Well for one there is no reason to assume it will in fact be decompressed. The books might be very comprehensive.

And "especially when mechanics and power creep render the earlier career books less useful then the later ones" seems pushing it a bit as well.

By decompressed I mean the 6 career books would be spaced out over a long period of time, not necessarily the material in them would be less dense. Longer periods of time mean more things can happen that disrupt the process - including things outside the company's control.

And creep/change is just a thing that happens in game lines - it isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean books made before the new thing (be it a piece of gear, or a talent or just a rules interpretation change - like the one about weapon qualities requiring a successful (damaging) hit before activating, for example) are less useful/desireable than books made after the new thing. Another reason I prefer shorter, more planned out game lines.

I've just seen games really hit rough patches or crumble altogether when books are spaced too far apart or are too specialized. In particular I'm thinking of the problems White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast, Margaret Weiss Productions, and Eden Studios had - the latter three in particular with licensed properties.

It sounds like I am being negative, but I just don't want to risk bad things happening to a game I am really enjoying. My ideal - each line (Edge, Age and Destiny) gets 4-5 line-focused books and then they are done and if there is a second wave it's either a cleaned up edition change or it's entirely optional all-in-one stuff for all three lines (era books, gear stuff, etc).

I like the direction of the supplement books so far for EotE. What I would like to see for AoR is a slightly different direction. Rather than books focusing on careers, I would like books focusing on factions. A book for the Rebels and a book for Imperials. New specs could be introduced in them alomg with other aspects, like equipment and ships, or information to help run an Imperial game. They don't have to follow the same formula with each core book.

I've just seen games really hit rough patches or crumble altogether when books are spaced too far apart or are too specialized. In particular I'm thinking of the problems White Wolf , Wizards of the Coast, Margaret Weiss Productions, and Eden Studios had - the latter three in particular with licensed properties.

World of Darkness is not a game that leaps to mind when I hear the word power creep. What White Wolf game are you thinking about in this regard?

Now Rifts and the other Palladium games with MDC... now those weren't power creep, those were power sprints.

Many of us also want the Bounty Hunter and Smuggler splatbooks. But are we quivering with anticipation for the Colonist and Technician splatbooks?

He'll yes!

By contrast I would have little interest in an Explorer or Hired Gun sourcebook. I'll be buying them all for my table, but colonist, technician and smuggler are the three that really excite me.

I do think that these would have been best served by combining two or three careers into fewer books, but I'm OK with what they're putting out too.

I'd agree, fewer, but larger books would be cool, takes up less space but this current route is good to me. Let's just hope the quality is consistent and not too varied.

Me:

I've just seen games really hit rough patches or crumble altogether when books are spaced too far apart or are too specialized. In particular I'm thinking of the problems White Wolf , Wizards of the Coast, Margaret Weiss Productions, and Eden Studios had - the latter three in particular with licensed properties.

So far I'm happy with what we've got. The only bit I'm not so keen on is a variant human species block in the Corellia book but in terms of type of books that's not a relevant complaint. So I'm still an interested buyer FFG - keep up the good work!

I'd rather see doubles, myself. Both for the shorter completion time, and for the easier to carry aspect.

I'd rather see doubles, myself. Both for the shorter completion time, and for the easier to carry aspect.

I am going to hold off on judgement until I see the finished explorer book. There are plenty of additional rules, equipment, ideas, and fluff that could fill a book just about explorers and exploring. If they give the Dangerous Covenants optional rules and ideas about combat, and the tech book a crafting, and the colonists a book on creating and maintaining colonies, and smugglers ship rules I think it will be just fine.

I am going to hold off on judgement until I see the finished explorer book.

Finally a sensible reply... Instead of literally judging books by their cover.

I am going to buy every single Book that FFG releases for their Star Wars games... however, I will not buy the Specialization Decks unless they are on a serious clearance.

I've just seen games really hit rough patches or crumble altogether when books are spaced too far apart or are too specialized. In particular I'm thinking of the problems White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast, Margaret Weiss Productions, and Eden Studios had - the latter three in particular with licensed properties.

I can agree with this, especially in MWP case with the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game... they had the entire series of books for their second event already written and nearly ready to go but they had so much trouble getting their books to print (and I mean all of them going back two to three years) that they were their own doom with the delays. I had never seen a company have so much difficulty getting books out in print that that probably cost them the Marvel license. Instead of having the books out in a timely manner all their books were getting out in print by about a year late, and in some cases a couple years late (and one of their books never got to see print at all).

If it wasn't for the fact that they make killer games I'd write them off completely... but I have Firefly sitting on my shelf (the GenCon release edition) and its a fantastic game.

As for the topic on hand...

I'd love to see Career books combined based on theme... I don't see why we need a separate book for each, but if they are going one for each than I bet that the fluff in these books will be worth it.

