[smiles wistfully] Ah, online diplomacy...

well played, Ghost of ErikB, well played. I concede.

@Col. Orange Aggressive negotiations

If my group and I want to play Imperials, we'd just reskin the AoR book and use WEG and D20 books available to get the fluff. Would I buy a FFG Imperial Source book? I sure would.

I wouldn't expect to see an Imperial source book. AoR isn't even out yet. FFG has shown they are interested in career specific books, so let's for the sake of argument assume that means all 3 CRBs, which translates to 18? books. Then there will probably be a published adventure or two a year along with a regional sourcebook probably a year, maybe more. That would leave little time for an Imperial book before the next movies and I would presume if they keep the license the development afterwards will be primarily about the new movies. So, I don't expect it, of course I don't have a crystal ball either, but it seems like would be quite a ways off, if ever.

well played, Ghost of ErikB, well played. I concede.

Really dude? I was really civil and tried to show you where the misunderstanding we had might have occured. Apparently that failed as I have no idea why you would need to be so rude, again.

My answer would be that I personally don't find enough of a difference between what a stormtrooper (irrespective of specialty) does from a Soldier (or one with other specialization) to merit their own specialization, nor do I find enough of a difference between what a stormtrooper is to merit their own Career... ditto for Imperial Officers re: "regular" Commanders, Imperial fighter jockeys and "regular" Aces/Pilots, and so on.

Plus I'd keep in mind that if you create a career, you're looking to define not only the character's initial career skills but also which three specializations are considered career for them (and which you have to choose from for them to get for free at chargen), while for creating a specialization you have to consider not only the follow-on career skills but also -- and even more importantly -- what talents they get...

My hope is that, yes, we get an Imperial supplement. If they did do a core book, then you'd be waiting a long time. After the F&DCB for sure. And if it were as popular as some seem to think, and not a niche of a niche, then we most certainly would have heard by now. Rather than career books, as we are getting for EotE, I would rather see a Rebellion supplement and an Imperial one. Faction books expanding on each of them with additional specs, equipment, ships, adversaries, and more.

As popular as the Empire is, more people want information to enhance them as the bad guys they are, rather than for running Imperial games. So I think there is little chance of a Imperial core book. FFG doesn't mind you running such games, you'll just have to expand and adapt it from their books.

My answer would be that I personally don't find enough of a difference between what a stormtrooper (irrespective of specialty) does from a Soldier (or one with other specialization) to merit their own specialization, nor do I find enough of a difference between what a stormtrooper is to merit their own Career... ditto for Imperial Officers re: "regular" Commanders, Imperial fighter jockeys and "regular" Aces/Pilots, and so on.

Plus I'd keep in mind that if you create a career, you're looking to define not only the character's initial career skills but also which three specializations are considered career for them (and which you have to choose from for them to get for free at chargen), while for creating a specialization you have to consider not only the follow-on career skills but also -- and even more importantly -- what talents they get...

Stormtrooper could probably differ from Soldier about as much as Technician differs from Engineer.

Yeah, this conversation by now makes no sense at all...

Again, the OP was just a normal post from someone thinking about whether or not an imperial source book might be a possibility. We all know in the past these topics were hijacked by a crazy forum dude that started to rain hellfire on anyone asking about this but this time around that didn't happen. Great!

However, the other posts that usually follow are of the "who needs it!?"-persuasion which seems a bit odd if you ask me because who then needs anything? You could pretty much do without all the careerbooks, the different basic systems, etc. but that doesn't mean that people (like you yourself indicated you woud) wouldn't buy such a book if it were there.

No one in this topic complained about the possible book not being available, no one whined about it not being announced, actualy no one made a stink about it at all.

Of course you could rename one career into another if push came to shove. No one argues with that at all.

It is just not the kind of reply that adds to the conversation as I don't recall reading anyone wanting to get into an Imperial Campaign "right now", "next thursday" or (in my case) "ever".

Yeah, I'm a bit.. confused as well. I whole-heartedly agree with what you just wrote.

