I had to do the same thing guy. Zocci dice and all, I also bought several sets of Ubiquity dice for Hollow Earth Expedition and desolation RPG's so people could play even though we didn't really need them, I just like special dice for games, gives the game character I think.

MILLANDSON said:

Glad to see some people willing to try it, rather than dismiss it out of hand

Ditto.

cd8dman said:

I suspect that this was done for the player's benefit. A lot of time, the GM buys the core books and the players (sometimes) buy a book relevant to their chosen character. But having just a 'character' book, it doesn't provide them with the rules. Now, players can have all the core rules and their character stuff.

I'm not against this idea. Seems like it could work.

I ran and enjoyed the WHRP 3rd edition. However the system left me with some concerns.

The primary concern, which looks like it probably won't be a problem here, was the sheer glut of cards. I didn't care about the tokens (but there were too many of them) but it was the cards. Having the players search through stacks of cards for their various abilities took way too much time. I had to spend time to look through them before hand to give the players a slimmed down list of suggestions.

From the GM's point of view, the game was not speedy. It was very customizable but not quick. You had over a hundred monster cards and over a hundred action cards and you had to construct each enemy encounter with these cards. It was quite daunting to do, over and over again. The original book presented monsters with their action cards and I felt that this was the better idea. Later, you could customize things but it got to be a real hassle.

The custom dice were good, however, they were NOT quick. Building your pools is never going to be as quick as a pair of d10's or a single d20. There is something to be gained from the custom dice, but one thing that is lost is speed. Another thing, the custom dice are not intuitive. Building a pool confounded my players again and again. They were using the wrong dice for their skills vs. their specializations. The stance dice were totally worthless and slowed things down. The idea of having multiple 'negative' dice served very little purpose. And overall, the system was quite wild and random.

So I'm unsure of what to think about this new Star Wars. I know I'll probably buy it, cuz I buy everything. But whether I'll run it, time will tell.

Oh man, are you telling me that FFG, a company that makes Board, card, and roleplaying games doesnt uses the same dice and core rules for all?? Tsk Tsk, dunno if i like them again….

And now, seriously. You haters, should be proud of having such a company as FFG doing games for you. I live in spain. Here is no such people. No company makes games here, at least not such wonderfull games, they just translate it and usually publishing in a discontinued way. And even being in spain as i am, where we are suffering great economical issues, im still capable of spend 12 euros on a dice set even if it got use just for a single game… Stop crying please. Some of us are really happy of having FFG releasing a SW roleplaying game.

I have picked it up at Gencon and am reading the rules. I have had to book for just over 48 hours and can read the dice quite easy now. It is not that hard to learn. Yes, there are stickers in the BETA version of the game because dice are not yet manufactured.

It seems to me that the system is a cross between the things I love about WFRP3 and the 40k games…

UndeadToast said:

Gobbo said:

Excellent news. Now I'm even more eager for the book to arrive on my doorstep!

I also picked up the game at GenCon. So far, I have read about 60 pages of it and I like it! (I am a big Star Wars Saga Edition fan). At first, the custom dice thing was overwhelming. I have never seen an rpg dedicate 19 or so pages just to explain how to use dice. But, after reading, it doesn't seem that difficult to understand. The dice mechanic has a nice balance to it.

Do they add, or detract from, the story, James? I'm expecting the former, but as someone who has the book now, you can give me a better idea.

Shakespearian_Soldier said:

The intention is that the dice results generated should add to the story as players and the GM are encouraged to interpret the results. Unlike a typical test in a d20 game (for example) where a roll simply determines success or failure (and possibly degrees of the same), this game offers greater nuance in results by allowing successes to also include banes and failures to include boons. For example, a dice result could allow a hero to jump to light-speed successfully, but come out smack dab in the middle of an astroid field. Or, a hero might miss a blaster shot at a stormtrooper, but as the trooper is dodging, he happens to fall into a garbage shoot. [if you find both of those illustrations silly, I made them up, don't blame Fantasy Flight, LOL.]

I might also point out that in addition to the sticker sheet they include, they also provide a picture of the dice that you can photocopy onto sticker paper to make additional sets. If anyone is extremely stubborn or without the skill to do that, they can always use traditional dice and look up each die result on the chart they give.

So, Fantasy Flight has gone above and beyond (in my opinion) to make sure the dice are available in some form to BETA players. I really need to find the dice rolling app tomorrow. It looked pretty cool at GenCon.

I have read the dice section, and I will say I also was at first thinking God… why? But these dice tell a little story. I also started thinking of other FFG games like Age of Conan, where the dice do cool things to each other (which these do)… cancel each other, etc.

I would also like to add, these dice do NOT tell the story for the GM or in anyway take your creativity of the situation away. They seem like they will inspire an idea in your head as to how things went down. "You actually did really well, but these negative dice ruined it to where you barely made it… so, you jumped over the landspeeder to dodge all the blaster fire but fell badly and lost your lightsaber." Stuff like that.

