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Hey Dakka,

So I just bought the Star Wars Edge of The Empire starter kit. My friends and I want to start a campaign and we're all really excited. I've heard a lot of really good things online and I think the "narrative dice" system looks really good--I think it has the potential to make some really interesting stories.

That being said I just wanted to hear some of Dakka's experience with the game, if any.

Cheers,

Esko

Its a bummer no one replied to you yet, so I'll bite.

Played through one session (part way through the adventure in the basic BRB) and have read most of the huge 400+ page tome. So far I really like it, but my RPG experience is limited (AD&D 2nd edition, Paladium TMNT and Rifts, WHFRP 3rd and now this). So I have no frame of reference on how it stands up to previous Star Wars RPGs.

Have a look through this thread http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/470726.page for some discussion on the game and mechanics. Also head over to the FFG EoE forums, there's lots of good info in there as well as some useful fan-made resources like fillable PDF character and ship sheets.

I've played quite a bit of WHFRP 3rd (which this game is heavily influenced by), and really enjoy the custom narrative dice mechanic that they use. Depending on your group, you can be more strict with the dice interpretation, consulting the myriad of tables in the book, or your GM can use the dice pool results on a given check to adjust his story telling on the fly. I love that your success or failure on a given roll isn't so black and white (ie. this number or above, passes, below fails) but rather gives varying levels of success and failure with the added benefit of advantage and disadvantage results...so you could fail your check miserably, but roll several advantages which could mean you aren't able to accomplish what you just attempted to do, but you manage to spot a weakness in your opponents defenses and point it out to your allies - adding boost dice to their next check etc. Alternatively, you could roll an overwhelming number of successes, along with several disadvantages which could mean you dropped that storm troooper with your blaster rifle in one shot, but that your ammo has just run out, or it jams, etc.

I am playing again tomorrow where we will likely be trying out the ship encounter system, so I can chime back in with a review if you are interested.

Thanks a lot for the reply man. Please let me know how the ship combat goes. Also did you guys manage to include any characters that selected a race not covered in the BRB? For example jawa characters? How did you implement that?

Funny you should ask, one of our PCs is, in fact, a Jawa mechanic who's family was murdered by storm troopers on Tatooine. The rules for creating this character were found on the FFG forums. they give you a modified stat line and some race specific bonuses/disadvantages. There are several other fan-made race rules there too, though I wasn't the one that made the character, so I couldn't give you any more specific info. We have a medical droid PC that can speak Jawa and translate, as the Jawa character can't speak basic....so it makes for some interesting role-playing. My character is a former storm trooper who spoke out against the killing of innocents on Tatooine, killed superior officer defending himself, and is now on the run as a hired gun. We arranged it so that my character and the Jawa threw in together and so they can mostly understand one-another. The 4th PC is a human Colonist/Politico who was running for a senate seat on his home planet. His brother had him framed for a crime he didnt commit, and so he had to flee the planet with his medical droid, hiring a merc (me) with his Jawa droid mechanic companion for protection. It all works out quite nicely, the Jawa heals the droid with mechanics checks, and the droid heals the other three when things get hairy. We are adding a 5th PC tomorrow night who created a Wookie marauder character, so it should be allot of fun!

Wow that sounds like an excellent story I'm getting so excited now!

So we completed our adventure on Friday night and ended up getting to use some of the space flight rules....basically, we did some evasive flying to avoid detection (Hard piloting (space) checks). My character had the highest agility and was trained in piloting (space) so I made all of the checks, but our next-best pilot was able to do Co-pilot checks to add a blue 'advantage' die to my rolls. We avoided detection successfully, and so did not get to try out starship combat.

Our Jawa and medical droid players didnt make it, so we had the Jawa be sick and quarantined to crew quarters, and the droid was shut down for repairs. But we had our new wookiee player, and that was a blast. He is very much a run-up-and-throttle-people and ask questions later type of guy, so that made for some very entertaining encounters.

Our group is hot-swapping GMs. so the next guy stepped up and started our next adventure that same night. He plays the Colonist-Politico character and we decided that we will have our own characters sit out of the adventures that we GM...but allow them to earn the base xp from each session they miss in order to keep everyone leveling up in a consistent manner.

I got the 'Beyond the Rim' adventure module over the weekend and started reading it, as I will be running the other players through it when we finish the adventure from the GM Kit.

I look forward to hearing more about how your GM cycling goes.

 Fango wrote:


Our Jawa and medical droid players didn't make it,

What do you mean by this? They went over their wound threshold or something? I'm assuming they didn't die.

Also thanks for the reply--I'm enjoy hearing about your adventure and how the game is playing.

He means those players could not show up to play the game for that session.

I told my group I wanted to try and run it and one of the players is throwing fits because it uses special dice and he will stand for no such thing. If we are to take a break from 3.5 we should play d20 Star Wars, he said. It has become a bit of an argument at this point, one I am generally staying clear of and letting the players decide. I blame Manchu of course, for saying nice things about the system.

In my experience, RPGers tend to be conservative/territorial/blinkered when it comes to systems/mechanics.

If you want to move past ho hum d20 but can't get this guy moving, maybe compromise by playing Saga Edition.

 Ahtman wrote:
I told my group I wanted to try and run it and one of the players is throwing fits because it uses special dice and he will stand for no such thing. If we are to take a break from 3.5 we should play d20 Star Wars, he said. It has become a bit of an argument at this point, one I am generally staying clear of and letting the players decide. I blame Manchu of course, for saying nice things about the system.

That is unfortunate for your group if that player is being so obstinate. You really only need 2 sets of the dice max, to share between the whole group....or you could get the dice app for smart phones, or, I think you may still be able to get ahold of the printable dice stickers for applying to existing dice...but then if you are going to go to all that trouble, I think buying the dice is a way better option.

He sounds like my son who refused to eat my wife's boeuf bourguignon last night (3 hours prep + cook time). He just wont yield. And even if he tried it and liked it, he would still say he wouldn't like it on principle. Like I told my son, "you just don't know what you're missing."

The dice mechanic in this game is really most of the genius behind its greatness. Its fun to have the players get excited about each roll, and then offer suggestions on how to apply the advantage/triumph results....and the GM gets this tool to help guide the narrative on the fly, especially when those disadvantages/despairs come up. The other great mechanic in this game is making Obligation and Motivation a mandatory part of character creation. It really helps inform the GM on plot ideas and instantly immerses the players who embrace the plot hooks/threads that are tied to them. I was a bit wary at first, but I'm loving this game more and more each time I play it.