The only worse than ending the line(s) would be a second edition =)

2 hours ago, Jedi Ronin said:

The only worse than ending the line(s) would be a second edition =)

Well, my first favorite game system is GURPS and it's in its IVth edition. And if their forum is any indication, that system is still going strong. But it's a very good set of rules for what it does.

(BTW GURPS doesn't work for Star Wars).

The trick with creating a new edition is that you need to make absolutely certain that you're actually improving the system. (Which SJ Games certainly did with their RPG line and whomever does DnD now didn't).

17 minutes ago, Mark Caliber said:

Well, my first favorite game system is GURPS and it's in its IVth edition. And if their forum is any indication, that system is still going strong. But it's a very good set of rules for what it does.

(BTW GURPS doesn't work for Star Wars).

The trick with creating a new edition is that you need to make absolutely certain that you're actually improving the system. (Which SJ Games certainly did with their RPG line and whomever does DnD now didn't).

I agree. I've owned several editions of GURPS myself. When the 4th Ed of Legend of the Five Rings was announced I was ready because 3E was in need of a refresh/fix.

I felt the same with the Wizards RCR d20 Star Wars and Saga Edition - Saga was a much needed and amazing revamping.

I didn't care for D&D 4E and recently threw out all my 3.5E books (except for Eberron stuff) when D&D 5E came out.

I think there are parts of FFG SW that could use some reworking but I don't think it rises to the level of needing a new edition. If fairly simple house rules can patch things just fine then a new edition is probably not needed. And with Genesys we might get some revamping of game subsystems here and there that can be brought into SW (like vehicles).

A new FFG SW edition would have to add some amazing new value to be worth it to me.

44 minutes ago, Jedi Ronin said:

A new FFG SW edition would have to add some amazing new value to be worth it to me.

Like legally available PDFs?

1 hour ago, Jedi Ronin said:

I agree. I've owned several editions of GURPS myself. When the 4th Ed of Legend of the Five Rings was announced I was ready because 3E was in need of a refresh/fix.

I felt the same with the Wizards RCR d20 Star Wars and Saga Edition - Saga was a much needed and amazing revamping.

I didn't care for D&D 4E and recently threw out all my 3.5E books (except for Eberron stuff) when D&D 5E came out.

I think there are parts of FFG SW that could use some reworking but I don't think it rises to the level of needing a new edition. If fairly simple house rules can patch things just fine then a new edition is probably not needed. And with Genesys we might get some revamping of game subsystems here and there that can be brought into SW (like vehicles).

A new FFG SW edition would have to add some amazing new value to be worth it to me.

That is what a new edition is!

It is supposed to be a reworking of the rules that are iffy and a set of better explanations to take into account the way things actually play. With a first edition that almost guarantees a pretty good increase in value.

If the new generic rules actually build on the EotE base and fix its problems, you should not have any problem buying the new books, going off your examples above. Except maybe price

28 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Like legally available PDFs?

Wouldnt that require the license agreement to be changed?

2 minutes ago, korjik said:

Wouldnt that require the license agreement to be changed?

Not if the rules are generic.

30 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Like legally available PDFs?

PDFs aren't that big of a deal to me. I guess I'm old school that way.

Just now, Edgookin said:

Not if the rules are generic.

Sorry, meant Star Wars stuff PDFs. If they dont do PDFs for the main rules in the generic system, that is a huge hit against it. This is the 21st century dammit! Thats even with me being a luddite when it comes to reading stuff. Dead Tree all the way!

FFG can release their own material in PDF form, as they have done.

It's the Star Wars stuff that's the sticking point--the RPG license is a relic from the WEG days, when PDFs didn't exist, so it doesn't cover them. Genesys and whatever expansions they do should be fine.

1 hour ago, HappyDaze said:

Like legally available PDFs?

Sadly license says no. I dont see that ever changing sadly

17 hours ago, Desslok said:

Well, it didnt help matters that Masterbook was a terrible engine. Dear lord, of everything that's ever been on my shelf, Masterbook was clearly towards the bottom of the list.

I actually found it quite playable and enjoyable. I loved the way the math worked, and found Torg brilliant, as well as Shatterzone, and MB was just Shatterzone genericized.

If we look in a more broad sense at the Narrative Dice System the the Star Wars system was ND2.0. Warhammer Fantasy Role Play was Jay Little and FFGs first attempt at this three axis dice system where Success is only part of the picture. It was the game changer that showed the real potential of their idea, but that system had flaws. They then revised the basic game systems but instead of sticking to the same IP they switched to a much much more lucrative one.

For those people who have played both of those systems they would undoubtedly agree the core mechanics certainly evolved in a 1st edition to 2nd edition kind of way. Now the question is how much does FFG choose to evolve for GeneSys? Will it be Narrative Dice 3.0? Or more a 2.5?

If they where going to release a new Star Wars system what would they have to change to entice the current players? That change would probably have to be quite significant. I think it would have to also come with a change in time setting, to make second edition in the Dark Times again would repeat a large portion of the fluff in the books. Setting the entire system around episodes 8 and 9 would be far more interesting and potentially able to draw in the next generation of gamers who's first Star Wars cinema experience was this new trilogy.

But would changing all the fluff material be enough? We mostly think the mechanics are really solid (with a few minor clunky bits). Change for changes sake is not always a good idea. So could they develop something that uses numbered dice to lure the "funny dice suck" crowd (aka d20 stalwarts), but still retains the fantastic 3 axis Narrative system? Possibly, who knows. But FFG SW 2.0 should be visibly different, and probably is a good 4 years away yet to be post Episode 9.

TLDR: WFRP was Narrative Dice 1, Star Wars was Narrative Dice 2. Will Genesys be 3.0? Or will that come in 4 or more years with another edition of Star Wars?

9 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

If they where going to release a new Star Wars system what would they have to change to entice the current players?

Higher density of actual gaming material. I prefer the species descriptions from the Betas where one or two paragraphs of fluff are enough rather than the massively bloated descriptions in the core books. This applies to vehicle/starship descriptions too. In general, less fluff more crunch, and I say this as a GM that loves fluff. The thing is that, for Star Wars, the fluff is freely available online, so I don't need to be drowned in it. Also, no more of the "three separate but fully compatible lines" and the redundancy it presents. IOW, make it a leaner and more cost-efficient product for the consumers.

2 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Also, no more of the "three separate but fully compatible lines" and the redundancy it presents

This is always a conundrum for me, I love that we now have 18 different careers to choose from and that would be a lot to fit in a single core book. But I also recognise some of the AoR and EotE ones are just reskins of each other and a reduction could be made there. I guess the decision they make with Genesys will give us clues to their thinking. How would you cut down the options?

Perhaps a Generic Star Wars core book (Genesys core with the SW serial numbers put back on) with Theme books to maintain that Edge/Age/Destiny feel would work. It would also open up their options for further Themes; Imperial, Old Republic or Clone Wars for example.