Was wondering what was the impressions people had playing this, or running it?

Did you change anything to fit your adventure or was there anything you felt either was missing or needed a little tinkering?

I'm supposed to run it for the first time Thursday night (it's really hard for me to get five people in the same place at the same time). I'll be back with my impressions, I promise!

Before playing, my impression is that the adventure that comes in the box seems shorter and less developed than the other beginner's box adventures. It seems to end in a really unsatisfying cliffhanger (in my opinion) and I expect that experienced roleplayers could steamroll through it in a couple of hours. I'm preparing the follow-up A Call for Heroes bonus adventure to supplement play just in case there's time and inclination.

Reading through the adventure book I got more of an impression that this game is meant as an absolute beginner's start - as in, for folks who have never even considered roleplaying as a viable option. For them, I think, this would be an excellent start. It seems smartly paced and provides enough material to jumpstart a really good adventure whether the provided bonus adventure is used or not.

The only thing I would streamline between these and a full game (to allow for a better transition from box to book) is the inclusion of space flight/combat rules in the bonus adventure. There's enough space stuff already in the base adventure that going through both of these and then suddenly layering on additional rules for space stuff might be jarring to new players that enjoyed the simplicity of the beginner's adventure. That said, it's not like space stuff is terribly complicated - mostly it's just how it interacts with scale, distance, and speed.

There's my thoughts for a penny, anyway. Hope to have more on Friday morning for you!

As promised, here's my post-game review:

Only had three players and myself (GM) - they chose Tiras the Explorer, Mhar'Li the Ace, and Fira Bon the Soldier. Bormos the Explorer was unplayed.

My impressions of the base game being easy to pick up for experienced roleplayers was a little off - none of us besides myself had any experience playing the Star Wars system before so walking through the steps at the pace of the Beginner's Game was a good pace. We got through all but the last encounter (which was technically optional) before time constraints forced us to call it quits for the night.

Just like with the Force and Destiny boxed set I ran previously, nobody ever asks any of the questions they have printed answers for in the adventure book (mostly because they don't ask questions at all - I guess I just don't have very curious players). We had a few good moments as we learned the system, and I allowed for a little more creative opportunity on the second half of the adventure once people were more comfortable with the basic game mechanics. Mostly, in the second encounter with the Strus Clan this provided for more specific measures taken to ambush the Strus Clan rather than engage in a straight fight with them (Tiras rigged up some trip-wires which knocked a couple Strus prone allowing them to be mopped up pretty easily).

To my disappointment, the turbolaser on the Starlight Wanderer fizzled and fried rather than shot - but it sure did scare the hell out of the Strus surrounding the ship who had no idea the thing was occupied.

Overall everyone had a good time and seemed to prefer playing in TFA era over the idea of returning to the Rebellion or even playing aspiring Force-Sensitives.

There was some question as to the ethics of blasting away the Strus Clan - the players pretty much laid waste to the Strus Clan without giving them any quarter for attack themselves. The number of bodies they piled up did cause them concern as to whether or not they were actually playing "good guys" or not.

There's been a request to follow up with A Call for Heroes (which I'll probably start with the final encounter from Discovery on Jakku, just for closure reasons -- the party got on the Sunstrider and off of Jakku but didn't specifically get to the Resistance just yet).

Played it yesterday and had a great time. As with dpick's crew, there weren't as many questions initially as I'd hoped, since two of them are brand new to RPGs and the others are fairly new, but by the third encounter (I had to flip all my dark side Destiny tokens to keep them from getting away) they were coming up with very inventive ideas. The adventure was a success, and they want to continue, so now I need to figure out what core book(s) to acquire for post-A Call for Heroes adventures. Any suggestions from the community?

I'd like one of the characters to eventually develop Force powers (not Bormo, much to the chagrin of his player, but that's a separate dilemma), but not necessarily become a Jedi (or Sith), so I'm just looking for some Force rules, and stats on vehicles and ships. Which core book would be the best way to go?

Overall, I think the wide-open possibilities offered by the TFA era are very exciting, and I'm looking forward to seeing where this crew goes.

I personally have all three, but if your heroes plan to go the Resistance route then I'd strongly recommend Age of Resistance Rebellion because all you have to do really is change a word and magically it's TFA era. If your heroes plan to go the freelance route then Edge of the Empire will suit your play style with really no need for changes at all. Both of those rulebooks include rules for Force Sensitive characters without having to go as in depth as Force and Destiny goes.

My personal preference is for AoR but I've got all of the above so that my players can advance all 4 of the starter characters as fully realized characters if they want to.

