AluminiumWolf said:

Not really - it just so happens that my preference lines up with the Rebellion Era, where there are basically no Jedi other than Obi Wan and Yoda around (going by the movies). We do not need an entire set of rules for Jedi for 2 NPCs, when they can just be dealt with as individuals.

If you want Jedi rules, you'll have to wait for them - not that you're going to buy any of the rules anyway, when you can just complain about no Jedi and an RPG not being a computer game (I'd suggest the Jedi Knight series - I think that's exactly the sort of TTRPG you are looking for).

MILLANDSON said:

Like I say though, with 40k I waited three years for rules for Space Marines, and when they turned up they were rubbish because the system wasn't designed with that kind of high end combat in mind. Same with Temple Assassins.

You know what they say - fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me, and all that.

Fitting a setting to a mechanic system is a bit different than fitting a mechanic system to a setting.

"When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat?" - Chuck Palahniuk (author of Fight Club)

MILLANDSON said:

Personally, I won't be going by anything but the movies, (no other jedi), but I will be using the force powers for The Witches, and others. Love me some baddies that don't work within the sith/jedi concepts, but still fling around some "magic".

$hamrock said:

While I'm cool with expanding upon what the movies give (as in there are some folks out there with limited Jedi training, but not full-bore Jedi Knights), this concept of non-Jedi/Sith NPCs can also be extended to the PCs, and in fact has been with the Force-Sensitive Exile, aka "self-taught Force-user," who is not a part of any particular Force-using tradition.

cetiken said:

Oh lord not the gamist/narrative/simulation spectrum. That's one of the most limiting and damaging concepts to come along into the RPG world in a long time. Namely the idea that those three concepts are mutually exclusive.

Anyway, should a mid-level bounty hunter and a mid-level Jedi be of equal power? Sure. Or rather, that is to say, they should be doing *totally* different stuff.

Look at the WEG version of the game, which actually usually felt pretty balanced to me. Give a Jedi and a BH both 100 character points to spend and they're on the same power level, but they'll do drastically different things. The jedi is dumping most of his CPs into his force skills and lightsaber, making him good at sabering people and decent to good at the jedi tricks. He's going to have almost no skill doing anything else. This makes perfect in-game and narrative sense: these guys are monastic warriors trained from a young age to follow their studies, and they don't put the emphasis on other skills and knowledges. Meanwhile, the BH has probably maxed out brawling, blasters, underworld contacts, is decent at piloting his ship, probably has stealth and inquiry out the rear, and a large smattering of other skills.

In other words, when a fight breaks out, the Jedi is going to kick all kinds of ass. But outside of that (and judging by the lethality of the lightsaber, *non* lethal combat is going to be a problem for the Jedi as well), he's going to be marginal at best. Meanwhile, the Bounty Hunter is going to basically be a swiss army knife of different stuff.

Should Jedi be masters of close quarters combat? Sure I have no problem with that. Should they automatically be better than everyone else because they're jedi? Hell no- and canon backs me up. It only takes a dozen troops with blasters to kill 99% of the Jedi out there- the ones who survive are exceptional (Kenobi & Yoda mainly) or just lucky enough not to be around troops. After all, the entire Jedi Academy was sacked by one dark jedi (Anakin wasn't sith yet I'd argue) and a buttload of stormtroopers.

TheFlatline said:

It doesn't help that it's often used by people who don't understand it. Despite what the dice are called, this is not a Narrativist game.

ROFL…

I agree with this statement completely. NO GAME is entirely one of the three. Each game has elements of each.

But it's hard to argue that some games do lean heavily towards one or two of the three. Now, the caveat to this, is that a solid story for a game, and the skill of the dungeonmaster can bring narrative or simulationist play into any game. Period.

But the game's actual mechanics usually tend to "promote" a style of play. Few could argue that the mechanics behind 4th Edition D&D heavily promoted a "focus" on gamist play. Not to say it didn't allow for narrative or simulationist, but the mechanics were only tacitly focused on that.

The designers for Edge of the Empire have referred to this as a "narrative system" on multiple occasions, and ever refer to the dice mechanic as "narrative dice." So it's not toooooo big of a stretch to say that the mechanics of this system are primarily designed to focus on narrative play. I think that's what the OP was leaning towards.

