Here is what I got from the X-Wing live stream

36:12 bigwebb24: Ahh was hoping you guys would address the rumor that rpg division is shutting down.

36:42 BroadcasterTurboFFGLive: RPG is not shutting down. We will have more information about that in the future

37:30 BroadcasterTurboFFGLive: RPGs will continue. We have an announcement planned that will be shared soonish

So the remarks from FFG are more that "RPGs are not shutting down" with the term "division" being notably absent.

Might be unintentional, or may well be intentional in that FFG will longer have an in-house RPG division, but instead have some other arrangement to coordinate the efforts of freelancers to continue producing RPG material.

Though if the intent is to go the freelancer route to continue the RPG lines, I do have to wonder why they didn't hang on to either Tim Huckelbery or Sam Stewart, both of whom have experience in that sort of thing and were already on the FFG payroll, to handle the in-house administrative duties.

Or could just be that FFG's not wanting to officially announce that the RPGs are dead until after the last of the books already in the pipeline have hit shelves.

well many RPGs are becoming almost fan run like WoD games and BattleTech

they may be going that rout thou for star wars its harder thanks to EfingA

36 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Or could just be that FFG's not wanting to officially announce that the RPGs are dead until after the last of the books already in the pipeline have hit shelves.

More like after the inventory of all RPG products is reduced to 0.

19 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

More like after the inventory of all RPG products is reduced to 0.

is the amount of out of stock books they have right now normal?

I know they have always been somewhat bad at keeping stuff in stock

Maybe its Star Wars RPG 2.0

20 minutes ago, Oldmike1 said:

is the amount of out of stock books they have right now normal?

I know they have always been somewhat bad at keeping stuff in stock

They have always been "bad" at it (or "good" at it from the corporate PoV of not holding excess inventory), but they are particularly low right now and no reprints have been announced in some time. This leads me to believe that they are trying to purge their inventory, and they are unlikely to officially announce the end of the line until the inventory hits 0 or very close to it.

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Or could just be that FFG's not wanting to officially announce that the RPGs are dead until after the last of the books already in the pipeline have hit shelves.

But would that correlate with these statements if that were the plan?:

2 hours ago, daggertx said:

bigwebb24: Ahh was hoping you guys would address the rumor that rpg division is shutting down.

BroadcasterTurboFFGLive: RPG is not shutting down. We will have more information about that in the future

BroadcasterTurboFFGLive: RPGs will continue. We have an announcement planned that will be shared soonish

Putting together they are waiting until stock is out with the above statements means, the "announcement" that will come "soonish" after "RPGs will continue" would be "oh by continue we meant until our stock is out". Even if that were the plan it would be some extreme assholery or inept public speaking to do it that way. If this spokesperson knows he is to avoid saying "the RPG is shutting down" until the stock is out, wouldn't he say something like, "We are making structural changes and will have more information about that in the future", kicking the can down the road without blatantly lying?

4 minutes ago, Sturn said:

But would that correlate with these statements if that were the plan?:

Putting together they are waiting until stock is out with the above statements means, the "announcement" that will come "soonish" after "RPGs will continue" would be "oh by continue we meant until our stock is out". Even if that were the plan it would be some extreme assholery or inept public speaking to do it that way. If this spokesperson knows he is to avoid saying "the RPG is shutting down" until the stock is out, wouldn't he say something like, "We are making structural changes and will have more information about that in the future", kicking the can down the road without blatantly lying?

Never take assholery off the table when talking about company statements.

the fact the ship book is out in less then a day and we not had ANY news story on it this year give me little hope

I think the RPG will go on is likely that they will keep the L5R game going to support the card game at lest till all the core books are out

then we MAY see talk of a SW 2.0 but dont get your hopes up (and I will not back a 2.0 as the line is FAR to costly to rebuy)

IF there was news of new star wars the best time to talk about it was to have stuff inked to the high republic

28 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Never take assholery off the table when talking about company statements.

I do when I have met these people and they arent *** holes

17 minutes ago, Oldmike1 said:

the fact the ship book is out in less then a day and we not had ANY news story on it this year give me little hope

I think the RPG will go on is likely that they will keep the L5R game going to support the card game at lest till all the core books are out

then we MAY see talk of a SW 2.0 but dont get your hopes up (and I will not back a 2.0 as the line is FAR to costly to rebuy)

IF there was news of new star wars the best time to talk about it was to have stuff inked to the high republic

it was like 3 weeks after Gadgets and Gear that we got the Starships and Speeders announcement...so I am not sure yet

4 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Never take assholery off the table when talking about company statements.

