Welcome to a new edition of the same "not paying for beta" Threads during the last beta...

Fair enough I see your point. I do not see it how you do at all. I see it as paying $30 to get the rules 9+ months in advance

I recommend all the people complaining about a paid beta go out and buy the book. You know you want to. That is why you are complaining. I plan on waiting for the release of the final book, that is why I am not complaining. You know you can't resist. Just do it. Listen to that little devil sitting on your shoulder. He knows what he is talking about. You will feel good about your self in the morning. And just think, you could then complain about spending the money. Give in to the Dark Side. Release your anger.

Welcome to a new edition of the same "not paying for beta" Threads during the last beta...

Well, at least there will (ostensibly) only be one more round when the Force & Destiny Beta gets released next year.

Here's the thing, unless Lucas Film owns the game system Fantasy Flight is using, there's nothing stopping them from releasing a generic playtest with none of the trademarked properties in the packet.

Once you take the fluff out of both EoE and AoR, I suspect they would be about the same. You would have no classes or traits. No races to choose from. If there were any vehicles in it, they would not be Star Wars vehicles. No BlasTec blaster rifles. No driods fit for Star Wars. It would be pretty lame to read.

I am actually quite pleased with the AoR Beta thus far and am thankful that I made the decision to purchase it. I had to sell a few Saga books to get it, however.

Here's the thing, unless Lucas Film owns the game system Fantasy Flight is using, there's nothing stopping them from releasing a generic playtest with none of the trademarked properties in the packet.

I believe they very well might. WotC ran into a similar issue with elements from their Star Wars RPG, as none of the game elements specific to Saga Edition (such as the Condition Track, which a lot of folks loved) could be used in D&D 4e or other systems, as it was owned by Lucasfilm.

Point of interest, the Credits section of both the EotE Beta, EotE core rulebook, and AoR Beta all have a tidbit at the bottom that says "Copyright 201X Lucasfilm Ltd." So it could very well be the core game rules of FFG's Star Wars product line are owned entirely by Lucasfilm, and that FFG doesn't have the option to publish them independent of the Star Wars setting.

Yeah true... to be fair, I totally understand what they are saying. I just am completely the opposite. I cannot wait until next beta so I can finally see the full scope of the game across all 3 books.

The bottom line is I think contractually they had no way to release a PDF of the beta in much the same manner they cannot release the final book as one. I think this was the only way they could do a beta, and could not afford to just print free books.

EDIT: WHOOPS... I tried to edit and broke the reply part...

The bottom line is I think contractually they had no way to release a PDF of the beta in much the same manner they cannot release the final book as one. I think this was the only way they could do a beta, and could not afford to just print free books.

Pretty much. But to some people's view, that just makes FFG a greedy, self-serving company because they're (allegedly) forcing people to buy the same product twice.

I bet for a lot of people it makes them greedy because they won't supply something they could then easily steal in high quality from a torrent site. But I guess the honest people who frequent here would never do that...

If I had any say in the matter, I would absolutely prefer a sort of new WoD style with a single core rulebook and then separate rulebooks for setting specific stuff like careers, specializations and whatever else might be the dividing line between EotE, AoR and F&D.

That said, I have more money than sense and would totally buy the same rule system three times over, so I can't really argue with the business sense of releasing each as a separate game.

My concern isn't really financial though, it's more about consistency. One thing I really didn't like about the Warhammer 40,000 game lines was that the rules were only kinda-sorta the same. Each rule set was really a refinement of the previous ones, and they each had a different scope and power level. Assuming the core rules in AoR and F&D are identical to the ones in EotE, I won't really have much of an issue with their decision (though I would still find it more convenient to have a single rulebook for core rules rather than three instances of the (hopefully) same rules).