And having run this system a few times now, how can you not say it's a narrative system? It plays that way to me…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_Theory#Narrativism

Narrativism

Narrativism relies heavily on outlining or developing motives for the characters, putting them into situations where those motives come into mutual conflict, and making their decisions in the face of such stress the main driving force behind events. For example, a Samurai character sworn to honour and obey his lord might have that loyalty tested when directed to fight against his own rebellious son. A compassionate doctor might have his sense of charity tested when an enemy soldier comes under his care. On the lighter end of the spectrum, a schoolgirl might have to decide whether to help her best friend cheat on an exam.

This has two main effects. Firstly, and in contrast to much Simulationist play, characters usually show considerable change and development over time. Secondly, any attempt at imposing a fixed storyline is either impossible or highly counterproductive. Moments of drama – which is to say, inner conflict on the part of the characters – inherently make player responses difficult to predict, and the consequences of such choices cannot be minimised. More than this, revisiting the characters' motives or underlying emotional themes over time often leads to a process of escalation: asking variations on the same "question", but at higher and higher levels of intensity, as exemplified through the situations and developments of play. The "answers" that the players supply, as exemplified through their characters' responses and their eventual repercussions, can then be taken as a kind of moral commentary on various human qualities or values under the circumstances. In short, it coaxes out an overall point or message, but as an after-effect or byproduct of play, rather than as an accessory to it."

But yes - the three are NOT mutually exclusive - and I don't think Ron Edwards (the guy who first starting hollering about GNS Theory) has expanded on that nearly enough.

Actually, a Jedi with most of his points in his Force Abilities could make up for the "lack" of skills bought elsewhere. They could use the force to track people, tell they are lying, manipulate them into beneficial situation, etc… The Force can be used to boost ones relevant skills (like piloting, astrogation). And it can be well used for non-lethal combat (take out the opponents weapon with the LS, then take down the opponent with less lethal means).

GM Chris said:

There are some light Narrativist elements, but frankly, if this were a heavy Nar. game, there would loads of threads on the boards complaining about how it were too "metagamey."

The Wikipedia definition isn't as clear as it could be. The source of the definition is here:

The Forge - Narrativism: Story Now

The game simply isn't focused on Theme and Premise. There is some Narrativist play involved, namely how Obligation influences a session as well as the back and forth of Destiny Points (if it really pushed to show how things are looking good/bad for the PCs), but overall the game is focused on resolving if and how well tasks are accomplished.

Are the roll difficulties based on how hard something is or how dramatically important it is? (Take a look at Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, where the difficulty of unopposed rolls is a changing pool of dice the GM has that represents the growing threat)

Where are the character's personality reflected in their stats? Does Luke have a stat that rates his friendship/rivalry with Han? Does the system model his struggle between his loyalty to his friends and his duty to train as a jedi? It's somewhat there with Obligations, but not in a way that primarily drives play. It's assumed that the GM and players bring this to the table themselves rather than have the system resolve it – which is how story-driven Simulationist play works.

Now I'm not saying that you can't personally have a bring this stuff to your table with this game (that's true of any game). What I am saying is that the base rules system doesn't inherently support this type of play.

None of this makes it a lesser game at all, and I'll be lining up with most of you when the finished products start rolling out. I think people see the whole GNS thing, and associate "Narrativism" with good story or roleplaying, when it's something completely different.

Kallabecca said:

Show me where in the rules this is possible for the Force user at current. Yes, full blown and temple trained Jedi are able to do this - and it probably will happen with this system in a later release, but it's going to be a hardcore investment to get there. Just getting a Force Rating of 2 is going to take you an investment of 120 XP (20 to unlock the Specialization and then 100 to travel the talent tree down and over the talent tree). And that doesn't even account for the XP that you're going to have to spend to start opening up the Force powers. Whereas a Bounty Hunter can track a target and take them down nonlethally. A con artist can tell when a target is lying and manipulate them into a beneficial situation. They don't need the Force to boost their skills, because they *have* those relevant skills, and they didn't have to sink those points into Force abilities, letting them diversify even further.

Donovan Morningfire said:

I fully agree. I have no problem with force sensitive peeps (PCs or NPCs) running around, even throwing some chairs outta windows. Same as you stated, they won't be full blown jedi.

