19 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

I cut my teeth on Basic and Expert D&D back in Jr High, and then AD&D 2nd Ed before completely abandoning them for better games, such as D6 Star Wars, Cyberpunk, Mekton, TFOS, and the current iteration of Star Wars. I played the D20 RCRB SW RPG as well, but refused to play SAGA Edition, and won't touch D&D.

Pretty close to my experience Tramp (or would the shortened form be better by saying Graphics? )

I started with AD&D in junior high as a player, then DM'd AD&D for years from that point while a friend had a Basic/Expert campaign. While I did keep up with various new additions of D&D through the years (while playing other systems like Traveller, D6, 2300 AD, Twilight 2000), 3.5 was where I started getting disgruntled with D&D. It was being overwhelmed by mechanics. SAGA was actually a turn back in simplicity which gave me hope for a bit, then 4th Edition's video game influenced system completely made me stop making D&D purchases. Luckily, Warhammer FFG came out soon after, and I've followed this narrative system from there to Star Wars to Genesys without making purchases at all for any other system (well except for MgT's 2300 AD, since I had a little involvement and my name was credited so I had to have a copy ).

Something we actually agree upon Mr. Graphics!

21 minutes ago, Sturn said:

SAGA was actually a turn back in simplicity which gave me hope for a bit, then 4th Edition's video game influenced system completely made me stop making D&D purchases.

Back then I hoped for 4th ed to go in the direction of SAGA. I loved the concept of talent trees and the level-cascading increase of several values. It was not perfect, but it headed into the right direction. But yeah, then 4th ed as a World of Warcraft P&P happened. 😥

4 minutes ago, DarthDude said:

Back then I hoped for 4th ed to go in the direction of SAGA. I loved the concept of talent trees and the level-cascading increase of several values. It was not perfect, but it headed into the right direction. But yeah, then 4th ed as a World of Warcraft P&P happened. 😥

I was VERY vocal on the old WotC forums that the next edition of D&D should go the route of SAGA. I think my favorite post on those old forums was one where I was trying to inspire anyone at WotC who might read it to go that route. It obviously influenced no one of importance. 😄

18 minutes ago, Sturn said:

I was VERY vocal on the old WotC forums that the next edition of D&D should go the route of SAGA. I think my favorite post on those old forums was one where I was trying to inspire anyone at WotC who might read it to go that route. It obviously influenced no one of importance. 😄

Some is now found in Pathfinder 2. K.C. Owens, one of the designers was also involved in SAGA back then, if my memory serves me right. 😄

6 hours ago, Vondy said:

Well, if we are looking for crunchy yet capable of simulating genre and including narrative touches I'd go with the Hero System. I've actually run Star Wars with it and it works extremely well if you want to do the work. The force can be handled as a variable power pool with the individual powers being skill roll or ego (willpower) roll based and it has a robust and flexible martial arts system. Its just one of those systems that demands the game-master and players invest time in system knowledge, design, and balance.

FYI, the Hero system is one of the two systems which were merged to make the FUZION system; the other being R.Talsorian's Interlock system.

3 hours ago, Sturn said:

Pretty close to my experience Tramp (or would the shortened form be better by saying Graphics? )

I started with AD&D in junior high as a player, then DM'd AD&D for years from that point while a friend had a Basic/Expert campaign. While I did keep up with various new additions of D&D through the years (while playing other systems like Traveller, D6, 2300 AD, Twilight 2000), 3.5 was where I started getting disgruntled with D&D. It was being overwhelmed by mechanics. SAGA was actually a turn back in simplicity which gave me hope for a bit, then 4th Edition's video game influenced system completely made me stop making D&D purchases. Luckily, Warhammer FFG came out soon after, and I've followed this narrative system from there to Star Wars to Genesys without making purchases at all for any other system (well except for MgT's 2300 AD, since I had a little involvement and my name was credited so I had to have a copy ).

Something we actually agree upon Mr. Graphics!

Tramp is fine. That's my preferred nickname. Tramp Graphics is my DBA.

7 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

FYI, the Hero system is one of the two systems which were merged to make the FUZION system; the other being R.Talsorian's Interlock system.

I remember! FUZION was.... controversial... in the Hero community as it was supposed to be the successor system to 4th Edition. I didn't think it was a bad system, myself, but I'm a hidebound traditionalist when it comes to Hero, and stuck with 4th edition until 5th edition came out. It could work okay for Star Wars, IMO.

