Its not much of a stretch to imagine a dedicated fan making PDF updates of all the info in the books as they release.

Especially seeing as how there were at least two such fan-made reference documents for Saga Edition, one a PDF by d20 Radio forumite FunkimusPrime, and an excel spreadsheet made by a user on the WotC forums, the later of which actually had the rules text for talents and feats as well as book/page reference.

So yeah, someone doing an index of where to find various crunch-bits for EotE is pretty darn plausible.

I am excited.

It's like they read my mind ... I am so looking forward to the Bounty Hunter book. I hope we get a real bounty hunter guild membership form just because.

I am also hoping that perhaps they will actually have the rules for sabacc (however its spelled) in the Smugglers sourcebook... or maybe the guys at FFG will just create a real card game of this star wars game because that would be awesome.

My purse is going to cry.

The GM who wants to own everything might weep for their wallet though.

And their backs if they want to bring it all to a game session away from home. You know since there are no PDFs available for this line. :-)

removed

I'd rather have too many supplements than too few. RPG creators can't win - if they don't make additional books they are not supporting the product, if they do, they are money grabbing

As a busy GM, I'd like to see more adventures, over more PC options.

I love having lots of supplements but SAGA taught me that too many character choices over too many books becomes a PITA; especially if you're trying to get into the game when many of these books are already out. Having the abilities for the Run 'n Gun Talent Tree (for example) spread out over five books isn't doing a player any favors. Force Talents and Powers were even worse. Half of character creation and gameplay was spent passing around books trying to remember where things were located. Having 13 books filled with options became a strain on even the veteran players and too many noobs just walked. I don't want that to happen again.

Except its impossible to get it all in one book from the beginning when its a new game. This game is going to grow and expand over many years - to expect all that growth in the first class book is irrational. This is one aspect of RPGs that people need to just accept. I'm sure at some point they will offer a compilation of all existing information (perhaps a 2nd edition way down the line) but its going to cost more money which other people will complain about.

I'd prefer they release it incrementally like this. Its not much of a stretch to imagine a dedicated fan making PDF updates of all the info in the books as they release.

I disagree completely. Poor organization should never be acceptable. Saying it's just the natural growth of a game validates the worst behavior that game companies engage in. Star Wars is a big IP and WotC released books at a brisk pace which were, by and large, successful. It wasn't even their first foray using the IP for an rpg. And yet, in the end, it died. The buy-in costs for the game just got too high and needing 13 books for character creation (without software to help) is utter crap. A game doesn't grow if new people aren't coming in. Most companies, when a game gets that large and unwieldy, will bring out a new edition even if (like in L5R) the core concepts haven't changed significantly. Spreading out class abilities, as SAGA did, over multiple books with poor indexing and no cross-referencing is lazy writing and starts a process whereby most companies end up killing their own game (or losing the license as the case may be).

I don't want this game to bloat itself out of existence like SAGA did nor become a spaghetti mess of rules like Mongoose Traveler.

That's the thing about soon, it is a wonderfully undefined period of time. All that can interpreted from Steve's statement is that FFGs is not ready to announce anything.

I'd rather have too many supplements than too few. RPG creators can't win - if they don't make additional books they are not supporting the product, if they do, they are money grabbing

As a busy GM, I'd like to see more adventures, over more PC options.

I love having lots of supplements but SAGA taught me that too many character choices over too many books becomes a PITA; especially if you're trying to get into the game when many of these books are already out. Having the abilities for the Run 'n Gun Talent Tree (for example) spread out over five books isn't doing a player any favors. Force Talents and Powers were even worse. Half of character creation and gameplay was spent passing around books trying to remember where things were located. Having 13 books filled with options became a strain on even the veteran players and too many noobs just walked. I don't want that to happen again.

Except its impossible to get it all in one book from the beginning when its a new game. This game is going to grow and expand over many years - to expect all that growth in the first class book is irrational. This is one aspect of RPGs that people need to just accept. I'm sure at some point they will offer a compilation of all existing information (perhaps a 2nd edition way down the line) but its going to cost more money which other people will complain about.

