I loved low-level play in 4e. It was fun, and tactical, and reminded me of Saga Edition. In mid- to high-level play, it didn't match up to Saga in the least and I can understand why people got fed up with it. But then I tend to like quick combats, so if that's not what you're looking for then 4e is probably still a great game! Also Saga Edition for Star Wars play.

And fjw70 said it, you can be creative with any game system.

4th edition was mentioned and I just want to throw a rock at that window and say that without question, it is the worst system I have ever played. It represents everything that is wrong with where role-playing was briefly going and I'm so glad to see Wizards of the Coasts recognizes what a huge mistake it was.

Have you seen the Iron Kingdoms RPG (Privateer Press, 2012)? I love the setting, but the rules are very clearly a minis war game with a thin coating of RPG applied.

You really don't need very much "RP" support for a roleplaying game.

I loved low-level play in 4e. It was fun, and tactical, and reminded me of Saga Edition. In mid- to high-level play, it didn't match up to Saga in the least and I can understand why people got fed up with it. But then I tend to like quick combats, so if that's not what you're looking for then 4e is probably still a great game! Also Saga Edition for Star Wars play.

And fjw70 said it, you can be creative with any game system.

I agree with the low-level play, but I have never enjoyed high level play in any RPG.

4th edition was mentioned and I just want to throw a rock at that window and say that without question, it is the worst system I have ever played. It represents everything that is wrong with where role-playing was briefly going and I'm so glad to see Wizards of the Coasts recognizes what a huge mistake it was.

Have you seen the Iron Kingdoms RPG (Privateer Press, 2012)? I love the setting, but the rules are very clearly a minis war game with a thin coating of RPG applied.

You really don't need very much "RP" support for a roleplaying game.

How about some non-combat spells and such? I was disappointed that the VAST majority of perks that characters can get in IKRPG are only useful for combat. That's the kind of support that it could use. That, and a list of costs for goods and services that made any sense.

4th edition was mentioned and I just want to throw a rock at that window and say that without question, it is the worst system I have ever played. It represents everything that is wrong with where role-playing was briefly going and I'm so glad to see Wizards of the Coasts recognizes what a huge mistake it was.

Have you seen the Iron Kingdoms RPG (Privateer Press, 2012)? I love the setting, but the rules are very clearly a minis war game with a thin coating of RPG applied.

You really don't need very much "RP" support for a roleplaying game.

How about some non-combat spells and such? I was disappointed that the VAST majority of perks that characters can get in IKRPG are only useful for combat. That's the kind of support that it could use. That, and a list of costs for goods and services that made any sense.

It is definitely a combat heavy RPG, but different RPG emphasize different things.

I think that RIFT was a great game, but really World of Warcraft is the king of video games.

Just seeing how far we can stretch this off topic before people get angry.

-The ranges and speeds in the game are tough to deal with. It's such a common complaint that an alternate ruleset for it would have been nice. You know what, just overhaul space combat completely. Use a map, except allow players and the GM to narratively fill in the map as they play (like the player will make a bad turn and accidentally hit an asteroid that wasn't previously on the map).

As far as ranges are concerned I find them quite easy; Engaged means that you are close enough to touch pretty much, Close is up to several meters between targets, Medium is up to several dozen meters, Long range is several hundred meters, and extreme range is around the thousand meter bracket. For the purposes of running the game it does come down to how many maneuvers it will take for a person to move from one range band to the next.

As to vehicle/space range bands; close is up to several KM between targets, Short is up to several dozen KM's away, Medium is approx fifty KM's, Long is between one and two hundred KM's, and Extreme is at the far edge of the vehicles scanners, so far that both sides can break off and escape if neccesary.

I do agree that speeds are not very well explained and appears to be described most fully in the Fly/Drive Maneuver on page 232 of the core rules. The speed a ship or vehicle is capable of is its maximum and determines how many Maneuvers it must use to move between range bands. This means that a ship or vehicle with speed 2 is functionally identical to a ship or vehicle with speed 4 except when using the chase rules described on page 241.

he chase rules state that each pilot rolls a simple pilot check (modified by any terrain penalties) and the one which wins moves either 1 range band closer if they are the pursuer or further is they are the pursued. If they are travelling faster then they move an amount of range bands equal to the speed difference.

So a ship of speed 4 being chased by a ship of speed 2 would gain two range bands if they won the pilot check, where their pursuer would only gain one if they won.

Hope this has made them a little more straight forward.

E

Also my interest in the game could increase when all three core books are out. The EotE theme is the least interesting to me.