I think FFG could have released a core rules document - just the mechanics, how the dice work, how the rolls work, how to read the rolls etc. as a PDF for free. This would have freed up a bunch of pages in the subsequent books for more non-rule stuff. I think they could have done that without losing any money because in order to use the mechanics, you have to have their specific dice - so any losses the company suffers by putting just their core rules out for free is made up by the fact that you have to spend about 30 bucks (at least, you need at least 2 sets of dice and they ran me 15 bob apiece) to use them for anything. That being the case, you might as well use-em for Star Wars. I don't think Lucasfilm would have a problem with that, and if they did, you just remap what the dice are in the core so that they don't have any trademarked images on-em. Done and done.

Buuut, as soon as you decide that the rules are gonna be part of a paid-for book that's in turn part of a series of books designed to work together, you're immediately damned if you do and damned if you don't. Include the core rules in every book and you're wasting space by reprinting what becomes un-necessary for some. Fail to do so and you're making people buy a book they don't want for a ruleset they need. I think in the future, free mechanical documents are gonna be the way to go because people are just gonna get too impatient with any other solution.

As for paying for Betas...well...I've said this before but it seems to bear repeating.

Back in the day, we paid for beta copies all the time - they were called "First Editions" back then. The pressures and particulars of the TT RPG business meant that there was only so much checking and testing anybody could do. It's frankly a LOT easier for 20 000 people to find errors than for 20. And when we did find errors, if we were lucky and the company gave a **** (not all did) they would stick a page of hastily typed errata in the back of some supplement and that was that. Later on they realized multiple editions were a GREAT way to make money so that was how they did it. So, if you were patient, you waited until 2nd Edition and hoped to God while they were fixing mistakes A, B and C they weren't making mistakes D, E and F. Now they're letting us keep a copy of the rules as they exist currently and are asking us to find what's wrong with-em. For this they want 30 bucks. I can see both sides of the yes or no argument, but I went with yes.

Having gone with yes, I am reminded that I wish what FFG had done was simply take the Jedi, give-em their own book and then put everything else in one big book. Because honestly, powerful Force Users are an order of magnitude more powerful than most of the other denizens of the SW universe, and traditionally where SW TT RPG's fall down is when they start getting into powerful Force Users. They either treat-em like everyone else or treat-em as Gods. Neither option works really well.

But once you set aside powerful Force Users to their own book, everything else can be put in one book, and choosing not to do so is IMO a commercially based move rather than one made for reasons of practicality. Edge of the Empire was a SW game where about 60 percent of what Star Wars was didn't appear in the book (BTW, that's why the idea that Edge and Age should be thought of as separate games is a bit of a non-starter for me, each of those books taken alone doesn't come anywhere close to reflecting what SW is when taken in its entirety - hell it doesn't even do that when both books are taken together if you believe there can be no SW without powerful Force Users). That was a big risk. Age of Rebellion puts another 40 percent into the pot so it's more wholesome now, but so far, you don't really get much that's new for your 30 bucks.

One of the glaring problems I see has been alluded to above. There is an entire Career devoted to command. It's called the Commander, but honestly? As the rules are currently laid out, you can't do much commanding on the Strategic scale. Now, that's okay for the most part, because Star Wars RPG's aren't usually places where PC's engage in massive, set piece battles - particularly when it comes to the Rebellion, because except for the Battle of Endor, any such battle would have seen the Rebels slaughtered (General Riekan shoulda been court-martialed for how he deployed his people on Hoth...but I digress). But if that's the case, why have Specializations in a Career that beg for such things? You have Specializations that suggest the characters who take them should be commanding squadrons and fleets, but proper rules for handling such things don't appear in Age. To me, that's a bit of an oversight and one I hope gets corrected soonish - PARTICULARLY if FFG ever does anything with the Clone Wars.

Other than that, I think Age is pretty good so far, and we'll see what the proper, final version brings to the table.

So barring the NDAs, the business models, Lucas Films/Disney's no PDFs rules, and a ton of other stuff. What this boils down it is....