That sounds pretty much like I expected it to. Can't wait for this to arrive at my door!

The nice part about these dice are that it is easy to allocate difficulties. Things harder? Just put down some more bad extra dice Got a gadget that gives you a bonus? add a dice. It is quite elegant and easy to use.

My problem is whith advantages and disadvantages. Normally all you want to know is did I succeed or not, having to figure out what advantages/disadvantages do is an extra complication that I find distracting. Of course foir combat situations they give some good options what to do with them. Things like critical hits, a small bonus to hit for a friend or finding some cover that makes you a little harder to hit. But outside combat?

Gobbo said:

I'd love to hear more on why you feel this is so!

Sister Callidia said:

I don't understand how maybe getting a random bonus from a gadget by adding a die is easier and more elegant than just getting a flat bonus (+3, +5, +10 etc.) from said gadget. To me it seems more cumbersome and massively more time consuming to keep adding more and more dice, roll them, then interpret said dice to figure out what happened than it is to just add up any bonus or penalties, roll your dice and see if you accomplished the task or not.

I have never been overly fond of dice pool games. They just seem to slow things down while people debate over how many dice they get or try to sort out the roll after the fact.

Sister Callidia said:

As to advantages and disadvantages -- and I don't have my copy yet so I am just think of boons and banes here from WHFRP 3E -- the point of these dice is testing more than degree of success or failure regarding what a character, NPC, or "monster" intends to do. They're also prompting the players to think about incidental consequences, both positive and negative, of their actions.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Rather than debating bonuses, or having to memorize a bible's worth of modifiers for lighting conditions, quality of gear, conditional modifiers, etc to a skill test…. You simply run down a list of conditions on the spot. Let's say you want to do an Astrogation check because the Hutt's gangsters are ON your behind. What the heck was in that crate?!

We'll set the base difficulty at 3 Challenge.

Do you have training in Astrogation? Expertise + Characteristic Dice. (or whatever the dice are called in SW)

Do you have a nav computer? Advantage.

Are you crunched for time? Disadvantage.

Are you traveling a well known trade route? Advantage.

Are you trying to shake pursuit with non-standard micro jumps? Disadvantage.

Are you being assisted by Chewbacca? Advantage

Roll the pile

You succeeded! But you rolled a *critical bad symbol*.

The good news is that you arrived safely 3AU from Ord Mantel's star and the gangsters don't appear to be following you. The bad news is that there seems to be a fire in the hyperdrive chamber and the ships computer has initiated an auto-pilot lockout and your credentials don't seem to work to unlock it.

Sure you could wade through charts (or memorize modifiers if that is your want). But the above can be completed by the seat of a GM's pants without any concern over applying the wrong modifier or arguing with a rules' lawyer over minutiae. Dice pool games are not for everyone, but this is an intuitive system that makes interpreting the dice part of the game instead of just that thing you have to do to move on.

Great example write-up! And that doesn't even get to stuff like delays or stances.

Callidon said:

Loved the example. Thanks for making this clearer. XD

Awesome example! Thanks for making it a lot clearer with the dice.

Can someone post the chart for using regular dice? And maybe say which colored dice is for which purpose? I figured the white and black dice are for Force use, but which dice is for setbacks, abilities, etc.?

Tensen01 said:

Ok, so while this isn't what I was hoping for in the next iteration of Star Wars rpg, much like the original d20, the revised d20 and eventually saga edition, I'm willing to give it a try. Got to believe it can be an improvement over WOTC.

Looking over the dice monkey image, it looks like 4 d6, 6 d8 and 4 d12. Is that correct? While I wait for my copy of the rules to show up, I want to go pick up some blank Chessex dice and want to make sure I have the right ones.

adaq said:

Not sure who posted this, or where it was posted, but it was in my notes:

% dice for the occurrence of "obligations" in an adventure, or look ups in assorted tables

Positive Dice
3x d8 "ability dice" to generate basic successes
2x d12 "proficiency dice" to generate successes in combination with training
1x d6 "boost dice" to generate successes pulled from story, plot, or circumstance bonuses

Negative Dice
3x d8 "difficulty dice" to oppose ability dice and cancel successes
1x d12 "challenge dice" to oppose proficiency dice with well prepared opponents
1x d6 "setback dice" to counter situational bonuses from boost dice

Force Dice
1x d12 force die to generate the entire session's resource pool of destiny points, both light (player use) and dark (GM use)

I completely finished the dice section… and whoever mentioned it, yeah… it is a marathon. At least 15 pages. But they are not confusing at all. Once you get it, it is pretty simple.

I will mention one thing that blew my mind in its brilliance… No need for apposed rolls. You use the NCPs Skills and Stats to add the difficulty dice into the players roll. Now THAT is just elegant.