As a follow-up to my original post, we met the following Thursday to continue with A Call for Heroes. That went like this: I had another friend show up to pick up Bormo (he was planning to the first time but ended up having to work). Since the other three were on the Sunstrider escaping Jakku's atmosphere I prepared the player to be the prisoner of the First Order picked up in Tuanul when they torched it looking for Lor San Tekka and the map to Luke Skywalker (basically shortly after Poe was captured).

Well that plan blew up in my face as the heroes darn near blew out their main drive escaping from the orbiting Silencer 's tractor beam (yes, I know it was supposed to be the Finalizer in the atmosphere, whatever) and leaving Bormo (unbeknownst to the heroes) to rot in the hands of the First Order. Egg on my face, I can tell you.

To avoid delaying my already bored friend's entry any longer I simply made him a Resistance fighter already, tasked with recovering Wol Kessix from GH-531. Well, I had told my friend that was his mission alongside the PC's mission to intercept communications and report back to the Resistance. They didn't really appreciate it when they found out Bormo was trying to rescue Wol Kessix as well, even though Wol turned out to be massively useful.

My player playing Tiras decided to loosely interpret the character's distaste for the Empire as a general dislike of big government, and so fought me tooth and nail about every time the Resistance was brought up. This got so bad I decided to drop a bunch of FO stormtroopers on them because he was sucking up so much game time arguing. They incapacitated him (whoops, too much!) in the first round of combat and he kind of calmed down after Wol Kessix did some first aid to bring him around afterwards.

Time constraints kept the players from the second of three encounters in A Call for Heroes, so we didn't do the less structured "From the Ashes of the Empire" section. Most of the players were concerned with events on Jakku and so we skipped ahead to that. We still didn't have time to finish the assault on the Strus Clan because of time constraints, but because things were starting to tilt in the heroes' favor and it was unlikely that Bormo would be around again in the near future, I summarized their success at defeating the Strus Clan and left it up to them what they wanted to do with their lives. The general consensus seemed to be that the Resistance is where the action is.

We finished and there was much professed interest in continuing to play the pre-generated characters that came with the boxed set (particularly from Mhar'li, I think she was in love with the fact that she has her own starship).

Much fun was had by all, and I have started putting together another adventure that follows the adventures of these heroes that hopefully we will play someday (with or without Bormo).

Thanks for the advice. I'm reading a friend's copy of the Edge core book now, and I'm definitely going to get this one. Might get AoR, too, but for right now Edge seems to fit the mood of my party a bit better. They don't seem all that fired up to join the Resistance. Mhar'li's mainly angry that her simple ferry job led to a run-in with the First Order and cost her the Sunstrider (the TIEs got them at the start of the last encounter), and the others are basically frazzled by all the fighting, except Fira Bon, who I think is pumped about getting back into the action. Mhar'li's player wants to take them to Ord Mantell to ditch the FO ship they stole and get a "clean" vessel before heading to Hosnian Prime, which hasn't been destroyed yet in our story, so my next step is to invent an adventure there before we go to A Call for Heroes.

About the Force part of it: I'm going to have one character develop Force sensitivity (not Bormo, because it'll be interesting to see how/if his faith changes if one of the other characters gets "rewarded" by the Force) and I kind of want to have it be more mysterious than "Here's a bunch of skill trees. Pick what you want." So I wanted to get your take on it, since you've got more experience with the SW RPGs than I do.

My initial thought is assigning the character I pick a Force strength to determine the number of dice they get to roll, and semi-randomly picking one of the trees, either Sense, Influence or Move (are they different in AoR, or the same?). I might give them a vote, to see if they feel strongly about it, but after that, their powers would be limited to that tree. I'm also leaning toward only showing them the next choices on the tree, so they can't fully plan out their Force progression from the beginning.

That, to me, seems more mysterious and magical, and in line with the movies, but I'd like to hear your take on it.

EDIT: also, it sounds like you've had quite a workout with your players so far. Good idea to introduce the fourth as a prisoner, and hopefully they'll all get "on board" from here on out and go along with your guidance. I didn't have that much trouble with mine. There were a couple players who acted like goofballs instead of "getting into it" initially, but the piles of setback dice I threw at them to resolve the skill checks for their goofy suggestions kind of put an end to that.

About the Force part of it: I'm going to have one character develop Force sensitivity (not Bormo, because it'll be interesting to see how/if his faith changes if one of the other characters gets "rewarded" by the Force) and I kind of want to have it be more mysterious than "Here's a bunch of skill trees. Pick what you want."

