Hello!

Did somebody incorporate the FFG miniature game X-Wing into a session of Edge of the Empire? My friend at whoms house we usually play has a huge collection of the minis. The characters took the Krayt Fang for which they want to manipulate the transponder now. So we could place the mini of the Millenium Falcon on the table for visuals. But my take is that the players stumble into an AoR style adventure and one player pilots the YT-1300 and the other players pilot some X-Wings for example. That would be around the suggested 100 points. I could throw together a 100 point imperial fleet and battle it out.

But one of the players is an accomlished pilot and pilots the YT-1300. What would be appropiate for the skill sets from EotE to translate into X-Wing? What do you consider good enhancements or do you suggest some other cards from the game. I would like it that the players get X-Wing points for their RPG skills with which the can buy certain cards from a pool of cards. Something along those lines...

Any ideas?

Thanks for any help.

I'm tempted to drag out Sten again for his customary 'NO!'

FFG themselves have written some (abysmally poor) articles on this.

Let's put it this way... the games (and Imperial Assault) all have a Star Wars skin, but are actually designed to scratch very different player itches. EoE is a narrative RPG that's designed to create the feel and themes of a pulp science-fantasy movie. Much of it runs on a narrative 'Rule of Cool' format.

X-WIng is a tactical minis game, played competitively, with very close war-game style attention to the RAW. Take a look at the X-Wing boards. There's absolutely NO talk about the lore or characters or role-playing, every single post is about 'builds' and how to best play the wargame. You get silly things like Anakin piloting the Falcon.

If I'm in the middle of an RPG session, I know my players would rather eat barbed-wire pizzas than break the narrative with a 2-3 hour strategy game about movement rules.

By all accounts X-Wing is a good game for those who like that stuff, but it's a completely different experience to an RPG.

I guess you could sort of base your RPG games on the results of a wargame battle, but why limit yourself that way really? X-Wing has a huge casualty rate and very soon your game will look like the MarcyVerse, with every canon character blown to smithereens.

I love my Star Wars pencil-case I got in 1982, but I have no desire to incorporate it into my RPG sessions.

I know the articles you mention, which are only blahbla with no advice or help whatsoever. For me they are an example of how do I say nothing with many words.

Anyway, my players DO like strategy games. So they MIGHT like it. (And I'd use only generic ships anyway. So no cannon conflicts there. But every Star Wars RPG is a cannon conlfict which is a whole other story :-) .)

But there is a high mortality rate in X-Wing which is a very strong argument NOT to go that path.

Thanks for giving me something to think about (I mean it!).

You know, I believe this is the first time the topic has come up.

(although to be fair, the search functionality here sucks. Still, it's a frequent new person question. We need to update the FAQ or something)

I guess you could sort of base your RPG games on the results of a wargame battle, but why limit yourself that way really? X-Wing has a huge casualty rate and very soon your game will look like the MarcyVerse, with every canon character blown to smithereens.

Someone had the idea of playing X-Wing games away from The Table, setting up events in the campagin - a convoy being attacked and the results having an effect on the RPG, where the players now have to recover those supplies - but that still seems like a dull idea, with 2 players and a bunch of watchers.

While I agree that using the X-wing rules doesn't mash well with the narrative spirit of the RPG, you can still put the minis on the table. Because they are lovely. And you can use them to show what ships are around in the current fight and you can indicate ranges. But beware: Do not let the figures restrict you or your players in the ongoing narrative.

The Minis on the table are just a very static 2D representation of highly dynamic 3D action-packed space adventure that should happen in your minds.

Use the minis to indicate their range towards each other (and the nearby atroid field), NOT their actual position (you can still use the minis' position, e.g. to indicate when someone gained the advantage). At least when you are talking starfighters. They should be constantly weaving and dodging around each other, and the minis on the table can't do that very well. With capital ships the minis representation might be closer to what's actually going on, since they can't turn around quickly and ship facing is more static and more important.

