I bought the Beta yesterday and spent all night looking at it. Here are my initial thoughts:

It is essentially a levelless system. This great for players who might not have a reliable schedule at work, or are in the military and are going to be deployed.

Boosts and increases are based on participation as well as how well the group completes their objectives and missions.

No need to worry about power creep, since Mr. Stormtrooper that was a threat in Session #1 will still be a threat at #20.

PROBLEMS:

#1 Leave the Grim, Dark Future with the 40K and Games Workshop crowd. I do not like, and in fact absolutely hate, lethal systems. It might take me a day to come up with a character, but this is not Extreme Lethal Dungeon at a convention, and I DO NOT want to waste my time making characters that won't last a session, let alone a story arc. This goes double for being a GM as well.

Being complicated with the dice/buy new dice. Chart is nice, but again, back to the Dark Heresy reference.

Character Generation doesn't seem complicated, but depending on how many players and the over all theme to the group, it can get unwieldy or skewed toward power gamers. Not enjoyable.

I also think that it is a bad sign that character creation is this easy.

Being experience based is not an issue. The issue I have is that the you don't have enough experience to get good at skills without leaving your characteristics at base and vice versa. I recommend boosting the starting experience by 50/60 or allow it where each PC get one or two characteristic boosts for free.

Resources don't seem cover alot of gear, thereby encouraging people to take more obligations. Depending on the GM, this is can be an issue, or can help motivate a story. Problem is, I do not have much faith in APs and Modules published by Fantasy Flight Games.

Obligations should have an optional rule incase the GM couldn't come up with a good enough arc, or if it's one of those sessions where multiple parties might be interested in what's going on.

I am not a fan that they are making Jedi and full force users the equivelant of Space Marines. THEY AREN'T! The advantage a Jedi/Full Force User has is the Force. The disadvantage is that they stick out like a sore thumb in too many places.

I'll be honest, from my end, it looks good, but needs alot more refinement. But it is better than the D20/Saga Edition

Well, let me ask you this.

Have you actually sat down and played this game?

Judging by your post, I'm guessing the answer is "no."

Having gotten a few sessions under my belt, this game isn't quite as bad as you might think.

First off, the game is far from lethal, at least in terms of "you're character's dead, Jim." Rather, it forces the players to adopt similar tactics to what we mostly see characters in the movies do when engaging in a fire-fight, namely seek out cover. While a good shot or two can deal more wounds than your wound threshold, that doesn't equate to the character being dead. It's more akin to the character being knocked unconscious and suffering a lingering injury because of it.

Also, skills aren't quite the end-all, be-all they were in previous Star Wars games. There's really not much instances of "trained only" applications of a skill, with a single skill rank in this game representing a character that's put in a lot of practice or has some pretty amazing inborn ability with that skill (think Luke's and Anakin's respective prowess as a starfighter pilot in spite of having no formal training at all). Being able to roll a proficiency die instead of just your straight characteristic dice is nice, but you're not entirely screwed if you don't have any ranks in a skill.

For starting gear, I do agree with you, but if you feel that 500 credits is too little (even after the price reductions several weapons got in the Week 3 update), then simply double it to 1000 credits. Myself and Cyril have done that for our respective games, and it's not lead to catastrophic imbalance in the game. For the final version of the game, I'd be content with a sidebar that offers suggestions to GMs about providing more or even less credits than the default amount.

As for Jedi… that's an old argument and there's a thread already dedicated to it. The book provides us with the basics of Force usage in terms of powers and a specialization that centers on being Force-sensitive. But the lack of a Jedi "career" is a deliberate style choice, based upon the simple fact that Jedi in the Rebellion Era are about as rare as hen's teeth. I still don't get what the fascination is with comparing Jedi to Space Marines other than the FFG is saving the "Jedi book" for the last of the core rulebooks, but given the amount of incessant whining that one poster has repeatedly made about how WH40K doesn't do GW's token Mary Sue Brigade justice, maybe it's for the best that FFG waits until they have a firm foundation for their game before introducing full rules for a character type that has broken every other official Star Wars RPG (and most of the unofficial ones too). I actually rather like that FFG isn't trying to do "everything all at once" the way the d20 books tried (their success or failure is a matter of opinion, with valid arguments on both sides of the issue). Again, it could just be that I'm a veteran of the old D6 version of Star Wars, but I also like the fact that if you want to be an awesome Force-user, you really do have to work for it, not just be handed a pile of awesome at first level like you could with the d20 games (Saga Edition especially could run into this problem, and I have plenty of first-hand experience to back that statement up and then some). And D6 Star Wars isn't off the hook either; it just took longer for Force-users to get the brokeness.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Then that's a minor point in FFG's favor. Not by a whole lot, though.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Yes on Anakin, no on Luke. Luke spent a lot of time flying that Skyhopper on Tatooine. Anakin had more luck than skill. But that's an arguement about the movies.