As long as they focus one of these books on Criminal Syndicates and Guilds (and Mercenary Companies) I'll be happy and another book on Military Operations and a book on Planets (and a Planetary System Generation supplement so we can create our own planets and stuff) and a book someday on distinct Force Traditions that are not Jedi/Sith and different ways of treating the Force than those are the books I want to see.

As long as they focus one of these books on Criminal Syndicates and Guilds (and Mercenary Companies) I'll be happy and another book on Military Operations and a book on Planets (and a Planetary System Generation supplement so we can create our own planets and stuff) and a book someday on distinct Force Traditions that are not Jedi/Sith and different ways of treating the Force than those are the books I want to see.

Oooh, good one (the merc company/syndicate/guild idea) - that would be something really useful as most of those would not be galaxy spanning and would work great at the sector/subsector/system level (so wouldn't be stepping on toes of the Wookiepedia but still really immediately useful as clients/enemies/allies for campaigns) and the book of Force Traditions would be good (especially if it kept a firm hand on not everything being automatically allies of Jedi or Sith without falling into the trap of making the neutrals some sort of militant isolationists).

I will buy every career splat book, and I'm already planning on getting all 3 core books...as far as adventures, yep, I would like to see another announced ASAP, I will buy as many as FFG can churn out. Region books...yes. We need a book on Hutt Space, and I'd love to see some books that go into depth on the prominent organizations, Rebel Alliance, Galactic Empire/Core Worlds, Black Sun Syndicate, Corporate Sector...I'm sure others can chime in with equally suitable requests. As far as a 'races' book, a 'ships/vehicles' or 'weapons/equipment' book. I don't see these coming until all of the career and region splat books have been released...and then they will be compilations. The races, ships and specialized equipment are what help sell the splat books after all.

I can agree with this, especially in MWP case with the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game... they had the entire series of books for their second event already written and nearly ready to go but they had so much trouble getting their books to print (and I mean all of them going back two to three years) that they were their own doom with the delays. I had never seen a company have so much difficulty getting books out in print that that probably cost them the Marvel license. Instead of having the books out in a timely manner all their books were getting out in print by about a year late, and in some cases a couple years late (and one of their books never got to see print at all).

I honestly don't even think they had the licence (for public knowledge at least) for a couple years, so to say that products were a couple years late is a bit exaggerated. I agree that there was not enough product released for the game, but I heard it was a really good system. And to say "all their books" is a stretch, since they only published 2 books (not counting the difference in the basic and deluxe Civil War books) with one book cancelled before release.

Regarding MWP and the Marvel Heroic RPG, a lot of the fault really lays with Marvel itself in the way that the license was structured (could only sell in a limited market to begin with) and the approvals process. For most licensed products, it tends to be the approval process that kills things.

Lucasfilm is perhaps an oddity in that they've got the approval process almost down to a science, with turn-around time being pretty quick. The d20 Star Wars product line probably never had a lot of books during any of their production runs simply because it was a secondary product line for WotC (with D&D being their top cash cow in terms of RPGs) and so didn't have a lot of resources available to produce new books to start with.

Green Ronin had a solid and sensible approach when doing the DC Heroes product line for the 3rd edition of their Mutants & Masterminds line. Instead of a potentially limitless number of sourcebooks, they settled on only doing 4 books (core rules, 2 NPC splats, and a setting book). During their M&M panel at GenCon, I asked about the possibility of them doing something similar for the Marvel 'verse, and the response I got boiled down to "some companies are really good to work with for licensed products, some aren't. Marvel falls into the second category." DC on the other hand was a good deal more accommodating, even going so far as to open up their art archives to Green Ronin when it came to selecting images for the four books. But at the same time, Green Ronin has been hit with the other side of the stick as relates to BioWare/EA and the Dragon Age license, as they've been trying to get the 3rd and final box set released for a couple years, and one of the big drags has been the approval process, mostly as they've been left hanging by the license holders for lengthy periods of time with no response.

I can agree with this, especially in MWP case with the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game... they had the entire series of books for their second event already written and nearly ready to go but they had so much trouble getting their books to print (and I mean all of them going back two to three years) that they were their own doom with the delays. I had never seen a company have so much difficulty getting books out in print that that probably cost them the Marvel license. Instead of having the books out in a timely manner all their books were getting out in print by about a year late, and in some cases a couple years late (and one of their books never got to see print at all).

I honestly don't even think they had the licence (for public knowledge at least) for a couple years, so to say that products were a couple years late is a bit exaggerated. I agree that there was not enough product released for the game, but I heard it was a really good system. And to say "all their books" is a stretch, since they only published 2 books (not counting the difference in the basic and deluxe Civil War books) with one book cancelled before release.

Try 5 products in PDF, 3 in dead tree, not counting the doubles

• Basic Rules
• Civil War
• 50-State Initiative
• Annihilation
• Young Avengers Runaways

The system is one of the best for genre emulation.

