I'm a father with 4 children 9-14 and I want to get them into this game. They love Star Wars and have a feeling this could be a Friday night tradition for us. I've done lots of research on these games, but still had a few questions before I purchase.

1. Which game is a good starter game? is there one master rulebook with all classes and species?

2. Do I have to purchase all 3 eventually? Is there something online where I can find out all the speicies/classes so I don't have to buy the other 2 games?

3. What other online resources are there? Homemade campaigns, maps, etc..

1. Each of the game lines is good to start with, they just have different themes. Edge of the Empire is more the "gritty scoundrel, edge of the galaxy" type setting. Think Firefly the TV show for an idea of what is mostly covered in the book.

Age of Rebellion focuses primarily on the actual Rebel/Empire conflict from Star Wars. So lots of warfare related things, combat, military-esque kind of stuff.

Force and Destiny focuses primarily on the Force, no surprise there So if your family wants to play Force users, and Jedi, and all that kind of stuff, that's the book to focus on.

But all of them can be mixed together really, the rules were designed to be universal across all 3 gamelines. And each book has at least one Force-Sensitive class that can be played, so if your family wants to play Firefly (and thus Edge of the Empire), but one of your kids wants to play as River, they can pick the Force Sensitive-Exile tree in the book, and have some Force abilities, while everyone else is running around as a scoundrel or smuggler, or whatever.

One thing about AoR that lends itself to new RPGers is that the Rebel based setting makes it easy to understand why characters are doing what they are doing. Missions can be a little less open ended, with more clearly outlined goals.

The most important third party resource is OggDude's character generator. I recommend downloading it from http://www.legendsofthegalaxy.com/Oggdude / as this server doesn't have the periodic problems OggDude's own server has been having of recent. The generator checks with the server every time it starts up, and if the server has exceeded it's bandwidth limits, the program won't start.

All three of the systems have beginner boxes with introductory adventures. That can be a good way to start playing, though you will quickly need the corresponding core rule book if you want to continue.

Do I have to buy all 3 sets eventually to play all characters? or is there an online manual I can look at or download? or is the OggDude's enough to just buy one set and later on make my own campaigns?

There are some sites out there that have the pages with the career trees on them, but that's about it. If you want the rules, the gear, and the flavor text to help nail the feel of the different settings, you will need to pony up for the corebooks at least.

I personally don't think it's a bad investment, for the 3 core books if nothing else. The supplemental books are optional of course, some people buy them all because..well, Because Star Wars, but others like myself, just buy the ones that actually interest them

But you really can start with one rule book and play for a long time with a lot of options. There are a handful of books that have some of the more popular extra-rules. Special Modifications, for example, has the bulk of the crafting rules.

One last question...

Is there one book with all species and careers, or are they spread out through all 3 books, meaning I have to eventually buy all 3 three.

thanks for the help everyone.

From my understanding the rules are the same in all the CRB but if you want to have some force use FND apparently has more in-depth rules for the force. As mentioned some have spent over 1000$ to have all the books but the best is to probably just buy a beginner game (Or all 4) and go from there. That would help you and yours to decide what they want to play. Then get the core book to match that game then the career books to match your players characters then whichever other books for the rules expansions that are in them.

Soon enough all the career books will be out and all the specialization trees will be available in pdf form so the characters will have access to all their specializations without having to buy the books. So you won't need to rush on the career books... It's mostly for the fine details of running a game with said characters in it and how to make them shine.

Addition:

As to species and careers... they are spread out through every book. So if you want all the fluff on species and careers you will be spending over 1000 to get them all.

However there online resources that will give you the info you need on most of those... one such being oggdudes generator.

3 CRB's with 6 careers in each is 21 books in total not including beginner games, adventures or region books.

Average $40 per book is $840 just for the career books and core books.... i should clarify... that is canadian pricing... not sure what the total is un your currency.

A little bit more to add. Each CRB has 6 Careers, but each Career has 3 Specializations (which is what you might consider a class in other RPGs). So that is 18 specializations per CRB, with each Career Sourcebook giving an additional 3. (Some of the Specializations appear more than once, so the grand total is a little lower than you might calculate).

I personally own 2 CRB's and 3 Sourcebooks. You really only need to buy books beyond 1 CRB if they contain stuff you are strongly interested in.

If you want all of the species, it’s going to be about $1,000 to buy all the books or about 20 seconds to download The Complete Species Guide .

2 hours ago, Masterry said:

One last question...

Is there one book with all species and careers, or are they spread out through all 3 books, meaning I have to eventually buy all 3 three.

thanks for the help everyone.

No one book, all spread out. As others have stated, the information has been put on the interwebs, so it's able to be referenced, but nothing actually published that you could buy. Also, keep in mind that a lot of the species are homebrew ones, so depending on the source material you are pulling from, it might be an "official" species, or something someone cooked up, like Jawas.

8 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

Also, keep in mind that a lot of the species are homebrew ones

People accept FFG stats far too easily. If you look at some of them objectively, they’re not all that great.

10 minutes ago, Yaccarus said:

People accept FFG stats far too easily. If you look at some of them objectively, they’re not all that great.

....ok?

