This system encourages role-playing versus roll-playing.

I agree with most of what you said - especially about the system being friendly to new/casual gamers - but this statement is just so absurd I had to point it out. If it takes a system of rolling dice to get you to put role before roll, well...

I don't think it's absurd, it's a matter of how much mental energy goes into managing the dice and tactical details vs how much you have left to think of something nifty to describe. You kind of have to shift mindsets because one is anal and one is freeform. One's a left brain activity, the other is a right (I forget which does which). Just MHO, but EotE requires a lot less of that shifting, partly because assembling a dice pool and rolling doesn't need much of a "math-brain", and play rarely gets bogged down in "out of story" details and record keeping.

This system encourages role-playing versus roll-playing.

I agree with most of what you said - especially about the system being friendly to new/casual gamers - but this statement is just so absurd I had to point it out. If it takes a system of rolling dice to get you to put role before roll, well...

I don't think it's absurd, it's a matter of how much mental energy goes into managing the dice and tactical details vs how much you have left to think of something nifty to describe. You kind of have to shift mindsets because one is anal and one is freeform. One's a left brain activity, the other is a right (I forget which does which). Just MHO, but EotE requires a lot less of that shifting, partly because assembling a dice pool and rolling doesn't need much of a "math-brain", and play rarely gets bogged down in "out of story" details and record keeping.

Beyond that, there's nothing wrong with taking a freeform approach and going anal when it suits you!

This system encourages role-playing versus roll-playing.

I agree with most of what you said - especially about the system being friendly to new/casual gamers - but this statement is just so absurd I had to point it out. If it takes a system of rolling dice to get you to put role before roll, well...

The ability to role play is not dependent upon rolling special dice vs "regular" dice. There are many excellent role players playing conventional games. The dice and rules are just the engine while the game experience is the drive. The minds of the players are the transmission and tires, so if there's a hang up between mechanics and play experience, its the players, not the dice.

You're missing my point. I can explain. I of course never meant this game doesn't require dice to be rolled. I of course never meant that roleplaying was, "dependent" upon rolling special dice vs. regular dice. I of course never meant you can't roleplay in a system unlike FFG's. If I meant that what have I been doing the last 30 years? What I said is this system, "encourages", role playing versus the rolling and number crunching of some systems. Of course you can role play while using d20 and an imaginative mind. But, this system ENCOURAGES roleplaying by actually making the player think up narrative explanations for what the dice revealed. While you can do the same with d20, it isn't actively enforced by the system itself.

While playing the Warhammer version of this system, I saw one of my completely non-roleplaying players suddenly become an active roleplayer (not just a roll player). I had nothing to do with it. The system did.

This game is fun!

That's really all I have to say. I could go on about how you wait for 5-10 min. in other systems to attempt your idea only for that to not be doable since somebody else went and kind of screwed things up. Or how you waited that 5-10 min. for your attack to only hear, "Miss. next." At least my miss can greatly add to the story in some way. Heck, possibly even in some profound way depending on the net result.

Never have I seen people engrossed in the story to the point of not even taking breaks. Seeing the die rolls of others and hearing what happens is fun fun fun.

Cooperative storytelling beats a math exercise any day in my book.