In the hierarchy of company statements, I would put "Legal has to sign off on EVERYthing first" a step above assholery. Which you could say that lawyers are their own sub-class of assholery, but that's a debate for another day.

22 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Which you could say that lawyers are their own sub-class of assholery, but that's a debate for another day.

Why would I debate that?

On 2/26/2020 at 8:00 PM, Nytwyng said:

Interesting. From the latest FFG Live:

Q: Is it true that the rpg division is shutting down?
A: RPG is not shutting down. We will have more information about that in the future.

Q: Will the L5R rpg continue?
A: RPGs will continue. We will have an announcement soonish.

Let the speculation begin.

This is probably reading way too much into it, but he doesn't directly answer either question. He doesn't say "The RPG division at FFG is not shutting down" or "The L5R RPG will continue."

Even if FFG is shutting down its RPG division, "RPGs will continue." Just without any contributions or support from FFG.

3 hours ago, Desslok said:

In the hierarchy of company statements, I would put "Legal has to sign off on EVERYthing first" a step above assholery. Which you could say that lawyers are their own sub-class of assholery, but that's a debate for another day.

My wife is a lawyer. Not all lawyers are ***holes although sometimes it seems like they are.

For those that aren’t actually ***holes, those times that they seem like they are, in my experience they’ve got good reasons for saying or acting the way they do, the issue is that they haven’t given you those reasons, and maybe they can’t. So, the result is that they seem like ***holes when in fact they aren’t.

Also, some lawyers are actually human beings, and they also make the occasional mistake or miscalculation.

OTOH, I do believe that the profession does tend to draw in a lot of people who are actual ***holes.

12 hours ago, Daeglan said:

What makes you say that? he has worked on pretty much every book in the line.

Does:

So, there are a lot of unknowns for the future of any Star Wars RPG. Obviously, some other RPG company might be interested to do yet another version, but it depends on the specifics of the license. For instance, if X-Wing and other games are under the same one, it seems unlikely FFG would release it to anyone else as long as those games are profitable. Then again, it also seemed unlikely that the FFG RPG department would be eliminated. All I can really say is if you want any of the Star Wars or Genesys hardcopy books, now is the time to get them. The same is especially true for the custom dice for both games, which will be increasingly hard to find. Hopefully, Genesys PDF products and the Foundry will live on, but it is entirely dependent on FFG’s willingness to still manage it.

Sound like he knows more than you or I?

36 minutes ago, Nebuchadnezar said:

Does:

So, there are a lot of unknowns for the future of any Star Wars RPG. Obviously, some other RPG company might be interested to do yet another version, but it depends on the specifics of the license. For instance, if X-Wing and other games are under the same one, it seems unlikely FFG would release it to anyone else as long as those games are profitable. Then again, it also seemed unlikely that the FFG RPG department would be eliminated. All I can really say is if you want any of the Star Wars or Genesys hardcopy books, now is the time to get them. The same is especially true for the custom dice for both games, which will be increasingly hard to find. Hopefully, Genesys PDF products and the Foundry will live on, but it is entirely dependent on FFG’s willingness to still manage it.

Sound like he knows more than you or I?

He might not have intimate details of the license, or maybe he does and he is contractually obligated from coming out and saying that.

But yes, Sterling Hershey is one of the people I would expect to be as close to the decision making process inside of FFG as anyone else in the world that we are actually likely to hear anything from.

42 minutes ago, Nebuchadnezar said:

Does:

So, there are a lot of unknowns for the future of any Star Wars RPG. Obviously, some other RPG company might be interested to do yet another version, but it depends on the specifics of the license. For instance, if X-Wing and other games are under the same one, it seems unlikely FFG would release it to anyone else as long as those games are profitable. Then again, it also seemed unlikely that the FFG RPG department would be eliminated. All I can really say is if you want any of the Star Wars or Genesys hardcopy books, now is the time to get them. The same is especially true for the custom dice for both games, which will be increasingly hard to find. Hopefully, Genesys PDF products and the Foundry will live on, but it is entirely dependent on FFG’s willingness to still manage it.

Sound like he knows more than you or I?

Well he has done work on every version of the game. So i suspect he knows the license better than most. Does he know the specific details? probably not. But he has been working for star wars licensed rpgs from the beginning. I also suspect he is under some NDAs that potentially could still be in force. SO Yes I know he knows more than you and I know. But I also know that if he wants to keep working on this line or future lines he likely has to tread carefully.