16 minutes ago, Vondy said:

I remember! FUZION was.... controversial... in the Hero community as it was supposed to be the successor system to 4th Edition. I didn't think it was a bad system, myself, but I'm a hidebound traditionalist when it comes to Hero, and stuck with 4th edition until 5th edition came out. It could work okay for Star Wars, IMO.

as i understand it they are on 6th now. not sure what they did though....

32 minutes ago, Vondy said:

I remember! FUZION was.... controversial... in the Hero community as it was supposed to be the successor system to 4th Edition. I didn't think it was a bad system, myself, but I'm a hidebound traditionalist when it comes to Hero, and stuck with 4th edition until 5th edition came out. It could work okay for Star Wars, IMO.

I love the FUZION system, personally. I reworked all of my Cyberpunk 2020 characters (they're my comic book characters given game stats) to it when Cyberpunk V3 came out, and once I can afford to get a hold of Cyberpunk Red...😈

1 hour ago, Tramp Graphics said:

I love the FUZION system, personally. I reworked all of my Cyberpunk 2020 characters (they're my comic book characters given game stats) to it when Cyberpunk V3 came out, and once I can afford to get a hold of Cyberpunk Red...😈

My experience has been that most people who haven't played the Hero System before being introduced to Fuzion do really like it. Conversely, I've found that people who were Hero-philes before being introduced to Fuzion aren't fans. Those are, or course, fairly broad generalizations and there are certainly exceptions. A lot of the controversy at the time came from the fact that Hero had gone fallow for many years after the heyday of 4th edition and had been kept alive by a very loyal fanbase and, despite being fallow, had a very active message board. There was a fairly complete unpublished draft of 5th edition at the time, but the owners decided let R Talsorian to use the champions IP and produce Fuzion as the successor system we were all supposed to love. That led to a lot of furor because while Fuzion is a nifty system (and easier to use) it is, nonetheless, less flexible and open than Hero is. I liken Hero to the Dos-prompt of the RPG world. You have to write a bunch of command-line code to compile the game you want to run with it! My own take is that Fuzion is a fine system, but I'm a guy who knows Hero by rote and can build Hero characters and run games without cracking the books. So, every time I open a Fuzion book I see its underlying DNA and start "thinking in Hero." And then I get maniacal because Hero is gamer Ninjitsu because its.... REAL ULTIMATE POWER!!!!

Muahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

Of course, its also damned time consuming....

2 minutes ago, Vondy said:

My experience has been that most people who haven't played the Hero System before being introduced to Fuzion do really like it. Conversely, I've found that people who were Hero-philes before being introduced to Fuzion aren't fans. Those are, or course, fairly broad generalizations and there are certainly exceptions. A lot of the controversy at the time came from the fact that Hero had gone fallow for many years after the heyday of 4th edition and had been kept alive by a very loyal fanbase and, despite being fallow, had a very active message board. There was a fairly complete unpublished draft of 5th edition at the time, but the owners decided let R Talsorian to use the champions IP and produce Fuzion as the successor system we were all supposed to love. That led to a lot of furor because while Fuzion is a nifty system (and easier to use) it is, nonetheless, less flexible and open than Hero is. I liken Hero to the Dos-prompt of the RPG world. You have to write a bunch of command-line code to compile the game you want to run with it! My own take is that Fuzion is a fine system, but I'm a guy who knows Hero by rote and can build Hero characters and run games without cracking the books. So, every time I open a Fuzion book I see its underlying DNA and start "thinking in Hero." And then I get maniacal because Hero is gamer Ninjitsu because its.... REAL ULTIMATE POWER!!!!

Muahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

Of course, its also damned time consuming....

Well, I started with Interlock, too, with Cyberpunk 2020 and Mekton Z. FUZION is a great evolution of that system.

On 1/22/2020 at 4:20 PM, HappyDaze said:

I know players that play a lot of different systems, and some of them do not like FFG's "Roll a Handful of Lucky Charms" dice mechanics. They gave it a fair chance and suggesting that those that do not like it "live in a bubble" and that not liking it "says more about the people than the system" is insulting. I know many people that have played it for a while and then go back to/on to other systems because they prefer games with non-narrative mechanics. To many them (and myself), narrative mechanics are boring crutches and disruptive to their in-character interactions with the game world.

