Hello fellow forceusersthathavenolifebacausesomeolddudethinkshestheemperorwantstoeliminateyoubecauseyoureatrhreat,

could you please tell me what I need to get started (I'm trying to avoid the beginners game because the rules vary to the real game) and how the game works (especially for the GM).

I have never played an RPG so please don't come up with pro terms.

Thanks,

YariSamurai

I'm very sorry to say it but you really should start with a Beginner Box, they step you through learning the rules very well, taking a "learn by doing" approach. They are particularly good for new GM's too. The best part though is that everyone gets a feel for the character mechanics before being given a huge array of choices when making their own character. The Value is very high due to the included dice and maps.

Honestly the hardest choice is "what kind of Star Wars is your group interested in playing?"

Edge of the Empire is all about the underworld, living on the edge of society with very minimal Force use

Age of Rebellion is a military game, Soldiers, Spies, Engineers, again with minimal Force use.

Force and Destiny focuses heavily on Force use and the PC's inner struggles between the Light Side and lure of the Dark Side.

If you or your group can answer that question then it will be much easier. Each line work seamlessly together, so don't feel locked into a single system for the future, but you need to start somewhere.

After choosing you flavour of Star Wars get the related Core Book and some Dice (3-4 sets is a great place to start). Start reading and playing. Many campaigns can be run from a single Core book and 3-4 sets of Dice.

I honestly wouldn't buy anything else until you have a couple of sessions and at least 1 adventure under your belt, it will help you have a better understanding of what your group needs.

As a closing remarks I will say that IMHO every single book FFG has released for this system is highly worth while. Every single book has material for every player in a group, and enough story ideas to write multiple campaigns.

Thank you that was helpful, but could you explain the game mechanics more detailedly? Also, why do I need so many dice?

YariSamurai

Game mechanics function around the narrative dice. The dice themselves don't have numbers, but have special symbols. There are "positive" dice and "negative" dice. Instead of just determining success or failure, it includes variables, so you can fail at a chosen task, but still come out with some advantage over the situation, or you could succeed with some negative consequences; likewise, you can succeed with advantage or fail with more adverse consequences. So the basic mechanic is you determine a task, roll to see if you succeed or fail, then, based on the results, narrate how you succeeded or failed. Groups are encouraged to work together to tell the story this way. The beginner games will walk you through all of this.

You need to accumulate more dice because you will be rolling more as characters progress, and one set won't always cut it (you could just reroll the same dice equal to what dice you need, but that's tedious and can be confusing).

If it helps to sway your decision the beginner game comes with a set of dice. Yes the rules are thinner than the full core rules, but they do a good job of giving you a feel for the game.

Also multiple sets of dice allow multiple people to roll at the same time.

And to be clear only the specifics of making PC's is diluted in the Beginner Games, the actual dice system is identical.

A group. You need a group. You can form your own out of friends, or you can fall in line with another group that is already playing (I'd recommend the latter, as you'll learn exponentially quicker).

I say skip the Beginner Box(es) myself, I know that's unpopular here. But if you know you want to get into this, it's just an unnecessary additional expense. You really only need one of the core books and one set of dice (let the other players get their own sets and share), and since you're posting on the F&D forum I assume you're interested in Force Users. I'd personally recommend Edge as I find it to be the most diverse/flexible, and again let other ppl in your group buy the other cores (spread out the cost), but as a close second I'd recommend buying them both.

First step, find a group to play with. Then worry about the other stuff.

As it is your first RPG I would also say get a beginner box. All 4 are nice but I would possibly point towards the new Force Awakens one. Partly because of the awesome poster map of the galaxy, and Partly as it is a blend of the 3 lines.

Dice.

this system uses its own special dice system (not all games do) this is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it allows a very flexible story based game. Curse because nobody has their own set @ start. However for a few bucks there is an official app! this will save you from shelling out to much on dice if you do not feel like it. If you do want physical dice 2 sets will do at the start, but you will want 3 or 4 sets floating around the table in short time.

To expand from the beginner's game Core rule book for you then either an adventure or sector/setting book. Depending on if you want to write your own tails or not. Players should look at picking up the book for their carrier.

Add another voice to the beginner box route. For starters, you are a beginner. These are made for you. Get it, learn it, love it.

As for the rules between the beginner set and the main rule book - don't worry about it. Any changes are cosmetic, mostly deal with the PCs and anything that is simplified (like initiative) are built on later in the game.

But lets assume you still ignore that advice. What do you need? A core rule book, a free evening to read that rule book, a set of dice and three friends. "But wait!" you say, "how do I understand the core rule book?!?" - easy. The same way that we did in the seventies, in the eighties, and now. Read the book, read the book again, try the game out, make mistakes, read the book again, try again, make fewer mistakes. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Hell, you have it WAY better than I did when I started back in '85. A global communication system where you can ask questions and get instant responses? 18 year old me would have murdered for such a tool when learning RPGs. That and the free porn would have blown my goddamned mind.

Don't take this as me being harsh - it's not meant to be. But explaining the entire game mechanics in more detail is way outside the scope of the kind of help we can really give you. Go read the book, make your mistakes and come back with your list of questions. Then we can talk.

Also, if you don't already, you will need a pair of ten-sided dice (d10), which are not included among the dice sets. You can buy them at a local game store, if you have one (which I would look into), but you can also get them online for cheap. If you can help it, get one of them with single-digit numbers (0-9) printed on the faces, and one with double-digit numbers on the faces (00-90). And make sure they're easy to read; I have bags of d10 that have bright color combinations that make the numbers hard to read.

I'll echo the sentiments of the others here that picking up a Beginner Box really is your best bet.