8 hours ago, Yaccarus said:

People accept FFG stats far too easily. If you look at some of them objectively, they’re not all that great.

I was disappointed in the mandalorian species and pantorans are widely considered to be a little stronger than most, but otherwise I haven't seen anything worth complaining about

Additional errors off the top of my head that are the most obvious:

Zabraks are extremely tough, yet that isn’t reflected enough in the stats. Caamasi are pretty much the definition of Presence 3. Chevin also have too low Presence, as they are excellent leaders and very great negotiators. Bothans have a ton of insane senses, yet get neither a talent nor a rank in Perception. Shistavanen are Intellect 3, even though Cunning 3 would make 10x more sense. Verpine don’t get any benefit for their insanely strong carapace. Gand get no statistical mention of their Findsmen abilities. Whiphid get Cunning 1 when Intellect 1 would fit them much better. Ishi Tib get Willpower 1, even though most evidence indicates that they are have a stronger will than most species. Lannik get Intellect 3 despite being a brutal people who focus little on anything related to intellect. The Primitive ability isn’t applied to all the primitive species. The Claws ability isn’t applied to all the species that have sharp claws.

Obviously, species stats are a complicated issue that ultimately do have a lot of room for different interpretations... HOWEVER there are some cases where FFG’s stats are just blatently wrong.

12 hours ago, Yaccarus said:

Additional errors off the top of my head that are the most obvious:

Zabraks are extremely tough, yet that isn’t reflected enough in the stats. Caamasi are pretty much the definition of Presence 3. Chevin also have too low Presence, as they are excellent leaders and very great negotiators. Bothans have a ton of insane senses, yet get neither a talent nor a rank in Perception. Shistavanen are Intellect 3, even though Cunning 3 would make 10x more sense. Verpine don’t get any benefit for their insanely strong carapace. Gand get no statistical mention of their Findsmen abilities. Whiphid get Cunning 1 when Intellect 1 would fit them much better. Ishi Tib get Willpower 1, even though most evidence indicates that they are have a stronger will than most species. Lannik get Intellect 3 despite being a brutal people who focus little on anything related to intellect. The Primitive ability isn’t applied to all the primitive species. The Claws ability isn’t applied to all the species that have sharp claws.

Obviously, species stats are a complicated issue that ultimately do have a lot of room for different interpretations... HOWEVER there are some cases where FFG’s stats are just blatently wrong.

In my opinion most of thp se are minor quibbles not worth mentioning. But some I would consider improvements, but that doesn't mean that what's there already is "bad" but ymmv

Just my 2 cents here, get the beginner games. Either all three core ones or the one or two you think your family will like. One of the best parts about starting there is each one comes with a set of dice. So if you get all three, that is three sets of dice which is usually enough to cover 90-95% of your rolls. After that get the core rule book of the one your family liked the most.

My personal favorite is Force and Destiny. To me that is your more classic story of good vs evil.

Just my own opinion.

29 minutes ago, HistoryGuy said:

Just my 2 cents here, get the beginner games. Either all three core ones or the one or two you think your family will like. One of the best parts about starting there is each one comes with a set of dice. So if you get all three, that is three sets of dice which is usually enough to cover 90-95% of your rolls. After that get the core rule book of the one your family liked the most.

My personal favorite is Force and Destiny. To me that is your more classic story of good vs evil.

Just my own opinion.

While I agree, i would like to add that the force awakens beginner game is a 4th with another set of dice. However it has no core rule book to go with it.

I agree with @TheSapient that Age of Rebellion gives you the most straightforward context for what’s going on and why the characters do what they do, being about the conflict between Empire and Rebellion. Edge of the Empire is cool, but feels more like roleplaying in the Star Wars universe than an actual Star Wars roleplay. Force and Destiny is the only one that lets you play Force users, but it also doesn’t let you play anything else really.

Strictly speaking all three games mix and match however you want, but there are some considerations to make. Personally I would say, if you only want to buy a single setting (period or just for now) go with Age of Rebellion. Stands on its own more easily than Force and Destiny, is more a Star Wars game than Edge of the Empire. If you want to have both Force users and regular, non-Force characters, I’d argue not to get Age of Rebellion first but picking up the other two. That setting to me doesn’t support Force users running around left and right (Star Wars: Rebels notwithstanding), while the out of the way systems at the Edge of the Empire can more easily have Force users being up and about.

I'll second starting with the Beginner game as it gives a set of dice, some pre-gen characters, a nice map/tokens, as well as the starter adventure and even a spin-off to continue that story. There is also a simplified start set of rules, and a skill or two have been consolidated into one for simplicity (Which you can easily change to be standard if you prefer). I like the Edge of the Empire one the best. Compared to the cost of the dice alone it's really worth it. If one of your kids brings a friend over during a "Normal" session for you then all you need to do is grab a pre-gen folio and that friend has a relatively balanced character without needing to know anything about how to make one, complete with backstory. Personally I picked up both the Edge and Age beginner games just for the extra pre-gens and dice!

As far as the core books, you really just need at least one, but I have all 3 and find it's really helpful to have all 3 for easy access to all the different careers and what not. You can find some PDF's online. As mentioned, species are spread out among ALL books, not just the core ones.