Calling narrative mechanics 'boring crutches' is exactly the same level of insulting...if I believe you mean it applies to everyone. But I clearly see it as your opinion and applying to your group of friends.

If you take my comment out of context and apply it to all of humanity, sure, it's insulting. But I was speaking from personal experience just as you were. The players that I have dealt with that have had problems with the dice are people that don't like to expand their horizons. They only play D&D and even refuse to try out other D20 systems. They are also the type of people that will only play monopoly, life, and risk and asking them to try out something different like even TTR is like asking them to eat a bug. D&D for some people is a gateway drug to discovering new systems, new mechanics, new worlds. To others, it's a crutch. They stopped wanting to experience anything new past the age of 12 and if something takes even the slightest bit of cognitive effort, they avoid it like the plague.

To the gateway group however, the narrative dice system has been a godsend. Even compared to other narrative systems, this one just seems to work. We have played, and continue to play many different systems. Heck, a few of the people in my group have worked on RPGs and have even interdependently created their own systems. But this system has blended together the various good parts of different systems while also shedding some of the excess chaff. It's got the skills and feats of a D&D system, but rids itself of the strict overly restrictive leveling process. While maintaining a large array of skills/feats, it somehow avoids the problem of players forgetting these abilities (for a reason I can't quite seem to grasp yet). It replaces vague narrative systems that are often very difficult for new players with a more defined narrative system that seems to encourage full party participation in ways that I rarely see in other systems. It replaces dry, formulaic dice rolls and combat with interesting and cinematic results, but maintains the variety and range of results that come from dice heavy systems which are often lost in narrative systems. It maintains tactical and strategic elements in a narrative fashion but deletes the grid and strict rules that were tied to it.

Every system (including this one) has advantages and faults. Heck, I even have a serious complaint about the narrative dice system in this game. But this is the first game that seems to have combined as many of those advantages from other systems into one unified system that actually worked, while reducing a lot of the faults from those systems.

38 minutes ago, kmanweiss said:

Calling narrative mechanics 'boring crutches' is exactly the same level of insulting...if I believe you mean it applies to everyone. But I clearly see it as your opinion and applying to your group of friends.

If you take my comment out of context and apply it to all of humanity, sure, it's insulting. But I was speaking from personal experience just as you were. The players that I have dealt with that have had problems with the dice are people that don't like to expand their horizons. They only play D&D and even refuse to try out other D20 systems. They are also the type of people that will only play monopoly, life, and risk and asking them to try out something different like even TTR is like asking them to eat a bug. D&D for some people is a gateway drug to discovering new systems, new mechanics, new worlds. To others, it's a crutch. They stopped wanting to experience anything new past the age of 12 and if something takes even the slightest bit of cognitive effort, they avoid it like the plague.

To the gateway group however, the narrative dice system has been a godsend. Even compared to other narrative systems, this one just seems to work. We have played, and continue to play many different systems. Heck, a few of the people in my group have worked on RPGs and have even interdependently created their own systems. But this system has blended together the various good parts of different systems while also shedding some of the excess chaff. It's got the skills and feats of a D&D system, but rids itself of the strict overly restrictive leveling process. While maintaining a large array of skills/feats, it somehow avoids the problem of players forgetting these abilities (for a reason I can't quite seem to grasp yet). It replaces vague narrative systems that are often very difficult for new players with a more defined narrative system that seems to encourage full party participation in ways that I rarely see in other systems. It replaces dry, formulaic dice rolls and combat with interesting and cinematic results, but maintains the variety and range of results that come from dice heavy systems which are often lost in narrative systems. It maintains tactical and strategic elements in a narrative fashion but deletes the grid and strict rules that were tied to it.

Every system (including this one) has advantages and faults. Heck, I even have a serious complaint about the narrative dice system in this game. But this is the first game that seems to have combined as many of those advantages from other systems into one unified system that actually worked, while reducing a lot of the faults from those systems.

it is the only system i have seen where youy can have 500 earned XP characters with base characters and everyone is still useful. it is the only system i have seen where you can have force users with non force users and non force users dont feel like useless tag alongs.

Starships and Speeders should be out soon, right? That'll prove that the line isn't dying (or already dead)! So, how're those previews looking? Oh, they haven't updated anything about this product since November...

What are the chances that this doesn't come out and preorders get cancelled? IMO, we should listen to K-2SO:

3 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Starships and Speeders should be out soon, right? That'll prove that the line isn't dying (or already dead)! So, how're those previews looking? Oh, they haven't updated anything about this product since November...

