Howdy everyone,

As you can see from my post numbers I'm completely new to the forum and to Fantasy Flight Games…so a big hello to all you folk's on the forum.!

After hearing the news some time ago that Fantasy Flight were developing a Star Wars RPG I've been keeping half an eye on how things were developing. Now that the Beta has been play tested for a while and the starter game is in production I was wondering what your overall opinions on the game are in terms of rule complexity, enjoyment and whether or not it captures the feel of the Star Wars universe?

Cheers

Welcome to the geek-fest!

1) Complexity: Not at all very complex, although I guess this depends on gaming-background. Either way I would argue that this is fairly easy, my cohabitant had minimal experience with RPGs, I think she had tried Vampire some years back - one session or so. She has picked this up fairly quickly - at least the base mechanics. Build dice pool, roll. I would say this is simpler than Saga edition - perhaps even simpler than Star Wars D6 in some respects. The complexity comes in interpreting non-conventional dice results - which is by some referred to as a "paradigm shift", I would not go so far, but then I probably have a different relationship to Thomas Kuhn and his Social Structures of Scientific Revolutions - from whence the term comes. This game does not have a success/failure dichotomy we are used to from other games - even games with tables and varying degrees of success - a "failed" roll, ie one with only failure or no successes, can still be beneficial if advantages are rolled - which I assume is odd to some, me included at times. Now after a good few sessions, my players and I are getting our heads around it - although my aforementioned cohabitant was perhaps the quickest in this regard, not being burdened with previous systems, gaming and rules' conventions. Not sure if this answers your question in a good way.

2) Enjoyment: Tremendous! Its quick, detailed or sweeping in accordance to need. Excess advantages and threats can be ignored, and will be, if it bogs down play and makes little sense - sometimes such cases implies that no roll were necessary to begin with, but experience from other games seem to demand rolls in certain cases. It intuitive and easy. We enjoy it a lot, due to its reduced complexity running larger and complex encounters becomes less complex and everyone gets into the action quicker - the initiative system also makes tactical gameplay a lot easier - and entertaining.

3) Feel of Star Wars: Very much so I would claim - but others would probably say the opposite, depends on what you mean. The setting is not Jedi-centric, which a lot of people have been trolling and moaning about on these boards. If this is essential for your SW-feel, then it might not fit - although it does have some rudimentary force rules, both talents and powers, which covers the basics and what you need really, so if you don't mind improvising and perhaps do some work for your own campaign without having an "official" tell you how it should be done, it should fit easily. If you're more inclined to go with the fringer style and don't mind not having glow-stick waving new-agers jumping about this is definitely a good fit for the Star Wars feel. I am more sad about the fact that the rebellion has been given so little room - but that is the next game/book.

On the whole I like it.

The highs are it's simplicity and the reduction to a core element (thought that can be restrictive). It's nice to tsee a new take on SW; makes you appreciate and evaluate what I like and don't like about the setting.

The lows for me run along how the characters feel more mortal to me, which i don't like, and I think that the game not just the beta has some big shoes to fill. Like it or hate it, Saga was a pretty complete system near the end, so EotE will really need to wow me in the long run to get my full support. For instance, I've heard tell the "jedi" component is slated for 2015. If that's true I am less interested, because that is a long time off for something I feel is kinda core to the star wars experience.

I like the focus of the game, but I don't like that there is an implicit sense of "how" I should be playing the game: the limitted core races, the obvious sweeping of force aspects far away from character building where it should be…

I like that abstract nature of the game, but feel that this sets up ambiguity and inconsistency between sessions. What might be **** difficulty to one GM (is that the nomenclature these days?) might only be ** difficulty to another.

I like the advantage/threat system, but i don't think it's fleshed out enough. There need to be more options and ways to spend these, not just with weapon properties.

Defense (protecting your character) feels more like a chore, and less like something fun. characteristics (stats) don't really matter for defense, and talents like dodge give me a mixed reaction (and the sense force power is over powered by that same token).

Character progression is easy to understand, but difficult to make interesting with trap choices not clearly identifiable. Also, the latest rules on adding specializations are lame, and need to be capped IMO.

Overall, I like the idea of the system so far, and as the beta gives way to product, i see a bright future. but I'm less concerned with the EotE as much as the future of where this is going. Saga gave a solid foundation in the core for what was likely to exist going forward. Sure there were surprises, and yeah there was a touch of power creep, but overall the design goals held firm.

EotE seems to not be a summary of a system that's going to be fleshed out or a corner stone to a series of expansions. instead it's like the first chapter, and that means that the next "series" of products may rapidly change the structure and or natur eof the game. it's really impossible to tell, so i'll have to keep a more wearied eye on the future of these products. I trust FFG enough, but the beta has yet to "convince" me that the foundation is solid.

It's definitely easier for a pickup game though.

Thanks to both Thebearisdriving and Jegergryte for your opinions.

For me, although a sound game mechanic is essential, the key element for any RPG that i play are that the core mechanic is relatively simple and adaptable enough to f acilitate a fun game rather than getting in the way of it. Both of you seem to point out that this is the case so far with EotE and that ticks two very large boxes with me!

As for the Jedi issue I do think they are an integral part of the universe but the fact that the focus is not on them is not a huge issue for me. As long as a few force powers are present and there are enough rules to allow creation of Jedi (with some house rules) i believe i know enough about the universe to be able to work through this.

Again thank you to you both for taking so much time over your reply's

The only element I would really regard as seeming quite un-Star Warsy to me is enemies knocking lumps out of each other until they knock eachj other out. Star Wars is generally a "avoiding getting hit in the first place" setting, rather than the d20 thing of spending a while knocking lumps out of each other before you go down. Generally if you get hit, there should be some consequence. While it isn't as bad as d20 for this, as you can only take a few hits to the face before you fall over, it still would feel odd to get hit by a blaster rifle and just chalk off a few wounds… (not that WEG's d6 couldn't do weird stuff… I had a player roll a quadruple 6 on their damage soak roll over the weekend… and then another 6, and a 1, for a total soak of 31. Yeah, the blaster rifle hit they took just bounced right off apparently).