I enjoy the system, but picked up the Numenera core book on a whim. That's grabbed me for now, as starting a completely new game that I've never played in is always neat for me. And it's not diceless, but you can get there pretty easily.

Still, well definitely pick up AoR when it comes out. I know I'll do more with it and EotE. It doesn't help me that my wife hasn't done much for the EotE character I made.

Yeah, I was in the Numenera Kickstarter and really want to get a few games under my belt to see how it plays

Now that it has been out a little while are you still as excited as you initially were? More so? Less so?

More so. I wish I could play more often. D&D will never appeal to me again. I do like a fantasy setting, but I'd rather use these mechanics. And before anyone mentions, yes I own a copy of WFRP3, but the mechanics are too convoluted compared to EotE, and I don't like the setting.

I was in love with this system (more or less) when it was WFRP3 and since then I have created a Fantasy skin of EotE that is working wonderfully. My fantasy group hasn't said a word about missing parts of D&D and my Star Wars group is skipping our annual Halloween Call of Cthulhu game to play more EotE (hopefully with a spooky twist).

From time to time, we discuss fantasy mods of this system over at the d20 radio forums.

You wouldn't care to share your fantasy skin would you? My friend is still running his fantasy campaign, and over the last 10 years it's morphed from C&S2 to D&D4 and was about to be nWoD+Mirrors, but now it's tangled mess of Basic Roleplaying (the heart of Call of Cthulhu and others) and some tweaks to make it less ridiculous. And all through this we still have the same characters... He really likes the idea of switching to EotE mechanics...

Now that it has been out a little while are you still as excited as you initially were? More so? Less so?

More so. I wish I could play more often. D&D will never appeal to me again. I do like a fantasy setting, but I'd rather use these mechanics. And before anyone mentions, yes I own a copy of WFRP3, but the mechanics are too convoluted compared to EotE, and I don't like the setting.

EOTE is getting better with age.

Now that the players are getting more time in with narrating the story and especially combat (as opposed to tactical pawn based combat) things are flowing substantially better and faster.

D&D feels so clunky compared to EOTE now.

I really hope that they take EOTE and branch it out to other settings.

+1 Icebear

I have read good things about Numenera. Seems like its a really interesting setting and has a pretty good system for play.

The EotE system is such a great narrative RPG, very old school in that respect with a refreshing dice mechanic that just speaks to me like no other rpg before.

I found 4e to be a really good board game, but a poor RPG.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I've been DMing a 4e game for over a year now with my old high school group reconstituted after 25 years. This past Friday we were down in numbers, so three of us gave the EoTE beginner game a shot and they loved it. Fast, great narrative play... And these guys are great role players. I like 4e for character development and level playing field for all character classes, but I do find the tactical grid bogs down. Where I could do 2-3 encounters per 4-5 hr session with 4e, we played through all of the beginner game in 3 hours. Wow. It flowed amazingly well, AND role playing came very naturally as the story unfolded.

While I am committed to continue playing the adventures from 4e at minimum until the end of the current adventure, and likely into another, I'm going to house rule some EotE elements in. For example, PC initiative slots... Easy add. Adds more interest, and has everyone participating in the combat, rather than fiddling while waiting for their turn. I'm also thinking of having them roll some of the Star Wars dice as part of it to create advantage/disadvantage to make combats and skill checks more interesting.

Maybe it will speed stuff up, and maybe they'll want to switch over entirely.

The no non-combat spells things seems to be a design choice they made. They want skills to be the non-combat resolution system.

It is definitely a combat heavy RPG, but different RPG emphasize different things.

Sorry, this is vastly off topic but when Iron Kingdoms is brought up, I have no choice but to butt in.

For me, the issue with IKRPG isn't so much that it's combat focused. You don't really need a lot of rules for RPing. The main issue with the IKRPG, to me, is that a number of rules have been imported directly from the wargame without any thought as to whether a given rule make any dang sense from a RPing perspective.

There is, occasionally, very little effort put into explaining how things work, leaving you forced to do a lot of hand-waving. I mean, how does the Trencher 'dig in' ability actually work? You spend a quick action to get cover, without going prone. So... did you just dig a three foot hole in half a second? On a concrete floor? Or a bridge? Or how does "cannot be targeted by spells" actually work? Mind control? How does an Arcanist know that he cannot decide to target a guy? There's a lot of little things like that. The IKRPG would have benefited enormously if they had included one Dev who wasn't familiar with the wargame.

That said, I still somehow love the game to death.