Regarding MWP and the Marvel Heroic RPG, a lot of the fault really lays with Marvel itself in the way that the license was structured (could only sell in a limited market to begin with) and the approvals process. For most licensed products, it tends to be the approval process that kills things.

Lucasfilm is perhaps an oddity in that they've got the approval process almost down to a science, with turn-around time being pretty quick. The d20 Star Wars product line probably never had a lot of books during any of their production runs simply because it was a secondary product line for WotC (with D&D being their top cash cow in terms of RPGs) and so didn't have a lot of resources available to produce new books to start with.

Green Ronin had a solid and sensible approach when doing the DC Heroes product line for the 3rd edition of their Mutants & Masterminds line. Instead of a potentially limitless number of sourcebooks, they settled on only doing 4 books (core rules, 2 NPC splats, and a setting book). During their M&M panel at GenCon, I asked about the possibility of them doing something similar for the Marvel 'verse, and the response I got boiled down to "some companies are really good to work with for licensed products, some aren't. Marvel falls into the second category." DC on the other hand was a good deal more accommodating, even going so far as to open up their art archives to Green Ronin when it came to selecting images for the four books. But at the same time, Green Ronin has been hit with the other side of the stick as relates to BioWare/EA and the Dragon Age license, as they've been trying to get the 3rd and final box set released for a couple years, and one of the big drags has been the approval process, mostly as they've been left hanging by the license holders for lengthy periods of time with no response.

Sooooooo true. In my line of work getting the releasable product in order is usually just a matter of writing it out getting the art and giving our layout and editing people a day to knock it out. Getting approval on the other hand is very hard, simply because the approvers have lots of other things on their plate and your project is by comparison not a priority.

I can agree with this, especially in MWP case with the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game... they had the entire series of books for their second event already written and nearly ready to go but they had so much trouble getting their books to print (and I mean all of them going back two to three years) that they were their own doom with the delays. I had never seen a company have so much difficulty getting books out in print that that probably cost them the Marvel license. Instead of having the books out in a timely manner all their books were getting out in print by about a year late, and in some cases a couple years late (and one of their books never got to see print at all).

I honestly don't even think they had the licence (for public knowledge at least) for a couple years, so to say that products were a couple years late is a bit exaggerated. I agree that there was not enough product released for the game, but I heard it was a really good system. And to say "all their books" is a stretch, since they only published 2 books (not counting the difference in the basic and deluxe Civil War books) with one book cancelled before release.

Try 5 products in PDF, 3 in dead tree, not counting the doubles

• Basic Rules
• Civil War
• 50-State Initiative
• Annihilation
• Young Avengers Runaways

The system is one of the best for genre emulation.

Shame that character creation was basically non-existent.

For Marvel, I much preferred the Marvel Universe RPG - diceless and made by a branch of Marvel itself (at least, it was to my understanding), it was incredibly fun to run with.

Shame that character creation was basically non-existent.

Well, part of the design intent for the game was that there really wasn't much in the way of character advancement at all (most of the time, XP gains would be spent to unlock Event-specific bonuses). After all, the core of who and what characters like Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man and the Fantastic Four doesn't really change; there might be some changes every once in a while, but things typically snap back to the status quo after a while.

I know MWP did offer a free PDF with character creation guidelines (mostly a lot of random chart rolls similar to the old FASERIP system), but frankly there really isn't much of a need for hard rules, since you could very easily just pick the dice ratings for your power sets and skills. The one place that really could have used some guidelines in terms of character building were designing your own milestones. I created my own version of Darkhawk (well before the Civil War books were published) and had a rough time of coming up with milestones that were both sensible for the character and sensible in terms of the XP gained, and the rest of our group had a similar issue with creating their own milestones for their characters.

Shame that character creation was basically non-existent.

No "point build" was included anywhere - but the guidelines for modeling a character coupled with the basic set datafiles is sufficient for a strong concept.

For Marvel, I much preferred the Marvel Universe RPG - diceless and made by a branch of Marvel itself (at least, it was to my understanding), it was incredibly fun to run with.

Perhaps I can move this back on-topic?

I would like to see a book dedicated to corruscant... A book that goes deeper into the planet and the different administration housing there. Of course this wouldn't fit in the Edge series, probably not even in the AoR but still I think it would/could make an awesome book.

Perhaps I can move this back on-topic?

I would like to see a book dedicated to corruscant... A book that goes deeper into the planet and the different administration housing there. Of course this wouldn't fit in the Edge series, probably not even in the AoR but still I think it would/could make an awesome book.

True! We have kind of gone off-kilter a tad... Apologies.

I'd like a Core World book too, like what WotC did for that sector of space. I found the material in there to be extremely useful in the past.

A Star Wars version of the Worlds largest dungeon?

Just kidding. Although it's not really a "rule book" I always love published adventures. More full length adventures would make my wallet cry but make me happy.