As a disclaimer, while I own EotE I have only played a couple sessions of it. I really enjoyed the game mechanics and I like the Star Wars Universe a lot. Not the Expanded Universe, simply because I have only read one SW novel (Splinter in the Mind’s Eye) and my Star Wars knowledge is limited to the movies and the Clone Wars animated series.
The biggest reason for my not really getting into EotE is, and please do not take this too bad or as a personal jab, EotE boils down to just another steal/loot their stuff game. I have been playing RPG’s for many many years and the ‘outlaw, lone-gun, anti-hero, their, lone assassin, etc” motif has really gotten LONG in the tooth.
Which is why I was really stoked to hear about AoR centering around the active (ie military) side of the rebellion with Duty rather than personal profit being the plot driver. (Another disclaimer, I do not have AoR Beta). A game that shifts player focus from personal profit to a non-personal objective takes me back to my old days of gaming.
All that said, the only real information about AoR seems to be centered around the small stuff, just tweaking character occupations and skills. The addition of the Duty mechanic is the biggest thing to date. In EotE out of 438 pages, only 145 where aimed at the character generation and abilities. 290 odd pages were concerned with the world, from equipment and weapons, to starships, to the physical galaxy, to law and order, to GMing the game. And very well done in my opinion because a person like me who has very limited Star Wars knowledge can easily build a scenario or campaign. A game built around being a criminal true, but a good game none the less.
But here comes Age of Rebellion! To showcase the trial and tribulations of the Rebel Infantryman in fighting to free his planet, the Stormtrooper fighting to preserve the order of the Galaxy and the Empire, the Starship Captain as he holds back the Imperial onslaught or the lowly fighter pilot engaging the enemy to protect his ship. This kind of game is a lot different from the standard loot it game (D&D, Shadowrun, Pathfinder, EotE, etc ) where, for whatever the PC’s twist on motivation happens to be, the overall game relies on PC profit. The addition of Duty stands out as proof that FFG realizes the difference.
What, in the AoR Corebook will there be to assist a new GM in the establishing the critical world sense needed for this kind of game and at the same time wean players from trying to build the bounty hunter/assassin/thief/rogue that just happens to be wearing a uniform.
In the past, the military campaign games I have run ran into two issues.
1) Missions need to be important in the “big picture” and that “big picture” must keep evolving so the PC’s can use it for a motivation driver. The PC’s operations may be small scale, but the large scale engagements, defeats and victories, set the backdrop for those actions, and that backdrop needs to continue to progress.
(And before anyone says it, yes many experience GM’s can just adlib it. But then an experienced GM doesn’t really need rules or a game at all when you come right down to it. But AoR is a game, and to be successful it needs to meet the needs of the new GM that just discovered table top RPG’s even exist.)
2) In a successful military game the PC’s will advance in rank and influence. How will AoR handle game-mechanics’wise the use of PC’s abilities and skills when they are actually in command of large units and/or fleets? Several people have pointed out that AoR is NOT a wargame and should NOT have rules to fight out major battle on the table top with dozens of figures and units. Which I totally agree with. But there should be some kind of system built into AoR to handle this. Maybe a narrative system with a PC’s skills being used for big picture skill rolls that can influence the battle. We have Charts to spend Advantages and Triumphs as well as Threat and Despair in personal combat, We have Critical Charts for characters and vehicles. Might there be a way to make spends to affect the overall battle and critical effects for the overall battle? As with the individual encounters it will always fall to the GM to weave the die results into the narrative with a very healthy dose of player assistance. But just like the Vehicle and Character results charts are different, a spend chart for personal event will be different from greater event results.
Thoughts?