In light of there being two Core Rulebooks already that virtually achieve the same thing equally, the "Who needs it?!"-mentality doesn't make much sense to me. A Hired Gun is by that logic the same as a Soldier. A Spy is the same as a Smuggler.

And so on. Don't get me started on Technician vs. Engineer.

Playing with the idea of Imperial Careers wasn't my suggestion as to cover up the necessary parts that are missing - because much as you say, by that logic, nothing is missing(!) - but merely to showcase what such a Core Rulebook might contain.

You guys are adorable, but this conversation is pointless and is going nowhere productive. I'd suggest we simply put each other on ignore and move along. Good day, and good gaming.

Wha.. you put people on ignore for amicably discussing a topic and civilly pointing out the flaws in an argument (strawmen, etc)?

Your ignore list must be enormous.

I also question what kind of standards you require for a conversation to be "productive". The topic itself was never intended to be productive by itself, but merely a discussion regarding the topic in it's own right, starting with a very basic question before moving on to discussing the merits (or lack thereof) around said topic.

My answer would be that I personally don't find enough of a difference between what a stormtrooper (irrespective of specialty) does from a Soldier (or one with other specialization) to merit their own specialization, nor do I find enough of a difference between what a stormtrooper is to merit their own Career... ditto for Imperial Officers re: "regular" Commanders, Imperial fighter jockeys and "regular" Aces/Pilots, and so on.

Plus I'd keep in mind that if you create a career, you're looking to define not only the character's initial career skills but also which three specializations are considered career for them (and which you have to choose from for them to get for free at chargen), while for creating a specialization you have to consider not only the follow-on career skills but also -- and even more importantly -- what talents they get...

I can see the argument, I just don't consider it particularly relevant. Like I've said before, you could raise a similar argument pre-AoR, asking what will really differentiate a Spy from a Smuggler, A Hired Gun from a Soldier, or a Technician from an Engineer; especially if you bring "aside from skills" into the argument.

If one thing could put a Imperial Operative apart from Spies/Smugglers, and Stormtroopers apart from Rebel Soldier, it's Specializations, if anything. Even just pulling on pre-existing Specializations (since we know that some Careers already share Specializations), I could see an Operative having access to already existing Specializations that the Spy or Smuggler does not, such as Saboteur and Assassin - and that's even before thinking of actual new Specializations.

The Stormtrooper could equally be differentiated from the Rebel Soldier by Specializations pertaining to the myriad of different Stormtrooper specializations we already know to exist, over which there is no shortage whatsoever, because apparently the Imperial Military decided to look at the Clone Troopers through a kaleidoscope and go "Hmm, what if I take LSD with this?".

Starting, Jumptrooper, Snowtrooper and Commando might make good Specializations (or perhaps Shadow Stormtrooper, as a black-op soldier concept) . And, Careers being just as much defined what they don't get as much as by what they do, something the Stormtroopers definitely shouldn't be getting is the Sharpshooter Specialization. ( )

I have been asked by my DH group to additionaly GM an EotE group. I plan to let them start shortly after the end of the Clone Wars since there will be lots of now unemployed corsairs, military hardware and ships lying around, the Empire defining it's area of influence and therefore it's Edge.

A book that would give me a good overlook over the history of the Empire, best starting at the reconquest of the Rim until the Aera of Rebellion, the involved VIPs, hardware, vehicles and such would be a tremendous help and a very good read.

If it would include classes and specialisations as well i would be very happy since i could make profiles and stats for some NPCs, friends and villains alike.

So even if it would not be a new CRB but only an extension of the existing lines i would buy it.

Again, just what would a 'stormtrooper' career give you that a Soldier wouldn't, mechanically?

Thus far, FFG are 2/3 through their games, and have given us 12 careers and 36 different specialisations. None of them yet have had an in-universe name like 'Jedi'. So far, 100% of the classes have been generic (and no, 'smuggler' and 'bounty hunter' do not count as they are generic real-world careers).

Yes, maybe F&D will suddenly reverse this trend, but it seems pretty clear to me that they are going for setting-neutral names for the character classes.