I'd prefer they release it incrementally like this. Its not much of a stretch to imagine a dedicated fan making PDF updates of all the info in the books as they release.

I disagree completely. Poor organization should never be acceptable. Saying it's just the natural growth of a game validates the worst behavior that game companies engage in. Star Wars is a big IP and WotC released books at a brisk pace which were, by and large, successful. It wasn't even their first foray using the IP for an rpg. And yet, in the end, it died. The buy-in costs for the game just got too high and needing 13 books for character creation (without software to help) is utter crap. A game doesn't grow if new people aren't coming in. Most companies, when a game gets that large and unwieldy, will bring out a new edition even if (like in L5R) the core concepts haven't changed significantly. Spreading out class abilities, as SAGA did, over multiple books with poor indexing and no cross-referencing is lazy writing and starts a process whereby most companies end up killing their own game (or losing the license as the case may be).

I don't want this game to bloat itself out of existence like SAGA did nor become a spaghetti mess of rules like Mongoose Traveler.

That is my concern too. It is a factor of why I quit GMing games in 3.5 D&D. As a player I LOVED the character choices but as a GM I had to buy the pdf's and/or books (or other methods) just so I could keep up with all the options my players wanted to try. When too many options show up then loopholes begin to develop, and min/maxing arrives. My worry is that this elegant game starts to develop those same issues. I love the flexibility and "simplicity" of the system as it is. I would hate for that to change too much.

I guess as a GM I could limit choices to only the 3 Core books but the I am the bad guy. LOL

I disagree completely. Poor organization should never be acceptable. Saying it's just the natural growth of a game validates the worst behavior that game companies engage in.

Its not about organization. The fact is, the company likely hasn't set what the future aspects of every class will be. There's a development process that takes a great deal of time. As they add more talents and skills to classes, they have to go back and balance it with existing information. They cannot be expected to sit and create 12 full developed careers, each with six specializations referring back to any number of dozens of skills all before introducing the very first book in the game. They don't know the level of success the game will experience and therefor they don't know how far forward to plan. If they did the above and the game tanked, that's YEARS of development wasted on a product no one will ever see.

These games development and grow as the interest remains steady. Thus far, in other games, FFG has shown a great deal of skill in properly organizing and releasing their products. I see no reason to doubt them now. As it is, they sat down and made six careers, each with three specs, just to get people into the game. From that point, they had expansion books for each class planned. My guess is that the next book will build into this book and existing classes while introducing new classes and specs. In the year from book two to book three we'll see supplemental guides for the new classes from book two and so on.

But all this is conjecture right now anyway. No reason not to enjoy the game for what it is right now and let the future play itself out as it will.

I don't really care to see more specializations and talents. We already have around 20 specializations and hundreds of talents, and I assume each new core book will add the same amount in each. So that will probably be around 60 specs and 900 to 1000 talents. Seems like plenty to me, but if more specs and talents is what they need to do to make this line work then oh well.

On one hand: Yay!

On the other hand: a splat book for every career? Ugh. No thanks. Do we really need a full book about the Colonist? (Yay, Simon, Inara, and Book, I suppose...) Separate books for the Bounty Hunter AND the Hired Gun?

If they do it, I hope they'll follow the model that WotC followed, where each book also introduced a concept, not just more character crunch.

Interesting also that FFG is picking up where WotC left off (Unknown Regions --> Enter the Unknown).

This is the same thing we heard when they announced 3 separate Core books. "Separate books for Outer Rim and the Rebellion and Jedi!?" and they totally rocked it with what is in EotE.

Yeah, gotta be honest, I'm still not 100% sold on the approach. I'm not denying that it's a nice product... but my personal preference would have been a different route.

SirJolt and a few others sum up some of my concern. Personally, I LOVED Saga -- probably my favorite RPG in 30+ years of gaming -- but I was somewhat happy when the product line ended. With a dozen or so books, there was so much crunch that it was impossible to game without fan-made supplements because there's so much stuff across so many different supplements.