May your astromech be with you!

Fred

Thanks for giving me something to think about (I mean it!).

No problem. Wasn't trying to be sarky

FFG's 'articles' were pretty much 'Hey RPG players! We sell minis too! Buy some!'

While I suppose you could base some RPG games around the results of the tactical battles, I can't see why you'd be restrained in that way. 'Boba Fett? Darth Vader? Nah mate, they all got blown up last week!'

Casually redshirting the canon NPCS is a cool concept, but it may not suit your narrative.

And even if your players enjoy minis games, do you really want to kill your own buzz by breaking for a session of playing another game with most of the players as spectators?

Seriously, the long tactical combats were the thing that stopped us (and others I'm sure) playing 4E D&D.

Personally, if my SW RPG combats are running longer than 2-3 rounds, it's time to go to Single Roll Conflict Resolution.(or ask Reya to use Last Man Standing).

I'd never try and ram the rules together. You could play both and on the back end weave results together narratively, or come up with some kind of meta game currency from the results of either to cross over and be used in each. I wouldn't bother with translating Talent X from RPG to Feature Y in the mini game, that's just headaches.

So, I have a rule set that I used, it's a little out of date now as the group that leaned toward that style of play is no longer the same group I'm running for now.

Personally, I'm with Maelora, that the game is really better for a narrative than it is to be jumping styles, but as some groups enjoy different parts of Star Wars in different ways, I made this and ran it successfully for quite some time before the group dynamic changed.

Using X-Wing Miniatures in your Star Wars RPG

Considering how often it has come up, it seems like there should be some middle ground rules that would keep narrative play intact but make use of minis. Something beyond just using minis with the crb rules. Not that I want those rules. I just knock over and break minis. But it seems like something people would like.

Considering how often it has come up, it seems like there should be some middle ground rules that would keep narrative play intact but make use of minis. Something beyond just using minis with the crb rules. Not that I want those rules. I just knock over and break minis. But it seems like something people would like.

Now you just hold your horses there, young lady!

You are several decades too young to be so wise and reasonable!

;)

If you want to play as X-Wing (rather than just putting minis on the board for flavour), here's a bare minimum framework:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/223769-yeah-its-still-a-bad-idea/?p=2353031

I don't think I'd ever go through with it though...

You could also do what I have considered doing, now this was for an Age of Rebellion game, but I made the players the leader a rebel cell and gave them allies in the form of soldiers and pilots that they can send on missions. Coupling the heroes of the Aturi cluster campaign with the players telling their fighter squad to do a mission while the RPG partybdoes something else. Depending how the x-wing game goes, alter that outcome to suit the narrative.

Now this isnt quite what people are looking for of course, but it can fill that ship flying itch somewhat.

While I havent played the RPG in a while now, you can use the movement guides for x-wing that come with each x-wing product as a guide, use the RPG stats, except speed is modified slightly. Whatever speed you set your ship at is the speed of maneuver template (cross referenced by the aforementioned guide) is the maneuver you can do.

So, flying an x-wing at speed 3, you can choose any of the appliciable movement options an x-wing can do.

Personally, I've found Armada to be more suited for incorporation into the RPG. The capital ships are all marked with quadrants, the shield dials can be used to delineate Defense, and the much-more maneuverable starfighters' ease-of-movement (compared to the X-Wing game) makes fitting the scene on the tabletop easier compared to X-Wing's movement path templates.

That being said, I tend to use the provided template for the Armada capital ships because it makes them feel large and plodding compared to the speed and maneuverability of the snubfighters and interceptors. Unless one of your PCs is a commodore (or otherwise crewing a capital ship), then cap-ships are mostly set-dressing and I suggest that you prepare a script of how the battle will go - at least in general terms - while making allowances and opportunities for the party to influence the battle.

