I ran a demo of the Edge of the Empire for the Dragon's Lair store in Austin, TX. Here is some of the feedback that I got from the players (had 2 tables of 6 people each).
Likes
- Cooperative Skill Challenges - I noticed that the rules were flexible enough to allow for "Skill Challenges" where they could assist the main Negotiator in getting the best price for the mission with information from other sources (Once character was slicing the Holonet for the best prices for the item with others were looking for Heat on the item with Perception and Streetwise). The flexibility made it so that everyone felt they were contributing and helping with the story.
- Initiative - People at first hated the idea. They did not like that it was not individual initiative until they got into a situation where they needed to go in an order that would of meant they would of lost their cargo if someone did not go first. Initiative is something that I think took a while for them to get use to it but in the end they really like the flexibility.
- Role Playing - They loved how they could use the Advantages and Threats to tell a story or make things happen. Like one person used a Triumph to add a crate of power packs near a group of warehouse security and the next person shot the crate and knocked out all the warehouse security. It made for a fun time (especially when one of the players I used his 5 Threats to make him have a withdraw from the drugs he was on and he played it up pawing all of his teammates for a fix… just a little fix).
Fixes
- Starting Attributes/Characteristic - Everyone agreed that using XP on raising Attributes was very tough and made it so that they would have no skills or talents. They would of liked to see everyone start with 1-2 free characteristic upgrades and then use XP as normal or raise the XP by 20-40 xp to allow them create the character they wanted.
- New Dice - Everyone was afraid of the dice. They did not understand the symbols or why they would roll certain dice. After about 10 rolls of the dice people started picking it up but for new groups this really slowed down play and the action till they got use to the dice. I think if you would have a section in the book of a little game play that might help people understand the dice better before their first game. 3 of the 6 people that had bought the book before the demo and read over the rule, etc. were confused about the dice.
- Hard for Kids - I also ran a demo for a group that had 3 kids and 2 parents. I did find that kids had a hard time with the advantages and setbacks or understanding when to use the destiny dice to help them. I think it is because of the free form that you allow in the game it is hard for younger kids so maybe this will be addressed in the beginners' box.
- Career/Spec - People like them but felt they were confining. Some people would rather see the Shadowrun style of skills but I think that is because they dumped more XP into attributes and did not get any of the Spec's Talents. Again I think people would enjoy the Specs if they had more XP to spend at that beginning.
This was just my initial feedback from my first runs. I will run it some more and get you some more feedback.