Since this is for all three lines, it would be a wonderful place for a few Universal Specializations to appear. I know nothing about this product, but this would be my hope.

Splat books on specific Force Traditions?

12 hours ago, DanteRotterdam said:

Love it.

Love what this may lead to even more.

Absolutely do not love it, as I think "Rebels" is an abomination.

However. I do love that this may lead to even more era books! (Crossing fingers for Clone Wars and KOTOR.)

8 minutes ago, Harlock999 said:

Absolutely do not love it, as I think "Rebels" is an abomination.

However. I do love that this may lead to even more era books! (Crossing fingers for Clone Wars and KOTOR.)

Well the text does speak of Rogue One and the time period itself, it is not like it's a"Rebels"source book.

I'm kind of interested in this but I wish they had started the era books with a clone wars book.

First most of the ships and vehicles I'm interested in from this era that haven't been statted elsewhere were also active during the clone wars as well.

Second while I love the GCW era I find the TCW era more interesting then the buildup to the GCW.

Third while the idea of taking a character through the buildup to the GCW then through the GCW itself would be fun taking him throgh the clone wars first or at least having the option to do so would add to my enjoyment of it.

16 minutes ago, DanteRotterdam said:

Well the text does speak of Rogue One and the time period itself, it is not like it's a"Rebels"source book.

Admittedly, the cover and three of the four pictures in the teaser are pretty Rebels-heavy, while Leia appears in both media.

Good thing that I thoroughly enjoy Rebels and consider the 22 minute episodes too short anyway…

And I'm definitely looking forward to Clone Wars and Sequel Gap era books.

9 hours ago, 2P51 said:

Dude we didn't even get the full playtest doc until after Rogue 1 came out.

Why?

Secrecy around big movies is pretty huge these days, I would guess.

Also didn't FFG get in trouble for revealing some minor TFA detail via an X-Wing product leak? I imagine security got a bit tightened after Disney smacked them for that.

1 hour ago, DanteRotterdam said:

Well the text does speak of Rogue One and the time period itself, it is not like it's a"Rebels"source book.

In a way, it's not unlike the Force Unleashed Campaign Guide that WotC published for their Saga Edition line.

Yeah, the title might be from the video game (since it was part of the big media event centered around said game), but the number of elements that were purely about the video game were minimal, and the book was a solid resource for characters in general, introducing a lot of new species, talents, feats, and prestige classes, much of which was well-suited for non-Force-sensitive characters, and a lot of detail on the state of galactic affairs during the "dark times" in between the fall of the Republic and the Rebellion's first major victory.

Amusingly, when Sterling Hershey (one of the other authors) posted about this on FB, Rodney Thompson (head guy of the Saga Edition line) jokingly remarked about how he hoped at least some kind of mention of the Dawn of Defiance campaign module got snuck into the book

1 hour ago, Cifer said:

Admittedly, the cover and three of the four pictures in the teaser are pretty Rebels-heavy, while Leia appears in both media.

Whether folks like it or not, Rebels is a big media hit, being quite popular with audiences in general. And there's been plenty of artwork in the FFG books featuring Rebels characters. So it'd be foolish of FFG's marketing department to pass up a chance to make the show's success work on their behalf.

47 minutes ago, Darzil said:

Secrecy around big movies is pretty huge these days, I would guess.

I'm wondering if he knows why the full playtest materials were given out so late, or whether he's speculating as to the reason.

14 hours ago, DanteRotterdam said:

How do the career books seem endless to you?!

We already exactly know how many we are getting....

I know :-) But on reflection I don't think it's a good product model. There's too many books to look through to find an item of equipment, ship or game rule in. I'd rather see fewer, more comprehensive books that cover multiple careers.

Oh well - can't change it now.

15 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

I'm wondering if he knows why the full playtest materials were given out so late, or whether he's speculating as to the reason.

More likely speculating, as playtesters who aren't already part of the company's inner workings are generally not made privy to the various behind the scenes workings of the development process of the material.

We're simply contacted and asked "hey, we've got a playtest opportunity, do you want in?" and only after agreeing are the playtesters told what the material they're playtesting is.

If one is a freelancer, be it author or playtester, you're generally told what you need to know for the project at hand, and that's about it. People that do a high volume of freelance work such as Sterling Hershey and Keith Kappel might have a better idea, but that's due to putting the puzzle pieces together to form that bigger picture.

But given past observed experiences during the time that WotC held the license, it probably is a case that Lucasfilm doesn't really consider the RPG to amidst those folks that need to be informed in advance of things, and can find out the plot details the same time as the rest of the masses. I believe Sam Stewart even remarked during one of his many guest stints on the Order 66 podcast that they had zero idea what was going to happen with regards to Lothal in the second season when they were working on that chapter for Nexus of Power.

Just now, Chimpy said:

I know :-) But on reflection I don't think it's a good product model. There's too many books to look through to find an item of equipment, ship or game rule in. I'd rather see fewer, more comprehensive books that cover multiple careers.