The Problem I have is that players have an extremely limited number of points to play with. They need to choose between buying skills, buy a talent or two, or buy up the characteristics. From my perspective, allowing one free characteristic boost, one or two free skill boosts (up to creation max), and one free Talent would help.

At max, that could be up to 40 for the characteristics, 10/20 for the skill boost, and 25 for a talent (going bumping a 3 to a 4 in characteristic, getting 2 in 1 or 2 skills, and spending 50 experience to get the level 5 talent). This the equivelant of giveing all players an extra 85 experience, but subject to specific guidelines.

Donovan Morningfire said:

I'll have to check that out, then. I had just bought the book yesterday.

Donovan Morningfire said:

For this side of the fence it is understandable. This is about smugglers, bounty hunters, and those in between. Jedi powers definetely should be monitored and playtested.

For me, it's the fact that Jedi took center stage post Return of the Jedi. How often do you see Han, Wedge, or the other "mundanes" be awesome outside of their assigned roles?

As for the Space Marine/Jedi comparison, that is a different can of worms, at least lore wise. And I do agree that being a Force user should take time, training, and patience. I disagree on the upper limits where only a Jedi can take on a Sith (I was in awe of the Havoc Commander taking on Malgus from TOR).

What do you think?

For the alleged combat "lethality," if all you've played are d20-based games with their "gas tank of hit points" approach, then the game appears to be incredibly lethal. But the vast majority of PCs are going to start with a Wound Threshold of at least 12, and having a Soak Value of at least a 2 is incredibly easy, with 3 being the default average from the various character builds that I've seen. With quite a few weapons having their damage reduced per the Week 3 update, even a comparatively "frail" PC with a 12 Wound Threshold and 2 Soak is going to survive being shot by a blaster rifle (damage 9) 9.5 times out of 10. They may want to seek cover and a stimpack after that shot, but they'll be alive afterwards. Not exactly what I call lethal, especially since being pushed over the Wound Threshold doesn't mean character death; give Episode 164 of the Order 66 podcast a listen, as it's a live-play example of EotE. One PC gets dropped after a being shot a couple of times, and is brought right back up and into the fight by way of a stimpack.

For Luke and piloting, going by game mechanics, his skyhopper flying would give him ranks in Pilot (Planet), but nothing in Pilot (Space). Going a bit beyond the movies and into the scripts, radio dramas, and novelizations (the other G-level elements of canon aside from the movies), Luke had zero experience with starfighter piloting until he got to Yavin, with the X-Wing control panel being similar to a T-16 being something of a plot handwave to justify why he didn't just crash and burn. But I'm sure that any pilot that's actually flown in a combat situation will tell you there's a world of difference between just flying a plane from Point A to Point B and trying to do so when you've got multiple enemy fighters and gun emplacements trying to blow you out of the sky.

Also, like many other RPGs, characters aren't expected to start out being the best in the galaxy. You don't get to start out already being all cocky and awesome like Han Solo, instead you have to build yourself up to that level. A D&D fighter doesn't get to start out being as awesome a fighter as Lancelot or Conan in REH's later works. Every version of a Star Wars RPG has the Heroes of Yavin start off with way more experience than a first level hero; even the d20 versions had Luke as being at least 2nd level by the time he left Tatooine, and around 3rd or 4th when he blew up the Death Star at the end of ANH. Han usually starts off around 8th level, making him far better than a starting level hero.

