57 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:The makers of Fate have a program in which some of their PDFs are available for free download, while the ones that aren’t can be obtained free with purchase of the physical book by submitting a picture of the book and receipt.
It's called Bits and Mortar, and there are 111 publishers currently participating. Some small names but some bigger ones, too!
It's a good place to check and see if you can get a free PDF of a physical book you already have!
Don’t get me wrong, I totally dislike all premades and haven’t bought any of them after buying the first three and running one.
1 hour ago, DanteRotterdam said:Don’t get me wrong, I totally dislike all premades and haven’t bought any of them after buying the first three and running one.
I bought them all ... 
I've run two beginner games, and one pre-made adventure.
The rest are just there, making my collection complete.
I'm thinking of running one or two at some point, soon... ish ... amid other stuff I'm doing. Yay.
I'm not sure what I said that sounded like an endorsement for Adventure Books, but I didn't mean it. So far I don't even have experience with the Adventure Books. The ideas I've seen about replacing them with modular encounter hooks sounded good to me, but I don't have enough experience to lay out what I think they should do with them. If it was about the tv show books, I imagined those more like a cross between a setting book and a class book, where you'd have new/reprinted rules for on-screen races and classes, locations from the shows, as well as miscellaneous advice for how to use those pieces and concepts in your campaigns.
I'll admit, I often find myself behind the times nowadays. When I was younger, the kind of things I liked tended to line up fairly closely with what would end up being popular. That's not a brag, it's just that I was in that demographic window. I don't keep up well with things anymore, and often discover that I was completely oblivious to something that everyone else takes for granted.
But there are still some things that are universal. In general, the smaller your barrier to entry, the more successful you're going to be. It's just a matter of cause and effect. That's not to say that you can't be successful when you're difficult to get into (just look at some miniatures games), but it's a bigger gamble at the very least (and look how quickly X-Wing, which was much easier to get into, caught up). You could be the greatest game in the world, but if you ask too much up front, and people either won't have the money, or will decide that getting a slightly less awesome product is worth the bargain (enough word-of-mouth/marketing/culture is an exception that can overcome this).
Another thing is the importance of all of the little quality of life things. There are a lot of things competing for our attention nowadays. It's common for super fans to dismiss it as an issue, which makes sense because they've long since decided to put up with the small things, but retaining less dedicated fans or making new ones is a lot easier when you take that burden away. A lot of times, those people don't even recognize why a game makes them too anxious to stick around, but that doesn't mean it isn't happening. The fewer things, no matter how small, that can give someone an excuse to try out the hundred other things competing for their attention, the more customers you'll retain.
None of that is 100% foolproof, though, obviously. For one thing, if your reputation has already taken enough hits, or if you simply don't have an audience, it's not going to work. Also, there's always the chance that you do something that happens to rub the existing audience just the wrong way enough to destroy your reputation in your attempt to save things. I've seen that happen enough.
The details is where that gets difficult, though, and that's one of the reasons I didn't really go into detail. Generally, though, creating a new way to enter the game that gels with modern sensibilities, while creating as little potential regret for the customer, is much more likely to do well than not (especially when you have a big name like Star Wars to get over the initial hurdle of people asking why they should care about you to begin with).
Edited by JokubasOn 1/8/2020 at 8:26 PM, Hutchback said:It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the SW live-play they have scheduled later this month. I was hoping it was meant to herald new initiatives for the game, but that seems unlikely now. I wonder if they will just cancel the broadcast.
Could be awkward.
Looks like they finally cancelled the SW RPG live-play 😢
This might be a bad sign... 😨
8 minutes ago, GM Fred said:Looks like they finally cancelled the SW RPG live-play 😢
This might be a bad sign... 😨
Where did they say this?
1 minute ago, StarkJunior said:Where did they say this?
They didn't. They just erased it from their plan and are doing some Keyforge stuff on that date instead... 😡
4 minutes ago, GM Fred said:They didn't. They just erased it from their plan and are doing some Keyforge stuff on that date instead... 😡
RIP
This is an example of their poor communication methods. It probably got cancelled because those playing were laid off. but to quietly remove it leads to people thinking the worse because they keep silent foolishly.
21 minutes ago, Daeglan said:This is an example of their poor communication methods. It probably got cancelled because those playing were laid off. but to quietly remove it leads to people thinking the worse because they keep silent foolishly.
Reminds me of the communication in many Kickstarters after the estimated delivery date has passed. 🤔
28 minutes ago, DarthDude said:Reminds me of the communication in many Kickstarters after the estimated delivery date has passed. 🤔
A lot in common....
They did rehire Katrina Ostrander though soooo.... but lack of communication is not helpful or inspiring
On 1/19/2020 at 11:32 PM, HappyDaze said:I hadn't really been paying close attention to how many of the titles are "currently unavailable" or "out of stock" on various online sites (e.g., Amazon, CoolStuffInc, and Miniature Market). For those looking at buying into the game now, that's a lot of ugly gaps and the inability to keep the products on-shelf even when the RPG department was staffed might have been a big deterrent to the game's growth. I'd imagine it will get worse before/if it ever gets better.
Not sure if you can consider it a sign of anything besides FFGs inventory incompetence. They have an awful track record for keeping things in stock no matter if a game is live, dead, or near death. They create artificial production bottlenecks by limiting the number of production facilities they will work with. They refuse to use any sort of predictive analytics in ordering re-prints prior to running out. Basically the formula s something akin to this: Wait until every single major retailer, distributor, and the FFG store is out of stock, then wait an additional 3 months, then add the product to the re-print roadmap that is already full up for the next 6 months. Then randomly delay re-prints when launching new, major release games that need that production line.
