The reason for this post is my D&D group is about to make the jump from playing D&D to EotE (or just FFG SWRPG in general). We feel the system is far superior to D20 and are ready for some SW RPG action!

Just some background info on the D&D 5E modules I've read/played: Rise of Tiamat (both books) played as a PC, Curse of Strahd I GM'd, I've also read Out of the Abyss and I just picked up Tomb of Annihilation, it’s this last book that has caused me to make this comparison, It is really, REALLY good!

In my search to run the perfect EotE campaign for my group, which we are starting in a couple months, I have and have read: Beyond the Rim, Jewel of Yavin, Mask of the Pirate Queen, Debts Owed, Onslaught at Arda 1, and Chronicles of the Gatekeeper. I like these adventures, for the most part. I think it would be more accurate to say I like 'parts' of each of these adventures, but none of them, as a whole, stand out to me as really epic adventures, at least not compared the D&D books I've read and participated in.

It just seems that the D&D books are so much...more, is probably the best word to use. Granted they are more expensive, Tomb of Annihilation is probably the most expensive to date at $50, but man it is just so jam packed with content and goodness! And the SWRPG adventures so far just seem so...'meh' in comparison. For the most part, it’s just one section of each campaign that seems really cool, while the rest kinda lacks. So at this point I'm taking parts from each one and making them fit together, but I'd much rather just have all of it in one, and ALL of it be good.

Is it me? Am I the only one that feels this way? Is this an unfair comparison?

Heck I would gladly pay $50 (or more!) for an FFG produced SWRPG adventure with as much content as these D&D books!

Worth a longer think, but my gut check: more linear campaign styles, such as those you see in 5e and similar gamist/simulationist RPGs, can fill adventure books with more fleshed-out details because the players are much more likely to move the story along predictable paths.

I'll take EotE's host of "Spending Adv, Suc, Tri, Thr, Fai, Des in [insert scene, environment, or encounter]" sidebars any ol' day.

33 minutes ago, BrickSteelhead said:

Worth a longer think, but my gut check: more linear campaign styles, such as those you see in 5e and similar gamist/simulationist RPGs, can fill adventure books with more fleshed-out details because the players are much more likely to move the story along predictable paths.

I'll take EotE's host of "Spending Adv, Suc, Tri, Thr, Fai, Des in [insert scene, environment, or encounter]" sidebars any ol' day.

But the SWRPG adventures seem to be far more linear than the D&D adventures, at least in my experience, which has only been playing D&D and reading SWRPG so far so take that for what it is.

For example: Beyond the Rim starts on 'The Wheel' (which is the part I really like) then goes to the Jungle Planet (didn’t like so much) and then to the Toxic Planet (also didn’t care for), very linear. Sure the characters can take whatever path at each of these 3 locations, but they still have to go along this linear path eventually.

Now take Curse of Strahd (which is the new Ravenloft, btw), it basically says: "Here is all of Barovia, and all locations and people that you will need to know...have fun." The same goes for Tomb of Annihilation: "here is the continent of Chult, all locations cities, people, creatures, dungeons and miscellaneous stuff that goes along with it, oh and here's your story line...have fun." Yes, there are linear aspects to these adventures as well, the story, however, they also act as Campaign Settings that you can use to carry out any adventure you want in those environments. That’s pretty much what I did with Curse of Strahd, I barely used the written plot, it was all my own story, but I used SO MUCH of the included NPC's, locations, maps, descriptions etc.

It's like the D&D modules are a toolbox, to let me do what I want. Yes! That’s the best way to describe them. And they are chock full of tools! And there is some story if I want to use it, but I don’t have to.

It just seems like with these SWRPG modules, I have no choice but to follow their prescribed story.

The games do not play the same at all. This is not really about the modules, and more about the narrative dice. I will say I've gotten a lot out of each module, but I've never run any of them as-written, they almost never fit my story, tone, flavour, etc. They are idea-mines, and little more. (I say the same for D&D...reading through Curse of Strahd right now.) So if you've already been running your own stories, I think you'll find the same kind of value from the SW modules.

For the GM, an EotE session is both easier and tougher to plan for. With D&D, if you stick with the DM Guide for encounter building (which all the published modules do), you will be pretty much guaranteed a specific outcome at a specific level of play. This is useful, but you have to do your homework. And it means a lot of combat if you want your players to feel the tension of their PCs skating a razor's edge. With EotE, so long as I have the basic story I can be up and running in less than 1/2 an hour. If the players zig and I expected a zag, I don't have to worry about suddenly coming up with a new challenge...the power curve is a lot flatter, so whether it's zabrak thugs here or a duro street gang there, there's a little more wiggle room for changes. However, it's easy to overdo it, especially early on in the PC's career than with the more structure and guaranteed outcome of a D&D session.