Maybe it's just the group I play with, but I find that most people don't have the bandwidth or experience to visualize more than a few ships' positions in a dogfight. I like using minis to help with relative positions. I tell my players to think of it as their ship's HUD; it doesn't display everything in three dimensions or provide all the relevant data, but it lets you know where everyone else is, relative to your own position.

I know the articles you mention, which are only blahbla with no advice or help whatsoever. For me they are an example of how do I say nothing with many words.

But there is a high mortality rate in X-Wing which is a very strong argument NOT to go that path.

Well, if we read the same articles I do believe that FFG did in fact address that. I seem to recall them stating that rather than saying a ship was destroyed (and by default, the players onboard), you would just say it was disabled and adrift. That was about all I got out of the article as well.

I do believe several people have touched on what I believe is the best way to incorporate them into the RPG- As props to aid in visualization. As a warning to everyone however, that was my intention when I bought the MF. Now nearly 3 dozen ships later I am finding Im a pretty good Xwing player as well!! :)

Considering how often it has come up, it seems like there should be some middle ground rules that would keep narrative play intact but make use of minis. Something beyond just using minis with the crb rules. Not that I want those rules. I just knock over and break minis. But it seems like something people would like.

Now you just hold your horses there, young lady!You are several decades too young to be so wise and reasonable! ;)

Reasonable? ME? I just don't want to read the same requests over and over!

Jk, of course.. or am I??

I think anyone who has counted the number of times i've slipped in a mention of the lack of pdf for this game (including this one!) will know tha answer!

When I ran my first few games of EotE, I used the little tokens that came with the beginner box for TIEs chasing my players in their stolen YT and honestly that only lasted a session (the tokens not the game) because even using tokens seemed way to restrictive. As mentioned, using a 2-d mechanic to play out what is actually intense and grossly narrative combat happening in three dimensions and at insane speeds, only limits what players can do (or imagine doing). Don't get me wrong, I love X-wing minis (and continue to spend way to much on that game) but in my opinion the space combat rules for this and the other FFG star wars rpg titles really shines brightest when the focus is on what that character is doing in that cockpit, and what is happening around him/her. Is he desperately trying to lose a locked Firespray by ''punching it'' to full speed to try to widen the gap in an attempt to slip in between the busy Ord Mantell junk heaps? Or perhaps he leads a pursuing TIE over a sharp mountainside sunset in hopes to blind the TIE pilot with the failing light of the setting sun to ''gain the advantage''. I would rather my players come up with really great and functional narration for their action and THEN turn to the rules for the technical way to resolve the check. If the players can really get into the heads of their characters they wont even have to look at their character sheets to remember the strengths and weaknesses of them in a dogfight. I think that when you start incorporating the rigid and technical rules of X-wing into EotE it kinda becomes something else. Still fun? perhaps, but for me it would no longer be an RPG Hell even when I play DnD and the gm draws a map and puts tokens down I find myself more focused on gaining some board game advantage to my actions and greatly distracted from more imaginative play. Just my two cents.

Oh I have way too little experience to really comment but here are my current thoughts. (Maybe I'll learn a bit before this topic comes up again). [i've been involved in an EotE campaign for only 6 months and just played my first official game of X-Wing a week before last Monday and I'm looking forward to being schooled in X-Wing many times in the coming year).

If it were me, I'd try to use the Star Wars Role Playing Game (SW RPG) rules as much as possible.

SW RPG has a very good initiative system so figuring out who goes when can be done with that set of rules as written (RAW).

I DO like crunchier maneuver rules and while I'm not totally satisfied with the movement restrictions for the X-Wing craft in the tactics game it does have a consistent system. IF I were to employ any aspect of the X-Wing tactics game, I might consider using the maneuver boards and turn dials. (Maybe only using the turn dials as a means of selecting a maneuver; "Okay what are my options? Oh, a 2 bend looks like it'll work. Can I do that with the YT-1300? <twist twist> Yep. That's what I'm doing.")

