So I jumped all in about a year ago and bought all the books(Not necessarily one of my wiser financial decisions, but I had the money...)... lol

I quickly became overwhelmed. The group I started a group with me as a brand new GM that consisted of all RPG newbs (but huge Star Wars fans). It quickly turned into a board game group after the EotE beginner game, because I became overwhelmed. I want to start up a campaign again (with me as the GM), but I need some advice.

It should be noted, I am not an avid reading. To be quite honest, I'm about to start chapter 3 of EotE Core (for the second time), but I plan to push through this time! (My willpower is up... lol) I'm wondering a couple of things before I push too far ahead: Should I read all the chapters and everything in each chapter? In order? After I finish the Core rulebook, what should I move onto next? I've heard Fly Casual and Lords of Nal Hutta are great. Should I read those next? Should I read the chapters about the career specializations in each of their source-books before walking my group through character creation? Should I read LoNH next to work on the campaign? I've heard the squad rules from the AoR GM screen booklet are great, should that be what I read next?

In short: Should I skip around the Core rulebook, or read it straight through? Afterwards, where should I focus my effort? Career Specialization sourcebooks, Sector sourcebooks, or what exactly?

I would decide what sort of game you want to run, and read that game’s core rulebook. Get to know all the rules. From there, I would talk to my PCs about what careers they’re interested in. Give them the books for their careers, and let them read through chapters 1 and 2 during character creation. Then, for all the sourcebooks that match a PC career, read chapter 3. I would just page through the sector sourcebooks and see if anything seems interesting. For those things, read them in detail and incorporate them into your game if you would like.

Have you played the game? Ideal would be to play it first and get the gist of it. Second best would be to watch some playthroughs online. Should make reading and understanding much less overwhelming.

It sounds like you don't enjoy reading the rulebooks (which can admittedly be pretty dry)... so don't. You have the Beginner Game, so read its rulebook again. Then get your group together and play an adventure! I'd suggest something published at this point, maybe one of the other Beginner Games (AOR, F&D, TFA), the adventure in the back of the core rulebook, or one of the PDF adventures FFG has released.

The important thing is to play the game. Play with the Beginner Game rules for now. When something comes up in play that you don't know how to adjudicate, make a note of it, make a quick ruling off the top of your head, and then look that thing up in the big rulebook after the session.

In other words, stop sweating it. The books are all resources. You should just mine them for ideas, not worry about memorizing everything in them. Play the game, and go to the books between sessions to learn about things that came up in play or to get ideas for the next session.

Learn the rules from the beginner games sets first, and if reading is not your strong suite, take advantage of all the online videos, Let's Play, audio podcasts and similar resources. Once you got the basics down, read any section of a specific book you need for your next adventure, and slowly work you way up as the needed arises. The rules make sense over time as you play the game, there is no need to rush and read the core rulebook cover to cover as a starting GM.

Thanks for such a quick response!!

I've played both TFA and EotE begginner games (both with 4 players + me as GM) and I've watched some sessions online. I feel like I've gotten familiar with the feel and flow of the game.

I'm running a EotE game first. I was figuring on a series of heists. Maybe like an escape from a slave camp. To escape, they got help from a rival criminal organization, but now the group has Obligation to that Crime boss... Since my group has an aversion to Tatooine, I was thinking about starting on Nal Hutta and then moving to Nar Shada. :-) But it sounds like you're recommending some of the pre-gen adventures though. BtR, JoY, or MotPQ or some of the smaller ones? Sidenote, my group is 3 PC + me as the Gm.

I like the idea of having my group read chap 1&2 of the career specialization sourcebook that applies to their PC. Is there anything else I should get my group to read?

As someone who suffers from ADD and a touch of dyslexia, I have trouble reading the books (although I buy them all, because of the quality and the usefulness in the game).

I also GM.

So here's the trick I've picked up over the years (started GM'ing at 8, I'm now 41): Don't read the books.

I mean it.
Don't "read" them as if they were a novel.
Do a couple of tester games where both you and the players are aware that this is just a test and not an actual play session.
There you'll do a LOT of flipping through pages and such to figure out the rules at the appropriate time (I suggest playing the Beginner game(s) first, as those are very pedagogically designed).
Once you and your players get into the system, you start over from scratch and make new characters and start your own campaign.

As for what order to read?
Learn the rules first (like I described above).
Then you check out the source books for the professions your players have chosen, so you can learn more about that archetype and also get some tips for including them in your campaign design.

Then, you feel free to read the books in whatever order you like.

I also bought a big bulk of books as I started playing 3 years ago (in round numbers), and I faced the same dilemma as you. Fortunately, I knew from past experience to concentrate on the rules and then fill in the rest later.
I usually read the books that seem interesting to me (for example, Lords of Nal Hutta seemed interesting to me, so I read most of that, and then set my campain in Hutt space).

So it sounds like I should skip around to get gameplay down, so Skills (chapt3), Conflict and Combat (chapt6), and The GM (chapt9)?

Afterwards, focus on the campaign or go through another pregen adventure. Do you have any recommendations what adventures to try next?

1 hour ago, SacredRebirth said:

So it sounds like I should skip around to get gameplay down, so Skills (chapt3), Conflict and Combat (chapt6), and The GM (chapt9)?

Afterwards, focus on the campaign or go through another pregen adventure. Do you have any recommendations what adventures to try next?

FFG Star Wars EoTE

Under the "support" tab are additional resources and a follow up adventure to the EOTE beginner box set adventure.

There are also some free adventures in the AOR and F&D support sections, so you might also want to pick those up.

All of the GMs screen kits (to my knowledge) also have additional adventures included. Many of them can be combined with the beginner box set and online support adventures to make a three part mini-campaign. I would start with these types of adventures first, before trying out the "big" adventures like The Jewel Of Javin and Mask of the Pirate Queen.

I have all the books too, though I bought them as they were released, so it was a lot easier on the wallet! I still haven't read all of them. I would suggest reading the Core Rules for whichever system you're planning on focusing on. I allowed my players to make characters from any of the three core books, but I'm running an Edge of the Empire focused campaign so I read that one first. It would be ideal to read it cover to cover, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary. I would suggest that getting familiar with the dice mechanic, character creation, how skills and talents work, and combat is absolutely essential to running the game. Everything else is optional depending on whether or not you'll be using those rules. If none of your players will start out with a ship for example, you can probably skip the space combat rules for now.

Aside from the core rules, I treat all of the other books as little more than reference manuals. I'll always skim a new book when I buy it, but I only fully read chapters that are currently relevant to my campaign. You'll have your hands full learning how to run the game, let your players worry about learning how their careers work from their respective books. Having said that, the career books do have a lot of useful information for creating adventures for those specific careers, so I would recommend reading those sections after your players have decided what kind of characters they'll roll up. Lords of Nal Hutta, Suns of Fortune, etc. are great resources, but unless you're planning to run your campaign in Hutt Space, Corellia or what-have-you, you don't need to read them too closely yet.

It is very easy to get overwhelmed, but don't get discouraged or be intimidated by the huge stack of books. Just familiarize yourself with the basics for now, and work on learning the rest as the need arises. If you're having trouble wrapping your head around a particular rule or concept, there's nothing wrong with leaving something out of your game until you can figure it out. The space combat rules are a little clunky in my opinion, so even though I have a smuggler with his own ship in my group, we don't do a lot of space combat because I'm still trying to figure out how to make it work smoothly. I try to throw in a dogfight every now and again, so that the smuggler player doesn't feel like he's wasting XP on piloting skills and talents, and also as to run through the rules to learn by doing.