Like the title says sell me on this book.

I mean... it's an anniversary collector's edition. West End Games' Star Wars is a significant entry in the history of Star Wars, and influenced a lot of what we know about Star Wars, such as naming and developing numerous species and vehicles seen in the movies.

But if you're not interested in that, you're not missing much.

If I recall correctly, the only change was the quality of the materials used for printing. It's a decent fun game to have around.

Sell yourself on the book.

Honestly, it's a novelty for a long dead system. All the content can be easily found online or for super cheap through amazon (with a couple of exceptions). If you're looking for a good looking book, buy it. If you're looking for a system to actually play, go with the current NarDS system or go get the PDFs.

Attractive hardcovers look great on the bookshelf and are eminently practical in play.

The game is lite but nails the feel of the OT.

No influence from the PT or Disney or comics or cartoons—just the real Star Wars.

15 hours ago, Desslok said:

Honestly, it's a novelty for a long dead system.

Long out of print yes, but wouldn't call it a dead system necessary.

There are active G+ / Facebook communities for the game, and the Rancor Pit forums have continued living on for years. Multiple people working on creating fan supplements related to this, two recent are Rogue One and Rebels season 2 sourcebooks. A team have even started working on a fan-revival of the old Adventure Journal, with issue 2 becoming available in just over a month.

It’s definitely a great system. In fact, a couple of years ago, deciding to kick off a campaign after many years of not gaming, I was planning to use the D6 system, although that changed to FFG before the campaign started.

Selling points about this book:

1. It has a significant importance in the initial development of the "Star Wars" Expanded Universe. It is really like owning a "piece of history" of the Star Wars franchise. This cannot be over-emphasized. With these books, you are getting a look at the first steps to expand the Star Wars universe when the only information available was the movie original trilogy and five or six novellas about Han Solo and Lando Calrissian adventures.

2. The Rulebook gives you a perfectly serviceable rules system which it can be adapted to any setting wich favours a "cinematic" feeling (let's say any setting which could be used with the FATE system).

3. The Sourcebook gives you A LOT of background information which it is useful for any "Star Wars" RPG game (just compare the amount of space given to the description of any starfighter with the amount of space given for that same starfighter in a FFG or Wizards of the Coast book).

4. Both books are a delightful reading. Seriously, I laugh everytime I read passages like the "use of the Survivor skill" example. These books are from a time in which reading a RPG book it was supposed to be fun .

On 6/29/2018 at 5:32 AM, Agrivar said:

4. Both books are a delightful reading. Seriously, I laugh everytime I read passages like the "use of the Survivor skill" example. These books are from a time in which reading a RPG book it was supposed to be fun .

Oh boy, a thousand times this. The humor of this game is great (also, the Dorion Discus). The IC dialogs described in the book, are fantastic.

Also, I would like to add that it also includes excellent advises of how to run Star Wars (or action RPGs) and a section of adventure seeds.

I'll not try to sell you on the book, but on the system...

1. it's fast to create characters, thanks to a template system
   1. new templates are also easily created
2. It uses only d6's. Typically, players will need only 4-6 d6; this means you can outfit the entire table with inexpensive dice from the local 5&dime for about $10 to $15, even if you're in the middle of nowhere and have no internet access. (Even in Talkeetna, Alaska, and Alsea, Oregon)
   1. (First Ed Specific) sadly, everyone NEEDS dice, due to the initiative system.
3. It has a few interesting mechanical choices that are (still) relatively unique.
4. This reprint lacks the weight of the EU; if you're a "movies only" type, it will be far easier to adapt to your vision of the SWU
5. The game is hardly dead -
   1. fans produced a "Fan 3rd edition" (Called REUP), which quickly got hit with A C&D, but not before the anons made certain to put it beyond Disney's stopping range. And, in that short time, the hosting website exceeded bandwidth limits for the month in a couple days.
   2. OpenD6 Space is essentially a real 3rd edition, sans the star wars specific content - but it's fully compatible with SWD6 1E, 2E, 2E R&E, and even REUP.
6. Play is much smoother than FFG SW - and note, I love both -
   1. The design is based around allowing multiple actions in a turn
   2. The success roll is also the initiative number - higher is better in both cases
   3. Simple Success/Failure results
7. This is the game that most of the FFG designers referenced in developing FFG SW, based upon their posted comments and interviews. They love it. Several worked on the WEG SW line. You'll see the origin of many portions of FFG SW when you play it.

Do you intend to play it or to have it as a coffee table conversation piece? If the former, just go with free pdfs or cheap used books (these things were built to last) available online. If the latter, well, either you want it or you don't.