TheFlatline said:

For smaller numbers then 12-1, the Mandolorian Death Squads, and the Nikto Jedi Hunters, both pride themselves and excel at taking out Jedi.

Doc, the Weasel said:

That's fair!

And a good analysis…

Cyril said:

Well, I was talking about West End Games version of Star Wars.

I'm finding this conversation interesting, but do not intend to derail the thread so if need be will start a new one, but for the moment I will just ask a question here.

Doc, the Weasel said:

So how is MHR different from EotE, in Marvel the doom pool is built by the players rolling 1's and stored for the GM to bite the players, in Edge threats are rolled and resolved either on that roll or on the next, as I understand it setback dice can be added for any logical reason including the characters mental/emotional state?

Doc, the Weasel said:

This is something I would love to see in the final game, (and if not then I may put it into my system hack), in Warhammer I already kind of do this by letting players add a Boon die (Boost in EotE) to a roll if their background would indicate an advantage. A system like Marvel's Distinctions would be nice giving you a boost die or allowing you to flip a dark destiny point if you take the same distinction as a Set-back die.

Cheers

Mike

selderane said:

I'm not doing what you claim I'm doing. I'm suggesting that the game should not force a specific playstyle. That's the opposite of what you claim I'm doing.

doctorbadwolf said:

But it is. [shrug]

And it does.

And they've been very upfront at every press release, and media outlet that this was their clear intent.

This book is intended by the designers for people to play a "fringe" campaign during a very specific time period in Star Wars, with little to no force use. Edge of the Empire wasn't designed to be a game that lets you run anything you want in Star Wars. They're not saying you can't , but they wrote the mechanics to play a specific playstyle/era/theme. Like it or hate it - they've got other books planned for other playstyles/themes.

It's actually a bold move that differs from the last 2 SW RPGs in very significant ways. Time will tell if it works.

GM Chris said:

Very bold. They knew going into this that there was going to be some major fan backlash over their utilization of the Force and the focus in setting and theme in Edge of the Empire. But judging by the amount of people that I see that are truly in love with the game's setting and themes even at this stage in the rules, the people doing the majority of the bitching and moaning seem to be a vocal (granted very) minority.

Is there places that you can take the Force in this system and expand on it without getting into full-blown Jedi characters? Yes. And there are people who are working on stuff like that. Can you take these rules and run a game in the Legacy Era? The Old Republic Era? Sure. And I guarantee we'll see fan material on that as well. The good ones are going to be the ones that keep the spirit of these rules and these themes while they do so.

We just aren't going to see anything official from them on that front from FFG a while, if ever. And the detractors will just have to learn to deal with it, make their own material, or simply *gasp* not play this particular game. I guarantee FFG's feelings aren't going to be hurt if this one isn't to some Star Wars players specifications and they choose to remain with Saga Edition (because it is a fantastic game in it's own right) or even WEG.

*shrug*

It seems silly to argue it to me. If the style of the game doesn't suit you, give it a pass. Don't try to force the game to suit your playstyle. You may as well be creating your own game for all the work it's going to take you to do. I learned that the hard way with RCR Star Wars.

[/soapbox]

Cyril said:

FYIGM?

Little compassion here people. It really sucks if your favourite thing gets stuck at the other end of a three year production queue.

Not to mention that all systems break at high level. Splitting the games up this way pretty much ensures

Han Solo Adventures:- Works fine

Insurgency Adventures:- Slightly broken

Jedi Adventures:- Totally broken

Splitting up character types by level means that only some types of character will be playable at the power level where the system actually functions properly.

I've got to be honest, despite having splurged for the Beta. I'm by no means sold on the full version. And the main reason IS the Force. It pisses me off that GOOD implementation of the Force won't land until 2015. As I've said numerous times, it's The Force that sets Star Wars apart. EVERYTHING ELSE (Barring MAYBE the Droid issue) is something other Sci Fi does just as well or better. I DEFY you to name a broad concept (Not a specific alien) that isn't a Force User that can't be done just as easily in any other Sci Fi setting.

Because Firefly, Traveler, Thousand Suns, Fading Suns, Farscape, Stars Without Number, etc etc can do it all.