As the careers in AOR are not tied to the Alliance in any way, I don't know what you'd expect from an Imperial trooper, officer, pilot or agent that couldn't be done already? For Imperials, you'd just have to pick a human character (or maybe a chiss) and modify Duty and motivations accordingly. What am I missing?

(and you don't need careers and specialisations for NPCs - they are not built like PCs anyway)

There's no such thing as a 'Rebel Soldier' career. It's a generic class for any military type.

I do not know, since MY idea of what a Storm Trooper might be trained in and what specilisations they offer could differ very well from what FFG considers appropriate. The same goes for their diplomats, spies, officers and such.

And again, i do not need them, but i would welcome them.

If my players want to play Rebells i GM Rebells, if they want fringers they get fringers. If they want Imperials and we get a book to play those then i'll GM those. Who is left to write a book about otherwise after the neutral and good guys?

No matter if they are corrupt and evil, or the last good guys trying to hold up the high spirits and standards as guys like Gilad Pellaeon did/do.

And to flesh out important NPCs i usually design them following the same rules as the PCs. Gives them more substance than just tweaking a profile from the later section of a book and he can literally do the same stuff as the PCs, he's an equal.

Edit: I already wrote:

A book that would give me a good overlook over the history of the Empire, best starting at the reconquest of the Rim until the Aera of Rebellion, the involved VIPs, hardware, vehicles and such would be a tremendous help and a very good read.

A book that would give me a good overlook over the history of the Empire, best starting at the reconquest of the Rim until the Aera of Rebellion, the involved VIPs, hardware, vehicles and such would be a tremendous help and a very good read.

Yeah, somehow no matter how many times this is discussed it is still countered with "But you can make stormtroopers now" I am bowing out of discussing this any further with anyone. it brings out the weird in folks...

I think mechanically with the current careers, they match up ok with most of the roles you can think of existing in the Empire. Might have to jigger one or two to suit, but otherwise I think most of it would slot in ok. The big difference would be the starting equipment resources a character has and instead of Obligation or Duty, they would probably have a synonym of something like Commission.

Which is a fun and annoying way of your employer giving you jobs you can't say no to and would also be a resource to draw upon the logistical might of the Empire to 'borrow' equipment, transportation and intelligence assets to go crush some rebel scum.

There's actually a fairly good reason to include an Imperial background as quite a few of the rebel's sometimes defected from there after witnessing attrocities or simply managing to piss off their officers to the point of being sent off to do suicidal and otherwise awful missions. It doesn't necessarily have to be an 'Evil Game' as such, the really brainwashed muppets like the Ubiqutorate, COMPNOR and Stormtroopers will probably require something fairly intense to break their loyalty, but for the majority of the Empire, their troops and other elements of bureaucracy are far more pragmatic.

The main divergence would be limiting the species available to players as being primarily Human, Near human and some of the more rabidly pro-imperial alien cultures. Its also a bit of a sausage fest of male domination for the most part.

Again, just what would a 'stormtrooper' career give you that a Soldier wouldn't, mechanically?

This has already been answered repeatedly in the thread. Additionally; just what would an 'engineer' career give you that a Technician wouldn't, mechanically? Just what would a 'soldier' career give you that a Hired Gun wouldn't, mechanically? Just what would a 'spy' career give you that a Smuggler wouldn't, mechanically?

And so on.

[...]

What am I missing?

That your arguments are equally applicable to AoR in relation to EotE as much as AoR is applicable to a potential Empire Core Rulebook, yet there is a plethora of possibilities, as shown.

[...]

>The Stormtrooper could equally be differentiated from the Rebel Soldier by Specializations

There's no such thing as a 'Rebel Soldier' career. It's a generic class for any military type.

And a Hired Gun is a generic class for anyone with a gun and a wage?

Also

>muh greentext

>muh 4chan

>muh /b/tards

Le sigh.

I think mechanically with the current careers, they match up ok with most of the roles you can think of existing in the Empire. Might have to jigger one or two to suit, but otherwise I think most of it would slot in ok. The big difference would be the starting equipment resources a character has and instead of Obligation or Duty, they would probably have a synonym of something like Commission.

