Well Lucas did write he original story treatment for the next trilogy and he has shown that he doesn't care much about the EU.

Yea, but doesn't everyone hate Lucas's opinions on everything anyways? I can never figure out if people despise Lucas or love him. I don't rightly care that he doesn't like EU. The movies are great, but they are greater in what they began and created. The Expanded Universe. Which includes Edge of the Empire itself. Without the EU, the Star Wars movies would be nothing more than a great movie series, rather than a legacy.

I didn't mention Lucas not caring about the EU as a good or bad thing. Just the way it is.

Personally I have read and enjoyed much of the EU but I want the movies to go their own direction and not be beholden to the EU. I simply consider the EU stories as an alternate universe. Sort of like the new comic series The Star Ears and an EotE campaign.

One persons account of their first Character death in EotE

https://plus.google.com/u/0/102409095982678971946/posts/bhYxuZD6qyM?cfem=1

A good example of playing the game and not the system . And also why most of the discussion earlier in the thread seemed like we were all sitting in a theater getting ready to watch Pacific Rim and then people next to us were shouting about how little this movie was like Forest Gump, and that what they really wanted was a movie where giant robots fight giant monsters...and that other people would rather see a movie where giant monsters fight robots.

It's Star Wars, there are going to be lots of fights and no one really should fel like they are going to die.

I find that there is a continuum for combat in role playing games. At one end you have realistic and leathal games, these games tend to be more gritty and though players still turn to violence to resolve their problems, they do so with a real undestanding that it could cost them their lives. In these games no one is ever happy when someone pulls out a weapon, because of the real possibility that people could die. Think Game of Thrones. The other end of the spectrum is much more cinematic, were things blow up people jump through windows, there is a lot of excitement but not a lot of people actually worrying that they might die. In TV and Movies characters are protected by the fact that the writers aren't going to let a storm trooper kill Han Solo. In a role playing game the rules need to offer that protection. Without it players or their characters would be less likely to engage in the high adventure hi-jinks that we want to see in our game. For the record there were no rules what so ever for killing players in the old Seventh Sea game.

I actually find the fact that it is hard to kill characters a little liberating for the GM. As a GM I don't need to worry about sending things too powerful after the players. Stuff can beat them but not kill them. Getting beat in a role playing game can be lots of fun (as it moves the story forward). Dieing on the other hand often is no fun at all.

Having read through this, I have little to add, but I will do so anyway.

Different playstyles are a thing. What one group enjoys may be incongruous with what another group does; also, a given group or player may want to try different things.

Doubtless, this will lead to some differences on what is best in life. Conan knows, but he's not in our games, so we'll have to adapt. Thankfully, EoE is - in my opinion - among the easiest and most enjoyable games there is to mod. So do so.

Does your group feel like the world is too safe? Conversely, does your group feel like it's still too dangerous? Dial the lethality up or back!

I'm personally running some heavily modified stuff that steals liberally borrows steals liberally from FATE's resolution system - basically with current number of critical injuries ~ current number of consequences - where it's more of a calculated risk sort of thing. They can take the crit, and continue on, knowing that they're putting their life on the line, or they can be taken out, and retain some narrative control over what shape that takes.

But that's just this group. Another group might want to have crits tied to body, for example - roll body + resilience against the severity of the crit, salt with modifiers to taste: save or die. Bottom line, there are many ways to play. Enjoying one over the other is not the sort of thing that should invite insult, and insinuating that someone should feel bad for their play style, and to insinuate that that this makes one an unimportant minority really misses the point. This is an RPG forum - on some level, that applies to all of us.

We have a beautiful game to play, and a really cool community supporting it. Insulting others for wanting different variations on it gains little.

This discussion is interesting. I haven't gotten a copy of this game (or the beginner game) yet but I am so looking forward to it. There are ways to keep the game more interesting if you're worried about character death (Force Ghost, Clones, Secretly an android and can be repaired, identical twin brother/sister/ewok etc.) Gotta love them plot twists. I have never played an RPG yet but all the talk about this game makes me super excited for when I get my hands on it. This community is pretty cool and ya'll have very interesting tips and valid points to be brought out.

This discussion is interesting. I haven't gotten a copy of this game (or the beginner game) yet but I am so looking forward to it. There are ways to keep the game more interesting if you're worried about character death (Force Ghost, Clones, Secretly an android and can be repaired, identical twin brother/sister/ewok etc.) Gotta love them plot twists. I have never played an RPG yet but all the talk about this game makes me super excited for when I get my hands on it. This community is pretty cool and ya'll have very interesting tips and valid points to be brought out.

I recommend this game highly - in general, but also as an intro RPG. If you can get your hands on the beginner's box (especially cheaply) it does a spectacular job of acting as a sort of 'tutorial' for the game, like the beginning of many video games.