Storm Trooper? Elite soldier in any number of settings.

Smuggler? PLEASE. Malcolm Reynolds IS Han Solo. Firefly is pretty much Han Solo (Shooting first, every Episode) the Series!

Lando? Try harder. Also, to turn the main argument against Jedi back on its heels? He was introduced in ESB (Midway through at that), not ANH.

Princess? Again, any number of games.

Chewie - this gets into the Alien thing. But there's plenty of analogs in any number of series, maybe not Wookies exactly, but oppressed bad ass Aliens that can't speak English abound.

And the argument this is like A New Hope is a bit bunk if you ask me. Even in ANH Luke was being trained to be a Jedi, learning to use his Lightsaber (Not possible without GM permission, and definitely not possible to do things like parry blasters! HE WAS being taught that). Training to become a Jedi or whatever SHOULD be possible in this setting. As it stands, you can't even be more than a low level padawan. There's no way to improve that, and until we're SHOWN how that will change in future games, in a Beta we need to point out the issues, and that's an issue.

Also, I want to make the argument of PC exceptionalism. Sure, in the Movies LUKE was the Jedi. But in a TT game in this era? Why not the PCs? In every Star Wars game I've played in set during this relative era, it wasn't Luke and Han who were the big heroes. They were universally killed off or pushed to the sidelines in every single one. (Vader and Luke both got killed in the last one I played - when PCs stole the Falcon and used its thrusters to kill both of them on Hoth)

Right now, we don't even have the real tools to do that.

Dulahan said:

If you want a genuine X-Wing, Stormtrooper or YT1300 you are playing Star Wars. Otherwise it is a Faux-lex.

There is more to Star Wars than Jedi. At least for me. I like the X-Wing computer games, and there is not a lot of Force going on there. Some people really like Han Solo, and want to play his adventures without Jedi stealing his thunder.

Dulahan said:

As mentioned countless times before, the problem is not that the tools don't exist, it's more a matter of your perception of what you want those tools to do and what the game designers are aiming for.

They have been up-front and honest about the fact that this isn't going to be a "universal adaptor" version of Star Wars like we got with the various d20 versions that WotC produced. It has a tighter focus, deliberately centering on an era were Force-users, much less fully-trained Jedi Knights, were a rare and unusual thing.

While a Force-user in this game won't reach the heights of power that a Jedi Master could achieve, they're still not entirely devoid of power. Right now, the focus is more on the mundanes (non-Force-using folk) and less on the supers (Force-users). But Force-users have far from been ignored. Again, your PCs are going to be more along the lines of Luke Skywalker prior to his training with Yoda; they're already exceptional by being able to use the Force to do things that normal people can't.

if you want Jedi Knights mowing down foes with their lightsabers and easily performing Starkiller-levels of Force-badassery… sorry, but you're going to have to wait a couple years, as those rules simply haven' t been written yet. But in the meantime, with enough XP, you can do a pretty good approximation. Simply create a Lightsaber skill (I did, basing it off Agility), but a few ranks in it, make a beeline for Force Rating 2, and then beef up your Force Powers. Compared to the average person, you're a gorram superhero wielding an incredibly lethal weapon. You're not on par with the Jedi of the Clone Wars, but you're not supposed to be. But as the old expression goes, it's close enough to being a Jedi that you might as well go ahead and call yourself just that. Just maybe not too openly lest a certain breathing-challenged Sith Lord get wind of your presence and decide to make an unannounced social call.

One of the big problems with all the prior versions of Star Wars, specifically the OCR and RCR but also Saga Edition and d6 (though the later only crept up once your Jedi types hit 5D in their Force Skills) was that Force-users could be horrifically unbalancing to a game. So instead of history repeating itself, FFG wants to take the slower path and try to make sure they get everything else right before bringing in the setting's supers.

Are there other RPG's that let you play non-Force-users? As you mentioned, yes there are. And frankly, there are number of folks that have found other RPGs to be far superior in their estimation of portraying Jedi and other Force-users than anything published by either WEG or WotC, running the gamut from GURPS to Savage Worlds to White Wolf (both Original and New flavors), Mutants & Masterminds to even the AGE engine that powers Green Ronin's Dragon Age game (though this one is also focused on the Rebellion era and doesn't have Jedi as starting level characters), and probably a slew more that I've never heard of. So if you really must have your Jedi Knights and Sith Lords, there's a metric crap-ton of options out there.