As for taking on Sith or Jedi, the system shows that taking them down might be difficult, but not impossible. Heck, even the movies showed that with the right tools and some tactical thinking you can take on a Jedi and stand a pretty good chance of winning. Standing still and shooting a Jedi with a blaster really isn't going to work, as Jango Fett learned, But using non-blaster weapons such as explosives and flame throwers works much better. In the example you cited, Havoc simply chose to bet that his armor would be tough enough to let him survive the grenade's explosion while the Sith warrior's wouldn't be. And in the current combat system, that scene is able to be replicated; Havoc's player simply didn't think the Sith NPC would have a high enough Soak to be able to withstand a close-quarters grenade.

Sarone said:

With how the dice pool works, I think giving extra XP for free characteristics would give the players a major power boost. This would lead to players having way more proficiency dice, and seeing as the dice are already stacked so that players usually succeed their actions this will just cause more crits than anything else.

With that said, you should give it a try both ways, see which way works better, and report back with your findings.

Sarone said:

Edge of Empires seems to be a great system for a collaborative storytelling experience. If you're one of the GMs who likes to keep players on a specific adventure path then you'll likely have a hard time with this system. However, take a few minutes and read the full AP that is in the back of the book. It's done very well and is probably the quality we can expect to see in published modules.

Sarone said:

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Do you not like the rules for obligation?

You know, at first when I read the OP I was sort of "wait…so you haven't devoured the rules and are daring to comment on the game?"…and then I got distracted, had a couple oreos and a rap battle with my five year old daughter ( who came up with the brilliant combination of melon and felon by the way ).

Sure the OP is a bit off-point, but it is a really good example of what people are thinking as they browse through the book at first glance or from a "tip of the ice berg" level of time investment. Right or wrong, that is how most people are going to review and/or decide on buying Edge of the Empire when it releases.

I would imagine that reviews like this are helpful to FFG so that their explanations and justifications can be woven into the final text. If for no other reason than to mollify the "zomg combat is over 90000!" and "two is less than more" on combat difficulty. With a game that relies so heavily on suggestion, interpretation and "as you will" styles of gaming, they've really got to up their examples and sidebar suggestions in the final product. Not because the game is so hard, but it makes for a more informative read-through. And since a significant number of people will play this game once or twice a year…it'll be important to make a good first impression to avoid rampant de-facto reviews by people that either haven't read the book or don't even own it. At least Sarone ran a session of it.

Oh man…I think I may have rambled a bit. But TLDR; Thanks for the reaction and comments Sarone.

I'll be bring it up to my group this weekend and maybe see if there are others will to give it at the local gaming store.

At Lost Phoenix

As for the Obligation system, it's nice as an initial track for resources and such, but I do not want it to be a mandatory part of every session. Maybe as a guide post. I feel it can be more useful as a table for the GM to roll on if the GM doesn't have an adventure/session planned. But I feel that it is too involved with the game and with hitting players with a negative and one with a double negative doesn't sit right with me.

Collabrative Storytelling? I hadn't heard of it. I'm more use to having an outline of a campaign for me, or using an Adventure Path. Though I could use the Shadowrun System.

At Callidon

That'll be this weekend if it can be done. Friday wil be Character Creation and running Episode 1, Saturday will be Episode 2 and possibly 3, unless they want to get their Dresden File RPG Fix. Then it'll be Character Creation/Episode 1 on Friday or Saturday.

I'll be running a Human Mechanic. One guy has made frontline specialist multiple times before and the other goes for wierd combinations and characters.

Actually, speaking of Shadowrun, is that how this system should be ran? Having a combat encounter happen every two or three sessions? Get the players into situations where combat isn't the answer and they need to rely on computer/social skills to get a better result?

Sarone said:

An obligation doesn't need to be at the forefront of every session just become you rolled it. Let's use an example:

Han Solo has an obligation of debt. At the start of the session his obligation selected by the dice.

Later in the play session Han Solo finds himself in a cantina where a bounty hunter, Greedo, is looking for him.

Han Kills Greedo.

Han is awarded 5xp for great roleplaying before killing greedo with quickdraw.

Now we can get back to the adventure path.

Donovan Morningfire said:

The parallels are massive. Both are probably the most popular characters in their franchise, both are getting ever more awesome as time goes on, both tend to take over everything they are in and both are utterly despised by people who don't like the emphasis their setting places on them.

AluminiumWolf said:

Above gets it.

