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 Poison wrote:
Honest people who want or need a pdf and would be willing to pay for it will pirate it.

I guess they're not so honest after all ... If you have purchased a print copy of the game, I don't see any moral objection to scanning a pdf that you strictly keep to yourself. (There are certainly ethical and legal objections, of course!) But as soon as you release it to others, you're putting it into the hands of thieves.

@Kronk: That's the rumor anyway. I can't point to a statement from FFG or even a Gen Con video of a FFG employee saying as much.

At the In-Flight report, there were questions about a board game and even minis for the RPG.

The CEO said that their license was VERY specific about what they can and can't do. He said no to the board game, but didn't answer the minis question. I would imagine that the license would include yes/no concerning electronic media, but I'm neither an expert on licenses nor familiar with their specific license.

There is going to be an iOS and Android application for the X-Wing game dice rolling and this RPG dice rolling, though, according to the In-Flight report.

I was just answering the question asked, not making any claims as to what FFG should be doing.

 kronk wrote:
He said no to the board game

WHAT???

That genuinely shocks me. I get that LucasFilm wants to do Star Wars-themed Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit (as well as a cute version of Operation with Artoo and Threepio) but not allowing FFG to do board games is a serious miscalculation on the part of LucasFilm. I guess that dashes my plans to mock up a high level design for a Battle of Hoth "tactics" game (a la DUST Tactics) that could expand into a Star Wars miniatures game. It might also explain why X-Wing doesn't include a starfield poster mat.

Hasbro has the Exclusive Board Game License, dude. The Lucas Films rep at the In-Flight report said so.

I'm not doubting your word, I'm doubting the wisdom of LucasFilm. Hasbro reaches wide but not deep. FFG has been working on the former without sacrificing the latter. The Star Wars license is obviously a major part of widening the appeal of their products -- just like going after and nabbing Lord of the Rings, Battlestar Galactica, and Game of Thrones. FFG is a rising star while Hasbro is status quo and, with regard to the adult market outside of Magic players, not exactly a healthy status quo.

I see what you're saying.

Not sure why, except that Hasbro has had it for years. How long has FFG been a "big" player?

They showed a graph of their growth since 2000, and it's pretty amazing. I'm assuming that Hasbro has had the license for some time now and is probably paying extra for that "exclusive" part.

We'll see what shakes out when they come to renew their license, I guess.

I'd say that Arkham Horror is what really put FFG on the map.

Hasbro owns WotC and WotC lost some kind of license regarding Star Wars -- clearly, it lost the license to do RPGs and I would think it'd also be clear that it lost the license to for miniatures. So I'm a bit puzzled that Chris Petersen didn't answer the question about minis.

This also makes me wonder what a "board game" really is, getting back to the idea that X-Wing does include a play mat. That could provide some real insight into why EotE has special dice but not cards or chits. Looking down the line, that would mean we'd only likely see books and a GM screen for EotE and the other two SW RPGs.

WoTC gave up the license, they had published all the sourcebooks they wanted to do for SAGA.

So WotC thought the license was not valuable any more? Seems doubtful. I guess they could have wanted to focus elsewhere but the lack of movement on D&D in that time period suggests otherwise. To put a finer point on it, WotC was moving into high quality board games at the time in clear competition with FFG over games like Descent. Since their parent had and has the board game license, it seems they could have moved Star Wars in that direction as well, which neither they nor FFG seem to be able to do at the moment.

 Manchu wrote:
I'd say that Arkham Horror is what really put FFG on the map.

I would say you're correct. Chis said at the In-Flight report that it remains their #1 selling game. Not sure if he meant "of all time" or "units sold per month, including right now" or both or what, though.

As for Hasbro letting the Star Wars RPG license go, I would guess that the core rule books and module sales were slumping and it was no longer worth the license investment, nor the staff to push them out. Similar to them letting go of the SW card license (which had previously belonged to Decipher Games) AND which FFG now ALSO has in addition to the RPG license.

Yeah, this is why I characterize the Hasbro family attitude toward gaming as an unhealthy status quo.