And there are folks that have probably taken a gander at what FFG is offering and decided they're perfectly happy with playing Star Wars in their system of choice. I know the reception to "yet another Star Wars RPG" over on the Holonet Forums was pretty tepid, but that forum is pretty much the domain of D6 die-hards at this point, and they've been playing an unsupported game for decades without any issues. And I'm sure there will be die-hards that will stick with Saga Edition no matter what FFG does with the license.

One last thing. As has been mentioned, this is the Beta, not the final product. It could very well be that FFG has already begun the initial work on additional Force Specializations beyond a Force-Sensitive Exile. Personally, if I were doing a beta-test of a Star Wars RPG and I wanted folks to focus more on the basic Force rules rather than "OMG, I wants to play Jedi, kthnx!" I'd probably leave the Jedi-specific stuff out until the final release version. After all, if folks have already paid for the Beta version of the rules, and they wind up not being too dissimilar from the final version, I'd want to include something that would encourage people to buy the final version. And given this is Star Wars, slightly more fleshed-out rules for playing Jedi (namely a Force-based Specialization) would be one way to entice them. And with the Week 2 update, there's already been a sense of "future-proofing" with the sentence "Also note that if the character already has Force Rating 1 when taking this specialization, his Force Rating does not increase." Granted, it might simply be there for those instances where a character winds up dropping F/S Exile for a different specialization and then buys back into Exile at a later date, so as to prevent meta-gaming cheese to quickly buy up one's Force Rating simply by dropping and re-purchasing the F/S Exile spec.

But if you really, really, really must have playable full-strength Jedi Knights… then at the current time, this simply may not be the Star Wars RPG for you. As I mentioned, there are a several different alternatives, both official and fan-created that will permit you to play full-bore Jedi with the full range of fantastic Force abilities, so one of them may tickle your fancy and desire for unbridled Force goodness. But the designers have made it pretty clear that there are no immediate plans for player characters to become full-fledged Jedi Knights at this point in the game's life .

Donovan Morningfire said:

No. Make no mistake - the driver for doing it this way is so they can put out a new core book every gencon. Core books sell better than supplements. This is for their convenience, not ours.

If you were making a superhero RPG, you wouldn't make a game for playing normal people and then try to bolt on a system for superpowers.

Frankly, I'd be happier if they abandoned any pretence of trying to make the Han Solo system work for hardcore Jedi Action and just said they would make a system tailored to each game.

It's not even Jedi Knights - though to a point, it's annoying because we even have an NPC THAT it is IMPOSSIBLE for PCs to equal!! That's a total crime in any RPG if you ask me. (The Rogue Jedi or whatever (Don't have book with me currently) can reach a force rating that PCs cannot (3). )

You don't even currently have an option to be other Force Organizations. Whether the Emperor's Inquisitors or some sort of Primitive Shaman Force user or whatever. And I don't agree it's even possible to be Luke "Pre-Yoda" - personally I don't think it is possible to even be Luke in ANH by the current Rules. Since Lightsaber isn't even a real skill with a profession. Instead it requires GM approval and creation of such (Requires GM approval is pretty much code word for "Good luck if you're a player!"). There's no "Padawan" style Specialization, or at least "Force User in Training" - so no way to represent Luke being trained by Obi Wan. And whether it is in production or not, the fact is this is a Beta and we can't presume it is, or presume to know what will be made. The issue is the NOW.

And in other news, I think it's a mistake to even make multiple systems. They cite quite obviously that they are trying to take influence from Indy Games in the pod casts and such. Yet indy games, and even mainstream ones, have made disparate power levels work many times in the past, whether Dr Who or Buffy or Ghosts of Albion. It IS possible to let 'weaker' characters have Narrative Parity even if not direct dice parity. It's been done before for almost a decade at least now. (and for the record, I also disagree with any real distinction of the Narrative and Simulationist and whatever crap school in RPGs, I use Narrative in the definition of being the ability to affect the story in similar ways, not anything else). So yes, it IS possible to make RPGs work in such a mileau.