I do think, as noted, D&D is a lot more linear...yes I'm reading through Curse of Strahd right now, and it's quite open ended, but it also cautions the GM about a preferred order as far as levelling goes, and the PCs will know pretty quickly (like, they die) if they are outside their comfort zone, so some kind of sequence is enforced unless the GM is prepared to do a lot of work. And Strahd is an anomaly, most D&D modules are tightly controlled (I don't have Tomb of A, but I do have all the rest*), for the reasons outlined above.

As for BtR, I wouldn't call it linear. There are three acts, but they are separated by time, distance, and information, so it's only natural they follow a sequence. Act 3 only really makes sense if you've done Act 2. Within each act though you have considerable free reign. (I confess I've never played through Act 3, I didn't like it on reading either. However, I'm a sucker for creepy wilderness adventures so Act 2 was pretty long.)

Honestly (and I say this all the time) I think you'd be best served by getting a beginner box. Yes, that's very linear, but it showcases the rules very effectively, and you will immediately see how the play style will be different. The beginner boxes have a free PDF followup that is much more open ended (the AoR one is the best of these). The benefit here is your players will have a much better understanding of the rules and the choices they can make for building their character if they play the beginner box first than if you launch into some long campaign before they really understand what they are doing. Meanwhile, you'll get a much better idea what it takes to plan for an EotE game. Plus you get a set of dice, which you'll need anyway.

*Edit: one thing I'm quite sick of with D&D is the total lack of "ecosystem". You have a room with monsters, and the next room has some slime, and the next might have a demon...and they hardly seem to know each other exists. This seems to be true for Strahd and all the others I've read. I don't recall seeing any of that in the SW modules.

I haven't read the 5e D&D modules, but based on your description it sounds like they are a combined setting book and module in one. FFG just hasn't put out 2 together. You may get more mileage out of a setting book and its modular encounters.

That being said, I have been somewhat disappointed in the descriptions and flow in the FFG modules. Most of them are not well laid out, and don't put together a good description as you enter a room. GM has to read ahead, and read between the lines quite a bit. Otherwise it is too easy to miss a door, secret tunnel, etc. And that failing is not just Star Wars, but I saw it in Dark Heresy too.

@whafrog

Thanks for the info. We had a couple sessions where we weren't able to continue our current D&D campaign, for one reason or another, so we've actually already played through the EotE beginner box. We've also played through half of Debts to Pay as well, an adventure I actually really like. It is post Debts that my campaign will kick in, I changed the end of debts a bit to fit with my story line, and I already have them reporting back to 'The Ring' after they are done with the mine.

I can understand why you think CoS seems linear, and yes it is written that way to an extent, but it was incredibly easy for me to make it work how I wanted it to, and my players were actually free to explore where they wanted to, despite Madam Eva's reading telling them otherwise! So far ToA seems similar.

@Edgookin

Yes, they do seem like they are campaign settings and adventures in one, at least the later ones are. I guess that's the difference. I do have Sons of Fortune, Lords of Nal Hutta, Strongholds of Resistance and Nexus of Power, but they don't really seem like "Campaign Settings", they seem more like "Gazateers". I guess I can look at one closer and see if I can get similar info, I haven't really read any of them yet despite owning them!

One additional factor...the D&D modules are fairly level-constrained. So if the PCs run through CoS, they are about 1/2 way through the life of their character and every quest has to be about bigger and badder things. As far as I know, everything kind of ends at level 20...plus, for me anyway, the power level gets over-the-top ridiculous, so I'm not planning on running anything past 10th anyway.

The SW game is a lot more grounded. Stormtroopers never stop being a threat, especially if you up the minion-count. You can spend a LOT of XP, and while you can quickly make a one-trick pony, if you go for breadth it takes a while to be well-rounded and useful in more than one or two contexts. Just MHO, but I feel like that gives more room for a longer running campaign without the PCs ending up demigods of the galaxy. So, very different flavour and end goal...

1 hour ago, whafrog said:

One additional factor...the D&D modules are fairly level-constrained. So if the PCs run through CoS, they are about 1/2 way through the life of their character and every quest has to be about bigger and badder things. As far as I know, everything kind of ends at level 20...plus, for me anyway, the power level gets over-the-top ridiculous, so I'm not planning on running anything past 10th anyway.