If you want the beta, buy it... The Haves

If you don't want the beta, for whatever reason, don't buy it. – The Have Nots

The Haves are not going to be swayed by the soapboxes of the Have Nots. No matter how you lay out the argument, no matter what your decision boiled down to, no matter how much you hate cookies... Haves don’t give a womp rat’s stink-hole. They may, in well meaning intent, try to suggest that the Have Not's arguments are not completely sound, or even agree with them, but they still got the book (or intend to), so nothing changes. That's it! As far as it goes.

Have Nots, aren't going to buy it and noting the reasons in this thread. Noted! The relevance of why really doesn't change anything. FFG doesn't mass produce the Beta, so they don't expect everybody to buy into it, most likely for the very reasons yous are giving. You're not the target audience for this product.

Why is this 7 pages long?

As a community, we are better then this. At least we should be. This shouldn’t be the top forum post, or even near it. Objections noted, carry on.

If you don’t want to buy it- don’t. This whole forum really no longer pertains to you. Just saying.... You're not adding insight, recommendations, or corrections to the product.

If you’re buying/bought it, find a thread worth responding to, this isn’t it, as noted: nobody is changing anything in here.

Sorry if this is too blunt, but this is just silly.

So barring the NDAs, the business models, Lucas Films/Disney's no PDFs rules, and a ton of other stuff. What this boils down it is....

If you want the beta, buy it... The Haves

If you don't want the beta, for whatever reason, don't buy it. – The Have Nots

The Haves are not going to be swayed by the soapboxes of the Have Nots. No matter how you lay out the argument, no matter what your decision boiled down to, no matter how much you hate cookies... Haves don’t give a womp rat’s stink-hole. They may, in well meaning intent, try to suggest that the Have Not's arguments are not completely sound, or even agree with them, but they still got the book (or intend to), so nothing changes. That's it! As far as it goes.

Have Nots, aren't going to buy it and noting the reasons in this thread. Noted! The relevance of why really doesn't change anything. FFG doesn't mass produce the Beta, so they don't expect everybody to buy into it, most likely for the very reasons yous are giving. You're not the target audience for this product.

Why is this 7 pages long?

As a community, we are better then this. At least we should be. This shouldn’t be the top forum post, or even near it. Objections noted, carry on.

If you don’t want to buy it- don’t. This whole forum really no longer pertains to you. Just saying.... You're not adding insight, recommendations, or corrections to the product.

If you’re buying/bought it, find a thread worth responding to, this isn’t it, as noted: nobody is changing anything in here.

Sorry if this is too blunt, but this is just silly.

So, if you find it silly, use your scroll down button, rather than pass judgement on what threads are and are not "worth responding to."

I always find it amusing the people who dislike these threads and then fail to take the simplest and most universally powerful action to keep from seeing them. Makes no sense to me, except I guess there are some people who get a kick out of pretending they have the agency to decide what the rest of us talk about.

So...there it is...on your mouse *points to the scroll button* A couple of flicks of your finger and all the "silly" is gone. Like Magic.

So barring the NDAs, the business models, Lucas Films/Disney's no PDFs rules, and a ton of other stuff. What this boils down it is....

If you want the beta, buy it... The Haves

If you don't want the beta, for whatever reason, don't buy it. – The Have Nots

The Haves are not going to be swayed by the soapboxes of the Have Nots. No matter how you lay out the argument, no matter what your decision boiled down to, no matter how much you hate cookies... Haves don’t give a womp rat’s stink-hole. They may, in well meaning intent, try to suggest that the Have Not's arguments are not completely sound, or even agree with them, but they still got the book (or intend to), so nothing changes. That's it! As far as it goes.

Have Nots, aren't going to buy it and noting the reasons in this thread. Noted! The relevance of why really doesn't change anything. FFG doesn't mass produce the Beta, so they don't expect everybody to buy into it, most likely for the very reasons yous are giving. You're not the target audience for this product.

Why is this 7 pages long?

As a community, we are better then this. At least we should be. This shouldn’t be the top forum post, or even near it. Objections noted, carry on.

