Is this system going to be a modified version of WHFRP 3e? I see the model will be "six dice: three posive & three negative" with dice that modify the dice pool.The thing that bothers me about this is that it could bog things down a little. Example: I roll the dice and get 2 rebel symbols, a Yoda head and two Darth vader helmets. GM: "Okay the two rebel symbols are doubled because of the Yoda head but the two Darth vader helmets force you to reroll the two rebel symbols" It only gets deeper with more dice…..

One more thine. Will there be "mook" rules? Will the heroes be able to take out several minion type characters like in the movies?

If it's anything like the WHF3rd ruleset, and I hope so, the symbols will typically cancel each other out.

So 1 Yoda subtracts from the 2 Vaders, leaving your total roll as "2 Rebels, 1 Vader." Seems like you hit the throttle on your pod racer, zip ahead of the toydarian pilot, but you nick him as you do so, making your power coupling dangerously loose.

But everything has exceptions, which is where feats/talents/etc come in. The toydarian pilot is a gambler at heart and has a talent called "lucky happenstance," and doesn't want to be upstaged by some snot-nosed youngling, so using his talent he forces the first pilot to reroll his test if more Vaders crop up than Yodas, then maybe he also forces the second roll to include more dice of the bad kind, "dark side dice," or what have you.

I'm not buying the beta, and haven't seen it yet. Here's hoping one of my friends is interested enough to drop 30/40 bucks on it. I hope to hear good things about this system. Not being percentile is a big step in the right direction, and I like WHF3rd's dice mechanics, I think they can absolutely be utilized for some quick gameplay with interesting choices and dramatic outcome.

Now, about the custom dice. What dice will be used for the beta? Do you have to design your own dice?

The beta comes with stickers. It looks like they are 2 types of d8, 3 different 12er's, and 2d6. I really am at a loss of how to name their symbols, though.

The rules also show what dice numbers represent what outcome, so you can use normal dice without symbols too with no problems.

MILLANDSON said:

Could you elaborate on this a bit? Is it a conversion table to get from a number to a symbol or how does it work?

Musclewizard said:

Conversion table to get from a number to a symbol, according to people I know who got the book at Gencon.

MILLANDSON said:

Um, pics or it didn't happen? I'd like to see this chart. I'm feeling real squirmy about mixing a batch of yellow d12s, red s12, green and purple d8s, and having 7s cancel 9s, 3s cancel 5s, 6s count twice etc.It seems too charty-looky-uppy to me. But maybe that's the Hackmaster hater coming through.

Just got back from Gencon. It is a chart. Has each die type listed down the side and 1 through 12 across the top with a grid showing what each one means in the symbols.

Symbols are [sUCCESS]/[FAILURE], [ADVANTAGE]/[THREAT] and [TRIUMPH] and [DESPAIR]. S/F and A/Th cancel each other out but Triumph and Despair can come in to play even with the other.

There are also white dots and black dots on the FORCE DIE, that can be used by force users [once the rules come out in the 3rd book] to power their abilities..

Gobbo said:

Do these symbols still play a part in Edge of the Empire , given that SOME Force talents/powers are available now, or is it only applicable for book 3's powers and mechanics?

While i like custom dice like in WFRP 3rd, will Starwars also need those annoying tokens and cards?

goret said:

No one who has the book has made a comment on this, but I've seen a class page or two, with the talents or whatever you buy… I'm inferring here, but you COULD make cards for this, but I think most people will simply write this stuff on their character sheet.

I've scoured pretty hard on this game, and nothing shows cards, not even the demo from gencon on youtube. Seriously, search youtube for it, and thank Daddystabz for putting that up.

jordiver2 said:

Nope, there are no cards or anything like that, so no need to worry if you didn't like those from WFRP 3e.

MILLANDSON said:

Awesome news. Thanks for the info.

I picked up the book at Gen Con, and I've read through it.

The gimmick dice you can take or leave. Yeah, it'll be faster to read your dice roll with the symbols as compared to referencing the chart, but after a couple sessions of dice rolling, you'll probably have the chart fairly memorized anyway.

It essentially boils down to rolling a dice pool consisting of some positive dice (based on your skill, relevant ability score, and talents/advantages) and some negative dice (based on difficulty and disadvantages). You roll the pool and add up the "good" symbols and subtract the "bad" symbols. If the net total results in at least one "good" symbol, you succeed. One or two other symbols might turn up on the dice that indicate critical hits or failures.

For me, I'm using blue dice for positive dice and red dice for negative dice, and I won't be buying any of the gimmick dice. The die conversion chart will always be handy. It's a no brainer.

The game also makes use of a Force die (also a gimmick die, or any old d12 will do) and a pair of percentile dice for some of the charts in the book.

No cards or tokens…

you will need some tokens to represent the destiny pool, but that appears to be all…

If you also have plenty of exta dice sitting around or buy and bunch of random ones for cheap like I did at Gen Con, on page 222 of the book they have dice faces. You can go make copies at a fedex office or wherever you want and cut out the faces and glue them to the dice so you are not looking up the results in a chart. I all ready have done about 50 dice and it was not to hard.

Cavernous said:

Could someone post the normal dice to SW dice conversion chart? The one that says 1=success, 2=something, etc.? Thanks

No can do, that would be a breach of the BETA rules… or so the FFG guys have said…

Gobbo said:

The dice photographs of the stickers have already been posted online. I'm just trying to figure out which symbols are which outcomes.

jamesewelch said:

I just got the android app, but still haven't gotten the book yet. It's completely alien to me. I feel your pain.

Like someone had said in a previous post. The dice system in this version is a lot like the WFRP 3rd.

When you go to roll dice you look at your stats (say Agility of 3).

Here you would take 3 green dice then look at your skill (say Surveillence 2)

This means you have 2 skills in Surveillence. What you do then is remove 2 Green dice and replace with 2 Yellow (specialist) dice.

Now you are doing something that is hard (looking a long way without binoculars, tracking someone you are following). That would be 3 purple dice.

It is a cloudy day (or perhaps you are on tattooine) 1 black die.

You do have his footprints to help keep you on his path, 1 white die.

Your dice pool is now: 1 Green, 2 Yellow, 3 Purple, 1 Black, 1 White dice.

Using my phone app to do this. I will roll and explain what each dice got.

Green - 1 Success, 1 Advantage

Yellow (1) - 2 Successes

Yellow (2) - 2 Advantages

Purple (1) - 1 Failure, 1 Threat

Purple (2) - 1 Threat

Purple (3) - 1 Failure

Black (1) - Blank

White (1) - Blank

With this roll, you take the Successes and Failures and cancel each other out (just like in WFRP 3rd). You take the Advantages and Threat (disadvantages in WFRP 3rd) and cancel each other out.

Results - I failed (no successes) with 1 advantage.

The great thing about this game and WFRP. 3rd. If you played WFRP 3rd, you will see huge similarities (dice, and initiative tracker) as both games were written by the same person (Thanks for the games Jay!)

Someone also asked a question about cards and tokens. I asked Jay this exact question at GenCon, the response I got was: No, you won't need them and probably won't see them.

Note that nothing stops you from assigning your own numbers. As long as its consitent, nothing can really break gameplay.