What are the chances that this doesn't come out and preorders get cancelled? IMO, we should listen to K-2SO:

They have specifically said these products are coming. And the work on it has been done for at least 6 months. As they are in the printing/ on the boat phase. Which is what the in production part invlves. Ones they announce a book most of the in house work on it is done. the in developement phase is basically being in the book layout and then goes to the printer then ships.

34 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

They have specifically said these products are coming. And the work on it has been done for at least 6 months. As they are in the printing/ on the boat phase. Which is what the in production part invlves. Ones they announce a book most of the in house work on it is done. the in development phase is basically being in the book layout and then goes to the printer then ships.

I agree. Would make no sense to cancel the book after all the work is done and the writers have been paid (hopefully).

They could still announce the end of the RPG with the arrival of the book ("This concludes the game"). But I think as long as they have the Star Wars license they would be ill advise to cancel the RPG. Hopefully they will continue with a reduced output of 2-4 books per year, using freelancers. This way they could make a buck on the side with the SW RPG while X-Wing and Legion bring in the money. But only time will tell. Always in motion the future is.

43 minutes ago, GM Fred said:

I agree. Would make no sense to cancel the book after all the work is done and the writers have been paid (hopefully).

They could still announce the end of the RPG with the arrival of the book ("This concludes the game"). But I think as long as they have the Star Wars license they would be ill advise to cancel the RPG. Hopefully they will continue with a reduced output of 2-4 books per year, using freelancers. This way they could make a buck on the side with the SW RPG while X-Wing and Legion bring in the money. But only time will tell. Always in motion the future is.

Also I think the license requires a certain amount of RPG products a year. WOTC ran into this where they were doing the minis game and got in trouble for not doing which is what kickstarted Saga edition. So I dont think it is the end of the line. just a slow down.

Also the RPG helps sell minis...

3 hours ago, Daeglan said:

They have specifically said these products are coming. And the work on it has been done for at least 6 months. As they are in the printing/ on the boat phase. Which is what the in production part invlves. Ones they announce a book most of the in house work on it is done. the in developement phase is basically being in the book layout and then goes to the printer then ships.

Your optimism is not welcome here; this is the doom & gloom thread, remember.

We should also focus on the ripple effect that this will have upon the child laborers in those Chinese print shops that FFG is so fond of using. And the boat people... won't someone think of the boat people?

15 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Your optimism is not welcome here; this is the doom & gloom thread, remember.

We should also focus on the ripple effect that this will have upon the child laborers in those Chinese print shops that FFG is so fond of using. And the boat people... won't someone think of the boat people?

There are no boat people left. They went down with Ghosts of Dathomir...they are trying to play star wars with Davy Jones

They just posted a huge "Hey, look at all these cool things you can buy today!" post. SPOILER - the RPG got ****all.

9 minutes ago, Desslok said:

They just posted a huge "Hey, look at all these cool things you can buy today!" post. SPOILER - the RPG got ****all.

I see all of that as stuff I can buy for the RPG...

Well, you could buy a noodle strainer from Bed Bath and Beyond, turn it upside down and use it as a Thunderdome for your RPG map. It still means the actual RPG line gets ****all.

At last we get some good news!

Oh, the Force didn't work that way...

Carry on.

41 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Well, you could buy a noodle strainer from Bed Bath and Beyond, turn it upside down and use it as a Thunderdome for your RPG map. It still means the actual RPG line gets ****all.

Well we already knew Starships and speeders werent till February so I am not sure what you expected given that it is January. The L5R books are Shipping now.

15 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Well we already knew Starships and speeders werent till February so I am not sure what you expected given that it is January. The L5R books are Shipping now.

Never mind that over the past couple years, the RPG line has had a much lower volume of Star Wars products released, given the additional work that's needed to create them in contrast to card games and minis, which take far less time and sell to a much broader audience with a far better return on investment.

It is possible that FFG will go with the "couple books a year" using freelancers to do the heavy lifting of creating the book (presuming that FFG's contract has a similar "X number of RPG books each year" language that the WotC contract had), but we probably won't hear much on if the line's even going to continue until after the vehicle book comes out.

15 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

presuming that FFG's contract has a similar "X number of RPG books each year" language that the WotC contract had

Given the terms remain essentially unchanged from WEG’s days, that’s probably a safe assumption.