 Manchu wrote:
So WotC thought the license was not valuable any more? Seems doubtful. I guess they could have wanted to focus elsewhere but the lack of movement on D&D in that time period suggests otherwise. To put a finer point on it, WotC was moving into high quality board games at the time in clear competition with FFG over games like Descent. Since their parent had and has the board game license, it seems they could have moved Star Wars in that direction as well, which neither they nor FFG seem to be able to do at the moment.

The company line was they did not plan to produce any more supplements for SAGA, as they felt they'd put out all the relevant sourcebooks/campaign guides.

I do not work for WoTC or have inside sources, so that is information gleaned from press releases and twitter (WoTC twitter, not random dudes on twitter) WoTC has been dropping the ball on a lot of things for quite some time, I'd personally argue their last decent product was The Dark Sun Players Guide a couple years back, but it is what it is.

I think they have been focused on 5th edition D&D for some time, possibly since the release of the aforementioned DSPG, cuz they sure didnt do anything with their 4th edition game line for months after. Hard to say.

(Edited to add: When I say last decent product, I am excluding MTG from the discussion, focusing solely on the RPG stuff, their MTG stuff has been consistently good for over a decade. (Second edit: In my opinion)

 Balance wrote:
Which, sadly, means there will be a free PDF release anyway, that is probably slightly poorer quality. FFG (and Lucasfilm) get nothing.

Can you demonstrate a positive correlation between a company not selling a pdf and IP piracy? I think that is far from self-evident.

Demonstrate it how? What am I, the Director of the FBI with piracy statistics?

 Poison wrote:
What am I, the Director of the FBI with piracy statistics?

No, you're a guy on the internet with opinions but no piracy statistics.

 Balance wrote:
It's more that there will be piracy either way. At least if there's a legal option a few people will take it. Especially if it's got some added value like updates.

See, that is what I got out of his statement, not that it would only be pirated it if there is just a book and no official PDF.

 Ahtman wrote:
See, that is what I got out of his statement, not that it would only be pirated it if there is just a book and no official PDF.

Even I didn't take Balance to mean that a PDF would only be pirated if there was no official one. But he did quote HBMC wondering aloud why LucasFilm might have nixed a PDF and concluded that move "means" there would be a "free PDF release anyway." It seems to me that piracy will occur either way. However the decision was made to not do a PDF release, I don't believe that decision will factor into eventual theft of this product. As I pointed out to Poison, the so-called honest people who pirate the book are still thieves regardless of whether they would hypothetically buy a PDF.

Yeah, I do not deny the use of the word "Honest" is sketchy at best

You can now download character sheets and the dice sticker sheet from FFG's website:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=218&esem=4

Got my beta book over the weekend and have been spending a lot of time with it.

I think my worry about talent trees was unfounded. As far as I can tell, the talents are not usually exclusive to a given tree. There are two tiers of "class": career and specialization. Each career entails three specializations. You can take specializations outside of your career. What career really does is gives you cheaper access to a suite of skills over the course of your character's life. The talent trees, meanwhile, are tied to specializations. So there is a lot of room for "synergy" and diversity.

Regarding the miniatures aspect: Until recently Knightmodels, a Spanish miniatures company had been producing miniatures under License from Lucasfilms. I'd say the line was doing quite well, until it suddenly stopped!

At the time I thought this was a strange move, as there was clearly a lot of milage in a venture of this nature. The stop couldn't have been due to quality, as both their 75 and 30mm range were spectaculary good.

Maybe, the reason for the license being pulled was because Lucasfilm wanted to grant it to another party (FFG anyone). It makes sense, as Knightmodels never had a secondary motive for the sale of their minis, they were always marketed to collectors and painters, in this case (with FFG) the motive would be stronger with a game attached, even if "only" an RPG!

Might be a good time to consider picking up some of those Knightmodel miniatures, as they WILL be far superior to anything FFG puts out....erm, guaranteed, I think.

It would have been nice if one of the books was about playing as Imperials. Combine Dark Heresy with Black Crusade, but, you know, Star Wars. Huntin' Jedi, enforcin tha law, sharing good times with friends while bringing the galaxy in line with the will of da Emprah.