Honestly, I wish every RPG did that.

Best of luck in getting your hands on a copy, and getting your game on!

I have never killed any of my players, it is against the law here in the UK.

Occasionally characters do get killed, but I don't go out of my way to do it, sometimes they get really unlucky or just stupid.

I do like heroic systems where the player characters are harder to kill but not impossible.

In my opinion Death should always be possible in the game but unless it's something like Cthulhu or Paranoia it shouldn't be easy . Players should have plenty of outs and options at all times. Death should be a big deal, not just the PCs, but also NPCs and enemies. People should retreat if they know they can't win. Most people are not that dedicated. If every stormtrooper attempts a "You shall not pass" then it cheapens it when you decide to have your character yell "Go on ahead. I'll hold them as long as I can". I've died dramatic plot advancing deaths, I've died stupid deaths when I've crit fail to throw a grenade, I once stopped an entire combat for two rounds because I yelled "That was for Frank!" after seeing an NPC from my hometown executed and all the enemies and other PCs tried to figure out who on each I was talking about. Death needs to matter. It one of the most important event in an organisms existence and should rarely be glossed over.

Personally I think the crit system sits at an odd place, it gives you a huge buffer before you have to worry in most cases. sometimes too much. But if the GM wants to he can tear through you like butter. I've yet to die in this system but I have had the GM give me 3 crits in a single fight once in a spot where we couldn't turn around and wait for me to heal. And dispite these three crits I only had maybe 4 or 5 wounds on me out of I think 17 at the time. The GM wasn't gunning for me but it certainly made me a little less caviler about low damage low crit cost enemies.

See, I personally see it as one, huge, ever-expanding universe. I don't see a reason to separate it between book and EU. I think that kneecaps the entire universe and its impact. That's why they call it the Expanded Universe, and not the Alternate Universe. The Star Wars is an Alternate Universe in that it involves an entirely different iteration based on the original manuscript of the movie. It isn't the same thing. But, the Expanded Universe of Star Wars is built to sync with the movies as best as it can, since it was all built up around it. To say that it is all AU is doing it all a great disservice, in my opinion.

As for the nature of the canon of individual EotE campaigns, yes, they are technically AUs, since none of the characters we play are canonized by the powers that be. However, in my circle, I like to try and avoid breaking canon as much as possible, so that we may collect all of our adventures together in our heads and add them to the pre-existing Star Wars universe without any discrepancies. It enhances everyone's experience, especially when we think back and remember about how we helped Kira Carsen out of a bind when she was being chased by Black Sun thugs, or when a group of inmates busted out of Belsavis after the Empire attacked and they fled to Hoth and joined the White Maw Pirates, or when the party's diplomat senator was one of the only people that opposed Palpatine's emergency wartime powers after the jedi strike team failed to assassinate him, and he (barely) escaped Imperial Center with an Emperor's Hand hot on his trail. Do any of these break canon? Not that I know of. And so it enriches all of our experience because they might be able to interact with canon events and be like "Oh man, I know what happens here, that's cool," even if they can't change the fates set out by the original writers. It is a system that I have not seen fail yet.

In relation to this game, use what works discard the rest. Most importantly: have fun. That's what gaming is all about. The only way you can "do it wrong" in my opinion at least is to not have fun.

Never have truer words been spoken.

OK, EU, AU, canon etc, my thought is what ever is fun for you and your group. Even Lucas' vision of how things fit together has changed and evolved over time. Watch A New Hope then watch The Phantom Menace and count the contradictions...

As for Player Death, luckily I have been able to avoid that so far, although one or two have pushed me close to the edge...

Player Characters on the other hand have died in ,y games, but usually they have to work at it a bit. I don't kill characters out of hand and don't believe in creating "Roll a Save or Die!" situations. If a beginning character insists on going up against a Sith Lord armed only with a pocket spanner, well, they are probably going to die. If they are not smart enough to run away from the Rancor...

Only three Rebel fighters (out of thirty) made it back from the Death Star, and the crew of the Y-Wing were dead by Hoth.

Certainly individual GMs can dial lethality up or down in their games. To me the Heroes in Star Wars do not die unless they sacrifice themselves. Death is for goons and extras.

About Boba Fett, in RotJ we see him fall into the mouth of the Sarlaac. That is all. We don't see what happens after. To me this is an example of the "Mysterious Death" rule. That is to say when a major nemesis dies have it happen in such a way that the players don't actually get to see the corpse. This leaves room for him to come back again in the sequel. I can think of a number of ways in which Boba Fett could have escaped the fate of being slowly digested over a thousand years.