AluminiumWolf said:

And since more than half your posts in this section are complaints about how FFG screwed up Space Marines in the WH40K RPG, why are you so bloody eager for FFG to jump the gun and publish half-baked rules for Jedi Knights and their ilk? If anything, one might think you'd be amongst the loudest voices asking for FFG to take their time and get it right.

The Beta (which I figure you still haven't bothered to actually read) already provides a "tip of the iceberg" or "taste of power" for Force-users, which can very easily be re-fluffed into low-level Jedi trainees/refugees/rejects (think the various ServiceCorps) with very little effort. And those powers cover the fundamentals of what we see the Jedi do, from combat awareness to minor telepathy to telekinesis.

Maybe it's just the fact I'm an old-school gamer (cut my gamer teeth on the original D&D Red Box when it was sold at Sears and have been playing Star Wars RPGs since the 2nd edition of the WEG system), but I'd rather the writers take their time and not crank out a bunch of half-baked product that may very well end up killing what shows all the signs of being a very promising game.

Donovan Morningfire said:

I guess it is because what you see as taking your time and getting the fundamentals right, I see as them not having thought at all about how the system is going to handle more powerful characters and hoping that their system for playing Han Solo will somehow work for playing Starkiller after bolting on some force powers. So 'taking their time' is just 'putting off thinking about what the the whole system should be designed around and hoping it all works out'.

Largely on the grounds that this is what I perceive happened last time.

And hey, if they put out rules now that don't work, there is plenty of time to fix them before the Jedi game comes out!

(And, er, sorry OP, I like Space Marines and Jedi, and for much the same reasons. And I WANT them to be Starkiller. I just try to see why they get on peoples **** so much)

AluminiumWolf said:

So it's less a case of a "glass half empty" mindset as the "glass looks like it's full of piss and I'm not touching it becuase it was piss last time" mentality.

Where the majority of the folks here, even those with initial trepidation, have opted to at least taste what's in the glass (pay for the Beta book and actually played the game at least once), and have found that it really is apple juice. Not the high-end premium stuff, but rather the generic supermarket brand, and certainly not the glass full of piss you keep claiming it to be.

So rather than giving FFG the benefit of the doubt and a chance to prove that they've learned from prior mistakes, you're basically condemning their efforts to date, sight unseen, based upon the work of what is probably an entirely different group of people for a radically different license and property owned by two entirely different companies?

Thank you for making it crystal-clear exactly where you stand in regards to FFG's efforts to deliver a solid, playable RPG.

Ok guys, stop with the mud slinging. He stated his oppinion, you stated yours, you had time for rebuttals.

How about figure out how it can be fixed to every one's liking?

Sarone said:

Sorry, but that's going to be a fundamentally flawed question.

There's no way to "fix" any RPG to be to everyone's liking. A quick glance at the divided fanbase for D&D, the great-granddaddy of RPGs, will prove that, as while there are fans of D&D in a general sense, getting them to agree on what makes for an ideal set of rules is going to rank up there amidst nigh-impossible feats. You'll see that with White Wolf in comparing their old Storyteller system with their latest version. You even see it in Star Wars between OCR/RCR and Saga Edition, to say nothing of the D6 crowd.

As some of the other posters proved, the things you see as problematic just on a brief read-thru aren't quite as problematic as you claim once put into practice. I honestly think RPGs as a hobby have evolved to the point where just skimming the rules isn't going to give you the full picture of what the game is. I freely admit I was pretty darn against the need for special dice at first, but upon actually playing the game, I've come to find they're not a stumbling block as I had originally perceived them, but rather a fun tool to reinforce a sense ot narrative game play, something that's sadly missing in RPGs that are built around a much more tactical focus, namely just about every d20 game out there. Being a huge fan of Evil Hat's Dresden Files game as well as MWP's Marvel Heroic RPG, I'm qutie glad to have a Star Wars RPG that's not almost two decades old that's moved away from being a tactical combat simuation and giving the players and GM that much more freedom in interpreting the dice rolls beyond "I hit" or "I missed."

You claim PCs are "strapped" for starting XP, myself and others have cited that's certainly not the case, as you're not intended to start out at ANH Han Solo or RotJ Luke levels of awesome, but rather at Early-ANH Luke degree fo capability. If you want your players to start out as being far more butch than normal, then you as a GM can simply award the players extra starting XP to reflect that. At most in this regard, FFG should include a section advising GMs on permitting characters to start above the default XP budget, maybe even with a small chart suggesting benchmarks of how much extra XP to hand out in relation to how much more powerful the PCS are going to be. Same as the case as where I disagree with the starting allotment of credits, and have come to find I'm in the vast minority; rather than bleating on that they're wrong, I'm willing to accept a brief sidebar that advises GM's on doubling or perhaps even tripling the starting credits for a character.