Oh well - can't change it now.

Problem with that approach is that it generally doesn't make a lot of money for the company. And as a for-profit company, FFG is very much concerned with turning a profit on their products, especially for a licensed product with as high a price tag as Star Wars. WotC ran headfirst into this with their product lines, but part of that might have been them treating the Star Wars RPG as a second-stringer product line in contrast to D&D 4th edition, which was making WotC loads of money.

Sterling Hershey has written a bit for Dawn of Rebellion , Cyphers and Masks , and Fully Operational . Pretty much all of those books he's worked on are my favorites, so this is a bit more appealing now.

So, anybody want to do some baseless speculation?

Hopefully, they add more than the standard 3-4 species (a full 8, like a CRB?). Rebels hasn't introduced many new species, but Rogue One introduced a bunch, so maybe some of those.

Vehicles are easy: pretty much everything seen in Rogue One (U-wing, TIE Striker, MC75), and some of the stuff in Rebels . Weapons too (hoping for Chirrut's lightbow). Maybe they'll even do a Death Star profile.

Planets, if they do planets? All of the locations featured in Rogue One , again.

Adversaries: Death troopers, shoretroopers, etc.

If they really are doing named characters, maybe they'll cover the Nightswan from Thrawn .

5 minutes ago, Blackbird888 said:

shoretroopers....

Sign me up!

4 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Since this is for all three lines, it would be a wonderful place for a few Universal Specializations to appear. I know nothing about this product, but this would be my hope.

This is my hope as well...but I don't know what they could put in this particular Era book that isn't already covered. Recruit and Force Sensitive Emergent cover a lot of the Rogue One and Rebels bases.

I actually don't want to see anything to do with the Yuuzan Vong. Was never a fan of the whole concept of an extra-galactic threat even if it was big enough to bring the Galaxy together.

A fair chunk of the Novel and some Comic Contributions to the EU were garbage IMO, basically anything that hAd to do with "Doom-Weapon-of-the-Week" got old fast.

I'd like to see something to do with the Thrawn Books (All Five), obviously edited to fit into the new Canon (And Thrawn has already been added to canon in 'Rebels') and the X-Wing/Wraith Squadron Books and maybe I, Jedi and that'd be about it. Most of the Dark Horse comics stuff is blah at best, excepting maybe Tales of the Jedi (part of which HAS been included in FFG material already; Ulic's Grave in NoP).

I would also love to see books on the Kotor/SWTOR...lots of open history in that area to explore for stories...8)

Era sourcebooks. I love that they've opened this door, there's a lot of mileage to be had here. Along with some more region splatbooks there's no danger of running out of new material once the career books are finished. And it lets people pick and choose between stuff they're interested in without necessarily "having" to buy things they know won't get used much at their particular table.

There's a lot of potential with 'era' books, and this one seems like a relatively safe bet on FFG's part given the general popularity of Rebels and Rogue One. If it's done well, it'll open the door to a bunch of other eras.

Prequel Era, Sequel Era, and Interquel Era II (this being Interquel Era I) seem the obvious choices. With their willingness to include little hints of Legends in their other books, one does wonder if they'll be able/willing to wander farther along the timeline from the movies.

I'm sure it will be as professionally written and illustrated as everything else FFG has put out. It will be nice to have information on vehicles and NPCs that haven't made it into the career books and existing setting books.

Other than that, I'm purely in wait-and-see mode. This is a new format so I'm not sure what to expect. FFG SW is a narrative role-playing game so I'm guessing the will be a whole lot of flavor text to assist GMs in describing the era.

4 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

I'm wondering if he knows why the full playtest materials were given out so late, or whether he's speculating as to the reason.

I'm not speculating about anything. We got some stuff, and were told it lacked some items from the movie, and we'd get another 'package' after the film was out.

1 hour ago, GandofGand said:

I actually don't want to see anything to do with the Yuuzan Vong. Was never a fan of the whole concept of an extra-galactic threat even if it was big enough to bring the Galaxy together.

A fair chunk of the Novel and some Comic Contributions to the EU were garbage IMO, basically anything that hAd to do with "Doom-Weapon-of-the-Week" got old fast.

I'd like to see something to do with the Thrawn Books (All Five), obviously edited to fit into the new Canon (And Thrawn has already been added to canon in 'Rebels') and the X-Wing/Wraith Squadron Books and maybe I, Jedi and that'd be about it. Most of the Dark Horse comics stuff is blah at best, excepting maybe Tales of the Jedi (part of which HAS been included in FFG material already; Ulic's Grave in NoP).

I would also love to see books on the Kotor/SWTOR...lots of open history in that area to explore for stories...8)

All of those stories are considered Legends and are non-canonical. I wouldn't expect that to happen any time soon, if at all. Disney seems focused on cross-promoting existing canonical stories, shows, and movies.

Maybe they won't be converted whole-cloth, but some of the Legends stuff has Crept into Canon...well at least Thrawn has...its start...8)