To bring this back on track, I am still quite excited for EotE. I played it in bunch of beta and finally got around to buying the real book and pick up where we left off (so we don't play that frequently around here ). Looking forward to it!

I fully enjoyed the WEG d6 version, haven't played sci-fi since, and had serious doubts and concerns about EoE.

While I still have lots of questions, and cherry-pick the rules, we're enjoying this game more than anything I've played in years.

It hits the right 'tone' for us - a more grown-up take on the SW universe without losing what makes SW so special.

Also, it has more emphasis on the narrative and non-combat play, but isn't a total Cowboys-and-Indians handwave like I found '13th Age to be'. When you get used to the dice, it seems to encourage role-playing the way 4E discouraged it.

I found 4e to be a really good board game, but a poor RPG.

Absolutely. Had it been marketed as the 'D&D Adventure Board Game' we would have loved it as an after-session relaxation game.

Put another way - I absolutely love Arkham Horror, but I don't want it to replace our 'Call of Chthlhu' games.

-

For a more gritty and fun take on fantasy role-play, I can recommend "Dungeon Crawl Classics". Spellcasters roll dice to cast spells, the critical table is nasty, every class (elf and dwarf are classes like basic D&D) get some cool ability/rules tweak. It's made by a bunch of guys that read Gary Gygax's Appendix N from AD&D and decided to make a game that gelled with those works of fiction. So magic is a very powerful corrupting thing, warriors can perform mighty deeds and peoples heads get chopped off. My group enjoyed the "Warhammer 2e meets D&D Red box" style of the rules.

I too was in the Kickstarter for Numenera, but am in a foregin country so haven't received my books just yet. My gruop playtested it for 4 months. One player loved it, one hated it, and the other two were "meh". I've gone over the pdfs and there really doesn't seem to be any difference to the playtest version and I'm a little concerned that it was all a little bit rushed.

I think any hyperbole (This is the greatest game in the universe) is unnecessary. EotE is very interesting to me and my group because there is still innovation in our 30 year long hobby. We're not huge star wars geeks (okay, one of us is), but we love roleplaying and telling complicated twisty action adventures with intrigue and humour. As so much is open to interpretation with the dice mechanic, there is no requirement for grids, miniatures and tactical movement - this system suits us and how we play down to the ground.

I remember when I was 10 I first saw the red box with the leering dragon on the cover. It made me stop to look what the kid had, but it wasn't until I saw the dice I immediately sat down and asked what they were and how to use them. EotE has rekindled that a little for me... a fascination with "new" dice.

I found 4e to be a really good board game, but a poor RPG.

Absolutely. Had it been marketed as the 'D&D Adventure Board Game' we would have loved it as an after-session relaxation game.

Put another way - I absolutely love Arkham Horror, but I don't want it to replace our 'Call of Chthlhu' games.

I do understand that sentiment, but we still managed to make it feel like D&D and a roleplaying game. The core books didn't get into much roleplaying as it seemed like it was just crunch so it read like a boardgame, but since we came from a roleplaying background my group and I injected roleplaying (we avoided just saying I use power x but described how we were using power X, for example). I also think they had some books that came later that discussed roleplaying better, but yeah, I get how people can call it a board game - the Wrath of Ashaladon and Ravenloft board games are pretty much the 4E rules without the pretense of roleplaying.

I do understand that sentiment, but we still managed to make it feel like D&D and a roleplaying game.

Oh it's possible to do it that way... We played 4E and Essentials and enjoyed it, after all.

If your group is inclined to role-playing, you will find a way to do all the character stuff regardless.

But we found 4E didn't encourage it at all, and in fact frequently discouraged it (with the emphasis on combat and powers, with absolutely no out-of-combat abilities, and with scenarios that were nothing but endless combat encounters).

You can role-play, or not, with any system, but games can actively encourage it or discourage it. Having decent adventures that contain non-combat situations and fun NPCs is a good start.

EoE is one of the games that actively encourages it, I think. The narrative dice, the Obligation mechanic, the lack of tactical combat things like minis and maps...

I also liked 4e, and have been playing and DM'ing since 70's. It was mostly a tactical game, a good one, but we got some good RP out of it too. 4e's main problem for me was battle length, prep time, and the lack of a good way to use spells and powers in non-combat.

13th Age pretty much solves all these problems, but keeps the good/fun elements of 4e. I recommend it to any 4e fans.

And as for the topic, I'm loving EotE! We had a blast playing our first session, and everyone fell in love with the dice. In the end, I'm going to run a EotE and a 13th Age game alternating weeks.