For range, I'd recommend that any distance between 0 - 3 on the range would be "close" range and anything range 3-9 would be "short" range.

For everything else, I'd recommend using the SW RPG rules as written (RAW). Weapons statistics, skill checks, damage & shield tracking, player maneuvers, everything. Yep "SW RPG RAW."

So that's my suggestion for "blending" the rules.

Oh I have way too little experience to really comment but here are my current thoughts. (Maybe I'll learn a bit before this topic comes up again). [i've been involved in an EotE campaign for only 6 months and just played my first official game of X-Wing a week before last Monday and I'm looking forward to being schooled in X-Wing many times in the coming year).

If it were me, I'd try to use the Star Wars Role Playing Game (SW RPG) rules as much as possible.

SW RPG has a very good initiative system so figuring out who goes when can be done with that set of rules as written (RAW).

I DO like crunchier maneuver rules and while I'm not totally satisfied with the movement restrictions for the X-Wing craft in the tactics game it does have a consistent system. IF I were to employ any aspect of the X-Wing tactics game, I might consider using the maneuver boards and turn dials. (Maybe only using the turn dials as a means of selecting a maneuver; "Okay what are my options? Oh, a 2 bend looks like it'll work. Can I do that with the YT-1300? <twist twist> Yep. That's what I'm doing.")

For range, I'd recommend that any distance between 0 - 3 on the range would be "close" range and anything range 3-9 would be "short" range.

For everything else, I'd recommend using the SW RPG rules as written (RAW). Weapons statistics, skill checks, damage & shield tracking, player maneuvers, everything. Yep "SW RPG RAW."

So that's my suggestion for "blending" the rules.

The problem with the miniatures game is the loss of time from the RPG. In the RPG a round of time is ~1 minute. What you accomplish in the miniatures game would be a few seconds at most, as turns aren't slow processes (unless you're in a giant capital-class ship). So, you aren't making just one turn to the left or right in combat, but twisting around 3 dozen asteroids while dodging other fighters to get near the capital ship to unleash your torpedoes onto it. All in one round of combat.

Considering how often it has come up, it seems like there should be some middle ground rules that would keep narrative play intact but make use of minis. Something beyond just using minis with the crb rules. Not that I want those rules. I just knock over and break minis. But it seems like something people would like.

Just wear a space slug puppet and you are all good.

Oh my, I had a thought overnight about maneuvering.

In the SW RPG you have a throttle and keep track of your speed. So in addition to picking a ships maneuver, you would need to pick a maneuver corresponding with your ship's speed .

Kallabecca, I've read the rules three times and I didn't come away from reading them that the time of a turn was that long. Sure the time a turn takes is a "couple of seconds," but I refuse to believe that I can only effectively pull the trigger on a weapon system ever other minute. (That's almost as ridiculous as the GURPS Traveller space combat turn of 20 minutes!!!!! )

I have no idea if my thoughts would work or not, but if I were to attempt to mesh both together, this is an experiment I would try.

It will also be interesting to see how my GM works this out. He's picked up a bunch of Armada minis in preparation for our game so . . . the next time this question comes up, I may be in a better position to contribute. (And yeah, we'll need minis for space combat, just like we use minis for our narrative combat).

So Seam, since you started this topic, what are your thoughts on this subject?

Kallabecca, I've read the rules three times and I didn't come away from reading them that the time of a turn was that long. Sure the time a turn takes is a "couple of seconds," but I refuse to believe that I can only effectively pull the trigger on a weapon system ever other minute.

It is "about a minute", refer to page 198 of the EotE core. Your comment about pulling the trigger misses the point of this narrative system. Other games like D&D use about 6 seconds as a turn, which means they are going for a "one swing of the sword = one roll of the dice" model. This game is about a minute and it's assumed you can fire off multiple shots, perhaps only a couple of which will hit, doing a total of X damage. This is how you can kill a couple of minions per turn: one might exceed their wound threshold, and you might crit another, so that's at least 2 pulls of the trigger. And if your GM is lenient ( like me ) you can crit multiple times.