Which is a fun and annoying way of your employer giving you jobs you can't say no to and would also be a resource to draw upon the logistical might of the Empire to 'borrow' equipment, transportation and intelligence assets to go crush some rebel scum.

There's actually a fairly good reason to include an Imperial background as quite a few of the rebel's sometimes defected from there after witnessing attrocities or simply managing to piss off their officers to the point of being sent off to do suicidal and otherwise awful missions. It doesn't necessarily have to be an 'Evil Game' as such, the really brainwashed muppets like the Ubiqutorate, COMPNOR and Stormtroopers will probably require something fairly intense to break their loyalty, but for the majority of the Empire, their troops and other elements of bureaucracy are far more pragmatic.

The main divergence would be limiting the species available to players as being primarily Human, Near human and some of the more rabidly pro-imperial alien cultures. Its also a bit of a sausage fest of male domination for the most part.

I agree completely, although for the sausage fest, that's mostly for the ground pounders, and you could say the same about almost any armed forces being depicted in fiction. A female Stormtrooper might be odd, but that's about it what would stand out to me.

Restricting to Near-Humans is fine, really, and only involves adding a line about the Empire and it's favouritism of humans, as well as offering only Near-humans as the basic species. Thankfully, there's no shortage of Near-humans in Star Wars, and even right now there's multiple missing from published material (although I suspect they'll show up in Force & Destiny), such as Miraluka and Zabrak.

Human, Droid, Miraluka, Rattataki, Chiss, Echani, Epicanthix, Arkanian, Umbaran all strike me as great parts of a potential list of races in an Empire Core Rulebook. Especially Epicanthix, Arkanian and Umbaran (aside from Human & Droid), due to their ties with the Empire, and the Chiss due to their iconic role (Thrawn).

I love the idea of Commission as the Duty/Obligation mechanic.

A smuggler is someone who brings illegal cargo to a buyer.

A spy is someone who steals secrets for an employer.

(I don't really see the connection.)

A soldier is a trained member of a military force.

A hired gun is a mercenary by definition*.

(Similar, but different. They'd both be good at the fighting but I'd hope the soldier would be more disciplined while the merc knew dirtier tricks.)

An engineer designs or builds things.

A technician maintains or repairs things.

(Very similar, often overlapping, but different in flavour. In a game, you're right - I don't know how you'd make them significantly different or why you'd want to (is the game going to be all about building a better ion drive?).)

* This bugged one of our Players. He wanted to play an ex-soldier but none of the Hired Gun specs felt like they were a good model for this background.

A smuggler is someone who brings illegal cargo to a buyer.

A spy is someone who steals secrets for an employer.

(I don't really see the connection.)

A soldier is a trained member of a military force.

A hired gun is a mercenary by definition*.

(Similar, but different. They'd both be good at the fighting but I'd hope the soldier would be more disciplined while the merc knew dirtier tricks.)

An engineer designs or builds things.

A technician maintains or repairs things.

(Very similar, often overlapping, but different in flavour. In a game, you're right - I don't know how or you'd make them significantly different or why you'd want to (is the game going to be all about building a better ion drive?).)

* This bugged one of our Players. He wanted to play an ex-soldier but none of the Hired Gun specs felt like they were a good model for this background.

You're missing the point. Any of these could be used mechanically to more or less replace eachother, yet I think that few would argue that AoR would have been unnecessary on those grounds, grounds now used as an argument against an Empire-centric Core Rulebook.

The question was entirely rhetorical.

A smuggler is someone who brings illegal cargo to a buyer.

A spy is someone who steals secrets for an employer.

(I don't really see the connection.)

Yet a Smuggler can be a Thief or Slicer, both of which can be seen to steal X for Y, so it's not truly all that different from Spy once you look at the Specializations attached to the careers.

Yet a Smuggler can be a Thief or Slicer, both of which can be seen to steal X for Y, so it's not truly all that different from Spy once you look at the Specializations attached to the careers.