The SW game is a lot more grounded. Stormtroopers never stop being a threat, especially if you up the minion-count. You can spend a LOT of XP, and while you can quickly make a one-trick pony, if you go for breadth it takes a while to be well-rounded and useful in more than one or two contexts. Just MHO, but I feel like that gives more room for a longer running campaign without the PCs ending up demigods of the galaxy. So, very different flavour and end goal...

This. I actually killed off my first party as a GM. They were smuggling and I had them surprised by 3 squads of Stormtroopers. My party wasn't able to get to cover in time, and when you have 8 blaster carbines dealing damage to two players, it doesn't last long.

Stormtroopers are far more realistic in the game than in the films. You can be killed very quickly.

If you want a setting + campaign, some of the West End Games products might fit your bill for ideas. Guide to the Galaxy: Tramp Freighters might be a good point where to start and combine with the FFG rulebooks.

As told by other people, FFG has done the adventure books and the setting books as separate products so far, and you seem to be asking for a combined one. I would suggest the tramp freighters one then, because it is that: a subsector with 70-ish planets, a take on smugglers and tramp freighters and a campaign all in one product.

I would also take a look at the FFG Corellian Sector or Hutt Space books, since you might like what you see there. They are the sector books, and you can milk a lot of story ideas from there.

Cheers,

Xavi

I think that comparing the game systems is two sides of the same coin. The 5E PHB has the bare minimums as far as the game world and environs, and the DM's Guide is pretty thin, as well. The modules seem 'jam packed' because they are fleshing out the areas that the PC's will travel through or otherwise interact with. The SW games are the opposite of that. The core books have rules for character creation, but then they go into detail as far as planets, political groups, outlaws, mercenaries, etc. The modules don't, then, have to be 'jam packed' with information that is already available in the core book. They give you what you need to run the module or mission, the rest is up to the GM. Or up to the players, as they tend to take modules in new and unexpected directions....
As far as linear missions, well, the same can be said for D&D. Get quest from NPC, crawl through dungeon, return to NPC for reward. It all comes down to perspective, really.

7 hours ago, MonCal said:

If you want a setting + campaign, some of the West End Games products might fit your bill for ideas. Guide to the Galaxy: Tramp Freighters might be a good point where to start and combine with the FFG rulebooks.

The WEG stuff is a decent place to start, and if you look for the website "d6holocron" you will find everything you need.

I've also gotten a surprising amount of material from Traveller supplements, especially the "21 Plots" series. They are cheap PDFs available from places like drivethrurpg.com

I own and have played - well, GM'ed mostly - both. I never understood the flak the early D&D 5e modules got; they are at least pretty decent. But for D&D, even the relatively easy 5th edition, that amount of preparation is simply necessary, because it is much harder to just wing it.

But of course the D&D modules will feel much more epic - they are designed to be! They take characters from the very beginnings to an epic finale fighting some of the biggest baddies around. Whereas the SW adventures are just that: adventures. Some bigger, some smaller, but overall only a part of a character's career. It is like comparing an adventure path with a single module, they are simply different in perspective and objective. EotE characters are living, well, on the edge. They are not D&D heroes and so their adventures are of a different kind.

But, to be honest, I found the FFG modules best when just mining them for ideas, NPCs, settings and so on, so I can understand some of your misgivings. Still, that is true to some extent for pretty much any published module I have used in the last twenty years.

I think you might want to take a look at the four location books that have come out thus far: Suns of Fortune, The Hutt Space book, Nexus of Power, and Strongholds of Resistance. These might have more of the sandbox type of information you're looking for, and the modular encounters in the back lend themselves toward chaining together individual moments that utilize the various settings.

You sound like someone who just needs to start writing their own adventures. You're going to need to do it eventually, and if you don't like the published stuff, why use it at all?

On 14/09/2017 at 0:59 PM, Franigo said:

But, to be honest, I found the FFG modules best when just mining them for ideas, NPCs, settings and so on, so I can understand some of your misgivings. Still, that is true to some extent for pretty much any published module I have used in the last twenty years.

I have found this is true for all RPG modules. Players in our regular group can derail anything ever, unless GM really forces them to rails, and that's no fun. Our best campaigns have been sandboxing. I just GM'ed Beyond the Rim (actually we are at last act, not yet finished), and I probably scrapped about 50 % of it. Usually I take the setting and NPCs from module, and rest is extreme fluid. I may take few plot points, or overall arch of the plot, but skip the details. In few of my own adventures PCs have bypassed practically everything with one idea and good roll. But to our current campaign I have took some ideas from almost every FFG module I own.