Armada has been amazingly bad. Despite having no new releases for over a year, the entire planet was out of approximately half the expansions for that time. And when limited re-prints did show up, people either horded them in fear of them never being re-printed again, or they horded them in order to resell them for profit once the new stock dried up, which it typically did within a couple weeks.
FFG handles stocking logistics as well as they handle communication.
With the success of the Mandalorian is a bad time to be out of stock.
I’m running an Age of Rebellion campaign right now. We are two sessions in, and the recruits are having a great time despite wrecking my initial plans. This game system has plenty of resources currently for me to run the campaign to completion, even if nothing new is created. I do hope they consider reprinting the books. While I picked them up as we went, there are many others that either got in late or weren’t able to purchase everything as it originally came out. It is good news about the Age of Rebellion : Ship and Vehicle book, I was looking forward to that. I know my group really likes the game system, and I’m sure we will continue to play it well into the future. As time progresses, we may see new vehicles, equipment, races and force talents show up, but this is nothing new. The Star Wars Minis we use with the game have been out of print for ten years now, but that hasn’t stopped us from still using them. In fact, with the re-use fron the original trilogy, we could almost do a Mandalorian campaign with what we already have.
My best wishes to the staff that was laid off, and my thanks to them for creating such a fun RPG for my friends and I!
7 hours ago, kmanweiss said:Not sure if you can consider it a sign of anything besides FFGs inventory incompetence. They have an awful track record for keeping things in stock no matter if a game is live, dead, or near death. They create artificial production bottlenecks by limiting the number of production facilities they will work with. They refuse to use any sort of predictive analytics in ordering re-prints prior to running out. Basically the formula s something akin to this: Wait until every single major retailer, distributor, and the FFG store is out of stock, then wait an additional 3 months, then add the product to the re-print roadmap that is already full up for the next 6 months. Then randomly delay re-prints when launching new, major release games that need that production line.
Armada has been amazingly bad. Despite having no new releases for over a year, the entire planet was out of approximately half the expansions for that time. And when limited re-prints did show up, people either horded them in fear of them never being re-printed again, or they horded them in order to resell them for profit once the new stock dried up, which it typically did within a couple weeks.
FFG handles stocking logistics as well as they handle communication.
This is part of why I hope FFG doesn't keep doing the RPG. I'd rather it be in the hands of a company that does better. But the bundle includes the mini games, so I expect thre worst.
3 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:This is part of why I hope FFG doesn't keep doing the RPG. I'd rather it be in the hands of a company that does better. But the bundle includes the mini games, so I expect thre worst.
I dont kbow of a company that is really is better at logistics
Regardless of whether you like their games or not, most can agree that WotC seems to do pretty good at getting products out in a timely fashion and in keeping people informed on them.
Edited by HappyDaze3 hours ago, HappyDaze said:Regardless of whether you like their games or not, most can agree that WotC seems to do pretty good at getting products out in a timely fashion and in keeping people informed on them.
I’ll agree that WotC does a good job with communication, but if they were to get the Star Wars license for rpgs what would they do with it, go back to the d20 game system?
No thanks. That system is played out, even with regards to the Star Wars license. FFG has a great thing going with the narrative system and I’d rather not see it tank. The best case scenario here is that Asmodee is streamlining FFG for a sale and WotC buys them out like they did TSR and they keep the narrative system going while giving it a good marketing push, not just turning it into reskinned D&D 5e.
5 minutes ago, Flavorabledeez said:That system is played out
As much as I love the narrative dice system, my weekly DnD group has been going strong for almost 30 years now and we enjoy 5th immensely.
WotC gave up the license. I doubt they want it back.
3 hours ago, DanteRotterdam said:As much as I love the narrative dice system, my weekly DnD group has been going strong for almost 30 years now and we enjoy 5th immensely.
The narrative dice system is nice for some things and to some people, but it repels many players too and I doubt it will show the staying power of d20 games. In truth, I think the narrative dice system is as "played out" as the d20 version ever was; they've already started putting out their "greatest hits albums" with the gear and speeders books.
21 minutes ago, Daeglan said:WotC gave up the license. I doubt they want it back.
I agree. I wasn't saying I wanted WotC to get the license back. I was just pointing out that they were typically much better with communication and timely releases and I would like to see that again.
16 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:The narrative dice system is nice for some things and to some people, but it repels many players too and I doubt it will show the staying power of d20 games.
Yep, gotta agree here that the narrative dice system is not for everybody. I can't count the number of times that a player looked at me with puzzled eyes after rolling the dice because he didn't really know if he just succeeded or not.
d20 systems flaw is also his biggest strenght: simplicity. I think that's why it is still going strong and will continue to do so.
I'll soon start GMing a Trudvang Chronicles campaign that use a d20 system and I actually find it refreshing to go back to a more straightforward system.
3 hours ago, DanteRotterdam said:As much as I love the narrative dice system, my weekly DnD group has been going strong for almost 30 years now and we enjoy 5th immensely.
This just proves how played out the system is. It’s synonymous with D&D. Using it for Star Wars would only be a reskin and a lot of people will just ask themselves “why aren’t we just playing D&D?” In fact, the old d20 Star Wars game really highlighted to me just how much Star Wars is fantasy over sci-fi due to the comparison.
I’ll agree the narrative system has its flaws (what rpg system doesn’t?), but it works well with the license because it forces players to deeply engage with the themes and explore them.
All that being said, my group has enjoyed D&D 5e as well, but man does it allow for some “bumps on a log” player styles that can encourage the player mentality of letting the DM do all the heavy lifting with story telling.
I’ve never experienced that with the narrative system. It encourages involvement on a higher level with everyone. I get why that’s not for everybody, but it makes Star Wars themes and concepts seem a lot deeper than they actually are during play.
YMMV, of course.