Yeah, but Smuggler was a dumb choice to call the career in the first place. Call the career Scoundrel and the rest Pilot and Thief, and make the third Con-artist or Fixer and we're getting close.

Yet a Smuggler can be a Thief or Slicer, both of which can be seen to steal X for Y, so it's not truly all that different from Spy once you look at the Specializations attached to the careers.

Yeah, but Smuggler was a dumb choice to call the career in the first place. Call the career Scoundrel and the rest Pilot and Thief, and make the third Con-artist or Fixer and we're getting close.

Yeah, that was odd to me too. I would've expected a Scoundrel Career with Thief, Smuggler and Pilot Specializations, not the other way around.. Alas, c'est la vie.

As it is right now, I'm playing a Smuggler that isn't really a smuggler at all. It's all mechanics, for sure, but it does feel a bit odd.

An engineer designs or builds things.

A technician maintains or repairs things.

Yeah, I'm just gonna stop you there and say no to that.

Not only are they, mechanically, pretty much the same, but that description is pretty far off as well. Especially considering you're not considering what kind of engineer or technician they are. Check your liberal art privilege.

An engineer designs or builds things.

A technician maintains or repairs things.

Yeah, I'm just gonna stop you there and say no to that.

Not only are they, mechanically, pretty much the same, but that description is pretty far off as well. Especially considering you're not considering what kind of engineer or technician they are. Check your liberal art privilege.

Huh? No, by the definitions of the words he is correct.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/engineer?show=0&t=1390328280

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/technician

Now mechanically, I doubt anyone would want to play a real Engineer. After all, long term building and engineering design doesn't make for a good story. Not unless we compress a lot of game time and play fast and loose with design times. While I am sure the creators simply looked for a synonym that was close enough, since there are military engineers that deal with large scale designs of earthwork and architecture they used that.

Now more of a McGuyver type is always a blast to play, add in a bit of mad science and you have a wonderful character design.

But there is no reason to be nasty about it. Usually mentioning someone's "privilege" or "liberal arts" anything are fighting words. Just because someone likes using precision in their writing doesn't mean that they have some sort of privilege to check.

Now, back to your continuing disagreement...

An engineer designs or builds things.

A technician maintains or repairs things.

Yeah, I'm just gonna stop you there and say no to that.

Not only are they, mechanically, pretty much the same, but that description is pretty far off as well. Especially considering you're not considering what kind of engineer or technician they are. Check your liberal art privilege.

Huh? No, by the definitions of the words he is correct.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/engineer?show=0&t=1390328280

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/technician

Now mechanically, I doubt anyone would want to play a real Engineer. After all, long term building and engineering design doesn't make for a good story. Not unless we compress a lot of game time and play fast and loose with design times. While I am sure the creators simply looked for a synonym that was close enough, since there are military engineers that deal with large scale designs of earthwork and architecture they used that.

Now more of a McGuyver type is always a blast to play, add in a bit of mad science and you have a wonderful character design.

But there is no reason to be nasty about it. Usually mentioning someone's "privilege" or "liberal arts" anything are fighting words. Just because someone likes using precision in their writing doesn't mean that they have some sort of privilege to check.

Now, back to your continuing disagreement...

English Major detected, semantics as they are engineers also can refer to people who operate and repair machinery. Or combat engineers who place explosives and build bridges, ect.

ALSO I have gmed... 3 or so campaigns with "engineers" as PC's they are some of the most amusing characters to play with when the party needs technical knowledge or a big explosion. So check your dictionary privilege you Webster scum.

English Major detected, semantics as they are engineers also can refer to people who operate and repair machinery. Or combat engineers who place explosives and build bridges, ect.

ALSO I have gmed... 3 or so campaigns with "engineers" as PC's they are some of the most amusing characters to play with when the party needs technical knowledge or a big explosion. So check your dictionary privilege you Webster scum.

Simply amazing.

Again, Combat Engineers are not the same as Engineers. Nor would they have the same skill set or talents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_engineering