Don't get me wrong, I bought all the Saga supplements and plan to get all the FFG supplements... but I know that my players suffered from "option fatigue" fairly early in the Saga run, and most of them time when I offered them new options, they were greeted with a resounding round of "Meh, no thanks." As a player in 2 different 4E campaigns, I know the feeling. Impossible to explore all the options without paying for a DDI membership.

I'm all for new crunchy bits in every book, but too much isn't necessarily a good thing, and neither is too specific. Although Saga built books around each class, each book (with the exception of the Jedi one) had crunch for EACH class, as well as one or two large concepts.

Hey, in the end, though, much as I may mutter, I'll be buying. If my players want to use stuff, great. if not, it'll still be a good read for me.

Actually, I find it a little scary. Quite apart from the costs associated, if there is going to be a supplement for each and every career, the schedule would seem to dictate that they will be releasing these even after Age of Rebellion, which in turn means extra releases for those future careers. that's a huge amount of information released over a very short time.

I think my preference would have been to either release an options book with a number of different careers covered at once (a player's supplement, for instance) and a set of information for GMs, like a codex of planets, systems, cultures, plot hooks, etc. I can't, as a GM, keep up with these kinds of releases.

As long as I am enjoying myself with this game and the group is having fun, I will continue to buy whatever they put out there.

Have hundreds of WotC star wars minies, ships, etc to provide any necessary scenery to aid the imagination already so we are set for grand adventures.

I'm perfectly fine with a book for every career, as long as the production quality remains high I'm in. Besides these are simply options, if you think the rules get too crunchy just ignore what you don't like. I happen to think FFG has come up with a flexible enough system that it can handle more options without getting too weighed down.

Yancy

I find that I'm not all that concerned about the increase of specializations. I imagine they will add in several new talents, but most of the talents in the specializations are going to be ones we've already seen. As to taking up a lot of room, well, it will be 6 pages at most. 1 page for the talent descriptions, 1 for the synopsis of the specialization. 1 for the story ideas, etc and 3 pages for the actual trees. I'm sure the other character options will be given large amount of space. Signature abilites will probalby be several pages if they include ones for previous specialties.

Reading the news entry, and looking at the pictures provided, I have a feeling we'll see rules for hostile weather conditions and how to implement them, planet building as well as, judging by the art shown, detailed information about the Chiss (and I suspect several other species) - Chis especially since there is one represented on the cover, they come from an arctic world and the backdrop for the cover art looks close enough to Csilla in my eyes, not to mention the AT-ST variant is probably a chiss improvement, similar to the Nsis Clawcraft.

I'm looking forward to the trade rules, hopefully FFG takes some ideas from Traveller but reduces the minutia considerably.

What I really want are random planet generation using the dice availiable - just to be interesting. Imagine the players going to a random planet, the GM picks up some dice of every type and gets a planet. Despair being a hostile environment, Triumph being an established settlement, etc.

All in all though, FFG has to walk a fine line with producing too many supplements and producing too few. The fact that they are doing adventures is a good thing, 6 career books won't break the game. To use traveller as a comparison, they have the core book and have added career books wich have added more options and fleshed things out.

I suspect that adding in new specializations will be less jarring than say, d20, adding in new prestige classes. The way this system is built, you can add a new specialization without having to rebuild your character.

Here's to hoping, much like the idea I mentioned for planets, they have a way to make new beasties on the fly with the dice. One can hope.

I am also hoping that perhaps they will actually have the rules for sabacc

Just to let you in on the know. . . There are rules for sabacc. They are in the free RPG day module "Shadows of the Black Sun". Enjoy!

But the most famous Chiss was Thrawn, who was a Grand Admiral of the Empire, which is why I say Age of Rebellion would make sense.

I also feel all the Species are going to be in the Core books, but I could be wrong.