11 hours ago, daggertx said:

Maybe its Star Wars RPG 2.0

That seems like a really bad move now.
Besides, I only recently started with the SWRPG, so I am good for a while with v1

6 hours ago, bradknowles said:

My wife is a lawyer. Not all lawyers are ***holes although sometimes it seems like they are.

For those that aren’t actually ***holes, those times that they seem like they are, in my experience they’ve got good reasons for saying or acting the way they do, the issue is that they haven’t given you those reasons, and maybe they can’t. So, the result is that they seem like ***holes when in fact they aren’t.

Also, some lawyers are actually human beings, and they also make the occasional mistake or miscalculation.

OTOH, I do believe that his

That assumes that having "reasons" for asshattery (even--or especially--if those reasons are unsaid) excuses asshattery. It does not. It's the equivalent of the "I was just following orders" line. The person using it might have a reason for what they did, but they are still an asshat.

4 hours ago, Tailball said:

That seems like a really bad move now.
Besides, I only recently started with the SWRPG, so I am good for a while with v1

I agree. Doing a total revamp of the game line, especially now after having laid off their in-house RPG staff, isn't the best of ideas.

That said, I could see them doing a "revised" edition that makes minor tweaks/updates to the core rules, especially to incorporate various "lessons learned" from when the system first came out and what's been done with Genesys. Nothing as sweeping as dropping the career/specialization model, but tweaks to how combat works, especially with regards to vehicles, as well as revising some of the initial EotE and AoR core specs to account for a better design understanding of where the system bends without breaking.

It's possible they might even consider a "unifired" revised core rulebook, providing the various rules needed to play characters from any of the three lines. The book in question would probably be both larger and more expensive than the existing core rulebooks, but there's also a lot of fluff material in the GM section that can easily be dropped to make room for additional species, specializations, and talents. Can probably also remove having a premade adventure, and instead offer such a thing as a free PDF on their website (and using the last page in this hypothetical revised core rulebook to advertise said free adventure).

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

I agree. Doing a total revamp of the game line, especially now after having laid off their in-house RPG staff, isn't the best of ideas.

That said, I could see them doing a "revised" edition that makes minor tweaks/updates to the core rules, especially to incorporate various "lessons learned" from when the system first came out and what's been done with Genesys. Nothing as sweeping as dropping the career/specialization model, but tweaks to how combat works, especially with regards to vehicles, as well as revising some of the initial EotE and AoR core specs to account for a better design understanding of where the system bends without breaking.

It's possible they might even consider a "unifired" revised core rulebook, providing the various rules needed to play characters from any of the three lines. The book in question would probably be both larger and more expensive than the existing core rulebooks, but there's also a lot of fluff material in the GM section that can easily be dropped to make room for additional species, specializations, and talents. Can probably also remove having a premade adventure, and instead offer such a thing as a free PDF on their website (and using the last page in this hypothetical revised core rulebook to advertise said free adventure).

Which is something I could see done using an expanded players guide. leaving the rest of the line intact....

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

I agree. Doing a total revamp of the game line, especially now after having laid off their in-house RPG staff, isn't the best of ideas.

That said, I could see them doing a "revised" edition that makes minor tweaks/updates to the core rules, especially to incorporate various "lessons learned" from when the system first came out and what's been done with Genesys. Nothing as sweeping as dropping the career/specialization model, but tweaks to how combat works, especially with regards to vehicles, as well as revising some of the initial EotE and AoR core specs to account for a better design understanding of where the system bends without breaking.

It's possible they might even consider a "unifired" revised core rulebook, providing the various rules needed to play characters from any of the three lines. The book in question would probably be both larger and more expensive than the existing core rulebooks, but there's also a lot of fluff material in the GM section that can easily be dropped to make room for additional species, specializations, and talents. Can probably also remove having a premade adventure, and instead offer such a thing as a free PDF on their website (and using the last page in this hypothetical revised core rulebook to advertise said free adventure).

a better idea to me is to do it as an update for all book call it advanced rules or something with no specializations or species

just have updated combat and stuff about running mixed games perhaps add some rules to fill in areas that don't have rules yet

I can tell you having a bigger core is not a good idea the books so dam big already and if you make all the spec books outdated it will hurt the game

the fanbase is to small to make it though the upset of making over $250 per line( EoE or AoR or FoD) of books worthless

If you are talking about expanded rules, you are talking about adding crunch.

One of the big selling points for this RPG, is the fact that it is very narrative-based. So less rules means more narration in this case.
I would like to keep it that way