I'm not sure I understand how one trains to be part of a culture. You either are or you aren't; you can be born into it or become assimilated as a natural course of life. Specializations are meant as things you're trained for, things you have to go to school for, not the intricacies of being part of a culture. You can't purchase that.

If a player wants to be Correllian, then she can choose the Correllian sub-division¹ of Humans -- she doesn't need to have been born on Correllia, just lived most of her life there. Similarly, if someone wants to be born on Correllia but not have the cultural background, he can just use the basic Human template and say he moved away when he was young, or else spent more of his life elsewhere.

¹ I was going to call it a "sub-race," but that didn't sound right.

I thought they were space weasels and space otters?

Well, the Drall are hamsters/gerbils/guinea pigs, while the Selonians are otters/weasels/ferrets. I just like to sum the two up as your every day space rodents.

I'm not sure I understand how one trains to be part of a culture. You either are or you aren't; you can be born into it or become assimilated as a natural course of life. Specializations are meant as things you're trained for, things you have to go to school for, not the intricacies of being part of a culture. You can't purchase that.

If a player wants to be Correllian, then she can choose the Correllian sub-division¹ of Humans -- she doesn't need to have been born on Correllia, just lived most of her life there. Similarly, if someone wants to be born on Correllia but not have the cultural background, he can just use the basic Human template and say he moved away when he was young, or else spent more of his life elsewhere.

¹ I was going to call it a "sub-race," but that didn't sound right.

You train into a culture by spending time and effort learning it's customs. How else do you think immigrants and those interested in an outside culture do it? Think of all of the "Otaku" out there who live in the US. You don't have to go to a school to learn something, although it often improves the time/learning ratio.

In a game system, that time and effort to be assimilated into a culture should be represented by an expenditure of points if it gives the character any sort of advantage. If not, and its simply flavor, then let people have fun with the culture.

You are right to avoid the term sub-race, and that is one of my major complaints with the concept. Unless there is a physiological reason for differences (such as altered gravity or some such), races should have the same stats and abilities. Otherwise you simply open the door to racism and bigotry.

You train into a culture by spending time and effort learning it's customs. How else do you think immigrants and those interested in an outside culture do it? Think of all of the "Otaku" out there who live in the US. You don't have to go to a school to learn something, although it often improves the time/learning ratio.

In a game system, that time and effort to be assimilated into a culture should be represented by an expenditure of points if it gives the character any sort of advantage. If not, and its simply flavor, then let people have fun with the culture.

You are right to avoid the term sub-race, and that is one of my major complaints with the concept. Unless there is a physiological reason for differences (such as altered gravity or some such), races should have the same stats and abilities. Otherwise you simply open the door to racism and bigotry.

For me, it's all flavor. Like I said, aside from perhaps changing the Special Ability to something more Correllia-focused (a free rank in Cool, for example), my guess is the Correllians will just be baseline humans. 2 for every attribute, same Wound Threshold, Strain Threshold, and starting XP.

Besides, making it a Specialization would require a Skill Tree, and what would that look like? I think that would open it up to more bigotry than before. (Though, admittedly, bigotry is certainly a thing in-universe.)

You train into a culture by spending time and effort learning it's customs. How else do you think immigrants and those interested in an outside culture do it? Think of all of the "Otaku" out there who live in the US. You don't have to go to a school to learn something, although it often improves the time/learning ratio.

In a game system, that time and effort to be assimilated into a culture should be represented by an expenditure of points if it gives the character any sort of advantage. If not, and its simply flavor, then let people have fun with the culture.

You are right to avoid the term sub-race, and that is one of my major complaints with the concept. Unless there is a physiological reason for differences (such as altered gravity or some such), races should have the same stats and abilities. Otherwise you simply open the door to racism and bigotry.

For me, it's all flavor. Like I said, aside from perhaps changing the Special Ability to something more Correllia-focused (a free rank in Cool, for example), my guess is the Correllians will just be baseline humans. 2 for every attribute, same Wound Threshold, Strain Threshold, and starting XP.

Besides, making it a Specialization would require a Skill Tree, and what would that look like? I think that would open it up to more bigotry than before. (Though, admittedly, bigotry is certainly a thing in-universe.)

I think it should look something like the Rebel Training. Give a few paths to stereotypical Corellian pursuits such as flying and such and allow the players more flexibility in playing the race the way they want to. This whole idea was in response to the idea of having specs based upon race/career earlier in the thread. Frankly, I would prefer to have all humans use the human race stat block and everything else be flavor or purchased skills/talents.

I am less worried about in-universe bigotry, in fact I actually approve of it in-game as roleplaying. I worry about the message it sends the readers. I don't know why I have this dichotomy but I do. Maybe its all of the racism I have observed in others over the years who really just should have known better. I just feel it is poor game design. Just my opinion, and obviously one not shared by everybody... including FFG.

Still can't wait for the book.

I'd like to have at least a small amount of information on the Imperial and Rebel forces in the sector. Particularly the Escort Forces, since those are the more likely to appear in an Edge of the Empire campaign.