On 6/25/2018 at 11:36 AM, Falconer2 said:

Attractive hardcovers look great on the bookshelf and are eminently practical in play.

The game is lite but nails the feel of the OT.

No influence from the PT or Disney or comics or cartoons—just the real Star Wars.

A complete game in 148 pages.

Plus a crapton of support. Dozens of standalone adventures. Whole stocked sectors (Elrood Sector, Minos Cluster, Kathol Sector, Corporate Sector, Tapani Sector). Sourcebooks for movies and novels and comic books, in case you want to use anything from them. Thorough and excellent fan-made conversions of everything that WotC ever printed.

3 hours ago, Falconer2 said:

A complete game in 148 pages.

Plus a crapton of support. Dozens of standalone adventures. Whole stocked sectors (Elrood Sector, Minos Cluster, Kathol Sector, Corporate Sector, Tapani Sector). Sourcebooks for movies and novels and comic books, in case you want to use anything from them. Thorough and excellent fan-made conversions of everything that WotC ever printed.

If hundreds of pages of pdf support material is your selling point, then why not just stick to the pdf versions of the core rules too?

On 6/30/2018 at 10:47 PM, HappyDaze said:

If hundreds of pages of pdf support material is your selling point, then why not just stick to the pdf versions of the core rules too?

Print > PDF

Duh.

Ewok template. There. Go buy it now.

On 6/30/2018 at 4:55 PM, HappyDaze said:

Do you intend to play it or to have it as a coffee table conversation piece? If the former, just go with free pdfs or cheap used books (these things were built to last) available online. If the latter, well, either you want it or you don't.

You mean "Illegally obtained PDFs floated by pirates..."

WEG was not releasing PDFs during their SW license era, except for a few free adventures for other lines, and some errata. New WEG (the Purgatory Press imprint version) did release PDFs of the cores (now called OpenD6), but that was the first I know to have been released legit in PDF.

On 6/21/2018 at 9:23 PM, Lotr_Nerd said:

Like the title says sell me on this book.

Well the obvious first, it’s Star Wars and a limited edition,

second, it’s where the Star Wars rpg began, and its still the best version (IMHO) It’s a classic, highly playable, very intuitive, and feels like Star Wars,

if that doesn’t appeal to your Star Wars collectible sensibilities then I don’t know what will,

3 hours ago, vilainn6 said:

Who cares? That a dead game.

License holders, site owners with links to pirated copies, ISPs, gubmints.... yeah. Also, trash belongs in a trash can, I can't stress that enough.

"There is no sell. Buy, or buy not you will."

Either one understands the history making role of WEG D6 Star Wars in the history of the expanded universe, and roleplaying games, or one does not.

Its iconic for more than one reason, but foremost: its good.

I will tell you that this is my favorite Star Wars game system. I like 1st edition more than any of the other D6 editions--better than d20 et. al. It captures the flavor of the original trilogy--has that magic--like no other game.

Like others have said, reading the Sourcebook is just plain fun. Lots of cool info there, both for the rpg and as a general SW sourcebook.

Much of the stuff created for this game is still around and has become canon. The Twi'leks were named by the people at WEG through this game. The sample Rebel Outpost in the Sourcebook, Tierfon Base, is mentioned in the Force Awakens Visual Dictionary. The helmet that Rey puts on while she is eating outside the downed AT-AT in that film has a symbol from the squadron at Tierfon. The wheeled crawler that Jyn is rescued from in Rogue One was first created and detailed in a supplement for this game.

Characters from the original Marvel comics were used as patterns for some of the fun templates in the 1E core rulebook (like the Kid and the Quixotic Jedi).

And, the game is just flat-out fun. I have a blast with it. I've spent many hours playing other editions of the D6 (and those are great games, as well), but I keep coming back to First Edition as my go-to Star Wars game. I just like it better. It's more "rules lite". Faster. Cleaner. Meaner. And, full of Star Wars swashbuckling action.

Star Wars 1E is probably the best roleplaying game that I've ever played. If I had to pick one, I'd pick it as my favorite rpg.

The d6 versions of Star Wars are arguably the best Star Wars RPG ever made. They have balance problems at higher levels but they flow fast and to this day I clutch on to my original copies while I've sold other RPG books much newer than this. Seriously, it cannot be overstated how much this game influenced Star Wars. It predates the EU but so much of it had a massive impact on the EU and even on the canon as others have said.

On 6/21/2018 at 3:23 PM, Lotr_Nerd said:

Like the title says sell me on this book.

Did we end up with a sale or no sale?