Well... More like New Republic Era, but fair enough.

Every SW RPG other than Saga... WEG d6, Original d20 (and Saga might have, not certain), has had a book that was dedicated to the lesser known races to flesh out the game so it has dozens to choose from. If you look at the Unofficial Species Menagerie , a lot of this info is compiled from the old d6 books.

Actually, I find it a little scary. Quite apart from the costs associated, if there is going to be a supplement for each and every career, the schedule would seem to dictate that they will be releasing these even after Age of Rebellion, which in turn means extra releases for those future careers. that's a huge amount of information released over a very short time.

I think my preference would have been to either release an options book with a number of different careers covered at once (a player's supplement, for instance) and a set of information for GMs, like a codex of planets, systems, cultures, plot hooks, etc. I can't, as a GM, keep up with these kinds of releases.

I'm inclined to agree with this. My initial reaction when seeing the announcement was "oh crap, they're going to do it THIS way?!?!" I would have expected 3 player option books, the first being all 6 of the careers from EotE, and the next being AoR and FaD, respectively.

Here's hoping that there's a lot of good general information in this book, and that future "themes," if less robust, will include more than 1 career.

That's a is a Chiss on the Cover!

Have to wonder if this is because the Explorer specializations in the book are so terrible. Fringer is "Smuggler-lite" and Trader is more of a resource for min-maxers to game availability than a workable talent tree.

Smooth Talker in particular stands out as the worst social talent in the game. You need to be rolling 4 Proficiency dice before it's at the same level as talents that add boost dice.

The reason I believe they made this book is give PCs more things to do besides smuggle and shoot each other. That's good in my opinion. What I would rather have though is a book on star ships and information on making a living moving merchandise. Hopefully the Smuggler book will have that stuff.

I generally like the idea of a career book, if it adds extra options to the game such as planet/encounter/creature generation info etc.

However I am really struggling to come up with what they could fill the Colonist book with, running a clinic, becoming a mayor, opening a university?

I generally like the idea of a career book, if it adds extra options to the game such as planet/encounter/creature generation info etc.

However I am really struggling to come up with what they could fill the Colonist book with, running a clinic, becoming a mayor, opening a university?

Perhaps a more descriptive section on homebases, colonial life, dangers, threats, and maybe a township development chapter? And of course, three additional specializations. Or... it may be Farmer: the Roleplaying Game.

I'm not too concerned. We've been collectively following the other rpg's that fantasy flight has put out and thus far the quality of product has maintained a VERY high standard. I'd expect maybe two more big adventure books, 5 more career books, and that would be about it. Prolly a similar release set for the other two games. But just because there are 10 books per game doesn't mean you have to buy them.

As far as content, we know we are getting new tech, new types of abilities, and new specs which every character can benefit from (big game hunter/assassin?) the rest of them will likely contain material that is usable by GM's and players alike.

My hope is that this and future sourcebooks will be based around coherent themes. From the brief tease FFG gave us Enter the Unknown seems to focus as much on the exploration as on the explorer. This is good. New equipment, droids, etc are shiny toys that anyone can play with.

One thing I don't lke is games that require a splat book or three to make a viable character. In Vampire you wre hosed without your Clan book, D&D better have at least your class book. And of course some games (Warhammer tabletop and 40K especially) suffer from power creep, who ever has the newest codex splat book is better than everybody else. Let's hope we don't see that here.

So far the is heading in a direction I personally like a lot. The seedy underbelly and unknown fringes of Star Wars.

I generally like the idea of a career book, if it adds extra options to the game such as planet/encounter/creature generation info etc.

However I am really struggling to come up with what they could fill the Colonist book with, running a clinic, becoming a mayor, opening a university?

Perhaps a more descriptive section on homebases, colonial life, dangers, threats, and maybe a township development chapter? And of course, three additional specializations. Or... it may be Farmer: the Roleplaying Game.

FINALLY, I've really been craving a stat block for moisture vaporators. Just need to take that "Speaks Binary" talent.