You get a set of dice (generally enough to cover most situations in the Beginner Box adventure), a pre-made adventure that will guide both a new GM and new players through learning the fundamental elements of the system, and some pretty nifty maps and tokens.

The only real differences in the Beginner Box mechanics and the full core rulebooks are critical injuries, PC 'careers,' and a couple of skills (Piloting and Knowledge) being compressed, all of which are streamlined in the Beginner Box for the sake of not overloading the new folks with too much information at once or stressing about "fiddly bits" that can get in the way of the group learning the core mechanics of the game.

As for which Beginner Box to get, my recommendations are either Edge of the Empire, The Force Awakens, or Force and Destiny, in about that order. Though given the OP is posting in the Force and Destiny forum, sounds like that's the one you should go with, although I'll add the caveat that Force powers also get a bit streamlined in the Beginner Box as compared to what's in the full core rulebook.

Also, with a Beginner Box you're only out 30 bucks if it turns out you don't like the system, as opposed to the 75+ that you'd be out if purchasing a core rulebook and dice. And there are plenty of folks that don't care for FFG's take, with the "funny dice" being amongst the top reasons why.

Each Beginner Box is built around an adventure, each "flavor" or game line has a downloadable adventure on its respective FFG website, and each of the GM screens also comes with another short adventure. I can't speak for the other lines, but in the case of Force and Destiny, it's easy to weave those three together to make a short campaign (there are a few suggestions in the material for doing just that). I would consider that a great way to start, as you'll get some play time (outside of the Beginner Box adventure) with minimal cash outlay.

It's also worth noting that there are some beginner characters available to download from each of the three lines' websites (I think they're on the Beginner Box page under 'Player Resources'), which can give you some variety outside the Beginner Box characters. There's nothing to say that you can't run a Rebel commander through the Edge of the Empire boxed set.

Regarding 'funny dice,' you may as well see what we roll.

Using Orokos.com's dice roller, I generate a result for my Gungan (think: Jar Jar Binks' species) who tried to intimidate a fictional Stormtrooper.

The GM set the difficulty level by giving me three purple dice. On those, I rolled (from left to right) a Failure, a Threat, a threat, and nothing.

I can remove these negative qualities based on what I rolled.

I have a High Willpower characteristic (think: Strength, Dexterity, Charisma, etc from traditional fantasy RPGs), so get four dice to roll.

However, since I also spent experience points in developing my character's Coercion skill, two of those dice are Yellow, and two are Green.

On those dice (again, left to right), I got: an Advantage, a Success, a Success, an Advantage AND Success, and an Advantage and Success.

Advantages and Threats cancel each other, as do Success and Failure.

Therefore, I have 3 successes, an Advantage, and that White die.

The White Die is my Force die, and since I used the Force to influence the Stormtrooper's mind, it applies here, too. I got a Dark Side point which I can turn into either a Success or an Advantage as I choose- let's add another Advantage. I may also begin to flirt with the Dark Side if I use this dice...

With 3 Successes and 2 Advantages while trying to Coerce the Stormtrooper, we now look at making a story about our dice pool results.

Three successes should mean that I accomplished what I wanted: The Stormtrooper won't be checking the cargo packing sheets because our cargo is already late and they don't want further blame. Two Advantages could mean...

* The Stormtrooper gives us a VIP pass through the next two checkpoints at a docking facility.

* The Stormtrooper tells us something more than he might otherwise have done, like spill two names of other guests at this facility.

* The Stormtrooper becomes so flustered that they forget to call in our docking to via comlink radios, so nobody knows we are there yet.

* etc. etc. etc.

Now, with these same dice, I could have rolled for more Failures than Success, which would create a problem. I may have an outstanding, remaining Threat that translates as having an Imperial Records Clerk there in addition to a Stormtooper squad. I could roll a Triumph (think: natural 20 on a d20) or Despair, in which things get really, really good or really, really bad.

FFG SW RPG is not as simple as THAC0, and a dagger can do more than just d4 damage - the narration of the dice pools helps PLAYERS tell a story as much as the GM allows for dice rolling.

Visit Orokos.com and roll a few dice after reading the Star Wars syntax (i.e.: Two Proficiency dice are read as 2eP), and try imagining some scenes where you, as a player, might want more control over what actually happens AFTER you roll the skill dice.

I hope this helps!

If you've never played an RPG you need to either find someone who will teach you (check your local hobby store, sometimes they host games), or dive straight in. We can't really explain the rules here because there's no context for understanding them...it would be like trying to explain Monopoly without knowing what money is.

Which means...another vote here for the beginner game. It comes with dice, so you don't need to think about it. I haven't seen mentioned yet, it also comes with a PDF followup adventure you can download, and probably get another 3-4 sessions out of it. If you decide you like the system, well, now you have dice, you know how to play, you can invest in a core book, and switching the characters over to "real" characters takes about 10 minutes.

Thanks, guys.

I will echo what most people are saying here, if you buy the beginner game you get a cut down version of the rulebook, there are some minor difference knowledge skills get lumped into one skill as do the two piloting skills. There is no character creation as you work with pregens and they simplify strain recovery, that about covers the rule differences. The reason to bother is that it provides a step by step guide to learning the basics of the rules as you play.

The main reasons I recommend this is that it doesn't cost much more than a set of dice,and it comes with a set of dice, so unless you plan on all using the app to roll, you get the extras for relatively low amount of outlay, the other adds benefit is that you get a smaller version of the rules that can be used to give to a new player further down the line , rather than the big book to digest. So think of it as buying a set of dice with benefits, and you will need dice for they game anyway (unless everyone uses the app)

Since you need the dice anyway. The BG answers the questions you have here