As for what to do with vanquished characters you neither wish to kill or capture, waking up somewhere stripped of all their gear is a possibility. Droids could end up in a Jawa Sandcrawler or Ugnaught junkyard. Waking up in a hospital bed works. Or just do a cut scene to the characters back at their base patching themselves up after their near escape, or similar gone to ground in a hiding place.

Similarly, in the movies, some guys die in blazes of glory, or because they want to, like Obi-Wan and Vader. But some don't. Jango Fett, Mace Windu, and Qui-Gon Jinn all die by being outclassed or outgunned. They died. Should they have survived just because their "PC" doesn't want them to? I think not.

Don't forget Boba Fett. Oh, man ... Boba Fett.

If anything, this game is genius for being the first honest attempt to simulate what happened to him.

You must have missed where the GM spent a Destiny Point to ensure that his Nemisis didn't die and could return later to harass the PCs (because Boba Fett didn't die in the movies when he fell into the Sarlacc.)

Actually he did die in the movies. It was the EU that revived him.

Actually, he suffered a "mysterious death without a body" in the movies. Based on a statistical analysis of the apparent demise of villains, that means it is almost *certain* that he survived the event.

OK, EU, AU, canon etc, my thought is what ever is fun for you and your group. Even Lucas' vision of how things fit together has changed and evolved over time. Watch A New Hope then watch The Phantom Menace and count the contradictions...

There really aren't so many contradictions as there are things that can be easily explained as a 'certain point of view' as Obi-Wan so famously stated.

RotJ: Leia remembers her mother as being very sad.

RotS: Padme dies almost immediately after child birth.

A certain point of view: Leia remembers Bail Organa's wife who was sad because of what was happening to the galaxy around her, and she knew that they were the only hope of this poor child. Leia thinks of her as her 'real mother' because after the first Mrs. Organa passed away, while Leia was very young, and Bail remarried some time later.

Note: I don't think this is actually spelled out anywhere, but it *very* neatly ties up that inconsistency without any presumption of impossible memories.

ANH: Luke's father wanted Luke to have his lightsaber.

RotS: Anakin doesn't even know he *had* a son, thinking his children died with Padme.

A certain point of view: Obi-Wan is feeding Luke a line, in an attempt to get Luke to take on the mission that R2 has just delivered. Obi-Wan knows he's gotten old, and is badly out of practice. Having an apprentice along for the ride will be helpful. He also knows how powerful Anakin was, and figures Luke for similar talent if he can get him trained up adequately. On top of that, if the Anakin that Obi-Wan knew hadn't fallen to the dark side, he *would* have wanted his son to take up a lightsaber and work for the betterment of the galaxy.

There's certainly more surface inconsistencies, but I've never spotted any that actually contradict without a sensible explanation when looked at 'from a certain point of view'.

Similarly, in the movies, some guys die in blazes of glory, or because they want to, like Obi-Wan and Vader. But some don't. Jango Fett, Mace Windu, and Qui-Gon Jinn all die by being outclassed or outgunned. They died. Should they have survived just because their "PC" doesn't want them to? I think not.

Don't forget Boba Fett. Oh, man ... Boba Fett.

If anything, this game is genius for being the first honest attempt to simulate what happened to him.

You must have missed where the GM spent a Destiny Point to ensure that his Nemisis didn't die and could return later to harass the PCs (because Boba Fett didn't die in the movies when he fell into the Sarlacc.)

Actually he did die in the movies. It was the EU that revived him.

Actually, he suffered a "mysterious death without a body" in the movies. Based on a statistical analysis of the apparent demise of villains, that means it is almost *certain* that he survived the event.

It's been a while, but I remember reading somewhere that GL stated that he died in RotJ. Shrug, it's no biggie as I actually like the character up till he went all Mandalorian. He was much more interesting when he was an enigma.

I've also noticed that people only listen to the things that Lucas says if it supports their points. XD.

And I also don't know why people have problems with Mandalorian culture being a thing in Boba's life. I have no problem with the bounty hunter that finds a greater purpose motif. Isn't that kinda what happens to Han, but with totally different context?

I liked Mandalores when they were a myth. Boba Fett in his Mandalore armor was a bogeyman. At this point he has become the Wolverine of the Star Wars universe. I understand why his popularity is exploited, even if I don't agree with it. It is also why I avoid much that has to do with him currently. Besides, in most popular mediums, it is rare that characters stay dead. Cripes even Bucky was brought back. I honestly would not be surprised to see the return of Chewie at some point. (Whoops, possible spoiler there, sorry.)

When my group was playing D&D 4e I killed a PC. He was incapacitated and just bled out on the ground. That wasn't fun for me or the player. I like with this system it is very hard for the PC's to die. That being said I have no problem killing a PC that does something very dangerous. However, I would most likely let the player know that their actions could result in the PC's death before they made the check.