Hm that would be an interesting situation to see. I know how I would handle Bormo's reaction, but I'd like to know how your player handles it.

So I wanted to get your take on it, since you've got more experience with the SW RPGs than I do.

I'm honored, but mostly I've just read the core rulebook for Force and Destiny (bits and pieces of the others) and played the Beginner's game boxes for FaD, AoR, and TFW. Still haven't played a "big boy" game yet. Still, I have experience as a GM from other games, so I don't think my advice is worthless.

My initial thought is assigning the character I pick a Force strength to determine the number of dice they get to roll, and semi-randomly picking one of the trees, either Sense, Influence or Move (are they different in AoR, or the same?). I might give them a vote, to see if they feel strongly about it, but after that, their powers would be limited to that tree. I'm also leaning toward only showing them the next choices on the tree, so they can't fully plan out their Force progression from the beginning.

That, to me, seems more mysterious and magical, and in line with the movies, but I'd like to hear your take on it.

As far as the Force goes, I would discuss with my players what their long-term plans are and introduce a power narratively that fits into the character's progression. You don't even have to mention Force sensitivity here, or give them any hints that you want to do this. All you're trying to do is figure out where the players see their characters going, if anywhere. If one of them mentions an interest in becoming Force Sensitive (aside from poor Bormo in this case) I'd let them - albeit clandestinely. Maybe not everybody, but maybe everybody. The Force works in mysterious ways. IMO these particular RPGs are more about transparency between GM and players but I can definitely see what you are going for in terms of mysteriousness and so I wouldn't try to sway you away from that because it sounds like a great deal of fun for you and your players.

When you introduce the power, you don't have to make it terribly clear that the character has conscious control over the Force - it might reveal itself as strong gut feelings or tingling sensations in the backs of their minds (for Sense); you might arbitrarily drop a Force die into the dice pool for an opposed Charm v Discipline check (for Influence, and at first I wouldn't do this every time); when the player defeats a foe in melee combat you might describe the victim flies backwards through the air much further than is natural. All of those are GM styles and how you work it into your game is your preference entirely. Once they get the hint encourage them to ask questions and test out the limits of their power ("Can I sense that guy's emotions on the other side of the room?" or "Can I force that TIE fighter to crash into the ground?") Let the player make a Force power check regardless of the answer, then describe the result of their action. ("You can sense the guy on the other side of the room, and he's angrier than a Gundark that just had his ears ripped off" and "You reach out with the Force but the TIE fighter is too big, too heavy - its mass and thrust pull away through your grasp as it screams over your head!") That will give them a feeling of control over their power even when they don't have it.

The Force powers of the same name have the same trees across all books ( AoR has Move, Enhance, and Foresee; FaD has all of the above plus Battle Meditation, Misdirect, Seek, Protect/Unleash, Heal/Harm, and Bind; some FaD sourcebooks offer additional Powers, namely Suppress and Warde's Foresight ), and the best bet, especially for an emergent Force sensitive, is to give them a Force Rating of 1. That will give them all the power they need for the basic Force powers without making them Rey. Additional Force Rating can be purchased with XP (usually through the specialization tree) as a representation that the character has been practicing that skill.

If you want to keep the tree more thematically mysterious you can try this: whenever it comes time for a player to spend their XP give them the option to train their Force power. Tell them their areas of focus (Magnitude, Strength, Range, or Control) based upon whatever is available to them in the tree. You can tell them the XP costs but you don't have to reveal the specific benefits of each rank until they make their choice. That way the development of their power is still entirely in their control but it is also a road that reveals itself as the player walks down it. Again, that's GM preference - no right or wrong answers here. Use what works best for you.

EDIT: also, it sounds like you've had quite a workout with your players so far. Good idea to introduce the fourth as a prisoner, and hopefully they'll all get "on board" from here on out and go along with your guidance. I didn't have that much trouble with mine. There were a couple players who acted like goofballs instead of "getting into it" initially, but the piles of setback dice I threw at them to resolve the skill checks for their goofy suggestions kind of put an end to that.

Yeah, those setback dice are good for that!

Thanks for the info on the various rulebooks, and the ideas on how to treat the Force. Revealing the tree a step at a time is along the lines of what I was thinking. That way they'd have some control over their development, but wouldn't get to plan it all out.

I think the first manifestation of it is going to be a vision of Misha getting attacked by the Strus again, and when they go back to help, they'll be told of the Tuanul massacre. Perhaps when they visit the remains of the village Bormo will find a non-working lightsaber in Max von Sydow's old hut. We'll see where things go from there.