I think I've said enough, since as you've stated, you've got your opinions on what makes for a great game, I've got mine, and there doesn't seem to be much in the way of middle ground, so I'll not trouble you or your thread any further.

Donovan Morningfire said:

I very much agree with you. Now if only we actually HAD some of those special dice. I honestly don't understand how anyone can run a game as intended without them (unless of course they've got the App, which gives everything you need - though sadly, I will grouse again, doesn't exist for a Windows platform).

They provide a chart in the main book (and people have put it in the reference sheets) for rolling "standard" dice and converting to the symbols.

Corradus said:

Someone also posted an excel based dice roller.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=317&efcid=46&efidt=714329

Kallabecca said:

When one sits down to eat a meal requiring, let's say a fork, one expects to be able to eat it with one fork. One does not expect to have to attach a second fork directly to the first fork in order to eat the meal. To me, that's what using the reference chart is, and it's just gonna slow down the game. Not to mention the fact that it's not fair to ask a group of players to begin a new system (which it will be for them) using one set of random determinants and then a few months (or maybe later) ask them to switch to a new set of random determinants.

Sometimes when you open an ice cream parlor, you kinda sorta have to sell ice cream.

LostPhoenix said:

The Excel Dice Roller would be great for experienced players, but we've only begun to get used to what the symbols mean. Come on FFG, you guys want us to test the game, is it really so hard to make dice available for the purpose? We bought the Beta, what could make you think we'd not buy the dice too?

I used the provided stickers on some blank dice and have had no problems. I don't see why you're having such an issue. Need more dice? Print out a 2nd page on some sticker paper and get a pair of scissors.

LostPhoenix said:

Umm, no. A few things:

1) the stickers provided are small, and my fingers large, thus their application to dice in a manner not sloppy as hell is difficult for me.

2) I do not (unlike many gamers) have a bucket of dice to choose from to so modify. I do have some dice, but they are a set I bought from Chessex that I consider to be roughly analogous to "the good silverware" and won't mess them up by applying stickers to them. And if I am gonna go back to my FLGS to buy some dice that are not "the good silverware", (and even the reject dice won't be cheap per se) why should I in essence now have to shell out TWICE for new dice, once to get some dice for the stickers, and once when the company finally gets around to producing dice that they convince you to buy a whole BOX of stuff to obtain.

3) I already had a few of my gamers question whether or not "stickered" dice are random, or as random as their usual numeric ones. Yes, dice religions are silly, but they exist, and a game official ignores them at his peril.

4) on my planet, when someone asks you to do something, they give you the tools needed to do it. The PROPER tools. Particularly if you've PAID for he privilege.

Sorry, but waiting until Christmas is not good enough.

Funny that you keep complaining about the dice thing, yet if you bought D&D for the first time you'd need "special" dice for it as well that most people wouldn't have. If you have "fat fingers" for the dice, try using a set of tweezers to align the stickers to the surface. That removes most of the problems with laying them down. Did that for doing decals on models.

And just for fits and shiggles I wrote a small app that works on Windows (and anywhere else that Perl will run) to roll SW:EotE dice.

Kallabecca said:

Well, if I recall correctly, unless we're going all the way back to the days of the Chain Mail Pamphlets, early D+D came in boxed sets - and those sets, or at least the basic one had dice in the box. But by the time *I* got into D+D dice were available for sale everywhere.

Why is it so hard to simply expect that the company making the game would also simultaneously make the dice? Why is that such an alien expectation to you? I really really don't get it. In what other industry, when dealing with what other product would this ever be acceptable?

And I am impressed that you wrote such an app. If you've a mind to share it, I would certainly be appreciative.

In the meantime, I will continue to raise this concern.

Corradus said:

Ok, I did not say anything about the dice. That would be someone else, if it was mentioned.

As far dice is concerned, I'll what the deal with it when I get a chance to play. Work for various people is being a pain in the rear this weekend and I'm not thriled with it.