You killed a PC in 4E!?!?

You should be given a medal or something.

In all seriousness though, I'm highly against killing off PCs unless the player is ok with it, and even that can be hard to tell. SW should be heroic, even EoE. Just my opinion.

It's not that hard, however, in EoE to incapacitate PCs.

When my group was playing D&D 4e I killed a PC. He was incapacitated and just bled out on the ground. That wasn't fun for me or the player. I like with this system it is very hard for the PC's to die. That being said I have no problem killing a PC that does something very dangerous. However, I would most likely let the player know that their actions could result in the PC's death before they made the check.

You killed a PC in 4E!?!?

You should be given a medal or something.

In all seriousness though, I'm highly against killing off PCs unless the player is ok with it, and even that can be hard to tell. SW should be heroic, even EoE. Just my opinion.

It's not that hard, however, in EoE to incapacitate PCs.

I have killed plenty of 4e PCs. It is not he impossible task some may have you believe.

When my group was playing D&D 4e I killed a PC. He was incapacitated and just bled out on the ground. That wasn't fun for me or the player. I like with this system it is very hard for the PC's to die. That being said I have no problem killing a PC that does something very dangerous. However, I would most likely let the player know that their actions could result in the PC's death before they made the check.

You killed a PC in 4E!?!?

You should be given a medal or something.

In all seriousness though, I'm highly against killing off PCs unless the player is ok with it, and even that can be hard to tell. SW should be heroic, even EoE. Just my opinion.

It's not that hard, however, in EoE to incapacitate PCs.

I have killed plenty of 4e PCs. It is not he impossible task some may have you believe.

Our group found that death is possible, but it was difficult for just 1 character to die. For us it was only TPK or total survival.

When my group was playing D&D 4e I killed a PC. He was incapacitated and just bled out on the ground. That wasn't fun for me or the player. I like with this system it is very hard for the PC's to die. That being said I have no problem killing a PC that does something very dangerous. However, I would most likely let the player know that their actions could result in the PC's death before they made the check.

You killed a PC in 4E!?!?

You should be given a medal or something.

In all seriousness though, I'm highly against killing off PCs unless the player is ok with it, and even that can be hard to tell. SW should be heroic, even EoE. Just my opinion.

It's not that hard, however, in EoE to incapacitate PCs.

I have killed plenty of 4e PCs. It is not he impossible task some may have you believe.

I wouldn't know. A very vocal portion of my group despised 4E & that was the end of that.

I liked Mandalores when they were a myth. Boba Fett in his Mandalore armor was a bogeyman. At this point he has become the Wolverine of the Star Wars universe. I understand why his popularity is exploited, even if I don't agree with it. It is also why I avoid much that has to do with him currently. Besides, in most popular mediums, it is rare that characters stay dead. Cripes even Bucky was brought back. I honestly would not be surprised to see the return of Chewie at some point. (Whoops, possible spoiler there, sorry.)

Oh please. Comics are WAY worse with revivification than Star Wars is. Chewie was blown up by a goddamn moon. I don't think there's any recovery from that.

I think I like the current system. I think that for some of my players, knowing there is a critical hit chart that includes "Permanent loss of characteristic score" is far more scary to them than having their characters die. That alone will create a healthy enough fear to keep them in line.

Currently, GMs tend to fudge the heck out of systems to avoid death , which leaves success as the only outcome.

I think this post sums it up best.

I think that the rules allow for the players to continue playing until they achieve the dreaded TPK. At that point they may not wish to wake up. Do you really see imperial troopers reviving the players? (Maybe... for a little torture and information.) Do you see the Hutts keeping your character alive when they can be fed to the dreaded Scarlak? (Maybe for a little Murder Death Kill.)

The more I think about it, this may be a good mechanic. Undeserved accidental deaths are always hard to deal with. As a game master, I'm all over my players when they make a (all too frequent) bad decision. But I always have issues with the 'accidents'.

It keeps the story alive unless the players really screw up.

]You should have seen the look I got from my wife when my daughter's Pathfinder character was caught in a Blade Barrier... Sorcerer bits everywhere! Or the time our Monk tried to wrestle down the 'confused' fighter... who had a vorpal sword... and accidentally had to attack the nearest person... and rolled a 20. I expect this same party to achieve TPK soon given the players' experience, and inability to think tactically, or adapt cohesively on the fly. I'm kinda looking forward to this.]

"Fear will keep the players in line, fear of my D100."

"Fear will keep the players in line, fear of my D100."

Love the Tarkin quote!

Incidentally, I too would truly fear your d100 if it's an actual 100 sided die. I'd fear it will take 5 minutes for the golf ball to come to a complete stop.