yes. It doesn't matter the game system, I like to start off with a character of my own creation. If need be, I'll make one close to a pre-gen, but I just can't get into a game system without jumping right into the deep end with character creation. That said, I totally see how pre-gens are valuable for people, and I've played in groups where some were pre-gens and some were not. Just personal preference.

My group's backstory includes all of the beginner games. I ran 4 of my group through Mos Shuuta, and one of the the players is running me and my group through Whisper Base, it does take a little tweaking, but, nothing that you don't do anyway during games, and we didn't run into any problems....except for the players not knowing what to do at the party in Long Arm of the Hutt.

except for the players not knowing what to do at the party in Long Arm of the Hutt.

Not knowing what to do at a party is a common problem, even in the real world.

My group were too good when we played Whisper Base. We destroyed any means of escape and communication for the enemy in the in the beginning of the game, so the last part couldn`t even happen...

When I ran it (the day the full rule book came out for EotE in my gaming store, I told my friends to call on sick to work and come over) I had them make their own characters.. But knowing they were all experienced gamers who not only could build killing machines, but also use the environment and come up with creative solutions to overcome obstacles, I had to up the difficulty.

*spoilers to EotE ahead*

I used all the pregen characters as antagonists.. Teemo had broken the pregens, and now they served him. The damaged protocol droid, became a pretty big antagonist.. later in the game.. only survivor of the box set. And when they came to finally kill Teemo, I had their BH face off with the Wookie, in the gladitorial pit.. Which almost ended the BH and was an awesome scene.

So no, you don't need the pregens, make the character you want and murder those pregenerated bastards.