It's the same with space combat. In the movies and TV shows, there's a lot of ineffective firing, and not all of that has to be chalked up to a dice roll failure. Narratively they could be firing, but really too busy navigating asteroids to line up a good shot. But a threat on a target's piloting roll could still be narrated as "wild shooting that got lucky".

Kallabecca, I've read the rules three times and I didn't come away from reading them that the time of a turn was that long. Sure the time a turn takes is a "couple of seconds," but I refuse to believe that I can only effectively pull the trigger on a weapon system ever other minute.

It is "about a minute", refer to page 198 of the EotE core. Your comment about pulling the trigger misses the point of this narrative system. Other games like D&D use about 6 seconds as a turn, which means they are going for a "one swing of the sword = one roll of the dice" model. This game is about a minute and it's assumed you can fire off multiple shots, perhaps only a couple of which will hit, doing a total of X damage. This is how you can kill a couple of minions per turn: one might exceed their wound threshold, and you might crit another, so that's at least 2 pulls of the trigger. And if your GM is lenient ( like me ) you can crit multiple times.

It's the same with space combat. In the movies and TV shows, there's a lot of ineffective firing, and not all of that has to be chalked up to a dice roll failure. Narratively they could be firing, but really too busy navigating asteroids to line up a good shot. But a threat on a target's piloting roll could still be narrated as "wild shooting that got lucky".

Yeah, I confirmed your quote in EotE "Roughly a minute or so . . ." and I'm still disbelieving it.

That "construct" would totally ruin this game for me so I have to continue to disbelieve it . . . "It's all just a bunch of hand waving and non such."

I'll continue to interpret SW RPG turns as a "vague passage of time," because we're doing so many things in our SW RPG game that the timing is just so much faster paced that I can't imagine spending "close to a minute" doing a single turn (in combat terms).

I'd believe "maybe 6 seconds or so." 10 Seconds tops. <shrug>. Thank goodness that term is so vaguely defined in EotE.

You know, if a "stand still" in combat is reached, I could see a turn maybe being up to a minute, but in our campaign, once the blaster bolts start flying, you'd be lucky if a single turn were more than 5 frenetic seconds long.

So forgive me my belligerence on that fine point. "I still disbelieve." Quite honestly, I don't see this as a really relevant point to mine or your enjoyment to the game either. If you want to think that your turns are structured in "1 minute length" terms knock yourself out. Enjoy!

However the point of this thread is not "How long a turn is" but, "Are there good and useful ways to incorporate X-Wing mini's/rules into a SW RPG." And honestly, I'd love to hear any thoughts or ideas that anyone else has come up with to solve this conundrum. But so far, the general consensus is "No one has any good deep thoughts on this subject."

So forgive me my belligerence on that fine point. "I still disbelieve."

I think you don't know what "disbelieve" means. The rule is clear, it can't be interpreted any other way. It's not a matter of belief.

Of course you're free to choose to do it differently. As you said, knock yourself out. But we're not wrong about what the actual rule is.

And the other point here is that X-Wing has a very different concept of time than SWRPG, and that is just one of many hurdles you have to clear if you want to try to integrate those two things.

There comes a point when trying to merge two things that are so different in so many ways that you lose the essence of what one or the other or both are, in the process of trying to hack them together so that they will kinda-semi-sorta fit together.

So forgive me my belligerence on that fine point. "I still disbelieve."

I think you don't know what "disbelieve" means. The rule is clear, it can't be interpreted any other way. It's not a matter of belief.

Of course you're free to choose to do it differently. As you said, knock yourself out. But we're not wrong about what the actual rule is.

Oh, I do. I'm just referencing a very obscure barely remembered gaming reference, which is just as absurd as I'm being now. It might be from one of "The Gamers" movies.