If you don’t want to buy it- don’t. This whole forum really no longer pertains to you. Just saying.... You're not adding insight, recommendations, or corrections to the product.

If you’re buying/bought it, find a thread worth responding to, this isn’t it, as noted: nobody is changing anything in here.

Sorry if this is too blunt, but this is just silly.

So, if you find it silly, use your scroll down button, rather than pass judgement on what threads are and are not "worth responding to."

I always find it amusing the people who dislike these threads and then fail to take the simplest and most universally powerful action to keep from seeing them. Makes no sense to me, except I guess there are some people who get a kick out of pretending they have the agency to decide what the rest of us talk about.

So...there it is...on your mouse *points to the scroll button* A couple of flicks of your finger and all the "silly" is gone. Like Magic.

As well as everybody else, I was curious as to why. What the reasonings are. Heck, I even posted in here a few pages back. The arguments haven't changed in a week. It's still Internet lawyers talking "for" Lucus, Disney, and Freedom of PDFs, and the nerve of them to not have one/prosecute torrents.

I bought the book, I'm the target audience. This, exact same thread, didn't do anything in the EtoE beta forums, as FFG did the exact same things with AoR beta.

Nay saying isn't helping make a better product, nor is complaining about costs and having to buy in. I understand needing to express why, and everyone should get that op. But that's not what this thread is any longer.

On a completely unrelated note:

Please stop using the acronym FF for Fantasy Flight Games...

Every time I read your posts I read it as Final Fantasy, and I hate Final Fantasy stuff.

Back to your regularly scheduled arguments...

Thanks!

Wrong.

You don't need to purchase the book. You can find a buddy who did, and play in their game.

There's no control number on the book, no magic password bound in.

There's no check to even see if you have access to the book (tho' it may become obvious in some discussions).

On a completely unrelated note:

Please stop using the acronym FF for Fantasy Flight Games...

Every time I read your posts I read it as Final Fantasy, and I hate Final Fantasy stuff.

Back to your regularly scheduled arguments...

Thanks!

I see Fantastic Four every time I see it but it won't stop me from shortening the name to FF.

On a completely unrelated note:

Please stop using the acronym FF for Fantasy Flight Games...

Every time I read your posts I read it as Final Fantasy, and I hate Final Fantasy stuff.

Back to your regularly scheduled arguments...

Thanks!

I see Fantastic Four every time I see it but it won't stop me from shortening the name to FF.

I think French Fries, myself. It must be lunchtime...

I thought about buying the Age of Rebellion Beta. However, my gaming group currently meets monthly, is not composed of Star Wars Geeks, and doesn't fully exploit the EotE rules. So no big hurry for me to get the new rules. I decided to wait for the final version.

On a completely unrelated note:

Please stop using the acronym FF for Fantasy Flight Games...

Every time I read your posts I read it as Final Fantasy, and I hate Final Fantasy stuff.

Back to your regularly scheduled arguments...

Thanks!

I see Fantastic Four every time I see it but it won't stop me from shortening the name to FF.

I thought about buying the Age of Rebellion Beta. However, my gaming group currently meets monthly, is not composed of Star Wars Geeks, and doesn't fully exploit the EotE rules. So no big hurry for me to get the new rules. I decided to wait for the final version.

I'll note that it made my 10yo decide it was time to start RPGing with the adults...

The reason I don't buy the playtests is because I'm basically buying the Core rules three times. The first time I buy it is EotE core rulebook. Then I'll be turning around to pay full price for the full official release of Age of Rebellion, which is almost entirely the same rules with maybe a few twists, some new stat blocks, some new fluff, and then a handful of new character options that are almost like a splat book, except they are being encapsulated into a full core rulebook instead of a splatbook. I don't need the 50 pages prior to the character section about dice mechanics again, but I'm paying for them. I don't need the combat chapter and vehicle combat section of the vehicles chapter again, but I'm paying for them.