I'm a bit conflicted about this. The Imperials are Space Nazis. Even setting aside the way that assuming that role entails rehabilitating it, you have to ask how fun it would be to play a Space Nazi. "Roll to see how efficiently you obey orders!" "Make a check to see how severely your superiors beat you for making a small mistake!" As an enemy, the Empire can be terrifying. But from "the inside" it's probably boring, absurd, and thankless. What you'd probably want to do is play some kind of commando irregular or a Jedi-hunting Force Adept but neither make much sense for Edge of the Empire.

A bounty-hunter working for an Imperial Governor would be fun. At least, for a while. I don't like playing evil parties except for one-offs.

 Manchu wrote:
you have to ask how fun it would be to play a Space Nazi.

Depends on the character. What if said PC has some desire that's outside of the acceptable norm? What if his/her ideology fell just outaide the lines of the mainstream? Not full bore Rebel but slightly skewed? A character that, for the most part, agreed with the main political statement but then had a few deviations. Might be interesting to role-play how such an individual would reconcile that.

Failing that, Imperial Crimelord Liason. Your duty to the Emperor requires you to stay up drinking all night and cavort with aliens! Sounds like a bucket full of win to me!

There have been other stories told about Imperial characters that weren't quite portrayed quite as evil Space Nazis. Even then it isn't like there have never been RPG's that had people play morally ambiguous characters. Even in KOTOR you could be a Dark Side character. In SWTOR you can play as Sith, Bounty Hunters, and Imperial Agents. There was a book on doing it for the other game systems as well, so I don't think it is exactly unprecedented.

And why does space nazi sound so familiar? Oh yeah.

A character that doesn't really agree with the Empire but goes along anyway? I think you just described Office Space without the humor.


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 Ahtman wrote:
There have been other stories told about Imperial characters that weren't quite portrayed quite as evil Space Nazis.

That's the problem I'm referring to. If the Empire isn't the antagonist, it's just lame. Playing evil characters has it's own giant set of pitfalls but it can be interesting. Playing the bad guys as good guys is teetering on the edge of the black hole of Mary Suism, IMO. Call it "Thrawn Syndrome" when applied specifically to Star Wars. Dark Heresy works because evil is everyone, everywhere, all the time in 40k.

Manchu wrote:As an enemy, the Empire can be terrifying. But from "the inside" it's probably boring, absurd, and thankless.

As someone who played Imperial characters in the past, I can say with certainty that this isn't true - at least it wasn't for us.

I suppose it depends on how you want to portray the Empire, but movies aside, we're talking about a professional military that (mostly) isn't evil for evil's sake but consists of normal humans recruited into service. Are you aware how many Rebel characters actually were Imperials once? General Madine, Biggs Darklighter, Han Solo ... hell, even Luke Skywalker wanted to "go to the Academy"!
The Empire isn't actually Space Nazis, it's the Space Wehrmacht. They work for Space Nazis, and some of their divisions are closely connected to them. Subtle but important difference. Keep in mind that this is actually the direct successor to the Republic forces from the prequels. Palpatine didn't just flip a switch that had them turn from true patriots and scared conscripts into robotic villains overnight.
The large number of RPG supplements that were published for Imperial characters include entire paragraphs on this subject.

Manchu wrote:That's the problem I'm referring to. If the Empire isn't the antagonist, it's just lame. Playing evil characters has it's own giant set of pitfalls but it can be interesting. Playing the bad guys as good guys is teetering on the edge of the black hole of Mary Suism, IMO. Call it "Thrawn Syndrome" when applied specifically to Star Wars.

You don't have to play them as "good guys" or as "bad guys". Get away from these clichés. Just play them as "guys".

 Lynata wrote:
The Empire isn't actually Space Nazis, it's the Space Wehrmacht. They work for Space Nazis

Nope. They're Space Nazis. Since Zahn, there has been a massive program to rehabilitate them as "just regular people doing their jobs" but IMO it's totally lame. Also, Star Wars is not a good milieu from which to snipe at cliches. It is in fact made of cliches. As usual, some cliches can be used to interesting effect: the knight of medieval romance given a Zen outlook and a laser sword. Other cliches are tired out or just have a sinister ring: the evil Nazis were actually just a minority and all the other Germans were regular, industrious, noble, sympathetic people who knew NOSSING! about ze campz.