The big twist this time is Duty, and from the sounds of it via interviews with devs, possibly some new vehicle mechanics for massive starships that, let's face it, most players have never used tactically in an actual SW RPG session ever. Generally the sequence is: players are flying on their space transport, a big ship shows up, run away from/run past it. I don't know of many games where the GM squares off with the players in a massive capital ship battle. I'm sure they are out there, but it definitely doesn't appeal to my group to run capital ships, so it's a completely needless system for us. The vehicle stats are handy to convey the magnitude of how powerful a big ship is and why you wouldn't want to take it on, but that's about it. They are rarely practical, in my experience.

I realize the repurchasing of Core rules is not much of a complaint since I eventually am committed to getting these things and I somewhat like the system in general. I'm just irked that I'm double and triple paying for essentially the same core mechanics. I also have zero chance of convincing people in my group to buy all three of the books either. In OCR, RCR, and Saga, everyone in my group bought a core rulebook. Here, at this point, no one in my group is planning to buy any of the Core rulebooks because of how FFG has explained the releases, even if there are differences in prices. My group is pretty much all content to let me buy them since I'm the GM. SInce the system is mostly asbstract, they generally don't need the specialization charts for character development and we can handle it quickly before and after a session. At least in my case, and I'm sure there are others like it, FFG is getting my money, but not a dime from my group and that's very different than old systems and really, that should be a concern for them.

How big is your group? Surely its easier to share multiple rulebooks then simply expecting the GM to buy everything.

At least tell your players that if they want new character options, like the Explorer supplement or AoR classes then they have to buy the books themselves.

Expecting a single person to buy everything is actually pretty insulting as GM, you are already devoting time to running the session.

Yes. Rules are repeated. But owning even one of the core rulebooks lets a player read it at home at their own pace and easily plan character progression.

The big twist this time is Duty, and from the sounds of it via interviews with devs, possibly some new vehicle mechanics for massive starships that, let's face it, most players have never used tactically in an actual SW RPG session ever. Generally the sequence is: players are flying on their space transport, a big ship shows up, run away from/run past it. I don't know of many games where the GM squares off with the players in a massive capital ship battle. I'm sure they are out there, but it definitely doesn't appeal to my group to run capital ships, so it's a completely needless system for us. The vehicle stats are handy to convey the magnitude of how powerful a big ship is and why you wouldn't want to take it on, but that's about it. They are rarely practical, in my experience.

I'm one who has used big ships in WEG repeatedly - like, most every campaign I've run of WEG SW - because the scaling rules from WEG made it rather easy to cope with them.

And I'm realizing there's one thing missing in AoR - What the default Gunnery Pool should be for various "big ship crew qualities" - as in, a green crew is likely 3 green, and an elite is probably 3 yellow and a green.

The big twist this time is Duty, and from the sounds of it via interviews with devs, possibly some new vehicle mechanics for massive starships that, let's face it, most players have never used tactically in an actual SW RPG session ever. Generally the sequence is: players are flying on their space transport, a big ship shows up, run away from/run past it. I don't know of many games where the GM squares off with the players in a massive capital ship battle. I'm sure they are out there, but it definitely doesn't appeal to my group to run capital ships, so it's a completely needless system for us. The vehicle stats are handy to convey the magnitude of how powerful a big ship is and why you wouldn't want to take it on, but that's about it. They are rarely practical, in my experience.

I'm one who has used big ships in WEG repeatedly - like, most every campaign I've run of WEG SW - because the scaling rules from WEG made it rather easy to cope with them.

And I'm realizing there's one thing missing in AoR - What the default Gunnery Pool should be for various "big ship crew qualities" - as in, a green crew is likely 3 green, and an elite is probably 3 yellow and a green.

I've used Agility 2 for the capital ships in my games along with Minion rules for batteries, typically in groups of 5 and the gunners always use their Maneuver to Aim. This gives these batteries 2 yellow, 2 green, and 1 blue as a base dice pool for a battery of 5 weapons.